Perspective, please....

 

 

"Waterboarding or beheading? Which is torture? These days, with this enemy, everything should be on the table..."

Well the events last week and going into this week tells an interesting story. What story? The story on American perspective these days. Last week we had a front page splash on just about every newspaper in the country. It was a story on the rendition and enhanced interrogation techniques used after the 9/11 attacks. However, we are not going to use those terms anymore. The Democrats, as well as the main stream media, much prefer "torture".

To put some perspective into last week's and so far this week's events, I will offer some bullet points:

• Waterboarding - Unlike the Japanese and other countries who in war would water board prisoners until death by drowning, the handful of people who were water boarded after the 9/11 attacks all lived. They were in a prone position, one their backs with their feet elevated higher than their heads. This ensured no water would go into the lungs.
• Beheadings- Last week it was disclosed the beheadings of children continue in the Middle East. In particular, Christian children. Four more children were beheaded for refusing to deny Christ. Who did this heinous act? Muslim terrorists. The outcry from the Democrats and the main stream media? Still waiting.
• Australia - The city of Sydney, which prides itself on being cosmopolitan and peaceful, proved itself a tempting target for a Muslim extremist early Monday morning. Two innocent people, in their prime of life, were killed by this lunatic.
• Pakistan - Last night (our time), a school was overrun by the Taliban in Pakistan. This was a school that was attended by the children of Pakistani Army Officers. Right now the death count is just under 100, with most of them being children. Other children are being held hostage right now.
• Drones - I am okay with us using drones. However, the hypocrisy of the drone lovers and water board haters is almost amusing. Many drones are equipped with Hellfire missiles. They are anti-tank missiles. They are very lethal and can cause significant collateral damage. Somehow the fact that we have incinerated innocent people (children included) that happened to be in the vicinity of a bad guy we have targeted, passes the sniff test. Perspective? Two terrorists have died in rendition "black sites" overseas since the 9/11 attacks. Hundreds, maybe thousands, have died in drone attacks.

Someday the world is going to wake up to our new reality. We have an enemy, not by our choosing, who is the baddest of the bad. They practice no rules, they have no scruples, and they show no mercy. Videos have been on the internet showing them killing babies in the most gruesome fashion. They have behead children, and then display the heads on stakes. They bury people alive. They lucky ones get shot in the head. They are bold in their actions, and as we have seen on 9/11, they will stop at nothing to get to us.

We can continue to take these extremists lightly, or we can treat them like a cancer which is spreading. As we have seen in the chocolate house in Australia, or the school in Pakistan, soft targets are becoming more common. And free societies (like ours), have plenty of soft targets to choose from. 


    

Why Washington does not work anymore...

 

 

"As the old expression goes, 'This is no way to run a railroad'..."

It has happened again. Only this time, it happened with the help of the Republican led House. And it had the Speaker's fingerprints all over it. Rather than ObamaCare and the Stimulus Bill, which Republicans for the most part eschewed, this time the RINOs grabbed the GFY 15 Funding Bill and kissed it on the lips. It was enough to make me puke.

The word "Omnibus" should never be used in connection with any kind of bill in Washington. Nothing good ever comes from it. This funding bill, in similar fashion to the Stimulus Bill, is loaded up with more goodies than Santa can deliver. And also, in similar fashion to the Stimulus Bill or ObamaCare, nobody read this gargantuan mess. Maybe Dr. Gruber is right. We are too stupid not to question or put an end to this process.

We could have passed a stop gap bill which would have gone out to February. The President at one time signaled he was okay with that. In February, the new Republican led House and Senate would have been in session. It would have been an opportunity to show the taxpayers how to pass common sense bills the right way. Or not. With RINOs running both the House and Senate next year, we still might have received a pork filled gobblty gook piece of %$#@.

So the debt keeps going up, we keep taxing, printing and borrowing and the spending spree continues. Who cares, right? Not our problem. By the time the ship hits the sand, it will be our kid's problem. They will look back in history and wonder what in the world was wrong with us. Why we constantly spent more that we took in. Why we put stupid, and I mean stupid, things in bills which have no correlation to the bill what so ever. In the real world, people would be fired for this. In the real world, some people might even ended up in jail for this type of financial maleficence.

The GFY 15 Funding Bill is now history. People will soon forget. The talk of the town is torture and actionable intelligence. How bad we were right after 9/11. The Bush haters will keep that discussion going well through the winter. Not the debt. Heavens no! Who cares about the debt when we have torture to discuss. Not the beheading of Christian children by ISIL this weekend. Nope. Don't care. But torture, we need a blue ribbon panel to look at that, again, and again, and again.

So why is Washington broken? Because we elect weak, unprepared, and unprincipled people to fix it. Soon those people show they are not the fixers we hoped for, instead they become part of the problem. On the Potomac, principled people are in short supply . People who want to line their pockets however, are legions.   

Throwing Starfish....

 

 

 

"It is the importance and power of the 'one' - one person helping just one person for one day..."

A wise author named Loren Eiseley tells a story about an old man walking on a beach. On this beach were thousands upon thousands of starfish, stranded as the tide had gone out. Down the beach a short distance, the old man saw a young boy picking up star fish after star fish, and then throwing them back into the ocean. Perplexed on why the young boy was doing this, the old man walked up to him and said, "What are you doing? This beach stretches for miles and miles and there are thousands of star fish on it. You can't possibly make a difference by doing this." The young boy looked up at him as he held a starfish in his hand and said, "It will make a difference to this one."

This beautiful story once again teaches us the power and importance of the "one". The Bible also talks about the importance of the "one" in the parable of the lost sheep. The power of "one". One person helping, one person being helped. Some people help the needy in massive ways. That is a very good thing. Many people helping many people.

And yet, many acts of kindness, many gifts of the heart, go unnoticed as they are under the radar. They are very small. They are one person making a difference for one person for one day. And yet these acts are just as important.

My wife and I have been thinking quite a bit about the upcoming year. We are in our annual December "planning" mode. We think about many things - scheduled home repairs, possible getaways, and yes - our giving and helping others. Every year we try to "step up our game" in helping others. We learn about different opportunities, more areas of need. Besides writing out checks this year for things that touch our heart, we are going to attempt more (as we have nicknamed it) "gritty ministry".

What is "gritty ministry". Quite simply, it is the ministry that Jesus practiced. His mission field was not with the Pharisees discussing the Old Testament issues. Jesus went into the crowds, often times exposed to ones with the greatest needs. Sometimes exposed to the worst sinners. This was his mission field. These are the people that also mattered.

Recently, a friend posted on Facebook a short video which tells the story about "The Sandwich Man". A retired Minneapolis schoolteacher who taught in the inner city, he saw great needs which exist there. His mission field is to help the ones who need it most in Minneapolis. Not just to write out a check, this man leads a group of committed young people in making sandwiches every day, finding donated clothing, and then late at night goes out in the city after the shelters are closed. He finds the hungry, the ones who need clothing, offers them a sandwich and a clothing item.

Very few, us included, can be a tireless servant like "The Sandwich Man". But my wife and I are committed next year to make a different kind of impact. One person for one day, each and every day. It can be a very subtle difference, a modest difference, or a maybe at times a huge difference. It is not much. In the scheme of things, it is actually very, very little. It is however, our way in throwing starfish back into the ocean.... 

A harbinger of things to come...

 

 

 

"I guess it is true that all good things will come to and end..."

Yesterday the market tanked once again. The major culprit this time? Oil. Who would have thunk it? Oil worldwide, is starting to bottom out. Even though the demand keeps increasing from emerging former third world countries, supply is now running ahead of the demand. And that has sent the price of a barrel of oil tumbling from over $100 to less than $60. Ouch!

Some "greenies" might get their undies in a bundle over this story. Think of the hydrocarbons of having all that extra oil floating around! However here are the straight facts. Even though we are in our hay day of oil right now, the days of oil being a primary energy source are numbered. Soon the demand will again outpace supply, and the price for a barrel of oil will increase.

The Bakken Fields are starting to "cold stack" rigs. They are slowing down production. The oil that remains in the ground is like money in the bank for us. Whereas the Saudis are coming to the end of their oil rainbow real fast, our current and projected supplies of oil will last quite a bit longer.

Before some think of oil as a villain that we can do without, we need to keep in mind what oil is used for. Besides a 42 gallon barrel of oil creating almost 20 gallons of gasoline, the rest of the barrel is also used in the manufacture of goods. How many goods? About 6,000. Goods as varied as tires, vitamins, makeup, fertilizers, linoleum, soap, shoes, tape and the list goes on and on from there.

So the world running out of oil is in the future, but not the near future. The smart money is to maximize our potential during these good times by developing the next big in energy. More cars that run (efficiently and with adequate power) on natural gas. Fuel cell technology which will allow cars to run on water. Electric cars that are truly efficient and can good for hundreds of miles between charges. Better synthetic fuels that truly are as good as petroleum.

As for 2015, the party is on! Even though Bakken is slowing down, 2015 should still be a good year for drivers. Not so much for people who have overloaded energy stocks in their portfolios. Also not so much for the Russians and the Iranians. As for me, I am already planning our road trips for next summer!

  

Polygraph them all!

 

 

"Being polygraphed is a truly unpleasant experience. However, we still need to do it..."

First a bit of disclosure. I have been polygraphed. I have mentioned that before in  occasional articles. I was polygraphed at NSA, as it was a new requirement for anyone doing any kind of duty inside the "copper palace". All I remember about being polygraphed is this - it was a profoundly unpleasant experience. I hope to never go through it again.

That being said, I think it might be time to contact the FBI and get the machines out. We need to polygraph some people. Last night on O'Reilly, Bill brought up a very good point. On one hand, we have the intelligence professionals at the CIA saying 1) they did not torture, and 2) the information they obtained was actionable. This includes the three past directors of the agency, the current director and the past Vice President of the United States.

On the other hand, we have the Senate Democrats saying 1) we did torture and 2) we did not get actionable intelligence. The Senate Republicans who wrote the minority report, supposedly did not agree with that assessment. That is, all but Senator McCain.

Back to O'Reilly. Bill's contention is simple. We the people, are hearing the highest levels of our intelligence apparatus telling two completely different stories. Bill's words - "The folks are confused. Who are they to believe?" Bill has a good point. Who are we to believe? We can't look at the data behind the report to come up with our own conclusions, as it is classified. So it becomes the classic, "He said, she said" event.

That is why I believe we should polygraph them all. Anyone who refuses to be polygraphed will have their testimony discredited. As I have said before, I don't give a rat's behind if we tortured these creeps or not. We did not violate the Geneva Convention as the folks in Gitmo are stateless terrorists. On 9/11, they cruelly killed 3,000 of our innocent citizens for no reason what so ever. Many burned to death. Some jumped to their deaths. We have entered into a new type of warfare. Warfare which has become asymmetrical. This was not our choice.

What I say about this entire torture conversation is "put up or shut up". I really am tired of hearing about it. We have bigger fish to fry. For example, keeping ISIL from any more beheadings. As our former Vice President has said, "These are people we don't kiss on both cheeks and then ask them pretty please for information." No Mr. Vice President, you are right. These are people who deserve to get the same as they give.

Enough natural gas to burn...

 

 

"If we have so much of this stuff, why in the Sam Hill does my heating bill keep going up?"

Wow! What a problem to have! Seems we have so much natural gas in this country that we just burn it off. In fact, this procedure (called flaring), has been around for many, many decades. At one time, natural gas was considered to be an externality of production, a waste product to be burned off. Today however, natural gas is a commodity. A valuable commodity we are finding more and more uses for.

The "greenies" are having a fit as flaring throws more hydrocarbons in the atmosphere. That plays into the whole global warming canard. The people working in the North Dakota Bakken Fields would welcome a bit more of "global warming" this time of year. Now the latest wrinkle is the oil drillers have agreed to further process the Bakken oil to make safer for transport on oil trains. It was been somewhat volatile as the Bakken oil has a high gas content. This can be reduced by further processing the oil prior to shipment. This processing extracts more of the gas. And where is this excess gas going to go. More flaring of course!

I have a simple mind so I don't understand some things. Why can't we put up additional natural gas processing facilities to capture this gas rather than flaring it? To me this is a win-win. More product to drive down prices, and less flaring. If we need more pipelines to deliver this gas to market, we should to build them. The Bakken Fields are going to produce oil for a long time, and to not capture this gas would be a fool's errand.

I have ranted about this before. A comprehensive energy plan would cover the big as well as the small items. Natural gas should be a BIG part of our energy future. It is cleaner and cheaper than other types of petro. Time to get going. We are on the grow. We have a lot of energy, not enough to waste by flaring.

  

The "Red Headed Step Child" Bill

 

 

"I would say this bill is a real stinker, but that would be an insult to other stinkers..."

They are doing it again. It seems they cannot stop themselves. Only this time they have come up with something so bad, so outrageous, so egregious,  that the ideologues on the Left as well as the financial conservatives on the Right both hate it. What is it? The $1.1T Omnibus funding bill for GFY 15.

This bill has a little bit of everything for just about everyone to hate. The best part? Hold your hats on, because this has never been tried before in Washington. It was put together in the middle of the night, presented in the last minute, so very few (if any) had time to read it. Plus (here is the frosting on the cake), because it was an omnibus bill, all kinds of garbage which has NOTHING to do with funding the government were thrown in as riders. This bill stands in the "Hall of Shame" right next to ObamaCare and Stimulus.

Because our part time lawmakers decided to wait until the very last second to address GFY 15 funding, there was literally no time to debate the innards of this bill. Was does that mean? Which ever side puts up too much of a fuss, enough to pull the bill back to be debated, will be accused of shutting down our precious government. And somehow, through the magic of Washington, the Republicans always seem to get blamed for shut downs.

One of the things that really has the Ultra Left (like Elizabeth Warren) tied up in knots is a relaxation of some Dodd-Frank rules. You know - that whole derivative issue that some of the Left blame for the 2008 financial melt down. Now I am not in favor of Dodd-Frank. I think the entire bill was an overreach. I am fine with some rollback on the regulations it promulgated. However, this derivative issue does not belong in this funding bill. It should be a stand alone. Period.

The thing that financial conservatives (like me) are upset about is the size of the funding. Everything but the kitchen sink was included in this bill. Oh, did I mention money for amnesty is also in this bill? In fact, all of the pet rocks belonging to BHO are in this bill. The Speaker put on his boots with round heels (one again), and caved. Who lost? Once again, the American people.

Hopefully if the country is not bankrupt by October of 2015, the GFY 16 funding bill will look quite a bit different. We really need to demand more from the people who represent us. If they are not up to the task, they need to do the right thing and resign. We will find some people with the acumen and honor to do this job right.