PERSPECTIVE: WHY THE NEW ENERGY SUPPY IS IMPORTANT!

This Blog will pick up where the last one left off.



At last the Media has caught on to the idea that the United States is up to its eyeballs with natural gas and oil supplies due to deep well drilling technology that has recently been demonstrated to be viable and environmentally safe. It has also suddenly become known that the cost of compressed natural gas (CNG) is significantly less than gasoline and diesel fuels and that it is being adopted by trucks and buses everywhere. And soon the public will learn that when we abandon the foolish idea of using corn and soy beans for automotive fuels, the price of foods will come down. Once the public becomes better informed, perhaps they will start to lean on their representatives to get off such senseless ideas as windmills, solar panels and using foods to substitute for transportation fuels, and instead get on with the use of our own low cost environmentally friendly natural gas to get our economy moving again. This “windfall” will not only result in low cost energy and lower food prices but it will strengthen the dollar and create a multitude of new high paying jobs. And if that is not enough, getting off foreign oil means that the United States could reap multibillion dollar cost savings by withdrawing its military commitment to the Middle East and let the Russians and the Chinese deal with the radical Muslims and their Arab Spring. What’s not to like?

In addition to methane, the main energy source, natural gas contains other hydrocarbons such as ethane, propane and butane which are attractive feed stocks for chemical plants. Shell Oil and Dow Chemical Company have just recently announced multi-billion dollar plants based on natural gas products. Normally, these chemical companies would obtain their feed stocks and energy sources from oil, and, in all probability, without this new low cost supply, these chemical and polymer producers would locate their new plants overseas. And there is another development which needs be noted. This new low cost energy source coupled with our innovative and rapidly developing digital technology is attracting manufacturing back into the United States. More on that subject will be in a future blog.

Now, you would think that the environmentalists would be wild about natural gas, because it produces about 50% less carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels. It also practically eliminates the production of toxic gases from the combustion of gasoline and diesel fuel. Finally, natural gas does not require a petrochemical refinery. Actually, environmentalists have been trying to kill refineries for years, and for the most part they have been successful. With the exception of two new refineries under construction out west, we haven’t built a new refinery in the United States in 35 years because of expensive environmental regulations and the NIMBY syndrome (Not In My back Yard).

Nevertheless, we can expect the “spoil sport” environmental activists to do everything they can to thwart the development and exploitation of this new drilling technology. However, it will be difficult for them because these new supplies of energy are being procured from privately held land. Drilling on public land, wildlife refuges or off-shore is not needed at this time. Nevertheless, we can expect the Obama Admistration to do everything within its power to regulate natural gas development claiming that fossil fuels are the cause of climate change, citing such examples as Sandy, Katrina and the large number of tornados.

Fortunately for us this energy windfall is being spear headed and financed by the big oil companies; consequently, this exciting development does not require new entrepreneurs who have to learn how to run businesses, raise capital and develop the US and export markets. Most importantly, it does not require the Federal Government to provide capital and subsidies to make it competitive as do wind, solar and bio energy sources.

The biggest advantage of this enormous new source of energy is that it will doubtless cause the GNP of the United States to grow at a huge rate. This, in turn, will produce large increases in Federal revenue, which in all probability, will cover the cost of the Medicar , Social Security and other entitlements that the voters will not permit their representatives to reduce or even touch.

This new source of energy will last more than 100 years, and if we believe that it will create a huge economic boom, then we should stop worrying about the problem with entitlements. Actually that problem will end in about thirty years anyway.

Here is why. The 80 million “boomers” are retiring at the rate of 10,000 per day and are in the final two or three decades of their lives, and the next generation is only half the size of the boomers. Therefore, it is clear that the entitlement problem will take care of itself without the government or anyone else doing anything about it.

What this tells us is that we should stop wasting time fretting about whether the Congress and our current President are hopelessly gridlocked. Instead, we should hope that they remain gridlocked so the private energy entrepreneurs can get the infrastructure in place to provide and transport the new low cost energy to us the consumers as fast as possible so that we can realize the large increase in GNP. All our representatives have to do is get out of the way.

The voters are not stupid; they consume energy and food, and most of them seek work, so we can expect them to support this development even while the Obama Administration tries to convince them that that this opportunity should be regulated so as to promote wind, solar, bio and other so-called clean energy ideas. Consequently, sooner or later they will be screaming for their representatives to get on board with this energy windfall.

Finally, the mantra of the Conservative Party should be this: Waste no time worrying about entitlements, do everything we can to capitalize on this “energy windfall” and speed us on a sensible path that will keep the United States the greatest country on the planet for the next one hundred years.

PERSPECTIVE: WHITHER THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?

One should not be surprised at and at the same time deeply concerned about the outcome of the November 6 re-election of Barack Obama. This President came into office in 2008 talking about spreading the wealth, and now he believes he has a mandate to raise taxes on the wealthy come hell or high water. He has a democratically controlled Senate that will rubber-stamp this idea but a House controlled by the Republicans who are against that idea. The Country is divided, and we elect representatives for the House and Senate who are also divided. Consequently, and shock of shock, they are not working together. Thus we are in for stalemate while we continue to face major problems such as the “fiscal cliff”, a non-job creating sluggish economy, huge and growing entitlement driven debt and a middle east about to explode. This is not the first time that a President has had to work with a divided Congress, but at this critical time leadership from this President will be vital!

The problem is that during the last four years President Obama has demonstrated his inability and/or unwillingness to lead. He proudly let Nancy Pelosi develop the “Affordable Healthcare Legislation” (Obamacare). The nearly one trillion dollar stimulus bill was nothing more than a huge pile of “pork” which nearly everyone agrees had virtually no effect on improving the economic condition. On foreign policy he takes pride in “leading from behind”. We need only observe the fiasco of the Terrorist attack on our Consulate in Libya and the murder of our Ambassador and three other Americans to see the lack of leadership on that issue.

Bob Woodward in his latest book, “The Price of Politics” documented Obama’s rudeness to the Republican leaders from the very first days of his becoming President. This past week we saw it again in both Obama’s embarrassing tax increase proposal, and a few days later we saw it again in the way he dismissed the Republican’s counter proposal. Because of such a high-handed approach, it is no wonder that Republicans not only can’t trust Obama, they can barely stand him.

Despite these perfectly clear deficiencies in his leadership capabilities, especially when contrasted with those demonstrated by Romney, and notwithstanding that Obama may just be following Saul Alinski’s principles for destroying the country, a majority of the voters decided to keep Obama anyway. So, we are stuck with this kind of inadequate and inappropriate leadership.

However, the Country simply can’t afford Four More Years like we have just finished. So what can be done? Perhaps the Congressional Democrats could persuade Obama to hire Colin Powell for some key advisory position in the Administration. Why? Well, Powell has just co-written a book on Leadership. Perhaps he could teach Obama how to lead. Moreover, Powell endorsed Obama thus there may be a buddy to buddy relationship which will help our Country at this dangerous time.

But let’s assume the worst from this President and his clueless entourage. What is in store for the Country? Is it doomed, will it fall apart? Will the takers increase to a point where the makers can’t give any more? Worse, will the makers decide to make it in an other country? In this digital age that is distinctly possible.

The good news is that we have two very important assets which will be vital for not only our survival but for the United States to continue to be the powerhouse we have been for the past two centuries.

These assets are:

• An unbelievable abundance of energy supplies

• The best Universities in the world for creating cutting-edge technology

The energy resources are so enormous that no government will be able to shunt them aside or completely control them regardless of theories that utilization of these fossil materials may cause and/or exacerbate so-called global warming. Specifically, we are talking about the super abundance of natural gas found a mile underground which is already being liberated and additional supplies being discovered a mile or so below that. We are now told that our Country has the largest supply of natural gas and oil on the planet

Compressed natural gas (CNG) is the perfect fuel of our trucks, trains and even automobiles. Already fleets of busses and trucks are being converted to CNG. Not only is it less expensive than diesel fuel and gasoline, it is more environmentally friendly. It produces only half of the so-called greenhouse gases of any fossil fuel, and it produces virtually none of the toxic gases of coal or petroleum. Moreover, it does not require a refinery to convert the oil to fuel. Equally important, it avoids using increasingly scarce food stuffs such as corn and soybeans to make ethanol and bio-diesel.

An ancillary benefit of converting our trucks and cars to CNG is that we can stop importing OPEC controlled oil. This not only will strengthen the dollar, but will permit a complete overhaul of our foreign policy. The United States would no longer need to place expensive military equipment and personnel in Arab territories to protect the supply of oil. We could then let the Chinese and the Russians, who have never supported us, take over that role.

Chemicals and plastics can also be manufactured from natural gas. It is a perfect raw material, and natural gas is perfect for heating the chemical plant boilers, as well. Already Shell Chemical and Dow Chemical have announced multibillion dollar plants based on this low cost supply of natural gas

In addition to the above, the idea of low cost electricity made from natural gas is being eyed by manufacturers who, utilizing the latest digital high tech technology, can now afford to bring manufacturing back to the United States.

As regards our second resource, namely that our universities are the best in the world and at the cutting edge of science, technology, engineering and mathematics, (STEM), the problem is they are not producing enough graduates who major in STEM. Today after spending about

$ 200,000 for a four year college degree only half of the graduates can find employment commensurate with their degree. However, the ones who majored in STEM are having no difficulty finding very remunerative jobs. In fact the demand is so great for STEM graduates in the United States that the starting salary for a chemical engineer needed to design and run the aforementioned Shell and Dow chemical plants is
$ 125,000.

In short, the good news is that the force of this natural gas windfall is so powerful that any attempt by Obama’s Czars to throttle it will fail. Further, we don’t have to reconstruct the K-12 system to solve the stem problem as the Obama administration suggests. We simply have to find a way to encourage the half of college students who are taking courses for which there are no jobs, to take courses for which there are jobs. In other words to major in STEM.

These are the questions that will be considered in future blogs as we examine the broad question of “Whither the United States of America?

PERSPECTIVE: WHY LEADERSIP MATTERS.

Any Committee or Group must have a leader, or else it will not produce what is wanted. The leader of a committee is called the Chairperson. The Committee we are concerned about that lacks leadership is the United States Congress and Senate. The leader of that group should be the President of the United States. The Country is divided, and we elect representatives who match that division. So, we can bitch all we want about the ineffectiveness and stalemate of these two groups, but the only way there can be any progress forward is if a strong leader steps up to lead and knows how to lead. We need only to observe President Obama, and notice that, because he fails to lead, the Country is stalemated.

As President, with a democratically controlled House and Senate, he chose to let Nancy Pelosi develop the “Affordable Healthcare Legislation” (Obamacare) which contains some 2400 pages of stuff that Nancy said had to be passed before we could read and understand it. His nearly one trillion dollar stimulus bill, was nothing more than a huge pile of “pork” which he said he is against. Everyone agrees that it had virtually no effect on improving the economic condition. On foreign policy he takes pride in “leading from behind”. We only need know about the fiasco of the Terrorist attack on our Consulate in Libia and the murder of our Ambassador to see the lack of leadership, and worse, buck passing..

So the Administration is now taking a page out of Bill Clinton’s book, “It depends on what the meaning of we is”. And what does “we” mean? Does it mean the Administration? Does it mean the State Department? The Defence Department? The National Security Council?

It is unthinkable that our Government did not see the latest episode of Terrorist activity coming. There were two prior attacks on our Benghazi facility this past Spring. Moreover, we have a National Security Council that is constantly meeting and supposedly updating the President every day on the status of the “War on Terror”? the problem we have with this President and his Administration is that as far as they are concerned, there are no “Terrorists Attacks”. Remember Fort Hood?

Oops, we know that would be the case: Obama missed the National Security meeting the day after we were told that Terrorists were responsible for the destruction of the Consulate and the murder of our Ambassador because of he had an urgent need to fly to Las Vegas for campaigning. Now, we have been informed that he misses about half of these NSC meetings. Perhaps his missing that meeting explains why Omama, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton our UN Ambassador, Susan Rice and Press Secretary Carey failed to get the message from the NSC and days later kept stating it was not a Terrorist attack but merely a predictable reaction to a nasty American-made anti-Muslim movie.

Not only is this embarrassing, it is an outrage beyond belief, and it is a dereliction of duty! We have been under attack from the Islamic radicals ever since Bin Ladin first declared war on the United States during Clinton’s Administration about 20 years ago. Subsequently, we have witnessed one Terrorist attack on US property after another. It started with the first attack on the World Trade Center then the attacks on two of our Embassies in Africa, then the attack on the Cole, to the 911 destruction of the World Trade Center Buildings, the Pentagon and the diverted Crash in Pennsylvania to the massacre at Camp Hood. In addition there were several thwarted attempts to kill Americans and now the assination of our Ambassador and three other Americans at the Consulate in Benghazi in Libia.

What I have just revealed is what you already knew or surmised. Now, for more evidence of the lack of Obama’s leadership, you can read Bob Woodward’s new book, “The Price of Politics”. Woodward is not a conservative ideologue by any means, but he manages to reveal on page after page that Obama not only doesn’t like to deal one-on-one with members of the other party, he is downright rude to them. Woodward documents that Obama was so rude to the Republican leaders from the very first days of his becoming President, that they not only can’t trust him but can barely stand him.

Moreover, Woodward confirms that Obama and his Administration’s approach to most problems is from a passive position. They wait for things to develop before they even consider acting. We knew this! Recall that during the financial collapse of 2008 John McCain rushed from the campaign trail back to Washington because, as a Senator, he felt obligated to do that. Do you recall where Senator Obama was? That’s right! He remained back on the campaign trail waiting to learn more. Somehow Obama’s followers think this is a very intellectual and “cool”, a sign of his being unflappable. Wrong!! This is the sign of a person who does not know what to do and stalls action on the preface that more and more information is needed. This is a telltale sign of a person who does not know how to lead, is afraid to lead or deliberately wants the system to collapse for some ideological objective. God only know what, but it is totally unacceptable. Worse, in the case of Benghenzi, the dereliction of duty may be impeachable.

It really does not matter just why Obama does not lead. It only matters that he DOES NOT LEAD! At this very challenging time in our Nation’s History we not only need a strong experienced leader, WE MUST HAVE A STRONG EXPERIENCED LEADER

Now let’s look at Romney. He played a major leadership role in hugely successful Bain Capital where he led his business partners to take over failing companies and resurrect them into viable organizations in the face of the extremely competitive worldwide business environment. Then he left that job to help the failing 2002 Olympics, and he led the 2002 Olympics to be one of the most successful of all time, placing a “feather in the USA cap at the same time. Then as Governor of Massachusetts he led the State’s democratically controlled House and Senate to enact laws that set the State on a course to balance their budget, reduce unemployment, improve their public education and pass a healthcare bill that works for the State.

THAT IS A LOT OF LEADING!!

So, what else do you have to know about what the key issue is this election cycle. Obama is not the man we need. He has already demonstrated that he is either incompetent and does not want to lead or that he wants the country to fail so that, “Saul Alinski style” the country can be rebuilt as a socialistic state. Regardless of the “why”, he as already failed us and must be replaced. We simply can’t afford Four More Years

By contrast, there is a man of proven ability to lead, and who has the personality, demeanor, along with the brain power and experience to define the problems and create solutions along with the skill and willingness to persuade persons of differing views to follow.

That man is MITT ROMNEY!!

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PERSPECTIVE: WHAT DOES OUR EDUCATION SYSTEM NEED?

When you listen to our politicians speak about what is needed to produce jobs, you will hear a lot about improving our ‘Infrastructure”. By this they mean improving our roads, bridges, and our K-12 educational system. Lately, especially because of the teachers strike in Chicago, the emphasis is on education. President Obama recently stated that what is needed to upgrade school quality is to add teachers and reduce class size.

To determine what our education system really needs, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation funded a multi-million dollar study to “Learn about Teaching”, and their first report has been published.

Prior to reading this report, I had the chance to hear Melinda Gates being interviewed by Brian Williams of NBC News, and Williams asked her whether there was one single issue that rose above all others with regard to improving education. She responded, “Yes, it is a good teacher”. Then Williams asked if there was a second. Again, she responded, “Yes, a supporting parent”. And as the report mentions: “For four decades, educational researchers have confirmed what many parents know: children’s academic progress depends heavily on the talent and skills of the teacher leading their classroom. Although parents may fret over their choice of school and class room size, research suggests that their child’s teacher assignment in that school matters a lot”

Well, I just about fell out of my chair in shock. I KNEW THAT, AND YOU KNEW THAT! What is fascinating is that any, and I mean any, graduate of the K-12 public education system can tell you who was the best teacher and who made the biggest impact on their life. Now as the report shows, every student knows, as well. It turns out nearly everyone knows it, EXCEPT PRESIDENT OBAMA AND THE TEACHER’S UNION.

It is to the credit of Bill and Melinda Gates that they are providing the wherewithal to probe deeply into what makes a good teacher. Their findings from their Measures of Effective Teaching Project (MET) are found in a research paper that can be downloaded from the Internet. It is quite erudite in its detail and analysis, and qualifies as excellent research.

The three premises of the MET Project were:

• Whenever possible, a teacher’s evaluation should include his or her student’s achievement gains.

• Any additional components of the evaluation (e.g., classroom observations, student feedback) should be demonstrably related to student achievement gains.

• The measure should include feedback on specific aspects of how a teacher teaches to support the teacher’s growth and development in teaching skills.

The MET project measured teaching of mathematics and English in grades 4-8 and then added three courses that serve as gateways to high school, namely, Algebra I, grade 9 English and biology. The following data were collected from the classrooms.


• Student achievement gains on different assessments

• Classroom observations and teacher reflections

• Teacher’s pedagogical content knowledge (knowledge of how to teach, not just their content knowledge)

• Student perceptions of the classroom instructional environment



The MET student perception survey gathered information from the students under seven headings called the Seven C’s which are:

Care: How the teacher treats students

Control: How the teacher maintains discipline

Clarify: How well the teacher explains things

Challenge: How the teacher pushes students to work hard

Captivate: How the teacher keeps school work interesting

Confer: How the teacher determines whether the student understands

Consolidate: How the teacher summarizes what has been learned



What has Been Learned So Far:

• In every grade and subject, a teacher’s past track record of value added (what a teacher contributes to what a student could learn on its own) is among the strongest predictors of their students’ achievement gains in other classes and academic years. In other words, teachers who lead students to achievement gains in one year or in one class tend to do so in other years and other classes.

• Teachers with high value-added tend to promote deeper conceptual understanding on state tests as well. Many are concerned that high value-added teachers are simply coaching children to do well on state tests. However, in the MET analysis so far, that does not seem to be the case.

• Teachers as measured on state assessments, have larger effects on math achievement than on achievement in reading or English Language Arts. It is believed that this finding may be due to limitations of the current state tests which typically consist of multiple-choice questions of reading comprehension, because when using a test that requires written responses, a teacher’s impact is comparable to that found in mathematics.


• Student perceptions of a given teacher’s strengths and weaknesses are consistent across the different groups of students they teach. Moreover, students seem to know effective teaching when they experience it. It turns out that student perceptions in one class are related to the achievement gains in other classes taught by the same teacher. Most important are students’ perceptions of a teacher’s ability to control a classroom and to challenge students with rigorous work.


Conclusions From the Study:
• Children’s academic progress depends heavily on the talent and skills of the teacher leading the class room.

• Individual teachers receive little feedback on the work that they do because teacher evaluation is a perfunctory exercise. Principals go trough the motions of visiting classrooms with checklists in hand only to give the same satisfactory rating to all teachers. This makes it easy for school administers because all they have to do is find out who is good enough to have tenure and seniority.



So Why is it So Difficult to Solve This Problem?



President Obama and his kind believe there should be equal outcomes in all endeavors including teaching. They can’t stand rewarding exceptional performance. That is what all this class warfare is about. Unfortunately for the country and especially for our children, when equal outcomes are applied to teachers, the quality of teachers as a whole sinks to the lowest denominator. The idea of tenure and seniority in any endeavor is not only non-productive, it runs counter to nature. This philosophy is what is causing our schools to fail. It is as simple as that, and it turns out that everyone, even a student knows it.!



Can the Problem Be Solved?

Yes! But we must find a way to do two things:

1. Give teachers the mentoring and opportunity to develop to their fullest capability

2. Pay the best teachers commensurate to their performance as evidenced in the development of their students achievement gains.



To do this the education community must develop and install the administration infrastructure that focuses on and hires administrative personnel who have the knowledge and training to develop the teachers. This may require by-passing the Teacher’s Unions, or it may require privatizing the public schools.


An alternative way to deal with this would be to covert our classrooms to digital. In this case the expert teacher is piped into the class room via TV and is interactive with the student. The lecturing teacher of the past is replaced in the class room by a monitor who keeps discipline, and attends to the needs of those students who fail to understand the information. This information is conveyed to the monitor via computer which tracks each student’s performance as they respond to tests while progressing at their own speed. The fact that it is right up to the latest digital technology will have the ancillary benefit of

When you consider that our country has a severe shortage of graduates with knowledge in science, engineering, technology and mathematics, we cannot delay action to make up for this critical shortage if we are to be competitive in the new global and digital world. No matter which course is taken, something must be done soon because we are rapidly losing our competitive edge.

PERSPECTIVE: WHAT DO LIBERALS WANT?

Many of us conservatives ask: “Just what do liberals want?” They voted for Obama despite his not being vetted properly. No one can be absolutely sure when and where he was born, where he went to college, what subjects he took and what grades he received. He demands to see Romney’s tax returns but refuses to provide the above information. If you happen to have a normal conversation with an ordinary everyday democrat, you are likely to be told that they voted for Obama but are not terribly pleased with everything he has done. However, they will add that: “He inherited a terrible problem and is doing a pretty good job handling it”.

A critical review of Obama’s policies, his lack of leadership and his public pronouncements clearly show that Obama has done a terrible job. And it reveals, if anything, that he is a socialist. The mainstream Media naturally tell us that this is not true. Even a so-called “fair and balanced” newscaster such as Bill O’Reilly is reluctant to call what is going on in front of our eyes as socialism. Unfortunately, many of the liberal class do not dig into the facts because they are preoccupied with living or because they do not see or care to find out what is really going on.

What is going on is far more sinister that the average citizen would or could imagine. The fact of the matter is that we have been fed a pack of lies about Obama’s background, his policies and from whence comes his support. So, what is really going on? David Horowitz and Jacob Laksin in their new book explain in simple language what is going on. The title of the book is: “The New Leviathan”. The definition of leviathan is:

“Something large or formidable, such as a sea monster or a totalitarian state having a vast bureaucracy”

The jist of the book is that large 501C3 tax deductible Foundations such as Ford, Rockefeller, MacArthur, Pew, Woods etc., which were created from funds accumulated by their capitalist founders, are now being led mostly by liberals who fund liberal programs. Most frightening, is the fact that the grants from several Foundations combine to fund the same liberal cause. This creates much larger incomes than that cause would normally obtain, and thus their influence can be much larger than normal. The authors cite The Thomas Merton Center as an example of an umbrella organization of thirty five left-wing groups that sends protestors to disrupt conservative organization gatherings.

However, it turns out that government bureaucrats can hire organizations and personnel from the Foundations for politically related studies. If you are beginning to sense the size of this monster and its influence on government policy, you are correct.

The book details the kinds of liberal causes the Foundations fund that are having such an insidious impact on our personal lives and business ventures. Examples include: Anti Capitalism, Environmental Issues, Anti-War, Global Justice, Public Broadcasting, Redistribution of the Wealth and individual liberal community organizations such as ACORN and a host of Saul Alinisky based entities.

It is interesting to learn from the authors that Bill Ayers brought Obama onto the Board of Chicago Annenberg Challenge, a left-wing Foundation that provided educational grants and was pursuing Alinsky politics in Chicago Schools. Of course, Obama said he did not know Bill. He only casually met him at a neighborhood party. Yeah, sure he did!!!

Let’s consider just one liberal cause of the many discussed in the book to illustrate how powerful these Foundations are. Various environmental groups such as EarthJustice, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Environmental Defense Fund promote man-made global warming as though it were absolutely gospel. They and massive investment by left-wing foundations have influenced disproportionately the policical debate and conned the main stream Media and many politicians in both parties to believe man-made global warming is a scientifically proven fact.

Many of the persons who have worked for these Foundations end up in positions of power in the United States and State governments. For example, Carol Browner, a believer in man-made global warming, is Obama’s environmental “expert”. She and the other environmental activists in the EPA do everything possible to get programs in place to reduce the green house gases that they claim are the cause of global warming. So, they tried to have Congress pass a law under the Clean Air Act, which controls toxic gases, to add carbon dioxide. When Congress refused to do this, they got Obama to approve an executive order claiming that carbon dioxide is a toxic substance. We should have expected Congress to be beside itself at such an outrageous idea and furious at the encroachment on their authority. But have we heard any complaint about it from them? Nor has the Media chosen to expose this outrageous seizure of power on the part of the Executive Branch.

Ask yourself when was the first time you heard the word photosynthesis? You were probably in grammar school where it used to be taught. To refresh your memory, this is the process where the chlorophyll in plants in the presence of sun light catalyzes the conversion of carbon dioxide taken from the air into carbohydrates which make up the leaves, stems and flowers of plants and the wood in trees, all the while emitting oxygen. Carbon dioxide is also the chemical that every human and every animal emits after the oxygen they intake is converted to carbon dioxide in their body.



There is no way that carbon dioxide is toxic! Perhaps, Browner and her ilk got carbon dioxide confused with carbon monoxide which really is a toxic gas that some people pipe into their cars from their exhausts to commit suicide. In the world of yesteryear when we taught common sense as early as grammar school, even a school kid would have laughed anyone out of the room who claimed that carbon dioxide was a poison.



What is particularly disgusting is how small the amount of man-made carbon dioxide is being emitted. According to the authors, the atmosphere contains about 38 molecules of carbon dioxide for every 100,000 molecules of air. To that concentration man-made carbon dioxide emissions have added only one molecule every five years.

What is sillier is this! If you want to talk about green house gases, you have to include clouds which consist of water vapor, and methane both of which are naturally occurring gases. Methane is emitted from cattle, other animals including humans and the composting of vegetation. Composting is just loved by environmentalists, but they never acknowledge that the methane and carbon dioxide that are emitted are green house gases. Methane and water vapor turn out to be the most effective of green house gases. By the way, each of these green house gases can kill you. It depends on how they are administered. You may recall that lungs filled with water or carbon dioxide that replace oxygen which cause asphyxiation which will cause death. Methane will also cause asphyxiation, but it is in fact toxic.

What is really scary and should be of great concern, is the length that the radical liberals will go to get control of our lives. One needs to know that this brand of liberals, and Obama is their most famous member, is made up of Saul Alinski protégés. Alinski taught that the establishment should be destroyed so that it could be rebuilt on the Command and Control principles of Socialism and Communism. The cap and trade bill which is designed to reduce carbon dioxide emissions for the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels, will needlessly increase the cost of living and production for every citizen in the United States. It is just one of their tools to bring down our great country.

It was only seventy five years ago that Hitler and his Nazi Party overtook Germany with the big lie about the Jews. His mantra was that a big lie told often and loud enough becomes accepted as the truth. The United States had to destroy Hitler to get rid of that lie. What can “We the People” do to destroy these lies? That’s right! Vote those associated with the New Leviathan out of our government. Your God Given Right to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness depends on it!!

PERSPECTIVE: WHILE ROME BURNS.

Is there anything more frustrating than to hear our politicians talk about inane and irrelevant subjects while our economy continues to decline and job growth continues to be weak or non-existent? Actually it is worse than we thought! Did you ever imagine that millions of people would be collecting unemployment insurance for as long as two years with no end in sight? And I will bet that many have heard stories of persons on unemployment who have been offered jobs who did not want to start until their unemployment insurance runs out. Then, how about the 45 million Americans who received food stamps in 2011? That is nearly 15% of our population, and the number is growing! The irony is that the Food Stamp program is administered by the a US Department (Agriculture) while another US Department (Interior) runs the Park System where visitors are admonished not to feed the animals lest they be incapable of foraging for themselves.

Anyone who watches Nature at work knows that you cannot run counter to Nature’s laws very long before you will be greatly harmed. The Food Stamp program and paying people to be idle runs counter to Nature’s Laws and America will surely be severely harmed if we don’t stop this ASAP. Our days are numbered! We have to stop “feeding the animals” so they won’t forget how to “forage” for themselves. Have we forgotten that Man is an integral part of the Animal Kingdom?

Getting our economy growing with the attendant job creation is not only an important issue, it is the only issue! If we don’t get some economic growth and job creation soon, does anyone believe that we will be any more capable of reducing or terminating the food stamp program than we can adjust Social Security or Medicare? To accomplish any modicum of growth and job creation, we will need strong and experienced leadership This Presidential election is doubtless one of the most important we will ever see, and this one is all about leadership. We desperately need the most capable and experienced leader possible.

Obama is not that person! He has no leadership experience, and he has learned nothing about leadership on the job and has demonstrated that he has no clue what to do. Worse he has surrounded himself with incompetence. It is instructive to note that every time Obama opens his mouth he makes a Freudian Slip which tells us that he would not do the correct thing even if he did know how, because he is an ideologue. We saw this in his conversation with Joe the Plumber during the campaign of 2008 when he talked openly about distributing the wealth. Then it happened recently when he blurted out that no innovator or business has succeeded without Government help. This is ridiculous, to say the least, and socialistic to tell the whole truth. He also showed his ignorance of how innovation really works when he claimed that Microsoft and other digital technology companies needed the miniaturization of electronic circuitry developed by the US Government space program and to become successful. Actually, it is the other way around; the US space program needed the invention of the transistor to miniaturize circuitry. That device was invented in the late 1940’s in Bell Labs in New Jersey, a private entity owned by AT&T. You may recognize that the name Bell came from Alexander Bell, whom most grammar school kids could name as the inventor of the telephone.

The Media would have us believe that these statements and comments are “gaffs”. That is nonsense; they are “Freudian Slips” which, as described by Dr. Sigmund Freud, are deeply held beliefs that “slip” out revealing what one actually believes about the subject at hand.

For further perspective on why the President must provide the leadership we need at this critical time, you can see what happened when Obama delegated the development of the Obamacare legislation to Nancy Pelosi, Speaker of the House and Harry Read, Senate Majority Leader. They produced an abomination that even the democrat members of the House and Senate had to hold their noses and be bribed to pass. It is an old adage that if you assign a committee to build a horse it will invariably come out as a camel. Congress cannot lead, period.

Meanwhile, Romney has the demonstrated experience needed to lead and to turn around disasters. The problem is that the President and the Media have chosen to keep that knowledge from the voters by denigrating and distorted Romney’s record of leadership and turnaround achievements. Moreover, they constantly berate him and distract voters for his not providing more tax returns. They and we both already know what they will show. Romney is extremely rich and pays taxes commensurate with the return on capital he has invested not from a salary. Most of the time he receives no salary for the services he renders. Yes, Romney is rich, but it is not inherited; he gave all his inherited wealtxn ddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddv away to charities. What he currently earned he earned on his own by investing in US businesses. Remember you do not become rich by failing.

Romney’s experience in the business community is amazing. By any standard Bain Capital is a huge success, especially where businesses must deal with intense global and digital competition. Founded in 1984, Romney and his partners started Bain with $37 million of private capital which they raised. Bain then invested in or acquired and often turned around hundreds of failing companies and in the process it created thousands of jobs. Today, Bain manages $66 billion of investor capital.

Bain Capital’s performance is considered so exceptional that it is being used by the Business Schools as an example of how to turn around a failing company in a global economy. Imagine if Romney had been the CEO of Eastman Kodak, a firm that invented and owned the camera and silver based film business from the get go only to lose it to global competition when they failed to recognize the significance of the digital camera. Under his leadership Kodak would probably still be a major US business icon instead of residing on the trash pile of failed US companies.

Another example of Romney’s leadership skills is his saving the Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games of 2002 which were planned for Salt Lake City. Here is what happened. Before Romney took a leave of absence and left his day-to-day tasks as CEO of Bain in 1999, the Olympic program was $379 million short of needed income, and they were planning to scale it back. Those who followed the issue inform us that Romney ran the planning for the Games like a business. He revamped the organization’s leadership and policies, reduced budgets, and he boosted fundraising by alleviating the concerns of corporate sponsors, while recruiting many new ones. With Romney’s leadership and business acumen the Games were turned from a failure to a huge success and put a feather in the “US Cap”. Doesn’t this sound like what is needed for the US economy right now?

The United States is still the most innovative country in the world, with the greatest universities, abundant energy and natural resources, and excellent workers. So, what is causing our decline? Our Politicians and our Media! In particular we are talking about our President, the members of the Senate and the Congress who refuse to take meaningful action.

Nearly everyone knows that the major factors that inhibit our getting the economy back on track are:

• Government taxes and regulations choke private enterprise and make it non-competitive in the global markets.

• The new digital revolution requires skills that the US has a shortage of

• The lack of concrete plans to control our unsustainable and growing debt caused by entitlement programs such as Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security creates uncertainty in the business community.

Clearly, Romney has the credentials that are required to lead, and the business experience that is needed to bring back the confidence that the business community must have to invest in the United States. But to win this election, he must guard against the distractions and untruths that the Media and Obama can throw at him. This is what is happening now. Obama is using class warfare to distract us by making us believe that no one can be successful without the prior government creation of technology and infrastructure. Moreover, the ultimate in badness is if becoming successful makes one rich. Romney fits that pattern perfectly because he is rich and is in the “One Percent” that Obama constantly castigates in his promotion of class warfare. This makes him the perfect person for them to harangue and produces an opportunity for Obama and the Mainstream Media, that is Obama’s compliant partner, to obfuscate the facts and demagogue the issues.

We are pleased that Romney at last has starting to lash back at Obama’a silly slip. But he has yet to spell out a job-creation plan that the ordinary voter can understand. He must spell this out and repeat it over and over in the simplest language possible. My earlier blog about using our abundant supply of natural gas to replace oil for our vehicles would be a good starting point.

Finally, it is crucial that we rid ourselves of those politicians who continue to “fiddle while the conflagration grows”.

PERSPECTIVE: WHAT GENERATION Y WILL NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE JOB MARKET THEY ARE ABOUT TO ENTER

As a result of globalization and the digital revolution, we are experiencing a paradigm shift in the way business is conducted and how it will be conducted from now on. Many of the private sector jobs that have been lost will not be replaced. This will impact the so-called Generation Y, those born from 1990 to the present. These are our grandchildren, and the structures that mentored their parents and grandparents as they entered the market in their time are no longer there. The reason for my writing this blog is to see if we can provide our grandchildren some ideas of how to deal with this new phenomenon. It is timely because the oldest of our grandchildren are graduating from college or other schools and are about to enter the job market.

For perspective, when we the grandparent generation entered the workforce, we could largely count on being employed by the same firm, and often at the same location, for our entire career. For the most part this was true of our children’s generation, as well. Our bosses mentored us and helped us advance in our careers. But for our grandchildren entering the workforce today, that is a very unlikely scenario. It is highly probable that the job one starts with will not even be in existence beyond five years, let alone at one’s retirement. Consequently, our grandchildren will have to be their own mentors, career planners and managers of their health programs and retirement plans. While they are at the peak of their skill level in terms of the digital revolution which they acquired in grammar and high school, these young folk are poorly prepared to be their own mentors and career planners let alone how to set up health and retirement programs from day one in their first job.

Unfortunately, their parents, their grandparents and their teachers don’t have much of an idea of how to help them. However, there is a book that can serve as a primer for them. It is titled: “The Start-Up of You” with the sub-title: “Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself and Transform Your Career” by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha. Hoffman is an entrepreneur, co-founder and Chairman of LinkedIn  and Casnocha is an entrepreneur and  journalist. The book’s website is: www.startupofyou.com

The authors state that: “Whether you’re a lawyer, doctor, teacher, engineer or business owner, today you need to also think of yourself as an entrepreneur at the helm of at least one living, growing start-up venture, your career.” According to the dictionary an entrepreneur is: “Someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it”.

They authors further state: “With the death of traditional career paths, so goes the kind of traditional professional development previous generations enjoyed. You can no longer count on employer-sponsored training to enhance your communication skills or expand your technical know-how. The expectation for even junior employees is that you can do the job you have been hired to do upon arrival or that you’ll learn so quickly you’ll be up to speed within weeks. Whether you want to learn a new skill or simply be better at the job you were hired to do, it’s now your job to train and invest in yourself.” A further point the authors make is this. “There used to be a long-term pact between employee and employer that guaranteed lifetime employment in exchange for lifelong loyalty. This pact has been replaced by a performance-based, short-term contract that’s perpetually up for renewal by both sides. Professional loyalty now flows ‘horizontally’ to and from your network rather than ‘vertically’ to your boss.” THIS SHOULD COME AS A SHOCK!! Because I doubt that any of us, especially our grand children have ever been told this.

Let’s start by asking why the jobs are not there? Simply stated, it is because entrepreneurs cannot figure out what to do. Newspapers, magazines and books are falling to the new digital technologies and all businesses are determining how and where the new digital technologies will fit to reduce the need for human personnel. In other words the market place is in a state of turmoil for which there is no historic precedent. Worse our Congress and President have no clue what is going on, so they exacerbate the issue by adding unnecessary regulations, take no serious actions to deal with the deficit and muddle the question of whether taxes on businesses should be increased or not. Worse they become easily distracted from the central issue of jobs with petty political matters.

Fortunately, the book provides some great ideas for our grandchildren. The first and foremost, is to know and fully understand your strengths and weaknesses. Anyone who runs a business starts with analyzing the assets and liabilities of the company. When that list has been developed and fully explored, then you can choose the right course that exploits your assets (strengths) and minimizes your liabilities (weaknesses).  One can, of course and should always, continue to work on minimizing one’s weaknesses.

The second important thing that the job seeker must be doing is networking. And the job seeker must keep the network viable and constantly expanding. You never know when someone will know someone who is searching for the very talent that you have.

A third important thing is not to sit around and mope if you can’t immediately find the job that fits your skills, talents or passion. Krysia Mossakowski, a sociologist at the University of Miami, found that a long bout of unemployment in young adults provokes long lasting changes in behavior and mental health. Therefore, it is vital that one have a job any job no matter what, even a non-paying job as an intern, to fill the time while you are seeking the desired job. This will keep you in good health and will look well on your résumé even if it only means that you showed up regularly and on time.

I recommend that our grandchildren who are close to entering this new work world get a copy of the book. You can download it on your Kindle or I-Pad. Parents and grandparents of our young folk should also get a copy of the book so you can add some ideas that might help. All generations might want to read some of the other books that are referenced by the authors, as well.

Our children’s generation will need all the help and understanding that they can get from us at this critical time in history when they alone will be experiencing what their parents, their grandparents and their teachers never experienced or maybe could not even have imagined.

A FEW EXAMPLES FOR FURTHER READING

• “Free Agent Nation: The Future of Working for Yourself”
• The author explores the attitudes toward autonomy, informal networks and self-constructed safety nets of the self-employed.
• “The Brand You 50: Or
  Fifty Ways
  to Transform Yourself from and Employee into a Brand that Shouts Distinction”
• The author says: ‘You should think about what makes you stand out and then aggressively promote those distinctive skills, accomploishments and passions that make up your personal brand-just like a companywiould promote its products and services.”
• “Connected: The Surprising Power of Our Social Networks and How They Shape Our Lives”
• The social scientists who authored this book argue that connections up to three degrees away from us have a profound effect on our mind and body.