24thState

Big Bad John

I lived in Texas seven years, and while some may see this ad as way over the top, it's effective.  It's for Senator John Cornyn - (R-TX)

That's from the Johnny Cash song, Big Bad John.

hattip:  Robert Bluey

Barack Obama Doesn't Understand High Gas Prices

Obama's podcast on high gas prices in May 2006 is eye-opening.   The man has no engineers around him formulating policy.  It seems his entire energy policy is based on E85 stations and higher taxes on oil companies. 

The first place to start is with cars. We've got to build cars that use less gasoline. The auto industry hasn't been asked to raise fuel-economy standards in seventeen years and frankly, lately Republicans and Democrats seem to have stopped asking. Today, we've got no choice. Starting in 2008, we should raise CAFE standards (that's the fuel-efficiency standards on cars) a modest 3 percent a year. If we did that over the next 12 years, by 2020 passenger vehicles would average 40 miles per gallon, light trucks would average 32 miles per gallon. That's not a dramatic increase; it's easily achievable through existing technology and it can be done without compromising passenger safety.

Barack is supposed to be some kind of super genius (all Democratic presidential candidates supposedly are), but he really needs to think through the math on this last statement.  A 3% change every year is a 42.5% change over 12 years.  That's not modest, it's extraordinary.  If it could be done, the car companies would have done it by now.  There are only a few ways you can improve CAFE Standards.

1) Make the Cars Smaller
2) Make the engine Smaller
3) Make the Car Lighter
4) Improve the engine
5) Improve the Design.

The low hanging fruit is the design.  It's one of the reasons that cars all look the same now.  Aerodynamic principles really only work in a few ways, which means everything looks alike.  And the benefits are small.  Most of have been taken.  So 1) All cars and trucks now look alike, and you didn't improve much.

Making the Car Smaller, Lighter, or the engine smaller is all possible, but it drastically affects the performance and safety of the car. Small, light cars are more dangerous (to the driver) then heavy powerful ones.  If you want to do this, you have to be prepared to tell the American car-buyer that they no longer have choice, but instead have to drive tiny, slow cars.  If that's what you want to do, fine, but let's not pretend that magic CAFE changes will let us keep what we have with no pain.

And that leaves engine improvements.  We have electric cars and we have hybrids and we have ethanol and biodiesel.

First, let's start with Electric cars.  Electric cars are great for reducing air pollution.  They're horrible for greenhouse gases, because it's less efficient to make electricity (burning oil or coal) then it is to burn gas directly.  You lose a lot of power making electricity and transmitting it across lines and into batteries.

What about Ethanol?  Let's go back to Barack:

We should just replace the use of oil altogether as America's fuel of choice. This doesn't mean singing the praises of ethanol, and hoping that it finds its way into our fuel supply on its own. It means taking some serious steps now to put a national bio-fuel infrastructure into place. Already some cars on the road have flexible fuel tanks necessary for them to run on E85, which is a cheaper, cleaner blend of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. But millions upon millions of cars still don't have these tanks. So its time for auto-makers to install those tanks in every single car that they make and the government can help cover this small cost which currently runs at just around $100 per car.

Ethanol and Biodiesel are red herrings.  Oil and Coal are great at producing energy for two reasons.  One, they're lumped together in one spot.  You put a derrick in the ground, or you cut pieces of a mountain out, and you have all the coal and oil you can gather.  If coal were spread out an inch thick over the entire state of New York, it would be very difficult to mine.  Two, oil and coal are concentrated energy.  They're organic material that has been compressed. 

Biofuels?  Well, burn a quart of oil and a quart of ethanol and see which burns hotter and faster.  Ethanol is less powerful, which means you need more of it, and the ethanol is a product of corn, which means that you have to process it, losing a lot of the mass.  If you replaced all of the oil in the US with ethanol, you'd be knee deep in corn stalks from Bangor to San Diego.  We don't have enough corn to do it, and we don't have enough other organic material.  What we do have is a way to enrich farm lobbies and farm conglomerates, while pretending to do a good job.

Here's the sad fact. We use oil because it works.  It's the best substance we have, and anyone who tells you different either doesn't care about the consequences, or refuses to look at the problem with clear eyes.  Yes, we may have a breakthough in energy conversion in the future, but mandating change in the hopes of a miracle happening is a fool's game.  If Barack is wrong, and we don't find the magic energy beans, we've actually wrecked the economy. 

Try this one.  If you are an engineering super genius, and you could create a replicable clean engine that could be mass produced, wouldn't you be hard at work on it?  The designer would be the richest man in the world, and be hailed as a savior for generations.  So why hasn't it happened? 

Because it's hard to do, and no number of laws passed are going to alter the fundamental laws of physics anytime soon.

Harvard Should Buy A Wing For The University Of Iowa

I'm watching the flooding in Iowa, and it's just terrible that the University of Iowa is flooded.  I live not far from one of the flooded areas that hit Missouri in 1993, and while you recover, it takes a lot of work to do so.

I'm sure the federal and state government will step in, but I'd like to see more.

Specifically, I'd like to see a gesture of goodwill from universities that currently hold multi-billion dollar endowments.  Harvard, for example, is sitting on about $34 billion.  That's about equal to what Microsoft used to have.  If they are making just 5%, they're pulling in a cool $1.7 billion if no one ever gives another penny.  Surely they can donate a small percentage of their accrued interest to a worthy cause/

One - it's the right thing to do.  If higher education is important, then a university can easily find justification to spend money helping other schools in their times of distress.  It takes a narrow mind to assume that endowment money can only be spent on a school, and not the bigger society as a whole.

Two - Congress is starting to eye these huge, tax-free endowments, and there's a lot of bad will in the country towards elitist schools which seem increasingly out of touch.  What better PR gesture than an act of goodwill in buying a building in flyover country?  Think about it.  The Harvard Building of Law and Politics.  Of course, the money would have to be given without preconditions - we wouldn't want to create a precedent where donors get to lay out conditions for their money {cough, cough}. 

It's a great idea, and a very liberal one, as I get to feel good about coming up with a solution where someone else uses their money to solve a problem, but I get to take credit for it.  So spread it far and wide, and take part in the good feelings of helping the students of the state of Iowa.

It's also cool to see a blog pop up with information for volunteers.

Photo from Daphonz at Flickr.

Democratic Activists Fear The Brown Note

Waitaminutewaitaminutewaitaminute...

I didn't quite believe this when I saw it it.  It seems the wackos who plan on protesting the Democratic convention in Colorado are worried that the authorities are going to employ new crowd control tactics popularized by...South Park.

That's right.  South Park had an episode called Worldwide Recorder Concert, where Cartman discovers the "Brown Note," a musical note that makes human beings release their bowels when they hear it. The note is mythical, but it made for an amusing premise for a cartoon.

The Tinfoil Hat Brigade thinks its real, and is "preparing" for its deployment (quick, buy Huggies stock!) for the DNC in Denver.  I was in Los Angeles during the 2000 convention.  It struck me as strange that a Democratic town would clean out all of the crack whores, drug dealers, and homeless that normally infested downtown so they couldn't be filmed by national news desks, but then again, it was nice to see clean streets with no rats for at least a couple of months.

That convention was memorable for me because Porky Pig was arrested.  Not the real Porky Pig, but a PETA protestor who drove a truck full of manure up to the Wilshire Grand and dumped it on the sidewalk.  They photographed him on the front page of the LA Times, a great picture if there ever was one.

Of course, my normal thoughts about protestors is a mixture of disgust and loathing.  That feeling is shared by most people who actually meet a payroll.  Who has time to take to the streets?  People who don't have to work for a living (or those who get paid to take to the streets).

24thstate's Foreign Envoy

24thstate has invited me to provide the perspective of a Missourian abroad.  Currently "abroad" means California, though soon enough "abroad" will mean Florida, and quite possibly China in the near future.

What is the point of providing a Missouri-perspective within the United States?  Well, everything is in the name.  The United States are just that: states united.  In an era where the federal government takes on the characteristics of the Blob, it is important to remind ourselves that each state develops its own culture and character, and these differences are truly what makes our country unique within the world.  Consider each state a laboratory where various experiments are being conducted on the best way to live within a democracy.  I am part of the experiment known as Missouri, and as such, I can provide a unique perspective on happenings outside of the 24thstate.

A couple of observations come to mind immediately:

1) Political descriptions (liberal, conservative, etc.) mean very different things in different states.  The national media can often be confusing when it comes to politics, and it is for this reason.  A Colorado-conservative may often disagree with his counter-part in Florida, and both would be very confused by their brother in California (a rare-breed that can be likened to a chameleon).

2) Missouri has elected the President in every election (other than Eisenhower's second term) for the last hundred years or so.  We are often considered a "fly-over" state by our fellow Americans, but we clearly have our finger on the pulse of this country.  Let us hope we continue this trend in the near future.

I look forward to providing observations of the outside world to the 24thstate.  For reasons that may become subtly clear in future posts, I wish to remain anonymous.  So think of me as your very own Marco Polo venturing into strange and exotic lands.   

I'm A Big Environmentalist, But I'd Drill In Alaska

Some anecdotal evidence - today i got my hair cut, and was talking with the woman cutting my hair.  We complained about high gas prices.  I told her that we don't drill in the US, and haven't built a refinery in 30 years.  She hadn't heard that, and wanted something done that would actually lower prices.

I went to Schnuck's and purchased some flowers for the wife - they've doubled in price in the last year, and have gone up 25% in the last 3 months.  I pointed this out to a woman behind the meat counter, and said it was probably the cost of gas.  Without being prompted she said, "I'm a big environmentalist, and even I say it's time to drill in Alaska."

I often try to draw people into discussions like this when I'm out.  My goal is to simply find out how informed the average Missouri citizen is.  If you're careful, you can get into a discussion of healthcare, the economy, the war, and guns, crime, and taxes without getting someone overexcited and reflexively Democrat or Republican.

What I'm seeing everywhere, from people of all types, in many separate areas, is a focus on gas prices.  And they want someone to so something about it.  This holds true even in Missouri, where we have the cheapest gas at $3.82 a gallon.

Enter Roy Blunt, who seems to be thriving in the minority.  He pulled a chart the other day comparing the energy plans of the Republicans with that of the Democrats.

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Energy security is a winning issue, and it isn't just about gas prices.  The public has been lied to about rich oil men in the White House.  It's time that the average person start hearing that Democratic power brokers whose campaigns are flush from cash from environmental groups have actively been blocking drilling, refinery expansion, nuclear power, and even alternative energy sources like wind farms because they don't want more energy.  These radical environmental groups want us poorer, because they think that humans are a cancer on the planet. The question, is how far the rest of the country will go along with that interpretation.  There's a difference between recycling and not wasting water, and agreeing to cut carbon emissions by 80%.  There's a difference between wanting better gas mileage and clean air, and deliberate policies to drive the price up gas up to $5 A gallon.  How many Americans know that Al Gore said that $5 gas is the solution to our energy habit? Now that Al and the rest of the far left Democrats have had their way, are they happy?  Shouldn't Al Gore be out there congratulating the American people on successfully implementing his ideas?  Of course not.  The only way rabid leftists get into power is to lie about their intentions, and then use the courts, executive orders, and bureaucracy to get their way.  $4 gas and $5 diesel.  It's what the Democratic leadership wants. Do you?

Michelle Obama "Whitey" Tape Is A Democratic Smear

All due respect to Matt Schofield, but his Prime Buzz post on the new website Obama is launching makes a huge error.

The rumor that Michelle Obama railed against "whitey" in a diatribe at Chicago's Trinity United Church of Christ has circulated on conservative Republican blogs for weeks and was repeated by radio talk show host Rush Limbaugh. The rumor included claims of a videotape of the speech that would be used to bring down Obama's candidacy this fall.

He says the rumor that Michelle Obama had a racist tirade from the pulpit at Trinity Church is being spread on Republican blogs, but this is a story that most conservative bloggers have no knowledge about.

It was No Quarters and HillBuzz, along with Bob Beckel, a Democratic strategist, who spread that rumor.

And if you look at the comments on that page, you see someone spreading a drug reference about Cindy McCain.  That someone is a political operative who has been dropping that comment at every site that talks about Michelle Obama. 

Basically - progressive sites are spreading rumors about Obama, and a "progressive" is smearing the McCains hoping to get their own traction.  The site is fightthesmears.com, but that actually takes you to a splash page to donate.  Here's the Obama FightTheSmears site.  Of course, if you read the site, Obama's people blame it on Rush Limbaugh and Roger Stone.  It's much more convenient to blame it on Republicans, even though it came from committed Hillary supporters.

What we're seeing is an example of "Flood The Zone."  The Obama campaign is attempting to create a narrative that everything told about him is lies, so that when legitimate criticism is handed down (Rezko, Johnson, Wright, Pfleger, Michelle, and oh yeah, his far-left views on governing), the campaign can claim it's all another Swift-Boat tactic.  And they'll be supported by the media, who already is fawning about the campaign (and publishing verbatim anything they get from the Obama people).

Don't be fooled.  Obama is not a secret Muslim, and he's more likely a chameleon willing to suck up to anyone willing to support him than a black racist, but he's no angel.  We're about to see the largest propaganda push of any Presidential campaign, supported by hundreds of millions of dollars from unreported sources and the massive wailing of progressive bloggers.

Missourians for Fair Elections was a single fake organization that will be replicated thousands of times in the next months.  Will the American people fall for it? 

I tried to register at the KCStar to leave the comment, but no registration has arrived.  You guys should fix that.

Should Everyone Go To College?

I've written before about the problems with our higher education system.  Everyone can't go to college, and instead of training those with the capacity to learn more, we're often stealing money from those who can least afford it who don't even need the skils a college can teach. 

Remedial English Composition isn't something you should be getting college credit for, or paying exorbitant fees for.  But don't take my word for it.  Via instapundit, In the Basement of the Ivory Tower.

No one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass. The colleges and the students and I are bobbing up and down in a great wave of societal forces—social optimism on a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and a need, financial necessity on the part of the colleges and the students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students—that have coalesced into a mini-tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the flowchart and seen that, although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct instructor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the F on that first writing assignment.

Plumbers, construction, sales and marketing, (heck management) - are these jobs that require college educations?  They pay well.

A bigger question is what to do when 60% of college degrees are awarded to women, and companies require a college degree for a job.  Anyone up for a discrimination lawsuit on behalf of young men?

Barack Obama Energy Policy: Make US More Like Haiti

That's no typo.  I was reading through the Obama energy policy, which was like, the candidate, big on promises, and low on results (lt

His promise:  Cut Carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. 

The reality, from the WSJ: 

The only nations in the world today that emit at this low level are all poor developing nations, such as Belize, Mauritius, Jordan, Haiti and Somalia.

None of those poor countries has near the 300 million people and the massive industry that we have.  But through the magic of Barack Obama, we're going to get there.

I urge all of you who would consider voting for Barack Obama to go to his site and read his energy solutions.  They're not very well thought out, and to anyone with any experience in these areas, they're empty promises from an empty suit.

Let's take a look at his solutions and experience:  $150 billion (it's pennies when it comes to energy research) and reaching across the aisle (His example is putting E85 gas stations across Missouri with Jim Talent.  That's the equivalent of solving our healthcare crisis by passing out carrot sticks to a gymnasium of high school students. It's certainly not the  massive change he  promises. Massive change would have been that failed boondoggle, the Lierberman-Warner tax everyone to death before they die of Global Warming bill.  What he did:

Renewable Fuels: Obama has worked on numerous efforts in the Senate to increase access to and use of renewable fuels. Obama passed legislation with Senator Jim Talent (R-MO) to give gas stations a tax credit for installing E85 ethanol refueling pumps. The tax credit covers 30 percent of the costs of switching one or more traditional petroleum pumps to E85, which is an 85 percent ethanol/15 percent gasoline blend. Obama also sponsored an amendment that became law providing $40 million for commercialization of a combined flexible fuel vehicle/hybrid car within five years.

He's been in the Senate two years, and what does he have to show for it?  A tax credit for a line of ethanol pumps across Missouri.  That wasn't enough to get Jim Talent re-elected, and yet Barack Obama, who hasn't done the same for Illinois or the rest of the country, thinks he can solve your energy policy.  Wouldn't that have been leadership?  Why just one state?  A minor tax credit and an earmark for a flex-fuel car.  How is that coming?   We're three years into that flex-fuel hybrid earmark.  Is it ready yet?

There's no word.  Here's the truth. If we elect Obama and a Democratic Congress, we'll have $10 gas in 2012, and  we'll be years away from fixing it.  We'll be less secure, and we'll have no supply on hand. Democrats have blocked our access to energy sources for thirty years, and now they have the nerve to complain about high energy prices?

If you think $4 gas is high when you have two Texas oilmen in the White House, how bad is it going to be when you have a State Senator who thinks the way to lower gas prices is to take more resources from  the companies who drill it?

IRan So Far Away

Maybe there was never such a time, but there might be one day in the future when the American Public unites to fight tyranny, oppression, and the subjugation of the weak with all of the weapons at our disposal.

That includes the military, our economy, our diplomatic corps, our intelligence, our men and women of faith, our philanthropists, our volunteers, and yes, our comedians.

Darkness, like the devil, can't stand to be mocked.  We should remember that sometimes.