The First National Thanksgiving

Shortly after Congress approved the First Amendment in 1789 to send to the states for ratification, President George Washington issued the first National Thanksgiving Proclamation:

“Whereas both Houses of Congress have by their joint Committee requested me 'to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness;'

Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the People of these United States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be;

That we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks...for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enabled to establish constitutions of government...particularly the national one now lately instituted, for the civil and religious liberty with which we are blessed...to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue.”

Something Nice

Can I say something nice about President Obama? Quite a few things, and here's a good example: In a speech in Indonesia, he said, "I have made it clear that America is not and never will be at war with Islam. ... Those who want to build must not cede ground to terrorists who seek to destroy." Amen.

QE2 and 2012

Federal government intervention hasn't solved all our economic problems yet, so it's time to try the same things again, obviously. Without a gold standard or something similar, the Federal Reserve has the ability to create money, and put more of it into circulation. They claim this is to improve the economy. Interestingly, they expanded the money supply by 2.45 trillion dollars from Sept 2008 to June 2010 (the biggest expansion in history), and as you may have noticed, it didn't improve the economy. So now they're planning "QE2" to expand it by another 800 billion dollars (600B fiat and 200B from TARP funds) from now until mid-2011. It will have an impact, primarily by further enriching the biggest banks, who are at the front-end of the expansion, but it won't benefit the economy in accordance with their stated goals.

This makes it clear, once again, that these high-level leaders (Obama; Bernanke, chairman of the Federal Reserve; Timothy Geithner, Secretary of the Treasury; et al.) don't exercise common sense and appear to be too ignorant for their posts. They're guessing! Worse, they're gambling with trillions of dollars of our money. Bernanke just recently said that QE2's 800 billion dollar expansion is an "experiment."

Expand the money supply to stimulate the economy? Really? Consider this quote and see if it doesn't make more sense than our exalted leaders... "A lesson that was taught by classical economists that remains true: there is no ideal supply of money in a society. Any quantity of money will do, so long as the quality of the money is sound. Prices adjust based on the existing money supply. New quantities of money injected into society confer no social benefit. If production rises and the money supply remains stable, the purchasing power of the money will rise. If production falls while the supply of money remains stable, the purchasing power of money will fall." End the Fed, Ron Paul, page 203

Obama, Bernanke, and Geithner seem to have no concept that the money supply has quality, let alone that their actions are harming its quality. But whether I like it or not, QE2 is here. If, as I suspect, QE2 makes things worse in the long run, then Obama probably won't be reelected in 2012, because the economy will still be struggling. By then, a majority of voters will know or suspect that Obama and his czars' efforts to control the economy were guesses all along, and they guessed wrong. And instead of making things better, they made things far worse.

In 2012, the Democrats will almost certainly field Obama again, and no independent or 3rd party candidate is likely to win, so if we're to change presidential administrations, it will have to come from electing whoever wins the Republican primary. So let's not blow this deal.

I don't know who to recommend yet, but I know who not to recommend: Sarah Palin. Why? Lack of sufficient experience and knowledge. She's added to her knowledge since her vice-presidential candidacy, and can add more, plus she is an electric speaker (with polarizing charges - pun intended), and her experience is greater than Obama's was before he became President, but her experience is still not enough. I want a President with a lot more experience and a lot better understanding of economics than either Obama or Palin. Surely we can find someone better out of 310 million people. And while it is essential to have a candidate who understands the importance of a constitutionally-limited civil government, of financial responsibility, and of free-market economics, is it too much to hope that such a candidate could be more congenial than polarizing?

Surf Shelf

I just recently got a Surf Shelf, and it's great. It easily mounts on the control board of a treadmill or exercise bike and will hold your laptop while you walk, run, or pedal. It's $40, but it lets you work or play while you exercise.

Oh, and it works for books and magazines, too.

http://www.surfshelf.com

All The King's Men and All the King's Horses

The catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is not only an environmental catastrophe, it's an economic catastrophe for that region of the United States.

I know they've been consulting an army of experts, but I still don't understand why this has been going on so long. I'm reminded of a story I heard long ago about a tractor-trailer that the driver tried to get under a bridge that was too low. Traffic was snarled for hours as they tried using tow trucks and other means to pull it out, all to no avail. All the experts were stumped, until a little boy who had been in one of the cars that got stuck in traffic and was now in the group on onlookers said, "Why don't you just let some air out of the tires?" Problem solved.

Maybe there's something I'm missing, but it seems to me like all the solutions I've heard about involve experts trying sophisticated techniques of some kind or another, when a brute-force attack would be a better approach.

Instead of focusing all efforts such things as trying to calculate just the right density and adhesive qualities of slurry to pump into the well head, why not build a huge concrete dome with more than enough mass to counter the oil pressure, tow it out to sea and sink it over the well head?

Yes, I'm aware of the box idea they tried that failed. That was too small, with too little mass, because that wasn't an attempt to stop the leak, that was an attempt to cap it with an outlet that would still allow them to pipe up the oil to the surface. Forget all that. Just smother the thing.

The Greatest Ice Hockey Goal of All Time?

I thought I had posted a link to this clip here before, but I wanted to watch it again, and discovered it wasn't here after all. So I hunted it up and I'm posting it anyway, even though it's 3 1/2 years old now. Maybe someone else will see it here who's never seen it before, and wow, is it worth watching.

This is Alex Ovechkin playing for the Washington Capitals, against the Phoenix Coyotes in November 2006. The announcers are Coyotes' announcers, and one of the says during several replays from different angles, "...we can't see this enough. I mean, we can, because it's against the Phoenix Coyotes, but that is something spectacular."

Alex the Great, on his back, rolling over, moving away from the goal, which he can't see but knows about where it is, three opponents between him and the goal, only one hand on his stick, next-to-impossible absolutely-minimum angle left to get a shot in, but...



Link for when it gets copied into Facebook (on accounta FB hasn't been copying embeds): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vzbmI6-YSnQ.

What a shot!

A Candidate I Can Support

Today I started campaigning for a candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives. It feels strange.

I strongly dislike the long-term behaviors I have observed in my incumbent Congressman. For example, on taxes, he emphasizes that while he was Chair of our County Board of Supervisors, he "lowered taxes." He clearly makes it seem that his lowering of taxes was the most notable characteristic of his tenure as Chairman on the issue of taxation. He lowered taxes, he claims. Yeah, well, he once voted to lower the tax rate on properties after the property valuations had risen dramatically, so that they were ever-so-slightly less than what they otherwise would have been, but the overall effect was that property taxes went up. Up is not down. Property taxation is a huge issue, as property taxes make up the vast majority of tax revenue for most counties and states.

During this guy's entire tenure as Chairman, property taxes doubled. Doubled. He voted for one tiny little reduction in a tax rate one time, but he allowed the overall taxation to go up and up and up. And yet he has the gall to talk as if lowering taxes defines his position on the general issue of taxation. He is a quintessential ~politician~ who appears to have no difficulty distorting the truth, and I want to vote him OUT.

I'm an independent. This political bum I'm referring to happens to be a Democrat. He not only voted for the recent health insurance legislation, he was a co-sponsor of the bill. This is the roughly 2,000 page bill of which House Speaker Nancy Polosi made the idiotic statement during a press conference, "We have to pass the bill to find out what's in the bill."

Well, there are two Republicans running in the primary to compete against my incumbent. I like the stated positions and real-world, private-industry experience of both of them. Neither one is a career politician. Both have accounting expertise. Neither one is perfect, but I think they are far superior to the sorry excuse for a Congressman who now holds the office. I prefer Pat Herrity for several reasons, so I have started supporting him. A couple of independent polls indicate it will be a close election in November.

Today I went to Pat Herrity's campaign office and got a handful of bumper stickers and a dozen signs. I drove to a busy highway, parked my car, walked to the median and started planting them. Tomorrow I'm going back for more.

Pat's not rich, and he can't fund his campaign out of his pocket. If you're looking for a good guy to give $5 to help him de-fund the recent health insurance legislation, promote generally "conservative" values, including actually supporting the U.S. Constitution, you can contribute here: http://patherrity.com.

Pre-Strike Civilian Warning?

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's mind may be warped the same way Saddam Hussein's was. He may think he can stall forever by stringing along the U.N. while bouncing between promises and threats without getting bombed by the U.S or Israel. He may think that we learned a lesson from overthrowing Hussein that it's too hard and costs too much, in money and lives. He may think we wouldn't even drop bombs on his nuclear facilities without invading because we're too -- take your pick: weak, tired, soft, foolish, etc.

Maybe he's right. I don't know if President Obama has what it takes to decide we're too close to a homicidal dictator getting working nuclear bombs to actually stop him, rather than merely lament and plead until after they detonate their first underground bomb as a test and testament.

Certainly the pronouncement this week that the world is safer now from nuclear weapons than before the security summit is not encouraging. The security summit changed exactly nothing, and Iran wasn't even mentioned in the self-congratulatory assurances that sounded too much like Neville Chamberlain's "peace in our time." That was shortly before Hitler launched World War II, for those who don't recall.

Obviously, I don't know if we'll strike, or allow the Israelis to strike. But as far as I know, we might. So, here's a wild idea I had, and I'd love to get some responses from other folks. If we decide to bomb Iran's nuke sites, what if we were to warn the entire population before-hand? Give the civilians time and warning to get out of the way, in order to minimize innocent casualties?

It might make things more difficult and riskier for our military. If so, that's a clear down-side. Saving civilian lives would be a clear up-side, but I don't think this would simply be trading our military lives for their civilian lives. Just because it might increase risk to our guys doesn't mean it would definitely cost more of our lives, or any, for that matter. If we were to use high-altitude stealth bombers that can fly above the range of Iran's anti-aircraft missiles, that'd be one option. Another would be stand-off cruise missiles, or even non-nuclear ICBM's.

For the sake of discussion, suppose we were certain we could bomb them with them being able to strike back. Would it be a good thing to warn them to let the civilians flee to safer places? We would haven't to specify the exact day or time. The targets are fixed sites, so we can't exactly surprise them there, except that we may know more of their secret places than they hope.

After 6 months of incinerating scores of Japanese cities with conventional bombs brought them no closer to surrender than ever, we finally dropped the first war-deployed nuclear bomb on Hiroshima. That killed over 100,000 people. When they still didn't surrender, we dropped a second one on Nagasaki, and they finally surrendered. Regardless of what you like or don't like about that history, two things are clear: it was effective in getting them to surrender unconditionally, and it killed a whole lot of civilians.

Yes, the situation between the U.S. and Japan was far different from the situation between the U.S. and Iran, by many measures. And if we had warned them about which city we intended to bomb, they may have been able to shoot down our bomber. But suppose we had warned the Japanese that we were going to annihilate one of their cities without telling them which one, and urged their civilians too leave all their cities? Maybe no one would have paid heed and the same people would have died in Hiroshima. What would have happened when we warned them the second time? Perhaps a lot of people would have fled cities all over the country, including at least some in Nagasaki, and perhaps tens of thousands of lives would have been spared.

We only had two bombs back in 1945. If either one had gotten shot down, maybe they wouldn't have surrendered for a much longer time. How much would a warning have increased their chances of intercepting one of our nuclear bombers? I don't know. And if they had, perhaps even more civilians would have died in the continued conventional bombings. I can't help but recall that my Dad was in the U.S. Navy, in Hawaii, about to ship out toward the fighting front, when the Japanese did surrender a few days after Nagasaki. That was before my dad met my mom and fathered my brother and myself.

But in this situation, the point of bombing Iran wouldn't be to get them to surrender. It would simply be to physically eliminate their ability to process weapons-grade uranium. No invasion necessary. Cruise-missile their underground processing facilities with non-nuclear warheads until there's nothing left but dust. That's my best guess as to what we would actually do, IF we do anything other than talking until seismographs reveal they've succeeded in a detonation.

Well, if we were to do that, what would be the harm in giving them advance warning? Something along the lines of, "Citizens of Iran: We wish you no harm, but we cannot allow your dictator to finalize his efforts to build nuclear weapons. We have reasoned, we have urged, and we have threatened, all to no avail, and now we regret that he has forced us to act to eliminate this very serious threat to world peace. Therefore, we urge you to stock up food, water, and medicine, and move as far as possible away from your government's nuclear facilities. We will begin bombing them within a few days and will continue bombing them until they have been completely destroyed. Here is a list of the most prominent facilities that you should remain far from at all costs..."

So... what do you think?

Microsoft Acquires Oracle and IBM

News Flash: Microsoft has just announced that it will acquire both Oracle and IBM in the largest merger of technology companies in history.

Oracle products will continue to be supported for at least 5 years, but no new products or features will be developed. Existing customers will be encouraged to begin shifting to SQL Server, SharePoint, and other mainline Microsoft products.

IBM mainframes will now be marketed as Microsoft Frames, running Windows Server Frame Edition. The IBM consulting services division will be merged into Microsoft Services, and those employees will no longer be required to wear ties or attend meetings.

Anti-trust objections from the Justice Department were mooted yesterday by Microsoft's acquisition of the Justice Department's anti-trust division. Anti-trust objections from the European Union were allayed by promising not to install Internet Explorer by default on the Windows Frame edition.

The Royal Presidency

In my next-to-last post, I included a chart of expenditures of the Federal Government for fiscal year 2009. It includes the expenses of the Executive Office of the President, but it barely registers on the 800 Billion dollar scale needed to show the largest categories.

<tangential rant>
In the chart notes I pointed out that the Federal Government employs over 22 million people. Twenty-two million. Do we really need that many people to run our Federal Government?
</tangential rant>

Here I'd like to single out that tiny little line item for the President's Office.

Guess how much of your tax money was spent in fiscal year 2009 to operate the White House, the President's staff, and the rest of the Presidential expenses. Go ahead, guess... Ten million? Fifty million? A hundred million?

Try over seven-hundred and forty-two million. Exactly $742,850,260 according to the U.S. Treasury Dept.

Don't blame Obama for this. At least, don't blame him alone, because that budget didn't just get that large in the last year or two.

But I can't help but wonder how much harm it would cause our country if that budget went down a few million. Or a few hundred million.

Why I'm STILL Against the Current Health Insurance Reform

Well, the big news today is that the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has just finished their estimates based on the proposed House of Representatives' revisions to the health insurance reform. Those favoring this legislative package are giddy with delight, because the CBO estimates are that the revisions will lower the Federal deficit over the next 10 years, and lower it even more the decade after that.

My primary objection in my last post was that we can't afford it, so why aren't I changing my tune?

Because no legislation can change the fundamental principals of economics.

These latest estimates are for a proposed subsequent change to the health insurance legislation that the Senate passed. A reform of the reform. These estimates only apply if the House passes the exact same legislation the Senate passed in December, which has far higher CBO estimates, and then the House and Senate would both have to pass this revision. If the House passes the original Senate bill and this revision at the same time, the revision won't be applied unless the Senate passes the same revision legislation that the latest CBO estimate is for. There is almost no chance that will happen since the majority of the Senators don't want it, and probably couldn't pass it even if they did want it.

Additionally, the CBO estimates are never real-world estimates. I'm not saying that to be mean, or to exaggerate support for my position, but because the CBO isn't allowed to try to be realistic. They're required to base their estimates on whatever assumptions are included in the proposed legislation. History shows that such estimates are typically severely underestimated. Here's a closely related example: In 1966, total Medicare expenditures were about $3 billion dollars. At that time, the Congressional estimate for Medicare in 1990 was $12 billion after adjusting for inflation. The actual cost was over $107 billion. That's a little more than a rounding error, and is solid evidence that Federal "estimates" can't be relied upon.

If the House passes the Senate reform bill, Obama will sign it into law. If the House also passes the legislation they intend to reform the reform, the Senate is very unlikely to pass it, so it won't become law. The House reform to the reform will be nothing more than a footnote in history. The taxes will begin immediately, with the tax-funded benefits not beginning until the 5th year. If it's not changed before then, then tens of millions of people will begin to receive those benefits.

No legislation can change the fundamental principals of economics. If you try to provide a much greater quantity of health care without a corresponding increase in the number of qualified doctors, nurses, and hospitals, then the quality of health care has to come down, costs will go up, or both. Legislation can't change economics any more than it can change physics.

Why I'm Against the Current Health Insurance Reform

Year 11

Year 11 is the primary reason. The failure actually begins with year 5, but Obama and his legislative supporters have done their best to hide the fact that years 5 through 10 of their plan are unaffordable. They think we're stupid enough to believe their ploy of starting taxes 4 years before they start providing benefits so they can claim that the overall 10-year plan is financially balanced.

Year 11 has no such camouflage: The year following the 10-year plan will cost billions of dollars more than the taxes taken in for it. Either taxes will have to be raised, the national debt will have to be raised, the benefits will have to be cut, or some combination of these actions. Regardless of what else you like or dislike about this health insurance legislation, we simply can't afford it. We can't afford it now, and the next generation can't afford it later.

We already have the same impending problems with Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security. It's all an economy-ruining financial time-bomb. Take a look at the following chart (data from Dept. of Treasury). Medicare and Medicaid are part of the Dept. of Health and Human Services budget, and under current laws, they will continue to grow rapidly. The baby-boomers are beginning to retire and Social Security outlays will continue to grow rapidly. The astonishingly irresponsible deficit spending over the last few years (Bush 2 and Obama) will cause the interest on the national debt to continue to grow rapidly in addition to threatening the stability of the dollar.

Chart notes: "Dept of Treasury" includes hundreds of billions of dollars intended to shore up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. "Independent Agencies" include a large number of organizations such as the U.S. Interagency Council On Homelessness; the Vietnam Education Foundation; and the State Justice Institute. "Other Defense - Civil" includes military retirement. Covered throughout this budget: There are over 22 million employees of the Federal Government.

No legislation should be passed that isn't financially sustainable. In the long-run, this health-insurance monstrosity won't provide better health care to more people, it will multiple the economic damage threatening our economy that could cause more hundreds of thousands of jobs to evaporate. And those folks unfortunate enough to lose their job will also lose their employer-based health benefits. Fewer jobs, fewer employer-based health benefits -- the opposite of the purported goals for this foolish legislation.

I'd rail awhile about how all the effort toward the misguided health-insurance legislation should have been focused on the economy, as the President seemed to acknowledge in his first State of the Union address ("Creating jobs has to be our number one priority in 2010") but I have no reason to think that this President or legislature has any understanding of how to improve the job situation. For example, the President and legislature are still virtually ignoring the continuing meltdown at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, with extremely far-reaching consequences for the housing industry and the economy.  Nevertheless, since health-insurance is in fact, still his number one priority, I'll close with a quotation from former Democratic President Bill Clinton, which I direct to the increasing egotistical President Obama:

"It's the economy, stupid."