What If They’re Wrong?

Vancouver recorded the lowest temperature in forty years last night. Tonight we await the arrival of a blizzard that has already struck Portland and Seattle. This past week it snowed in Las Vegas, Houston and Malibu. My cousin who lives outside of San Diego sent me pictures of snow on the hills near his home.

This is, to say the least, highly unusual stuff.

Of course, Minnesota, Wisconsin and the East are getting whacked with vicious winter storms, but that’s normal. What is not normal is that winter has not yet officially arrived. Starts tomorrow.

Since this has started out to be a record breaking cold winter you might well imagine my surprise when the environmental clergy announced that a necessary step in curbing the planet-threatening advance of global warming would be the taxation of cow farts. Yes indeed, bovine flatulence, we are told, represents a large contributor to greenhouse gases. A tax on each offending cow seems to be the only idea on the table.


My entrepreneurial mind immediately clicked with an alternative. Why not, I mused, instead insert a tube into the anus of each cow and attach to it an inflatable balloon? The captured methane could then be collected and burned to generate electricity! Hey, it’s renewable energy and that’s what we’re looking for, right? I can see no flaw in this proposal.


Having quickly dealt with cow farts, a sacrilegious thought occurred to me: What if these guys are wrong about global warming? What if, instead of warming the planet is actually cooling? What if the school of science that links previous cycles of solar activity (sunspots) to warming and cooling periods on Earth are right and the sun determines these things, not whatever Man may or may not do? The evidence suggests we should give it some consideration… not to mention looking out the window and checking out the temp and snow depth from time to time.

The Maunder Minimum, an extended period of low sunspot activity occurred between 1645 and 1715 and coincides with the Little Ice Age. Cooling and warming periods also correlate with the Medieval Minimum (1040 to 1080) and Medieval Maximum (1100 to 1250) although one has to wonder who was measuring this stuff. Scientists also claim that solar cycles correlate perfectly with warming and cooling periods on Mars. Since I have heard no reports on the discovery of SUVs on Mars, I think we can pretty much rule out human activity having much to do with it.

Solar activity comes and goes on roughly an eleven-year cycle and on that pace does not have a significant impact as the warming and cooling effects get dampened somewhat by the oceans. You may remember from 8th grade science that the oceans cover about 75% of the globe…. A big heat sink. When the sun refuses to adhere to the eleven-year cycle, things can get out of hand. The question: will the current minimum in sunspot activity be a short one, or will we be in for the next ice age?

Bjorn Lonborg in The Skeptical Environmentalist points out that global cooling is a far bigger problem than global warming. Shorter growing seasons and less land mass available for cultivation make food an issue. And, he points out, far more people today die as a result of cold than heat. The consensus among scientists holds that by the end of the century, if global warming were to continue at the pace of the last 50 years, that the Earth would increase in temperature by 2 degrees and the oceans would rise by 8 inches. Not a big problem, and may actually be a benefit as more of the northern latitudes become available for food production.

President-elect Obama promised during the campaign to “save the planet and stop the oceans from rising”. (No point in setting modest goals.) With that in mind, he has loaded his incoming administration with global warming and anti-carbon true believers. They will certainly pursue a series of policies to battle global warming and reduce our national carbon footprint. I think it is worth asking if this is exactly the wrong prescription for what ails us? What if Al Gore and his acolytes are exactly wrong and the Earth is getting colder? What if instead of shutting down coal fired electrical plants and restricting oil drilling we should be doing the opposite, just so we can stay warm in the next decade? What if instead of propping up the auto industry we should be helping out the snowshoe industry? It’s something to think about.

By the way, my wife just informed me our water pipes are frozen in the upstairs bathroom.

Stupid is as Stupid Does

The great American philosopher, Forest Gump uttered those memorable words. He also said, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you will get.” I can’t help but think of these two gems when I ponder what the new Obama Administration and the new solidly Democrat Congress will do in the coming year.

From the appointments we’ve seen so far it seems the “Change We Can Believe In” amounts to rehiring all the guys from the Clinton team. If memory serves Clinton was quite radical in his first two years… until the alarmed electorate voted in a Republican Congress in 1996. Clinton then got religion and governed more like the centrist he claimed to be.

Observers have tried to be optimistic that BHO, Pelosi and Reid would show some restraint with the economy in a shambles, but recent comments from the anointed ones do not inspire confidence. On the economic front it looks like the only idea anyone has is to throw more and more money at the problem. Damn the torpedoes of inflation or the ice burgs of government ownership of major industries. Don’t worry about the distant shoals of debt. Open the valves of spending. Full speed ahead!

Once the new Congress gets sworn in and get their furniture rearranged we should expect quick action on two Democrat pet projects: the Employee Free Choice Act and the Fairness Doctrine. These two turkeys could only have been named by Orwell’s Ministry of Truth for there is no “free choice” in the former or “fairness” in the latter.

The EFC Act is a sop to the unions who love the Democrats unconditionally and give them millions. Better known as the Card Check bill it makes it substantially easier to organize a union shop. Less than 10% of the US workforce is currently unionized, mostly government employees and workers in major industries. Union shops like automobile manufacturers and airlines have been falling like flies lately and entrenched unions rightly deserve a lot of the blame. Government unions produce no measurable product and even if they do (like the teachers unions) and the product is crap, they persist. This does not suggest greater unionization is a wonderful idea in this time of economic trouble.

The Fairness Doctrine is only designed to put conservative talk radio out of business. The left already controls the mainstream media…. TV, Hollywood and the major newspapers. This violation of the 1st Amendment would silence any dissent of the left wing agenda.

While some of Obama’s economic team may have convinced him that raising taxes during a recession is a formula for financial disaster, he seems determined to push ahead with his fight against global warming with his Cap and Trade program. He said recently, “[we] will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them an additional 80% by 2050.” Remember, Obama promised during the campaign to bankrupt anyone who attempted to build a coal fired power plant.

VP candidate Biden in one of his memorable gaffs said, “We’re not supporting clean coal” and “…no coal plants here in America.” Harry Reid, Senate Majority Leader and dipshit buffoon, once said, “That is, coal makes us sick, oil makes us sick; it’s global warming. It’s ruining our country; it’s ruining our World. We’ve got to stop using fossil fuel.” Harry and BHO probably never bothered to check, but the US gets 85% of its energy needs from fossil fuels and 50% of the US electrical power is supplied by coal plants. Do they really believe that they can replace fossil fuel with solar and wind power? Does anyone believe that the radical environmentalists will ever allow the Democrats to build a single nuclear plant? Their only hope of replacing coal is nuclear and they can’t go there.

The significant phrase in Obama’s quote above is “strong annual targets”. That suggests to me that he plans to use the EPA to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and implement his Cap and Trade dreams through that behemoth. The EPA has already prepared an 18,000-page Advanced Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (ANPR) document regulating every emitting source from coal plants to lawn mowers. It amounts to a tax on energy, will cost trillions and wipe out jobs by the millions. Estimates from the Heritage Foundation suggest net job losses (that’s after you add in the “green” jobs created) at 500,000 per year and a cost of $5000 per household. American companies will be leaving the country in droves.

While this madness continues to rumble down the tracks we get this update on global warming from the US National Climatic Data Center. Seems the global temperature went DOWN in 2008 with some parts of the world seeing snow for the first time in memory. 2008 saw record snowfalls in China and Canada (Toronto’s Feb. snowfall the most since 1950). Sea ice build up in Antarctica was the largest in 30 years and even the much-discussed Artic saw increases of 10 to 20cm of ice. Nothing in yet from the polar bears.

[Editor's note: In April 2007, the news release about the dire situation of the Polar Bear was exposed by an Australian journalist as a hoax. The photo was not taken by Canadian environmentalists, but taken by a marine biology student more than two years before in the month of August--when ice caps are naturally melting--and the bear was within easy swimming distance of larger chunks of land; it was released by the AP along with the introduction of the UN's Global Warming Report.]

[Also, there are more reports from a group of international scientists on the global warming nonsense.]

According to Kenneth Tapping of the Canadian National Research Council, solar activity is way down. “The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted five centuries and ended in 1850.” Gee, maybe the sun has something to do with global warming? OK, one winter does not an ice age make. But, it should give everyone a reason to look a little more critically at the absurd contortions of the global warming fanatics. More importantly, it should give our politicians pause before imposing an economy destroying policy on North America. You’d think, but I’m not betting on it.

Don’t count on the Democrats allowing any more drilling for oil or gas either. That’s way too logical.

Gypo Pirates

The term “gypo logger” originated in the Pacific Northwest and described any guy with a pick up truck and a chain saw that set himself up as an Independent Logging Contractor. It seems appropriate to now call any Somali fisherman with a boat and an AK-47 a “gypo pirate”. In the last year, piracy off the coast of Somalia and in the Gulf of Aden has grown dramatically with some 92 ships being attacked. A handful of these yahoos in a high-speed outboard, armed with automatic weapons and RPGs can easily overpower the unarmed and thinly-manned freighters. The game: move the ships into a nearby harbor on the Somalia coast and hold the ship and crew hostage for ransom.

It’s a growth industry. Estimates vary, but it appears the pirates made at least $40 million last year. The pirates, who likely could not effectively run a hot dog cart, live like Columbian drug czars. Ports like Eyl are booming with ransom money being spent by the pirate princes to purchase mansions and expensive cars.

This week the pirates captured the Sirius Star, an oil tanker about the size of a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier carrying $100 million dollars of oil. This ship joined some 14 others with 300 crewmen as hostages awaiting ransom payments. Insurance companies and ship owners are trying to figure out what to do. The UN and the International Maritime Organization dither while shippers consider the option of going around the South African cape to avoid the area altogether, adding 12 days to their voyage. Shipping costs are going up 25 to 30%.

Somalia, of course, has no real government and has been run by warlords and Islamic terrorists for years. They can’t or won’t do diddily about it. Compounding the problem is the political correctness about “human rights”. I read a lengthy piece the other day written by two lawyers who agonized over where and how to try these international criminals. Last year the Danish Navy captured six Somali pirates and being unable to figure out where to prosecute, simply turned them loose. This sort of thing cannot be regarded as a helpful. To me, the whole jurisdictional issue is irrelevant. I say the few that survive capture (and I would hope not many do) should be tried in International Waters by the Captain of the largest ship in the area.

In the good old days, punishment for piracy was keel hauling or swinging from the yardarm. Maybe sailing into these pirate havens with a few of these guys hanging aloft might send a signal to other gypo pirates?

These pirates operate well out to sea with small boats supported by “mother ships” (usually captured trawlers). Last week one of these ships made the mistake of firing on an Indian Navy vessel, the INS Tabar. The Tabar shot back and sunk the mother ship. Good start.

“So Dick”, you ask. “What do you suggest?” Glad you asked. For openers, as soon as a freighter sends an SOS that they are being attacked I would dispatch jets or helicopters and sink the mother ships and any small boats around it. That might give them something to think about.

As to the ships now being held hostage… I’d give the pirates 48 hours to release the ships and crew. If they don’t, I’d send in Special Ops teams to take back the ships. The US has the SEALs, the Brits the SBS and all other countries the equivalent. The boarding parties would be supported by snipers in helicopters and small boats who would take out any pirate who stuck up his pointy-head. If resistance comes from the bridge or other protected cover, let the helos blast those locations with rockets and missiles. Yeah, you’d damage the ships but the repairs would be cheaper than the ransom.

But, you say, “What about the crews being held hostage?” Most, I understand, have been taken off the ships and are held ashore in Somali ports. President Jefferson sent the newly minted Marines to take care of the pirates off the “shores of Tripoli” over 200 years ago. I’m sure the Marines would welcome a reprise. I’m also sure the British SAS and the French Commandos would be happy to join in the fun. Fast roping into each of the places where the hostages are held (I’m confident our intelligence boys know exactly where they are) they would make short work of the ragtag criminals. The pirates could be advised that if a single hostage is killed that we will take no prisoners. When all the crews have been rescued, I would send in the jets and wipe out every port where the pirates have operated along the Somali coast. Simply sink every boat, blast every pier and destroy every warehouse.

Naturally, none of this will be done. The international community can’t even bring itself to deal with Iran and their nuclear weapons program even though everyone knows they will start a nuclear war one of these days.

I do know that if I owned one of the freighters plying these dangerous waters, I would be talking to Eric Prince, the CEO of Blackwater. I’d hire some of his heavily armed dudes to ride shotgun on my ship and instruct them to blast out of the water any small boat that got in range.

Good reading: this WSJ article on modern pirates.

Where’s the Bottom?

Another very bad day on Wall Street… the Dow down 427 points, closing below 8000. More bad news out of the banking industry, the Big Three execs in Washington begging for cash to stay alive and Paulson zigging and zagging over what to do with his $700 billion. Not the kind of news to send folks out to the auto mall to purchase a new set of wheels or give the broker a call to pick up a stock or two. Everyone is waiting for the next shoe to drop. Actually it reminds me of that recent TV ad where it’s raining shoes. (Funny. I can’t recall what they are selling.)

Frankly, I think Paulson would like to punt the whole $700 billion TARP thing down the road to the next administration and let Obama’s new Treasury Secretary figure it out. That way he could sneak out of town and not take the blame when it doesn’t work. The whole thing smells like they have no clue.

The Big Three automakers were operating on a flimsy business model before they got whacked by the duel tsunamis of the spike in gas prices to over $4.00 per gallon and then the credit meltdown. Decades of increasing concessions to the UAW and the accumulated deadwood of their own management and distribution network (they have way too many dealers) placed them at a big disadvantage to the foreign manufacturers. They have huge liabilities for their retirement and health care programs and they must pay nearly full wages to tens of thousands of laid off workers. The sum of all this means that their cost of producing a car is some $1600 to $2000 more per car than their Japanese competitors. Their loaded cost per worker hour is $72 vs. $42 for Toyota. Some business model.

In addition, Congress has placed some formidable obstacles in the way. As pointed out in an excellent piece in the Wall Street Journal today, Congress imposed the CAFÉ fleet-mileage standards that forced the Big Three to produce low mileage cars at a loss to sell their profitable and popular SUVs. Bowing to the green lobby, Congress will not allow the automakers to include in their CAFÉ calculations the autos they make abroad. This simple change alone, says the WSJ, would likely save Chrysler from bankruptcy. Nor will the greenies consider allowing the car companies to sell in the US their highly efficient, small diesel cars so common in Europe. Anyone who has rented a car in Europe has likely driven one of these little beauties. Quiet, peppy and non-polluting, they get great mileage. The environmentalists won’t permit the increase in the supply of diesel either. That’s why it costs more than gasoline. Never used to, and now it’s killing the trucking industry.

So, with all this against the auto industry does it seem like a great idea to throw $25 billion more at them? I think not. It’s only the beginning. Unless the Big Three can restructure their labor and distribution costs they are never going to be viable. And, unless Congress acquires some common sense about the penalties they impose with their mileage standards, even restructuring may not do the job.

Unfortunately, it looks like the incoming Obama Administration may make it worse. Bush refused to grant California a waver to impose a 23% reduction on greenhouse gas emissions from autos by 2012 and a 30% reduction by 2030.

That would have required the automakers to produce special cars for the California market. A killer. Obama promises to reverse the Bush policy. If he’s going to do that, sending the auto guys any amount of money is pissing it down a rat hole.

I believe, however, that Detroit will get the money, if only because the politicians are afraid to let them fail. Besides, the Democrats owe Michigan and Ohio. Bush will go along because he won’t want the demise of the US auto industry to happen on his watch. He’ll think, “Let the Democrats deal with it after January 20th.” Thus, the problem will be postponed and until the auto industry gets sorted out and banking stabilized, guessing where the bottom is can only be a WAG (Wild Assed Guess).

Tom

The sun was well up and the frost melted by the time the old man loaded his gear in the Jeep and pulled out of the driveway. He had lingered over breakfast, taking a second and a third cup of coffee. Millie left him alone, knowing he had to do this at his own pace and feared that if she talked about it, she might lose her tenuous grip on her own emotions.

The knobby tires hissed and sang on the damp blacktop as the old man headed east into the countryside, passing woodlots and stubble cornfields, pasture and the fallow fields of the CRP Program. He drove slowly dreading the three-act play he had scripted for this day.

The small brass bell on Tom’s collar tinkled as he attempted to rise. He whimpered with the anticipation he always showed when they were going hunting. But, this time his whines were tinged with pain. Tom’s hips had deteriorated badly in the last couple of years. The old man had started giving him aspirins imbedded in soft cheese after each hunt. It helped.

But now, the cancer thing …. The vet tried to break it to him gently, “Hell, Tom’s twelve years old—nearly thirteen. That’s old for an English Setter.” Then he said, “You’ll know when it’s time to bring him in.”

Tom struggled to his feet and shuffled unsteadily forward until he could rest his chin on the old man’s shoulder. He choked back a sob. They had often traveled like this, with Tom whining in his ear, seemingly urging him to drive faster. The Jeep swung into a tight curve on the narrow country road and Tom lost his footing and toppled over. The old man swore, “Dammit. Lay down, Tom. Stay!”

In the month since the visit to the vet Tom had gone downhill fast and the old man knew it was time. Hated it, but knew. The vet said he’d wait for him.

He’d hunted alone in the early season leaving Tom behind. The dog had not appreciated that. Over the years he always knew that when the hunting coat and boots came out, it was time to go hunting. Even if sound asleep at Millie’s feet in the sewing room, he would come bounding into the hall like a three year old hopped up on Sugar Pops. Not wanting to torment Tom, the old man had started sneaking his gear out to the truck at night when the dog was zonked on his bed by the fireplace. Full of painkillers, Tom never noticed.

Hunting without your dog, he found, was like dancing alone. He’d enjoyed the brisk autumn days walking the hardwoods for grouse and stomping the ditches for pheasant, but it was not the same. His bag was lighter too. He had cursed two weeks ago when he lost a downed rooster. Tom, even a year ago, would have found that bird. He always did.

He braked the Jeep and swung into the farm drive way. Past the white clapboard house and around behind the weathered barn, he turned on to a dirt lane angling up the hill. He slipped the Jeep into four-wheel drive and slowly made his way up the rutted track. At the crest of the hill he spotted a battered white Chevy pick-up parked about 100 yards ahead.

Joe, the owner of the farm, crawled out of the truck smoking a cigarette. They were old friends and the old man hoped Joe would forgive him for being late. Joe waved as he pulled the Jeep up and parked on the verge 40 yards short of the pick-up.

Stepping out of the Jeep, the old man watched Joe signal the direction of the wind with a sweep of his arm and he waved in acknowledgement as he felt the light breeze on his face. Joe went to the back of the pick-up and reached into a wooden crate and after a bit of a struggle, extracted a rooster pheasant. Cradling the pheasant in his arms, Joe started walking down into the field of grass and low brush. He stopped at a thick bush about 20 yards in and after tucking the bird’s head beneath his wing, spun the bird in a circle half a dozen times. He then tucked the pheasant down into the bush and started back toward the truck.

“He’ll sit there a little while,” thought the old man. He opened the back gate of the Jeep and reached for his tattered hunting coat. As he shrugged it on Tom made his way to the back and started wagging his tail. When the old man reached for his gun case Tom gave his face a couple of wet licks. “Ready to go, buddy?” He asked. Tom waved his flag-like tail in response.

The gun was an old Fox side-by-side in 20 gauge. The bluing had long ago been worn off and the stock had plenty of dings, but the sheen of oil spoke to how well the old man took care of his gear.

He lifted Tom gently out of the truck and set him on the road. Snapping on his lead and grabbing the shotgun the old man and his dog entered the field. They angled across the wind. The old man wanted to get directly downwind of the bush that held the pheasant. Tom, though unsteady, had his head up, sampling the wind and working that trademark white flag of a tail back and forth. When they were directly downwind and 15 yards from the bird they did a left turn. He reached down and unsnapped Tom’s leash. “Find the bird, Tom,” he said.

Tom moved forward, staggering slightly, but he had caught a whiff and was closing in. Three feet from the bush Tom froze in a classic point, head and tail high with his left foot up and curled. “Whoa,” said the old man quietly. He dropped two shells into the open Fox and snapped it shut. Walking forward slowly past the dog he said “whoa” once again. He gave the bush a vigorous kick. Nothing. He kicked again and took a couple of steps. With a cackle and roar of wings the pheasant burst from the grass 10 feet to his left. The bird had run when he walked in and now was angling back the way they’d come. He brought up the double barrel swiftly and swung, fired and…. Missed! His second shot brought the bird down in a puff of feathers. “I guess we’re both getting old Tom,” he muttered.

Tom had seen the bird go down and was struggling through the thick grass in that direction. The old man quickly overtook the dog and snapped the leash on again. “Easy Tom. We’ll find him.”

The rooster lay in plain sight, gleaming in the fall sunlight, its gaudy colors a stark contrast to the dull brown grass. Tom gently picked it up and they started slowly back to the Jeep. He looked up to wave his thanks to Joe, but the pick-up was gone. He’d have to phone later with his thanks.

Halfway back to the Jeep Tom stopped. He could go no further. He tried to get Tom to release the bird, but Tom would not let it go. “All right you stubborn shit,” he said and picked up the dog. He carried Tom back to the Jeep with the bird dangling from his mouth. Only when the old man had set Tom in the back of the Jeep did Tom release the bird. He then lay down on his blanket, guarding his prize.

The vet was waiting when the old man carried Tom into the office. The place was deserted, as it was Sunday morning. Another debt to be paid. “You ready?” asked the vet.

“Yeah, I guess,” replied the old man. “Shot a bird over him this morning.”

“So I see,” replied the vet with a slight frown, noting the old man's muddy boots tracking up his spotless floor.

Tom lay calmly on the stainless steel table. He knew the vet and the old man rubbing his speckled head and scratching his black ears soothed him.

“This won’t hurt him,” assured the vet. “He’ll get sleepy and then it will be all over.” The vet slipped the needle into Tom’s paw and the dog jerked at the sting.

The old man gripped Tom’s head and stared into his eyes. “So long old friend” he choked. And then it was done.

The vet said nothing as the old man gathered up Tom’s limp body and carried it out to the Jeep. Tears ran down through the gray stubble on his cheeks and dripped off his chin as he wrapped Tom gently in his blanket. He climbed in the Jeep and drove slowly away.

The Jeep followed the narrow country road lined with hardwoods gaily displaying their fall colors in the bright afternoon sunshine. The old man took no notice. Turning on to little used dirt track the Jeep continued diagonally across the ridgeline, coming to a stop at a small clearing. The old man picked up the blanket wrapped bundle from the back of the truck and set off following a faint game trail through the trees. After 100 yards he emerged into the open. To his right a large meadow sloped down the hill, to his left an extensive stand of second growth hardwoods and mixed pine blanketed the ridge. At the edge of the field stood an ancient and massive birch tree and beneath the protective branches of the birch loomed an open grave. Next to the grave a large pile of stones and small boulders stood like a sentinel.

The old man paused at the edge of the hole before gently lowering his burden into the opening. He removed a dog collar from the pocket of his hunting coat and buckled it around a low hanging branch before removing his coat and grasping the shovel leaning against the tree. He began filling the hole.

Brushing the dirt from his gnarled hands on his jeans, the old man sat on a log and studied the pile of stones. “Those rocks should discourage any coyotes from messin’ with you.” He said. The old man fished a crusted briar pipe from his pocket and stuffed it with dark tobacco from a worn leather pouch. When he finished the ritual of lighting the pipe, he wrested a can of beer from his hunting coat. Popping the top and flicking the foam off his fingers he raised it in a silent toast toward the pile of stones. “I guess you know why I picked this spot, Tom. This is where you finally figured out we were supposed to do this hunting thing together. In those early days I was thinkin’ about renaming you 5K, ‘cause where ever I was, you were about 5K somewhere else.”

Taking a long pull on the beer, the old man continued, “When you pointed that ol’ ruff cock bird right under that birch and brought him back to me with your teeth chattering in excitement, a light bulb went off in your head. You’d figured out that we were doing this as a TEAM. Things got lots better after that.”

The old man drained the beer and relit his dead pipe. “I won’t say you were the world’s greatest setter, but you were a good one. You were a sweet and gentle dog, and Millie loved having you around the house. Jeff loved you too. Hell, the two of you grew up together learning how to hunt. I’m sure he’ll be stopping by once he gets back from Iraq.”

He stood, shook the dregs from the can and stuffed it in his battered hunting coat as he slipped it on. He picked up the shovel and came briefly to attention. “Semper Fi, old pal.”

And with that the old Marine turned and limped back the way he had come.

© 2008
Author's Note: This is my first attempt to place some fiction on the blog. Certainly a departure from my "right wing rants" as one of my readers so charitably puts it. If you like "Tom"... great. If not, feel free to offer constructive criticism or suggestions on an alternative hobby. Don't recommend golf. I've already proven I'll never be any good at that damn game.

After the Euphoria

“Poor people have been voting for Democrats for fifty years and they’re still poor.”
Charles Barkley

So, history has been made. The first black man has been elected President of the US. Joining him are overwhelming majorities in both houses of Congress. Together they form the most left wing government ever to preside over the country. Sure, there have been times when the Democrats held both the White House and Congress. LBJ had it and brought forth the “Great Society”, a massive expenditure of money and social programs enacted to wipe out poverty.

It didn’t.

He also escalated the conflict in Vietnam started by Jack Kennedy into a full-fledged debacle. He wisely decided not to run for reelection.

Carter had Democrat majorities in both houses following the Nixon disaster and managed to make a muck of just about everything. Reagan tossed him out on his ass after one term. Though Reagan had a Democrat Congress to contend with, he was immensely popular and adept at taking his case directly to the people. He cut taxes, stifled inflation and brought on a generation of prosperity. He handed off the Presidency to Bush 1 who foolishly broke his “no new taxes” pledge and pissed off the Republicans. They broke ranks and voted for third party candidate, Ross Perot. That gave Clinton the White House and a solid Democrat majority. Bill and Hillary over-reached with tax increases, gays in the military and an attempt to take over the health care system. Two years into Clinton’s first term, Newt Gingrich engineered “The Contract with America” and swept the Democrats from power in the House and Senate.

From 1996 until 2006 The Republicans held Congress and with the election of Bush in 1998 had for a time complete control. They messed it up, abandoning their own conservative principles, spending money like drunken fools and shipping home pork. The Contract with America was forgotten in the hope of hanging on to power. The Democrats regained the House and Senate in the 2006 elections. But, with Bush’s veto and enough Republicans in the Senate to maintain a filibuster, they were able to hold off the worst impulses of Pelosi and Reed. Now that faint restraint is gone.

Any Republican would have had an uphill battle in this election. In the early going the country had grown tired of the war in Iraq and very tired of George Bush. As the surge succeeded that issue fell off the table only to be supplanted by the economy. While the bursting bubble of the housing debacle and the consequent financial fallout cannot really be blamed on Bush, he takes the heat. It’s normal.

Despite these obstacles, I think McCain would have won except for one simple fact: Obama is black. Of course, he is a gifted orator and clever at evading tough questions. But, had he been white and espoused his socialist claptrap, he would have come under greater scrutiny. The media, enamored with the narrative of a black man as President, ignored his flip-flops, gaffs and questionable associations with radicals and racists. They were completely disinterested in his massive and questionable fundraising. They ignored his close association with ACORN and chose not to investigate his missing birth certificate, school or medical records or those missing years in his biography. Consequently, the US has just elected, as Tom Brokow admitted on the Charlie Rose Show the other day, ‘a guy we don’t know’. Gee Tom, whose fault is that? You pompous assholes in the MSM were so busy with tingles going up and down your legs that you couldn’t vet this guy? It’s a bit late to worry about where he’s taking the country now.

Naturally, minorities turned out in massive numbers to vote for the black man. No surprise there. College students and the young also registered and voted for the first time. For the young and idealistic who toil over textbooks and ideas and not as taxpayers yet, Obama represented a celebrity. “Hope and Change.” Hope for what? Change to what? Doesn’t matter. In our You Tube culture he is the perfect candidate. White liberals and moderates who could demonstrate their lack of prejudice and assuage white guilt by lining up and voting for this charismatic black man joined them.

One of my three faithful readers emailed me today and said he was troubled by the adoration shining on the faces in the crowd as they listened to Obama’s acceptance speech. I agree. Since we do not really know who this guy is yet and what he will do, it seems a bit early for hero worship. After the euphoria wears off and the Democrats begin to “fundamentally change America” we will see if there’s any buyer’s remorse. And, Barkley is right….. The poor will still be poor.

The US Election

“Democracy has to be more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.”
--James Bovard, "Lost Rights"

With the US elections five days away, and if the polls can be believed, it looks like a Democrat sweep. This is as I predicted in November of 2006, although I had Hillary as the President. In my own defense as a prognosticator, Obama was not even on the radar at that time. Recent reports affirm that he set up a Presidential campaign committee in Iowa (the first caucus state) almost immediately following his election to the Senate, suggesting he had big plans from the start. Aided by a cheerleading media, and one remarkably disinterested in his questionable qualifications, links to unsavory individuals, massive fund raising and flip-flops on issues, he seems certain to carry the day. A massive turnout of minorities and young voters enthralled with this charismatic “messiah” should overcome the skeptical.

Obama’s unlikely rise to the pinnacle of power in this campaign marks a dramatic shift leftward in American politics for with his victory he will join a seriously left leaning Congress led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. There is an even chance that the Democrats will have a filibuster proof majority in the Senate rendering any check on Democrat legislation moot.

Democrats are drooling at the prospect of a filibuster proof Senate so they can pass The Fairness Doctrine. This is designed to simply put talk radio out of business. In other words, the Hell with free speech. With the main stream media essentially the public relations arm of the Democrats and gleefully cheering on Obama, shutting up the contrary voices on talk radio and Fox News would give the Democrats a clear monopoly on information. The First Amendment? An outdated concept. Think PBS all day, all the time.

So, what should we expect from a decidedly liberal President and Congress? Well, for starters your taxes are going up. Yeah, yeah, I know. BHO has said (endlessly) that 95% of Americans will get a cut. Of course, this is mathematically impossible since about 40% of Americans do not pay any taxes whatsoever. He finesses this problem by calling cash payments to people who pay NO taxes “tax cuts”.

Cute. He also calls various tax credits for child-care, purchase of a fuel-efficient car, etc. tax cuts.

Obama has certainly learned from Bill Clinton to parse his words carefully. (Remember: “It all depends on what the meaning of “is” is”?) He said, “I” will not raise taxes on the middle class.” The key word here is “I”. Congress would do it in any case, but more importantly, if Congress does nothing, the Bush tax cuts expire and taxes are automatically raised. Gottcha!

BHO and the Dems have convinced a lot of people that the Bush tax cuts screwed the middle class and only favored the “rich”. Wrong my liberal brethren. Here are a couple of examples. (If you want the entire list and the link where you could check this out yourself, send me an email without too many cuss words in it and I will send it to you.)

Under Clinton a single taxpayer earning $30K paid $8,400. After Bush’s cuts: $4,500.
A taxpayer under Clinton earning $75K paid $23,250. Under Bush: $18,750.
A married filer under Clinton earning $60K paid $16,800. Under Bush: $9,000.
Bottom line: If BHO and the Dems let the tax cuts expire as they have promised, the middle class will take a big hit. As to Obama’s promise not to hit the middle class… Bill Clinton made the same promise and two months into his term he raised them. Of course, “things had changed” and he was “forced” to do it. Given the (at minimum) $400 billion in additional spending he has promised….

Obama has also stated he wants to raise the rates on capital gains and dividends back to where it was during the Clinton Administration. Apparently he is so disconnected that he thinks only the wealthy own stocks. Millions of Americans have stocks in their IRAs, 401Ks or in various union and company retirement programs. This threat and the likelihood of an Obama victory are already driving the stock market down.

The US corporate tax rate (35%) is among the highest in the industrialized world. The liberals cannot conceive of reducing this tax to be more competitive and stop jobs from moving to friendlier environments. In fact, they have proposed windfall profits taxes on the oil industry (profits 9%). Carter did this and, predictably, it backfired. Remember the gas lines and oil going up 60%? No? How soon we forget.

Death taxes too are to revert to 55% after 2010; right back to where they started before the staged reduction. Same deal. Congress does nothing and bingo, you get a massive increase. BHO can still say “I” didn’t do it and besides, we need the money to put “fairness” back into the system. Sure, let’s screw the guy who spent a lifetime working his ass off.

Basically, BHO wants to increase the percentage of people who pay no taxes from 40% to 49%. This half of the American populace would have a big incentive to keep voting for the party that insures that their goodies keep flowing. (See “two wolves and a sheep” above.)

So what else? (To keep this from becoming book length I will try to be brief).

· Obama want to pass the “card check” law that would eliminate the secret ballot in whether or not a company would be unionized. Unions love this because it makes it far easier to organize a union and for this reason unions have given millions to BHO and the Democrats. Here’s how it works. “You want to join the union or would you like your legs broken? Sign here.” Even George McGovern hates this one.

* Democrats dislike free trade agreements. Obama let it slip early in his campaign that he would cancel NAFTA and force the Canadians and Mexicans to renegotiate. The Obama campaign was forced to send a guy to Ottawa to convince the Canadians that it was just campaign BS. Yeah? Pelosi has refused to even allow a vote on the Columbian Free Trade pact even though it would primarily help American manufacturers. Hoover passed the Hawley-Smoot protectionist legislation during the Depression. Unemployment went from 9% to 25%. Seem like a good idea now? (It’s a World Economy stupid.)

· Democrats have floated the idea of nationalizing IRA and 401K accounts and merging them into social security. They would guarantee you a rate of 3% on your investment. Whoopee. Argentina just did this.

· Obama has promised to eliminate missile defense. Does this sound like a great idea with an aggressive KGB controlled Russia and with Iran on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons? He also wants to get rid of all nuclear weapons. Hopefully some cooler heads will slow him down there.

· Obama likes the idea of making illegal immigrants citizens. I guess he figures since we already spend some $90 billion supporting them with welfare, food stamps, free education and medical care, not to mention the cost of their crime, that we might as well make them Democrat voters. (See “wolves and sheep” above). More stats can be seen here.

· Our Dear Leader also likes the idea of cutting carbon emissions by 80%. Adding the prohibitive burden of a cap and trade program on to an economy in recession can only be described as suicidal.

· The next president will appoint at least a couple of Supreme Court justices. Obama has already said he finds the constitution an impediment to good social policy (socialist). He wants judges with a “social conscience”. Justice Hillary?

· Obama has made some stupid comments about Iran. However, the Iranians have come out in support of his candidacy. That in itself scares me. He’s also made some conflicting comments about Israel. I’m betting that if Iran decided to attack Israel CINC Obama would not lift a finger. This may indeed be what Biden was talking about when he let it slip that “Obama would be tested in his first six months and that we should stick with him even if we did not understand his actions.” Or, words to that effect. In case you missed it… Biden is an idiot.

· Obama hates guns. Anyone who believes in 2nd Amendment rights should be prepared for an assault on those rights in BHOs first term.

· BHO will owe a big debt to the teachers unions. Don’t look for any advances in charter schools or constraints on this obscene monopoly.

· He will also owe the trial lawyers big time. Figure on them continuing their predations on the economy.

· Drilling for more domestic oil and gas under a Obama, Pelosi, Reid power lock? Forget it.
And nuclear power? Not a chance.


I guess from the above you might conclude that I am not enthusiastic about an Obama Presidency and a Democrat majority in Congress. A hard yaw toward socialism will fail as it has in the past…. Think Carter, LBJ’s Great Society and FDR’s miserable record. But, the starry-eyed youth wetting their pants over Obama were not yet born when Carter screwed things up. And, nobody bothers to teach history anymore. So, we’ll get to learn this lesson all over again. Good luck.

PS. If McCain should somehow pull this out, I suggest you invest in a firearm and plenty of ammo. The race riots will make the aftermath of MLK’s death look like a peace march.

The Politics of Personal Destruction

The recent vicious attacks and ridicule of VP candidate, Sarah Palin, sent me trundling down memory lane to the Clinton Administration where Hillary coined the above phrase. She was attempting to deflect moves by Republicans to impeach Bill for perjury and numerous charges of sexual harassment. While not as famous as her “Vast Right Wing Conspiracy” quote, I found the “politics of personal destruction” line to be particularly ironic and even humorous considering she and her mates developed and perfected the technique.

Hillary’s team became quite adept at dealing with “Bimbo Eruptions”, women who came forward with charges of sexual harassment and rape. Remember Gennifer Flowers, Kathleen Willey, Juanita Broaddrick and of course, Monica of blue dress fame? Hil and her BU team set out to publicly destroy these women using private investigators and by leaking false or misleading information to their friends and allies in the media. Trash them! That was the goal.

Hillary and her liberal-left fellow travelers in the media and Hollywood had already honed this skill in previous battles. She was, you may remember, one of the prosecutors in the Watergate trials that forced Nixon out. Later their techniques came to full flower in the fight over Robert Bork’s nomination to the Supreme Court, giving rise to a new verb for the English language… “borking”. Bork had only one failing, other than being intelligent and principled, he was a conservative. They trashed the guy and it worked. They tried the same thing with Clarence Thomas and only failed because he stood up in front of the Senate hearing and called it what it was, “a high tech lynching”. An embarrassed Senate confirmed him… barely.

Of course, for the last eight years there has been a steady drumbeat of attack and ridicule on George Bush from the left, the media and entertainment figures. “Bush is stupid” is the mantra, although he has a degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard and had better grades than either Kerry or Dean. (Bill, Hillary and Obama have never released their college records). The hatred is quite amazing and cumulatively effective. Bush has the lowest approval rating of any President in recent history. Only two institutions have lower public approval ratings: Congress and the media. Hmmmmm?

Where does this hatred come from? The technique of teaching hatred is as old as Marxism itself. Karl Marx once boasted that “he was the greatest hater of the ‘so called positive’.” Lenin said, “We must teach our children to hate.” Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather-men, sixties bomber and admitted Marxist said, “Bring on the revolution, kill your parents, teach hatred.” He also is quoted as saying, “… the community organizer must first rub raw the resent-ments of the people and fan the latent hostilities to the point of overt expression.” I wonder if this is what famous “community organizer”, B. Obama was doing in Chicago? Just a thought.

Dr. Mark Hendrickson in a Townhall.com piece opines that while it’s a hate crime to express distain or denigrate gays and minorities, it is not to show outright hatred for people on the right who disagree with you politically. He also points out that the flip side of hatred is inflated self-love and self-righteousness so extreme that respect for other human beings diminishes and feelings of moral superiority allow for any tactics.

The tactics employed by the liberal-left are credited to the late Saul Alinsky, the philosophical guru of the radical movement in the late sixties. Alinsky wrote an extremely popular book called The Rules for Radicals. He said, “What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away."

A brief summary of Alinsky’s rules clearly demonstrates that today’s leftists are operating right out of his handbook.

The only question about means is, do they work?
· Attack multiple issues.
· Target the middle class rather than the poor.
· Decisions are not necessarily driven by the good of mankind.
· Pretend morality
· Make the enemy live up to their own book of rules.
· Lead people to class based interpretations of their own grievances.
· Use the church to further your agenda.
· Pick a target, freeze it, and polarize it.
· Ridicule is the most powerful weapon.

Hillary was a big fan of Alinsky while at Wellesley and wrote her senior thesis on his book. Her paper entitled, “There is Only One Fight… An Analysis of the Alinsky Model” was kept under wraps while the Clintons were in the White House. Written in her senior year, 1969, it only became public in 2001. In her 92 page paper she made it clear she found much to admire in Alinsky’s work and at the same time was already thinking ahead. One observation that stands out was that “politics needs an enemy to mobilize against.” Or, as Amanda Carpenter pointed out in “Human Events”, “the village needs an enemy.”

If you look at the last two rules on Alinsky’s list you get a pretty good feel for what has been going on in the last eight years and during the current Presidential campaign. The liberal-left, including their allies in the media and Hollywood have selected targets and polarized them and using ridicule and fueled by hatred tried to destroy them. The list is long: Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, Rice, Gonzales, Karl Rove, Halliburton and Big Oil, Wall Street and “The Rich”.
It explains how, acting in lockstep, they can ridicule Palin and attack anyone as “racist” who questions Obama’s relationships with Ayers, Reverend Wright, Syrian convicted felon, Tony Rezko or Jew hater, Louis Farrakhan. Ayers, Hillary and Obama were all fans of Alinsky. BHO even worked for the Industrial Area Foundation, an organization founded by Alinsky and financially supported by Clinton. Saul can certainly be credited with originating The Politics of Personal Destruction. Today’s leftists only perfected it.

Americans need to think carefully before putting Obama, clearly a radical and likely Marxist in the White House.

What happened?

Yeah, quite a stunning day if you watched your stocks plummet.

Here's my short theory on how this happened. Keep in mind that I am not an economist.

1). Congress has actively encouraged banks to give mortgages to the marginally qualified (and even to those not qualified based on usual credit scoring). Remember the term "Red lining"? Banks were sued for not granting loans in large enough numbers to people living in certain areas of the city.

2). Easy money by the Fed was a standard policy for way too long which encourages excesses in the markets (real estate in particular in this case). Recall the recent escalation of home values.

3). Congressional oversight of Freddie and Fanny was way too lax. F & F were generous with their campaign contributions and got a lot of slack.... too much. The WSJ and others (including McCain) were complaining about this for years. Zillions of dollars of the mortgages from #1 above were pawned off on F & F which everyone figured was safe as can be cause they are ostensibly backed by the US gov't.

4). Following the Enron mess Congress in their enthusiasm to do something passed new accounting laws called Sarbanes-Oxley. This imposed a new rule called "mark to market" on how assets are valued.

5). The wizards on Wall Street figured out how to package the shaky mortgages into bond-like instruments that could be resold to banks and other institutions. And, like all manias everybody figured the dance would go on forever. But, the music stopped. When the bubble burst, the new mark to market rule made the mortgage assets worth essentially zero and put otherwise profitable and substantial businesses in (and this is a technical term) deep shit. Banks have strict capital ratios to maintain to be recognized as solvent in the eyes of the FDIC. Holding assets that become instantly worthless does not look good on the balance sheet.

Of course, in a big mess there is plenty of blame to go around. However, the guys who are escaping blame thus far are the guys who should get the lion's share..... Congress. They have been essentially tossing money at this thing from the beginning (prob 700 or so billion) and now want to throw another 700 billion or more at the wall and see if that sticks. I am not at all convinced that the "bailout" is the right answer. However, in the final weeks of the election cycle it is clear that the politicians have made it their goal to use this situation as an opportunity to get elected or re-elected. And especially the Democrats who repeatedly blocked reforms of F & F and continue to encourage loans to the unqualified. Not good. Kind of like fiddling while Rome burns.

Unfortunately, I think Obama will get elected and prolong the misery. His many proposals mirror those of FDR who, if you analyze history honestly, prolonged the depression. (You can look this up). Obie thinks FDR was just great. McCain has not been swift on this crisis either.

Not fun.

More bailout discussion can be enjoyed (with a handful of Prozac) by reading Thomas Sowell's article on Townhall.com. There's also an interesting (although arguably incorrect in some aspects) article comparing the US economy to the Titanic.

Time for Humor?

With the stock market sliding downward like a flushed toilet and the Chicken Littles crying financial Armageddon if the US Congress fails to enact a $700 billion “rescue” package, this might be an excellent time to try to find something to chuckle about. Herewith a few tales to try to cheer you up.

"How Do You Know He's a King?"
In one of my early trips into the Bahamas as a deckhand aboard the Brigantine Yankee, we had one guest who set a new standard for obnoxiousness. Nothing pleased him and he complained in a loud voice about everything. He refused to follow any instructions from either the Captain or crew.

The “heads” on Yankee were about the size of a telephone booth and the marine toilets operated by a long pump handle that flushed the bowl out to sea. We had carefully instructed the passengers on the use of this balky equipment and warned them of their tendency to clog. We cautioned them not to throw anything into them, not to over pump and to contact a crewmember if they had a problem.

One afternoon as I strolled down the passageway I heard someone in one of the heads furiously pumping the toilet. It took only a few pumps to do the job and this guy (I could hear him muttering inside the tiny space) was levering the handle with determination. Uh oh, I thought.

Sure enough. Just as I was about to shout to the guy to stop pumping it backfired with a resounding blast. It sounded like a hand grenade had gone off in the enclosed space.

All went quiet and I became concerned. Then the door swung open slowly and, like a scene from a “Roadrunner” cartoon, out stepped our resident asshole. He was covered from head to toe with little bits of shit and toilet paper. He had it on all sides and even the top of his head, as the force of the blast had ricocheted off the walls and ceiling. Only the soles of his shoes were spared. With his appearance and the stunned look on his face, I had only one possible reaction—I fell down laughing.

***********

A Bunch of Blarney

In the 80s when our company represented the POS equipment manufacturer, VeriFone, I traveled frequently to San Francisco for meetings. On one trip after meeting with the sales managers we all headed out for dinner together. Maybe we had a few cocktails. It was a balmy evening so we all decided to walk back to the hotel. On the way I paused at the many beautiful buildings, put my nose up next to the granite facades and announced to my friends the identity of that particular granite. They all knew that I had been in the marble and granite business for 15 years before getting into the credit card market. I would sniff a wall of granite and announce, “Ah yes, this is Carnelian granite from South Dakota," or "this is Balmoral from South America.”

This supposed skill in identifying the source of granites from their smell particularly impressed one of the young woman sales managers. “You can actually tell the difference from the smell?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied, “It’s like wine taking the minerals and characteristics of the soil in which it’s grown.” We proceed down the street with her sniffing the walls along with me. She was not having much luck in discerning the difference, but I assured her it was an acquired skill.

We all headed home and I forgot about the whole thing. Then several months later, I happened to be talking on the phone to same gal early one morning. She was describing her vacation to Mexico and I only half listening as I sipped my morning coffee. She said, “I bought one of those marble chess boards down there—you know, with the green and white marble squares? You’ll have to sniff it for me and tell me what kind of marble it is.”

Well, had I been more alert that morning I might not have given away the game. As it was, I did a spit gag with my coffee and tried to choke back my laugh. Didn’t work. “You son-of-a-bitch”, she said and hung up. At the next sales meeting she tried to get someone else to fall for it by asking me to sniff the granite coffee table. Sadly for her, they were skeptical.

****************

Orange You Glad I Asked?

For my 50th birthday I got an unwelcome gift…. Adult Onset Diabetes. The tiny islet cells in my pancreas suddenly decided to quit making insulin. I had to go directly to the needle and injecting insulin. My doctor, a morose and humorless guy, sent me off to the hospital where a plus sized diabetes nurse trained me on how to properly load a needle and inject it. The latter skill we perfected by sticking the needle in and pumping it into an orange.

Insulin can be dangerous if you take too much, so when starting out doctors are naturally cautious in working you up to the appropriate dosage. I had been going along for several weeks taking the prescribed amount and plotting the results of my blood sugars on a graph on my computer. (No doubt this comes as a surprise for many--- that I could actually do that on a computer, I mean). My blood sugars were still running way too high and it was obvious that I needed to take more insulin. I decided to fax my graph to my trusty doctor.

As I mentioned, my doc had zero sense of humor and later retired from medicine because of severe depression. I had never seen the poor man smile. I faxed the blood sugar results to him with a note attached. It went like this:

Dear Dr. Imsey,

Things do not seem to be working out as you can see by the attached graph. I have been injecting the insulin into the orange for the last couple of weeks with poor results. Should I eat the orange?

Dick

He called me for an immediate appointment and when I walked in he actually had a smile on his face.

I hope you do too.

K-129

The recent brutal invasion of Georgia by the KGB dominated Russian government reminded me of a book I read about a year ago. I immediately put aside Elizabeth George’s latest mystery and trundled off to my bookshelves to find and re-read it. The author, Kenneth Sewell, is a nuclear engineer who served five years aboard the USS Parche, a fast attack submarine that was involved in a number of Cold War escapades. (Check out Blind Man’s Bluff for that story.) Sewell held top secret security clearances with the Departments of Defense and Energy and in 1991 gained access to recently declassified intelligence files of the US and Soviets. From these and interviews of many of the parties involved, Sewell wrote The Red Star Rogue, The Untold Story of a Soviet Submarine’s Nuclear Strike Attempt on the US. It is, without a doubt, a sobering tale and should serve as a warning to those who do not think the KGB is alive and well in Russia and capable of anything. It ain’t a novel, folks. This really happened.

On 7 March 1968 at a precise intersection of latitude and longitude some 350 miles from Honolulu, the nuclear equipped Soviet submarine, K-129, surfaced in the dark of night, blew up and promptly sank to the ocean floor some three miles below. While many of the details of this incident still remain classified, Sewell unearthed enough facts to paint a very convincing picture of what occurred. But first, a few words about the geo-political situation in early 1968.

· The US was heavily involved in the Vietnam War, devoting much blood and treasure to that conflict while the populace at home became increasingly disenchanted.
· The Soviets were spending 50% of their GDP on their military and facing the prospect of financial ruin in the process. Supporting communist insurgencies around the world also helped drain their coffers.
· The KGB led by Andropov and the Soviet central government led by Brezhnev struggled for power.
· The KGB had control of all nuclear weapons held by the Soviets.
· China had emerged as a new military power with nuclear capabilities.
· China and the USSR were at each other’s throats for dominance of International Communism. They were fighting each other on their long mutual border and the Soviets had one half of their total forces arrayed along that border.
· Mao Tse-tung had China in turmoil with his Cultural Revolution and became increasingly belligerent with both the Soviets and the US. He had threatened all out nuclear war with the US, contending China with its huge size would survive and the US would not.
· All branches of the Soviet military had their own special operations troops known as “spetnaz”. The KGB had them as well and they were known as “osnaz”. The Osnaz were especially nasty lads who specialized in “wet ops” (kidnapping and murder). They were also trained in the handling of nuclear weapons and all types of military equipment, including submarines. They operated in ten man teams.

On February 24, 1968 the diesel-electric Golf Class Soviet submarine K-129 sailed on an unscheduled mission from its homeport at Vladivostok. At the last minute an additional 11 men boarded the sub making the cramped boat seriously over crowded. The Soviets, always anal about the chain of command, required that all subs report in to Moscow at predetermined locations along their course. After the first check point K-129 was never heard from again. When the Soviets finally launched a massive sea search for their sub they concentrated on an area some 800 miles north of where the sub actually sank. That was where K-129 was supposed to be patrolling.

A US satellite had noted the explosion off Hawaii and had not deemed it of strategic importance. A few days later a U of Hawaii research ship discovered a radioactive oil slick and alarm bells went off. The US, not wanting to tip off the Soviets, utilized their own sub towing a deeps submersible equipped with lights and cameras and found the K-129 in short order. Of course, they snapped lots of damning photos and used the mechanical arm of the submersible to recover the nuclear bombs and who knows what else from the wreckage.

It soon became clear what had happened and why. The K-129 had surfaced to fire a nuclear tipped rocket at Honolulu and although they possessed the launch codes, they were unaware of the super secret fail-safe device installed on the weapon. The US had given Soviet scientists the technology for the fail-safe device to prevent a rogue group from an unauthorized firing . From the damage to the sub it was evident that the nuclear device had self destructed, igniting the rocket fuel below and in the one next to it in a massive explosion that broke the back of K-129. It went to the bottom in seconds.

It quickly became obvious what had been intended and how it had been accomplished. The Captain and crew went to their deaths locked in a forward compartment, so the sub had been in the control of the 11 mysterious men who boarded as the sub set sail. The location of K-129 also offered some clues.

The Golf II was capable of firing from underwater and at ranges of 800 miles. The Chinese subs had to be on the surface to fire and within 400 miles of the target. They also had to be at the precise intersection of latitude and longitude lines to successfully navigate to the target. Obviously, the intention was to obliterate Honolulu including the vast military presence there, plus the residents and tourists, and blame the whole thing on the Chinese. The plot had been hatched by the cynical KGB trolls in Moscow to take out two enemies at one shot by starting a nuclear war between China and the US. The KGB lads knew that in the aftermath, the US would have no means or intention to occupy a country the size of China, so they would just march across the border and take over.

The info was damning and volatile. A Johnson Administration exhausted with the Vietnam debacle wanted no part of it. The newly installed Nixon Administration and the aggressive Henry Kissinger had no such reservations. A copy of the report and photos got slid under the door of the Soviet Embassy in Washington one dark night. Heads rolled in Moscow and the nuclear weapons got taken out of the hands of the KGB.

Kissinger also began negotiations with China. If you ever wondered how the hawk Nixon ever managed to be the guy to make the historic break through in US Chinese relations, you can be pretty sure the photos and report on the sinking of K-129 played a major part. “And now,” as Paul Harvey likes to say, “you know the rest of the story.”

Post Script:
During the Cold War the Soviets employed what is known as the “Brezhnev Doctrine” as exemplified by the brutal invasion of the Soviet satellite, Czechoslovakia. Forty years later here we are again with Russian tanks rolling. You have to ask yourself: If the KGB was willing to instigate a nuclear war to further their ambitions, of what is the current KGB boss, Putin, capable?

The Chinese and the Russians

The Chinese spent a mere $43 billion dollars to put a big happy face on their image at the Olympic games. Of course, there is something slightly obscene in spending that kind of money when many of your citizens live in abject poverty and the victims of the recent earthquake still suffer in the streets. (Editor's note: $15 billion was spent by Greece on the Athens Olympics in 2004, and thousands of Chinese people were moved out of their homes to make way for the new state-of-the art stadiums.) The opening ceremonies were nothing short of spectacular and specifically designed to not only impress, but to give us a warm fuzzy feeling about the Chicoms. No one could disagree… amazing.

Once the euphoria of the ceremony had worn off, some irritating realities began to emerge.
· The draconian smog abatement program had not worked, a fact made clear to the world as the TV pictures of the early road cycling events traversed the globe.
· It turns out the darling little girl sweetly singing the song at the Olympic ceremony (I think it was entitled, “Workers Rise Up and Beat the Shit Out of the Capitalist Pigs”) was not actually singing the song. The girl doing the singing had been deemed not cute enough by the Chinese image-makers, so while her voice carried to the World, the cute one lip-synced the words. A unique Olympic Milli Vanilli moment.
· We also learned that to assure that the fireworks display went off perfectly, the broadcast images had been “digitally enhanced”.
· Journalists discovered that the remote parks specifically set aside to allow protesters to voice their objections remained curiously devoid of protesters… or anyone for that matter. Chinese officials calmly admitted that one required a permit to protest in the parks and that, regrettably, no permits had been issued. Well, that was neatly handled.
· We learned that despite public announcements, all the seats for the events were not sold. The Chinese brought in warm bodies off the streets to fill those empty seats.
· The gymnasts were spectacular, especially the tiny Chinese girls who flipped, twisted and tumbled with extraordinary ease. We later learned that these young girls had shown promise at age three and had been spirited away from their families to spend their childhood in gymnastics training camps. Some questions were also raised about their age since by Olympic rules the girls must be 16 years of age to compete. All of the sprites had the physical development of my 9 year-old grand daughter, but the Chinese assured us that the government issued passports for the girls all confirmed their legal status. Right. Looking at the US team and the Chinese girls side by side…. Well, the US girls had breasts, hips and the look one would expect from a mid to late teen young woman. The Chinese girls looked like 9 or 10 year olds. I thought back to the bad old days of the Cold War when the Romanian and Bulgarian gymnastic teams gave drugs to their teen women to prevent the onset of puberty. Had the Chicoms taken Vince Lombardi’s dictum to heart? (“Winning isn’t the most important thing, it’s the ONLY thing.”)

While the world’s attention focused on the exploits of Mike Phelps and the “Redeem Team” and with President Bush in the stands as First Fan, Russia decided this would be an excellent time to invade Georgia. Bush in the early days of his administration had badly misjudged Putin, declaring that ‘I have looked into his heart and see a man that I can deal with…' or something like that). He should have looked into his eyes instead. Any businessman worth his salt would have gazed into those rattlesnake eyes and quickly concluded that they would trust this guy no further than they could throw a fully-loaded 737.

During Bush’s two terms Putin has consolidated the KGB control over Russia by boldly eliminating the private ownership of oil assets by jailing or evicting the executives of the companies and putting them under State control. He has also callously jailed offending journalists, executing an enemy in London by adding a dollop of plutonium to his won-ton soup and rigging an election to put his hand picked puppet, Medeved, in the President’s slot. Russian democracy my ass. Russia is now the World’s number two exporter of oil and they covet the oil pipeline that runs through Georgia. With that asset in hand they have a complete strangle hold on the entire region and can bring Europe to heel.

Candidate Obama, from his vacation headquarters in Hawaii, immediately called for the intervention of the UN. That should give anyone paying attention an indication of the depth of his foreign policy knowledge. The UN has been powerless and less than ineffective in stopping genocide or international crisis for decades. Think Rwanda, Darfur, the Sudan or the Iraqi Oil for Food scandal for that matter. He also missed that Russia holds a seat on the Security Council and an unconditional veto. The enemies of the US are licking their chops at the prospect of having this naive reincarnation of Jimmy Carter sitting in the White House.

Meanwhile, the Democrats in Congress continue to plug their heads in the sand ostrich-style and ignore the realities of the strategic importance of the oil crisis. The newly-aggressive Russians and the less than friendly countries of the Middle East have the US in an extremely vulnerable position. With 70% of the US’s oil needs coming from foreign sources, they hold a gun to the head of the North American economy. And despite the optimism of T. Boone and others that alternative energy sources and conservation (inflate those tires folks!) is the ultimate answer, that nirvana is unlikely to arrive for at least a decade. Not drilling for domestic oil and fast-tracking nuclear power plants represents the most dangerous form of economic brinksmanship.

Speaking of T. Boone... I suggested in a recent piece (“This an’ That”, August 6) that someone should look into the possible economic benefit ol’ T-bone might have from his expensive ad campaign touting wind farms and natural gas. Voila! On cue author and journalist Michelle Malkin did just that in a piece entitled “Nan and the Big Wind Boondoggle”, August 13). Turns out, Pickens is the founder and principal stockholder of a company called Clean Energy Fuels Corporation (stock symbol CLNE) that is heavily into natural gas. He also founded a company called Mesa Power that (surprise, surprise) builds wind farms. Mesa has invested some $12 billion in a wind farm development in the Texas Panhandle. T-bone admits that these wind farms cannot be economically viable without government subsidies, so it should stun no one that he enthusiastically supports a bill in California to provide $10 billion in state and federal funds for renewal energy resources. Think wind and natural gas.

A liberal friend of mine frequently suggests that we should “follow the money” to ferret out the motives of our politicians. Yeah, let’s. Nancy Pelosi is a strong supporter of Mr. Pickens’s suggestions, often quoting his “We can’t drill our way out of this problem”. Does Nancy have a personal interest in this issue? Well, yes. She disclosed on her required financial forms that she had made up to $250,000 from her investment in Clean Energy Fuels Corp last year. She had been granted the right to purchase at the IPO $100,000 of CLNE stock.

If you’ve ever wondered how member of Congress can all retire as millionaires when they make a salary of $169,300, the IPO scam is the answer. It’s way better than taking the payoffs in cash and then hiding it in the freezer. In return for future favors Congressmen are invited to purchase blocks of companies about to go public and dump them right after the opening when the prices typically rise. Instant profit. Tom Foley of Washington, former Speaker of the House, over did this perk and it cost him his seat. Obviously, with a myopic press this quasi-legal method of lining the pockets of US politicians continues.

Don’t expect to see this cozy arrangement between T. Boone Pickens and Nancy Pelosi revealed anytime soon on the NBC Nightly News or the pages of the New York Times. Maybe the National Enquirer will get on the case. They were the only guys who picked up that John Edwards was screwing around on his cancer stricken wife and paying the mistress with campaign funds.

I guess I am just old fashioned in believing that responsible journalists would report the conflict of interest obvious in Pickens’s campaign and Pelosi’s clear involvement. Not likely. On the other hand, “USA Today” just layed off 3,000 people. Maybe, the public is catching on to the liberal bias in the mainstream media.