How High's the Water, Momma?

Letters to our local weekly newspaper, the Independent Coast Observer, disputing my position that global warming is natural often criticize me without any contradicting facts, yet I have repeatedly submitted that current warming began about 300 years ago. A clear, undisputed example can be found in Glacier Bay, Alaska, where maps from 1780 show glacier retreat of about 60 miles from 1780 to 1912, and only six miles since (almost 0.5 mile per year for the first 132 years, and only 0.06 mile per year for the last 100 years).

Melting glaciers are obviously of interest to us and other coastal dwellers, since Al Gore predicted they would cause 20 feet of sea-level rise by 2100. Luckily for us, nearby San Francisco has the oldest continually operating tide gauge in the Western Hemisphere and, since June 30, 1854, it has recorded a total increase in sea level of eight inches (0.05 inches per year). However, to satisfy Al’s prediction the rate of rise will have to immediately accelerate by a factor of 55 times from the current rate of 0.05 inches per year to 2.76 inches per year for the next 87 years. I predict Al Gore will be left with over 19 feet in his mouth.

A significant increase is unlikely, since the worldwide rate of sea-level rise has been decelerating recently to about four inches per century (0.04 inches per year). That coincides with the slight global cooling of the past 15 years. Of course, none of these scientific observations agrees with any of the climate models, so the climate modelers say the observations are erroneous (see link).

It’s like the denial by the man whose wife caught him in bed with another woman.  “Who are you going to believe, your loving husband or your lying eyes?”

The models or the facts?

Democrat Math

A writer to the Independent Coast Observer (our local weekly newspaper) recently demonstrated that many public employee jobs at an average annual salary of $65,000 could be saved by diverting campaign finance money to fund their continued employment. This is truly an apples and oranges concept: public employees are paid from taxes; campaigns are financed by contributions. How the money would get from the one pot to the other puzzles me. Short of an outright donation to the government, which I encourage all Liberals who think they aren’t taxed enough to make, this is not doable.

However, I surmise the letter writer’s point was that funding Republican campaigns was a waste of money, and that Democrats spending twice as much was not, since this was not mentioned. This inspired me to examine government money wasted supporting clean energy development which could be better used.

In a January report, CBS News featured 12 clean energy companies that were having trouble after collectively being approved for more than $6.5 billion in federal assistance. Five already filed for bankruptcy: the junk bond-rated Beacon, Evergreen Solar, SpectraWatt, AES’ subsidiary Eastern Energy, and the infamous Solyndra. Abound Solar Manufacturing, Longmont, Colo. recipient of a $400 million federal loan guarantee, just laid off 280 workers, 70% reduction of its workforce.

Using Republican math, $6.5 billion would fund 100,000 public employee jobs at $65,000 each per annum to vote for Democrats. Using Liberal math, Democrats would take credit for saving 100 million public employee jobs even if the unemployment rate stayed over eight percent, and still get all their votes.

Since there are only 310 million Americans, the Democrat claim would not pass the smell test but that wouldn’t stop them from making it or their Liberal supporters from believing it. Democrats just get a lot more from numbers than Republicans can.

Sober Reflections On Memorial Day

The day after Memorial Day is a good time for reflection. On Memorial Day itself, the hordes of tourists packing up at the end of their three-day weekend, the lingering odor of burnt chicken, the flash of anger that Google couldn’t come up with a clever logo for Memorial Day like they do for even slightly significant events, these are among the things that sabotage the inner quiet that I need for reflection.

I also need time with Memorial Day. Time to find my own place in it, even after all these years. Primarily, I thank those who served, suffered, died, to keep us free. After serving over 21 years in the Air Force, am I one of them? Or am I always just one of the grateful, thankful that they did the hard work? Upon sober reflection – over twenty-five years without drinking a drop of alcohol – I’m one of the grateful.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of the job I did in the Air Force. I often worked long hours, was tired, uncomfortable – day-long bus rides in Korea will do that to you – but I did that as a civilian, too. The month I worked stripping edgings at Bojock Lumber Company, Manchester, California, while I was on leave from the Air Force in 1963, was physically more dangerous than anything I encountered in my Air Force career.

However, I like to be thanked for my service, because it tells me something I like to know about the person thanking me. They treasure their freedom and liberty, and they know that it didn’t come free. They’re thanking me because I’m a symbol, a representative, of all who served with me, who are serving now, and who served before me. It’s a long line, and if it’s ever broken, mankind will be cursing their chains and slavery, perhaps for all time.

Democrat Math Simulator

When Alice and I returned last week from our travels to my birthplace (and where she grew up), Southern California, I was pleased to read an exposition on budgeting (Self-centered, ICO February 3, 2012) by Mary Mobert that mentioned me. I enjoy such discussions; Economics was my undergraduate minor and I was an Air Force Budget Officer for over ten years. However, her letter reminded me less of academic studies and more of the practical admonition to “compare apples to apples” and to “mind your decimal point.”

She noted that “Republicans spent a record $12.5 million in ads” in the Iowa caucus. However, adjusted for inflation, they spent the same in 2008. Interestingly, in 2008 Democrats spent $26 million for ads in the Iowa caucus, more than Republicans spent in 2008 and 2012 combined. Why isn’t this the record?

I had some trouble with her math until I put my computer in Democrat Math Simulator mode (DMS). Before, when I divided the $12.5 million the Republicans spent by the 122,000 Iowa voters who participated, I came up with $102.45 per voter. When I turned on the DMS, I got Mrs. Mobert’s $102,459 per voter. In another quote from her ICO letter: “Iowa campaign funds alone (the $12.5 million) would insure (sic) the salaries of 192,308 teachers, police, or firefighters (public employees) who earn an average of $65,000 a year.” When I turned off the DMS, the number became 192.3 public employees, or 192,115.7 less.

In 2008 Obama spent $730 million vs. McCain's $333 million. In 2012 Obama wants to spend $1 billion, which would pay for 15,384.6 public employees at $65,000 each (15,384,615 by DMS).

Now I see the Republican problem. We just can’t get as much out of a buck as Democrats can using their Democrat Math Simulator.

Non Sequitur - A Natural Global Warming Denier Cartoon

(Click on cartoon to enlarge it)

This Non Sequitur cartoon by Wiley Miller ran in our area newspapers the San Francisco Chronicle and the Santa Rosa Press Democrat yesterday (January 11, 2011). In the same newspapers, and in on-line news aggregators such as Drudge Report and Google News, were reports of record setting snow storms in Alaska, and the London Daily Mail reported that thousands of Britons were trapped by 18 feet of snow at Alpine ski resorts.

At Cordova, Alaska, the snow was so deep that 97 members of the Alaska National Guard have been put on snow shoveling duty. And they are struggling just to keep up.

Last snow season, we Californians were treated (or subjected) to a very long and heavy snow season. The Central Sierra Snow Lab reported 207 inches (17.2 feet), the fifth highest snow depth in roughly the past 100 years.

I hope Mr. Miller enjoys the snow-free days wherever he is, and counts his blessings that he isn't shovelling snow in Alaska, or trapped in the Alps. Since the Earth has been warming naturally and sporadically for 400 years since the Little Ice Age, and recently has been cooling as much as warming as CO2 steadily increases, perhaps Mr. Miller will stop denying that climate change is natural, and has been for billions of years.

Card Carrying Former Member of the Working Poor

In a letter to our local weekly newspaper, the Independent Coast Observer of Gualala, California, a UC Davis history major erroneously said I insult the working poor whose taxes pay (my) military pension. However, the bottom 48% pay none while the top 25% pay 90% of personal income taxes, so the working poor pay nobody anything. Fifty years ago my poor working-class family paid income taxes instead of receiving tax credits. Now Alice and I pay income taxes (including on Social Security) which cover most of my retirement.

I also understand him confusing facts from studies of employment and single-parent families from Sweden and the United States and considering them my opinions, since few today value facts over opinions.

I dont insult the working poor, since for many years that included my family. After we towed our trailer to Point Arena in 1949 we lived in an abandoned high school. In 1954, when I was 12 and brother Ron was11, we borrowed a workhorse and dug a full-sized basement and helped build the house east of the Pacific Charter School. Pop was an oil field roughneck before becoming a lumberjack, and Mom cleaned the Arena Theater and hotels before her crippled leg prevented her from walking downtown, so she cut and set hair in our kitchen.

I bucked hay bales for Vic Soldani and Walt Stornetta, worked at Bojock Lumber and the Biaggi Lane veneer mill, hand-milked a cow, and other jobs. My friends did as much or more. None of the best Point Arena High graduates, including me, received scholarships.

To supplement my Air Force income I drove school buses, and later taught accounting, management, and economics at night for eight colleges in a 10-year period.

The history major apparently overlooked my solutions: pursue marketable skills and education; go where the jobs are and work hard; discourage single parenthood.

Income Inequality is Caused by the 99%

It is an inconvenient truth that income inequality is not caused by the 1%, but by the growing segment of society which lacks marketable skills and education. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, 40% of babies are born to single moms and each year half a million teens have children. Are Republicans the only ones who think this is a problem?

A study in Sweden found that single-parent children were twice as likely to have serious health problems, addictions, mental illnesses, and to commit suicide. This was not a right-wing hate study. Of course, other studies have found the same problems here which are contributing to a rapidly growing underclass that requires ever-increasing support services such as day care, Medicaid, housing assistance, and remedial education, to name just a few chronic and increasing problem areas. Will these problems go away if we avoid looking at a primary root cause? That’s what we’ve been doing, and it’s only getting worse.

Unemployment is bad at 8.6% (12% in California), and only looks like it is getting better because of seasonal hiring. However, good jobs go unfilled because Americans don’t have the education, skills, or required willingness to work. Many high-tech, high-paying jobs go begging unless businesses can hire foreign workers. In Wyoming (3.5% unemployment) over 16,000 high-paying energy jobs go unfilled because Americans are unwilling to relocate and work hard. Fifty years ago in Point Arena many of us worked at jobs that only illegal immigrants will take now, which depresses wages for unskilled and undereducated Americans, including college graduates.

The cartoon “Zits” summed it up nicely: Jeremy wants to major in music theory to “totally justify playing in a band while racking up $100,000 in student loans and graduating with minimal marketable skills.” Unfortunately, he’s not alone.

Our 2011 Christmas Letter

Merry Christmas and Happy Chanukah

Writing our annual Christmas letter is a challenge, but physically getting them all folded, stuffed, addressed, and stamped should be an Olympic event. I just mailed out the last of 360 cards. The easy part is recording our travels, which were compressed into the last half of the year so we could fulfill our “presidential” obligations in the first half – Alice in her Book Club, and me in Lions. We finished our terms, then headed to the East Coast in late June for almost a month. We saw three Broadway plays: War Horse (a moving World War I drama with life-size and lifelike horse puppets, now a movie), Priscilla Queen of the Desert (funny and entertaining gay musical), and Book of Mormon. Great reviews, lousy musical – Alice says she liked it, which I guess shows you don’t need memorable songs and dances anymore to have a hit on Broadway if you do it in the infantile, raunchy South Park style. There is nothing brave or daring about ridiculing a small, peaceful religion like the Mormons. I would have been impressed if South Park did The Book of Islam, and showed Mohammad at his mythologically inspired best. 

We did the Fourth of July in Bristol, Rhode Island, and toured Connecticut, and especially enjoyed the Mark Twain Museum. Hartford was a revelation; I never knew how Hartford had been such an important city in the Industrial Revolution in America.

Next we went to exotic Bakersfield for a Combs Cousins Reunion. I only know a few of my almost fifty first cousins – and innumerable second cousins – but it brought back memories of how Pop used to keep in touch with everyone.

We spent all of October in southeast Asia – The Philippines, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Although we were there during the big floods, we had a great trip. In retrospect we would liked to have spent more time sightseeing in Vietnam. The Vietnamese are amazingly energetic and capitalistic – our kind of people.

Laos

In 2013 we’ll be going to Panama and Costa Rica for certain, and hopefully to Colorado for Alice’s aunt’s 100^th birthday celebration.

While we’re home here on the Pacific coast among the redwoods, our typical day begins leisurely – no alarm clock. I feed Buddy and brush his teeth, then run a few miles. Alice has breakfast, listens to talkradio or recorded Great Courses lectures, reads the newspapers, then hopes  for time to read books and to write her own. Lately she’s had to put in quite a bit of time on her business, Vulcan Incorporated (manufacturing and distributing industrial baling wire), but still makes sure to swim in her pool, or bicycle in the hills and down to the cliff above the ocean. Then we share a two-mile walk to the beach with Buddy, and just before going to bed we all take another mile walk so Buddy can do his nighttime piddles and poo. Buddy is 14 1/2 now, and all this exercise is probably what keeps him going.

Alice and Buddy on Cook's Beach

In between exercise periods, we do our club activities, work at the computers – Alice on spreadsheets for Vulcan, planning our trips, emailing friends and family, writing her autobiography – when Alice read a bit to her eldest daughter and three of her grandchildren, they wouldn’t let her stop - and me researching natural climate change for my anti-Al Gore book – we keep very busy for retirees.

We wish you a safe, sane, happy, and prosperous New Year!

Alice, Michael and Buddy

Mainstream Media is Hateful to Occupy

Criticizing Occupy activists is considered hateful, judging from responses to recent criticisms of Occupy in our local weekly newspaper, The Independent Coast Observer. Now it looks like the left-leaning Press Democrat should also be tagged “hateful” because of their November 28 editorial, “More muddled messages from Occupy folks”, which noted that the attempt to disrupt “Black Friday” shopping damaged Santa Rosa Occupy’s credibility and focus.

Occupy Wall Street’s national shopping boycott failed spectacularly, as Black Friday sales were up a record 7%, showing OWS has no clout as a national movement.

The ultra-left San Francisco Chronicle was “hateful” two weeks ago when in an editorial “Oakland says ‘enough’”, the Chronicle opined: “Oakland leaders finally acted decisively to remove a sprawling and unruly camp from the city's central downtown plaza. It was the right move, one that San Francisco should consider in responding to a similar tent city that's taken over an Embarcadero park.”

In another “hateful” editorial, the Chronicle concluded: “The Occupy movement is no longer  associated with protests over income inequality or Wall Street misconduct. Now it's about squalor and public safety, thanks largely to its nonexistent leadership and disorganization.”

What does OWS want? Income redistribution no doubt; having government take the rightful property of one group and give it to another, also known as theft. “When you take from Peter and give to Paul, you can count on Paul’s support.”

The rest of the OWS message is the usual Liberal hodgepodge of special interest issues, made particularly incoherent by its lack of leadership and direction. As OWS camps become full-time homeless camps and OWS activists flee their squalor – and Winter rain and freezing – the backlash by the media, municipalities, and weary voters will cause the Left to wish Occupy Wall Street never happened.

And as a coherent movement, it hasn’t.

Main Stream Media "Hateful" to Occupy

Criticizing Occupy activists is considered hateful, judging from responses to criticisms we local conservatives make in our local weekly newspaper, the Independent Coast Observer. Now it looks like the left-leaning Press Democrat should also be tagged “hateful” because of their November 28 editorial, “More muddled messages from Occupy folks”, which noted that the attempt to disrupt “Black Friday” shopping damaged Santa Rosa Occupy’s credibility and focus.

Occupy Wall Street’s national shopping boycott failed spectacularly, as Black Friday sales were up a record 7%, showing OWS has no clout as a national movement.

The ultra-left San Francisco Chronicle was “hateful” two weeks ago when in an editorial “Oakland says ‘enough’”, the Chronicle opined: “Oakland leaders finally acted decisively to remove a sprawling and unruly camp from the city's central downtown plaza. It was the right move, one that San Francisco should consider in responding to a similar tent city that's taken over an Embarcadero park.”

In another “hateful” editorial, the Chronicle concluded: “The Occupy movement is no longer associated with protests over income inequality or Wall Street misconduct. Now it's about squalor and public safety, thanks largely to its nonexistent leadership and disorganization.”

What does OWS want? Income redistribution no doubt; having government take the rightful property of one group and give it to another, also known as theft. “When you take from Peter and give to Paul, you can count on Paul’s support.”

The rest of the OWS message is the usual Liberal hodgepodge of special interest issues, made particularly incoherent by its lack of leadership and direction. As OWS camps become full-time homeless camps and OWS activists flee their squalor – and Winter rain and freezing – the backlash by the media, municipalities, and weary voters will cause the Left to wish Occupy Wall Street never happened.

And as a coherent movement, it hasn’t.