You WHAT now!

    I would like to take some time to review and comment on some remarks our ostensibly intelligent President has recently made. These comments were part of his weekly saturday address. There are, in fact, more than a few interesting statements to deal with but I will focus on but a couple.  Early in his comments he talks about the "investments" his administration has made in science and technology that has sparked innovation and lots of jobs. I'm guessing he's including the bankruptcy lawyers for Solyndra in the list of new jobs. And by the way, those investments were made with money from the citizens pockets at large. My only influence over these "investment" decisions comes in the form of my vote during elections which has proven to be rather frustrating of late. The half a billion tax dollars that were invested in Solyndra didn't exactly work out all that well. And if the government subsidies were removed from, lets say, the ethanol world there would likely be more bankruptcies. Just like social security, the money the government "invests" would be more effectively "invested" by those from whom the money was taken. Wind and solar are not an answer to our energy needs and could have found an appropriate and effective place in the big energy picture under the direction of private enterprise. But this would preclude the governments acquistion of power and therefore is not even considered.
    Later in the same address he equated the fact of the Russians sending Sputnik into space with the illusion of AGW. A physical, and rather large piece of metal, engineered for, and delivered to, space is the same as man-made global warming? Seems a bit of a stretch to me. Denying Sputnik is, in every way I can come up with, quite dissimilar from questioning the argument of man-made global warming. I believed from the beginning that Obama was indeed an empty suit waiting for others to fill. Apparently, those who added intelligence to the suit were dreaming, or hoping. Their hopes have been met with an unpleasant reality.

RUNNING SCARED

Well, now. I can't for the life of me remember what the subject of this blog was going to be. This is why you should always finish what you start. Being the creative sort I've decided to compose a likely unrelated blog of the same name. Again, being the optimistic type I will look into my rose colored crystal ball and offer some predictions about my AGW friends. What will become of them and their supporting industry as the global temperatures begin to cool or possibly rise at the very slow pace which they have been over the last century or so. I mean, talk about running scared. At some point even people who didn't take Earth Science class in High School are going to start putting together the obvious inconsistencies in the climate "models" compared to the reality of the situation. Sure the media can extend the game a bit longer with all the "first time" stories about weather events and such. But at some point someone is going to look back at all those interesting, "on this day in weather history" scenarios and see that they are only "firsts" for a particular location. Weather has been quite unruly for millennia and we are not experiencing an odd collection of phenomena but in fact are experiencing the intrinsic nature of weather. It's truly fascinating. Look up something called a "Heat Burst". Middle of the night, the high for the day was maybe, 95, and some location in Oklahoma has a hundred mph wind and temperatures of 102. Geepers Wally. And if you hadn't heard of them before the media could blame it on AGW and most would believe them. How about those Mesoscale Convective Complexes of thunderstorms. There's another cool weather phenomenon. In my life here in Wichita, Ks, (I'm 60), I remember Summer's with over 40 days above 100. I remember a winter where the temperature was below freezing for well over a month. Peoples water supplies were freezing up because the frost line went so deep. Anyway, it may take a while, but the Climate Change profiteers will begin changing their story and then will eventually disappear. I just hope there is a semblance of economic activity left when they finally come clean and tell the truth. And the truth, just so you'll recognize it when they finally tell it, is that man's effect on the climate is real, but minimal in scope compared to the effects of the sun and the oceans.
    So, to summarize, in the future, the Al Gore types will indeed be "running scared"
Thanks and have a great day.

A CALL TO EXCE0TIONALISM

    Odd, I suppose, to address whole nations with a seldom read article. Assuming the readership here, including myself, will still qualify as seldom.But this is my intent today, though if you don't qualify as a country I would still invite you to listen, with your eyes, to my points. Once again, while consuming a meal my mind was overwhelmed trying to understand all the steps, all the people, all the companies involved in bringing me the chance to enjoy my stack of pancakes with a sausage patty. For instance;

    THE WHEAT: the wheat is used in making the pancake batter. Some form of flour that is.

God created wheat:

Man learned how to grow it more and more efficiently so as to make it available to all.

    :irrigation

    :weed control

    :combines

    :tractors

    :genetics

Over time we developed ways of bring it to the masses.

    :trucks

    :trains

    :elevators w/dryers to help preserve it

    :mills and other processing facilities

    :stores (owners, stockers, checkers etc.)

Now, above is a partial treatment, due to time restraints, of just one aspect of my meal. But it you expand this partial list to include the designers, engineers, manufacturers, assemblers, truck drivers, store owners, stockers, checkers, quality control, fuel for harvesting and transporting, and a stove and pan to cook the pancakes in it's incredible. And if you expand this discussion to include the milk and butter, syrup, ketchup, (yes, ketchup), etc. it's absolutely mind boggling.

    These processes are part of what I call collaborative miracles. A partnership between God and man. I believe our country, because of it's Constitution protecting our individual freedoms, has become the most fertile ground for these collaborations to take place. I also believe we are moving away from a government which will allow for the continuation of these processes. These processes unfold over time as people engage in commerce with each other. As someone with a service or product contracts with someone needing that service or product to provide such for an agreed upon item of value. Money or an exchange of other services for instance. This is where the rubber meets the road in defining freedom. Freedom and free market capitalism go together. With a civil society intact, and yes we are loosing that by the day, these interactions result in great advantage for the country as a whole. If there is a catch it is this; we need to understand our createdness. We need to understand that we are all made in God's image and that we have intrinsic value. Without this understanding it all unravels.

    So, Venezuela, Cuba, Nigeria, Russia, listen up. If you want to be exceptional you don't need to become American, you need to become a champion of individual rights and free markets and a respecter of all who live in your country's borders. In time your citizens will make your country truly exceptional. Who knows, maybe at some point you could show us the way back from our current path towards Oligarchy.

Thanks, and have a great day. (That is, if you want too)

GENEROSITY vs SYMPATHY

   

Wanted to explore an idea with you. That is, if you would be kind enough to travel with me for a bit. As we look around this world we live in, it is easy to find those in very difficult, if not utterly desperate, situations. As the internet has matured and spread to many many countries more and more people are exposed to this great need. If I live in Cuba and am a doctor receiving $35 a month I can do little but pray for those in these various hopeless places. If I live in India and make just enough to buy food for one meal a day for my family and me then, again, I am able only to "feel sorry" for the hurting and the hungry around the world. 
    A few days ago I was fixing a problem in a toll booth at one of the Turnpike plazas in my area. While visiting with the collector he mentioned that he was only working part-time and was retired from another job. He went on to say that his son ran an orphanage in Haiti and they didn't have enough money coming in to cover all of their needs.  So this gentleman decided to take on this part-time job which allows him to send more money to his son and the orphans he was trying to help. Another co-worker has spent untold thousands of dollars and thousands of hours setting up medical and teaching facilities in Guatemala. Several people from work went to the Mississippi coast to help clean up and rebuild after Katrina a few years back. I could spend hours talking about people I personally know who spend time and treasure serving others whether here or in other countries. 
    My great fear is that in another 50 years, if we continue down this Progressive road we are on, we will land in a place where our freedoms will not afford us the opportunity to serve others, individually, like we do now. Our movement toward centralized government and the necessary loss of individual freedoms that accompanies such a movement, will leave us with the shared poverty, administered in the name of fairness, that will impede, or stop, our ability to act on our compassion with generosity. On the other hand, it's a lot easier to do nothing, when you haven't the resources to help, which allows for a selfish, and lazy citizenry to be cared for by an all powerful, ostensibly benevolent ruling class. A country full of people living in the government's basement with a lifetime supply of condoms and cannabis. WOW! That's a lot better than having the responsibility of trying to use your resources to help others. 

   " ......Until every nation is reduced to nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd."
 Alexis de Tocqueville

TRUMP APPEAL

    One of my recent endeavors has been to try to understand the attraction between ostensibly conservative leaders and Donald Trump. The journey continues. It is easy to see the general attractiveness of a successful business man, (that would be wildly successful), who is willing to jump into the political arena to try and influence a "come-back" of sorts for our floundering country. In fact, if he were sitting in the room here with me I would shake his hand and offer a sincere "Thank You". A man who could buy several islands to retire to and just take life easy is opening himself up to the slime and mire of the American political system. I think this is commendable and is very much worth noting. My frustration is not in the person of Donald Trump, though he has shown an unfortunate bent toward political games, but with the endless line of alleged conservative leaders who have endorsed him. Those who I had understood to be intensely interested in furthering conservative principles and policies. Are they all just hoping he will turn out to be a conservative? Are they hoping he can be steered in a conservative direction once he is president? Is he the Republicans' version of the empty suit? (Just add your hopes and dreams to this suit and stir) There are unflattering comparisons to be made with Barack Obama if you consider the fact that Trump has promised to change the State-based nominating process to be more fair. Which I guess means he would give the front runner even more of an advantage than he has enjoyed. 
    There is not a solid conservative record in his past nor are his vague, redundant and sometimes contradictory comments easily interpreted in a conservative light. In fact, he seems to have thought little about important issues and seems, too, to be lacking a principled anchor to which he is committed. He constantly bemoans the primary process as unfair and weighted against him all the while amassing a delegate count that exceeds the percentage of the popular vote he is getting. He's counting on us all forgetting that this all started with 16 candidates and has left many an establishment, and outsider, in the dust. I will vote for Donald Trump if he is the Republican nominee. But if he wants me to be a Trump supporter now he needs to debate Ted Cruz one-on-one so I can compare policy concerns as expressed by both candidates.
For now, as a conservative, I have no choice but to vote for Ted Cruz.

FREE MARKET CAPITALISM

 

   Testing, one, two three. Is this thing on?I guess it is, it just seems rather hard to hear compared to the big Megaphones so many others have at their disposal. I feel like I'm living in an alternate universe sometimes. So we point at the rich,(one-percenters), or whatever category you wish to invent, and scream that the love of money is the root of all evil. It's very easy to point at various elements of our society and exclaim how very selfish and uncompassionate we have become. It's equally easy to look at a data set of financial information and conclude that our economic system is wholly unfair and that something sinister must be afoot. Easy, too, is the game of fixing society's ills by using other people's money. Easy, that is, if we have determined that these "other people" have come by their wealth immorally. Otherwise, we might feel like the ones stealing other people's money. It seems to me we are missing some important facts here. Or maybe we are missing an important perspective. When we look at data over time. That is, looking at certain analysis of financial concerns throughout our country, we see trends in data. We miss reality because we are focused on numbers on a page which seem to bring us to similar conclusions from one year to the next. Those stingy top one, or ten percenters just won't go away. And they are getting richer and richer by the day. What the data doesn't show, without going to look for it, is the fact that there is substantial movement from within these different categories of income earners from year to year. It's the same set of 10 digits representing the high earners so we assume it's the same people as well. This is simply not true. There are many people earning more this year than last and many earning less. The exception would be the "super-rich" whose wealth well-insulates them from short-term financial set-backs. If you listen to Dave Ramsey's program when he invites millionaires to call in it's a very educational time indeed. These millionaires have simply made smart decisions and most have built their wealth, over time, on incomes very similar to mine. These middle income jobs may be fading but they are still available and I'm not sure punishing these people's wise decision-making by taxing them more and more is a good, or even ethical, position to take. Our free-market system, when allowed to work, for instance allowing failing businesses to actually fail so that new opportunities can be leveraged and turned into profits for the remaining companies is all part of a healthy economy.
    So the love of money is the root of all evil when someone else is accumulating more of it than I think they should have but my desire to have the government take their money and give it to me is somehow virtuous? I just don't get it.
                                             

 If salvation were a thing that money could buy, the rich would live and the poor would die.