Power and Prices

Acceptable Torture past and present

2009-04-24T07:35:00.004-04:00

I'm stunned with the number of times waterboarding occurred at a U.S. detention facility in Cuba. 500 men were held on suspicion that they might be linked to terrorism. When several didn't give the answers expected by their interrogators, they received increased pressure, including attempted drownings. Not just once, to stop a possible imminent threat, but over 180 times over many years.

One of the motivations for the U.S. and its coalition allies to invade Iraq was to stop the civil rights abuses by Saddam Hussein. He had professional rapists on his payroll. He used poisonous gas on his Kurdish people. He had no qualms about killing any potential political rivals. His rule was based on fear.

That sort of governance shouldn't work in this country. But it does. For some reason, the Obama administration is hesitant to investigate and prosecute those who engaged in or approved of the torture. Although it's admirable that the President doesn't want to dwell on the failures of the past, he has a responsibility to uphold the law and set an example for the rest of the world. That would be a refreshing break with the past.

This week in Northern Michigan

2009-04-01T20:09:00.004-04:00

My bride and I are taking a long-deserved vacation--at least for a couple days. Two years ago I wrote about Killing Your Marriage. Not wanting to make that same mistake twice, my wife and I set aside a few days from our jobs to check out the wineries around Traverse City. Today we toured several in the Old Mission peninsula. Tomorrow we'll try a couple in the Leelanau peninsula.

I had some downtime and wrote a piece for the Examiner.com, "Keeping score on GM and Chrysler's demise". As I was driving north, I listened to several radio stations along the way. Most were talking about the fact that car makers #2 and #3 did not meet the government's standards for viability. After that it was hard to discern the news from the hype. I brought my laptop along and tried not to check on my day job's email.

I may not write anymore this week. I'm enjoying pizza and wine in the motel room.

On C-Span tonight, I watched the House of Representatives debate a bill that would limit executive pay for those companies taking TARP monies. It seems like the government is trying to close the barn door after the horses have left. The executive bonuses are less than 1% of the whole TARP. It seems to be one more knee jerk reaction to quell some voter outrage, while distracting us from the bigger numbers, such as the bailout, and the unprecedented deficit riddled budget.

Tea Parties Coming to a City Near You

2009-03-27T09:08:00.003-04:00

I wrote an article today at Examiner.com "Taxpayer Tea Parties brewing" after getting emails by various conservative and libertarian organizations. As a true believer in smaller government, I participate in these events constitutionally with might of the word processor, instead of the sword. Peaceful revolution is a rare and beautiful thing when it works.

Some people are better at making signs, others run for Congress. I tap away at the keyboard before the sun comes up, and before I have to sit at another keyboard at my day job!

Starting over every day

2009-03-24T23:41:00.005-04:00

In the last couple weeks I started writing for a new website called Examiner.com. It's different from Nolan Chart, because it's more general. Although it has political channels, it's more locally oriented. I'll be writing as the "Chicago Non-partisan Political Examiner". I've worked in Chicago for five years, but I've lived in or around the southern end of Lake Michigan--in Illinois, Indiana and Michigan--almost all of my life. I'll probably write about some local events, but my interests have always been about the future of this fragile experiment in representative democracy called the United States Of America.

I had thought about throwing away this blog, but there were a lot of good articles here. Going forward, I'll use this space for personal reflections and stories that really don't fit anywhere else.

I've gotten to meet some wonderful people and gotten to see some amazing places in my journeys. Come along for the ride. --Bob.

Biodiesel Mythbuster 2.0: 22 Biodiesel Myths Dispelled

2008-04-25T15:22:00.001-04:00

Most of us are at least vaguely familiar with biodiesel, but how much do we really know? While biodiesel is easily the most popular alternative fuel available, it’s commonly misunderstood or misrepresented by inaccurate information.

read more | digg story

Thanksgiving 2007

2007-11-21T23:54:00.000-05:00

This evening, the night before Thanksgiving, my wife and I just finished setting the table for tomorrow. We cracked open a bottle of wine and are watching a show or two on TV before going to bed. We set up the big table for tomorrow's dinner. My wife's parents live in town, and they'll be over tomorrow. It's my turn to have my kids over. My ex-wife and I trade every year, who gets the kids for Thanksgiving, as well as the other holidays. With half the marriages in this country ending in divorce, this isn't such an unusual arrangement. I can smell the bread baking tonight.

I work for a British software company here in the U.S.A. I get the national holidays off. On that list is Thanksgiving. I got most of my Christmas shopping done, so I don't have to leave the house on Friday. Actually my wife took care of most of that this year. She's a keeper. It's time to watch football games and eat turkey. I guess there is a parade by some department store in New York. It's almost like an extra Sunday.

But here, now, I have the chance to ask, what am I thankful for?

Family. Both my parents died several years ago from different types of cancer. I had to grow up a lot quicker than I wanted to. Today I have children, a wife of a couple years, a couple aunts and uncles. I get along well with my parents-in-law. We live in the same smallish town. We see each other in church and have dinner together every few weeks. Dad-in-law and I sometimes walk our dogs together in the local park.

My sisters and their families live in different ends of the country, and I live in the middle. I have an aunt who teaches my kids the Hammond organ every couple weeks. My father's family will have me over for some holidays. We're not as close as I like, but we talk on the phone and send email. Everyone lives so far away. I get the funny email from one uncle every couple months. That's nice.

God. I find solace in knowing that I'm not the most important person in the universe. I don't pretend to have all the answers. My faith gives me a chance to ask the very basic questions, like "who am I?" and "why do good things happen to normal people?". If you're an atheist, that's your problem. I get a lot of satisfaction from reading the stories of Jesus' life. I give prayers of thanksgiving, more than supplication. I read about people who have it a lot worse than I do.

Work. I derive a lot of satisfaction from my job. I'm a computer professional in a vertical market. If I was born in another time, I'd be a mason, or a cooper, or a blacksmith, or something technical, but valuable to society. I was unemployed in the early 1990s and took a job at reduced pay for a while. I'm doing o.k. financially and professionally. I'm hoping that my company will sell more stuff next year, so that my profit-sharing bonus will go up. If not, I'm not complaining. I'll be fine. There were several hundred workers in town who lost their jobs this year when the palette factory closed. Compared to them, I have nothing to complain about.

Where I live. As an American, I have the freedom to do mostly what I want, when I want, as long as I don't hurt anyone else. Winter is coming, and I have a warm house to live in. I have a big, furry dog who is my office mate. I have an SUV that will get me through most snow drifts. Lake Michigan gives the most beautiful sunsets. There's no other place I'd rather be.

My Health. This year I've lost a lot of unnecessary fat. I'm able to sleep easier at night. I'm able to wear clothes I hadn't fit into in years. I'm such a sexy stud. I now work out with free weights. I'm not in pain. I'll probably be around to see my grandchildren grow up. That's better than my parents did.

I'm worried about how this country is going. I see the potential for hyper-inflation, similar to what we saw in the 1970s. We're in a semi-war, with real casualties. We're poised to invade more countries and charge it to the next generation. I'm concerned about how I'm going to retire after trying to provide for two families, and send a couple kids through college. I think about having to pay for bills if I get sick.

I'm also optimistic. I see so much untapped potential around me. We do the best we can. That's all we can do.

Tomorrow morning, I'm going to shove that big bird into the oven. I'm going to have that slice of beer bread with spinach cream spread. Oh, Lord, just give me that one day to say thank you. And next year, it might even be better.

Will Pakistan be the next Iraq?

2007-11-20T22:33:00.000-05:00

Let's play a game. Without taking a look at the title of this article, try to guess what country I'm talking about.

In this country:

This country is a long-time ally of the United States, meaning billions of dollars have been spent in foreign aid

Its leader has suspended its constitution

Its leader is accused of human right violations

This country has weapons of mass destruction

This country is a front on the war on terror

This country has Al-Qaeda

This country has Taliban

This country has the followers of Osama Bin Laden--he might even be
there

That was too easy. Afghanistan doesn't have the WMD's yet. Saudi Arabia isn't very interesting, they already allow US bases. Egypt is already chaotic, but we live with that. Pakistan seems to have the best fit.

So what's missing, before there is a full-scale invasion?

Violations of UN resolutions
Building a US-led coalition
A neighboring state would have to agree to be a staging area. India? Afghanistan? Oman? Oman has a lot of oil and may find some benefit to having a big U.S.aircraft carrier in its port. But Pakistan is right on the Arabian Sea, so an amphibious assault may be sufficient.

We already have a military presence in Afghanistan. India might let us in--for a price.

But you see what I just suckered you into? At some point people lose the "why" when they are fixated on the "how".

If you are of the belief that the threat of Isalmo-Fascism is the great evil that must be nipped in the bud, then you will dwell on all of the above scenarios. I'm not sure we're through with Iran. If it weren't for Pakistan, we would still hear how some presidential candidates would bomb a country that has no weapons yet. That's pretty freaking scary.

My biggest worry these days is how I'm going to make my mortgage payments and put my teen-age kids through college. I'm worried about the value of my dollar. It breaks my heart to see our young people getting called up for three and four military tours of duty. And then, so many of them come back missing limbs or having brain injuries. It's not sustainable. The costs are too high.

When the British left Hong Kong after their 99-year lease was up, there were fireworks. Other than that it was mostly peaceful.

When the U.S. left the Philippines after the volcano made the Air Force base unusable, it was mostly peaceful. There are still problems of violence, but it's up to the Filipinos to figure out--not us.

This week Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is in Annapolis with the Israelis and Palestinians, trying to work out a peace deal. I wish she'd stop that. When the U.S. made a peace deal with Israel and Egypt in the 1970s, it cost the U.S. taxpayers about $1 billion per year to keep it going. It's time to pull the plug. I want a refund.

Here's a new one to try. Let's imagine a world where the United States quits giving out foreign aid like it's candy and brought home most of the the military. I'm sure there would be some unresolved issues, but it's a world I can live with.

Why We Should Care About Ibrahim Parlak

2007-11-12T10:34:00.000-05:00

I've been trying to keep up-to-date on a neighbor of mine. I've never met Ibrahim. I've driven by his restaurant many times on Red Arrow Highway, but haven't stopped in yet.

Ibrahim Parlak is the proprietor of the Cafe Gulistan, a favorite of movie critic Roger Ebert. Senator Levin and Congressman Upton have legislation pending which will allow Ibrahim to adjust his status "to that of an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence". Both have said that Ibrahim is a model citizen. I don't think either of them would put their political necks on the line if they weren't reasonably sure of the issues.

Lou Mumford of the South Bend Tribune wrote a series of articles last month that detailed the plight of Ibrahim. Ibrahim came to this country in 1991. He was given assylum by the United States because of his mistreatment in Turkish jails. Ibrahim was a member of the PKK and was involved in a border skirmish in which Turkish border guards were killed. Ibrahim was jailed in Turkey for 17 months on the charges of separatism.

At that time we did not recognize the PKK as a terrorist orgainization. Just the opposite. Depending on your point of view, you could say that they were patriots looking to create a homeland for Kurds. There was a very detailed article written by the New York Times Magazine two years ago.

There was a hearing on October 22 where Ibrahim could present arguments for his stay. I don't know what happened there. I do know that last May, Ibrahim's brother Huseyin was deported so fast there wasn't time to pack a suitcase. In Mumford's reporting of Huseyin's story on 5/16/07:

Martin Dzuris, a spokesman for Ibrahim Parlak, said that when Huseyin Parlak kept a long-standing appointment Monday with U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials in Detroit, he was immediately taken into custody and was put on a plane for Turkey in a matter of a few hours.

That gives me chills.

So far, trolling the web, only Debbie Scheussel has written negatively about Ibrahim. Her article makes Ibrahim sound like Rambo.

Ibrahim's story hits close to home. My grandfather was drafted in WWI at the age of 13 in Germany. He held a gun and was sent to the Russian front. I don't know if shot anyone or threw a grenade. He came to this country a few years later because his country was a wreck after many years of war. My grandfather also went into the restaurant business and had children. He wanted to start a new life and become a good American citizen.

Like Ibrahim's trouble starting after 9/11/2001, my grandfather's problems started about 12/7/1941--"a day that will live in infamy". The country was in panic after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Japanese, Italian and German aliens were sent to internment camps. My grandfather had applied for citizenship before the outbreak of WWII. During the war, he was detained and his application put on hold, until 1945. My grandmother, who was born in Wisconsin, did the best she could to keep the restaurant afloat during the war years.

What we're seeing is typical fear behavior. The Patriot Act was passed as a response to this paranoia. When we detain and deport foreigners who want to become good American citizens, we need to ask why.

Got Navy?

2007-11-11T11:06:00.000-05:00

In May 1983 I had the privilege of serving on the USS-Nimitz (CVN-68), as part of my Navy ROTC training. Today it’s the third oldest aircraft carrier in the U.S. Navy. It went into service in 1975. The time it took to put it into service, from order to commissioning, was eight years.

With the Cold War at its hottest in the 1980s, the goal was to ramp up to 15 aircraft carriers. Using the old life estimate of 45 years, to achieve the 15-carrier fleet, you need to start building one every three years. A Rand report states that the life of an aircraft carrier is now estimated at 48 years. Also using the same equation, it said that if we want to maintain a 12-carrier force, we need to keep making carriers at a rate of one every four years. It looks like that’s happening now. The two oldest aircraft carriers—USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) and USS Enterprise (CVN-65), both commissioned in 1961—will be replaced by the USS Gerald Ford (CVN-78) and the USS George HW Bush (CVN-77) next year. There are more planned.

That Rand report also had some other scenarios, such as if we had forces of 10 or 14 carriers. Whatever is decided, it’s a 50-year commitment for each one.

Each time an aircraft carrier goes to sea, it is accompanied by a group of support ships, such as destroyers, cruisers, refueling ships, resupply ships, and maybe a submarine or two. It’s different for each mission. In a carrier task group, you may have 10,000 – 20,000 sailors and marines away at once.

A carrier costs about $5 billion dollars to build and about $150 million to maintain each year. The other ships in that battle group I mentioned above also cost hundreds of millions, or a couple billions of dollars each. You can see, this adds up quickly. So how many of these floating airports do we need? Can we get by with just 10? Or 8, or even 6?

I’m picking on the surface Navy. I could have easily looked at the number of Army personnel, or the number of strategic bombers, or the number of nuclear missiles. They are all expensive. But how many do we need?

It really depends on our foreign policy goals. The role of the military is to enforce the policies of our civilian government.

With each election cycle, the voters have a chance to express what they want their representatives to do. Our Army was designed to prepare for war in two theaters for a period of four years. They are exhausted. The operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are not sustainable without continued funding at over $200 billion per year above the base funding of the Defense Department of $475 billion. There may need to be a draft to keep supplying the Army and Marines with replacement troops. Reservists have been called up for multiple tours.

Instead of a policy of nation-building, let’s say we adopt a new policy of non-intervention. We would release some of our most creative individuals back into the workforce. We would not have run-away government deficits at hundreds of billions of dollars. I don’t know if there would be enough savings to give taxpayers their money back, in the form of lower taxes. Perhaps there would be enough money left over to at least fund existing domestic commitments at current taxing levels? I haven’t worked out the numbers.

We won the Cold War with the Soviet Union without a single direct battle. The Soviets imploded after running their domestic economy in the ground and engaging in a ten-year war in Afghanistan. They tried to propagate their ideology onto a people that didn’t want it. We were the insurgents, supplying the freedom fighters with shoulder-launched missiles. I see parallels with our involvement in Iraq.

Maybe we need to get back to the Monroe doctrine. We have enough issues to take care of in this hemisphere. I believe we started on our empire-building mentality at the end of the 19th century when President Theodore Roosevelt showed how awesome we were with his Great White Fleet of battleships. Our egos were further bolstered by our success in WWII. But it’s time to bring the boys home.

On this Veterans Day, I’m thankful to all the men and women who have served our country. The United States would not even exist today if it had not been for the sacrifice of those who came before us. As civilians, who elect those who make and execute policy, we need to be careful not to put our military into harm’s way needlessly. Let’s be careful and think this through.

Anchors Aweigh!

Drexel Student Op-Ed Says: Ron Paul's extreme domestic policies would impoverish many

2007-11-09T15:23:00.000-05:00

Ron Paul's extreme domestic policies would impoverish many - Ed-Op
I wish I knew a little more about Justin Gero. All I have is the his writing. I think he needs to listen to those of us who work for a living after we got out of college.

I'm an unabashed Ron Paul supporter. I like a lot of things he says. I'm sure this college student is expressing his heart-felt opinion of what to do about the unfortunate in society. The problem comes when his solutions use my money.

The best way to impoverish a whole country at once is to devalue its currency. Instead of widening any gap, we all become poorer. Since we depend on other countries for most of the goods in this country, the less our money is worth, the more expensive those goods will become. Poor people will become more poor if their income is fixed and inflation accelerates. Working people become poor when they have to pay more in taxes--property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, social security taxes, etc., etc. The lottery is a tax that targets poor people, because they have lost hope in working to become rich. The government becomes the only winner. As you lose your money, you lose your freedom to make decisions for yourself.

The government "helps" you by spending your own money back on you. Gee, thanks.

I don't know what homosexuality and product safety have to do with poverty. Gero rambles a bit in his editorial.

Realistically, we will probably have some negotiated solution with national health care. People don't like the idea of getting sick and dying. We just have to figure out how to pay for it. There's got to be a better way than creating big bureaucracies. Once a Department of Iwanttorunyourlife is created, it's hard to eliminate it.

Spending more money on a program doesn't equate to how much you care. I don't think I've gotten my money's worth from FEMA and DHS. It's like saying the more money you spend on a car makes it go faster. With the right mechanic, a $4,000 pickup can run as good as a $40,000 one. That's a hell of a markup for that new car smell. Maybe I just smell something else.

Killing Your Marriage

2007-11-09T08:18:00.000-05:00

I’ve been married once before. I didn’t know what killed my marriage until I tried getting married again. In the Catholic Church, you can’t get married a second time until you've had your first marriage declared null. It’s a fallacy that Catholics don’t believe in divorce. You need your civil divorce complete before you can start on your annulment. It’s a long process. You have to prove that there were reasons that the marriage did not exist. That’s a hard pill to swallow after you made a commitment in front of friends, family, and God that you would be with this person until you die—no matter what. Once I started the process I quickly realized I married the wrong person. I was married 13 years, ten months and six days. Maybe I can save you some time. I killed my marriage before it started.

My grandfather was in the tree nursery business. He used to say that no living thing wants to die. You’ve got to kill it. The best way to kill a tree is to plant it in clay. It wants good soil and fresh water. Most first time landscapers have dead trees in their lawn and have to start over. They’re not bad people. They just got into something with a lack of knowledge. No one showed them how to do it right. You readers are so lucky today. So look at what I've written below as good potting soil for your life.

Here are the three things you need in order to have a successful marriage:

Self Reliance
Shared Values
Loyalty to the Marriage

Self Reliance. The reason why I put this first is this is counter-intuitive to people in love. You want to take care of the other person. You want to make someone else better. A nurse wants to take care of her patient. The poison you want to avoid is getting stuck with a needy individual. He or she will suck the life out of you. If they can’t manage their money, their drinking, their job, saying out of jail, and so on, you will go down the tubes with them. I read about women who are pen-pals with prison inmates, and falling in love with them—dumb, dumb, dumb.

Shared Values. When I used to go to the bar with my drinking buddies, I was there to have a good time. Meeting somone new in a bar might be fun the first couple times, but that’s no way to pick up your future spouse. Strangers you meet in bars tend to drink and smoke. Is that what you want in your home every day? If you believe in God, you need to go to church and participate in volunteer activities that you like. Or you need to get active in community causes that are interesting to you. Or take up hobbies that are healthy for you, such as weightlifting or bird watching. Your future spouse will tend to show up. Even Bonnie and Clyde had shared values. They didn’t live long, but they had shared interests to their dying day. When I hear that a couple is celebrating 50 years together, it was either heaven or hell. It’s whatever they shared.

Loyalty to the Marriage. I don’t mean putting the other person’s interests above yourself to your own detriment. That’s subservience. You want to give to each other. You need to put the marriage with your spouse above yourself and other people, including your children, hobbies and even your work. If you and your spouse don’t have a good marriage, the children won’t have the benefit of both parents for very long. You might have to turn down a promotion, if it’s going to take you away from your family. You might have to give up skydiving. If you place an outside person or activity above your relationship your spouse, that’s infidelity. If you have an addiction, don't get married.

You might have a lot of problems that you need to take care of first. It’s better to be lonely for now, than to be miserable for years. Been there, done that.

Ben Stein on Christmas

2007-11-07T22:09:00.000-05:00

I got the following in an email chain. I don't know Ben Stein personally, but he comes across as genuine. These days, that's the best I can hope for. It's hard to debate someone who is lying to you. Compared to Jeff Foxworthy's fifth graders, Ben Stein only has $5,000 that I could win from him anyway.

Here is the text of his email with my response at the end. It's better than anything I could have written.

My confession:

I am a Jew, and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don't feel threatened. I don't feel discriminated against. That's what they are: Christmas trees.

It doesn't bother me a bit when people say, "Merry Christmas" to me. I don't think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto.

In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of year. It doesn't bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a creche, it's just as fine with me as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

I don't like getting pushed around for being a Jew, and I don't think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period.

I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it being shoved down my throat.

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren't allowed to worship God as we understand Him? I guess that's a sign that I'm getting old, too.

But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to.

In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different: This is not intended to be a joke; it's not funny, it's intended to get you thinking.

Billy Graham's daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her "How could God let something like this happen?" (regarding Katrina) Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response She said, "I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and to get out of our lives. And being the gentleman He is, I believe He has calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?"

In light of recent events...terrorists attack, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O'Hare (she was murdered, her body found recently) complained she didn't want prayer in our schools, and we said OK.

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbor as yourself. And we said OK.

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem (Dr. Spock's son committed suicide) We said an expert should know what he's talking about. And we said OK.

Now we're asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to kill strangers, their classmates, and themselves.

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out.

I think it has a great deal to do with "WE REAP WHAT WE SOW."

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world's going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says . Funny how you can send 'jokes' through e-mail and they spread like wildfire but when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing. Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

Are you laughing?

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you're not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not then just discard it. No one will know you did. But, if you discard this thought process, don't sit back and complain about what bad shape the world is in.

My Best Regards.

Honestly and respectfully,

Ben Stein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." -- Plato

My response was:

My mother's maiden name is Stiller. My grandfather was from Berlin, and became an American citizen during the 1940s when it wasn't popular to be a German. He was a WWI veteran when he was drafted at age 13. Who knows what my ancestry was? I'm Catholic now. As long as no one is hurting me or my family, I'm able to live in a world of different opinions and different ways of coming to God.

Christians just take the Jewish teachings into a different direction. We still believe that Moses gave the world the best 10 ideas in Exodus and Deuteronomy. If it weren't for the Maccabees brothers standing up against the Greeks, where we would be today? My favorite is Daniel who survived the ovens of Nebuchanezar (spelling?). We have Marines today in full body armor, trying to secure democracy in 100-degree heat every day. Hopefully the Iraqi government can get their act together, so we can bring our boys home.

The two Bible teachings I had in my college humanities for engineers course were the book of Job and the Sermon on the Mount. Bad things happen to good people. We need to love everyone. So much for my radical college education.

My grandfather was put into the camps at Ft. Lincoln and Crystal City here in the US during the war for being a German national. He still loved his adopted country. Can't we?

I don't give much credence to some of these chain letters. I can't verify that Ben Stein wrote this. But it mirrors my feelings. And that's good enough to publish here.

Yours Truly, DigitalBob.

How Popcorn Saved My Life

2007-11-07T08:54:00.000-05:00

I have a food addiction. It isn't any different than smoking cigarettes or using dope. There isn't a moment that goes by that I don't want to eat something. I have to watch it. At over 350 pounds, I was very morbidly obese. So far this year, I've lost over 40 pounds. I have a way to go to my ideal weight. But my current victory is that I'm not reversing what I've done so far.

I've taken the attitude that every day I start over. In the past I would buy the one pound bag of M&M's and eat it in one sitting. Instead I eat beef jerky and turkey bites for my road snack. I've quit drinking pop, including diet.

Recently for my birthday, my son gave me one of those M&M's bags. With the help of family members, the bag did eventually evaporate--over a period of two weeks.

What do I eat now? I've done the current best practices in dieting. Each day I now have a minimum of two glasses of skim milk, two apples, and some protein at every meal. Protein is the magic. It takes away the hunger for hours. All unnecessary sugars and fats are gone. This is hard, since I like Cap'n Crunch's Peanut Butter Cereal. I had to say good-bye to many of my old foods. I've gotten militant. But there is one food that I like and can have as much as I like: Popcorn.

Although I put up Orville Redenbacher's picture in the corner, I've bought a variety of popcorn this year of other brands as well. I've bought popcorn from the Boy Scouts and the local school fundraisers. Sorry, Girl Scouts.

Orville was from Valparaiso, Indiana--just a few miles from here, just off of Indiana Route 2. Most people associate corn growing with Iowa, but Indiana is the top popcorn producing state, followed by Illinois. I don't know if it's the climate or the soil, but this region is ideal for growing popcorn. It makes me feel good to support the local farmers. But it makes me feel really good to know that I'll live longer.

Until a year ago, I thought that a few pounds here or there didn't really matter. I just bought bigger shirts. However when I tried to get additional life insurance, a 10-year level term policy, I was told that for someone of my height, I needed to weigh no more than 278 pounds. I got pretty much the same answer from all the insurance companies. They're smart. They want a stream of payments from a subscriber. If you're dead, they won't get their premiums. My math mind told me that I'm statistically dead.

The last time I tried to lose weight I used a prescription appetite suppressant called Bontril. I was able to lose 50 pounds in less than a year. But as soon as I was off it, I gained the weight back and then some. It wasn't sustainable. I needed some structural change that I can maintain for the rest of my life. Or I won't live long enough to make a difference.

What popcorn does is fill the void. I enjoy that crunching the sensation. I like hearing the popping sound in the microwave or the hum of the hot air popper. I get some chaff in my teeth, but it comes right out.

I work from home, sitting at a computer all day. I don't exercise as much as I should. I take my coffee now without sugar and cream. I take my popcorn now with no butter, but sometimes I'll sprinkle soy or Worchester sauce on it to spice it up. My office always has coffee cups and popcorn bowls. But no more candy wrappers.

If this is all it takes from me to see my grandkids one day, I'm willing to do that. Or my name isn't ....

Ron Paul is Real, Again

2007-11-06T16:27:00.001-05:00

Yesterday Ron Paul raised $4.3 million. That's in just one day. His goal for 4th quarter is $12 million. As of today, his tote board at http://www.ronpaul2008.com/ shows his campaign at $7.3 million so far this quarter. Last quarter, he raised over $5 million.

Is that enough? What's needed is getting the word out. It's just starting. But time is getting short. Here in Michigan, the primary will be January 15th.

I'm not a professional campaigner. I went to a couple meetings of interested people when Pat Buchanan was running, when I lived in Indiana. The people I met then were tired of taxes and the government trying to run our lives. We didn't want the US in Kosovo and Somalia. We wanted the US out of WTO and NAFTA. Hmm, sounds familiar?

At the time I had some tax problems because I lost my job the year before. I thought it was a better use of my money at the time to pay my mortgage and health insurance. Eventually I worked out a payment plan when I was working again. But it got me thinking. I sure could have used that extra $20,000 that year, instead of sending it to someplace that has all those official envelopes with the green certified stickers. You get a couple of those when you can't pay your taxes.

But the group broke up over social issues, like the abortion discussion and the environment. I felt those were distractions to the base message of smaller government. We also had a lot of amatuers. We had former Democrats from Chicago and old line Republicans who didn't get along. There was no leadership who could articulate Buchanan's message and make it convincing.

Conversely, Ron Paul keeps the message simple and to point. You say "Constitution", "small government", "lower/no taxes", "non-intervention" and you would have it mostly covered.

I was in the local gas station over the weekend. The price here was $3.15/gal--that's pretty high lately. I asked the clerk, "you think it's going up?" She said yes. And then she said something that surprised me: "I think they took the gold and they're printing all the money for themselves. We're the last ones to know." I told her a guy named Ron Paul is running for president says the same thing. "Never heard of him. I don't trust any of them." She's ripe for recruiting. She probably never made it to the community college, but she's got monetary policy figured out.

Pictured above is the interview today on ABC News , where Ron Paul is asked what all this new money means. I hope it means that he will hire someone who can get some TV time for his campaign.

This Campaign IS Torture

2007-11-05T04:57:00.000-05:00

I had a slow Sunday afternoon. I got back from church and replayed my recording of this (11/4/2007) morning's Meet The Press. Fred Thompson was on as part of the Meet The Candidates series for the 2008 Presidential Election. On many of the answers I ended up agreeing with Thompson when it came to lower taxes, smaller government, letting the states decide family issues and so on. But for each of his answers, it was like I was listening to one of my high school teachers give a long explanation why two angles are congruent. Please get to the point!

NBC Meet the Press Netcast on 11/4/2007

His answer about waterboarding got my attention. When asked by Tim Russert about the use of waterboarding, his deliberate response was that "the measures must meet the circumstances". What? Who decides? Professional government inquisitors?

The right answer, if anyone is asking me for advice, is to say the following:

Torture is never acceptable in the United States, or anywhere else in the civilized world.
As President, I will not delegate or approve torture as a routine method of extracting information, for I know it is an unreliable means of getting to the truth, and it sets a bad precedent.
If I, as President, determine that there is a need for such an action, I would be willing to accept full responsibilty for that one-time action--including resignation and public trial.

He didn't even come close.

State-sponsored terror is never appropriate. I found the above picture at stronghold-knights.com. It's a dunking or ducking chair. It was used to determine if someone was considered a witch. It was very effective. If she confessed to being a witch, you had your confession. If she drowned, she was innocent.

Waterboarding, by what I've read, is strapping the victim down and pouring water on his face or in his mouth, to induce gagging or the sense of drowing, or the threat of drowning. The technique is slightly different from ducking, but the result is the same. You get someone who will say anything to stop the torture.

Saddam Hussein, as a matter of government policy, had torturers on the payroll. Check out at the US Government's site a document called Iraq: A Population Silenced. What measures met the circumstances there? He wanted control of his people through fear and got it.

I would have dismissed the idea of torture in this country, had I not seen a report on one of the news channels lately of a long-running lawsuit against the City of Chicago. The Chicago Reader has a series of articles on the subject of Police Torture in Chicago. It exists, and it's fairly recent.

Jon Burge, a former Chicago police commander, is a accused, but not tried or convicted, of arresting and torturing 135 African-Americans between 1972 and 1991, as documented at the University of Chicago's human rights website. I can't make this stuff up.

But let's get back to the waterboarding thing. What's interesting about water torture is that it doesn't leave marks on the outside of the body as does, say, branding or electrocution or crucifiction. That means the perpetrators would have no evidence against them in a court of law. Instead, you have a victim, permanently fearful of the authorities, unless a little too much water is used. Then there would be the problem of where to hide the body.

We have several candidates running for President as "Conservative Christians". But I don't think this is what Jesus would do.

Close Encounters of the Global Warming Kind

2007-11-03T02:30:00.000-04:00

I don't know if Global Warming is real or not. But until I saw the Democratic debate this week (10/30/2007), it struck me why I haven't taken it as seriously as other people have. You see, I don't know any climatologists nor UFOlogists personally. Both seem very serious about their subjects. In fact experts in UFOs and climate change are running for president on the same stage.

I was reading a liberal op-ed piece at boston.com from February 9, 2007. The author equates denying global warming with denying the Holocaust. I haven't seen a Yeti or Big Foot, but I'm not going to deny that one exists.

The truth is I simply don't care. It's just not my thing. The problem comes when people who are fixated on this subject want to make their issue mine. And then send me the bill. I find that rude.

But in the last three months, I've opened my door to listen to the sales pitches from the local J.D Edwards rep, the Mormons, and the Girl Scouts. I bought the cookies. So I'll give these folks a listen too.

When I see government getting involved in issues of any sort, I have to ask a few questions before I get very excited about an issue:

Does it affect me or my family directly?
Should government be involved?
How much is it going to cost me?

As a self-described minarchist libertarian, I think the government should do as little as necessary, stay out of my life as much as possible, and let me spend my money the way I want.

So applying this rationale to the UFO argument...

Criterion 1: are UFOs affecting me or my family? No. So far their pilots haven't said, "hello" in any discernible way. I'm sure most shiny lights in the sky are airplanes or some weather phenomenon. I'm more concerned about someone drinking at the local tavern and driving down my side street, than a spaceship landing in my back yard.. If it ends like the "To Serve Man" episode of the Twilight Zone, we're screwed anyway.

Criterion 2: should the government get involved? Some. The government is supposed to provide for a common defense. It's the military's job to investigate and classify anything unusual in the sky. I think it was called Project Blue Book. There could be radioactive space junk dropping out of the sky from a dead satellite. It would need to be cleaned up for safety reasons. I'd prefer they do it quickly and quietly . As much as I like full disclosure of government activities, telling the world about little green men might cause more panic than it's worth. By making it public, we'd get all that death and destruction, and have nothing beneficial to show for it.

Criterion 3: how much does it cost? Probably too much. If they couldn't substantiate their findings in 50 years, maybe it's not worth investigating. Perhaps there was a Cold War, top secret weapons program going on in the desert. I'm curious what all that research bought me, but I'm guessing it's something like the F-117A, which turns out to be a dark, triangular-shaped aircraft. I bet that was expensive.

If 10% of all sighting are unresolved, I might live with that. When I ran a faxing service, 10% of all faxes never went through. It was just a fact of doing business.

The dedicated UFOlogist would accuse me of denying UFOs exist and encouraging their cover up. Sorry, I just don't care. I like the movie Independence Day with Will Smith, but it's a movie.

To be fair, let's apply the same criteria on the Global Warming debate.

Criterion 1: does it affect me or my family? I'd say not. Most of the debate centers on the fact that earth has warmed up by about 3 degrees over the period of 100 years. Granted, that's a larger volume of energy, and some of it is produced by man-made sources, but who does it affect?

Below is a picture of my 2004 Ford Expedition parked in my driveway. The date of this picture is April 11, 2007. I live at the Michigan-Indiana border. What do you think the temperature was on that lovely spring day? Hint: it was below average.

You might be happy to know that anyone in the USA who lives near an airport can look up their local temperature histories at the Weather Underground. I looked up what the temperatures were from Jan. 1 - Apr. 30, 2007 close to where I live, not far from South Bend, Indiana. In those four months, the highest temperature was 82 on April 22nd and the lowest temperature was -5 on February 5th. We had no snow on the ground in January. In a period of two weeks I when from a parka to tank top.

Criterion 2: should the government get involved? The local government needs to put down some sand or salt so we can drive in this weather. We still need to get to work.

Criterion 3: should we spend any money on the problem? I think there needs to be some research to keep an eye on it by making really good measurements. And buy some salt and sand for the streets. NOAA keeps some records. But the local news outlets seem to keep keep me informed of coming storms. That and who Notre Dame is playing.

Alright, I cheated. My example was "local" and not "global". My window of interest is only four months instead of 100 years. I picked the facts to support my argument and my self-interest. But those who want to win arguments do that--especially those I suspect who look for another excuse to expand government.

Let me explain that I'm sympathetic to coastal communities. Losing your home to rising flood waters is a sad thing. But so is dying from drought. This year Ohio had record floods and Atlanta is at risk of running out of drinking water--all within a few months of each other, on the same continent. Pick one: which one is global warming, and which one is bad luck?

If you want to rescue people from low-lying areas around the globe, have a fund-raiser and move those people to higher ground. Sam Kinison had a similar solution to World Hunger. It's not going to be Waterworld. That too is just a movie.

It may be more cost effective to move people from where they can't live than to destroy our way of life for the rest of us on something that might not come to pass.

I experience temperature swings of at least 100 degrees every year. After last winter, I'm open to the idea of a world that's about 10 degrees warmer. The local snow mobile club might not like it, but I'll be able to swim in Lake Michigan a few more days a year. More likely, the ice shelf will form along the shore, like it does every year--except for that little patch of discharge water from the nuclear power plant in Bridgman. And that's the way I like it.

Rejoice! For Thou Art a Big, Fat Loser!

2007-10-13T13:26:00.001-04:00

I want the world to know that I lost 40 pounds in six months. I have another 30 or so pounds to go to reach my ideal, non-obese weight. I'm confident I'll achieve it next sometime next year.

Before you ask me what diet I'm on and its "secret", put down your pen and listen up. It doesn't matter. Without a commitment to do something about your weight, or anything else you want to change about yourself, you will do nothing. I found something that's working for me and it feels good. I hope everyone can find that sense of well-being in any worthwhile venture.

Last winter, I was going over my finances and noticed that I needed about another $200,000 in life insurance. I'd changed jobs and my new employer didn't have as generous a plan as my last one. But he did have a $100,000 "guaranteed" policy that I could buy at a very good rate. Of course, if you were HIV positive or had cancer, you would not get the coverage. The smokers rate was about twice non-smokers--all the usual stuff. The technician came to my house, took the blood and urine samples, put a sponge in my mouth, filled out some paperwork. I sent in the premium, and got that part of it.

I tried to get the other $100,000 in the marketplace. At some websites, I had trouble filling out the web forms because the dropdowns didn't go past 300 lbs. I'm a big guy. But for my weight to be ideal, I guess I'd have to be at least 10 ft. tall. Even when I filled in the blanks, the telemarketer called me back to confirm that I didn't make a mistake, before explaining that her company doesn't insure the morbidly obese. Ouch!

I've never really dieted before. I saw my parents fight with their weight all their lives. They eventually both died of cancer. I remember my mother getting compliments as to how good she looked after losing so much weight. I guess three chemotherapy treatments a week will do that to you.

But I was determined to do this right. My youngest son is 12 and I needed a 10-year level term policy to cover my responsibilities if I don't see him to adulthood. It's depressing when the insurance company, in no uncertain terms, says "lose weight or die." When my father was dying of cancer, he still was able to get a supplemental insurance policy to cover his medical expense. The agent wrote up a 4/6 month policy. It was 4 months of premiums to cover 6 months of usual and unusual expenses. My dad asked why such a short policy? The agent said that his company was the best at predicting need. My father didn't need to renew the policy.

I found out that my medical insurance doesn't cover weight loss programs. But it will cover most of the $20,000 needed for bariatric surgery. I would still have several hundreds of dollars of expenses. I decided to go in for an interview at the bariatric center anyway. They showed me glossy brochures and cut-away platic models of what happens in bariatric and lap-band procedures. Then they said I'd have to be on a low-calorie, low-carb, low-fat, high vitamin, high protien diet for the rest of my life. I'd have to drink a lot of water and get sleep and exercise. If I didn't do these things, I'd rip out the stitches and die.

Hold on a minute?! What if I do the diet an exercise thing and skip the surgery? So for about $500 I bought weekly counseling over the course of 4 months. I kept logs of what I ate. I brought my wife along on some of the sessions, because sometimes she likes to shop and cook as well. She's lost about 25 lbs this year--by eating the same things that I am. I didn't do everything perfectly, but I did it well enough.

Down the street from me is the home of the $5 pizza. I love pizza. I want mounds of cheese, and greasy sausage, and the thickest deep-pan crust you can make. My picture hangs in a Pizza Hut because I was one of their best lunch buffet customers. I've given up Pizza Hut, Taco Bell, Long John Silvers, KFC, Burger King, and Wendys. I still go to McDonalds for their salads that have grilled chicken. With lowfat dressing. And a glass of water or tea with no sugar. There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think of a deep friend sour cream donut, or something. I just have to deal with it.

If you love your children, you will take care of your health. The insurance thing was a wake up call. You can't take care of everyone else, and let yourself go. That's misplaced altruism. I could have taken that $500 and given it to charity or bought another video game for my kids. Instead, I'll live long enough to do those things in five years, or may be 10 years from now. I'd rather watch my grandchilden play with video games. My parents can't.

Ok, here's my secret: http://www.qualityoflife.org/bariatric/. Now what's your excuse?

Ron Paul gets my vote in 2008

2007-10-12T06:02:00.001-04:00

At least on January 15th, in the Michigan Republican Primary.

I work hard. Each month, I pay alimony, child support, mortgage payment, credit card payment, car payment, and don't forget taxes. I got a notice that my property taxes are going up. I saw in the newspaper that the state's income tax went from 3.9% to 4.35% (http://www.wndu.com/news/headlines/10320667.html). I'm paying for everyone. My wife works, but if lost my job, we'd both be in a world of hurt.

I hear all the candidates talk about what they're going to do for me. All I want is for them to do the minimum and leave me alone. I have my own problems, thank you. I don't need to pick up the tab for everyone's medicine or education or war. I don't believe this war on terror or just about anything else I'm fed in the news. I don't like being lied to and I think that's what's happening. All I see is how many hours I spent this year trying to get a bigger tax deduction.

Looking as to who I've voted for president, I'm not sure who I voted for last time, in 2004. I guess I voted for the Libertarian candidate. I've voted for Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot. I might have voted for Ronald Reagan in 1984, but I can't remember. I've liked the idea of less government all my life.

Growing up in the 70s, I remember may parents had a hard time buying gas for the '68 Dodge and the '71 Buick. That Buick got about 12 mpg from its 350 V-8 engine. The double-digit inflation and high interest rates made my little savings book at the bank look useless. My dad's job didn't keep pace with inflation. Superior Steel, Malleable Steel, and Auto Specialties had to close the local plants. It was pretty tough around here. When the workers went on strike at Auto Specialties, the plant closed and didn't reopen. The government didn't save us then either. I'm pretty sure that it was government that caused the problem. Who else prints the money that causes inflation?

The most contact I've had with government is getting my driver's license. I don't like to wait in line. I've had driver's licenses in Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Oklahoma. Some run it themselves, other have private franchises. All of them have slow or, at best, uneven service. It just sucks taking half a day to get a platic card with my own picture on it. I know what I look like. I know my name. But I need it to cash a check and prove, if asked, that I can operate a car on the public roads.

Take that experience and multiply it by a million. Why would I want the government to do anything for me? And then consent to have them charge me for it?

I suppose I should be really passionate about issues like global warming, health care, spotted owls, abortion, gay marriage and so on. I propose we don't nuke the whales. Seriously. Conducting the "Mike" test in the 1950s probably caused any whales nearby to go deaf from the very big explosion. But we can' t fund anything, including bomb tests and band aids, if we don't have the money.

Ron Paul seems to be the only one who gets that. His minarchist right-libertarian, strict constitutionalist, non-interventional approach to foreign affairs, and real money financing seems to hit all cylinders with me. Realistically, I don't think he can get everything he wants. For instance, reverting back to the gold standard or eliminated the IRS cannot occur without backing from Congress. But he can recall troops and enforce borders on day one. Those things are simply enforcing existing laws, or choosing to reverse earlier executive orders. He can submit a balanced budget to the Congress, like Dave Stockman did under Ronald Reagan. He has a long track record as a representative from Texas to prove it.

I think we need a bulldog in the Whitehouse. Ron Paul will take an axe to the budget. We need someone who won't push this country into poverty and bankruptcy. I don't need politicians buying me Christmas presents with my money. They can even save the postage by not sending me a thank you card for all the money I've sent them in the past.

Mixed Signals: Body Art

2007-09-13T00:01:00.000-04:00

My father had tattoos. He wore long sleeve white shirts most of the time. But if you looked closely, you could see a tattoo of a chain around his right wrist.

A chain is traditionally associated with slavery, literally bondage. Why would anyone want to permanently mark his own body, showing he is owned by another person? During WWII, the Nazi concentration camp internees had serial numbers tattooed on their skin, so that they can be processed efficiently. I hate the idea that human beings can be tagged like cattle. Doesn't tattooing yourself recind some of your own free will?

Like I said, my father wore long sleeve shirts a lot. He said he didn't like to have people in grocery stores staring at his arms, where he had other tattoos. Even when he was working in the yard, he would wear worn out business shirts or sweatshirts. Just because he didn't roll up his sleeves didn't mean he didn't worked hard. He had his own one-acre garden, chopped wood for his heat stove. He was an avid golfer. He would wear a windbreaker jacket at the golf course. He only took off that jacket on very hot days when golfing, and only when he was with his best friends. His friends tended to be his age or older.

My oldest daughter had her ears pierced shortly after her 15th birthday. She has only one hole per ear and wears very tasteful ear rings or studs. It adds a little elegance to her appearance. Being modest, that's probably all she'll do. I don't think my sons will do that. Even if they did, an ear piercing will grow over if you get tired of it. My mother got her ears pierced when she was in her 40s, at the behest of my sister. The old clip-on must have been painful. My father liked buying her earings. She got used to them.

I had a friend from high school who showed me his diamond K brand he got at college. That told me he had joined the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity. It must have hurt. I joined a fraternity, but only had to do something along the lines of reciting the alphabet while gargling beer. I say "something like" because I don't want to give away any of our secret rituals. Joining a club or society gives the joiner a feeling of power and safety in numbers. I'm sure my friend considered the benefits before making a life-long decision to scar his body. I guess the branding was a way to remind the black fraternity members what hardship their forebears might have gone through, before they were considered people, and not property. I can only guess, because I would not have been invited. I never felt that I was anyone's property. The difference between my friend's brand and that of slaves is that his was accepted voluntarily. It now could be considered a mark of pride. It was an exercise of his free choice--a choice to accept the will of a group of his choosing.

So would be considered the tattoos of gang members. But a gang member's tattoos are meant to be seen by the public. Not only does your tattoo signify you're a member of a group, but it tells the world which group owns you. It may intimidate anyone who isn't part of your group. It's a voluntary decision, I'm sure. But it's a visible sign that you've made a life-long decision. Those who put tattoos on their forehead are the scariest of all.

I don't have any tattoos. Any scars I have on my body are purely by accident. I have some scars under my left arm that I got when I was five years old. I climbed the highest tree I could find and fell. I shredded the skin on one of the branches that broke my fall. I have another cut on my hand from an ax during a camping trip. I got a burn scar once while cooking dinner. Hot noodles dissolved my paper plate and burned my wrist. In each of these cases I have marks of stupidity. If I were to get a tattoo now, that would be another mark of stupidity.

The other tattoos my father had on his forearm and his shoulder were that of an eagle and an anchor. You see, he served the US Navy for 20 years. Among his friends, it was a mark of pride and solidarity. He loved his country and his job, and wanted the world to know it. He joined the Navy shortly after WWII in 1946. It was very patriotic to join then. But when he retired in the mid-1960s, the military was looked upon in suspicion and disgust. It wasn't the military's fault that our government made bad decisions. The military's mission is to carry out the political will of the country. My father was very proud of his contribution. At the same time he was very critical about politicians drafting boys into a conflict without end. If the cause is just, you'll get volunteers. And those volunteers will get tattoos.

He started wearing long sleeve shirts when he got his first job in the civilian world. No employer wanted to be reminded that a war was going on. He was hired quickly. Those who had visible tattoos, long hair, and sloppy clothes weren't even considered. He kept his navy haircut and laced black shineable shoes. Those Buddy Holly glasses suited him well. He was sending a clear message that he wanted to support his young family. His second career was in hospital management. He did that for the next 25 years.

In the early 1990s my father got one last tattoo. He was diagnosed with cancer. In order to focus the radiation beams, the doctor had to tattoo a target on my father's chest. My father got some other body art, mostly stitches from various life-saving operations. Only a few of us knew about his body art. It was all covered by his favorite suit at the funeral home in 1995.

Global Warming Taxpayer Boilover

2007-09-09T02:00:00.000-04:00

What I notice missing from this discussion by the Global Warming crusaders is the lack of analysis on the impact to society and the taxpayer. For instance, no where do they break down the effects of their solutions in terms of costs to taxpayers and other impacts on our lives and liberties. It's kind of like trying to use the fire department to rescue the cat stuck in a tree. It's heartwarming to see the old lady get her cat back. But if the fire department is distracted from their main duty of putting out fires, some human (infants, sick, and elderly first) will die in a burning building while Kitty gets a soft landing. If I were the fire chief, I would send the lady a bill for $2,000 for making a false 911 call.

To be an informed citizen on this issue I need to know several things, before I tell my congressman to spend dollar one on this issue.

1. Are there any benefits in allowing Global Warming to run its course? Perhaps I can live with a 10degF rise in temperature. I can vacation in Canada in February. We might get a longer growing season in Michigan. Our fuel costs in the winter will certainly drop. We might prefer it warmer. No one has stated what the benefits of a warmer planet could be. Since we're such experts on setting planetary temperatures, let's turn it up by a couple degrees--especially after we had snow here in Michigan last April! If the effects of global warming is something I can live with, then those zealots should just go away.

2. What is the ideal temperature? In other words, when do we know that we've achieved a stable, safe, ideal temperature? Not unlike to my kids grilling me on a long vacation ride, we need to know when we've arrived. A mountaineer doesn't start out on a journey until he knows how high he needs to climb. The data I've see so far is that the average temperature has increased by about 3 degrees in the last 100 years. Are we done with fixing the global warming once we get the average termperature back down? How are we going to measure average temperature change when my local temperature here in Michigan varies by 100 degF in any given year. That's right. It was in the 90s last week and last winter is was as low as -10degF. Over 100 years, how could I tell that there was a 3 degF change?

3. What is the total cost to US taxpayers to fix global warming? The US Federal debt is already at $9,000,000,000,000.00 ($9 million-million dollars). Our resources are already tapped out for the War on Terror, War on Drugs, War on Poverty. Anyone want to fund a no-fly zone over Darfur after the fun we've had in Iraq? We have socialists who want the US to go to an expensive health care system that will insure every citizen and illegal alien alike. I guess we could just print more money, instead of making hard choices and living within our means.

4. Why can't we instead look at the costs of not addressing Global Warming? Instead of funding these initiatives, it might be more cost-effective to evacuate people from the coasts to the mountains, so they can avoid the 20 feet rise in sea level that's going to happen at any minute. So, to prepare for a 20 ft. rise in sea level, how far inward do we need to evacuate? I could ask the same question about rebuilding New Orleans. Would it be more cost effective to rebuild that city somewhere else, like upstate Mississippi, instead of repairing or building new levies? Global Warming theory "proves" that New Orleans will be flooded again anyway, because it borders the ocean and exists below sea level--just like Bangladesh.

5. What consumer advocacy group is overseeing the value of carbon credits? For instance, if you buy $300 of carbon credit, how are you assured that you're getting $300 of benefit? Is there a market where you can sell your credit? When you buy stock in a company, you can look up the asset value of the company, and then use a variety of sources to estimate the net present value of a company from its record and expert opinion of future performance. Even "goodwill" in a public company needs to be accounted for accurately. How does one determine the true value of a carbon credit? Show me that mathematical model. In a mutual fund, you know how many shares are in the public, and the total net asset value is calculated at the end of each business day. That way you can buy or sell your mutual fund shares are a verifiable price. But if you can't get a public report of what your carbon credits are backed with, then one can assume that they are conterfiet securities, in violation of Federal securites laws. The only way a carbon credit issuer could stay out of jail is to post a disclaimer saying it's for Entertainment Purposes Only, like the Psychic Hotline.

6. If Global Warming corrective actions are to have the full force of law, they would need to be carried out with the use of force. This could get ugly. Global Warming taxes would have to collected from our paychecks semi-monthly, the same way the IRS requires regular deductions for personal income tax, and then refunds just the overcharges once a year. Polluting vehicles would have to be confiscated. A polluting power generation plant would lose its operating license. We would have to report every activity in our daily lives to a sprawling bureacracy. We wouldn't be able to use charcoal for a barbeque unless we apply for a permit, like a fishing license. In order to make the "Global" part of Global Warming fixes effective, we would have to impose the will of the gurus on every nation. That would require environmental police with greater power than any national government. To pay for all that, we would have to set up a new international tax structure.

What's sad is that Al Gore told me on Youtube that the debate is over. I'm bummed. I wasn't even invited. Being a pessimist, I predict that our legilators will kill us slowly by thousands of cuts in the form of spending bills and new agencies. Federal programs will spring up to study the problem and begin corrective actions regardless of the results of any study. These actions will increase govenment spending, contribute to the national debt, cause a component of tax increases. We will see a steady decrease in personal liberties. These corrective actions will be embedded in other spending initiatives that seem patriotic, like universal health care for cats who were previously stuck in trees.

Here, Kitty, Kitty.

Letter to the Editor, In Cyberspace

2007-09-07T14:08:00.000-04:00

I spend way too much time reading and learning from the internet. Before there was an internet I ran a bulletin board system. The old fashioned BBS consisted of a PC with a modem connected to a telephone line. At a blazing 1200 baud (about 100 characters per second), my little BBS was capable of displaying thousands of messages, posting shareware programs and hosting text-oriented PC games. Some days I was suprised it worked at all. But with the advent of the internet and my time devoted to taking care of my young family, I had to pull the plug on that hobby.

But the BBS gave me a platform to express myself to a group of home computer enthusiasts, who wanted to do something with modem they got for Christmas. I've gotten some of that rush back by authoring a couple websites for my hobbies. But I miss the near anonymity of the BBS. Only those who were in the BBS community knew who you were and how to log onto your system. Conversely, across the Internet, everyone can look up your personal information with way too much ease. For the sake of my safety and that of my family, how can I express myself without the fear of some nut showing up at my house uninvited? On the BBS, I could cancel his account. But once something is written on the net, it could be there forever.

So instead of writing "Dear Mr. Ed." to the editor of a newspaper, I'm going to give this blogging thing a try.

I'm choosing this blog's title "Politically Spastic" in part to honor Bill Maher's television talk show "Politically Incorrect". It ran on Comedy Central for several years. I watched that show when I could. I didn't necessarily agree with Mr. Maher's opinions or those of his guests. But the fact that there was a TV show that invited differing opinions on the topics of the day, with a bit of humor thrown in, at least made me interested in a variety of issues that I normally would not have bother with before. It's disturbing, at first, to find out that the world doesn't automatically agree with me. I now watch the news and ask, "why are so many people stupider than me?" I guess if more people were to think of the consequences of their actions and acted in the best interest of their families and neighbors, we would run out of news stories.

The "Spastic" part of this blog's title is in honor of Tiger Woods. Tiger made a comment that he though he was a spaz for the way he putted. It was a comment about his own performance. I understood what he meant by that. He was simply stating that he wasn't focused and his performance relected that. And then someone actually complained that the term "spaz" was deragotory. Puhleeeze. I don't think Americans even realize that the term spaz has anything to do with cerebal palsy. It's used to refer to someone who gets excited over trivial matters, or obvious lackluster performance.

If I make remarks regarding news items of the day once every several days, or several times in one day, could that be considered spastic? That's probably more sporatic than spastic. If my remarks lack annotation and logic, wouldn't that make them spastic? And if you're offended, get over yourself! Or better yet, start your own blog.

There was an episode of Star Trek when Abraham Lincoln comes back from dead and compliments the African woman communications officer as being a "charming negress", and then apologizes. Lt. Uhuru's statement that in the future we are no longer afraid of words is a statement of hope. Perhaps someday we can understand the historical context of obsolete usages of labels, and move on.

Instead of getting mad at me as saying "Spastic" or "spaz", donate money to United Cerebal Palsy (http://www.ucp.org/). Or better yet, give to the "Spastic Centre" in Australia. Do something positive.

Scope, get over yourselves!