I've been doing some thinking about this whole energy thing and it seems to me that this complicated problem lends it self to a not-so-complicated solution.  It just calls for a comprehensive energy plan.  Of course, this means government interference in private business, which I am generally opposed to, but in this case I think it is warranted.

First, government has got to to give alternative energy folks some breathing room. There are several alternative sources of energy that are economically viable at oil prices of $100 a barrel.  However, given the volitility of oil prices, and the vast resources required to start these alternative energy plants, the risk is too great. Now I'm not proposing a subsidy.  What I propose is a tax.  Basically, every barrel of conventional oil sold in the US would have to sell for at least $100.  If the price falls below that level, a tax is automatically imposed to bring it back up.  This gives the energy companies the stability they need to invest the sums necessary to bring new energy sources online.

Secondly, we need to vastly increase our electric generating capacity and the infrastructure to deliver this power.  Why electricity?  Because we have most of the infrastructure in place already, and because electricity is relatively easily converted to most forms of energy use.  Heating, cooling, light, even transportation can be powered by electricity.  How do we do this?  Well nuclear power is the most reasonable method of generating electricity so we obviously have to make building nuclear power plants more attractive. 

Finally, we need to develop some of the other proven energy sources that we have.  I'm not talking about wind, solar, geothemermal or any of the other green dreams.  I'm thinking more in terms of coal.  I know coal is dirty, coal is evil, coal is also the most abundent source of chemical energy on the planet.  Coal doesn't have to be burned to produce energy.  The technology to convert coal to gas or liquid has existed since WWI.  It has just not been economically practical.  As an added side benefit, the by products of converting coal to liquid can be used to produce electricity, reducing the costs even further.

Now some folks will scream that this is all well and good some 10 years down the road...but what about right now.  That is the truly beautiful part.  I do believe that this together with some incentives for the buying (not production) of electric or fuel cell vehicles could wean us off of foreign oil entirely.  If such a program were implemented quickly and forcefully, the oil producers would have very little choice but to increase production and reduce prices.  Basically, the handwriting would be on the wall that their product has a limited shelf life and they better sell while there is a market.  The floor on their prices would keep this from driving the alternative energy sources out of the market, while also ensuring that they would be priced out of the market themselves as the other forms of energy come online.

Seems simple enough to me.

I know this is not new, but HRC's latest fairy tale is an insult to all service members past and present, not to mention police officers and anyone else who has ever truly put their life on the line.  I spent 25 years as a service man, and have been shot at on a couple of occasions.  It is not something you forget.  As I said before, the real insult in telling a lie is that it implies that she thinks we are stupid enough to believe it.  And, just to prove she is even worse than Obama, she tells a lie that she ought to know is easily disproved.

Short, sweet and to the point.   She didn't "mis-speak" she lied, and she owes a lot of folks an apology.

I've been away, but with so much going on, this seemed like the time to pick up the Blog again. 

I've been following with great interest the firestorm surrounding Barrack Obama in the past couple of weeks.  I've read numerous pundits saying what he should have said or what he could have said and have come to some conclusions.

Barrack Obama's biggest problem is that he is a fraud.  He wanted to keep the focus on the post-racial aspect of his presidency while still drawing the advantage of being a black man...at least in terms of his skin color.  The problem is, Obama didn't have the "black experience".  His father is African, not African-American, he did not grow up in the inner city or have to suffer through sub-standard schools.  He attended the best schools in the nation and married a woman who did the same. 

He could not stand up and tell the truth last week about his membership in a church led by a fire-breathing, racist, radical, because the truth is that he needed the church, with just such a pastor, to burnish his credentials with the constituents he hoped to lead in Chicago. His biggest mistake was in not leaving the church as soon as he was elected to the Senate.  So...he is caught on the horns of a dilema of his own making.  to be successful locally, he had to convert himself into the black man he was not.  To be successful nationally, he has to distance himself from that black man.

Personally, I think the color of Obama's skin is irrelevant.  I think he is an America hating liberal, not necessarily a racist.  My biggest problem is that he is a liar.  I used to tell my children when they were small that lying is the biggest insult of all, because it implies that you think I am stupid enough to believe the lie.  Obama has shown by is actions just how stupid he thinks we are...not only has he lied to us, but he didn't even lie well.  Just how stupid does he think we are?

I'm trying to do better at keeping up with the blogging thing...and news like today's really helps.

I just read that Obama is proposing mandatory health care insurance for all Americans.  Although the details are a little skimpy it looks like it has something to harm just about everyone.  All employers would be forced to contribute...thus raising their costs.  All employees will be forced to have insurance....thus reducing take home pay, and the incentive to work for some.  All insurance companies will be forced to insure without regard to pre-existing conditions, thus raising their costs, which they will pass on to consumers.  Just as a kicker...he'd repeal the "tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans" thereby reducing the amount of tax money coming in (liberals just don't get that part) and increasing the cost to the government.

I did a little quick number crunching, giving Obama every benefit of the doubt I could...and this is what I come up with.  My health insurance with my company is about $5500 a year.  Now, according to Obama, I would save $2500 a year with his program...but that money has to come from somewhere....so I'll just discount that claim.  Let's just look at the 45 million uninsured folks Obama claims this will cover.  And let's assume that they are in families averaging 3 persons.  That leaves 15 million new insurance policies at a total cost of $82.5 BILLION dollars annually. 

As I said...I'm giving him all sorts of benefit of the doubt...not increasing the costs due to insuring folks with pre-existing conditions, assuming that cost won't be higher for the type of plan that congress has versus my little plan, and still this just seems outrageous.

Anyone want to take bets on when/if the MSM calls him on it?

In my current position, I get to work with all of the colleges in greater New Orleans.   One thing I have noticed is that the five private colleges in the city have done much better in recovering from Katrina than have the three state schools.  Tulane, Loyola, Our Lady of Holy Cross, and Xavier are, for all intents and purposes, operating in full pre-Katrina mode.  Wandering around any of these campuses you'd never know the extent of the devastation right after the storm.  Dillard University is not quite there yet...but is substantially on the road to recovery.

The state schools on the other hand, still show the effects of Katrina.  Southern University at New Orleans is still completely located in trailers, the Student Union at the University of New Orleans is still mostly closed due to roof damage, the bottom floor of the engineering building is still bare concrete.  Even the Health Sciences Center of Louisiana State University (the LSU medical school) is operating without a first floor.

Why the difference?  One would be tempted to say money explains it all.  But they would be mistaken.  Neither Xavier nor Holy Cross is a rich school, and LSUHSC is a well funded medical school.

More racial bias?  Tulane and Loyola are disproportionately white...but Dillard and Xavier are both Historically Black Colleges.

What then?  The answer is simple.  Responsibility.

Scott Cowen, the president of Tulane University said in remarks that he realized that Tulane was responsible for Tulane and that if they waited on outside help, the school might not survive.  The state schools are still waiting for FEMA to come to the rescue.

Now...in the immortal words of Bill Cosby, I told you that so I could tell you this...In the real world we are responsible for the consequences of our actions and for results.  There are zero points for trying. 

I cannot count the number of times in the last 15 years I have had someone who did poorly on a test, a paper or an exam tell me "but I tried as hard as I could."  Leaving aside for a moment, that this statement is usually demonstrably false....it is immaterial.   In January, I would venture to say that Ohio State's football team "tried as hard as they could".  They lost.  No one cares how hard you try when you lose.  We want the baby, not the labor.

I place the blame for this squarely on our public school system.  For at least the past 25 years, we have celebrated effort over achievement.  As long as a student is "working as hard as they can," they will usually do well, even if they have no grasp of the content area.

The generations that started this way are moving into levels of responsibility and style over substance is trying to take over.  We have to remind them that when you look at the scoreboard at the end of the game, there are still no points for trying (except in rugby).

Winston Churchill supposedly responded to Neville Chamberlains "Peace in Our Time" appeasement of Nazi Germany speech by saying "I wish to thank the gentleman for proving that there is no such thing as unutterable stupidity".  I wish to thank James Baker and crew for proving that nothing has changed.

The Baker report on Iraq is just so much nonsense.  It is more of a fairy tale than a plan.

Once upon a time, I taught problem solving to young captains at an Army school.  The second part of the Army's problem solving process is to gather information pertaining to the problem.  We taught the captains that there were two types of information.  Facts--readily observable or verifiable..i.e. things that had already happened and could be verified, or the current state of things e.g "it is currently raining outside."  Then there were assumptions:--statements DRAWN FROM FACTS about the mostly likely future state of things.  My students rapidly discovered that they had been taught the incorrect use of assumptions their entire lives.  My young captains used assumptions the same way that the Baker group does.  They make assumptions about the way they hope things will be, regardless of what the past says.  Frequently, these assumptions are the linchpin of the plan and when they fail, the plan fails with them.

Baker and friends assume that some good will come out of bringing Syria and Iran into the "discussion".  There is no evidence that bringing in third parties has ever helped in a middle eastern crisis...but if their assumption is incorrect, the entire report is worthless.

I used to make my captains show me a clear line from facts to assumptions.  Frequently, they, like Mr Baker made assumptions based on nothing more than their desire to support a conclusion they had already made.  When they did, I showed them the error of their ways and returned their briefings to them with a large red "RE-DO" across the top.  I think the President ought to get out his red pen as well.

Revelation 3:16 "So because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of My mouth"

That passage came to me as I was looking over the results of the latest election last night.  It is actually one of my favorites and it occurs to me that it explains a lot about not only this election, but the last several going all the way back to 1980.

I'm an old retired Army officer, so I tend to see things in black and white (well not 100% true, I do see the 16 basic colors all guys see).  I think that Republicans do well to realize that most of the electorate is the same way, and we appreciate that in our politicians.

Take a look at the list of folks who were defeated during the last election cycle.  How many of the Republicans that lost their jobs were "far right wing ideologues".  I may be mistaken, but I can't think of any.  Lincoln Chafee?  Mike DeWine?  Nope...these were folks who tried to "triangulate".  They worked hard at "bipartisanship".  Meanwhile, while the liberals were praising them and saying "nice doggie" they were looking for the rock that they bashed them with. 

In a word, they were lukewarm, and the voters spit them out.   Look at Ronald Reagan.  Everyone knew where he stood.  Even those folks who didn't appreciate his views understood them and respected him for standing by them.  When George Bush was popular, people said the same thing about him.  When the Republicans put a clear position out in front of the people, the people respond.  The Democratic victories in the past 25 years have not been because the Democrats articulated a better plan.  The Democrats won because the Republicans put forth lukewarm candidates (i.e. George Bush I, Bob Dole).

In that vein, putative Republican front runner for 2008, John McCain is another loser.  If we give the people a clear choice between conservatives and liberals, they will ALWAYS come down on the side of conservatives.  If we try to split the difference, we lose.

So....let's suck it up and show some courage.  Let conservatives be conservatives, let's quit pussyfooting around issues and stand up for what we believe.  We may still lose (although I seriously doubt it) but at least we will have our dignity and will have lost honestly.

On monday the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments on the latest affirmative action case.  One of the interesting things about being an  ORF (Old Retired Fart)  is that you have seen it all.  My dad use do say I had mind like a steel trap (rusty and illegal in 37 states) and the fact is that I don't forget a whole lot.  In this case, I remember most of the things I've been told about affirmative action. 

Affirmative action started out (or so I was told) as a way of making sure that minorities were made aware of opportunities.  There was no preference given to anyone...there was just a special effort to make sure that minorities were aware that things were now different...they had the same opportunities as anyone else.  Now I don't see how any reasonable person could have objected to that in the 1960's.

That phase did not last too very long, and we entered a phase of "making up for past injustices".  The idea then was that affirmative steps needed to be taken to "make up for" the discrimination of the past.  So quota's were introduced, and we began to track numbers.  That was where the problems started.  In the first place, not everyone who received the benefit of affirmative action had ever been affected by "past injustices".  A PhD from Kenya could get off a plane and immediately be entitled to preferences based solely on the color of his skin.  That didn't make a whole lot of sense. 

Apparently that one didn't make much sense to the courts after a while either, and we proceeded through a phase of having to prove an injustice was done, to developing remedies to specifically correct those injustices.  Affirmative action appeared to be on the way out.

Then came the idea of "diversity".  Now this may be the most singlehandedly Orwellian piece of logic I have ever encountered.  Let us review the bidding.  The entire idea being pursued here is that all men should be treated equally.  Now, no reasonable person believes that everyone should be treated exactly equally in all respects.  If you cannot bring yourself to speak to a stranger because of a phobia of strangers, you are not going to be treated equally as a sales person.  If you cannot do basic math, you are not going to be treated equally as an engineer.  But, generally speaking, people should not be discriminated against based on things that make no difference...like skin color. 

So what is the deal with diversity?  Is skin color just the color of a person's skin?  If so, then what difference does it make what percentage of a school has a certain color skin?  We don't claim any benefit in diversity of eye color, or hair color?  Diversity proponents would argue that people of a certain color bring something else to a classroom.  This something else is "diversity".  But what is diversity?  Its proponents would argue that persons of a certain skin color bring a different view, a different perspective to the classroom.  But isn't this just saying that all of "these" people have something in common other than the color of their skin?  And while it is impermissible to discriminate based on the color of someone's skin, who's to say that it is impermissible to discriminate based on whatever this "other thing" is?  I would argue no one.

So, you can't have it both ways.  Either skin color tells us nothing other than skin color, in which case it is as wrong to discriminate based on skin color as it would be to discriminate based on eye color.  Or, skin color also indicates other things about the individual...in which case it is permissable to design a class or a school to ensure these "things" are added to the diversity of the classroom, but it is also permissable to design a class or a school to ensure that these same "things" are kept out of the class room.

Am I the only one who had a Nixon flashback when they saw the title of Senator Chuck Hagel's piece in the Washington Post this weekend?

Thirty-three years ago, another Republican announced the signing of a peace treaty in Vietnam to bring "peace with honor".  I reread the transcript of that speech this morning and was mentally assaulted by the idea that either (1) Chuck Hagel is the most politically tone-deaf pol I have ever heard of or (2) Chuck Hagel thinks that the entire readership of the Washington Post has the IQ of a bowl of leftover turkey soup.

There are some amazing similarities in the two pieces.  Nixon spoke of the peace as being necessary not only for us..but for the entire world.  Hagel speaks of our leaving as being key to peace in the region.  Both men speak glowingly of the men and women fighting the war and those who sacrificed their lives in the cause.  Yet both make that sacrifice meaningless by surrendering in the name of peace.

Senator Hagel is badly misguided.  Iraq is much worse than Vietnam in the sense that, should we withdraw, the 2 million dead in Vietnam will be a fraction of the dead in the middle east that comes from our abandonment.  Also, Vietnam had a limited ability to effect change in the world as a whole.  It was much more symbolic than structural.  Iraq is different. 

Senator Hagel is correct in one assertion.  He states that regional powers will fill regional vacuums, and they will move to work in their own self interest.  Indeed they will.  Make no mistake about it, if we abandon Iraq, regional powers will move in our place.  Those regional powers may or may not be nation-states, but whatever they are, their interests will directly conflict with ours.

This is what makes Iraq different.  An Iraq controlled by an entity that has as its purpose the destruction of America becomes a safe haven for terrorists and extra-state actors.  And we will once again be severely weakened in the eyes of an enemy that worships the strongest horse in the race.

The solution in Iraq is something entirely different...but more on that another time.