The Economy - What No One is Saying

The Economy and Energy: I find it interesting with all of the talks about the economy - basically no one has proposed anything known to really work.  OK, not raising taxes is smart.  It is a start - but the tax rates are already there - so how will that change anything? 

What I find interesting is that President Obama often has in the same speech, talked about trying to do something positive for the economy, while at the same time restricting access to one or more forms of energy.  Any development by any nation has greatly hinged on the the access to affordable energy.  Don't believe me?  I challenge you to find a case historically that differs with what I am saying.

Lets look at what our government's policy on energy is or has been recently:

More regulations on Nuclear Power.  This has been done and now there are even plants that will shut down sooner than scheduled, because of regulations that have basically been "retroactively applied" to existing plants.  With no more Nuclear plants being built, and not even planned - this is ridiculous.  If I bought into conspiracy theories, I would definitely think this was part of some sort of "plan" to attack our energy and economy.  Nuclear is the most efficient way to produce electricity known to man.

America hates using coal.  While we are the world's largest producer of coal, an we are exporting it to our competitors, we are not ready to use it ourselves.  All is talked about "alternative energy sources" which all have to be subsidized or we would not even be using it now.  I am not against wind power - but even with subsidies I will explain why it will not work in the short term.

Baseless moratoriums on offshore drilling.  The US has moratoriums against offshore drilling.  This somehow includes in international waters.  The bad part about this - other countries can drill in the same places we are banning US companies from drilling.  You may claim that this is based on the horizon platform aka BP oil spill.  That was an excuse to put a choke hold on American oil while helping our competitors from over seas.

The Wind Problem: I am not going to get into all the hype about "alternative" energy sources, but they are not efficient.  I said I would explain about wind power.  I have studied it a bit as Texas produces more wind power than anyone- as much as 6,200-megawatts a day. The problem is - when you build a power plant - there is infrastructure designed to transmit the power into the electrical grid.  Wind farms do not have such a transmission line in place - and engineers are yet to find a good way to do this as wind farms are not a power plant - but many small power plants.  The current grid cannot even support what energy is generated today in Texas.  Texas is spending over $5 billion to address this issue - but if many more wind farms pop up - look for more big spending.

The Answer - Easy Access to Affordable Energy: When you need to build your economy - you need to have easy access to affordable energy.  Yes, it is that simple. China has this, India has this.  The US does not have this.  The bad part is, it is all self inflicted.  We had it in the 80's and even the beginning of the 90's when our economy was strong.  Any real talk about helping the economy has to include accessing affordable energy.

I am not against "going green"  but we need to take much more measured changes.  We need to quit listening to the Chicken Littles of this world "The sky is falling" (or getting a hole in it, etc).  We need cheap energy.  - Stay safe!

Private Rockets in Space

It looks like the private company SpaceX will be launching a capsule into orbit soon.  There have been successful tests of the engines and all systems are go - for now.  SpaceX is owned by the same guy that owns Paypal.  Yes, Elon Musk is filthy rich.  I am a Paypal fan and so kudos to him.  SpaceX has a contract with NASA to send supplies to the space station for around $1.6 billion.  Supposedly cheaper than NASA doing it themselves.

I wonder if the company sells advertizing space on the side of the rocket like NASCAR.  It would be smart to do that, and it could help off-set the costs of operation.  I do not know how the company got the contract - but it does not surprise me that the CEO of the Tesla car company has a space contract with NASA with the current administration.

Good luck to SpaceX and may you have a lot of competition soon.


UPDATE:
The spacecraft successfully lifted off at 10:43 EST on 8 Dec 2010.

Remember to Stay Safe!

More Wasted Stimuls Another Bailout Bust

So with all of the wasted stimuli - why do some in power, including the Preident, think that the American people are just too dumb to get it?  After all, if he just explained it better... He does consider himself a great communicator - so why can't he then?  Back to facts.


Some company called Solyndra in California got a LOT of stimulus money.  Why?  Because it was a favorite.  It has "green energy"  it makes solar panels.  It is a privately owned corporation.  It was supposed to go public, but.  Yes, an Obama but. Oh yeah, this company apparently is or maybe was the cornerstone of Obama's highly touted green-energy future. Now it is a Rupublicans taking over the house - size political embarrassment. Solyndra got a $535 million Department of Energy loan guarantee. In June it cancelled a  public offering because their auditor PricewaterhouseCoooper said its operating losses and negative cash flow show it is unlikely to be able to continue operations.

The company received bailout funds and spent them on executive salaries and to build a plant.  Now they are closing the plant.  This is the company that Obama said in May :"leading the way toward a brighter and more prosperous future."

Get the story here.

Here is a list of some of the executives:
BRIAN HARRISON: PRESIDENT AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
DR. CHRIS GRONET: FOUNDER AND CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
BEN BIERMAN: EVP, OPERATIONS AND ENGINEERING
W.G. BILL STOVER, JR.: SVP, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER
JOHN GAFFNEY: SVP, CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT AND GENERAL COUNSEL
CLEMENS G. JARGON: PRESIDENT EMEA & CORPORATE SVP
KAREN ALTER: SVP, MARKETING
CORBY C. WHITAKER: VP of NORTH AMERICA SALES

These folks got paid to operate a failing company with your and my hard earned tax dollars.  Thanks Mr. President.

Stay Safe!

al Qaeda Attacks Church

For reasons yet to be made clear - a group of muslim extremists attack a Church in Baghdad.  While Churches within Baghdad have been fairly well protected by police in general, this one suffered.  The Islamic State of Iraq  claims responsibility for the attack. The al Qaeda group in Iraq, said it would "exterminate Iraqi Christians" if Muslim women in Egypt  were not freed.  You can get the whole story here: http://www.latimes.com/news/la-fgw-iraq-church-attack-20101101,0,5355537.story?track=rss

At least 52 were killed including 10 police, and 67 were wounded.  It is unknown how many of the Christians were killed by the terrorists and how many were killed by the police in the rescue attempt.

It is a shame this kind of "news" gets little attention.

Whatever you do - be safe!

Yemen, Yemen What are You Doing?

One has to wonder about what has been going on with Yemen lately.  Ok, not lately, as if you go back to the USS Cole, about which nothing has been done, by ANY administration, Yemen has been a sore spot for the US for a long time.

I do not hate Yemen, I have friends from Yemen.  I believe some in Yemen have even lost their lives to fight Al Qaeda.  However, we know that Yemen is home to terrorist training grounds. We also know that Yemen is the source of at least two explosive devices and some more hoax devices that were destined for the US today.  What the bad guys have planned on a total scale so far -  who knows?  The explosive devices were destined for Jewish houses of worship in Chicago.  Right now it is unknown why those targets.

Jihadists are anti-semitic which does not make sense to anyone outside of the jihadists.  Judaism is not a threat to Islam in any way or fashion.  Some simpletons believe it is an Israel Palestine thing, but all you need to do is look around the world at what the jihadists are doing to see otherwise.

I am hoping that at least a large part of the threat has been caught, but we may not know for a few days.  I will post more when I know more and feel free to give your analogy in comments.

Jeff Hart - American Hero

Who is Jeff Hart?  He is a contractor from Colorado who was drilling for water in Afghanistan for US Military bases.  He was called upon for a very special mission.  Instead of drilling for water, he would be drilling to save lives.

By now everyone has heard of the trapped Chilean Miners who have survived nearly 70 days underground.  They are heros of a sort in their own right for supporting each other and keeping each other alive and well in dire circumstances.

Hart was called upon after Geotec Boyles Bros who was originally in charge of drilling.  They were successful in drilling a small five-inch diameter hole,  but they needed assistance to make a hole big enough to rescue the miners.  That company called upon Layne Christensen CEO Andrew Schmitt and asked for help.  He knew just the crew to suggest the job.  The crew was headed by Jeff Hart and driller Matt Staffel and helpers Doug Reeves and Jorge Herrera.   Hart had to go to Chile from Afghanistan.


They got special equipment including a special drill bit to make the 26" hole to rescue the miners.  The drill bit was shipped for free by UPS.  Kudos to UPS for that!    In the process they broke one bit on an underground steel  support beam and had to get another.  The team drilled for 33 days straight.

Once the hole was completed Hart left the mine and watched from Santiago - because he wanted the rescue to be about the miners, and Chile - not about him.

Jeff Hart - American Hero.

Why Cap and Traders Chose Carbon Dioxide

CO2 is Evil: There are all sorts of studies that exist that say CO2 is a “greenhouse gas” and is a major cause of global warming er I mean climate change.  The term global warming has been basically dropped since global warming is no longer the argument as there is no real indicator of global warming.  CO2 was made the culprit for one simple reason.  It is the air we breathe.  Not inhaling as much as exhaling, but it is still the air we breathe.

The empty argument: No one has yet shown that you can “overload” the atmosphere with CO2 that will not be handled by the environment itself through increased vegetation growth or other processes.  There is no documented evidence that we could actually make too much CO2 for the planet if we tried.  CO2 is something easy to measure, so we can try to charge people for putting CO2 into the atmosphere.  CO2 is also a gas that is released from a perfect operating internal combustion engine.  Along with water it is the emission created by a perfect operating internal combustion engine.

Why CO2?:  CO2 was chosen, because it can be shown that the US puts more of that out than any other nation.  The whole purpose of cap and trade is redistribution of wealth.  If you follow the money of cap and trade, you can see this.  Of course some of the “environmental minded” people will greatly profit from and cap and trade system that has been proposed so far.    Also they use the excuse that “developing countries” are affected more by global warming er climate change than “rich countries.”  This is their justification for “punishing” the rich countries with this system. They also claim they know what CO2 levels were in the 1790’s when they do not really know and are claiming that increased industrialization is the main cause on “increased CO2 in the atmosphere.”

Fear Mongering: Arguments for applying any sort of cap and trade rely on straw man arguments, fear mongering (monster storms), and name calling (deniers) as their main talking points.  Scientific evidence about global warming climate change caused by man never includes information about the Sun’s mean temperature.  Since the Sun is the earth’s main source of heat you would think any reasonable study concerning global warming climate change would consider this.  

In reality CO2 is the least effective of any known greenhouse gas:

			GWP*
Gas	Symbol	Lifetime  (yrs)	20-yr	100-yr	500-yr
Carbon dioxide	CO2		1	1	1
Methane	CH4	12	72	25	7.6
Nitrous oxide	N2O	114	289	298	153
CFC-12	CCl2F2	100	11 000	10 900	5 200
HCFC-22	CHClF2	12	5 160	1 810	549
Tetrafluoromethane	CF4	50 000	5 210	7 390	11 200
Hexafluoroethane	C2F6	10 000	8 630	12 200	18 200
Sulphur hexafluoride	SF6	3 200	16 300	22 800	32 600
Nitrogen trifluoride	NF3	740	12 300	17 200	20 700
*Global Warming Potential

Note:  Cap and Traders say - "It is not possible to state that this gas or that gas has an exact greenhouse effect. Gases absorb and emit radiation at different frequencies than others.   So that the total greenhouse effect is not simply the sum of the influence of each gas. "  Translation - we really do not know what causes the greenhouse effect.

Why Tax CO2:  If anyone wanted to “tax” emissions then CO2 makes the least sense.  CO2 is very unlikely to last in the atmosphere for more than a year or 2 because that is the average time for any CO₂ molecule to stay in the atmosphere before being mixed into the ocean or changed to oxygen by photosynthesis.  Proponents of man-caused climate change claim that you “cannot measure” how long CO2 will stay in the atmosphere, even though they cannot argue that the above statement is not a fact.  They want to tax it because it is easy to measure and there is tons of it.  Not because it has any real factor in global warming climate change.

The effect of the tax:  Taxing such a thing will only lead to bankrupting companies or taking money out of people’s pockets.  It will have no real effect on global warming climate change.  For centuries men have tried to affect the weather and have failed miserably – what makes us feel so highly of ourselves that we could affect climate?

House and 15 Acres for Sale!

I am selling the house in Riviera, Texas along with 15 acres.  The house is remodeled,  but it is probably the oldest structure still standing in Riviera.  It is one of the few buildings that survived the storm of 1919. 

The house was built in 1912.  It originally had a storm cellar which is no longer a part of the house.  The piers are at least 6 feet deep (may be deeper, that is all I checked, and the base of the house is bolted on to the piers.  No one is moving this house from the property.

The number is on the sign - if interested call.

George Blanda Dies - Hope I catch Him Later

George Blanda died at 83.  George Blanda was probably the coolest football player I have ever watched.  As a small child, I watched him quarterback the Oilers AND kick field goals, then around 70, saw him lead the Raiders into the playoffs (older than the Favre).

He not only knew defenses backwards and forwards, he kicked clutch field goals.  He didn't retire from the NFL until he was 48, well the second time he did retire in 1958 but came back to play in the AFL. The AFL was awesome because they pased a lot, scored a lot and was more fun. In 13 of his 26 seasons he kicked 100% of his extra points attempted.  He was 98.3% for his career.  His percentage for field goals wasn't all that high, but he managed to make many clutch kicks to tie or win games.  He even kicked a 53 yarder at age 43.  He scored 2002 points in his professional football career.

George Blanda - rest in peace.  The rest of y'all, stay safe!

Why Does US Department Of Education Need Shotguns?

OK I posted about this in the Thread to End all Threads affectionately known as TTTEAT at Blog Catalog.

The U.S. Department of Education (ED) intends to purchase twenty-seven (27) REMINGTON BRAND MODEL 870 POLICE 12/14P MOD GRWC XS4 KXCS SF. RAMAC #24587 GAUGE: 12 BARREL: 14" - PARKERIZED CHOKE: MODIFIED SIGHTS: GHOST RING REAR WILSON COMBAT; FRONT - XS CONTOUR BEAD SIGHT STOCK: KNOXX REDUCE RECOIL ADJUSTABLE STOCK FORE-END: SPEEDFEED SPORT-SOLID - 14" LOP are designated as the only shotguns authorized for ED based on compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory, certified armor and combat training and protocol, maintenance, and parts.


So why does the DOE need shotguns?  Why Chicago?  NOTE:  It said compatibility with ED existing shotgun inventory

https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form&id=cb68cf9f3fa2fe18a83d1c3dee0039b2&tab=core&_cview=0

Just wondering