Blown Away...

"A fool and his money are soon parted"

 Five Hundred Points of Good Husbandry 

 Thomas Tusser 

Every now and again I think it is important to dig out as much information as possible concerning subjects which conflate facts with hyperbole. Wind energy is such an example. It has been quite a while since I have heard as much misinformation, disinformation and out and out garbage about an emerging technology. Hopefully, I can clear some of that up.

Lets first start with availability and cost. Wind energy, along with the other renewables, account for less than 10% of our energy usage. Every study that I have read to date has shown the cost of wind generated energy is higher, sometimes by a third, over nuclear, natural gas or coal fired plants. In any event, with the fluctuations of fossil fuel energy on the world market, this number is always a candidate for revision and dispute.

However the health issue is becoming much more defined as time has gone on. Dr. Nina Pierpont, a Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine-trained M.D. and Princeton Ph.D., has done quite a bit of research of the long term effects of living close to wind farms.
Dr. Pierpoint points out "that living too close to wind turbines can cause heart disease, tinnitus, vertigo, panic attacks, migraines and sleep deprivation." In addition, based on studies she has done in Europe and Canada, she has identified what is now referred to as Wind Turbine Syndrome or WTS. After studying this for over five years, she goes on to say
"The disruption of the inner ear’s vestibular system by low-frequency noise from the turbines is causing problems ranging from internal pulsation and quivering to nervousness, fear, a compulsion to flee, chest tightness and increased heart rate." The reaction to Dr. Pierpoint's findings by the wind power industry - "crap" (so to speak).

The cost is not competitive, the health risks to humans are just being discovered and now I will address the largest unintended consequence of this technology - lethality to birds and bats. In August 2011, The American Bird Conservancy (ABC), observed the following: "Upward of 14 birds per megawatt of wind energy are killed each year, numbering more than 440,000. In addition, the organization projects the number will rise substantially as wind energy production increases." Videos taken by environmental groups have shown raptors, such as Golden Eagles flying into a windmill blade and then falling lifelessly to the ground.
 

What is the most interesting about Golden Eagles or Bald Eagles being killed by windmills is the severity of the federal law which protects them:

"... the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act ... This law, originally passed in 1940, provides for the protection of the bald eagle and the golden eagle ..."Take" includes pursue, shoot, shoot at, poison, wound, kill, capture, trap, collect, molest or disturb (16 U.S.C. 668c; 50 CFR 22.3). The 1972 amendments increased civil penalties for violating provisions of the Act to a maximum fine of $5,000 or one year imprisonment with $10,000 or not more than two years in prison for a second conviction. Felony convictions carry a maximum fine of $250,000 or two years of imprisonment. The fine doubles for an organization. Rewards are provided for information leading to arrest and conviction for violation of the Act."

Finally, lets not forget about bats. Reports are that dead bats are turning up beneath wind turbines all over the world, including North America. Currently, the estimated number of bats killed by wind turbines numbers in the thousands per year. To date, nobody understands why bats are attracted to wind turbines, but they are. Depending on the species, one bat can consume up to 8,000 mosquitoes in one hour. With malaria on the rise in certain areas of the world, do we really want to kill these mosquitoes eating machines?

Bottom line is this - is there room for renewable energy in our future - absolutely! However, wind turbines definitely have ways to go before it is viable and has minimal externalities of production and usage. We need to take a second look at this technology before more valuable money, resources and wildlife are blown, or just plain blown away.



The Battle of Los Angeles - Redux

"Our true nationality is mankind."

H. G. Wells

Note: Before you read this and think I have taken a short walk off of the grid, let me first say that my wife has told me I cannot do all politics all the time. She told me I needed to "mix it up a bit" with other things I find of interest. This article falls into that category.

Many do not know this tidbit of information. I did not know it until a few months ago when I stumbled upon it by accident while doing some World War II research. In February 1942, less than three months after Pearl Harbor, something very strange happened over the skies of Los Angeles. What was thought to be a follow on Japanese attack on a major city in the homeland triggered an anti-aircraft artillery barrage which lasted about and hour.

Early in the morning of the 25th of February, "something" was spotted in the air over Los Angeles and the 37th Coast Artillery Brigade released a withering barrage of fire. All in all, over 1,400 thirteen pound anti-aircraft shells were fired in the skies over Los Angeles. About an hour after the shelling started, the "all clear" was sounded and it stopped. Several buildings were damaged and five civilians were killed by the anti-aircraft fire. In addition, three more people died of heart attacks due to the stress of the bombardment.

What were they firing at? The government was quick to step in and give "Roswell" type excuses. Weather balloons, war nerves and shells firing at other shells. No matter. Even back then, when we had a much less sceptical population, many suspected a government cover up. Yes, even back then, some thought the "something" being fired on might have been "other worldly".

What is really strange about this incident is the number of people who saw it.  What was reported by many to be a huge craft, looking like a lantern, moved slowly from Culver City and Santa Monica over downtown Los Angeles. When many of the civilians heard sirens going off, they came out of their houses expecting to see waves of Japanese attack aircraft starting to bomb. Instead they saw something quite different. Shell after shell would impact on this very large craft with no effect. After an hour of shelling, it moved slowly over Long Beach and then disappeared.

Now the story gets even stranger. Some of this information I found out by accident when doing some Navy fact finding. My first caveate is this - the following might just be a big early Halloween story. Or there could be something to it. I vetted the story as much as I could and I still don't know - but this is what has been reported by Gordon Duff. Mr Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, a combat infantryman, and Senior Editor at Veterans Today. His career has included extensive experience in international banking along with such diverse areas as consulting on counter insurgency, surveillance technologies, intelligence analysis,defense technologies or acting as a UN diplomat
and "special consultant.".

Duff's article goes: "This last week (week of September 10, 2012), reports of Chinese naval vessels off the US coast, Northern Californian in particular, have been reported but denied. Now an Asian intelligence agency reports that a combined fleet operation between the US and China has been going on, a full combat operation against what we are told is a “highly unfriendly extra-terrestrial threat.” The verifications of the fleet operations have been many, there have been no confirmations from the US side though the ships have been seen by every vessel that makes it offshore. The true nature of both the threat and the extent of the multinational military force used is beyond any imaginable classification level."

Further research beyond the Duff article suggests due to the large and growing Naval presence we have in the Persian Gulf and other areas around the Middle East, we did not have the proper assets for this operation. That is why China, with its growing blue water fleet, was asked to help. Again, none of this is credible at this time. However, there appears to be some type of a smoking gun on this issue.  

There you have it. As Lewis Carroll said in Alice in Wonderland, sometimes our world just gets “Curiouser and curiouser!” 

 



“Carpe diem. Seize the day.”

 

John Keats

“You must live in the present, launch yourself on every wave, find your eternity in each moment. Fools stand on their island of opportunities and look toward another land. There is no other land; there is no other life but this.” 

Henry David Thoreau

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today" has been replaced with "Screw it - later". Love him or hate him, Robin Williams did a wonderful job in the movie Dead Poets Society. In that movie he played a teacher of young boys who constantly promoted not just living in the moment, but taking advantage of the moment. In other words, he told them to seize the day!

I must first confess two things - first, I am not as much of a "seize the day" person as I would like to be. Second, I have always admired people who are. My best friend when I was in the Navy stationed in Maine is such a man. Every chance he had to taste another slice of life, he would do it. One day when I asked him why he was so anxious to put so much on his plate, his answer was very simple - he did not want to be on his death bed thinking "coulda, shoulda, woulda". In other words, each day, everyday, he would seize the day!

Now I am not saying we all need to live in the moment and forget about tomorrow - there has to be a happy median. Many parents of people in my generation gave up life experiences to save for tomorrow, to pass on to the next generation. One parent had talked for years about taking his wife up to Alaska on a cruise. They had the money, they had the time. Then his wife got cancer and went though years of treatment and sicknesss. It became impracticable for them to go. Now with his wife gone, and health problems of his own, he will never go - never live that dream. In other words, years ago, he needed take that dream and seize the day!

Last weekend was my 45th year high school reunion. As great as it was to get togther with my old chums, I could not help thinking "where has the time gone?". It just seems like yesterday we were all kids doing the goofy high school stuff. Now we are all at retirement age with many more yesterdays than tomorrows. As we talked and swaped stories about our "bucket lists", I wondered if this was going to be reality, or will our bucket lists remain full at our passing. We have seen so many friends and loved ones pass, we know that life truly turns on a dime and plans and dreams can change in an instant. It reminded me of the saying "Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift - that is why it is called the present". In other words, we need to seize the day!

Some have asked me in the past few years with the economy being so turbulent, where is a safe place to put their money. My answer - no clue. However, I will say this - with the chance of hyper inflation, deflation or even a currency collapse, if you want to buy something or go someplace, my counsel is to do it now. I will continue to plan for tomorrow, but more and more I am living for today. Thank you John Keats for Carp diem - I will always be more and more mindful of the value of seizing the day! 
 

The Growing Menace of the Norks

This photo of the Korean Peninsula was taken from space. It shows the stark difference between the standard of living between the two Koreas.

This is an article I posted five years ago on a former blog. I will update some of it, however some will probably remain outdated. The term Nork is a common slang term for North Korea. Was has changed since I first posted this article is "Dear Leader" is now dead, and the Norks have recently announced they have a new missile which will reach anywhere in North America.

First a bit of recent Korean history taken from Wikipedia:

"The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korea (officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) and South Korea (officially the Republic of Korea) with major hostilities beginning on June 25, 1950, pausing with an armistice signed on July 27, 1953. North Korea has since unilaterally withdrawn from that armistice, having announced its intent to do so on May 27, 2009. The conflict arose from the attempts of the two Korean powers to re-unify Korea under their respective governments. The period immediately before the war was marked by escalating border conflicts at the 38th Parallel and attempts to negotiate elections for the entirety of Korea. These negotiations ended when the North Korean Army invaded the South on June 25, 1950. Under the aegis of the United Nations, nations allied with the United States intervened on behalf of South Korea. After rapid advances in a South Korean counterattack, North-allied Chinese forces intervened on behalf of North Korea, shifting the balance of the war and ultimately leading to an armistice that approximately restored the original boundaries between North and South Korea."

After the death of North Korea's "Dear Leader" (Kim Jong il), power was handed off to his youngest son, "Supreme Leader" (Kim Jong-un) . Before his death, "Dear Leader"  announced that North Korea will not abide by any United Nations sanctions, WILL weaponize any uranium or plutonium that resides in North Korea and worst of all, launch a nuclear strike against any country that takes part in an embargo or aggressive sanctions. Right now, with the entire Korean Peninsula destabilized, it is unclear which country (Japan, South Korea or United States) is in greater peril. I have said for years the only type of person I fear is one who has absolutely nothing to lose. In a country that is plagued by starvation, has very few utilities and endures chronic human rights abuses, North Korea truly has nothing to lose. They are the desperate thug who suddenly acquires a handgun. Due to the selfish, short sighted "leadership" in North Korea, we could be standing on the precipice of yet another world changing event. Besides having a fully functioning nuclear device, North Korea has also perfected the multistage Taepodong-2 missile, which could reach Alaska, Hawaii or the west coast of the United States. In addition, it is believed that North Korea has anywhere from one to three dozen single stage No-dong short range missiles that could easily hit South Korea, Japan or our bases in Okinawa or Guam. Finally, it is not going to take much of a technology leap to come up with a longer range missile that could reach any target in the United States. Should the North Koreans ever be able to light off even a low grade nuke at high altitude over the United States, it will be "lights out" - literally. The EMP effect of this type of detonation could wipe out most of our electric grid, everyone's stored electronic data as well as numerous other essentials (By the way, the Heritage Foundation has a video out called 33 Minutes which also addresses the North Korean threat to our homeland). In other words, should North Korea ever achieve this evil deed, our country would look very much like North Korea for years, if not decades.

The following poem written in 1970, I now dedicate to the Supreme Leader. He needs to read it and understand it - now, more than ever.

Here I stand a man among men,

I know no evil, I practice no sin.

I burn, destroy, kill and maim,

Its' funny I don't even know my name.

I cover the path that peace had trod,

Some call me man, but I call me God.

Post script: The North Koreans are every bit as dangerous today as they were when I first posted this article. As concerned as we are about Iran getting a bomb, this very unstable regime already has at least one. They now have the bomb and the ability to deliver it. This menace cannot be ignored, no matter how turbulent the rest of the world has become.

The Town Crier

"If people in the media cannot decide whether they are in the business of reporting news or manufacturing propaganda, it is all the more important that the public understand that difference, and choose their news sources accordingly."

Thomas Sowell

In the middle of the day, a man with a bell would step into the middle of the town square, ring his bell, and say in a loud and clear voice, "Oyez, Oyez, Oyez" (Hear Ye, Hear Ye, Hear Ye). It was the sound people would hear before the Town Crier would make his daily proclamations. The position of Town Crier, which has been around for centuries, goes back to Medieval England. He was an officer of the court who would make public pronouncements which the court required. Everything he said was exact as it was not his words, but rather the words of the court in which he was entrusted to pass on to the general population. The position eventually morphed into also giving some general news in addition to the court pronouncements. This was the only way people in that era could receive reliable information. This continued until around 1440 when Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable type printing press which thereby ushered in the age of print media. Over the years, as the position of Town Crier has faded into history, some jurisdictions in Europe and America have resurrected the position mostly as a novelty.

Fast forward to today. Who are the Town Criers today? Is it the print media, television, radio or the now universally accessible internet? Which if any of these can we rely on for accurate, truthful information?

Much can be said about the evolution of what is referred to today as the MSM (Main Stream Media). In the early days print media, there was clear delineation between the facts being reported and a section that contained the opinions of the editorial staff and sometimes the readers. Over the years, there has been a blurring of these two distinct sections of the media. Many who are to report the news proudly wear their biases and political leanings on their sleeves. 

If the information we receive from the media cannot be relied on as accurate and truthful, where do we go from here? In the George Orwell book 1984, which was published in 1949, a picture was painted of what would happen if the flow of information went from reporting the truth to the control of information.

"Winston kept his back turned to the telescreen. It was safer; though, as he well knew, even a back can be revealing. A kilometer away the Ministry of Truth, his place of work, towered vast and white above the grimy landscape. ... It was an enormous pyramidal structure of glittering white concrete, soaring up, terrace after terrace, three hundred meters into the air. From where Winston stood it was just possible to read, picked out on its white face in elegant lettering, the three slogans of the Party: 

"War is PEACE. Freedom is SLAVERY. Ignorance is STRENGTH."

So who are the Town Criers of today? Not the MSM. In fact, a September, 2012 Gallup survey states the following: "Sixty percent said they had "little" or "no" trust in the media, which is the first time that stat has hit the 60-percent level." Wow! Over half the people don't trust what they see, hear or read. This is a mind numbing statistic. The result of this fact is newspapers and news magazines are losing money and some are going out of business. As fast as the tradition sources are shrinking, the non traditional ones are growing.

Today, many of us rely on the internet for the most unvarnished reporting of the facts. This is the golden age of blogs, social media, internet T.V. and so on. The people I go to for the best reporting get their facts from numerous sources. Their information is vetted and fact checked. Until proven otherwise, this non traditional fountian of information called the internet is my Town Crier - and will remain so until proven unworthy of that title.

 

 

 

It is a Brave New World!

 

 

 

 

 

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

 

The Tempest

Act V, Scene I

William Shakespeare

 

 

 

I can't even tell you how many times I have been told to "get with the program" because it is a brave new world we are living in. Every time I am told that, I get an inward chuckle as I have read Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and that brave new world, I don't think anyone would want anything to do with.

  

Similar to Hunger Games, Brave New World paints the world as a dystopia. A dystopia is nothing more than a negative utopia. Today we are seeing things, hearing things and experiencing things that are antithetical to the way many of us were raised. An example of this is close to home. One of the college football teams has a quarterback who got his girlfriend pregnant and had twins. Back in my day, the honorable thing would have been to marry the mother of your children, quit the team, become a part time student (at best), and work your butt off to support your new family. Today, with the price of raising a child to the age of 18 estimated to be $222K (exclusive of college), our local quarterback is still playing football, not married, and if working, not putting in many hours.

Honor, veracity, and valor use to mean something. To call someone a liar was almost never heard of as it cut to the heart of someone's character. Today we have presidential candidates calling each other liars.  We have lost our chivalry and nobility. We had a sitting president receive oral sex (from someone other than his wife) in the Oval Office and we told by many it was okay because it was a "personal" matter. In so many things today, we have lost our sense of direction - our moral compass.

How did we get here? Some say it started in 1968 with the seeds of social unrest. Other say it was a reaction to Viet Nam. Question everything, respect nothing. Arguments which once were settled with fists, are now adjudicated with knives and guns. Decades ago bad behavior in the class room was dealt with by using some form of corporal punishment followed by a note sent home to your parents. When your parents saw the note, there was most likely more punishment coming. Today, there is no discipline in schools as lawsuits wait in the wings. Teachers and parents who at one time worked together as a team, are often now at cross purposes. God, who was frequently talked about in public education, is now persona non grata in academia. In the opinion of many, this brave new world we now live in, started in 1968 in the hallowed halls of eduction.

Just like a self assessment, sometimes we need to go to the mirror and take a closer look. To effect change, introspection is needed on a daily basis. Often today, when I look in our nations mirror, I really don't like what I see. I see a great country, build from courage and character, sometimes looking lost and confused. "Doing the right thing" has often been replaced with "I'm doing my thing". Selflessness has become selfishness.

What can we do? My feeling is this - to leave this brave new world, all we need do is embrace the lessons the Greatest Generation taught us. Then, the corrosive nature of the 60's, which gave us nihilism and hedonism, must be eschewed by all.

 

 

 

 

The way we were...

Can it be that it was all so simple then?
Or has time re-written every line?
If we had the chance to do it all again
Tell me, would we? could we?

The Way We Were

Alan and Marilyn Bergman and Marvin Hamlisch

 1973

I recently attended my 45th class reunion with my high school graduating class. It was great seeing everyone and most of the conversations revolved around stories of life, kids and grandkids. However, at our age, it was just great to see everyone there was still alive.

 

One of the common themes discussed was our class experienced the end of an era - in some ways the end of innocence. Over the years, my wife (who graduated three years after me) has heard over and over about my high school life. Unfortunately, she did not share the same experience. Not to sound trite, but to me high school was a form of Camelot. Most everyone got along and looked forward to coming to school. My graduation class was over 800 - very large even for today's standards. Yet out of that large number, very few smoked, alcohol consumption was rare, and drugs were not yet in the picture.

 

As good as things were, they were not perfect. There was the Viet Nam War, the draft, and how they related affected most of us. In addition, the country started experiencing the first seeds of social unrest. However for the most part, life was very good. Fridays in the fall were full of high caliber football, sock hops, pizza, eating out, and of course, cruising the A+W root beer stand.

 

A radio show describes a mythical town in which the boys are strong, the girls are good looking, and all are above average. To me, that was our graduating class. We dressed up for school, respected teachers, led relatively clean lives, went to church, and hung around as friends. There were no metal detectors, no drug sniffing dogs, no gangs, and very, very few pregnancies. It was a time if you could safely walk to and from school without worrying your parents.

 

I feel badly that social unrest and drugs crept into society and tainted my wife's high school experience. I feel even worse that my daughters high school experience was not memorable to them. They will never have what I had, and I grieve for that. All that remains for those of us in the Class of "67" are the memories of a time, of a place which is now gone and never again to be duplicated. Our experiences formed us, nurtured us, and made us who we are. It was special. It was Camelot. It truly was the way we were.