Bye, bye (and good riddance) Euro

Let me get this straight.  You are going to take a bunch of countries and peoples that pretty much resent and hate each other, have invaded and killed one another for millenia, have tremendous disparity in culture, work ethic and wealth and put them all together under one currency.  Without the reserves in place to make sure the currency will stay viable.  And no power to enforce measures against member states to keep their fiscal houses in order in return for belonging to that currency.  Yeah, what could possibly go wrong with that?

America as a petroleum exporter

I don't know abot you, but I was shocked to read in the Wall Street Jornal that the US was just about to become a refined petroleum products exporter.  It gets better.  With the price of crude oil skyrocketing over the past couple years, it has now become profitable to explore and extract our own vast energy resources.  That's right, our own.  Everyone always knew we had oil and natural gas, it just wasn't worth it to get it because the Middle East and a few other places had reserves that were really easy (read "cheap") to get the oil from.  So if we or anyone else started to invest in extracting the more expensive stuff, the oligopoly would just crank up production and lower the price.  Except wars erupted, nuts got nukes, reserves start to dry up and revolutions came with the spring daisies.  So now we have un-ignorable incentives to go get our own energy.  Turns out we actually have more reserves than anyone thought and it looks like the future is once again pretty bright for our energy independence.  My only question is why the current batch of bozos in Washington are wasting our money and their time on boondoggles like they gave their buddies at Solyndra instead of expiditing (not tabling) new pipelines?

Idiots whistling past the graveyard

Please don't get me started on the joke that anthropogenic carbon based global warming has become. When I first heard the theory I thought it was intriguing. Then I started to research it. The only problem was that the science didn't really line up very well with the theory. Simply put, the carbon based global warming theory goes as follows: We put more carbon up in the atmosphere. Radiant energy of many frequencies from the sun hits the earth and reflects back out. But instead of going off into space, the radiant energy excites the carbon based molecules. Excited molecules is the definition of heat, so the atmosphere is getting warmer. However, apart from issues associated with trying to model or even accurately measure something as huge and varied as the earth's atmosphere, I started to be bothered by the molecular physics behind the theory. Carbon is a lousy insulator of radiant energy. It only excites at a narrow band of frequencies. The scientific analogy my simple mind can understand is a cup of water in a microwave: Water is a great insulator of radiant energy because it efficiently excites at a wide band of radiant energy frequencies. So the microwaves heat up the water. But take the water out of the cup, and it barely rises in temperature. Carbon is like the cup. Plus, if you double the carbon, you only get about half as much insulating ability. So to avoid these little scientific inconveniences, the global warming alarmists came up with all of these complicated feedback loops to make their model work to show more warming based upon more carbon. I always go with the simplest explanation first. Like more energy from the sun or more water vapor high in the atmosphere (both of which are easily measurable and are great explanations for any little bumps in temperatures during the 90's before it started to level or decline over the past decade). Then Climategate hit. And hockey sticks got busted. And the UN reports turned out to be bogus and based on un-vetted articles. And now more, and potentially worse, emails come out between the "accepted" scientific experts. Heck, even Cananda is officially dumping global warming.  But apparently none of that bothers the good Senator Boxer.  But don't worry folks.  The science is settled.

Real or fake Christmas tree

Or maybe I should admit my bias up front by rephrasing the question as "Christmas tree of hunk of metal and plastic"? I got into a discussion with a couple of friends yesterday about this very issue. Then last night I went home, started a fire and enjoyed watching tv while inhaling the wonderful aroma of freshly cut pine. Argument over. Game, set, match.

I think we need to communicate better

And by "we" I mean our elected leaders.  To the rest of the world.  As is obvious from other posts, I was thinking about Pearl Harbor today.  It was a horrible miscalculation by the Japanese.  They may have underestimated how America's incredibly mighty industrial production machine could respond to the sneak attack by cranking out more military weaponry than the rest of the world put together.  Since the beginning of mankind.  Personally, I doubt they miscalculated how much America could do if it wanted to.  I think they miscalculated whether America would do everything it could until the Japanese were destroyed as a military (and imperial) power.  Osama did the same thing.  In fact, history is littered with similar figures (hope Osama said hi to Saddam when he saw him in Hell).  As I thought about it, the problem became very clear.  We (America) are not communicating our will to use our might sufficiently clearly to the right audiences.  We have before, such as when the Great Communicator Ronald Reagan told Gorbachev to tear down that wall.  And it worked.  The old Soviets not only knew we could beat them, Reagan did a good job of communicating that we would beat them.  The rest is history (largely written by us since we won).  I am going to vote for the best person to communicate with the rest of the world.  Not sure who, yet.  But he sure won't need a teleprompter.

Be a skeptical paranoid

Especially when reading about anything you did not experience first hand.  It is not that I recommend never reading historical accounts.  A great deal can be learned from them since mankind rarely invents new ways to fail, we merely implement the failure in different ways.  Nonetheless, always remember that any account you read in the press is going to be colored (tainted, spun, slanted--take your pick) by the author and the publisher.  The same can be said doubly for an historical account.  History is written by the victors to serve their own purposes and, of course, to make them look good.  Since it is Pearl Harbor Day, that brings us to Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, the Japanese leader of the horrific and illegal raid on the peacetime American naval base in Hawaii.


Yamamoto was a fascinating man.  He was the hero of the battle of Tsushima during the Russo-Japanese War, long before he was the architect of the worst attack on American soil until 9/11.  He was also the leading voice in Japan against going to war with the United States.   But we won and we got to write the history.  Don't get me wrong.  He still killed over two thousand unsuspecting US servicemen in an unquestionably illegal, immoral and despicable act of military aggression.  Had he not died by having his plane shot down by a P-38 while doing an inspection of the Solomon Islands in 1943, I have no doubt he would have been executed as a war criminal.  Still, the fact that he lead the opposition to war with the US makes me think because that fact is rarely reported.  So do yourself a favor and always be a skeptical paranoid.  Even when reading my blog.  Maybe especially so.

A little thin skinned, aren't we?

So.  On Monday Mitt ripped Obama for going on vacation with the continuation of the payroll tax reduction in limbo.  At least for Mitt, he actually had a good line: "I just think it’s time to have a president whose idea of being ‘hands on’ doesn’t mean getting a better grip on the golf club."

And today Obama announces he is going to stay in Washington while Michelle and girls head to Hawaii.  But don't worry, Mitt's comments had nothing to do with it.  The Whitehouse said so.