Here's an update on Al Gore's energy use since his hand was called on it a year ago.  There's nothing I hate more than a hypocrite.  Just more of the "do as I say not as I do" from Al.   Instead of fawning over his every word why doesn't the mainstream media call his hand on the hypocrisy?  Yeah, Al is back on my shit list for his latest pontifications.  He's headed for Jimmy Carter territory.  Rare air, indeed.

Oil prices dropped below $130 a barrel this week (but is up some today).  Today I saw some local gasoline prices drop (but not much) for the first time in memory.  Isn't it interesting that the price of gasoline rises faster than it falls?  Happens all the time.  When you can do it and get away with it without penalty of lost business, well frankly. that's just good business.  And it's a lot easier to do with a product like gasoline that doesn't have substitutes.  I don't think we are going to see the price of oil drop significantly but I think it will continue to decline over time.

This is some good news on the nuclear power front.  That announcement made me wonder how many other applications have been made with the NRC so I checked.  Looks like there's already been thirteen applications made in 2008 versus five in all of 2007.  Now if we can just get Al to hold down his kilowatt usage a little...

Finally, here's  Five Reasons High Gas Prices Are Good For Real Drivers.  My fave?  Number five. 

I'm in a bitching mood today.  But I'll be brief.

US unveils new rule on airplane fuel tanks.

Certainly that is good news for all air travelers.  But it was twelve years ago today that TWA flight 800 went down.  Why did it take twelve long years for government agencies to require this?

I think I know the answer to that question.  As one might expect It's for a combination of reasons but I think the primary one is government inefficiency and bureaucracy and perhaps a little in-fighting thrown in.  As the article indicates the NTSB determined ignition in the fuel tanks as the cause of the accident not long after it happened.  Then the FBI got involved because of terror suspicions.  I can envision the turf battle that went on from there.  And finally the airlines balked because of the estimated expense.  All that put together pretty much makes a perfect storm of delays.  As my Grandma Jackson used to say, "pitiful, just pitiful".

Meanwhile on the energy front Tennessee favorite son Al Gore says the energy crisis threatens U.S. survival.  I certainly agree with that.  And let's hope the changes the former Veep has made has reduced his usage since this February 2007 report when his average electric bill was $1359 and average natural gas bill was $1,080.  Memo to Al:  you're more believable when do what you ask everyone else to do.

Meanwhile, I find it interesting that our elected officials continue to be clueless as their approval hits a record-low 14%.  In Gallup's words, "the current reading is the lowest congressional job approval rating in the 34-year Gallup Poll history of asking the question."  Of course Dirty Harry Reid knows why--see News From All Around post below.  Give me a break...

Oh, I almost forgot.  For some strange reason all my posts this month had a font change yesterday.  I haven't the slightest clue why and I can't get them to match all the earlier posts on this blog.  Probably the gremlins again.  Or maybe Dirty Harry.  Bastards.

I'm done.  That's my rants for the day.  I told you I would be brief.

Update:  Again with the font.  I find out who's doing this and I sic Nancy Grace on your butt.

1. From NEWS of the WEIRD:  Jorge Espinal, 44, was taken to a hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, in May after an early-morning incident in which he used a loaded handgun to scratch a hard-to-reach itch on his back and accidentally shot himself.  Hmm.  The chances of alcohol or other intoxicants being involved?  I'd say about 100%.  But maybe he could run for Congress...

2.  It's hard to believe but Congress actually has lower approval ratings than President Bush.  I wholeheartedly agree.  Both have low ratings since Bush's economy is in the pits and Congress is dysfunctional.  But just to prove how out of touch Congress is with reality, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says it's the President's fault that Congress has low approval ratings.  Hmm.  Why does the movie Dumb and Dumber come to mind?

3.  And speaking of dumber: Travis Henry tests positive again.  Former Tennessee Vol and Titan Henry, who away from the football field has managed to father nine kids by nine different women, forfeited the rest of his five year, 22.5 million dollar contract when the Broncos cut him this spring.  Duh...

4.  But back to our Congressional wienies.  The New Hampshire Union-Leader has a novel solution that I sort of like.  Except I think we need to send both the GOP and Democrats to a basic economics class.

5.  Meanwhile I still like this plan.  At the very least it's showing leadership that doesn't exist anywhere else on the national level.  Let's get the movement going.

I'm not usually an optimist about things these days in the business world but I actually have some optimism about the surge in oil and gas prices. 

First I'm not convinced at this point that current pricing is a true reflection of supply and demand.  I think some panic buying, or maybe speculative buying, has pushed the price up to the current level.  If I'm right about that then at some point that price bubble will burst and cause the price to drop.  How much and when I haven't a clue. 

But if you're a believer in a free market, and I am, then we're seeing real pricing of oil and gasoline.  And I think that real pricing is going to drive consumer spending changes--mainly in the amount and way we drive and with what type vehicles.  In other words a cultural change will occur and that change will drive down American demand for oil.  I haven't a clue about other country's situations but I believe this will definitely occur in the U.S. and probably is already occurring to some degree.

Further I believe that will change us long term to a more frugal oil-driven economy like what has already occurred in Europe.  The Professor had some first-hand experience with that just yesterday.  There's going to be a lot of short term pain but I think that's going to help us in the long run.  Economics has some similarities to Newton's Law in that respect.  I just wouldn't say it is an equal reaction but it's certainly an opposite one.

Then if American business and government can get together with incentives on solar, wind, and nuclear power on top of the cultural shift in our driving then we can really make some headway toward becoming less dependent on foreign energy.  I'm rarely in agreement with billionaires like T. Boone Pickens but I'm mostly in agreement with him on this issue.  His critics say he's too ambitious and just greedy.  I can't make an argument against the latter.  He's clearly in it to make money but as for as his being too ambitious they said that about American's landing on the moon in the sixties.  We did it and we can do that or anything else we set our mind too. 

The key is the federal government.  Our leaders in Congress and the oval office have to set the goals and remove obstacles, particularly regulatory and financial ones.  If I have any pessimism about any of this it would be in that area.  I'm worried we don't have any leadership in that respect.  But for now, I'm still optimistic.  It's time for them to step forward...

The older I get the more these type stories sadden me.   

Certainly that's a sign of my aging but it's also a sign of the economic times.  Unfortunately our country is no longer the manufacturing powerhouse that it was in the fifties and sixties when I was growing up.  Back then I don't remember anything being produced outside the United States.  In fact I distinctly remember when Japanese toys were considered junk.  Obviously that was a long time ago.

Now that I have a few years to look back I think the slide down in our manufacturing base happened mostly because of technological advancement.  And of course our own inability to adjust to no longer being the top dog. 

The technological advancement I'm referring to covers a huge area--electronic miniaturization, personal computers, the Internet, container shipping, robotics, electronic data collection and transmission, etc.  In most cases we were the originators of the new technology.  But some countries, particularly Asian ones, took our ideas and greatly expanded them.  A good example is television manufacturing.  I can remember when the U.S. had all the major brands like RCA, Zenith and Motorola.  I also remember when television repairmen existed.  They actually would come to your house to fix your TV.  Most of the time it was to simply replace a vacuum tube.  Then we invented solid state transistors.  The TV repairmen became a thing of the past and now Asia produces most televisions.  I don't think there's a single TV totally made in the U.S. anymore.

The technological advancements created big results:  cheaper goods of higher quality and significantly reduced shipping costs.  Often the foreign countries had an advantage in labor costs as well.  Add all of those things together and you have American consumers buying high quality foreign made goods cheaper than we could do them here.  The rest is history.

Our manufacturing sector made the situation worse by being slow to recognize our non-competitiveness. And that's still happening today.  It's the old story that we thought it wouldn't happen because we were the leaders in the manufacturing world and nobody could challenge us much less overtake us.  That was a huge mistake.  Our automobile manufacturers are still dealing with that to this day.

Ultimately, however, I think all of this was inevitable.  It was, and is, the perfect economic storm.  I'm not sure that had we recognized what was happening we could have minimized the damage to our manufacturing base.  It's called progress.  And unfortunately I think it's no different from any other life cycle.  Birth, life, death. 

I remember my mom making cakes and biscuits with White Lily Flour.  That was a long time ago.  I took it for granted that the White Lily flours of the world would always be there.  No more.

I saw this headline:The World's Dirtiest Cities and immediately thought of Moscow. 

When I arrived there last August it was about eleven am and as soon as I walked out of the airport I noticed the pollution.  The air seemed heavy and there was a general grayness to the sky and horizon.   And at that point I was about thirty miles away from the city proper.  By the time I got to the traffic jams of the city it was much worse and I had started to get a dull headache.  It seemed to me that all the cars were belching more smoke than I ever saw in the U.S. but that might have been my imagination.  I didn't see garbage on the sidewalks though like you often see in big American cities.  Anyway, Moscow didn't make the list and I'm surprised.  If there's a dirtier city than it, especially air pollution, I haven't been in it.  Another thing I noticed is that Russians smoke a lot more than the U.S.  I think everyone I met in meetings or at dinners smoked.

I can remember a lot of air pollution when I was a kid growing up in our industrialized East Tennessee town.  But it wasn't visible pollution like in Moscow.  It was odor.  The paper plant had the worst odor--something akin to rotten bread or other rotten foods.  But the local chemical plant could hold their own with their odors.  Their worst was an acidic smell that reminded me of cat manure.  Maybe that's why I hate cats to this day.  The smell was always noticeable to first time visitors.  On really bad odor days you could actually see people scrunching their nose.  There was a good chance that person was a visitor because natives got used to it.  If the smell was even mentioned in the company of natives someone was guaranteed to say it was the smell of money being made.

Somewhere in the late seventies or eighties those factories began a serious clean up of their pollution.  Now it's rare to smell anything in my home city.  I'm sure it took millions to do that because the odors were very strong in the fifties and sixties.  I'm pretty sure that clean-up was mandated and didn't happen because of the company's own imitative.  If I'm right about that I guess that's four things now that I've found the federal government has done well--taxing its citizens, interstate transportation, national defense and this. 

I guess that's not bad for nearly three million employees.   

I read this article and I think it captures my thoughts about the state of the nation and the world fairly well. 

I can't remember when I have felt so bad about so many things.  From the price of gas to steroids in professional sports to global warming it just seems everything is going to hell.  Sometimes everything put together just makes me feel helpless.

But for me there's a catch.  I think I'm smart enough to realize that I'm reading and hearing about all of these bad things through the prism of the media.  And I have a healthy skepticism of that media.  In fact I would call it mistrust.  I think of the media, particularly television media, like I do a used car salesman.  Just like the car salesman slants his words to promote his car I think the media skew their reports to achieve their desired result.  Most of the time that desired result is ratings and ultimately ad dollars but it can be editorial views as well.  Those can be of the reporter, program, newspaper or of the network.  The bottom line is that headlines are the media's business--literally.  They know that warm and fuzzy doesn't attract readers or viewers like scary and sensational does.  In that sense the news media is no different from the magazines and television programs that chase celebrity news.  The market simply exists for it.

I also think there's a significant lack of journalistic integrity these days.  When newspapers and television had less competition, basically before cable and the Internet, it allowed more time for fact checking.  Now the competition is such that rumors are out there in print, on the Internet and on the airwaves as fact because taking the time to check things out might put you behind your competition.  A prime example was the Duke lacrosse case.  Those kids were considered guilty within days by the media.  It all makes for a witches brew. 

So what does one believe?  Even though I feel helpless at times I really don't think things are near as bad as they're being presented.  Yes there are problems and issues--more than anyone wants.  But I think the world can deal with them.  We always have or we wouldn't be here today in the form we are. 

Ironically in this media driven world where a ton of information is available I think you have to do your homework more than ever.  Hype can usually be recognized by the experienced viewer or reader and while the hype abounds these days it can be done.  It's a lot like looking for a lost golf ball.  Get your bearings, use a little logic and reason and you'll eventually find it.  And I know a little something about that. 

Readers of this blog know that I've been advocating the building of new nuclear power plants.  There's a very long regulatory approval process and of course a very long construction period.  If a company had approval today to build a new nuclear plant it would probably be 2018 before it would be generating electricity.  It's obviously a big project.  I remember when I first came home from the military TVA was building a nuclear plant about twenty-five miles from my hometown.  As I drove to and from work I used to pass the trucks hauling rock for concrete production.  I would guess they were fifty or more trucks per day.  TVA stopped construction about a quarter of the way through because they decided they didn't need the power it would provide.  The concrete bases of the cooling towers are still there today.  I thought then it was a short-sighted decision and I still believe it to be so.

Currently we only produce about twenty percent of our electricity from nuclear.  For comparison the French produce about eighty percent. Simply put the fact that we haven't built a new nuclear plant in thirty years is going to catch up with us just as our refusal to drill for oil in Alaska has.   Need another more informed viewpoint than mine?  Go read this.

Gasoline prices at four dollars a gallon and up won't mean much if you can't keep your house cool or warm.  Or run your PC or your dishwasher or your washer and dryer.  Or even have lights to read a book by.  How about brownouts?  Or scheduled daily hours without power?  All of those things scare me a lot more than gasoline prices.

A couple of weeks ago the entire western half of our city lost power one night shortly after dark.  It was spooky to see no lights anywhere at all.  Usually when our neighborhood loses power it's isolated to us and we can see other neighborhoods that have lights.  Not that night.  I remember thinking it was going to be a warm night to try to sleep and I reminded Mrs. Medlock not to open the refrigerator door.  The thought crossed my mind that terrorists could really cause some havoc by attacking our power grid.  Scary to think about indeed.

If we don't collectively get our heads out of our butts and start thinking and acting progressively about energy independence we are going to have some of those scary things happen.  I don't want to live in fear of such things.  I want America to be the great self-reliant nation we once were.  It's time to begin.

It's a very disturbing story. 

Since it's been reported I've been debating within myself as to whether to post about it.  That wasn't because I wasn't sure what to say.  It was more that I really didn't want to think about what happened.  It's just too hard to think about it and see the image in my mind.

Certainly the man was insane because if he wasn't that reminds us all yet again that human behavior can be monstrous beyond all rational thought.  Yes I know that has been proven time and time again but the boy involved was only two years old.  That changes everything.

It also strikes directly at our hearts and minds because it brings up the question of what we would do if we came up on a similar situation.  As for me I really don't know.  I don't think it's the same as jumping in a lake to save someone from drowning.  There were unknowns involved in this one.  I think it's one of those situations you won't really ever know how you would react without actually experiencing it.  I know plenty of people would not do anything because they're worried about legal results.  I don't fault them for that because we've become a litigious society and the possibility of being arrested for shooting the father is probably at least 50-50.  I do fault lawyers because they've created that society.  That possibility shouldn't even be a factor but the reality is that it probably was. 

I do think it is provides a solid argument for carrying a weapon.  And I'm hardly a gun nut.  I usually think weapons, guns in particular, create more problems than they solve.  But in this case it was the solution.  And the only solution.

So I don't know anything else to say.  Except that God has taken Axel to heaven and he's in very loving arms now.  That was his name--Axel.  Axel Casian.  I'm going to remember his name.  Rest in peace, Axel.  God loves you.

While this site is obviously a Republican site I totally agree with the basics of the list they have made. 

To be fair I would like to see a list of how all of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, have voted on those issues.  My guess is there's been a lot of Republicans as well that voted against those proposals.  Certainly Republican administrations have allowed mergers that reduced competition and ultimately hurt the consumer.  Which brings me to my rant of the day. 

The fact is that neither party has done anything for the American energy consumer since the initial oil crisis in the early 1970s.  I know because I've lived that entire time.  Congress has become a wholly partisan group that's controlled by special interests with big money.  For a country as powerful as we are to find ourselves in this sorry oil-dependent situation nearly forty years after the initial oil crisis is shameful.  I just get livid when I see Harry Reid spouting off against the administration.  And I don't feel any better when I hear Dick Cheney either.

There are lots of reasons for it but I think the primary one is the failure of Congress.  The President can't do it by himself.  Ultimately it falls to Congress to create legislation and incentives and it simply hasn't happened.  Normally I'm the last person to look to the government for help but for this issue it's the only solution. One can blame the liberals or the conservatives but it doesn't matter.  We are where we are and it ain't good.

I'm continually amazed at the talking heads who speak against things like nuclear power or the burning of coal for energy.  Everything we do every day has risk.  We all have to manage it and it doesn't matter whether it's managing the risk of walking across the street or having a nuclear power plant in our backyard.  For God's sake we put men on the moon nearly forty years ago and long before the age of microchips and computers.  And we can't manage the risk of drilling for oil in Alaska or operating a nuclear plant?  Bullshit.

Our country isn't just short of oil.  It's short of leadership at every level.  The good news is that we voters can change that.  But it's going to take courage, commitment and time.  Let's kick em all out and start holding our politicians accountable again.

1.  The speculation is that Chris Matthews will replace Tim Russert on Meet the Press.  No way.  That's like putting racing tires on a farm tractor.  It just won't work.  Matthews is a blow hard at best and an idiot at worst.  Certainly Russert is going to be very difficult to replace.  He had a unique personality that fit the job perfectly.  But putting Chris Matthews is a square peg in a round hole and I don't understand why NBC would even consider it.

2.  If you're a football fan you know who Tom Brady is.  You may also know who his girlfriend is.  That would be supermodel Gisele Bundchen.  I realize I'm hardly one to question someone's looks but I just don't get that relationship or for that matter how she became a supermodel.  Why?  Because I think she looks more like a man than a woman.  Before anyone gets their shorts in a bind I'm only talking facial features.  So how does she land the marquee NFL quarterback or for that matter a job as a model? I just don't understand.

3.  How can so many people seemingly not understand what the left-hand lane of an Interstate highway is for?  I am continually amazed by the number of drivers who drive continuously in the left-hand lane.  I saw it again on my trip to Hilton Head.  For those of you out there who don't know what I'm referring to here's a news flash:  it's the passing lane, stupid.   And that's been in drivers ed 101 classes for a long time. 

4.  Why does television news generally just report bad news?  OK, maybe the statistics don't support that but it sure seems that way to me.  Isn't it possible there are good things happening every day just like there are bad things?  And isn't it possible there are as many or more good things happening than bad?  I'm just saying.  I know they give us some feel-good stories here and there but they're usually at the end of the broadcast and infrequent.  Something tells me ratings might be involved here.  I do understand that.

5.  I was listening to NPR's Morning Edition earlier this week and they did a report on emails and how most people are swamped with them and don't know how or can't manage their email.  I can certainly understand that.  I've got exactly fifteen emails in my in box as I write this that's high for me because I sort mine into follow-up, hold and archive folders as I receive them.  Normally I have less than ten.  It takes work to do that however.  But back to NPR.  They did a lengthy report on the issue.  It even included information about how email negatively affects productivity and adds cost and they had experts who had suggestions on how to reduce the amount of email you receive. 

Anyway at the end of the report they did their standard closing about the report would be posted on their web site and listeners were encouraged to read it and comment.  How was one to do that?  By email of course.  OK, but I just don't understand.

So I'm driving home from work yesterday and as I sometimes do I'm listening to NPR.  Yes, sports fans, even southern rednecks require some culture to be imparted to them from time to time.  Some days I listen to Morning Edition on the way to work and some days I listen to All Things Considered on the drive home.  On some rare occasions I listen to Prairie Home Companion on the weekend but I'm not sure how "cultured" that is. 

So yesterday NPR was interviewing Salman Rushdie.  You remember him, the author that had a fatwa issued on him by the Ayatolla Khomeini a few years back.  That was way back when we considered the Ayatolla a nut.  Now he looks like a model citizen.  Anyway, Rushdie has a new book out so he's on the talk show circuit promoting it.  Really now, be honest, do you know anyone that has read even one of his books?  Well, neither do I.  He writes stuff that only snooty literary types read.  Suffice it to say he's not a John Grisham type.   

Now ordinarily I would be skipping over an interview like that faster than Pac-Man Jones heading to a strip club after practice.  But I didn't yesterday.  I was all ears.  Let me repeat that.  I was very attentive.  I listened to the entire interview and let me tell you it reaffirmed why I don't read the guy.  B-o-r-i-n-g.  But I hung in to the very end.  Why would I do that for an author I don't read? 

Simple.  You see Rushdie was once married to Padma.  That's Padma of Top Chef fame. Long dark hair, dark eyes, long legs.  Very, very sexy Padma.  Yes, that Padma.  I don't want to get too graphic here so I'll just say that she can mash my potatoes anytime she wants.

I kept waiting for the interviewer to ask him about her. A reasonable question like "how does she look naked?"  Or maybe a little tamer one like "how does she look in lingerie?".  No need to get too intimate on the radio.  After all it is NPR.  Of course it didn't happen.  NPR sucks on things like that.

But I've decided I like Rushdie.  Not as an author but as a man.  I mean take a look at him and then take a look at her.  A no-brainer.  And get this--he's twenty-three years older than her.  Amazing.  He's not a billionaire either.  For gawd's sake he's an author that no one reads.  She shouldn't even look at him once much less marry the guy.  If a dork like that can land a stunner like her I'm telling you there is hope for every man. 

Of course she divorced him.  But you knew that was going to happen.  The only question was when.  As far as I'm concerned Rushdie hit the lottery, spent the money and now it's over.  Life goes on.  I like Salman Rushdie.  He's my hero.  He's my man.  Long live Salman Rushdie.  Even if he writes lousy books.    

It's still six months away but I think the election results in November are already set in stone.

Obama is going to be the Democrat nominee--unless Hillary finally loses control and decapitates him prior to the convention.  Look for Obama to pick a VP candidate that is an elected politician and has Washington experience.  He's smart enough to know he needs that to counter the inexperience argument against him.  He can blow the whole thing with his choice though.  Hillary would be an albatross that would sink him.  Any other woman or minority will do the same.

Of course John McCain will be the Republican nominee.   He'll need the opposite VP candidate from what Obama needs.  He needs a young comer from the Republican party to counter the argument against his age.  I don't know of any such young comers in the GOP but somebody will dig up one.  He can blow this pick too by picking another McCain type established politician with some age on him.  But look for McCain to play up his experience, military experience and POW experience against Obama's lack of all that.  And well he should.

Obama will win the majority of the debates against McCain.  Maybe all of them.  He's a polished speaker and doesn't melt under pressure.  Unlike Al Gore who was stage managed into phoniness, Obama will overcome that same type management and pull off looking as what you see is what you get.  I'm in charge and in control.  Follow my lead.

Having said all of that the vote will be close but not that close.  Unless the economy turns around and I think that's very unlikely, it's going to be Obama.  He'll even take some Southern states.  The country has just had enough of high gas prices, foreclosures, high food prices, war, budget deficits, various scandals, energy issues and Cheneys and Rumsfelds.  So many issues in so little time.  Bush and Cheney have set the Reagan revolution way back and it won't return for a very long time.

President Barack Obama. 

A year from now that isn't going to sound as strange as it does now.

Here's an interesting column about the current state of our economy. 

I'm one of those in the 75% bracket of the public that think the economy is in bad shape.  It wouldn't be a stretch for me to say it's in very bad shape.  Apparently that would put me in the same opinion league with none other than Alan Greenspan. 

The author of this article acknowledges the current state of the economy but says that compared to the last hundred years of economic history it really isn't that bad.  I find that very interesting because to me it's at least comparable to the oil shortage economies of the seventies, etc. 

Anyway, he says something else is going on; namely a pessimism about both our economy and our political system that isn't in relation to the depth of the problem.  And that pessimism is eroding our confidence in ourselves and creating a negative viewpoint of us globally.  Essentially he pleads for us to keep our perspective.

I think he's got a point.  I believe we've become a nation of pessimists about ourselves and the American economic and political system.  But I think it's at least partially due to the constant pounding of negative news by the media, especially the television media.  In many ways Ted Turner's innovation with twenty four hour news is starting to blow back in our faces and it's smacking us pretty good. 

I'm glad I read his column.  We are Americans and we need to remember we can do anything that we decide we want to do.  That's the American spirit.  No other country possesses it.  We need to remember that.

It didn't get much coverage in the U.S. but last Friday Russia revived their Cold War and pre-Soviet breakup tradition of a Victory Day military parade in Red Square.   Tanks and missiles rolling past St. Basil's cathedral...how Russian is that?

When I was a kid in the fifties and sixties those parades were a staple of Russian culture and military posturing.  I can remember watching them on the old black and white Admiral television and having a vague feeling of unease about it.  Even at that young age I knew it was an ominous display of military might and that it was especially intended for American viewing.  Of course that was a long time ago and the Soviet Union is no more.  At least not in the form it was then.  I don't think we can even call the current Russia our clear number one enemy as we certainly could when I was growing up.  Our enemies these day tend toward religous zealots and economic barons of essential goods.

So it was interesting as I watched the revival of the parade last week.  One big difference was this time I watched in color.  An even greater difference was that I was actually in Red Square only nine months ago.  And coincidentally while I was there Putin's Air Force resumed long-range bomber patrols with much ado about that in the local news. 

As I watched the news clips of the parade last week I found it to be a bit disconcerting to know those tanks, missiles and other hardware were rolling through the very area where I stood not that long ago.  In some ways I found it incongruous with the country I visited, bombers flying over the very cathedrals that I walked through (and was totally awed by their beauty and history).

Clearly there was a message being sent last week.  Or at least Russia's leaders were attempting to do so:  Russia is once again a military power to be feared. I don't know if that is totally accurate but I'm not too anxious to find out. 

It was clear to me while I was there that the Russian people adored Putin for the most part.  It reminded me somewhat of the Reagan Presidency in our country.  Now he's no longer President but then again he really is--another throwback to the old Russia.  Who knows...maybe the new President will turn up banging his shoe on the desk in the UN.  Now wouldn't that be a hoot.  Truthfully?  No.

Mother Nature was a bitch this weekend in Tennessee. 

Yesterday we got hit with winds up to sixty miles per hour.  Those winds then drove rain sideways.  The power got knocked out at our little country church and we dismissed early because of no lights.  Then on the way home I had to dodge fallen limbs in the road.  When I got home the wind had blown off one of the shutters on the Medlock mansion.  A number of the Bradford Pear trees and pine trees in the neighborhood lost large limbs.

Later I made a visit to our local home center to pick up some tall hibiscus for spring planting.  They were in five gallon buckets and stood about three feet tall.  As I was wheeling them on the little platform dolly to my truck the wind picked them up and blew them right off the dolly and sent them rolling down the parking lot.  These were not lightweight plants.  I'd guess maybe twenty to twenty-five pounds each.  That's how strong the wind was.

Whatever front came through yesterday left us with cold weather this morning.  It was in the forties, very cool for this time of year, and today it's only gotten to fifty-two degrees.  It's darn chilly.  Tomorrow  the high is supposed to be seventy-eight.  Go figure.

I'm not normally too nervous about bad weather but yesterday I was nervous.  Things just didn't feel right.  Even the air smelled funky and the air seemed unnaturally warm.  I was thinking tornado and kept looking out the window.  Sure enough I found out this morning there was a tornado on the ground yesterday about fifty miles away.  Luckily it was brief and no one was hurt.

I think Mother Nature has calmed down now.  She wasn't happy about something yesterday.  And it showed.

1.  Hillary Clinton at this point is like that friend you have or the person you work with that you don't want to talk to.  You and everyone else know that they're wrong in what they're doing or not doing but the person just keeps doing the same thing like everything is fine.  So you avoid them and when they bring up the issue you change the subject because you know nothing you can say will convince them that what they are doing is wrong.  Someone at the highest level of the Democratic party needs to tell her it's time to go home.  Besides Bill is looking awfully red-faced lately.  Having said that the person that tells her should accept the fact that they'll never be able to have children from that point on.  Yeah, she'll cut them right off.

2.  One of the reported big movers behind the scenes for the start of the Iraq War was Douglas Feith.  He's got a new book out called War and Decision: Inside the Pentagon at the Dawn of the War on Terrorism.  Supposedly he tells all about the decisions prior to and during the war.  I've got the book on reserve at my local library because I think those decisions are some of the prime causes of W's failing as a President.  Reportedly Feith was a Rumsfeld man so it's going to be interesting to see how he sees the principal players.  I think Rumsfeld was the worst Secretary of Defense in my lifetime.  That's saying something because I can remember when Robert McNamara was SOD.

3.  I think the current record oil prices ($126 barrel as I write this) have gone beyond the law of supply and demand.  I believe that speculators trying to make a buck (more likely, many bucks) are behind much of this year's run-up in prices.  No, I don't have proof.  Most sources attribute the rise to demand increases from China and other countries.  I think that's part of it but I believe most of it is due to speculators.  I don't know how anyone can stop it but I do believe that eventually the prices are going to come down to a level more consistent with the real supply and demand.  And if and when they do I hope those speculators lose their ass.  In the meantime we need to do everything we can as consumers to reduce our dependence on oil and oil-related products.  That means major, major change for all of us.  We can do that or continue in the current status of being held hostage to the whim of every sheik, Mid East whacko leader or speculator. 

4.  And while I'm on the subject of energy isn't it time we start the long process of building nuclear power plants again?  The hysteria of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl is long gone.  Sure there are risks.  But they're like any risks.  They have to be managed and managed well.  Hell, the French get eighty percent of their power from nuclear plants and they're usually back asswards wrong on any issue.  But not this time.  It's time to start building nuclear plants in this country again.  And yeah, you can build one in my backyard.

5.  I know I'm sometimes naive but it's startling to me that in this modern world we still have governments who are so secretive and so afraid of losing control that they make their people suffer to an extreme.  I'm referring to the Myanmar or Burma as I know it.  As much as I think the U.S. government screwed the pooch after Katrina and it surely did I don't think you can compare the two situations.  We're talking a government who simply put their continued existence over survival of their citizens.   There's not a word that can describe this atrocity.

Here's an interesting map of potential wind power locations in the United States.  I hadn't thought much about it but the Smokies appear to have excellent potential for windmills, etc.  Not that I would want to see windmills in those beautiful mountains.  No doubt someone is saying the exact same thing about the windmilll possibilities in the Great Plains.

That same dilemma is why we're so dependent on foreign oil.  Our elected politicians can't face up to these same hard decisions on the national level.  This editorial gets it exactly right:

But there's a difference between the citizenry not willing to make those decisions and our politicians.  The politicians are elected and getting paid to make them.  Of course, they haven't done that in a long time and for that we're paying nearly four dollars a gallon for gasoline.  Dysfunctional Congress?  A definite yes.  Vote the bums out in November.  Please.

When I saw this headline Rev. Wright's honorary degree canceled by Northwestern my immediate thought was that the people who run Northwestern are hypocrites.  Let me rephrase that--the people who run Northwestern are idiots. 

I say that not because I like Reverend Wright.  In fact I think he's shown himself to be quite the idiot and hypocrite as well.  I've never understood why it's OK for a black man like him to say things that a white person were to say would be labeled racist--and rightly so.  And to suggest that the HIV virus was created by the government to enable genocide or that the government distributes drugs in the gheto implies to me that Reverend Wright's elevator doesn't go to all floors.

So why do I think Northwestern is hypocritical and idiotic?  Their law school employs Bernadine Dohrn, former Weathermen member.  For the youngsters, The Weathermen were a sixties/seventies radical group that advocated violence against the government and proceeded to do just that with bombings until several of them accidentally blew themselves up.  She and her husband Bill Ayers also participated in Chicago's Days of Rage.  Dohrn and her husband had gone underground after the accident but eventually turned themselves in.  They ended up serving time on lesser charges than the original charges of conspiracy to bomb police stations and government buildings.  After her release Dohrn, who had a law degree, attempted to work at a New York law firm but was turned down by the Bar Association there because of her past activities.  Ironies abound.  She has a law degree but can't practice it because of her criminal past.  She eventually ended up at the Northwestern Law School and has been there ever since. 

I was then and have continued to be repelled by radicals from that era, including Dohrn and her husband, because of their extreme arrogance at thinking they were so right that they showed total disregard for human life.  So for Northwestern to back out on Reverend Wright, hardly someone I would ever find myself agreeing with, while continuing to employ a convicted criminal in their law school of all places, well, it smells a lot like someone failed to refrigerate the fish.  That someone is the people who run Northwestern.

I had lunch with my number one buddy today.  Sometimes we think so much alike it's scary. 

I've been thinking lately that the current situation in this country is as dire as I've seen it in my lifetime.  Among other things we're in an unpopular war, our economy is either in recession or sliding into it, oil prices are through the roof and there's a general malaise by everyone about everything.  I remember making a mental note to post about it sometime last week but I never got around to it.  He brought those very issues up at lunch today and asked me if I had ever seen it worse.  I haven't.

I'm not sure which one of us mentioned it first but we both are reminded of the Carter Presidency.  Gas shortages, high prices, hostages in Iran, prime rates in double digits.  That was a horrible time and difficult to live through.  I think our current situation equals that time period.

He and I both see a common thread.  It's that there's no leadership.  Congress is incompetent and totally partisan.  George is a lame duck and more than that he's not capable of leading anymore.  I had hopes for him after 9/11 but he's flopped miserably.  It's hard to get excited about a Presidential election with the choices we have and the one leader I think could be the type President we need isn't running.  That would be Colin Powell.  And now that I think about that even he got taken by Tenet, Cheney and Rumsfeld.

I've bitched for years there's no leadership in American business but I think the situation is even worse  politically.  Can someone name me just one person with Reagan or Kennedy type potential?

Where have all the leaders gone? 

Security is No Match for Chocolate and Good Looking Women.  Shocking news.  Just shocking.  Cleavage and chocolate and a loss of security.  I'm not a big chocolate fan but cleavage, well--you know.  A commenter says it best:  "If men are willing to sacrifice their jobs and their marriages for good looking women, why is it surprising that they would give out their passwords?"

Laptop U: Where No One Looks at the Professor.  When I was in college I never looked at the professor either but only if I hadn't studied.  I didn't want him asking me something I didn't know anything about.  These days kids have an easy out and it's usually supplied by the school.

Kathie Lee Gifford joins The Today Show.  First it was Jane Pauley.  Then it became Jane Clayson.  Later it became Kathie Lee Gifford and even later Natalie Morales.    My morning news favorites?.  Naah.  My favorite hot TV women.  Now it's Padma Lakshmi.  I could talk about cooking with her for a long, long time.  Hey, I love food.

My long-time favorite political columnist Peggy Noonan takes a look at the Presidential race.  Dead on again.

1.  I read a lot about economic issues and up until this article it seemed the "expert" consensus was that demand for gasoline and it's base of crude oil exceeds supply world-wide and thus the rise in prices.  This guy, who seems to have some decent credentials, says otherwise.  One of the downsides to the information age is that for every issue there's more than one opinion--often presented as fact and supported with other references.  I think that's especially true about economics issues.  With so many experts who the hell knows what's right?

2.  So Delta and Northwest are merging and will become the biggest airline in the country.  Does anyone really expect that merger to benefit the consumer?  I don't.  It will probably benefit the new Delta from a purchasing standpoint but that won't be passed on to us.  But this merger is a reflection of the current business environment in the airline industry and along with the recent airline bankruptcies is evidence of the natural selection that's taking place.  Weaker companies fall by the wayside and stronger companies get stronger.  That's just the way it is and the way it ought to be.

3.  I've been reading that Katie Couric might be on the way out at CBS Evening News.  Apparently her ratings aren't getting the job done.  My take?  I think all the evening news programs are on the way out.  The Internet and other media forms have changed things so much that the thirty minute news show is almost obsolete.  I say almost because as long as there are advertisers that will pay money to have commercials those shows will stay on the air.  My preference would be for the networks do a couple of updates during the evening hours like they used to do ala the late Jessica Savitch.  That works for me better than thirty minutes of news.

4.  My soon-to-be 97 year old aunt asked me Saturday who I liked in the Presidential race.  I told her no one and that I'd just as soon vote for Paris Hilton.  Her response:  this is the worst bunch of candidates I've ever seen and who is Paris Hilton?  Given her experience that ought to mean something.

5.  I'm convinced East Tennessee has more banks per capita than anywhere in the country.  Last week on the short five mile drive back from lunch I counted eight different banks.  That's in my adopted work city of just 25,000 residents.  What's up with that?  Either the banking business is a lot more profitable than I thought or there's a lot more money in town than I realized. 

My personal favorite from the latest stupid criminal files:

--William Anderson, 51, was arrested in February after he attracted a lot of attention by parking a Hummer (with Michigan plates) outside the small-town county welfare office in Jonesville, Va., while he applied for benefits; a quick investigation revealed that the vehicle had been stolen.

--Somehow I knew Gloria Allred's name would show up in this: 

Nipple rings fall foul of airport check.

--And my worst nightmare:

Snake on a plane.

Dear Al,

I caught the 60 Minutes last night.  It was good to catch up with you again.  Since we're both the same age and from the same state I've tried to keep up with what you're doing.  I have to say that those few months you were born before me make a difference though.  It appears to me that you've got me in pounds and hair although I think you have more gray than I do.  Of course the wealth factor is a slam dunk for you. 

I usually think about you when I drive by Carthage on the way to Nashville.  I realize that it's painful for you but you will remember that I didn't vote for you in the 2000 Presidential election.  Neither did enough of our fellow Tennesseans for you to win your home state.  Of course if we had you would have won the Presidency. 

I understand that's a sore point for you but I bring it up because I wanted to tell you that your appearance on 60 Minutes last night indicates to me that you now understand why you lost the Presidency.  I say that because you seemed very genuine last night--not at all like the political Al you used to be.  I think you really believe what you're saying and doing about the global warming thing.  I don't necessarily agree with you but I do believe that you believe.  I think you're showing the public the real you now rather than the stage-managed Al "I invented the Internet" Gore that you used to be.  I especially liked hearing you say that you've fallen out of love with politics and that you're selling a cause now and there are no consultants telling you what to say or how to dress.  And while I know you're much wealthier now thanks to your investments in Google, etc  I really don't think that 's why you've changed.
   
Last night you said that you "doubted that you would ever be a political candidate again".   Ironically I find myself thinking now that the new Al Gore might be the best Presidential candidate around these days.  Granted the competition is weak on both sides but who would have guessed even a year ago that I would think that way?  Forgive me for saying this but thinking that proves to be a bit of an inconvenient truth for me since historically you and I have been worlds apart on our views.  And of course there was the Slick Willy connection.   But the feeling is real and as you well know Al, things change--sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worst.   I'm glad you chose the former.  So go save the polar bears and penguins, etc.  I'm happy to call you my fellow Tennessean again and really mean it.

Your friend,

Lewis

Yours truly is off to Charlotte tonight so there will limited if any posting tomorrow. 

No I didn't get a ticket to the Vols game against Louisville at the Charlotte arena.  I wish I could have since I'll be staying within ten miles of it.  Alas I'll have to give them moral support via television and maybe not much of that since their game doesn't start until nearly ten.  No, I'm off to do some benchmarking with another school and that will consume all my Friday and then some.

I picked a good day for travel.  It's seventy-five degrees with sunny skies in East Tennessee.  Spring has finally sprung.  The flowering trees are doing just that.  The baseball field and soccer fields are greening up nicely on campus and the coeds are out in abundance soaking up the rays.

Moving to an entirely different subject I saw this headline and along with the clip I saw of Bill Clinton saying "let's saddle up and have an argument" last night makes me think that the Clintons are getting ready to scorch the earth to beat her rival.  It doesn't make much difference to me because I don't like any of the candidates on either side but if the Clintons rev it up against Obama I'm probably going to feel sorry for him.  Yes, I think they're that mean when they want to win an election.  This election year sucks so bad I'd even take a hot and sweaty Al Gore at this point.  OK, maybe it's not that bad.

See you on Monday.

Just for the record the Volunteer State has nine--count-em--nine teams in the NCAA basketball tournament.  There are five men's teams in the tournament and four women's teams.  On the men's side it's University of Tennessee and Memphis (Memphis is a number one seed and UT a number two), Vanderbilt, Austin Peay (go Peay!), and Belmont.  On the women's side it's UT again, Vanderbilt, East Tennessee State, and UT-Chattanooga.  You could say that it's been a very good year for basketball in the Volunteer State.

It's not as good news with this headline: Sara Evans engaged.  Not only is the country music beauty off the market (like us old farts had a chance) but she's engaged to Jay Barker, a former Alabama quarterback.  That sucks really bad.  Something like the Vol football team losing the Sugar Bowl to Harvard.  It's embarrassing.

Then there's this disturbing news: Berry murder suspect kills himself, names another suspect.  This guy might the biggest coward in history.  Evidence indicated he killed an unarmed girl.  His DNA was found at the murder scene.  When he was arrested he said the killing was an accident.  Then he starting claiming it was someone else who did it.  Now he opts out by committing suicide and implicating the one he originally blamed it on.  What a coward.  God bless the Berry family.  I wish them peace.

This week marks the fifth year anniversary of the Iraq invasion.  I haven't posted much about political issues in a long time but at lunch today I was reading my USA Today and saw the latest list of solider deaths in Iraq.   

I wasn't in favor of our invasion of Iraq five years ago--unlike the Gulf War which I thought we were right in doing from day one.  There was a difference for me between ejecting Saddam Hussein from Kuwait and claiming he had weapons of mass destruction.  At the time I felt we were just using that as an excuse to get rid of him.  There's no doubt in my mind that Saddam being gone is a good thing but the price we have paid has been steep for a couple of reasons.

First I thought it would drain military resources from Afghanistan and the war on terrorism at a time period that was really critical for that effort.  When I look back now five years I'm more convinced than ever that did indeed happen.

Secondly the cost of war has been steep in lost lives and wounded soldiers.  It always pains me to see the latest deaths in Iraq listed in the newspaper.  I'm not a bleeding heart liberal but I see those names and think about all the family members that are being affected by the deaths.  It's just a horrible thing.

Having said the above I reluctantly also say I think we have to stay in Iraq if for no other reason than keeping Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations out.  We created a vacuum that has to be filled and I'm afraid that's going to take a while.  Leaving Iraq now seems to me something like leaving it in anarchy.  Unfortunately that is going to mean more lost lives by American soldiers.  The real question is how long.

This may surprise some people but I don't think current President Bush is to blame for the Iraq situation. At least I really don't blame him so much as I do his staff at the time--Rumsfeld, Cheney, Tenet, Wolfowitz, etc.  I think they gave him bad advice and he took it.  In that sense he can be blamed.  Isn't it strange how old men can find ways to justify war they themselves don't have to fight?  Three of those four aren't even in the administration anymore.  Now five years later I think as a country we have lost prestige and image as a fair and law-abiding country.  Even worse we have lost thousands of young lives. 

It was a big mistake.

I totally agree with Insty on this issue.  I truly have never understood why journalists always assert that they have the right to refuse to testify and not reveal their sources.

Freedom of the press and freedom of publication?  Absolutely.  It's one of the basic foundations of our country.  Indeed it's stated in the Constitution.  But the Constitution doesn't say anything at all about keeping secrets while under subpoena or refusing to testify truthfully before a grand jury.  No citizen has that privilege nor should they. 

Yes it makes their work as journalists more difficult if they have to reveal their sources.  But lots of people in different lines of work could say the same thing.  Ask any private business owner about what laws do to them.  Laws often make doing business much more difficult and expensive for business owners.  But it's the law and the business has to abide by it.

And I've never believed that it's right for  journalists to use anonymous sources.  It can and frequently does lead to abuse and misinformation.  How many times over the years have government anonymous sources leaked information that is private and sometimes even classified secret?  And how many times over the last few years have we heard about reporters being fired for making up stories?

Don't get me wrong.  I believe that journalists do good work for the public more often than not.  Many things would not be revealed or made public without their work.  Many improvements in our society are a direct result of their work.  But they're no different from me or the President of the United States.  They still have to obey the law.  And there isn't a law that says they are exempted from testifying or revealing their sources if a court tells them to.

Oil hits a high; some in U.S. see $4 gas by spring. 

Now isn't that special.  I'm running a daily commute of about fifty-six miles round trip.  I probably put another ten miles on top of that because I go out to lunch.  So sixty-six miles and five days a week calculates out to three hundred thirty miles per week of just work-related travel.  I've checked my mileage between my two vehicles and it's averaging about 21 miles per gallon.  That means I'm using about a tank full (15.7 gallons) of gas per week total.  At $3.15 a gallon that's about fifty bucks a week or $2600 per year just for getting to work.  At $4 a gallon the number goes to nearly $3300 a year. 

That's not going to break my bank account but it's a big increase over what I have spent in the past and not just because of my increased commute. 

Readers of this blog know that I don't think government can do many things well nor in many cases should they do them at all.  I definitely don't want the government to interfere with the free market although I think Big Oil manipulates the market to their advantage regularly.  But this is one area where the government can and should show leadership.  Of all the things the United States government has failed to do for its citizens in my lifetime (and there have been many things), I believe the failure to formulate a plan or policy to decrease our dependency on foreign oil has been one of the worst.  We first had an energy shortage in the early seventies.  Every President since then has promised such a plan.  That's over thirty years ago and our dependence hasn't decreased but increased.  Our national security is clearly in some jeopardy because of this.

I think this failure occurred because of two reasons.  One is a lack of leadership at the highest level.  To achieve any level of energy independence in this country would take a lot of power and prestige.  That's only possible at the Presidential and Congressional level.  It would take a monumental effort, a lot of cooperation, impeccable integrity and a lot of time.  But there's not been a single President in my lifetime who has been really serious about energy.  They've been all hat and no cattle.  It's just been too easy for them to pass the problem on to their successor.  And in my opinion Congress has been dysfunctional for a number of years.  They're so partisan they can't agree on anything even if it's clearly good for the country.

The second reason is special interest groups.  They have a lot to lose financially with the U.S. becoming more energy independent.  That can include everyone's favorite bad guys Big Oil to the speculators to even tanker owners and a lot of others in between.  One of the double-edged swords of a free market is that special interests can put their own interests ahead of the entire country.  Of course they're willing to spend their wealth to ensure they keep their wealth and we all know where they spend it.

I think this leaves us to our own devices and for the most part that means conservation and in general doing things wisely.  But we as consumers drive the economy.  Our spending is what makes things happen.  We're going to have to provide the leadership that our elected officials clearly aren't capable of by buying or not buying.  That is the only message that a free market understands and responds to.  It will be a steep price to make it happen but to me we're paying that price either way.  It's time we spent that money in our economy and not elsewhere.