About time: Obama approves offshore drilling

Pop quiz: What nations currently drill off the coasts of America, including the Gulf of Mexico?

If you answered Russia, Cuba, or India (and possibly other countries that my exhaustive 15 seconds of research didn’t uncover) give yourself a hand!
If you answered America, however, then you might possibly be correct…Just not for another two years.

”President Obama announced Wednesday his administration will approve significant oil and gas exploration off America's coasts, including a possible sale two years from now of leases off the Virginia shore.

The new strategy calls for oil and gas exploration in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, more than 125 miles from Florida's coast, and in large areas in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas in the Arctic Ocean, north of Alaska, after the government conducts detailed studies.”

This move will undoubtedly piss off many of his supporters in the environmental movement, despite the fact that he plans to keep many wildlife preserves off limits to exploration. Of course, any move that does not steer us towards beating our corn into meal on the highways while wearing 100% organic loincloths would piss off the environmental movement.

This is a very welcome step back towards a lucid energy policy that the Administration desperately needed to take. “Alternative” energies are all fine and good, but to have continued pursuing the course of cutting off all “traditional” energy sources until we find an alternative would have been utter madness.

Now if only we can get the government to allow us to drill in the ANWR we’ll really be cooking with gas. Before you try to convince me it is a bad idea because of the mating habits of caribou, let me stop you and make a statement: I would gladly drill through the heads of every caribou in Alaska who won’t mate to save its species if it meant we get to the oil faster.

Then again, who would want to disturb such a barren wasteland beautiful preserve like this?

Healthcare, unintended consequences, and States’ rights

Nearly a week ago President Obama signed into law the much argued over healthcare bill. The new law still has a few hurdles to jump with procedural voting in the Senate but it seems its future is now secure. I have written a number of blogs on this subject yet shockingly it appears my eloquent arguments failed to carry much weight in Congress. Still, I refuse to allow a little thing like being completely irrelevant to the greater world to stop me from loudly expressing my opinions anyway to anyone who wants to hear them, or to anyone who only kind of wants to hear them, or to anyone who really doesn’t want to hear them but is pretending to listen in order to be polite, or…Anyway.

There is a very inconvenient fact of life known as the law of unintended consequences. No matter how well researched you are about a particular decision it is inevitable that that decision will have a number of consequences, good or bad, that you did not foresee. If you do your job like Congress, of course, you take the Law of Unintended Consequences and turn it into a massive cyborg ninja Law that looks a little like this:

Seriously, what can go wrong when the Speaker of the House says that we have to pass a bill in order to figure out what’s actually in it? If that wasn’t enough to start the blood shooting from your eyes we can actually delve into the bill a tad.

There is a requirement hidden away in the gargantuan bill that, according to the AP, forces any chain restaurant with 20 or more locations to put accurate calorie counts of all menu items actually on the menu where morons like you and me can’t possibly miss them. I am now informed that the triple decker Big Bacon Beef & Cheese burger may not be a healthy diet choice. Thanks Congress!

You might ask why I have a problem with a provision like this. It is so tiny in the grand scheme of things, and after all, shouldn’t the customer be informed? That can’t be a bad thing! There is no way that the government interfering with the
State Controlled
Free market without invitation or need could possibly turn out bad!

This provision, like many others in this bill, looks good at first glance. If you have the attention span of a sheep with ADD, and don’t bother to look behind the curtain at the implications, then this appears harmless. Fortunately, the folks at Hotair.com have the attention span of two sheep with ADD, and broke down some the problems with this piece of legislation.

It works like this. The super huge chains very nearly comply with this legislation already. It is not difficult for McDonalds or BK to publish, usually on a website, accurate calorie counts for all their standardized menu options. To move that calorie count to the menu itself will be irritating, but probably not much more than that. For the tiny Mom n’ Pop stores there is no problem, because they are exempt for having far less than 20 stores. The rub comes at the chain that hovers right around 20 restaurants. From Hotair (some emphasis added by me.):

“Davanni’s, a local pizzeria-sandwich restaurant with 22 locations around the Twin Cities, will now have to comply with this mandate… it will cost Davanni’s approximately $200,000 to comply with the new mandate — just to start. Every menu change will require Davanni’s to have the new or modified items re-analyzed, which means that Davanni’s will probably resist adding new options for their customers. Meanwhile, larger chains with more economy of scale for such efforts such as Pizza Hut can do the tests once for all of their locations, keeping their prices lower for their customers — which they already do, thanks to consumer demand for the information.”

Strange…You mean to tell me evil corporations like Pizza Hut are giving the customers what they want in terms of information without government interference simply because they asked for it!? Poppycock!

“Under those circumstances, will Davanni’s feel compelled to keep the extra three locations open, or to scale back to 19 to avoid the mandate? Even if they do keep all of their locations, that $200,000 will now get spent on something other than new jobs for teenagers and adults, and customers will pay higher prices for their food. Local and regional chains with 15-19 locations have a big economic disincentive to expand any further. I don’t know much about Davanni’s bottom line, but I’m pretty sure that even though they make some of the best pizza and hoagies in the area, they don’t have $200,000 lying around the pizza sauce to blow on lab analyses this year, or any other.

This is a fundamentally anti-growth policy…That’s not even considering the question of jurisdiction on chains like Davanni’s which don’t cross state lines, and therefore shouldn’t have to answer to federal regulators at all.”

This ties neatly into one of my favorite soap boxes:
Axe Bodywash
States' Rights. The commerce clause of the Constitution (Motto: Being deftly misinterpreted to grow Federal power at obscene rates since the mid-19th century!) is being invoked once again in order to allow travesties like the one described above to go on. It is sad that it is become so normal, so routine, for this clause to be waved about like a magic wand wielded by a moody teenager with a lightning bolt scar that it doesn’t even get examined. The clause allows for the regulation of interstate commerce, yet there is no mind given to whether or not anything inside it crosses State lines.

Yet another slap in the face to We the People comes in the form of the mandate that will require every man, woman, and child in America to have insurance by the year 2016 or face a fine of $695, or 2.5% of income, whichever is higher (and it will be higher for anyone who makes more than $28k a year).

Pause for a moment and think about this. An insurance policy is a product, a service provided by a private company, sold to a private citizen. In this way insurance is exactly the same as, say, a Snicker’s bar or a snazzy T-shirt. Purchasing insurance is the same fundamental transaction as buying any other thing you possess or service you receive. Imagine if the headline read like this: “Congress passes law mandating that every American purchase Skittles by 2016, or face hefty fines”. For the government to step in and demand you purchase anything simply because it thinks you need it is insulting, infuriating, and infrightening. (I couldn't think of a good "in-" word to finish it with. Sue me.)

Fourteen states have filed suits against the legislation on this particular issue. The list includes my own state, Virginia, as well as Florida, Pennsylvania, Alabama, Colorado, Idaho, Louisiana, Michigan, Nebraska, Texas, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah and Washington. The legal battle will likely take years to fully resolve.

I have this strange notion that we should treat the Constitution of the United States as more than an excessively wrinkled welcome mat and actually try to follow it every once in a while. In particular, I point to the 10th amendment, which states: “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”

There is a process in place to amend the Constitution when the situation calls for it. This process is long, drawn out, and very difficult. It is made that way for a reason. If the times have changed to a point where the Constitution is not adequate in an area to our needs then we ought to be honest and go through the proper procedures to change it.

I believe that the times have not made this necessary. Why? Because there will never be a time where necessity dictates the Federal government should routinely and repeatedly disregard the rights and wishes of the people it governs.

America, now with an expiration date!

Some months ago I was engaged in a spontaneous discussion with an educated liberal I know. The subject wandered from small government to free market to punitive income tax rates over the course of an hour or longer bus ride. The details have blurred through the passage of time but one comment stands out in my mind clearly. I made an argument for lower taxes by citing economic growth, and warned that if the government did not start to back away from the market we would find ourselves overtaken on the world stage. My friend laughed derisively and exclaimed “America will isn’t going to fall like that. Just look at us! We can’t go bankrupt. It's not going to happen!”

While I can appreciate optimism and belief in country, this is not what he was saying. His opinion had less to do with faith in America’s spirit and more to do with the idea that America has been the major player for nearly a century, and thus will always continue to be. This voluntary ignorance of reality is both dangerous and insidious. On the surface you might be fooled into thinking this is simply good healthy patriotism. After all, what red blooded American would want America to fall?

The fallacy lies in two parts: A woeful lack of understanding (or possibly acceptance) of historical fact and the difference in motivations and reasoning between the blind man and the patriot.

I refer to an excellent article by Mark Steyn, referenced to me through Hotair.com. While it is a bit lengthy at four pages it is well worth taking the time to read. Titled “Tattered Liberty”, its message is simple: Even the mightiest nation can shrivel and die if it ceases to work at being mighty.

I understand that this is hard to conceive for anyone born in the 20th century. What is a world without America? Mark Steyn eloquently reminds us that:

” …to a five-year-old boy waving his flag as Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee procession marched down the Mall in 1897, it would have been inconceivable that by the time of his 80th birthday the greatest empire the world had ever known would have shriveled to an economically moribund strike-bound socialist slough of despond, one in which (stop me if this sounds familiar) the government ran the hospitals, the automobile industry, and much of the housing stock, and, partly as a consequence thereof, had permanent high unemployment and confiscatory tax rates that drove its best talents to seek refuge abroad.”

I am certain there were many Romans in the 1st century B.C. who labored under the delusion that mighty Rome, which conquered all it laid its eyes upon and could project its force throughout the known world, would last forever.

It was not ultimately external forces that precipitated its demise. Before you get in a tizzy I readily concede that Rome had many enemies who dealt the nation grievous damage. Most famously the numberless hordes of barbaric Germania and Asia made a good show of looting and pillaging the crumbling empire. The death of Rome, however, did not come by sword or spear. Rome died through a cycle of corruption, appeasement, and a host of internal problems long before the first invader ever crossed the Rhine.

So what is the difference between the patriot who proclaims that America the Beautiful will live free forever and the fool who claims that America cannot fall? While their conclusion may appear to be the same, why they reach it is dramatically different.

The patriot sees in America the things that made it great, things that are very similar to what the British Empire prided itself on before its fall into the broom closet of history, as Mark Steyn points out.

“…independence and self-reliance, individual initiative and local responsibility, the successful reliance on voluntary activity, noninterference with one’s neighbor and tolerance of the different and queer, respect for custom and tradition, and a healthy suspicion of power and authority.”

The patriot believes that America still has these things in its heart of hearts, and that it is still possible for her people to return to these values and continue to thrive. In short, he believes that America still has enough God, Guts, and Guns to see her through for another century of dominance. At the same time, he accepts that she will fall if she does not have these things, and deservedly so!

On the other side you have the mentality that American success is inevitable and requires no effort to achieve. This mindset places success and growth as constants, and feeling secure in these constants, sees no reason to sacrifice or change in order to achieve them.

Therein lies the rub. This mindset is seductive because it allows you to be free of the responsibility to be successful while still allowing you to enjoy all the (perceived) benefits of success. Symptoms of this problem include the growing welfare state and an ever increasing regulation by a behemoth Federal government. It is this section of the population that the left appeals to when they proclaim the massive healthcare bill is a good budgetary measure because it decreases the deficit by $100 billion over the first few years. This attitude of entitlement stops the citizen from asking how much better the budget would be if they did not spend the $900 billion in the first place! Instead, safe in the knowledge that no matter what course America takes it will always be strong, successful, and powerful, they simply take the course that provides them the most perceived benefits with as little work as possible regardless of cost.

People have gotten JFK's famous quote mixed up. Many now ask what their country can do for them, while making sure that the cost is paid by others.

In order to succeed, we should take these words to heart. Perhaps it would be easiest to understand if we changed one word: “Ask not what your government can do for you, but what you can do for your country.” If we as a people can take this phrase to heart and remember that the United States of America is NOT embodied by her government, but by her people; If we can remember that it is our responsibility to provide for ourselves, to invent solutions to common problems, not that of our elected officials; If we can remember that America did not become great without hard work and sacrifice, and that it certainly will not remain great without more of the same, then I know that we will rise into ever greater heights and remain the world’s one true beacon of Hope and Freedom, at least for a little while longer.

If we can’t…Well, I just hope that broom closet of History that Britain, France, Germany, Spain, etc. occupy has room for one more.

You owe: One (1) 2010 Ford Mustang

National debt (n): Borrowings by governments to finance expenditures not covered by current tax revenues.

In America the government is (supposedly) an extension of the power and will of We The People. Therefore the government's decisions, including its spending decisions, are ours.

Our National Debt is currently: $12,590,461,291,178.68. (This and other figures from the National Debt Clock.) If you're like me that many commas is quite confusing. Add enough commas and any number lacks reality. Here's how you'd say it: Twelve trillion, five hundred ninety billion, four hundred sixty-one million, two hundred ninety-one thousand, one hundred seventy-eight dollars and sixty-eight cents. Even when you break it down that way it lacks reality. What does a trillion dollars look like, really? As I posted in my blog a while back, this is what a trillion bucks looks like. We've got 12.5 of those in debt.

There are approximately 308,018,536 Americans today. That means your share is: $40,875.66. That's breaking it down evenly for every man, woman, and child. When you put it that way, it doesn't seem so bad, does it? I mean, who doesn't have the equivalent of a brand new 2010 Ford Mustang just lying around?

This might come as a surprise to you. How did this happen? Where did all this debt come from? If you enjoy watching paint dry, or find curling riveting, you might also enjoy looking at the numbers here. I, like approximately one full dozen of my American fellows, do enjoy curling, so I checked it out for you. Our debt, prior to the 20th century, rose and fell periodically. It would climb, we'd pay it off, it would climb, we'd pay it off. After the turn of the century it began to just climb. Then the New Deal happened.



See that sheer point that rises majestically over the plains like Kilimanjaro? That would be FDR's debt as expressed as a percentage of GDP. Note: It goes to almost 120%. From Wikipedia: "The buildup and involvement in World War II plus social programs during the F.D. Roosevelt and Truman presidencies in the 1930s and 40's caused a sixteenfold increase in the gross debt from $16 billion in 1930 to $260 billion in 1950." After that, debt "closely matched the rate of inflation" (in other words, constantly climbed).

It is easy to point fingers and lay blame. Sometimes, in the case of the New Deal and FDR, it may even be appropriate. The blame, however, does not rest solely on one side or the other. Saint Ronald and Bush I saw the debt quadruple. Under Dubya, "the increased [debt rose] from $5.6 trillion in January 2001 to $10.7 trillion by December 2008, rising from 58% of GDP to 70.2% of GDP". In March 2009, the CBO estimated that debt will rise from 70.2% in 2008 to a whopping 100.6% in 2012! I can only imagine the Magic O's policies are causing that number to rise dramatically.

Perhaps none of this is enough for faze you. "Your squiggly lines don't scare me!", you say? If so, brace yourself. I've got...a pie chart.


That is a little hard to read, but fortunately the two most important pieces are also the largest. The big blue monster is "Federal Reserve and Intragovernment holdings", at 49.37%. Note a lot of that is the bankrupt Social Security system. The next one is where it gets frightening. Orange = Foreign and International, 27.9%. Of course, our leaders in their infinite wisdom would only deal with those who are our friends. They would never deal with people who might wish us harm! That would be just silly. Right?

Correct you are. Rest easy, comrades, because the single country who owns the largest share of that debt is...You guessed it. Our best buddies, the Communist Dictatorship People's Republic of China!

What's the big deal, though? Sure the government is spending money faster than a pirate in a liquor store, but why is this a problem?

Because debt doesn't just sit there. It earns interest. The more debt, the more interest. Breaking it down into crayons:



Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security suck up more money than even the catchall "other government programs" category, which is bad enough in itself. See that block in the middle? The one that's the same color as the lifeblood that's being leached out of your wallet? Leave the debt long enough, and it begins to grow to gargantuan proportions. Eventually, the government will be left with only two choices. Cut spending in other areas, or raise taxes dramatically.

The bottom line is this. You can only spend more money than you make for so long. That is true for all entities, whether you are an individual, a business, or a government. Eventually, fiscal irresponsibility will catch up with you.

The solution, of course, is ridiculously complicated. It's so complicated I couldn't possibly express it in words. I'm sure I'd need a dozen law degrees and years of political experience in order to grasp it, which leaves it way out of reach for a peasant like me. I'm going to try though. Ready? Congress:

Stop spending so much!

Strange. That didn't seem so complicated after all. Cut Medicare, cut Medicaid, cut Social Security, go back to that silly old document called the Constitution, and you'll be halfway there. None of this will ever happen, though, unless the real culprits are caught. It won't happen until the true scoundrels, the no-good scallywags who have allowed this to go on for decades are brought to justice. I'm sure you're itching to get your hands on the bastard who has spent your children into oblivion. Fortunately, he is within your reach. Simply go into your bathroom. Look over the sink.

No, not the lights. Lower. Not the pipes either, he isn't that skinny (statistically speaking). Yes, right there in the middle. That, my friends, is the mirror. It is reflecting the image of the person responsible for this mess: We The People.

So how about it? Are We The People going to arm ourselves with knowledge, get informed, get active, and hold our politicians accountable? Are we going to force them into responsibility by firing those who don't bend to our will? Or will we do as we've done for generations, bury our collective heads in the sand and allow the political class in Washington to buy us off with social programs and tax incentives?

The choice, and the fate of our beloved country, lies where it always has: With you.

MW3: The most realistic war game EVER!

It will come as no shock to anyone who has met me for more than three minutes that I am a gamer. I enjoy many genres, from RPGs (Role Playing Games) to music based games, i.e. Rock Band or Guitar Hero. I am also an infantryman, and so nitpicking shooters is kind of a hobby of mine. Shouting at the screen "That's not how you properly load a SAW, moron!" is almost as fun as actually playing the game. I must tip my hat to the folks at COD: Modern Warfare, however. Their newest installment, Modern Warfare 3, is guaranteed to be the most realistic game ever created.

How so? Because most of your life as a video game soldier will be spent waiting for orders and filling out paperwork.


Ultra-Realistic Modern Warfare Game Features Awaiting Orders, Repairing Trucks

My personal favorite line comes when, post-deployment, your character must fend off hordes of college students asking how hot it was, and how many people he killed. Now that, my friends, is realism at its best.