Speech

The two most common ways to shut down speech is to call it disinformation or misinformation but there is also a third way. The University of Virginia wants to cancel a speech by Mike Pence saying it would threaten student safety. The Washington Post editorial board wrote Wednesday that bipartisan efforts to cancel or silence former Vice President Mike Pence were "unwarranted."

Putin to lose

When Putin first invaded experts said he would overrun Kiev in a few days and no one worried about Putin going nuclear. The West's strategy on Ukraine is and as been do not let Putin lose. The tide of battle has turned and Zenlensky is asking for arms to drive the Russians out and the West is afraid he might win and if so will Putin resort to nuclear war. So the West is dragging their feet on giving Zenlensky the weapons he is asking for while the world witnesses war crimes. Perhaps if enough innocent people die the Russian people will rise up against Putin. That seems to be the best the West is hoping for while they wait and watch.

Schools and families

If you had to select one problem that is most responsible for the test score gap between whites and Blacks it would be education. A close second would be lack of fathers in the home. These two problems have been around for many years and have become worse since the 1970's. The question then arises why hasn't something been done about it. The answer is slavery. Anytime anyone wants to talk about schools and home life they are shut down by those who say the root cause is slavery and thus the conversation shifts away from school to what happened all those many years ago and not much can be done about slavery. It all started with a 700-page report that said something surprising: family background, not schools, explained most of the yawning gap between the achievement of America’s white and black students. The number of Black single mom families increased from 25% to 70% since 1970. That is when the government started to replace dads with programs. It has destroyed the Black family. So now they want the teachers to take up the slack and be the family. Teachers thus can't spend as much time on the 3-R's that is needed. Full circle.

Mining nickel

President Biden said today he will offer government assistance to companies to help mine for minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt and manganese. Yahoo! Next he needs to add rare earth metals to the list. Of course a much better course of action would be thorium nuclear power but that is not on the agenda. I am not sure if people in Washington even know what that is.

New ways

The other day I told a teacher that I was a chalk and blackboard kind of guy. I later realized that I am turning into and old fogey. A week ago I discovered that some countries are aborting downs babies. Then yesterday I found out that first graders are being taught about transsexualism. Now today I find out that government now authorizes sex change surgery for children. I don't have intimate knowledge about these things but I suppose in time I will adjust to the new ways but for now it is a little overwhelming. What is coming next week. Just use your imagination.

Senate bill

The house approved legislation to suspend normal trade relations with Russia in 424 to 8 vote but the plan was held up in the senate by Rand Paul. He objected to the way an addendum to the bill concerning the presidents power to define what constitutes a human rights violation. Two things. First what was that doing in the bill. This happens on a regular basis in Washington. A very popular bill is brought forth but someone wants to add their little extra. The bill was changed to be more specific about what constitutes a human right and Paul withdrew his objection. Second. Paul actually read the bill before voting.

Ukraine and war

When Putin first invaded experts said he would overrun Kiev in a few days and no one worried about Putin going nuclear. The West's strategy on Ukraine is and as been do not let Putin lose. The tide of battle has turned and Zenlensky is asking for arms to drive the Russians out and the West is afraid he might win and if so will Putin resort to nuclear war. So the West is dragging their feet on giving Zenlensky the weapons he is asking for while the world witnesses war crimes. Perhaps if enough innocent people die the Russian people will rise up against Putin. That seems to be the best the West is hoping for while they wait and watch.

Hunter B

The two latest theories on how the Hunter Biden case will end. The first is that he will be charged with failure to pay taxes and he will pay up and get a slap on the wrist and the investigation will end. At the other extreme he will be charged with fraudulent business activities which are a felons punishable by prison time and his father will pardon him and announce that he will not run for a second term and that will end the investigation. US Attorney David Weiss of Delaware is conducting the investigation but special prosecutor John Durham is still on the Trump/Russia case which includes activities by Hunter.

Him her he she

Disney has decided they will no longer use terms like ladies and gentlemen or boys and girls. This is in line with others who prefer not to use terms like he and she or him and her. How about words like prince and princes. Will this effect the movie The Ice Princess. What about Micky and Minney Mouse and Daisy and Donald Duck. Will there need to be some clarification on their names. Are they considered male and female. In the schools the female teachers are referred to as MS. This is to remove any difference between married and not married. One school uses first names so instead of posting the name on the door as MS Smith they changed to Mary Smith. Most students say misses when they address a female teacher.

Gender Bill

Today, Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill (HB) 1557, Parental Rights in Education, which reinforces parents’ fundamental rights to make decisions regarding the upbringing of their children. The bill prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through 3rd grade and prohibits instruction that is not age appropriate for students and requires school districts to adopt procedures for notifying parents if there is a change in services from the school regarding a child’s mental, emotional or physical health or well-being. Opponents to this bill named it the Don't say gay bill. Is it appropriate for children this young to receive information about sex including transsexuals or more accurately transgender. This refers to a person who was born one gender but feels and thinks they are another gender. Agender. A person who is agender does not identify with any particular gender, or they may have no gender at all. .. ABC news identifies 73 different genders. This is difficult for many adults to comprehend and can be too challenging for a first grader.

College degree

The national press is finally waking up to the fact that college is no longer what it used to be. At the University of Minnesota there are 150 degree programs and more are added each year. Here are some examples just from the letter A. Acting Adult education Adult literacy Advance second language teaching Advance wearable products African American studies Aging studies American Indian public health American Indian studies American studies Apparel design Applied Child development Art history Arts and cultural leadership Asian and Middle Eastern studies Autism disorder Even a degree in a more conventional area like philosophy, sociology or psychology for the most part means the only job you are qualified for is to get a PhD and teach in that area.

The world should give thanks that the greatest military in history is in the United States. Imagine if you will this military force in Russia, in China, in Iran, in North Korea or in most any other country. Nationalism always lurks beneath the surface in these other countries and history shows it doesn't take much to fuel the desire for more territory. Would other countries follow the example of the US after WW 2 where instead of vanquishing the enemy the victor helped to rebuild the enemy. The United States is unique in many ways and one of the more important is a population drawn from all parts of the globe. Recall President Reagan when he said you can move to France but you will never be a Frenchman or you can move to Germany but you will never be a German but you can move to America and you can be an American.

Iran and oil

Iran is called the number one backer of terrorism around the world and so the US has placed stringent sanctions on Iran and they are working. Iran's main source of export income is oil and they have been shipping 800,000 barrels per day to China. This is down from 3 million barrels per day before the sanctions. The US is now negotiating with Iran and a deal is on the table to remove the sanctions and start buying oil from Iran. If this happens many expect Iran to use the new income to further finance groups like Hezbollah. Others propose that the US increase oil production.

Putin out

Yesterday on Morning Joe, Joe defended Biden's remark on why Putin should be replaced. He said it is about time that someone stood up to the autocrat. Interestingly enough this has been what Hannity has been saying for weeks. We now have Joe and Hannity on the same page. Politics indeed does make strange bedfellows.

Thorium is the answer

The first atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima contained 141 pounds of uranium but only .001 pounds actually exploded and that created an explosion the equivalent of 30,000 pounds of TNT. The explosion occurs when enough enriched uranium is squeezed into a small space. Thorium cannot do that. No matter how concentrated it is and no matter how much is squeezed into a small spot it will not react. Thorium is fertile but not fissile meaning it cannot react without a starter. Thorium reactors remain quiet and stable until a reactor neutron is introduced and then the reaction starts up. Once the thorium is used up the reaction stops unless more thorium is added. If the reaction gets too hot it stops and will start up again when the reaction cools. Since water is not used to cool the reactor it operates at normal pressure and there is no need to build a dome to protect against explosions. Thorium is more available than uranium and less costly and does not adversely effect the environment when mined.

Ukrainians

President Biden has suggested that the US bring in 100,000 refugees from Ukraine. The question is why so few. Last year 2 million illegals crossed the southern border last year.

Wind and solar

Sometimes it seems that those supporting the new green deal do not fully understand what they are proposing. Do they realize that charging an electric vehicle with electricity from a fossil fuel power plant is inefficient. That the mining and disposing of the materials used to build wind and solar is harmful to the environment. That we are exchanging clean air for dirty water. That solar panels receive sun on average 10 hours per day and wind mills get wind about 12 hours per day and both systems need back up. That wind and solar farms take up lots of space and are a long way from the usage point and that requires miles of power lines. That airplanes, ocean liners, railroad locomotives and heavy construction equipment cannot run on batteries. The sad part is that while all of this attention in showered on wind and solar the use of thorium nuclear power is being pushed onto the back burner. This would supply all the carbon free electric power needed without harming the environment and the plants could be built near the usage point.

Bias

Republican candidates for office have known for years that they were up against it when running for office. Their opponents were many and varied including 90% of the national press, Hollywood, Silicon Valley, the democratic party, academia and lastly and most concerning the federal bureaucracy. This week the government revealed the results of an internal audit of the FBI and found over 700 instances of non compliance going back several years and culminating in the Trump/Russia collusion. The bureau acknowledged the 2019 audit findings were "unacceptable."  Any investigation will have to wait until the republicans gain control of congress. It is understandable that bureaucrats would view republicans in an unfavorable light since republicans are the party that wants to cut their jobs while democrats want to increase the size of the government.

Designer babies

The World Health Organization declared that abortions must be allowed at any time for all women, girls and other persons. This includes abortions for Downs Syndrome. Countries around the world are slowly removing restrictions on abortions. This is a move toward allowing all abortions for any reason. As prenatal testing becomes more exacting it will open the door to designer babies. Parents will be able to select abortions based on many characteristics even things like eye color.

Step up

The tax law for many years has included something called step up basis. This means that if I purchase an asset say land for $100 per acre and sold it today for $500 per acre, I would pay a capital gains tax on the $400 profit. If I waited until I died I could pass this land onto my heirs without paying any tax. The same is true for any asset, things like stocks and bonds. Biden is proposing a new 20% tax on people whose income is greater than $100 million dollar per year but they will develop ways to avoid much of this so it will not be as effective as planned. The second part of his plan is to tax people on unrealized gains. This means they will pay capital gains tax on any assets that have appreciated even if the don't sell them. This will in essence remove the step up basis since they will pay tax each year as the value increases and this will be effective. It only applies to the super rich which polls say people are all for. Of course people are normally for tax increases on someone else.

Vaccine standards

Big Apple athletes and performers who haven't received their COVID-19 vaccine shots now won't be barred from taking the court or stage.  New York City Mayor Eric Adams announced Thursday that he was dropping the mandate that all city-based athletes and performers show proof of vaccination to take part in their game or event. Adams said his decision was based on the city's low COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations and the city's goal to restart its economy. But not everyone was thrilled with the mayor's decision, particularly some unions representing city workers who are required to show proof of vaccination to work. NY City fire fighters and police lost their jobs because they refused to get vaccinated. These are the people who were on the job before vaccines during the height of the Covid problem. They are still not allowed to work. Nets star point guard Kyrie Irving refused to get vaccinated but he is now allowed to play. His case is similar to the city employees but he is judged under a different standard.

Elon Musk

Free speech is making a come back thanks to a crazy genius. Elon Musk to the rescue. Tesla CEO Musk wondered aloud on Twitter whether another platform is needed, causing his millions of followers to call for him to buy the social media giant. Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failure to adhere to free speech principle fundamentally undermines democracy, Musk tweeted Saturday. What should be done. Is a new platform needed. Musk's 79.1 million followers immediately called on him to either buy Twitter himself or build a new platform.

Denver protest

One thing the police figured out in the summer riots of 2020 was that outside trouble makers would join in the mob and try to get the innocent protesters to challenged the police and in most cases it worked. The courts in Denver just awarded 14 million dollars to 12 people who were peaceful but suffered some form of attack. One plaintiff claimed she was bruised during protests and was targeted by police for recording them with her cellphone. "I think we established that when there are people committing acts of violence, what the police should do is take action against those people.  What you can't do is take it out on the peaceful protesters," In the midst of a riot it is difficult for police to separate the good guys from the bad expecially if the bad guys have set things up to confuse the police.

Muckrakers

Back in Oct of 2020 50 former senior intelligence officials signed a letter saying that the emails allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden were Russian disinformation. The letter was published in the press without asking if these 50 had any evidence. Sometimes blanket statements are challenged and other times they are just accepted. No one in the press is asking any of these 50 what they based their assessments on or where they got their information. No one is asking all the members of the main stream press who called this Russian disinformation where they got their information. It seems the press can just offer opinions as facts and no one challenges them. The main defense against tyranny in a democracy is the free press and they have let the country down by not asking the tough questions and doing the hard work of investigative reporting. Where are the muckrakers when we need them?

More fossil fuels

Good managers change their positions when new infomation presents himself. WASHINGTON — Despite President Biden’s pledge to aggressively cut the pollution from fossil fuels that is driving climate change, his administration has quietly taken actions this month that will guarantee the drilling and burning of oil and gas for decades to come. Sen. Joe Manchin Friday lauded the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) for reversing a February policy statement on gas pipelines, after slamming it and demanding its chairman do his "damn job" earlier this month.  Now is the time for Biden to use his executive powers to increase the production of fossil fuel so that prices will come down and Europe can move away from Russian oil and gas. This is a win-win. The people pushing the green new deal cannot explain how that can replace fossil fuels but they seem to wield a lot of power. Now if we can just get the administration to look at thorium nuke plants we will be on the road to dealing with climate change.

Monkey

The most recent challenge against the first amendment involves Project Veritas. This is a group of journalist that secretly record audio and video that exposes embarrassing activities. The Biden administration’s Department of Justice obtained search warrants in an investigation of something that doesn’t appear to involve any federal crime, and then earlier this month the FBI raided the homes of three people associated with Project Veritas, a guerrilla journalism organization that uses undercover reporters and hidden cameras to report its stories. Almost immediately, the details of the raids and confidential legal communications stored on the cellphone of Project Veritas founder James O’Keefe were published in The New York Times.

Monkey

Are people becoming too sensitive to racial remarks and hearing things that aren't being said. Two local girls high school basketball teams played a few week ago and one of the teams was mostly Black while the other was mostly white. This sets up the game for those who are always looking for race. The white team fans were accused of shouting monkey which is considered a racist name for Blacks. In addition the fans were making barking sounds. After an independent group investigated they found that the fans were yelling nikie which is a special play and the dog barking is something this school has done at games for many years. Sometimes people just have selective hearing.

Globalization

Back in the day economist felt that if all countries become interdependent it would reduce the chances of war. The result of this was globalization. The pandemic has now changed this theory. The US now realizes that being dependent on necessary products is dangerous and the new way is to bring production back home. President Biden said today there will be food shortages. This is just the natural extension of shortages in many other areas. The US will not be hurt like many other countries because of the efficient agri business we have developed.

Apple stock

Years ago i had a friend who made good money in the stock market by buying studebaker stock at $6 and selling at $9 as it went up and down over a period of a couple of years. I am too old to be in the market but for younger people take a look at apple stock. January 3 $182 January 27 $159 February 9 $176 March 14 $150 March 24 $174 Anyone care to gamble.

Losing the free press

While the scandalous sometimes illegal activities revealed on the Hunter Biden laptop continue to drip drip drip, one problem is being overlooked and that is the way the press censored the story. The oldest and forth largest newspaper in the country, the New York Post broke this story just before the election but there was no investigation, just the press circling the wagons around the explanation that the story was Russian disinformation. While it was bad enough that the press refused to cover the story even worse was social media banning the Post story. Even after the election a few conservative sites continued the story but not the main press. It was only two weeks ago when the vaunted NY Times revealed that the story was true and not Russian propaganda that others are now looking into the story. The FBI had the laptop for eight months and nothing was done. Recall that the Trump/Russia collusion investigation was started based on unverified allegations. This mysterious person identified as a former western counter-intelligence official who was finally named as Joseph Mifsud. After he was interrogated by the FBI he disappeared and just last week an audio recording from him surfaced. His whereabouts are still unknown.

Riots

During the summer of 2020 riots broke out in a couple dozen cities around the country but none more severe than Portland. The Department of Justice is responsible for protecting federal property and sent federal marshals to Portland when the federal courthouse was under attack. Every night for months mobs of hundreds of people laid siege to the federal courthouse. The rioters arrived equipped for a fight, armed with powerful slingshots, lasers, sledgehammers, saws, knives, rifles, and explosive devices. They started a fire inside the building while deputies were in the building and they barricaded the doors so they couldn't get out. They started fires against the building and when officers came out to put out the fire they were pelted with rocks, frozen water bottles, cans of food and balloons filled with urine and fecal matter. They were physically assaulted with hammers and two by fours.

Fraud

The one trillion dollar infrastructure bill passed in November of last year but the money is still tied up in congressional red tape. Once the money is released projects have to be approved and there will be constant delays caused by environmental issues. Meanwhile money will go to unintended places and reports will follow exposing fraud and miss management. Managing a big corporation involves a lot of oversight to prevent waste but the government is many times larger than any company. In March 2021 the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan was made law. As of December of last year nearly $100 billion of relief funds have been defrauded. That's enough money to give 100,000 people a million dollars each.

Many people believe that the profit motive is the driving force behind business and if that is the case why aren't oil companies producing all the oil they can while oil is $100 per barrel. Why was Biden asking foreign governments to produce more oil and why did he wait until last week to ask US oil companies to produce more but refuses to reduce restrictions. Using hindsight Biden instead of canceling the XL pipeline should have accelerated the installation. Some say he is trying to walk a fine line between getting production up and not offending the greenies. As gas prices rise the pressure builds to increase production and Biden understands that the voters want lower gas prices. Although Biden promised during the campaign to reduce the environmental impact of fossil fuel the invasion by Russia has changed the world and Biden must change with the times. Promises must be put on the back burner until the situation in Ukraine changes.

Covid cash

Here is a headline that caused surprise for many but in fact it was business as usual. States pocketed millions in COVID-relief cash for pet projects. Back in 1998 the big tobacco companies were ordered to pay out $250 billion dollars over a 25 year period, the money to be used for education programs on the deleterious effects of smoking. Much of the money has been used for various projects having nothing to do with smoking. In fact some states couldn't wait for the money and took less to get cash up front to spend ASAP.

Apartheid

Back in the 1980's American businesses began the process of divesting from South Africa to protest Apartheid. There is no way of knowing what effect this had but they did end Apartheid. Perhaps responsible US companies could once again use this approach and move out of China. This would raise the price of most of the things we buy but it would shore up our supply chain and provide high paying jobs here in the US.

Intel

A ray of hope for US business has appeared on the horizon in the form of Intel, the US major chip maker. Chips have followed the rest of US manufacturing over the past 40 years. In 1990 the US held 37% of the market and today it is 17% with 80% of chips being made in Asia. Intel has a new CEO and he is acting like the CEO's of yesteryear in that he has a ten year plan. Intel is forgoing profits for today by setting aside $45 billion dollars for investment in new facilities. All Intel chips are made in the USA and new production plants will be in the US with the first in Ohio this year. Intel plans to double capacity in the next four years. Maybe this will be a wake call for other US manufacturers.

Good guy Biden

Hilary was the darling of the left when she ran against Trump but overtime she lost her glitter and after losing the election seemed to act like a poor loser and many changed their opinion of her. She faded fast and today is not considered presidential material. Kamala Harris opened her campaign for president with rousing speech in front of a large crowd in Oakland. She became the darling of the press and was on her way but stopped short and dropped out of the race receiving only a 2% approval. She was selected as Biden's VP based on the fact that she was a female even though she called Biden a racist during the debates. She has since been exposed as someone who lacks leadership skills and seems uncomfortable on TV. Joe Biden was elected not because democrats saw him as a strong leader but because he seemed to have the best chance to beat Trump. They didn't vote for Joe in as much as they voted against Trump. Joe has become the president that democrats feared. He seems unable to deal with the responsibilities of the job. The emails on Hunters laptop reveal that Hunter and his friends talked about Joe's dementia and now many in the press are questioning his cognitive abilities. His main strength is his good guy image. The contrast with Trump is stunning. With Trump what you see is what you get and what you see depends on what you are looking for.

Canadian oil

Canada has notified the US that they can export an additional 4 million barrels per day. Instead of asking Canada for this oil the US is bargaining with Iran and Venezuela. The deal with Iran requires lifting sanctions from the worlds leading backer of terrorism and the US does not even recognize Maduro as the President of the country but are willing to deal with him to buy oil. What is the justification for not just buying oil from Canada?

Depending on China

It is time for the people pushing wind and solar to wake up. In today's world most of the solar panels and wind mills are made in China and in addition most of the rare earth metals needed for these products are mined in China. If the US wants to depend on wind and solar for their needs they may find themselves in the same position that Europe is in regards to depending on Russia for oil and natural gas. It sometimes appears that the people pushing wind and solar are unaware of the environmental hazards with this approach to solving the problem of climate change. If they are they rarely mention it.

IEA nuclear

The International Energy Agency (IEA) is a non-government group founded in 1974 during the oil embargo caused by the Arab-Israeli war. They are recommending nuclear power plants to achieve the goals of climate change. Scientists from Australia say it’s time to get past myths about nuclear; they suggest in a paper published in Conservation Biology that implementing nuclear power at a larger scale is a positive compromise for fulfilling both energy supply and conservation needs.

Biden and Saudi's

Back in the 1974 the US went off the gold standard. At that time it was a net importer of oil and made agreement with Saudi Arabia that if they agreed to sell oil only in dollars the US would agree to be their protectorate against any foreign invaders. This elevated the US dollar to the world's reserve currency. Since the most sought-after commodity in the world—oil—is priced in U.S. dollars, the petrodollar helped elevated the greenback as the world's dominant currency. With its high status, the U.S. dollar enjoys what some have asserted to be the privilege of perpetually financing its current account deficit by issuing dollar-denominated assets at very low rates of interest as well as becoming a global economic hegemony. Now for the first time China is attempting to buy oil in yuan rather than dollars and the Saudi's are considering doing just that. President Biden should remind Saudi Arabia that if we no longer act as their protectors that Iran is waiting in the wings to invade their country and take over their oil. This would be the end to the rich Saudi's who spend most of their days living in luxury. First off Biden has to get them to accept his phone calls and second is Biden strong enough to make this case.

Hunter and Ukraine

The Hunter Biden laptop is in the news again. The laptop emails number over 90,000 and cover a ten year period revealing what Hunter was up to over that time period. There are many cases of unscrupulous activities. One in particular involves Ukraine. In 2009 Hunter and a friend Devon Archer formed a company called Rosemont Seneca Partnership. Later Archer is on the board of directors for Ukrainian oil company Berisma. On 5-12-2014 Hunter joins the board at a salary of $1 million per year. The owner of Berisma is Mykola Zlochevsky. The US backs a revolution and Ukrainian President Yanukovych is replaced by Petro Poroshenko. Archer takes a pic with Joe Biden in the VP's office and the pic appears on the Berisma web site. Joe meets with Pozharskyi, Zlochevsky's envoy, in New York on April 2015. Ukraine officials had started to investigate Burisma and they wanted help from Joe. Burisma was accused of bribing government officials to get oil and gas permits. A new prosecutor Victor Shokin started to go after Berisma in Feb of 2015 and they were worried. Joe flies to Ukraine to address parliament on corruption and behind the scenes Zlochevsky is pressuring to get rid of Shokin. In Feb of 2016 Shokin issues warrants to size all of Zlochevsky's assets. In May of 2016 Joe phones Poroshenko and demands that Shokin be fired and a few days later he is fired and the investigation into Berisma is stopped. Hunter left his position when Joe decided to run for president. There are a number of other cases similar to this involving China and Russia.

Nuclear is coming

The solution to climate change will not be resolved without including nuclear and both sides of the issue see this as an impediment to their approach. The wind and solar people see this as away to solve the problem without involving social change and they don't want this. The fossil fuel industry sees this as a way to put them out of business. Both sides will obfuscate around the issue of safety. They will continue the misinformation about nuclear safety when in fact there are 94 nuclear reactors that have been operating in the US since 1958 and not one person has been injured or killed because of nuke power. Nuclear power is many times safer than coal, oil and natural gas. When you take into account the damage to the environment caused by mining rare earth metal, nuclear is safer than wind and solar. Nuclear is coming whether they want it or not but they will fight to the end. The big oil companies are making large profits and if they were future looking they would be investing in nuclear but in today's business world long term planning is not an option. All that matters is the next quarterly dividend.

Aid to Ukraine

The Pentagon spokesman was on TV this AM and he said we have been sending aid to Ukraine for 8 years. What he didn't say is that Obama sent non-military aid, Trump sent both non-military and military and Biden sent only non-military aid until the invasion. Then he said the congress has approved $800 million in military aid but he cannot be sent because of red tape. The pathways to get arms into Ukraine are closing each day but the government is diddling with procedures instead of just sending the material and figure out the paper work later. Sometimes it is necessary to just take action, maybe a warp speed program is needed. There seems to be a lack of urgency. Just do it!

Register voters

In my early career, I was a plant manager. At one plant the union tried to organize and the procedure is to wait outside the plant gates and ask employees to sign a request for a union. This sometimes goes on for months, the theory being that some supervisor will get an employee upset and that is the day this person will sign. Conservative groups are trying to register voters at gas stations using the same principal. This is based on the old concept that people are passively for and actively against. This is why most letters to the editor are complaints. Get people when they are upset and they will take action. When people see high gas prices they are in the mood to throw the bums out.

Satire

I am taking a risk and getting out of my area. The Babylon Bee is satirical site and they have been banned from twitter for saying that Admiral Rachael Levine is man of the year. This admiral whose given name was Roger transitioned to a woman in 2011. Here are some examples of their work. Horses are terrified that obese Americans will want to go horse back. George Washington refused to be crowned King as he instead wanted to be called Supreme Potentate of all Time and he hated cherry trees. As everyone knows now, a woman is a human person who wears dresses and acts really womanly and stuff. We checked with top scientists and we think that's the definition we're allowed to use without being canceled. After Trump fell victim to a satirical article in the Bee, the Bee went after him. "President Trump Declares The Babylon Bee His Most-Trusted News Source," the site's headline reads. The satirical story begins, "In the wake of his much-anticipated "Fake News Awards," President Donald Trump confirmed Friday that while most news sources are "totally fake," there is one that he trusts more than any other—The Babylon Bee." There is light-hearted satire and bitter-angry satire and in today's world bitter angry is out. Just one more way that speech is challenged. No more George Carlins.

Supply chain

Is Washington out of touch with the country. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg met with industry leaders to fix the supply chain problem. He invited big retailers like Target and True Value along with FedEx and UPS but he left out the trucking and rail business. He seems not to understand that the problem is not because the store shelves are empty but that the stores did not receive the product. This is difficult to understand.

Crime

After World War II, crime rates increased in the United States, peaking from the 1970s to the early-1990s. Violent crime nearly quadrupled between 1960 and its peak in 1990. Case in point New York City. In the 50's the murder rate was 6 per 100,000 population and it started to rise reaching a peak of 30 per 100,000. It then started to decline down to 6 per 100,000 in 2020. The reasons are not always clear but starting in the 90's crime started down. One reason was a different type of policing. Each day computers allowed the police to see where all the crimes occurred yesterday and the police were moved to that area. Another change was called broken glass policing. This mean that small crimes were investigated and criminals were caught and punished. The theory was that if you stop small crimes you will stop big crimes. The 1994 crime bill caused more criminals to be sent to jail and the jails filled up with many drug crimes. The last two years crime has gone up and the reason is that criminals are no longer sent to jail. Most crimes are committed by career criminals meaning criminals who have a record of crime. Experts say that if these career types were put in jail much of the increase would disappear.

Freedom of speech

Two days ago the NY Times published the story about Hunter Biden's laptop being legitimate but the major news outlets did not cover the story. Today the Times said the country has a problem with free speech. Will this be covered? For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned. Many on the left refuse to acknowledge that cancel culture exists at all, believing that those who complain about it are offering cover for bigots to peddle hate speech. Many Americans are understandably confused, then, about what they can say and where they can say it. People should be able to put forward viewpoints, ask questions and make mistakes and take unpopular but good-faith positions on issues that society is still working through — all without fearing cancellation. However you define cancel culture, Americans know it exists and feel its burden. In a new national poll commissioned by Times Opinion and Siena College, only 34 percent of Americans said they believed that all Americans enjoyed freedom of speech completely. The poll found that 84 percent of adults said it is a “very serious” or “somewhat serious” problem that some Americans do not speak freely in everyday situations because of fear of retaliation or harsh criticism.

Iraqgate

History repeats itself. During the Reagan/Bush presidency the US sent aid to Iraq after Iraq ended their eight year war with Iran. When Bush was running for a second term allegations emerged that the Iraqis were buying U.S. agricultural products for less than the loan amounts they received and then using these extra funds for arms purchases. Bush was blamed for this and was charged with covering up and the press jumped on this scandal and it was in the news daily as the election approached. Bill Safire, a much respected (and often feared) New York Times pundit, has written 20 or so columns since early 1992 on what he believes to be one of the greatest scandals in the history of man. This story was so often featured in the press it became known as Iraggate. Some feel it was done to help Clinton win the White House. After the election was over the whole thing was found not to be true. The investigation continued in the Clinton administration Four years were spent investigating Iraqgate. Attorney General Janet Reno released a 119-page report in 1995 summarizing the findings of nearly 20 prosecutors and investigators. They found no evidence of a conspiracy or a cover-up in the Bush administration. Fast forward to the Trump/Russia collusion and something similar happened. Trump was accused of criminal activity and covering up and years later the NY Times says it was not true.

Misinformation

Hunter Biden left his laptop with a repair shop in April of 2019. When the owner saw what was on it he turned it over to the FBI but then it just disappeared. After about 6 months without hearing anything the owner turned a copy of the hard drive over to former NY mayor Rudy Giuliani. As information from the laptop was released the press reported it as Russian disinformation. Now the New York Times says the info from the laptop has been authenticated. This is from the Washington Post today. When the New York Post published information about the tawdry access-peddling business dealings of President Joe Biden’s son a month before the 2020 election, much of the major media refused to cover it. Some of them even called it (without any evidence) Russian disinformation. Big Tech's social media platforms took the unprecedented step of throttling access to the stories. This is one reason why the press should not be the arbiters of truth. One interesting fact is that Trump lost the three states of Arizona, Georgia and Wisconsin a total of 45,000 votes and many experts feel that if the Hunter story had been published that would have change the vote enough for Trump to win. This is given by Trump voters as a reason to call the election a fraud. Others would say its just sour grapes. Democrats say it would not have effected the election because they didn't vote for Biden they voted against Trump. Lots can change if you play the what if game. What if Perot had not run would Clinton have been elected. More recently what if the Covid had not come along would Trump have been elected. The election is over but the press should explain why they were fooled.

Mortgage rates

Recent history has shown that to get rid of inflation by the Fed raising interest rates requires them to raise the rate to the current inflation level which is 8%. The Fed rate is now less than one percent so they will have to raise the rate by about 8%. The current 30 years home mortgage rate is 4% and this will rise to 12%. If that is shocking to young people be aware that home mortgage rates in 1980 were 19% and the prime rate was 21%. Needless to say not many people were taking out mortgages.

Iran nukes

There are many things about foreign policy that are difficult to understand and none more than the US plans for Iran. The current deal is if Iran agrees to not pursue a nuclear bomb the US will remove the sanctions. Iran is using this as a bargaining chip as they could have developed a bomb years ago if that was their desire. Just like Saddam use the WMD threat to keep himself in power. It requires 50 pounds of enriched uranium and Iran has been working on this for 40 years. Iran began its centrifuge effort in the late 1980's with know-how obtained from Pakistan. As of August 2021, Iran was operating 6,000 IR-1 centrifuges with thousands more in storage. This is right from the Internet. The estimated minimum time it would take Iran's IR-1 centrifuges installed in production mode to enrich enough uranium for one weapon would be 1.7 weeks. What is really going on?

Made in America

One of the lessons learned from Covid was how vulnerable the US is in regards to supply chain. Many now see the value in manufacturing goods here at home instead of importing from China. Another reason to move back home is the shipping cost. A 40 foot container from China to the West Coast was $2,000 pre-pandemic and today it is $20,000. Those cost could be avoided if the products were made here in America. The public should let it be known that we are willing to pay more and this will put pressure on companies to come back home. Making this move over time would soften the sticker shock but it would make America safer by making America less dependent on countries like China. One of the financial upsides is high paying US manufacturing jobs. A good place to start would be the NBA. Also clothing, furniture and appliances.

Misinformation

Jan Psaki said that since Biden came to office the US has sent billions in military aid to Ukraine. While this is true what she didn't say is this aid was sent after the invasion. Before that non military aid was sent. Today Biden said he sent aid to Ukraine before the invasion. What he did not say is that the aid he sent was non military. In addition he canceled the last shipment of military aid that Trump approved. These are two factual statements that could be construed as misinformation. This happens frequently when only part of a story is told. People must be willing to take the time to check out any news that is important to them.

Climate

Many climate experts say we have nine years left, until 2030, before we begin to hit a tipping point from which there may be no return. If that is true then the end of the world is coming because India and China will still be increasing their carbon output by then and they are even today still building new coal fired power plants. The one thing China is doing that will help is building a thorium nuclear power plant. They plan to mass produce these and sell them on the world market. Production of wind and solar can continue and these facilities are best when they are near gas fired power plants because they need back up. This also eliminates the long transmission lines which are costly and ugly. If the coming elections take the power away from the far left the country can get about the business of solving the problem of climate change without being bogged down by social change. President Clinton offered the solution 30 years ago when he said we need to use all sources of power including nuclear. Today those who study this issue realize that nuclear must lead the way and not follow behind.

Biden's plan

Here is how to make lemonade out of lemons. Biden has stayed on the sidelines allowing the Europeans to take the fight to Putin. He didn't want to send military equipment to Ukraine and he didn't want to stop buying oil from Russia and he didn't want to send Polish jets. He has always led from behind by saying what the US would not do. Because of this approach he did not allow Putin the opportunity of saying that the United States was the aggressor and Putin had to direct his ire toward Europe. This Biden strategy worked and it is now Putin against the European Union. Putin underestimated Biden.

Biden energy policy

From the Washington Post. Former vice president Joe Biden said during Thursday's final presidential debate that he wanted to transition away from fossil fuels. After the election all agencies were ordered to install regulations which would encourage reductions in fossil fuels including stopping Alaska oil which Trump had started. Biden cut back leases in off shore drilling. By the fall Biden began to change his policy without much fanfare from the press. Here is the NY Times. WASHINGTON — Despite President Biden’s pledge to aggressively cut the pollution from fossil fuels that is driving climate change, his administration has quietly taken actions this month that will guarantee the drilling and burning of oil and gas for decades to come. Oil companies are now cranking up production and this will continue. They don't want to miss out on the higher prices. Administration officials continue to talk about reductions in fossil fuels and encouraging the purchase of electric cars but those in the know understand that the move away from fossil fuels will not be possible until nuclear takes over with natural gas in between.

Changing war strategy

Technology is changing the face of war even faster than the generals understand. Case in point. A shoulder fired Javelin missile cost $175,000 and can easily take out a $6 million dollar tank. It even appears that shoulder fired Stinger missiles can bring down a plane. It requires more skill and there is a limited time that the missile has to fire but the Stinger cost $75,000 and a military jet cost $75 million. Given enough missiles you could have 100 people firing at one plane and still spend only one tenth the cost of the plane. The old war strategy was to gain air control and then take the ground. With enough of these Stingers on the ground this approach may have to change.

Chinese tennis player

Living in China. Last November Peng Shuai  a Chinese tennis player put on the Internet the fact that she was sexually assaulted by a government big shot and the story was quickly taken down but the state and she disappeared. After much international concern she reappeared after two weeks and since has not been seen. She sent a notice that she was retiring and the government said she is at home enjoying her retirement. She recently sent and email saying, Hello everyone this Peng Shuai. The allegations of sexual assault were not true. I'm not missing, nor am I unsafe. I've just been resting at home and everything is fine. Thank you again for caring about me.

Wuhan funding

The NY Times says, There are biological laboratories inside Ukraine, and since 2005, the United States has provided backing to a number of institutions to prevent the production of biological weapons. The US had bio labs in Wuhan but did not pay for gain of function research. When funds are given to these labs it is difficult to determine how they are used.  “At a Senate hearing in May, Dr. Fauci said, ‘The NIH has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology The US gave research funds to  EcoHealth Alliance, which in turn used the money to fund gain of function research in Wuhan. This is why people don't believe what they read. Planned Parenthood receives funds from the US government but they do not use those funds for abortions but it is difficult to determine which dollars went where.

Biden energy policy

This is from January 2021 Biden's first week in office. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Joe Biden on Wednesday signed a new raft of executive actions to combat climate change, including pausing new oil and gas leases on federal land and cutting fossil fuel subsidies, as he pursues green policies he billed as a boon for job creation. The orders map out the direction for the Democratic president’s climate change and environmental agenda and reverse the policies of his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who sought to maximize U.S. oil, gas and coal output by removing regulations and easing environmental reviews. What happened to nuclear?

Polish

When I was in high school there were many jokes, mostly unflattering, about Polish people. That all ended when an electrician, Lech Walesa and a Polish Pope John Paul, stood up against the communist. Once again the Polish people are coming to the rescue by extending a helping hand to the refugees from Ukraine. It makes you wonder where did the original prejudice against the Poles start.

Schools

The latest controversy from the schools revolves around teaching transgender to first graders. This is just one more responsibility to place on teachers taking away their time for academics. Social items like this or things like the death penalty, abortion, drug use and homosexuality are in the purview of parents. If some parents fail in this regard it should not be palmed off on the teachers and maybe the test scores would improve. Teachers want to spend their time covering the subject matter they were trained to teach. In most high schools there is a course called health where these areas are explored. The teachers main duty is to cover the 3 R's but they also provide role models for how to treat others with dignity and respect. The Minneapolis teachers are on strike and one of their demands is lower class size. That would help but also having more time to spend on the subject matter would help.

Putin carnage

There is one weapon that could turn the tide in the autocratic countries of Russia, China, North Korea, Iran and Cuba and that is a free press. How would the Russia people react if they could see the carnage in Ukraine, if the Chinese people could see how the Uighurs are being treated or the people in North Korea if they could see the life in South Korea. When Putin murdered civilians in Grozny, Chechnya and Aleppo, Syria the world was silent because there was no free press. If he takes control of Ukraine the press will once again be shut out and people will forget. This should be a reminder to the American people as to how precious the free press is and how social media represents a threat.

Diesel

Watching the price of fuel most people think in terms of filling up their car but at one time I worked in a lab in a flour mill and that is different. The farmer uses diesel to prepare the fields, plant and harvest the wheat. Then he trucks it to the local elevator where it is then trucked to the flour mill. The flour is the trucked to the bakery and then the bread is trucked to the super market. The price of diesel has increased by $2 per gallon and this will be reflected in the cost of bread. I do the shopping and I always buy wheat bread at Walmart. A year ago it was 87 cents per loaf and now it is $1.35. Much of this has to be the cost of diesel.

Syria

The difference that TV coverage makes in war is seen in stark contrast to the ten year civil war in Syria where 350,000 died and several million people were displaced. Most Americans have no idea about what happened in Syria and that Putin was involved in a major way. There was a time when the citizens had a chance to over throw the government of Assad but at a crucial time Putin sent in arms and air power which defeated the people. If Putin is able to take over Ukraine he will black out the news and everyone will just forget about it as they did in Syria.

Truth

Chuck Todd on MSNBC said that people believe that Putin would not have attacked Ukraine if Trump were in office but Todd said, "I don’t buy that," the MSNBC host stressed."I don’t think that matches logic, but voters do. That’s a perception issue." What is interesting about this remark is that he assumes he has the truth and the people only have their perception of truth. Truth is a slippery devil.

Self censorship

Former Governor Cuomo said today he was fired because of cancel culture. This is a concept that he said many times in the past was not real. It becomes real when it comes home to roost. He was fired because he sent elderly people with Covid into eldercare facilities causing sickness and death to many who lived there. He was fired because he sexually harassed fellow employees including some who worked for him. Polls show that people refrain from expressing their opinions on sensitive subjects for fear of offending someone. People are social animals and we live in civilized societies so it is necessary to treat others with dignity and respect but if that means not being honest about how we feel we lose trust in one another. If you only tell me what I want to hear then our conversation loses substance. If you remain silent because you are afraid someone may not like what you say you are self censoring. Teachers are particularly vulnerable to criticism for what they say and must walk on egg shells to make sure no one is offended.

Inflation and the Fed

Many people are wondering why inflation is happening now and the answer is that it is the accumulation of the growth in the money supply over the past 20 year and in particular the last 5 years. In 2008 the amount of money in circulation was $800 billion. By 2014 that had increased to $4.5 trillion and today it is $21.5 trillion. This is the result of the government creating money to solve problems like the 2008 mortgage crisis and the pandemic. When the amount of money increases faster than the things that money can buy the cost of items goes up. During the past 15 years that the fed has been creating money it has also held the interest rates down close to zero. The country danced and now is the time to pay the fiddler. The fed will have to raise interest rates which will slow economic growth which will likely lead to a recession. They will try to avoid this by raising the rates slowly to have what is called a soft landing but it will be a guessing game when it comes to how fast and how high to raise the rates.

Fentanyl

The problems at the southern border continue to destroy the fabric of American life. Fentanyl is produced in China and sent to the cartels in Mexico where it is transported across the border by illegal immigrants. The drug is then passed to dealers in the US and the money sent back to the cartels where it is sent to China for laundering. Meanwhile more than 100,000 mostly young people die each year in the US from fentanyl overdose. Producing fentanyl is a four step process and requires a knowledge of chemistry. If each step is not completed properly there are left over chemicals that are dangerous. Many labs in China and Mexico are operated by untrained people. Elected officials point the finger of blame at other officials and the problems persists.

Masks

The efficacy of wearing masks to prevent Covid has come under scrutiny over the past year and the New York Times concluded that the benefits of masks are not worth the cost. If the masks and other restrictions were costless their small benefits might still be worth it but of course they do have cost. Masks hamper people's ability to communicate, verbally and otherwise, Social distancing leads to the isolation and disruption that have fed so many problems over the past two years....mental health troubles, elevated blood pressure, drug overdoses, violent crime, vehicle crashes and more. The story of masks is just one more example of what happens when an issue become political. People take sides and refuse to consider other options. The current strong stance for going green is preventing the gradual move to nuclear using natural gas as an interim fuel. This is political because those pushing the green new deal are primarily interested in social change as opposed to climate change.

During the cold war, Russia never wanted to have mutual inspections of nukes. After the war ended the world discovered that the Soviets were generations behind in technology. The recent invasion of Ukraine shows the Russia army is sorely lacking. What kind of condition are the Russian nukes in. Are they in a position to challenge the US in an all out war. With the nuke submarines floating around the world a first strike does not assure victory. The US has 24 subs that can carry nukes and each can carry 24 missiles and each missile carries 5 hydrogen bombs and each bomb is 1.5 megatons which is 75 times the size of the bomb dropped on Japan in WW 2. Each bomb is designed to hit a specific city. This is the equivalent of 4.4 billion tons of explosives and that is enough to destroy 220,000 cities the size of Hiroshima. What it boils down to is that even with a first strike you will still lose. None of this includes the ground based nukes that the US has or all of the nukes other countries could employ. This is why the cold war phrase of mutually assured destruction meant what it said and kept the world at peace. Could Putin be willing to end the world to save face? We can risk it or find a way to let him save face or let him keep doing what ever he wants. It appears that the mutually assured destruction policy that kept the world safe is now being used to expand power by using the threat of world destruction.

China

The question keeps coming up as to what America can do to stop Putin without starting WW 3. The polls show that Americans are willing to make sacrifices. China is the life line for Putin as they are willing to buy oil and gas from Russia. The US can go to China and say if they are not willing to isolate Putin the US will begin the process of bringing all of our production back to the states. This means that China's economy will suffer and the US consumers will pay more for manufactured goods. If China refuses the people in the US must be willing to pay more. Over time this will be a good thing as it will shortened supply chains and the US will no longer be dependent on China for important goods like pharmaceuticals. It will mean high paying manufacturing jobs here in the US. It can be like things were in the 50's with rising wages and costs but unlike today the wages increased faster than prices.

Happy birthday Eunice

Eunice is 90 today. She was born in a farm house in Niagara, ND into a family of 16 children. She lived a rather ordinary, uneventful, everyday mundane existence until age 35 when she married her husband John. At that time her life became a thrilling, exhilarating, electrifying, intoxicating experience each day filled with sunshine and flowers. Say happy birthday to Eunice and send a thank you note to John.

Mpls police and teachers

Minneapolis police officers have an average salary of $74,000 with a starting salary of $42,000 and this is higher than all but three states. Many officers have left the force in the past couple of years and the city is trying to hire. The first problem is to retain the officers they have so the city is proposing a raise along with a $7,000 bonus. The bonus will be received in two payments over the upcoming year. Concurrent with this the Minneapolis teachers are on strike. Their starting salary is $45,000 with an average salary of $71,500. The teachers want more money for themselves and aides. The teachers are asking 12% raise for starting teachers and 5% for themselves. The city is offering 3.2%. One thing both of these groups have in common is that it is very difficult to fire either a teacher or a police officer which means that bad officers and bad teachers remain on the job.

If you google "government spokesperson says US has bio labs in Ukraine" you go through 24 articles where the US denies any bio labs in Ukraine but the 25th article on page 3 says: On Tuesday, Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland stated before a Senate hearing that “biological research facilities” have been operating in Ukraine, in response to a question from Senator Marco Rubio (Republican of Florida) about the presence of chemical or biological weapons in the country. She said the US has nothing to do with these labs but she was concerned that they might fall into Russia's hands.

Lies

Many wonder why the Russian people are unaware of what is going on next door in Ukraine. The government controls the media and the people only see one side of the story. Here is a quote from the NY Times. Russian authorities and multinational companies have erected a digital barricade between the country and the West, erasing the last remnants of independent information online. This is going on here in the US on a smaller scale when social media decides for us what we should know. There have been instances where these media giants worked with our government to make these decisions. This is unacceptable for those who feel they have the intellectual ability to decide for themselves what is true. When a country controls the news to protect people from lies they run the risk of getting more lies.

Market timing

One of the reasons that people were advised to put their money into a stock fund and leave it there was because statistics have shown that those who tried to time the market (day traders) did not do as well as the market in general. The past 20 plus years have offered additional reasons to get in a fund and stay there. The wide fluctuations in the market these days are because large investors like pension funds use computers to decide when to buy and sell and these computers follow one another so when one program says to buy they all jump on the bandwagon. It is amusing to watch each day the experts explain what happened to the market yesterday and why it happened. Often times the reason the market went up yesterday is the same reason given why the market went down today. Recently the reason for the wild fluctuations are blamed on the war in Ukraine. There were bombings yesterday and the market went down. There are bombings today and the market is going up. Now people are trying to day trade by following the computers, the thinking being that if it went up yesterday it will probably go down today. Who knows maybe that works. One thing for sure is that no one knows what will happen tomorrow.

Tesla

People are saying just buy a Tesla and you won't have to worry about the price of gas. I checked the Mpls market and here is what I found. First only used cars are available. 2020 Model X 37,000 miles, $100,880 2022 Model S AWD, 47,000 miles, $111,990 2022 Model 3 863 miles, $58,700 2022 Model Y 396 miles, $65,590 2022 Model Y 73 miles, $68,930 It is highly unlikely that the people most hurt by high gas prices will be the ones to buy a Tesla. Who are these suits who are so cavalier about spending 50 grand on a car. Can they relate to the average Joe.

Off ramp

A hot news item just released gives Putin the off ramp he needs to stop the invasion. President Zelenskyy announced that Ukraine would not seek membership in NATO and would negotiate the Russian speaking areas of Ukraine. This would allow Putin to declare victory and sit down at the table to talk terms. It remains to be seen what will come of this.

Drill

There is an old adage that says politics makes strange bedfellows and on Morning Joe today they gave a perfect example saying that Biden's new bumper sticker is drill baby drill. The President must believe that wind and solar are the solution to climate change and started his term with an anti fossil fuel attitude but circumstances have forced him to take another course of action.

Fate

History has shown that many times leaders are faced with unexpected problems. Recall that Jimmy Carter had to deal with the Iranians taking over the US embassy in Tehran. The American people viewed this as an attack on American and a declaration of war. Carter chose to ride it out and after 450 days of occupation he lost his bid for reelection. In retrospect many feel that if he had gone to war that the nation would have united behind him and he would have won a second term. In Bush 43's first year in office he had to deal with 9/11. He went to war and won a second term. Trump was cruising toward a second term when the pandemic hit and he was unable to overcome the set back. Sometimes fate is a friend. When Clinton came into office the dot com bubble started and ended just after he left office. This caused an economic boom that led to a balanced budget in the first time since the 1940's. Biden is now facing his unexpected challenge and CNN is calling this the Biden reset. They see it as his chance to turn around his declining ratings and to move the story line away from domestic problems to foreign policy.

From the past

Here is something that I wrote many years ago and I was wondering if you think it is still appropriate in today's world. This is truly the golden age. To live in America, the land of the free, and to be blessed with good health, is nothing less that heaven on earth. A person can work at a fast food store and rent a small one bedroom apartment within walking distance and live a comfortable life. The cost of rent, food, personal items and health insurance can be financed with forty hours at $5.50 per hour. A nutritious diet of high fiber beans and rice combined with day old vegetables and whole grain cereals and breads can be purchase for five dollars per day. Exercise is free for the taking when walking to work and strolling through the parks in the off hours. Beautiful music is available throughout the day on the radio and it is free. The world is open for inspection at the public library for no charge as is visiting with friends around the world in the chat rooms on the Internet at the library. There is an abundance of clean air and water. Social life is offered each day with co-workers, customers, neighbors and friends. The doors to churches are open and each has a variety of activities to offer those who are interested. Many organizations are looking for volunteers to help those who are less fortunate. Paper and pencil are handy for anyone interested in writing their thoughts in prose or poetry. For anyone who is desirous of living the good life, the door is open and they are welcome to come on it and join in the excitement. Each has a free will and can choose the life style they deem appropriate. Anyone can also choose to be influenced by the forces outside of themselves and try to gather the bangles and beads that society promises will deliver happiness but they must be aware of the pitfalls because going down this road is fraught with danger. It is a never ending process of fulfilling wants that change with each new toy that comes on the scene. It is a competition with neighbors and friends to see who can acquire the most things. The wonderful thing about the whole business of living is that we each have a choice and where we are today is the result of all the choices we have made in our life up to this point. If you are satisfied with your station just keep doing what you have been doing but if you are not perhaps you should look into changing your way of dealing with life. It probably has a lot to do with your priorities.

Oil permits

There is some misunderstanding in regards to US oil production. Biden says the industry currently has 9,000 permits but that is just the first step. First off they have to decide if there is oil in the permitted area and then they face the up hill battle dealing with the various government agencies trying to get the required permission to drill. Who regulates oil and gas industry? The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, U. S. Department of the Interior Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Department of Transportation Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and EPA are the primary agencies responsible for oil and gas regulation. Then there are the state and local regulations to deal with. Biden could declare a national emergency and fast track these rules which would quickly increase the supply of oil. For some reason Biden is more comfortable with oil from other countries even though US oil and processing is the cleanest in the world. It cannot be about climate change because oil no matter where is comes from produces CO2.

Agreement

As informed people know by now article 5 of NATO says an attack on one is an attack on all. Since Ukraine is not a member of NATO it doesn't apply. However, last November the US and Ukraine formed what is called a Charter on Strategic Partnership and in that agreement is the following: support for each others sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity and inviolability of borders constitutes the foundation of our bilateral relations. As Ukraine's borders are violated the promise given by Biden seems like all talk. Some feel that this agreement was the final straw for Putin.

The Polish Ambassador to the United States, Marek Magierowski was on TV this morning and I stood up and cheered when she said the only solution to climate change is nuclear and the interim pathway is natural gas. She said Poland built a LNG (liquefied natural gas) terminal in 2016 getting ready to move away from Russia for their supply. There are 24 such terminals in the European Union with more on the way. The US has the gas and Europe needs the gas. It is a win win and only politics stands in the way.

Gas prices

Yesterday at the daily White House press briefing Jen Psaki said that we could solve the energy shortage faster using wind and solar than by relying on fossil fuels. Q. Would President Biden ever undo his executive order that stopped the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. A. Are you suggesting that would solve the gas prices issue? Q. Well, do you think that that would maybe affect prices faster than getting the whole country off of fossil fuels? A. I actually don't think it would. The Keystone was not and oilfield, its a pipeline. While moving toward renewables is a long term goal it is a mistake to go too fast as witnessed in Germany. The most optimistic goal to replace fossil fuels is 2050 but that does not explain how airplanes will fly. The administration apparently feels that building more windmills and solar panels will solve the high gas prices faster than increasing the supply of oil and natural gas.

Safe nuclear

Proponents of fossil fuels and wind and solar have promulgated the idea that nuclear power is not safe and the press has gone along with the idea so most Americans are fearful of nuclear. Here are the facts. Deaths per terawatt-hour Coal 24.6 Oil 18.4 Biomass 4.6 Natural gas 2.8 Nuclear .07 Wind .04 Solar .02 Nuclear power using thorium is much safer than the current uranium plants and it produces less dangerous waste and can use up the waste currently being stored. Unlike wind and solar it does not need rare earth metals eliminating the mining hazards but like wind and solar it produces zero carbon.

Use natural gas

There is a way to increase fossil fuel production and lower CO2 at the same time. Today there are 175,000 cars in the US running on natural gas and thousands of buses and garbage trucks. Here in the Mpls area there are 25 stations where they can refuel and 2,000 such stations across the country. Gasoline power cars average 32 mpg while natural gas cars average 43 mpg. Starting this year companies could make natural gas cars and as they come on line fueling stations could be built. Coal fired plants can convert to natural gas. The US could increase production of natural gas to meet the needs of Europe. The US government can become fossil fuel friendly and increase oil from 11 million barrels per day to 15 million. The US can start building thorium powered nuke plants. A 300 MW reactor would fit on a flatbed truck and weigh about 15 tons. This could power 300,000 homes. These small units can be added as needed. They will be close to the use point which eliminates long distance transportation lines. The building of wind and solar can continue and these can be built next to nuke plants as back ups when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine.

CO2

There is a way to increase fossil fuel production and lower CO2 at the same time. Today there are 175,000 cars in the US running on natural gas and thousands of buses and garbage trucks. Here in the Mpls area there are 25 stations where they can refuel and 2,000 such stations across the country. Gasoline power cars average 32 mpg while natural gas cars average 43 mpg. Starting this year companies could make natural gas cars and as they come on line fueling stations could be built. Coal fired plants can convert to natural gas. The US could increase production of natural gas to meet the needs of Europe. The US government can become fossil fuel friendly and increase oil from 11 million barrels per day to 15 million. The US can start building thorium powered nuke plants. A 300 MW reactor would fit on a flatbed truck and weigh about 15 tons. This could power 300,000 homes. These small units can be added as needed. They will be close to the use point which eliminates long distance transportation lines. The building of wind and solar can continue and these can be built next to nuke plants as back ups when the wind doesn't blow and the sun doesn't shine.

Ukrain immigrants

If the US starts to take in refugees from Ukraine the inevitable comparison between those crossing the southern border will become an issue of race. This will distort the benefits that Ukrainians bring with them. Ukraine is a large European country with over 40 million highly educated people, 70% of whom have secondary or higher education. The reputation of Ukraine's workforce as highly skilled and sought after is the product of the educational system intensely focused on technical and scientific disciplines. This is what is needed in today's work force and it is called merit based immigration. Canada has used this system since 1967.

Energy independence

During WW 2 our enemies were Germany, Japan and Italy and these three were called the Axis and they were run by dictators. Today we have a new axis composed of Russia, China, North Korea and Iran and they are all run by dictators. Throughout history it seems that it is dictators that covet land and start wars. In free societies the people must be convinced that war is necessary and that is no easy task. Usually it only happens in response to being attacked as was the case with WW 2 and later in Afghanistan. Sometimes free people will take up arms to help others calling for help as happened in WW 1, Korea, Viet Nam and later in Kuwait. In the case of Ukraine the threat of nuclear war looms overhead and new rules must be applied. The hope is that economic sanctions along with isolation will cause the Russian people to revolt as happened to Ceausescu in Romania. The next best thing is to stop buying oil and natural gas from Russia but Europe has gotten themselves in a bind by relying on Russia and the US has cut back on production so that option is not now available. The lesson here is to be energy independent like the US was just a couple of years ago. In both cases this is the result of poor planning.

Wag the dog

No one wants the war in Ukraine but like all things some will benefit indirectly from the war. Oil companies profits rise as oil prices rise. Biden's approval ratings have gone up 10 points from 37% to 47%. It is the wag the dog concept. The news is no longer about inflation, the border and crime but all about the war and the World including Americans are united in their support for Ukraine. Back in 1997, President Clinton was embroiled in sex scandal and he initiated bombing raids in Sudan and Kosovo and a movie was made called Wag The Dog, where a fictitious president Michael Belson gets involved with a young woman and his aides convince him to start bombing Albania to distract the public. It works in the movie but it didn't help Clinton.

Getting rid of Putin

As people watch the situation in Ukraine unfold it can be difficult to understand the policy the west is proposing. All parties in the west seem to agree that we cannot institute a no fly zone because that would pit the US against Russia and lead to WW 3. At the same time these same people say if Russia invades Estonia the West will respond and that would pit the US against Russia and start WW 3. If that is the case will NATO really honor the article 5 if it means WW 3. If they don't will Russia then move on to Latvia and Lithuania and so on down the line until Putin regains all of the countries that were part of the old Soviet Union. When Putin campaigned for re election in 2018 he said he wanted to reverse the collapse of the Soviet Union. Will the American people and other citizens of the West ever agree to go to war to defend NATO if they believe it will start WW 3? Until that belief is acceptable Russia can take over any country they please. Many say and they may be right that the only solution is to remove Putin from power but they don't say how to do it.

Truck drivers

While regular drivers are hurting because of the price of gasoline the 3.5 million independent truck owners are going broke. Two years ago the price of diesel was $2.72 and today it is $4.03. The average trucker drives 100,000 miles per year and gets 6.5 miles per gallon which means the average fuel consumption is 15,300 gallons per year. Two years ago the owners were paying $41,000 per year for fuel and today they are paying $61,300. In short they are going broke and must use money from savings to stay afloat.

Negotiations

The art of negotiating means not revealing all of your cards until the proper time. As the US meets with representatives of Iran and Russia to resolve the Iran nuke threat let us hope they do not act like they have with the Russians over Ukraine. Why did the US say up front that US troops would not go into Ukraine and the US would not create a no fly zone. What did they gain by giving up those options.

Iranian oil

The situation in Iran is enigmatic. They have been trying to make a nuke bomb since 1970. They keep saying that they will continue their uranium enrichment process until the sanctions are removed. If you google how long would it take to enrich enough uranium to build a bomb the answer is two weeks. This is just some kind of threat to get economic aid from the west but no one seems to understand this. Now the US is negotiating a plan to remove the sanctions and then buy Iranian oil. Do the Greenies understand that from an environmental stand point burning Iranian oil or Russia oil produces the same danger to the air that US oil does. In fact Russia oil is worse. Russian oil companies are illegally disposing of millions of tons of contaminated drilling waste, a practice that is wreaking environmental havoc by polluting northern rivers that drain into the Arctic Ocean, a new RFE/RL investigation has found.

Rules of war

Old time military people say if you are going to war, go to win or don't go. During WW2 while the Nazi's were killing innocent people and Stalin was doing the same the Allies were bombing cities in Germany and Japan indiscriminately burning civilians alive. The result was an update of rules of war in the Geneva Convention. No more killing civilians on purpose or allowing people to starve and thus came the phrase collateral damage. Since that time war for western countries especially the United States has been a start and stop affair controlled more by politicians than generals. It appears that Putin is reverting back to the rules in play before WW 2.

Fake news

Here is some Russian news. On Friday the State Duma passed a law introducing punishment for spreading fake news about the Russian Armed Forces and the military operation in Ukraine, statements that discredit the armed forces, and calls for sanctions on Russia.  According to deputy Maria Butina and TASS, the document was adopted unanimously. A group of people that use their position to spread fake information or distribute fake news with falsified evidence could be jailed for 5 to 10 years.  The question is who gets to decide what is fake or as it is referred to in the US, misinformation or disinformation.

Virus research

In Wuhan China there is a virology lab that performs experiments of different types of virus one of which is the coronavirus. Covid 19 is a type of coronavirus. Coronavirus in humans has been known since 1965. The experiments include something called gain of function which is a way to enhance the way the virus changes and how to make it more viral (catchy). While this was going the first case of Covid occurred in Wuhan in December of 2019 and it quickly spread until the city was quarantined. At first some thought it escaped from the lab. It’s unclear how often such lab accidents occur in China. In 2004, Chinese health authorities acknowledged that a lab accident had caused a localized outbreak of SARS, a year after the epidemic was largely controlled. This lab had a reputation of being careless. About a year after the outbreak the World Health Organization investigated and determined the virus came from a nearby meat market. China refused to participate in any further investigation. A US based non profit group EcoHealth Alliance in 2014 received a $3 million dollar grant to research bat virus at Wuhan. Part of the research included exploring whether the virus could infect people. There is no proof that the US money was used in gain of function research but there is no evidence that it wasn't.

Arms Ukraine

Obama refused military aid to Ukraine and Biden followed that policy until Russia invaded. A bipartisan group from congress urged Obama to send arms but he refused. In between times Trump send many shipments of arms to Ukraine. Biden even put a hold on Trumps last shipment. Here is a quote from Politico. The Biden White House has temporarily halted a military aid package to Ukraine that would include lethal weapons, a plan originally made in response to aggressive Russian troop movements along Ukraine’s border this spring. The aid package would be worth up to $100 million, according to four people familiar with internal deliberations.

Race relations

Today in school, I encountered another example of critical race theory. The students are reading the book entitled, A Raisin In The Sun. It is about a Black family living in Chicago in the 1950's. The father dies and the family receives $10,000 from a life insurance policy and they decided to move out of their apartment and buy a house in the suburbs. This story has a personal side for me. After the war the veterans were all getting married and wanted homes so large projects were built around the country where pre fab homes were set up side by side in places that used to be farm land. In 1959 I bought one of those houses for $10,000. I only needed $400 down payment and an income of $300 per month to qualify for a loan. These requirements meant that many Blacks did not qualify but the family in our story did since they did not require a mortgage. The family was barred from moving into the neighborhood not because of finances but because they were Black. The story is about how they could not get into the neighborhood and ends there. So far so good as that is history. The teacher then could have explained how that is no longer the case and today people qualify based on income and not race. In fact the country went to the other extreme and handed out mortgages to people who did not qualify and many lost their homes including a disproportionate number of Black families. The point is the country has made many mistakes including prejudice but the country has also tried to repair the damage caused by those mistakes. The white students sitting in that classroom were left with the feeling that they were somehow responsible for mistakes that occurred long before they were born. It is mindful of the old case where someone was socially ostracized because their grandfather was a horse thief. When teaching history make an effort to tell the whole story. We have a long way to go when it comes to race relations but we have come a long way.

Iranian oil

The Biden administration instead of encouraging US production of oil chose to purchase oil from Russia. Since the war started American companies have stopped buying oil from Russia. Now the US is looking to buy from Iran. The United States and Iran have nearly completed negotiations on reviving a nuclear accord that could bring more than a million bpd of oil, or about 1% of global supply, back to the market. "We are close to a possible deal," Jalina Porter, the U.S. State Department's principal deputy spokesperson, told reporters. It was just two days ago that Biden in the State of the Union speech said to buy American.

Trump or bust

While MSNBC and CNN keep talking about Trump and January 6 their ratings are going down but they must feel that this reporting is more important than ratings. Here is the rating news for February Among the cable networks, Fox News dominated prime time with an average total audience of 2.634 million viewers, representing an increase of 6% from the same period one year ago. MSNBC was second with 1.194 million viewers (down 46% year-over-year, and CNN (774,000 viewers, representing a decline of 54% from 2021). In the past when something earth shattering like war happened the people would turn to CNN but that is no longer the case.

sanctions

Leaving Ukraine

As Putin threatened Ukraine the people there did not believe he would invade and so they stayed to where they are having trouble getting out. It is mindful of Germany in the 1930's where the Jews stayed because they thought they would be safe but then when it was too late to leave they found out they were in grave danger.

Speech

President Biden gave his first state of the union speech and I agreed with 90% of what he said. Increase support for the Ukrainian people Continue the fight against Covid Unify the country Fund the police Bring manufacturing back home and buy American Increase taxes on those earning more than $400,000 Negotiate prices for prescription drugs Have Medicare set standards for nursing homes Ramp up the fight against the opioid epidemic More support for veterans Fight inflation Secure the border 10% I disagreed with. He talked about gun control and citizenship for illegals but failed to mention immigration, crime and climate change.

Climate

Many feel that the emphasis on climate change is a ruse used to promote social change. When Biden was campaigning he said climate change was the "number one issue facing humanity", but it was an incidental part of his state of the union speech. Many people speak of the importance of climate change but their life styles show little concern. Going all the way back to President Clinton the strategy was to use all sources to fight climate change including nuclear but that is seldom mentioned. Using wind and solar is combined with social programs but nuclear is just an excellent means to produce energy without CO2. Without realizing it these people are getting in the way of solving the problem of climate change. Until nuclear becomes an important part of the fight against climate change it is difficult to be serious about the problem.

Oil from Russia

The question that people who watch this stuff have been asking for two years is now being asked by the press and that is why are we importing oil from Russia. The U.S. imports two types of oil from Russia: crude oil and refined products such as gasoline and kerosene. Last June, the U.S. imported 848,000 barrels per day of crude oil and refined petroleum products from Russia. This increase resulted in Russia edging out Mexico to become the second-largest foreign oil supplier to the U.S. in 2021, behind only Canada — which accounts for almost half of U.S. oil imports. Alaska says it can replace Russia oil if they get permission from the government. The Keystone pipeline can bring in 830,000 barrels per day and that would replace the Russian oil

Zenlenskyy

Over the years a common lament has been why are the old men always willing to send young men off to war while they sit in the safety of the homes. Well that question has been challenged by the Ukraine leadership. President Zelenskyy and his cabinet along with the Mayor of Kiev and much of the Parliament are on staying to fight and they have inspired the rest of their countrymen along with the rest of the world. Unless some miracle happens these leaders will soon be executed and they know that. Germany whose people will suffer greatly if Russia cuts off the oil and gas will increase its defense budget to two percent of GDP which means they will be spending more on military than Russia. Even the always neutral Swiss have been inspired by the Ukrainians.