Charlie Sheen, Congress, and the end of the world

Let’s see, today is March 8, 2011.  What do you suppose was going on one year ago today?  Lets see if we find out.

Seems that Iraq was trying to hold elections, and terrorists were blowing up bombs and killing people to keep them from going to the polls. Looking at today’s news, the only thing missing is the elections.  They are still at it, people are rioting , terrorists are planting bombs in shadows.  No progress, just more death.   And we went to war for more than 10 years to change this….how?

The nation of Chile was devastated by a powerful 8.8 magnitude earthquake a few days prior to March 8, 2010 (actually on Feb. 27 of that year). This tragedy left lots of folks dead, injured and homeless. Today they got a scary reminder.  A 6.2 magnitude quake rattled northern Chile this morning, but so far there have been no reports of injury or damage.

The stock market a year ago today was seeing some gains and the DOW closed above 10,500. Everybody thought that was a good thing.  For the last few days, the stock market has been headed back toward that mark in response to the skyrocketing oil prices and civil war in Libya, but no one thinks its good time.  Last time the arrows indication the market’s moves were green, but lately they’ve been red and pointed down.   At the time of this writing, it appears that the market has regained some of its losses over the last few days and the DOW is above 12,200.  We’ll see how long it stays that way.

Speaking of skyrocketing oil, crude at the time of this writing was at $104.76.  A year ago today it was $68.01. Last year gasoline prices were around $2.67 or so here in Arkansas, today I noticed they had climbed to $3.45.  We’ve definitely had change in this regard, though not in a good direction.  Oil and gasoline rose to well over four dollars in July of 2008, and was one of the major causes of our economic disaster that year.  High energy prices and an over extended housing market brought the American economy to its knees, and in spite of propaganda to the contrary, it’s still not on its feet completely.  If gas spikes that high again, it may bring it down for good. Opening drilling in our own oil fields was dismissed then by our President because it wouldn’t help the crisis. Said it would take years to get to, so there’d be no point.  Well, had we started then, we’d be 3 years closer to it than we are now and rising oil prices might not be the crisis it is now.

Other news from a year ago?  Well it doesn’t really matter. There’s unrest in the mid-east, but there has been for what, 6000 years or so?  The faces and names change, but the stories don’t.  Same for Hollywood. Today it’s Charlie Sheen, a year ago it was someone else burning out on cocaine or anorexia or some other nonsense.  Tomorrow, it will probably still be Sheen, but eventually he’ll be replaced by another out of control life going down in flames.  Our economy is crashing or recovering, and our politicians…well, status quo seems to be immovable.  They continue to waste tax dollars at amazing levels.  Wisconsin state politicians have even found a better way to do that…they go hide in Indiana [edit...a reader tells me it was Illnois, not Indiana, sorry.]  I could understand a day or two to make a point, but they’ve carried it well beyond the legitimate protest point and should in my opinion be relieved of their duties and replaced.  Time to stop screwing around and solve the problems.  They don’t want to be part of it, fine. Stay in the other state.

Come on folks…elected officials work for us.  If you had made as big a mess at your job as these people have, you’d have been fired, and rightly so.  So, ok, we haven’t been paying attention, so we share in the blame. We’ve neglected going to the polls and participating in the process and these folks have been allowed to run amok.  Yes, boys and girls, it’s our fault for not taking them to task before this, so go to the polls on the next chance you get and send them a message.  The recent turnover in the House of Representatives should have served noticed that we were paying attention again, but it obviously has not.   We obviously need to send a stronger nudge.   Either they work for us, and I do mean FOR US, or they don’t get to keep the seats.

Working for us means making choices in our behalf that we approve of and that are in the best interest of the country.  Take for instance, this push by the Obama administration to get electric cars into development.  I agree that an alternative to petroleum powered cars must be found, but I don’t think that the full electric battery powered car is the answer.  It could be a stop gap, but it will never be a permanent solution.  Americans are a people on the move.  We go where we want, when we want and none of us are willing to give that up.  Electric cars severely limit this ability.  To just get back and forth to work, they might be ok for those who live in the city and can drive at low speeds to get to the market and to work and such.  What happens when it’s time for a vacation? If you live in New York and decide to go to California, it will take nearly a month in your electric car just to get there, assuming you can get the full 100 miles or so that they all tout as a cruising range.  If you find that funny, lets do some math.  Google Maps suggests three routes to get from New York City to Los Angeles.  One is 2790 miles, the second ins 2778 miles and the third is 2810 miles.   All three are close enough to call it 2800 miles.  If you can only drive 100 miles a day, you’re talking 28 days to get there.  In a normal car, it would be about 56 hours if you average 50 mph.  If you take your time and only drive 12 hours at a time, you’d be there in 4 ½ days. You’d also have to figure out some way to overcome the frustration of only being on the road for 2 hours at a time as well, and hope you find a place to stay with a recharging station for the 16 or more hours it will take to recharge. While that’s going on, you’ll be on foot or at the mercy of cab drivers  to get to you things to do while your car sits at the hotel and sucks up electricity.  You would have to save up a lot of vacation time, and a pile of money to stay in hotels for two months.

Alternately, you could take some sort of public transportation like an airline or train or maybe even a bus.  Airline could have you there in a matter of hours, with a great deal of aggravation (getting groped, irradiated, etc by the TSA) and expense.  A train would probably get you there in a week or so assuming you had access to rail service where you live and a bus could probably get you there in 2 weeks.  They stop at every town they come across, remember.  Traveling cross country via mass transit limits your options considerably as well.  In your car, if you see a sign that says something about the world’s largest mushroom, you can take the appropriate exit and go see it if you wish. On a bus, train or plane, that ain’t happening.  You can always get off at the next scheduled stop and back track, if you can find a way, or perhaps rent a car which you’ll have to do with any of these methods once you reach your destination. Sounds like a great time to me.  In fact, I have experienced this.  We loaded up and flew somewhere once, but I didn’t rent a car.  We had booked a hotel right on the beach near all the attractions so we thought we’d be fine on foot or occasionally using a cab.  Well, we had a good time on the vacation, but we’ll never do that again.  Every time we got in a cab it was 40 bucks.  At one point I even considered buying a couple of department store bicycles to use during our stay.  Would have been far cheaper than the cab fare we doled out.  Ever since then, we’ve had a method of self transport when we’ve gone anywhere.  

At any rate, why would we pursue the electric car so vigorously, when there is an alternative that is very similar to what we do now?  No, I’m not talking about ethanol, though that is at least a renewable energy source.   I’m talking the hydrogen fuel cell powered vehicle.  Something similar to the Honda Clarity.  It can be driven like a normal car, at normal speeds and has a range of some 300 miles or so before it needs refueled.  It refuels like a normal car, in that you can pull up to a hydrogen dispensing unit, refill your fuel cell and be on your way in about 10 minutes, as opposed to 16 hours in a plug in electric. Its only emissions are heat and water vapor, so it’s very clean to operate.  Its manufacture does no more damage to the environment than a normal car, and is much less damaging than the plug in electric in that respect.   So why is there so much interest in and push for the plug in electric?  Why not build hydrogen refueling stations and develop the means to produce, transport and store hydrogen safely instead of fooling about with battery powered cars?

Our President has demonstrated a desire to transform America into something more….European.  He likes socialized medicine for some reason. Heaven knows it’s been a failure in every country that’s tried it.  Europe has a much more extensive rail system that we do, and he pushes hard for that, even though Amtrak has been a money pit that has never been profitable. The English rail is the butt of endless jokes even by the English.  If electric cars are eventually mandated, that would force people to use the rail system for longer distance travel, so maybe that’s why he’s so interested in it.  Factories and other employers here would have to become much more forgiving of people coming in late if that becomes a reality, because the trains in Europe are by reputation seldom on time. Still, he could claim success with the rail projects if other means of transportation were as neutered as the electric car.

I for one am not interested in making America more European.  We did not become the world’s greatest super power by imitating our European neighbors.  Not that there’s anything wrong with Europe, I think it is a marvelous place, steeped in centuries of culture and history that is absolutely fascinating.  Nevertheless, 235 years ago this nation decided to do things its own way; to leave behind the old ways and forge ahead on its own.  Sure, we made mistakes along the way. We made some enemies too. But we made a great many friends, and have risen to be the shining example of just how successful a nation can be.   When disaster strikes, we can, have and will offer aid to any nation, friend and foe alike.  Our success is slipping away, however, because we have tried too hard to not offend, to be politically correct, to become multicultural, multilingual, even apologizing for our successes.  Well, to that I say “bollocks”.  We need to climb back up on top, stop that nonsense and make our economy thrive, and put our own ingenuity and inventiveness back to work to solve our problems ourselves.  That’s not going to happen riding around in electric cars and bullet trains.  Sure, we’ll make some enemies by being successful, but they’ll get over it.  If America falls, the rest of the world will fall as well.  The entire planet will descend into chaos and the nut jobs of the world like Imadikkahed (or whatever his name is) in Iran will wage war after war of oppression, till there is nothing left.  If America falls, it truly will be the   End of the World (click to listen).