On Extending Unemployment Compensation

I am opposed to the 13 month extension of unemployment benefits that has just been passed by Congress. Am I a Grinch? I don’t think so. Am I heartless? People who know me know I am very generous. What I am against are benefits that last so long that people adapt to living on the dole or that can easily be defrauded.


Let me give you an example:

In late 2008, I terminated two employees for cause; one for being legally drunk on the job and another for falsifying time records. Both were violations of printed company policy. The State ruled that I could legally fire them, but that their actions were not serious enough to deny them unemployment benefits. Nearly two years later, they are both still collecting unemployment although they are doing work in competition with me while collecting unemployment. Now that their benefits are close to running out, I was told by a competitor that one of them has just applied for a job. What they are doing is defrauding the system, but the state has cut back on the number of investigators and is not able to pursue this issue.

Those of you who are business owners; when was the last time you had someone ask you to sign their sheet or card showing they applied for a job? It has been several years for me. How does the Employment Security Commission know if someone receiving Unemployment Compensation is actively seeking work or is working on the side and not reporting it?

Also, continuing benefits that exceed minimum wage, what incentive is it to accept a lower paying job? A recent article in the paper said that if you don’t have a job a lot of businesses won’t hire you; they are afraid you could be just looking for a temporary job to re-set your unemployment.

If we are going to continue these generous benefits, we need to tie them to some controls or follow up to prevent fraud or re-training to work in a field that is hiring. Payouts without strings have got to stop.

The Iron Lady's Reign is Ending

What concerned me most Democrats controlling both houses of Congress in 2008 along with a Democratic President was their ability to push through a progressive/socialistic agenda without compromise and that concern proved true. For the past two years, they have voted down virtually all Republican amendments in committee or taken bills directly to the floor where they could be passed without amendment with a super-majority. On the health care bill, they debated one version for months and then at 3:00 in the morning of the vote they withdrew the bill and replaced it with a 2,000+ page bill that was voted on without reading.


The Democrats even ran the country for the past year without a budget. They just brought up these massive bills as emergency measures and passed them along with a “continuing resolution” to provide the spending authorization for them. They can’t be accused of overspending the budget, because there wasn’t one.

The main perpetrator of this abomination was Nancy Pelosi. They called Margaret Thatcher the “Iron Lady” because of the way she controlled the Tory Party in Great Britain with iron fisted control. Well, Margaret has to pass that iron gavel on to Nancy. She was able to maintain virtual domination over a party that has a lot of diversity. Those that disagreed were bullied into supporting the bills by threats of pulling spending from their districts or running an opponent in the 2010 election. And now, the Democrats are even more hard line than before because the more moderate Democrats have been purged.

And now, this weekend, the progressives had their little show. They brought up the continuation of the Bush era tax cuts the way they want with no amendments; a continuation for up to $250k and tax increase over $250k. The Senate, as expected, shot it down. This was as expected. Most commentators believe a deal is in place to continue the tax cuts for all in return for an extension of unemployment benefits (another issue) and that this weekend’s exercise was just a show for the progressive base so that they can continue their class warfare agenda, for example, Republicans favor the rich.

I’m looking forward to the new year and a little gridlock. At least, the two sides will have to talk to get something done and we might see things become a little more reasonable.

My Daddy Was a Democrat

I hear that a lot lately. I feel strongly that 100 years is long enough for one party to have controlled the State of North Carolina. Sure, there have been a few Republican governors, and the House was controlled by Republicans for a couple years, but by and large the Democrats have controlled this state since the Democrats took control of the NC Senate in 1898.


The Democrats control the agenda in lawmaking, they control where highway money is spent. For example, why is there an interstate loop around Fayetteville before Charlotte’s loop is complete? It’s because of the arcane formula that allocates money equally by district, not by where the growth is.

My daddy was a Democrat, too. He was a conservative Democrat. In Virginia, it was the party of Harry F Byrd, Jr. who left the Democratic Party and became an independent. It was the party of Mills Godwin who’s first term as Governor of Virginia was as a Democrat and his second, 4 years later, was as a Republican. My daddy did not willingly leave the Democratic Party, it left him. The party was taken over by progressives. (I don’t say liberal, because the progressives have co-opted that label as well. My beliefs were considered liberal in 1970.) The Virginia Democratic Party became the party of Governor Jerry (“If it moves, tax it!) Balliles. They tried, unsuccessfully, to remove the state constitutional requirement to balance the budget so taxes soared to support their social programs.

So, my daddy was born a Democrat, but died as a proud Republican. He changed with Goldwater (against Lyndon Johnson, the most progressive president since FDR). I changed with Ronald Reagan who I consider the greatest President of my lifetime, a strong proponent of individual responsibility and opportunity.

As someone who has basically sat out politics for a dozen years because I did not see a chance of change, I now see that opportunity for change. Everyone please check out the candidates. What do they stand for? Don’t just vote the way your daddy did.

Corruption and Cronyism is Alive and Well in NC

Mike Easley, Corruptocrat

This morning’s Charlotte Observer has a major piece on the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation. It is some very interesting and enlightening reading. But, this goes way beyond the SBI. Corruption and cronyism run rampant through the whole North Carolina state government. In my opinion, this is because the state has been under one party rule (Democrat) for the entire 22 years I have lived in NC, and probably much longer.


They say Chicago is a culture of corruption, but you don’t have to look past Raleigh to see that corruption and cronyism is alive and well in North Carolina. We have seen a few Republican governors, but from the Attorney General on down, the state has been controlled by Democrats. Democrats have controlled who gets new highways, who is appointed to state regulatory agencies, and most important they have controlled redistricting for state and federal legislatures that have created districts that favor Democrats. For example, you have the 12th Congressional District that was added after the 2000 census that was engineered to favor a Democrat. Also, Lake Norman is split and added to two predominately Charlotte districts so LKN residents see their Senators repeatedly vote against their interests.

Here is an example. Since 1993, only two people have been Attorney General, Roy Cooper and Mike Easley. And, Mike Easley is currently being investigated for corruption. If you Google “NC SBI Corruption” for an image, you get a picture of Mike Easley.

As far as SBI Directors, except for the one who died every one of them who served for the last 20 years are still in the NC government at high levels. Greg McLeod, the one appointed last month was a lobbyist for Roy Cooper. Shouldn’t the Director of the state’s highest law enforcement agency have a law enforcement background? Robin Pendergraft, the one who ran the agency for the past nine years was not fired, just reassigned to Deputy Attorney General for Medicaid Fraud. Brian Beatty is now a commissioner of the NC Industrial Commission. Jim Coman is a Senior Deputy Attorney General. This looks like employment for life, they just shuffle their friends in and out of jobs in the state government.

The cure for this corruption is a total colon cleanse. We need to vote out the Democrats in charge so we can get rid of the corruption and cronyism. We need a new deal in allocating highway funds. We need to have at least one house of the legislature to be in Republican hands so the Democrats don’t have a free hand to direct money and projects to the home districts of their cronies. We need to have redistricting that makes sense and is fair.

Former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory Speaks to the Subcontractors

Pat McCrory address the ASAC and PHCC

Former Charlotte Mayor, Pat McCrory spoke to a joint meeting of the American Subcontractors Association of the Carolinas Charlotte Chapter and the Charlotte and Gastonia chapters of the Plumbing, Heating and Cooling Contractors Association. The meeting was held on Tuesday August 17th at Byron’s Southend. Over 80 members and guests were in attendance.


The mayor’s topic was change and resurgence in Charlotte. There are many things that encourage him about the future of Charlotte and the likelihood that Charlotte will experience a resurgence ahead of the country in general. Some of the reasons are as follows:

The banks in Charlotte are hiring. Even though Charlotte lost the headquarters of Wachovia, Wells Fargo and Bank of America are increasing jobs in Charlotte due to the lower cost of living as compared to New York and San Francisco.

The availability of educated and trained employees and Charlotte’s infrastructure are fueling the opening of new businesses and relocations to Charlotte.

Charlotte’s airport with over 500 direct flights daily to locations coast-to-coast make Charlotte desirable for corporate and division offices.

Charlotte’s dynamic city center, South End district and the light rail to connect them makes Charlotte attractive to young urban dwellers. Getting people to transfer to Charlotte is generally not a problem

The cloud on the horizon is government spending and taxes at the state and local levels. Charlotte and North Carolina are no longer low tax areas. Also, the number of government employees has continued to increase. Even though Charlotte has curbed the rate of wage increases and now makes city employees participate in the cost of healthcare, this is not true at the county and state levels which have continued to give 7-8 percent increases and pay 100% of healthcare costs. These generous benefits are far more than are available in the private sector and since government employees are able to retire after 30 years at 80% of pay, this will be unsustainable in the near future as these increases and benefits continue to grow at twice the rate of the private sector.

Mr. McCrory issued a call to arms for business men and entrepreneurs, who typically work years at low salaries and benefits to get their businesses going, to show up at city and county budget meetings to make their voices heard. The city fathers hear a drumbeat every day from city and county workers about how hard they work and how little they are paid. Most on the city council and county boards have never had to meet a payroll and have no idea how hard the private sector has to work to pay for the government salaries and spending.

Mr. McCrory concluded to a standing ovation.

A Lexus Lane to Nowhere

I recently read that the NC Department of Transportation has applied for a $30 million stimulus grant to convert the HOV lanes on I-77 to HOT lanes. A HOT lane is a High Occupancy TOLL lane. It means you can pay your way into the” fast” lane. In places that have this type of lane, it is mockingly known as the Lexus Lane.

The grant would pay for the electronic signs and sensors necessary to make the change. The toll would change during the day, going from a nominal charge most of the day to $2-3 dollars during peak periods. Sensors would sense traffic flow and increase the toll when traffic increases, say, after a Panthers game. Drivers would be required to have a transponder chip to utilize the lane so you can be billed for your trip.

I question the sanity of this proposal. I make the trip to and from Charlotte every day. I cannot reason why I, or anyone else for that matter, would pay a couple dollars to travel at the same speed as the free lanes only to run headlong into the bottleneck that occurs a mile or so after the HOT lane ends. Or, in the morning, after I have driven in stop and go traffic from Exit 25 to about mile marker 22, the traffic frees up before you get to the HOT lane and is unobstructed until you get to Charlotte.

I have another idea. On a couple of trips to Virginia, Northern Virginia and the Tidewater area, I have seen the way Virginia is handling this problem. If this were Virginia, they would beef up the shoulder and add an additional lane that could be used during peak times. This could easily be done from Exit 23 going north to Exit 28 and From Exit 28 going south all the way to the four lane section of the highway. Since the lanes would necessarily be narrowed, they would have to reduce the speed limit to 55 or 60, but that would be a big improvement over the 20 to 30 MPH that you drive a peak times on this stretch of highway.

If the purpose of a stimulus grant is to increase jobs, I contend that paving highways produces more jobs than putting up some signs, laying down sensors and creating an agency to collect tolls. They say that highway construction jobs are not “green” jobs. I say they are. To eliminate traffic bottlenecks and keep traffic moving can reduce traffic pollution far more than a Lexus Lane to nowhere.

Who Will Be the Next Milton Friedman?

I was recently watching a business program on television where several people were debating the wisdom of spending another vast sum of money in another stimulus bill (now called a jobs bill) in order to stimulate the economy. One of the people made the statement, “Anyone who has taken economics knows that in a recession you need to inject money into the economy to stimulate spending and jobs.” That started me thinking, “Where did this guy learn economics?”

This thinking is the product of Keynesian economics, named after John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946). Keynes hypothesized that government can use fiscal and monetary policy to mitigate the adverse effects of business cycles with their periodic recessions. Keynesian theories were the basis of the policies of Franklin D. Roosevelt and the New Deal when massive amounts of government spending and government agencies were set up in an attempt to restart the economy during the Great Depression. If you distill Keynes down into a word, it would be demand. Keynesian economics attempts to create demand to level out a downturn in the economy.

If this guy had a balanced lesson in economics, he would have learned about the theories of Milton Friedman (1912-2006). Friedman, a disciple of Keynes, went to Washington in 1943 to work in Roosevelt’s New Deal. He realized there was a flaw in Keynesian theory in that the “Phillips Curve” which described the consumption function did not work. During the 1950’s, Friedman became the leading advocate opposing Keynesianism and promoted a macroeconomic policy called monetarism. He argued that the government could not micromanage the economy because the people would realize what the government was doing and would change their behavior and neutralize the policies. He predicted that Keynesianism would cause “stagflation,” high interest rates and minimal growth. (Remember Jimmy Carter?). Friedman argued that a small increase in the money supply and relaxing of business regulations were all that were required.

Friedman and his disciple, Arthur Laffer (The Laffer Curve), were the architects of the policies of Ronald Reagan, which took only 18 months to turn around the malaise of the Carter years. If you boil Friedman down to a word, it would be supply. In the Reagan years, this was known as supply side economics. The increase in money supply was provided by tax cuts which resulted in an economic turnaround that also increased the total tax revenue to the government. This also worked for John F. Kennedy who used a tax cut to avoid a recession. George W. Bush also used tax cuts which increased total revenues, but strayed from Friedman in that he allowed spending and the size of government to increase which negated the positive effects.

Keynesian thought came to the forefront again in 2007 and has been the basis for the policies of Barack Obama and former British Prime Minister, Gordon Brown. Gordon Brown has now been removed from office. The Obama administration has pumped trillions of dollars into the economy and has little to show for it except they have doubled the national debt in 18 months. We have had only minimal growth. The Fed is loaning money to banks at zero interest in an effort to hold down inflation, but that is the only thing currently keeping us from a full blown case of stagflation.

The causes of our economic crash are for another time. Read Paul Schiff’s book, "Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse" (2006). Written one year before the economic problems started, he predicted both the stock market and the real estate collapses. There is a third collapse in his prediction, the collapse of the dollar. There is your stagflation. Friedman is dead. Arthur Laffer is seventy years old and retired. Where is the next great economic theorist to get us out of this Keynesian debacle? I wonder.

Fannie Mae on Wheels?

I’m seeing an ominous parallel here. In yesterday’s Charlotte Observer, I read an article about General Motors’ upcoming purchase of Americredit. They called it, “a deal that allows the automaker to expand loans to customers with poor credit…” It further states that, “GM, which is 61% owned by the US Government, is getting back into the business of making risky loans.” The article goes on to say that GM is missing sales opportunities due to lack of credit for lease deals and financing for subprime buyers.

We the people (US Government) own 61% of GM; the unions own a big chunk of the rest. We the people will now own 61% of Americredit which will finance GM cars to buyers with subprime credit. If these subprime borrowers default on their loans, the loss will be ours.

It’s one thing for a company to raise capital and risk it to offer subprime financing in return for a chance to get a higher reward from higher interest rates. It’s totally another for the government to do it and force the risk onto the taxpayers.

This is exactly what happened to the real estate market. The government passed laws to encourage subprime loans to homebuyers to increase home ownership. These loans are purchased by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two quasi government agencies, which are backed by the US Government. The taxpayers are now on the hook for the future losses of these agencies which now own over half of the outstanding home mortgages.

So, now we are in the process of creating a Fannie Mae on wheels. I, for one, cannot see anything good coming out of this. GM will have the unfair advantage of offering subprime loans to buyers with poor credit; all backed by the people of the United States.

How does this affect competition with Ford Motor Company, which did it the right way? When Ford saw the government’s deal, they walked away. They sold off or mortgaged assets to build up cash. They invested in new technologies, quality control, cross platform efficiency and designing cars that people will buy. They made a deal with the unions to eliminate the “job bank.” This allowed them to close unnecessary factories. Ford started making a profit and has actually made a big payment into the pension fund to reduce the unfunded pension liabilities. Ford has increased market share while GM, Chrysler and Toyota have all decreased. Ford has now surpassed Toyota in the J. D. Power ratings of buyer satisfaction. Now they have to compete against US, the taxpayers of the United States who now have a huge stake in the success of GM.

Until GM pays back all the money to taxpayers and fixes its own problems, I will buy Fords. It is my little protest. I say little because when I buy a car, I drive it until it drops or until I can’t stand it anymore. My 2 year old Ford has given me 37,000 trouble free miles so far. It may be a long time before I need another.

A New Mission

I am a long time member of Davidson United Methodist Church. Last Sunday, our Senior Associate Pastor, Jeff Hassell, gave a sermon on the new direction of front line missions. Jeff came to Davidson after several years of service in Lithuania and also serves as our Director of Missions. This is a major post in our church as we have an annual missions budget of $1 million.

Jeff announced, that after thirteen years, Davidson was severing ties with our sister church in Shalaiu, Lithuania. Teams from Davidson have gone to Lithuania to mentor and help build this church. Now that the church is complete, the bureaucracy in the Lithuanian Methodist system limits the independence of the churches and creates a culture of dependence where 95% of all funding is controlled outside the local church. In other words, continuing to send money to this church will just enable the status quo and will not further the goals of the mission.

Jeff told of a visit by a group of mission directors from Davidson and other large churches to a church in Jamaica that has developed a program of micro loans. These are loans to people to better themselves and their communities. To get these loans, the recipient has to attend a class, develop a business plan and go through interviews. The example was a man known as the “Wacker Man.” This man supported himself with a homeowner model Weed Wacker cutting weeds along steep banks where tractors could not go. He was given a loan for $500 to purchase a commercial grade machine to increase his productivity. He was able to pay back the loan one month early. Later, he got another loan to buy another machine and hire an employee. Over the course of this program, no one has yet defaulted on a loan.

Davidson intends to take this concept to Nicaragua where we are partnering with a Texas group to start a mission in a Mayan village. We also continue to work with Habitat for Humanity in Guatemala.

I had the chance to speak to Jeff after the service. I told him I was encouraged by this. I used the analogy of giving a man a hand up, not just a hand. He said it was more like extending the old analogy of if you give a man a fish he has a meal but teach him how to fish he can feed his family. The extension is now to help him buy a boat so he can feed the community. And, when the loans are paid back, they can be reinvested to extend the program exponentially.

I like this. It makes sense. It's not just charity, but an investment in self reliance and the betterment of the world.

It's Going To Be an iPad World

I recently decided to buy an iPad. I will be going on vacation soon and later on in the year going to an industry trade show in Las Vegas. I normally travel with a laptop and an Amazon Kindle. I caught a debate on TV, Kindle vs iPad, and what got me interested was the final argument that you could sync your iPad to your Kindle account.

I posed a question on Facebook for any iPad users. Is it reasonable to think you can replace both a laptop and Kindle with an iPad while traveling. I got the answer back from my friend Dudley who is currently living in Shanghai, China. The answer is absolutely, he does it all the time. His final statement was that I would probably never use my Kindle again. That's a pretty strong statement from someone who has a 15 hour plane ride any time he comes back to the states.

Once the decision was made, the question is how to purchase it. I visited Best Buy to test drive one. Do they have one in stock? No. Can I reserve one? No. You have to call them every day to see if any have come in and get someone to put it away for you. Next, I called the Apple Store. After a dozen tries to get through the busy signals and automated answering system, I learned that the Apple Store has none in stock and also does not know when any are coming in. They would reserve one, if I had an Apple account, but could not guarantee delivery before my vacation in June.

So, I went online to set up my Apple account. While there, I saw that I could order the iPad online with a shipping time of 7-10 days. Doing the math, I could expect to get the iPad in time for my vacation. So, on May 16th I ordered the iPad and two accessories, the docking station and the camera input adapter. I got my acknowledgment that the docking station would ship immediately, the iPad delivery date was to be June 4th and the camera adapter would be delivered June 28th.

I got the docking station in two days, shipped from Carol Stream, IL. When I opened my email on May 27th, I saw an email from Apple advising me that the iPad was shipped on May 26th and gave me a tracking button to follow the shipment on Fedex. I clicked the button and saw that my iPad was currently in Anchorage, Alaska. Huh? Did it go in the wrong direction? Then, I scrolled down to see the shipment origin was Shenzhen, China. Who knew? Apple is shipping the iPads directly from China to the consumer. Anyway, the iPad spent a little over a day in Anchorage awaiting customs clearance, then screamed across the US. In a little over 8 hours, the iPad left Anchorage, had a two hour stop in Memphis and was on to Charlotte, arriving at 6:50AM Saturday morning May 29th. Now here on Memorial Day weekend, I am anxiously awaiting my iPad's delivery to me at the office on Tuesday.

Doing a little checking, I found out that this is routine for Apple. They also ship their Apple TV's directly from China. I've also found out that Apple is not alone in doing this. I have another Facebook friend who is currently awaiting delivery of his new Droid phone from China. My office supervisor's husband also has a Droid phone coming from China.

What does this mean for America? If this method of logistics catches on, it means that another whole level of the logistics chain is going offshore. The current method of delivery is to ship a container load of product to a fulfillment contractor in the US. When an order is placed, the fulfillment contractor pulls the item, labels it and ships it to the consumer. Now, even this basic function will be in another country along with the manufacturing and call centers. My only contact with an American on this purchase will be the Fedex driver next Tuesday.

My friends, this is a changed and changing world. Whatever you do for a living, don't think you will not be affected. If you can't do more, you will probably have to accept less. What part of your job can be done in China, or India, or in the case of my employer, Mexico. Our company moved most of it's manufacturing to Mexico ten years ago. And now, we have all of our IT, data processing functions and help desk located in Mexico. What few IT people we still have in the US are now independent contractors employed by EDS-Mexico.

Folks, our economy will never be the same. Look out for yourself. The government can't continue to bail everyone out or we will end up like Greece. Don't stop learning. Think about what you can do if your job goes away and get prepared for it.

My Life - 1953 to 1954

These were red letter years in my life. We moved into our first house, I got a dog, I got a sister, we got our first TV and I started school.

My dad went to work as office manager for Bishop Electric Company. Max Bishop was my dad’s lifelong friend; they grew up together and went to school together. They only got separated when Max went into the service. Bishop Electric was located on Hull Street in South Richmond. We bought a house at 4007 Maury Street, only about 5 blocks from my dad’s work. My grandmother was upset that we were moving from the fashionable West End of Richmond to the lower class Southside. Now she would have to take a bus to visit now instead of walking so we did not see her as often once we moved.

The house was a two bedroom bungalow on a dead end street. Maury Street ended a vacant lot and two houses down and an unpaved lane continued, took a 90 degree right turn into the woods and came out on the next street behind our house. The entire block across the street was a field. A farmer planted corn there during the summer, but the rest of the year it was our playground where we fought many military battles, played cowboys and Indians and king of the hill.

About 50 yards from the end of the street were the railroad tracks. It was a single track spur line that carried several trains per day from the rail yards to the industrial area at Holly Springs Road and on down to the Petersburg Pike area. The tracks were below grade creating a steep embankment down to the tracks. During the summer we would run down to the tracks whenever we heard the train because some of the engineers tossed candy to the kids as they passed by. My new friends were Kenny Gray, Jim Wilkerson and Doug Nunnally.

We got a new(er) car. It was a 1948 Dodge sedan with fluid drive. The fluid drive concept was a precursor of the torque converter automatic transmission. It was a 3 speed manual gearbox, but instead of a flywheel clutch, there was a fluid coupling between the engine and transmission. I never saw my dad use first gear, he always started in second and made one shift into third and did not have to use the clutch to shift. The Dodge had 75,000 miles on the odometer. My dad said it had been around the world 3 times. I asked him how you drove it across the ocean.

My Uncle Rodney and Aunt Elsie lived a couple blocks away in the Holly Springs Apartments. She worked in administration at the McGuire Veterans Hospital and he was a customs inspector who worked in the Philip Morris warehouses at Deep Water Terminal. And, they had television. It was a Friday night ritual to walk down to their apartment after dinner and watch TV. The must see TV was the Gillette Friday Night Fights. Boxing was my generation’s Ultimate Fighting Championship.

My first dog was a wire hair terrier named Skippy. If you don’t know what a wire hair terrier looks like, think of Asta the dog in “The Thin Man” movie series. Skippy was my best friend and followed me everywhere. He always wanted to be with the family; I remember begging my dad to stop and pick up Skippy after he followed the car 6 blocks before giving up and going back home.

We got our own TV. It was a Westinghouse black and white console TV. It had a large speaker underneath so it actually sounded pretty good. We had one channel, WTVR “The South’s First Television Station.” There was only one children’s show in the afternoon, Ranch House Tales hosted by Dal Burnett, one of the station’s owners who dressed up in a cowboy suit, talked to a puppet and played episodes of western serials.

On Christmas Eve in 1953, I got a sister, Elizabeth Travis (Betty) Rouse. My dad wanted to name her Christy Eve after the day she was born, but he was outvoted.

In February, 1954 I started school. In Richmond at the time, if your birthday was after October 1st, you started school in February. Richmond did not have a first grade. They had two years of Junior Primary and then you went into second grade. So, I entered JP-1 at Franklin School on Midlothian Turnpike. It was a 16 block walk, partly due to the detours to get to the crossing guards to cross Broad Rock Road and Hull Street. It was a pretty strong walk for a 5 year old. On the first day of school, my mom met the other moms in my class and they devised a route for us to walk to school. I first walked to the next block to Randy Morton’s house. Then we crossed Broad Rock Road at the crossing guard and then went to Steve Bond’s house. Then, the three of us went to the next crossing guard at Hull Street, crossed and walked the remaining six blocks to school. Our moms walked with us for a few days, then followed us and watched and then I guess they stopped off for coffee somewhere because we didn’t see them anymore.

During that first semester, I had measles, mumps and chicken pox. My diabolical mind thinks that’s why Junior Primary was in a separate building, so that we could get all the childhood diseases out of our system before putting us in the general population. We also got our smallpox vaccinations. The school nurse gave them; a needle was used to scratch the skin and then a plastic shield was taped over the site so we wouldn’t be tempted to scratch off the resulting scab. Kids nowadays don’t have to go through that.

The next October, when I was in JP-2, my mother got a call from Mrs. Tiller, my teacher. She wanted to let my mom know that I had invited the whole class to my birthday party that afternoon. My mom said “OK” but don’t bring presents. She walked to the store and picked up some more ice cream. That afternoon about 20 kids and their moms, along with Mrs. Tiller and her son were in my back yard playing Pin the Tail on the Donkey and other party games in my back yard. That was one of my best birthday parties ever. Such were the days of stay at home moms and neighborhood schools.

Global Warming? It's Not My Fault....

Global Warming? Yes, but…

Do I want clean air? Yes, I breathe it. Do I want clean water? Yes, I drink it. I do my part to keep the environment clean, recycle and I appreciate it when others do the same. Since not all people are so appreciative of what we have, I support anti-pollution efforts. I support the concept of Earth Day. I don't want to burn down the rain forest.

However, I don't buy the panic that Al Gore and the government are in over global warming, climate change or whatever they call it this week. Climate change is normal. When I took geology in college, we learned about the Earth’s climate cycles. The climate cycles into an Ice Age every 100,000 years. Within these cycles, for a period of 15-20,000 years the Earth warms, the glaciers melt and the Earth becomes temperate. The last ice age ended about 15,000 years ago. The above chart shows we currently have approximately the same amount of ice as during the previous warming about 120,000 years ago.

Notice how the chart looks like an EKG, with up and down cycles. These cycles coincide with a phenomenon known as Milankovitch Cycles. These are caused by the way the Earth’s orbit changes in relationship with the Sun, the way Earth’s tilt changes and the way the Earth wobbles on its axis. http://www.homepage.montana.edu/~geol445/hyperglac/time1/milankov.htm

In Earth’s recent history, it has only recently returned to the average temperature that was experienced during Medieval times. Since then, we have been through a “little ice age” and the Earth started warming up again in the late 1800’s. The Earth’s warming can justifiably be attributed to the normal climate cycles experienced throughout Earth’s history.

According to Dr. John Christy of the University of Alabama (Huntsville), "...the Earth was evidently coming out of a relatively cold period in the 1800s so that warming in the past century may be part of this natural recovery." Other scientists can only attribute 0.02% of the warming to mankind’s impact on the planet.

We do not need a Cap and Trade program that will, as President Obama says, "… necessarily greatly increase the cost of energy." They want to ration the use of carbon, taxing large users of fossil fuels such as utility companies and using the money to support new “green” industries. Based on the way the stimulus money has been distributed, I believe this money will be used to control who and how this industry is developed. The government does not have the expertise to manage the country’s energy supply.

And, why has the government been so opposed to nuclear energy. France produces 80% of its electricity from nuclear plants. We have the technology to do the same and completely eliminate the use of coal within 20 years.

Why don’t we develop a NASA style program? Fund a research effort to discover the new materials and processes that will clean up the planet and then license the technology to private industry to use and develop it. There have been a host of products and medical discoveries that have been made as a result of the space program.

Don’t get me wrong. We need to clean up the planet and the US is doing a good job of it. Just DON’T PANIC and rush into an expensive program that we can’t afford and will support special interests.


Art Rouse,
December 19, 2009