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.

Smart Mouth

I guess we have all said or done something impulsively without forethought and instantly regretted it. As the old saying goes, “Please start brain before engaging mouth”. I have probably committed this crime more than most having been cursed with a “smart mouth” and an atrophied sense of restraint. Herewith a few examples:

I was seated next to woman friend…. more my wife’s than mine… at a dinner party. Trying to make conversation, I leaned over and asked, “So, when is the baby due?” After a long pause while she glared at me she replied, “It was born two months ago. Asshole.” I deserved that.

*****

Attending the first business luncheon with the entire management of the company that had just hired me to take over their construction department, I nearly committed suicide. The founder of the company was a born again Christian and his son who ran the day-to-day operation also professed deeply held religious beliefs. About a dozen of us sat around the table in suits and ties in this “get to know you” lunch.

The company manufactured, among other things, precast concrete mausoleum crypts and the chief salesman had just returned from a cemetery convention. He was describing a management training exercise he’d attended there where each attendee had to speculate on their manner of death and what their eulogy might sound like. People around the table were offering their own theories on their demise and it seemed to be my turn to offer something on the subject. I blurted out (obviously without much forethought), “I guess I’d be found shot in the back with my pants around my ankles.” During the long pause that followed and as I took in the open mouthed stares around the table, I had visions of receiving my walking papers immediately after lunch. Finally, and to my great relief, the old man laughed. Everyone else joined in and I finally exhaled.

*****

In another luncheon experience my staff and I were entertaining a couple of clients at a local restaurant. There were a half dozen of us gathered at a round table and ordering post lunch coffee. My CFO was one of those people blessed with the metabolism of a hyperactive hummingbird. No matter what he ate he never gained an ounce. Those of us then firmly in the grip of middle age and not wanting to order new trousers every six months had to watch what we ate. He always ordered desert and that would have been OK except he always had to rub it in.

He was sitting directly across from me with his back to the windows, our clients on either side of him. They set his desert, a pudding of some sort with a healthy dollop of whipped cream and a perky red cherry perched on top, in front of him while the rest of us watched. He said something like, “Nothing for you guys? Heh, heh! I always have desert. Gotta have my sweets.”

I thought, “Screw you” and quietly picked up my spoon. I looked over his shoulder out the window and said, “Wow! That’s the shortest skirt I’ve ever seen!” This guy was a bit more of a letch than most, so naturally, he spun around to see this short skirt. When he turned I stood, reached across the wide table and with my spoon plucked that cherry neatly off the top of his desert. It left a nice divot in the whipped cream. Popping the cherry into my mouth I quickly sat back down and tried to look innocent as he turned around.

“I don’t see any…” he started before seeing all the startled expressions around the table. He then looked down at the gouge in his whipped cream and said, “Hey!” The clients laughed so no harm done there.

I should have fired that guy. He later cost me a lot of money.

*****

When we got back from the Gemini XI recovery (described in an older post) the six of us, the “frogmen” who had done the recovery, were being interviewed by a local TV station. They were filming the thing and planned to show it on the evening news that night. As I described, Denny Bowman and his two guys had the primary recovery job and my two guys and I were the back up and also tasked with the recovery of the R & R module. The interviewer asked me. “What were you thinking about as the astronauts were coming down and you were about to leave the aircraft carrier?”

I replied, “I was hoping Denny’s helicopter would not start.” Not sure if that made the news or not. I didn’t watch it.

*****

When our business started doing well in the late ‘80s we bought a second home on a point looking west on Lac LaBelle in Wisconsin. When my neighbor agreed to sell me 150’ of waterfront adjoining our two properties, we decided to tear down the house and build our dream home. The old place was actually pretty nice, especially compared to the cottage next door, but the two lots together were now worth more than the house. It had to go. I hired a guy with a bulldozer to nuke the place and left on a business trip.

When I got back to the airport I drove straight out to the house where the old grizzled operator was just climbing down off his D-8 Cat. The house was now a pile of rubble and the guy must have been looking at the old cottage next door as he tore our place to pieces. I walked up to the guy and said without a bit of preplanning on my part, “Where in the f*** is my house?!”

Well, I thought the poor man was going to have a heart attack. He turned white, then red, then kind of purple. His mouth flapped open and shut with nothing coming out and I thought, “Shit, I’ve killed this poor guy.” It took me about 15 minutes to calm him down and assure him that he had nuked the right house and everything was just fine. Felt bad about that one. The devil made me do it.

Of course, I’ve got a few more instances where my mouth started well before my brain. But, a mixed crowd reads this blog and I don’t want to offend anyone more than absolutely necessary.

This an’ That

Nancy Pelosi decided to send Congress home on a five-week vacation rather than allow a vote on a bill to allow drilling offshore. She feared the House might pass the bill. She was also mindful of the 70%+ of Americans who now want drilling and instructed her Democrat colleagues to tell their constituents they actually favored drilling. Cynical? Or, just politics as usual? Both me thinks.

The Democrats find themselves in a box. After years of opposing looking for oil in likely places and to stay in the good graces of the environmental movement (and keep the cash flowing), they are now facing an electorate pissed off at $4.00 per gallon gasoline. Pelosi and her associates have been spinning a lot of BS to attempt to confuse the issue.
· Drilling won’t give us any oil for ten years.
· The oil companies have plenty of leases to drill on and they are not drilling on them.
· The GOP favors the big bad oil companies and won’t consider alternative fuels or technologies.
· And, the most laughable of all: Nancy wants to “save the planet”.

First of all, I am grateful that God has granted the power to Nancy to save the planet. But, before she tackles the global warming problem, I wish she would use these considerable powers to get rid of Iran’s nukes. They pose a more immediate threat to civilization than global warming, which, if it exists at all, is not likely to trouble us much until the end of the century.

The other Democrat excuses don’t hold much water. If the leases currently held by oil companies had oil, does any sane person believe that at $120-140 per barrel they would not be drilling like crazy? The ten-year excuse is simply smoke. Numerous reports indicate several deposits could come on line quickly. More importantly, some of the speculation in the market would diminish with the prospect of new supplies becoming available. (Note: I believe that the current fallback in oil prices reflects the oil producing countries pulling back from buying oil futures and bidding up prices. I suspect they fear killing the goose that lays the golden egg if prices stay at $140pb.)

Nowhere in the anti-drilling propaganda is there any mention of the $700 billion dollars sent annually to purchase oil from countries unfriendly to the US. “The largest wealth transfer in history” as many have described it. Not a word from Nancy. On second thought, perhaps she should concern herself with saving the US economy before devoting herself to saving the planet. Just a thought.

T. Boone Pickens, famous oilman, has been running expensive ads touting wind power. No one has questioned how big an investment T. Bone has in wind power and if his public relations campaign may be self serving. Studies I have read recently suggest that it would take an investment of several trillion dollars over the next decade to achieve even 20% of the USA’s electricity needs via wind and solar. And, the wind does not always blow, nor does the sun always shine. Backup conventional sources of electricity will need to be in place to cover shortfalls. So, why not just build nuclear plants? No carbon gases and it’s the least expensive solution. It would take solar panels covering roughly the area of New Mexico to generate the power produced from one 4000kw nuclear facility. Nah. Greens don’t like nuclear. Too risky.

Obama has been slipping in the polls since his triumphal visit to Europe and the collective pants-wetting of the MSM. Cooler heads dissected his lofty rhetoric and found a lack of substance in his speeches. Some objected to his presumptive attitude of having already won the Presidency. (Is that the Presidential Seal on the podium there Obie?) Back home he continued to tack to the middle on some issues, a not unusual approach by left-leaning candidates. However, his flip-flopping on critical issues leaves many Americans wondering what he really stands for and what he would actually do as President. This uncertainty, I think, explains his lack of success against what can only be described as a weak and confused McCain campaign. About the only thing of which we can be certain: Taxes under Mr. Obama will go up….. a lot.

I listened to BHO’s Michigan speech on energy. Of course, he proposed massive government spending to help displaced Michigan autoworkers. No surprise there. He’s got to carry Michigan to get elected. His big proposal is to take away ALL of the profits of oil companies and give every family a $1000 gift to offset high energy prices. Demonizing the oil companies has been a traditional approach of the anti-drilling Democrats. Exxon did report record profits for the quarter. However, if you actually look at the numbers you will see that they paid $10.5 billion in taxes and their profits were only 9%. Does Obama suggest we confiscate the entire profit margin of every company that makes a 9% profit? For the record… that would cover just about every major corporation in the US, most of which make substantially more than that. Insanity or socialism? Hmm… same thing.

Obama’s only mention of nuclear was to say we needed to investigate ways to make it safe and to safely store the waste. IOW, forget about it during his administration. More insanity. He did also mention encouraging fuel-efficient cars through subsidies. If inexpensive fuel-efficient cars are available, people will buy them. But first, they will have to run the old gas-guzzler that sits in the driveway into the ground since it is now worthless as a trade in. He also mentioned keeping your tires inflated as an important piece of his plan. Key the laugh track.

“Bush Lied, Thousands Died”: An update. Recently the US quietly shipped 550 tons (I say tons) of yellow cake uranium found in Iraq to Canada. Much has been made of the lack of WMDs in Iraq. If Saddam had no aspirations for nuclear weapons, why the yellow cake? This piece of news was widely ignored, as were previous discoveries of artillery shells filled with chemical weapons. No one seemed particularly concerned that Saddam had previously gassed 5000 Kurds or used chemical weapons on the Iranians during the Iran-Iraq War. Never understood how liberals could claim he didn’t have them when he had previously used them. Nor do I understand the claim the Iraq war was “all about oil”. If we invaded Iraq for the oil, how come it’s now at $130 bucks a barrel? Oh, I get it. We went after Iraq’s oil so there would be a shortage and therefore high prices and Dick Cheney and his pals would all get rich. Gee, sometimes I’m so dumb.