Marks Blog

Having just arrived back from visiting our neighbors to the North (um, Vancouver, to be specific) it was put to me in no uncertain terms that Barack Obama is favored to lead the United States by an overwhelming 75% of said Canadiens. This is an interesting factiod. Just as Europeans favor Obama by similar margins, will the typical U.S. voter follow the international trend? LOL!

My best guess is clearly "no" at this point. Neither candidate has taken an obvious advantage in the many polls available at "RealClearPolitics.com" and that tells me the average U.S. voter is still in an evaluation stage. Either Obama begins to "transcend" his messianic "change" message, or McCain overcomes his age.

Obama can do so if he has the lack of character found in countless politicians before him, proven by choosing his adversary Hillary Clinton as his VP candidate. John McCain has a decidedly different path: pick a robust and youthful (err...relatively so...) running mate for VP.

Between the two, I am betting McCain makes the better selection, but I still can't find better than 50% for either candidate in November...Hold on to your hats, this ride is gonna be harrowing - at best!

I fly to Vancouver tomorrow, so leave your best open thread comments.

I expect this business trip to be the worst I have ever had (not that Vancouver is bad, I just know I have a real hornet's nest I am flying into), so if your comments are not about roses without thorns I will not be surprised...

Have a great week!

Since I have recently focused on "Duh" categories, I would like to give George McGovern (here) the opportunity to impart his wisdom on the more impetuous members of his Democratic Party. In this article, former Democratic Presidential candidate McGovern lays waste to the subterfuge spouted by unions and unscrupulous Democrats (but I repeat myself) on the Orwellian-sounding Employee Free Choice Act:

The key provision of EFCA is a change in the mechanism by which unions are formed and recognized. Instead of a private election with a secret ballot overseen by an impartial federal board, union organizers would simply need to gather signatures from more than 50% of the employees in a workplace or bargaining unit, a system known as "card-check." There are many documented cases where workers have been pressured, harassed, tricked and intimidated into signing cards that have led to mandatory payment of dues.

Unions have been in contraction for three decades. In an obvious power-grab, they devised this mechanism to undermine the idea of free will with something called "Card-check", which is really a way for them to intimidate people to sign the card since the vote is quite public for union-pushers. Intimidation by pro-union supporters can and does happen, even without knowing who the pro-unionists must intimidate. Remember, unions are a multi-billion dollar industry and money talks louder than such apparent non-sequitors as "freedom of speech" and "freedom of affiliation" vis-a-vis unions...

I don't trust the managers of billions of dollars of worker money who's entire existance is based on job preservation - stasis for businesses that should be producing the next generation of products. It is no coincidence that some of our largest industries are in contraction. Air travel, carmakers, and the mortgage industry. Of those, the mortgage industry is not dominated by unions. I'm wondering if union domination of mortgages wouldn't have had a beneficial effect. Union domination of airlines and car manufacturing certainly didn't.

In accordance with my previous John Edwards blog, it appears Edwards is a big fibber, and the National Enquirer was right all along.

As far as I am concerned, when you are caught in a lie, anything else you say about it is suspect. He claims the baby is not his based on the "timing" of the birth. Um, yeah...sure...whatever...

I'm stumped. Why would anyone target Labrador Retrievers as a vicious breed of dog? Labradors are more likely to lick you to death than attack.

Prince George's County Police Chief Melvin High said Wednesday that Calvo and his family were "most likely ... innocent victims," but he would not rule out their involvement, and he defended the way the raid was conducted. He and other officials did not apologize for killing the dogs, saying the officers felt threatened.

I'm sympathetic to assertions that officers felt threatened, but Labradors? I can't wait for the jury to approve the massive amount of money this couple will ask for in litigation. Will Prince George's County change anything? After losing millions, I bet they will.

I don't want to cause any exudus, but given that I inhabit this realm, it appears i have been infected by a computer virus. It might have been any number of news sites I visit, but the only one I visit which has individual and anonymous input is this one. Be careful clicking on links and make sure your firewall and antivirus software is up to date.

Update: Apparently it was one of those types that pops up with a very valid-looking warning message and gets you to do something. It was relatively benign, but I'm scrubbing my hard-drive anyway.

Because inquiring minds are funny...

I am not a fan of stories that run in such "reputable" chronicles as "The National Enquirer" or other birdcage-liner worthy publications (NYT?). "My Baby's Father is an Alien" or "Monster Discovered In Chicago Zoo" (both headlines are presumed fictitious, but might be actual headlines for "The Enquirer") are geared towards the gullible, and our country is full of such consumers. Just look at Rosie O'Donnell...

However, as with any foundational newsprint, there is an obligation for reporters, even those representing questionable publications, to have at least some background in real journalism - and presumably the ability to actually report real news. No matter how many intervening years pass, if someone went to college majoring in journalism I would bet they remember how to report.

Which is why I found this story peculiar. We already know that former NC Senator John Edwards was caught running away from reporters after an early morning liason with his former videographer (and new mother) Rielle Hunter (see below links). Why is the media not reporting this? Presumably "The National Enquirer" has a reputation that precedes it, as noted above. However, Edwards has never released any credible cover story to rehabilitate his actions of that night, and therefore it seems obvious that either Edwards was visiting his child, or he has a "baby" fetish.

Why are the media ignoring this and this? Hmmm...

Just updating an earlier blog found here, I have taken steps to reduce the amount of gas I use in my daily driving. As noted in my previous blog, I am now averaging ~26 MPG just from doing the following: I allow my automatic transmission to start my car from a dead stop and accelerate without punching the gas; I coast into red lights; I never allow my car to come to a complete stop in highway traffic (where possible); I drive somewhere in the vicinity of the speed limit on highways (usually this means the flow of traffic).

I already plan my drives, meaning I complete a basic circuit: on the way home from work I stop at the market and any other needed specialty (bank, gas station, driving range) before going home. These are planned according to proximity. 

As far as I am concerned, these particular changes have provided me with the equivalent of two extra gallons per tank. I intend to keep it that way, but I am not going to drive under the legal speed limit. Some "hypermilers" are just plain crazy, and I don't intend to be one of them...

For most people, politics plays a very minimal part in their day-to-day living. I know this comes as a shock for some of you whom dwell (as do I) in the political mire. It is, however, a basic fact. Why would a person struggling to buy a tank of gas care what sort of antics are playing out in the land of Sillyness, DC? Besides, elections are a future concern, so why would a future voter care now?

Well, perhaps this here will help get the word out about how your elected representatives in Washington have screwed the pooch over the course of the last (fill in whatever timeframe you want here)_________. For a more detailed look at the failure of this Congress to address that in which they have habitually failed to address, read this.

In both articles, it becomes clear to even the most obtuse (or partisan) Democrat that this Congress has no intention of offering any solutions other than their "final solution" to the energy crisis. Their "final solution" is to move oil futures trading - and the resulting tax windfall for the government - offshore (they call it "speculator accountability" by having some obscure government agency review all trades and arbitrarily ruling whether the trade was "fair" or not).

They further want to return to the Jimmy Carter era - led by Barack Carter Obama - of "windfall profit taxes" for "big oil" earnings. I can savor the stagflation resulting from this policy even before it is signed by President Barack Obama! What this entails is creating a number from thin air (say - $5 Billion) and taxing anything above said number. Any economist can point out the obvious futility of such a policy: Oil companies will simply reduce their operating scope, and thereby ensure they meet their "obligation" to produce under $5 Billion in domestic profit (they might also move their corporate headquarters to the Cayman Islands, but I'm not sure how brazen they will be). The result will be further reductions in employment, exploration (they can't drill for oil where they explore anyway, so why go through the motions?), R&D, and infrastructure planning (see "exploration" above).

Further, the Democrats wish to adopt "greener" energy. Good for them, but government expansion of green policies will not have any net increase in domestic energy production for better than two decades, sans deep-pocket private industry leadership as contained within Pickens Plan.

Washington policy drives the areas in which moneyed investors place their cash. Failed policies of taxing those businesses that drive our economy will only prove that even legal robbery results in a net loss for our economy. Democrats have never understood why businesses fail when government tax policy becomes the driving force of a business model, but that is obvious to anyone who had to watch this Congress in action - or is it inaction?

Again, even for the most obtuse among us, both articles point out that this Democratic controlled Congress will do nothing until after the election. The upcoming election is predicted to be very good for Democratic candidates. What this means is simple: Democrats want to expand their anti-drilling, anti-progress, anti-consumer majority in order to keep from deriving real energy solutions for the average future voter.

You know, that average future voter who doesn't pay attention to politics, and struggles to pay for gas...

They are doing so in order to maintain their favorite lobby.

Michael Barone echoes my last several blog topics in his weekly column today regarding the cost of oil. He ties it together simply with the environmental lobby - a lobby that is firmly entrenched in the Democratic Party - and the way our government operates:

"Our system of divided government and litigation-friendly regulation makes it hard for our society to do things and easy for adroit lobbyists and lawyers to stop them. Nations with more centralized power and less democratic accountability find it easier: France and Japan generate most of their electricity by nuclear power and Chicago, where authority is more centralized and accountability less robust than in most of the country, depends more on nuclear power than almost all the rest of the nation."

Perhaps the most important point he illustrates is this, and is a point I have made in prior topics:

"The ANWR ban is the work of environmental restriction groups that depend on direct-mail fundraising to pay their bills and keep their jobs. That means they must always claim the sky is falling. They can't get people to send a check or mouse-click a donation because they did a good job, the restrictions they imposed on the Alaska pipeline in the 1970s have done a good job in preserving the environment or because clean air acts of the past have vastly reduced air pollution."

Summing up the present situation our country finds itself, Mr. Barone takes a swipe at global warm-monger Grand Archbishop Algore:

"But it also has its benefits: Public opinion, when it has changed as it has with $4 gas, has an effect. Environmental restrictionists like Al Gore have been selling a form of secular religion: We have sinned against Mother Earth, we must atone and suffer, there can be no argument, but we must have faith. That was an appealing argument to many, perhaps most, Americans when gas was selling for $1.40. It has a much more limited appeal now that gas is selling for $4.10. The time may be coming when our lunatic environmental policies are swept away by a rising tide of common sense."

Music to my ears, and my wallet.

In order to understand the willful incompetence of our current Congressional "leadership" one must "cowboy up" and dig into the minutiae of tactics. Don't try this at home unless you deal daily in manure - er, minutiae:

We see from this example a House Speaker and other "leaders" in Congress scared to death that real solutions might be offered to increase world energy supply simply by allowing drilling where geologists know there is oil. The Democratic "leadership" decided to try raiding the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) in order to provide a short-term answer to our long-term problem. This is insanity. The SPR is for interruptions to our supply. We currently have no such interruption, we just have to pay more to ensure we get oil.

In a valid measurement of how incompetent and desperate Democrats can be in the face of an obvious election-year pander, at least one Democrat argued that high prices at the pump actually was a strategic problem and should be addressed by opening SPR! I wonder if this Congressman saw a new poll in his district? Yeah, we know how "strategic" you are trying to be, Mr. Congressman...

Unfortunately, just look at the headline in the article:

GOP kills effort to release oil from US stockpile

That headline is inherently misleading. The headline should have been:

Democrats Block Drilling For More Oil

The reason this should have been the headline is because our Democratic "leadership" in Congress used a parliamentary tactic to keep the bill from having amendments come up for a vote:

Democratic leaders had brought the proposal up for debate under rules requiring a two-thirds vote to pass. But passing the bill by just a majority would have meant allowing Republicans to force a vote on new offshore drilling leases. "They're hiding from a vote," said GOP leader John Boehner of Ohio. "They're scared to death to allow us to ... force their members to vote on drilling."

I'll be the first to admit that the Republican "leadership" was not much better when it came to policy votes in the 109th Congress. Had they performed better than the tone-deaf sacking of budgetary restraint and incredibly self-serving pork-barrel spending, they might not have been sacked themselves. Oh well, someday we might learn a thing or two regarding whom we elect - I'm not holding my breath...

In any case, Congress under Speaker Pelosi has turned a similar deaf ear upon the millions of Americans who have watched as gasoline has increased in price by about 100% from the time they took office in January 2007. Given her reluctance to expand our production of known oil reserves which will result in more future supply to meet daily and growing worldwide demand, I submit this as evidence that your Congress under Democratic control is not serious in their "efforts" to alleviate the burden on your wallet.

Are you suprised? You shouldn't be. Remember, the Sierra Club for Greed and Earth First! - among the many other environmental goups (not to mention Archbishop Algore) - is in the Democratic lobbying business. Every Democrat in Congress is getting campaign funds from them. They oppose increasing oil production, which means their lapdogs in this Congress will never allow new drilling where the oil actually is...unless you say you will vote them out in November.

I get tired easily. It is a product of reading the latest headlines, usually. When I don't read the headlines I tend to have plenty of energy, like today when I went golfing instead of going to work. Work can be another energy-sapping experience, but I decided to combat it with golf days, something I cannot do more than one day a month. I was on top of my game today, as I actually made par on 4 out of 18 holes - finishing with my best-ever golf score - an occurrance which I hope will continue given I have been golfing now for precisely 39 days.

So when I returned home and checked the latest news, this just made me tired:

"The question is do you want to play Russian roulette with your brain," she said in an interview from her cell phone while using the hands-free speaker phone as recommended. "I don't know that cell phones are dangerous. But I don't know that they are safe." Of concern are the still unknown effects of more than a decade of cell phone use, with some studies raising alarms, said [Devra Lee] Davis, a former health adviser in the Clinton Administration.

Look, I avoided having a cell phone for years even though I work in one of the peripheral industries that make instant communications possible. All of the major cellular companies use my corporation's product, and in many instances I am directly involved in improving their networks (provided the price is right).

My main issue with instant communications was due to the nature of my job. I prefer to have a set priority list at the outset of my workday, and any interruptions to that could wait until I checked email or called my boss. With that said, last year I finally broke down and obtained a cell phone - primarily for my wife to be able to call in case of emergency, or for me to call from wherever I am in case of emergency.

Guess what? My cell phone has never been used in an emergency, and my primary callers are business related. See? I was right to try to avoid having a cell phone.

In any case, my work with the Radio Frequency (RF) spectrum has spanned more than 20 years. I work in an environment where RF power is significantly greater than that provided the general population, and given 8+ hours per day 5 days a week (minus golf days), I am substantially at risk for (remember, RF is the operating principle of your microwave oven) getting cooked if exposed to direct and focused RF radiation over a period of time. Am I worried that a cell phone might influence anything in my physiology? Only if my wife calls - or my boss.

For the competing analysis of cell phone risk, Wikipedia is always fun. Just remember, in over 20 years of direct RF involvement I have only had one coworker develop any form of cancer. That cancer was indeed a brain tumor. She works in Contracts and has been treated (presumably successfully since she is still working) through Chemo and surgery. She has always worked on the second floor and very infrequently came to the laboratory on the first floor (well away from her office). She never owned a cell phone until she was diagnosed with the tumor - go figure...

If the evidence does not prove a risk (think global warming), why are we alarmed? The answer is always found in the Democratic Party.

If ever there was a more glaring example of our elected officials living in a bubble, I would be hard-pressed to unfavorably contrast it with this! What is so difficult to understand about our energy problem? It is a classic supply vs. demand issue, as I have been saying in so many forms for the last several blogs. Twenty-plus years of whistling past the oilfields/nuclear plants/alternative energy has left us with our energy-pants down. This is not brain surgery - though it appears the US Congress needs some serious brain transplants.

Oil "speculators" are those who buy oil futures and sell them to a third party (other oil speculators, I would assume). This is the same racket in which Hillary Clinton turned $1K into $100K on cattle futures. The same type of trade if done on a larger scale can ruin an individual. Eventually the "speculator" will have to produce the "produce" so-to-speak, and that is where all advance trades end up. So here is the meat of the proposed "regulation" of "oil speculators":

The Senate legislation would require institutional traders to give the Commodity Futures Trading Commission more details on unregulated over-the-counter transactions to determine if price manipulation or excessive speculation is occurring. The CFTC also would review trading practices of swaps dealers and commodity index funds. The legislation would not require the higher margins to buy and sell oil that the futures industry had feared. But the bill requires tough position limits on speculators to restrict the number of oil contracts they could control.

Who determines what "excessive speculation" is? The CFTC. Who is the CFTC? Read the link for more, but this is the summary:

Congress created the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) in 1974 as an independent agency with the mandate to regulate commodity futures and option markets in the United States. [...] The Commission consists of five Commissioners appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate, to serve staggered five-year terms. The President designates one of the Commissioners to serve as Chairman. No more than three Commissioners at any one time may be from the same political party. (Marks Note: We could appoint Libertarians instead of Democrats, but they would never survive Senate "speculation" in the form of "advice and consent"...)

Two things to point out here, followed by my own speculation. Number one: They regulate markets "in the United States" and nowhere else. Any idea how much tax revenue in capital gains is raked in from "market speculators"? My precise guess would be that famous economic number most economists use with such precision: "A bunch!"

Second, we are talking about political appointees making majority judgments upon "free-market" principles which are not necessarily shared by our two-party political system. How are they to determine a certain trade is somehow tainted? The answer is politically, unless I'm a dunce. It will be a majority-driven determination, and ultimately will perform about as well as a dog with no teeth.

In effect, the first obvious condition that will result from this legislation is US market share of trades will dwindle. It won't stop, but trades that might trigger CFTC review will move offshore. This will immediately result in less tax revenue for the IRS. Markets have been moving abroad for years, and usually are driven there by government pre-conditions like this proposed legislation. The bottom line is regulating "speculators" results in the failure of the government to collect taxes.

 As I have stated many times over the course of the last month, energy prices will only drop when there is an energy glut. So far, there has been zero increase in our energy generation or oil production. That absence is why you are paying $4 for a gallon of gas, and until either demand drops or production increases you will continue to pay through the nose to keep your current lifestyle in order.

I recommend hypermiling and public transportation as a way for you to save money, but you will lose time as a result. Life is full of trade-offs, and this Congress is proving we should have paid attention to their mismanagement long ago.

Time for that Congressional brain transplant...

I have been focused recently upon our nation's lack of an energy policy. To me, it is the most important issue we face right now. Iraq and Afghanistan, FISA, home mortgages (actually part of the energy issue, but ultimately secondary and not important from a practical standpoint) and foreign policy all take a back seat in terms of where our government should be focused: Energy.

With that in mind, I'd like to place exhibit A into evidence of how our politicians are not talking the same language in terms of what to do about our current crisis. Even a perfunctory read of this article would lead one to assume that Mr. Pickens and Democratic leaders are working together on putting together an energy plan, until you get to this section buried deep inside the article:

But Mr. Pickens doesn't agree with all the Democrats' energy priorities. Bills to limit speculation on energy prices are "wasting time" and ignore the cause of high prices – not enough oil, he said. "Go ahead and drill on the OCS," said Mr. Pickens, who also plans to meet with House Republican leaders next week. "I'm not against anything except for foreign oil."

As noted in the article, our current importation of oil is on the order of $700 billion per year, and further increases in crude pricing will simply increase this price tag. We don't have enough oil. We don't have it because we are not allowed to drill where the oil actually is - the outer continental shelf and the Alaska National Wildlife Preserve.

While politicians are wringing their hands over speculators (mainly Democrats but there is a fair share of clueless Republicans joining this Quixotic effort), Congress is not doing a thing to address our lack of adequate energy! Our energy policy, once again, should be doing everything to squeeze kilowatt-hours out of anything we can: Wind, hydroelectric, solar, biofuel, natural gas, coal ("clean" or not) and oil. All preferably from domestic sources, of course.

When this Congress fails to address anything beyond "oil speculators" think about it as you pedal your bike to the election booth in November. Then vote accordingly...

In my attempts to explain government, particularly when it comes to writing rules to which all are subject, I am reminded that some people really need a sports angle in which to point out how the rulers make laws which have obvious consequences, and not even close to the intended ones. In this case, Barbados and Grenada for the 1994 Shell Caribbean Cup proves this better than any example I can think of without resorting to Homeland Security airport screenings.

Who on earth would have anticipated this result? Well, I would have - since I tend to pay attention to rule minutiae of which I am subjected. Any manager or coach would do the same were he or she well qualified for the position. Like the MLB postseason, every manager knows what combination of wins/losses will result in their team either being there or going home.

Surprise! This same matrix is used by those affected by legislation enacted by Congress and enforced by the Executive (that would be G.W.Bush, so let's cue the "Imperial Death March" of Star Wars fame). Every player on stage knows what the result of legislation will be before it is enacted. Thus, lobbyists play a huge part in Congress. We know that we will be paying 4 dollars a gallon for gas over the next decade because Democrats remain in the deep pockets of the environmental lobby. If you donate money to the Sierra Club or any other environmental group, it is because of you that the single mother cannot commute to work because gas is too high, and why any blame for current gas prices cannot be laid at the feet of Republicans who - as a rule - never get contributions or support from environmental lobbyists (well, McCain did buck this trend until last year).

Republicans generally get support from the oil industry. Thus, if we were to base the last 12 years in which Republicans controlled Congress (1994-2006), we would see that the oil industry got very little in terms of developing domestic oil, though certain tax schemes which were favorable to them were indeed enacted (and contributions went to those Democrats and Republicans who supported those measures). What is irrefutable is the fact that domestic oil production has nose-dived.

The oil industry has tried repeatedly to get access to real reserves, only to be granted parcels of land that have snakes in abundance and that might produce a couple million barrels of oil over the course of a decade and with multiple wells sunk (not to mention infrastructure paid by the company: roads and supply depots). This is not cost effective even in this current environment of $130 per barrel.

When we are talking billions of barrels in a given oilfield, that is real production and why the Alaska National Wildlife Preserve (ANWR) is such a prize. Within ten years production would provide 25 - 30% domestic production of crude oil. Granted access to drilling on the outer continental shelf simultaneously, domestic production might begin to eclipse our reliance on Saudi Arabia and Venezeula.

Oh, those pristine caribou stand in our way, so I am not holding my breath. Still, if you view this hamstringing as that of Barbados and Grenada, remember: Don't give a dime to the Sierra Club for green greed. They just want your money, and they want it to increase your price of gasoline.