While we battle internally over the shooting war, the oil cartel led by our most lethal enemy's are waging a war on our economy that the Democratic Party continues to deny.

 

The Democrats in congress refuse to act on allowing oil exploration and drillinging a solar panel system, and proposes to invest $400 million on a first phase 300 megawatt solar system They are being opposed by environmentalists who call it “the stuff of fantasy”, and must know more than the people willing to invest $400 million. Now if a solar energy system after a successful quarter million dollar development program is fantasy, that leaves nuclear and windmills as alternatives.

 Ted Kennedy and Walter Cronkite oppose wind mills in Nantucket sound because the proposed location is only four miles from their front yard. Some wind farms in California are opposed because of danger to migratory birds and others by the Kennedy style NIBY opposition.

MSNBC reported that a consortium of eight companies has proposed to build two nuclear power plants if approvals can be reached. Four of six possible locations are located with existing nuclear facilities. Completion, if approved, is projected to be in 2014 if all goes well. Obama says we can’t explore for more oil until we solve the nuclear waste problem. So far, we have been unable to get agreement on disposal of existing nuclear waste and see nothing in the making.

We will continue to allow the Political Science carbon lynch mob to hang Geophysical Science while paying inflated prices to the to the oil cartel and while selling American economy at cut rate prices. Meanwhile, Israel is likely to attack Iranian nuclear developments just after the election and before end of this year, so get ready for long gas lines to buy $5.00 plus per gallon gas by Christmas and for a long long time thereafter.

 

June 30, 2008

                  THE FROG THEORY   If you drop a frog in boiling water he will leap right out.  If you slowly heat the water he will be content until it's too late to get out.  That is exactly how history works.  It moves slowly and we never really see any danger until it's too late.

Remember how suppressed workers were before unions came along?  The unions leveled the playing field.  Unfortunately, over a long period of time the pendulum swung too far.  Slowly, businesses and factories closed and jobs left the country.  We were comfortable and didn't see the change coming.  We blamed everyone except ourselves for what happened.  We weren't alert to how slow things change over time.  

World War II, and the Korean War, demonstrated how powerful a united nation could be.  Our nation, and our families, were united.  The father was the head of the family and the President was the head of the nation.  Both were highly respected.  We were content and happy.    We were good at fighting a hot war but we were unprepared to fight a cold war with the communists in the 50's. They knew they couldn't change us but they didn't care.  Their philosophy was to wait it out and capture the minds of our children.  They loaded our colleges with many of their professors and waited.  It didn't take long to see the results.    The 60''s ushered in the radicals, drug culture, student protesters, and the Vietnam War.  The aim of the cold war was to divide and conquer.

They divided our families and the nation.  The secret to defeating a polite and respectful people is to scream.  The louder and longer you scream the better your chance of winning.  Radicals are masters at this form of attack.  They know if you constantly scream and repeat a lie it will eventually become the truth.    The media, and Hollywood, hammered us with hate America themes and stories.  Our service men, and women, were jeered, cursed, and spit on.  Even the people, who latter wanted to become their President, thrashed them.  We lost our first War in history.  There was no hero's homecoming for our fighting men and women.   

The Reverend King, who was raised in the old school, peacefully changed the race issue and united the people.  When he died the new breed of leaders like the Jesse Jackson's, Lewis Farakon,'s Al Sharpton's, and Rev. Wright's put a lid on his efforts and turned racism into a money making machine.   Corporations were green-mailed by threats of protests, product boycotts, or endless lawsuits.  Every issue, large or small, became a race issue.  The public recoiled in fear of being called a racist.  Their voices were silenced because one word could cost you a career, get you fired, or get you sued.    Even politicians buckled under to the pressure.  The Florida legislature issued a formal apology for having slavery 200 years ago.  They were thanked by being asked for compensation.  America didn't capture slaves and bring them to America.  Their own people sold them to slave traders from several nations. 

This election year could be the turning point in our history because the frog theory has come into play.  It's time to step back and look at how the country has slowly changed since the cold war started.  Don't get caught up in all the hype.    George McGovern was the first Presidential candidate to test the waters with college students.  The Clinton's played a big role in his campaign.  It was the worst campaign ever run.  He was crushed in the election.   Step two was to infiltrate all the information vehicles such as radio, newspapers, magazines, TV and movies.  They were quite successful at that.  Jimmy Carter was the first President to demonstrate the leadership skills of the far left.  Weak military, high taxes, runaway inflation, 19% mortgage rates, and plain incompetence ended his career in Washington.  Iran, a small country at the time, took American hostages and kicked sand in our face.  By negotiating from weakness Carter could not get the hostages released. 

The big benefit of the Carter years is that they were followed by the Reagan years.  The nation got a clear look at the difference between a weak nation and a strong nation.  Every student should know this difference.  When Ronald Reagan took over the hostages were quickly released, taxes were lowered, inflation dropped, mortgage rates dropped, and the military was strengthened.  Russia quickly waved the white flag and waited for another Democrat term. 

Clinton took over Carters uncompleted social programs.  He weakened the military and tried to pass large government programs.  An Intern derailed his Presidency.  While he was tied up with his personal problems his lawyers ran the country.  He passed up three opportunities to take out Osama Bin Laden.  This eventually cost us the loss of our Twin Towers, thousands of American lives, and got us involved in a war with Iraq.   By the end of his term the left had captured a large share of the media and it flexed its muscle in 2000.  The hate Bush campaign got off to a roaring start.  The brainwashing theory of repeating the same story over and over again was launched. 

There were endless stories about our evil nation and its President.  Top-secret plans were leaked to the press and printed for the entire world to see.  Hollywood cranked out documentaries about the evil Bush administration and our evil military. They laid the groundwork for the next election.  The ACLU flooded the courts with lawsuits and the Democrat party became a law firm.  Almost every incumbent, or his or her spouse, is a lawyer.   They now have the perfect candidate because they can squash criticism by playing the race card.  If you don't like Obama, or criticize him, you are a racist.  They can hide his inexperience and background by turning him into a rock star and singing change and hope.

They don't tell us what kind of change, or how it will be done, only that you should hope for the best.  By keeping the hype going they don't have to put anything of substance on the table.    The only thing we really know about Obama is that his wife has never been proud to be an American.  They want us to believe that his liberal college professors, Rev. Pfleger, his ties to radicals Bill Ayer and Lewis Farakon, and listening to the Rev. Wright's hate talks for 20 years, had no influence on his thinking.  If they didn't, then who did?  He wasn't in business and didn't see fit to serve his country.  These people launched his political career and their organizations received earmarks in return for their campaign donations and political help. They must have had some influence. 

Rev. Wr ight's church received over $15 million.  That's only one small local church.  The change being promoted is a change back to the Carter years.  It started in 2006 when the lawyer party took over.  There have been endless lawsuits and investigations in retaliation for the Clinton years.  It keeps the lawyers busy but does nothing for the economy.  The economy has been in a downward spiral since they took over.   Returning to the Carter years of high taxes, high inflation, and a weak military is not the change we are looking for.  We cannot cower to a bunch of crazies whose only goal in life is to kill us.

The old sage's (over 50) will have to play a big role in this election.  The young people simply don't know what the aged know.  The advantage of aging is the knowledge you accumulated.  You know what United States means.  You know what the seldom-heard word respect means.  You know how wonderful freedom and independence is.  You know the difference between a strong and a weak nation; and you know what it takes to keep it strong.  You know history because you have lived it.    Although the old guard is dying off, and getting too tired to fight, they have to muster one more charge.  If they don't, our children, and grandchildren, will never know the joy and freedom that is the bedrock of our country.  The heat is slowly being turned up and the water is getting hot.  The old frogs better start jumping before it's too late.        

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Indecision And Litigation Turn America Into A Can't-Do Nation. This emailed editorial came to Willie from a friend and it so well defines a fundamental problem confronting this country that he felt it should be shared with any who find this blog of interest.

By VICTOR DAVIS HANSON | Thursday, June 26, 2008

We have become a nation of second-guessing Hamlets. Shakespeare warned us about the dangers of "thinking too precisely." His poor Danish prince lost "the name of action" as he dithered and sighed that "conscience does make cowards of us all." With gas above $4 a gallon, the public is finally waking up to the fact that for decades the U.S. has not been developing known petroleum reserves in Alaska, in our coastal waters or off the continental shelf. Jittery Hamlets apparently forgot that gas comes from oil — and that before you can fill your tank, you must take risks to fill a tanker.

It took 410 days to build the Empire State Building and two years to put up the Eiffel Tower. But ground zero is still ground zero. Building things is a good indication of the relative confidence of a society. But the last American gasoline refinery was built almost three decades ago. As "cowards of our conscience," we've come up with countless mitigating reasons not to build a new one. Our inaction has meant that our nation's gasoline facilities have grown old, out of date and dangerous. Maybe Americans can instead substitute plug-in, next-generation electric cars that can be charged at night on the nation's grid powered by nuclear power plants? Wrong again. We haven't issued a single new license that actually led to the building of a nuclear power plant in more than 30 years.

Shakespeare's Hamlet again would warn second-guessing Americans, "A thought, which, quarter'd, hath but one part wisdom/And ever three parts coward." The problem of inaction extends far beyond the present energy crisis. Whatever one thinks about the wisdom of a border fence with Mexico, President Bush signed into law a bill passed by both houses of Congress authorizing more than 700 miles of fencing at key junctures. This was back in 2006. Environmentalists and private property owners tried to legally challenge the fence. And the Mexican government — the same government that publishes comic books instructing its citizens on how to sneak across illegally into the U.S. — cried foul. As a result, nearly two years later, the fence is barely half-finished.

We are nearing the seventh anniversary of the destruction of the World Trade Center. Its replacement — the Freedom Tower — should have been a sign of our determination and grit right after 9/11. But it is only now reaching street level. Owners, renters, builders and government have all fought endlessly over the design, cost and liability. In contrast, in the midst of the Great Depression, our far-poorer grandparents built the Empire State Building in 410 days — not a perfect design, but one good enough to withstand a fuel-laden World War II-era bomber that crashed into it. Despite unsophisticated 19th-century architectural and engineering science, not to mention legions of snooty French art critics, the Eiffel Tower in Paris was finished in a little over two years and is as popular as ever well over a century later.

In my home state of California, we spent a decade arguing over the replacement for portions of the aging and earthquake-susceptible San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Now that the design has finally been agreed to, it will be several years before it is finished. That's quite a contrast to the original bridge that was completed in just over three years. California is also in yet another predictable drought and ensuing water shortage. Despite strict conservation and new water-saving technology, we simply don't have enough water for households, recreation, industry and agriculture. Building new dams, reservoirs and canals would apparently be seen as unimaginative and relics of the 20th century.

The causes of this paralysis are clear. Action entails risks and consequences. Mere thinking doesn't. In our litigious society, as soon as someone finally does something, someone else can become wealthy by finding some fault in it. Meanwhile, a less fussy, more confident world abroad drills, and builds nuclear plants, refineries, dams and canals to feed and fuel millions who want what we take for granted. In our present comfort, Americans don't seem to understand nature. We believe our climate-controlled homes, comfortable offices and easy air and car travel are like grass or trees: They should sprout up on their own for our benefit. Americans also harp about the faults of prior generations. We would never repeat their blunders — even as we don't seem to mind using the power plants, bridges and buildings that they handed down to us.

Finally, high technology and the good life have turned us into utopians, fussy perfectionists who demand heaven on earth. Anytime a sound proposal seems short of perfect, we consider it not good, rather than good enough. Hamlet asked, "To be, or not to be: That is the question." In our growing shortages of infrastructure, food, fuel and water, we've already answered that: "Not to be!"

 

Willie sees letters every day that show  a shallow understanding of our national problems. The say we shouldn't drill for oil because it won't affect the price for ten years. Had Clinton signed the energy bill over ten years ago, we wouldn't be hocking our country to the oil cartels today. Alternatives to oil are not yet technically  or functionally capable to improve today's problems so they too can take ten or more years to affect oil prices.

 

“We have so many new technologies. Cars that use less gas, high speed trains, urban mass transit, energy efficient buildings…” Letter: UT June 17.

Not one of these is a “new” technology except better auto mileage. Had we started ten years ago, all of them could be in use today making the use of a Visa card to the oil cartel unnecessary. Democrats say “We can’t drill our way out”… We could have had plenty of oil today had Clinton not vetoed the energy bill ten years ago. Technology advances cannot be legislated. The SUV is an invention of Congressional attempts to do it.

It has taken more than ten years for the industry to develop an automobile for a family of five to get close to 40 MPG and be capable of safely competing on freeways with the eighteen wheelers. It took developing new materials, new electronics, new  manufacturing technologies. Urban mass transit, high speed trains, energy efficient buildings have been available all along but they will take ten years to make an impact on oil usage if we start catching up now because we didn't start ten years ago.  As long as only politicians are elected who campaign on what could be, and do not tell us what will take to make it happen, fixing the oil crisis, Social Security, medical care and being able to afford travel to grandma’s house wont happen.

 

 

Air travel is no longer a pleasant journey. A single mode for mass long distance travel is a major danger to the security and economy of the nation. Willie thinks it is time for a national high speed elevated rail system.

 

How much longer can the United States continue to rely on a single mode of long range mass transportation? Thousands of airline passengers have been stranded by weather this year and recently thousands more stranded by lax maintenance programs by one airline, and then another with bureaucratic reaction by the FAA as Willis writes this letter. Airlines are operating at near peak loads. Personal delays due to bumped and flight cancellation recovery destroys business and leisure travel plans, causes significant non-recoverable reservations and hotel costs to passengers and adds up millions of dollars lost to the economy. Even a fifteen minute late arrival can result in being bumped from a connecting flight on the same airline. It happened to me at JFK on a trip to Europe on Delta. Now United Airlines has announced retiring a hundred planes and layoffs of over 1400 employees and other airlines are announcing similar reductions in seats,

With early airport arrival security demands and a potential of extended travel delays in air travel, auto often unfortunately becomes the only choice. Now airlines are announcing a $15 charge for first checked baggage. Carry-on security provisions will automatically cause most passengers to have to pay the fee to take normal travel items on their trip. Today’s passenger rail travel is of little value as a significant alternative having been severely neglected and made subservient to the freight lines schedules and their poorly maintained track. The public has already made measurable cutbacks in leisure travel and businesses must reduce business travel. There also is the environmental impact of air travel’s high carbon emissions dumped in the upper atmosphere and around despite improved engine performance.

Our alternative Interstate highway system is an inefficient fuel use means for individual travel, has become near prohibitive with increasing gas costs and is unacceptable time wise for commercial business travel of any distance.

With the world’s increasing demand for fossil fuels and the still questionable time required for technological advances to have a significant reduction in their use for transportation, isn't’t it time for a national program for elevated all weather rail that offers the most fuel efficient high speed transportation system per passenger mile? Locomotives have been “hybrid” for years. Why should Europe and Asia lead in advancing this transportation advantage?  Canada’s Bombardier has just announced a new rail system in Italy.

One of Eisenhower’s programs for which he is most remembered was the Interstate highways. The need for unimpeded motorized vehicle cross-country transit as a military requirement became the start for our present interstate system. But this does not provide the travel speeds in demand today and with $4.00 plus gas cost is becoming prohibitive for leisure. Isn't’t it time we recognize the dangers to today’s national security and economy by relying on air travel as a single mass transit system constantly at the mercy of the weather and of both infrastructure and satellite communications disruption by terrorist actions? Why not a national high speed rail system as a nation-wide alternative that offers national security, public convenience  and creates a huge economic boost by offering thousands of jobs? It provides a politically strong proposal as the major jobs can’t be sent off shore and the moving stock provides a place for developing a new high tech industry requiring a large number of under-employed blue-collar, construction workers as well as engineers. It would help revive some of the lost “smoke-stack” industry in areas of present high unemployment and draw significant organized labor support.

Why can’t the United States compete with Siemens and Bombardier in the mass transportation field with some government support and financial incentives? Let’s have a National High Speed Rail program. The timing is now. A high speed railprogram will bring new life to America’s skilled workforce. What could be more politically powerful than that headline for a Presidential candidate?

June 7, 2008

San Diego transit districts are raising fares and reducing bus routes. Gasoline has reached $4.30 and still rising. It is time for the City to imitate a comprehensive state-of-the-technology mass transit system that can be expanded to full county.

Why do we continue to invest millions on roadways and parking infrastructure that confine city wide public access to automobiles and busses while costs for their operation are skyrocketing and the environmental impact increases?  A five story parking garage recently proposed for the airport can only add to traffic and carbon emissions. Where are the people like those who saw the need and organized the Electric Rapid Transit Company to provide San Diego with the first electric streetcars on the West Coast in 1887? Today, additional light rail requires hundreds of properties to be acquired by eminent domain with both costly and lengthily court battles. New surface routes within the city are politically impossible. Decreasing bus rider ship was given as a reason for reducing service It slower than auto transit, does not provide a comfortable or pleasant ride and is becoming more costly.

The 1964/65 New York Worlds Fair had automated models of the “future” cities that featured elevated mass transit. The 1962 Seattle Worlds Fair featured similar exhibits plus an active one mile functioning elevated mass transit system slightly over one mile long that is still operating today as the Seattle monorail. In 1963, Alweg offered to build a similar 43 mile system in Los Angeles for under $106 million with private financing. Some of the LA subway costs per mile exceeded that. Elevated monorail systems have become a primary means of daily transit for millions of commuters in the Pacific Rim countries. It is the only logical system for bringing mass transit in built-up cities. The air space over city streets for monorail systems does not have property acquisition problems except in a very few areas for boarding platforms. Even these can be constructed over city streets. This makes design of routes that provide the maximum convenience to the public feasible and financially viable. This is the kind of transit vision that we need for San Diego with today’s projections of gasoline costs projected to reach $5.00 before the summer is over.

Monorail systems are area and people friendly in many ways. They do not divide communities, create traffic accident potentials and are not delayed by surface accident tie-ups, are quiet in operations, and without crossing gates. They offer significant operations advantages beyond just using clean electric power. They can operate at high speeds on three minute intervals without drivers, making optimum scheduling to load variations independent of labor rules and demands. Their maintenance cost are lower and availability greater. The elevated systems with pre cast supports and guideways make minimal construction impacts on a community, are significantly lower than light rail costs, minimize construction time in the area and are without major eminent domain delays and costs.

It is unlikely that a San Diego City Council will ever have the vision and financial acumen to propose and initiate a forward thinking transit system. They are still buryed in 1900 transit thinking. We do have a new toll road developed by private funds that already appears to be headed for being a successful investment. The right away for a monorail system can be provided by the city at no cost. Surely there is an investment group that sees a need, a minimum property investment cost, an eager customer and excellent financial return opportunity for a privately funded mass transit system in San Diego.

See the website www.sdmonorail.com

Willie

June 5, 2008

Willie received the following in an email with wide distribution. He takes no credit for originating the thoughts expressed but, unhappily, believes them to be accurate.

How Long Do We Have?

"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as 
a permanent form of government."

"A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters 
discover they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public 
treasury."

"From that moment on, the majority always vote for the candidates who 
promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result 
that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal 
policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."

"The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the 
beginning of history, has been about 200 years."

"During those 200 years, those nations always progressed through the 
following sequence:

1. from bondage to spiritual faith;
2. from spiritual faith to great courage;
3. from courage to liberty;
4. from liberty to abundance;
5. from abundance to complacency;
6. from complacency to apathy;
7. from apathy to dependence;
8. From dependence back into bondage"

The nomination of Barak Obama as the Democratic party's candidate for President shows we have reached the stage of apathy progressing into dependence. Obama has promised every social, health and military problem facing the Country today will be fixed by His government. The only encouraging thing is that he has demonstrated no ability to initiate or move legislation on any of these programs in his "long" career in the Senate. But there is another power with their dependence moves already in draft form.

The Senate is probably the largest collection of egocentrics in the Country and seniority is the governing status stripe. How did this group jump on the junior Senator Obama wagon so eagerly? Remember the movie Mr Smith Goes To Washington and numerous subsequent movie and television shows where the Old Guard found a young carismatic, but naive, individual whom they supported because they felt he could be controlled by the senior power group. Where in the movie, Mr Smith turned on them, a not likely Obama acton. And the candidate's "turn" was on a single item, not total government. The Democratic Old Guard with a President Obama will complete the move from apathy to dependence and to bondage

And those in another world who would be our masters are already active toward makeing it happen.

Willie

 

June 3 2008

Air travel has become no longer an enjoyable adventure, but it is an adventure. Today, United Airlines announced removal from service of a hundred aircraft and over 1400 employees to be laid off.  Willie believes the time is here for a major National program to develop high speed rail transportation.

===============================================================================================

How much longer can the United States continue to rely on a single mode of long range mass transportation? Thousands of airline passengers have been stranded by weather this year and recently thousands more stranded by lax maintenance programs by one airline and then another and a third as I write this letter. Airlines are operating at near peak loads. Personal delays due to bumped and flight cancellation recovery destroys business and leisure travel plans, causes significant non-recoverable reservations and hotel costs to passengers and adds up millions of dollars lost to the economy. Even a fifteen minute late arrival can result in being bumped from a connecting flight on the same airline. It happened to Willie at JFK on a trip to Europe on Delta. Meanwhile, United Airlines announced today that following a 537 million dollar loss in first quarter, 100 aircraft are being taken out of service and over 1400 jobs are being cut

Our alternative Interstate highway system is an inefficient means of fuel use and rising costs for individual travel and is unacceptable time wise for commercial business travel of any distance. With early airport arrival security demands and a potential of extended travel delays in air travel, auto often becomes the only choice, and the public is cutting back on travel due to air travel problems. Passenger rail travel today has little value as an alternative having been severely neglected and made subservient to the freight lines schedules and their poorly maintained track.

There also is the environmental impact of air travel’s high carbon emissions dumped in the upper atmosphere and around airports with virtually no alternative on the horizon for further growth.  With the world’s increasing demand for fossil fuels and the still questionable time required for technological advances to have a significant reduction in their use for transportation, isn’t it time for a national program for elevated all weather rail that offers the most fuel efficient high speed transportation system per passenger mile? Why should Europe and Asia lead in advancing this transportation advantage? Canada’s Bombardier has just announced a new rail system in Italy.

One of Eisenhower’s programs for which he is most remembered was the Interstate highways. The need for unimpeded motorized vehicle cross-country transit as a military requirement became the start for our present interstate system. Isn’t it time we recognize the dangers to today’s national security and economy by relying on a single mass transit system that is constantly at the mercy of the weather and of both infrastructure and satellite communications disruption by terrorist actions? Why not a Presidential campaign proposal for a national high speed rail system that offers national security, public convenience and a provides a huge economic boost by offering thousands of jobs while providing a nation-wide alternative to air travel that has become no longer a reliable manner for individual travel?

It provides a politically strong proposal as the major jobs can’t be sent off shore and the moving stock provides a place for developing a new high tech industry requiring a large number of under-employed blue-collar, construction workers as well as engineers. It would help revive some of the lost “smoke-stack” industry in areas of present high unemployment and draw significant organized labor support.

“High speed rail plan will bring new life to America’s skilled workforce” What could be more politically powerful than that headline?

Why can’t the United States compete with Siemens and Bombardier in the mass transportation field with some government support and financial incentives? Let’s have a National High Speed Rail program. The timing is now.

     . 

 

November 22, 2007

How can the Congress criticize Nouri al-Maliki and the Iraqi legislature for not resolving national issues when they are acting the same way? Leave out the names on any discussion of current events in Iraq and Washington and it is difficult to tell where the inaction is occurring.

==========================================================================================

The 2000 Presidential election created a political divide between the Democrat Party, Republican Party and in many Democrat voters’ emotions that reached the level of publicly expressed hate for President Bush that sometimes seems as comparable to the divides between Shia and Sunni religions in Iraq. Despite subsequent confirmation of the Bush majority count in Florida by liberal biased media and the subsequent Electoral College election of Bush, this divide has become an expanding sore in political emotions that has prevented meaningful legislation on problems critical to our future. Fortunately, America has not yet descended to the Muslim culture level of resolving such disputes by suicide bombings and mass murder of those who disagree with their beliefs.

 

After loudly criticizing the Iraqi Parliament for their summer recess while major problems remained unresolved, the US Congress is on a vacation until December. (Technically, by Harry Reid’s Senate  parliamentary political maneuver to prevent Bush making judicial appointments, the Senate is in session with a daily call to order and a close by a couple of “caretakers”.)  Social Security, medical care, and a war against radical Muslimism and their future attacks on our quality of life and for our existence as a free society should be as critical to the Democrats as Iraqi meeting milestones established by this Democrat controlled US Congress while doing so poorly themselves.

 

Political progress in forming a nation moves slowly. It took the Second Continental Congress from 1775 until 1776 to agree on the Declaration of Independence, from 1176 to 1781 to write the Articles of Confederation. It took from February 1787 to September 1787 to agree on the words for the Constitution and until June 1788 for the minimum of nine states to ratify the document. And there were no religious revolutionaries blowing themselves up to kill those holding opposing views and anyone nearby including children. At the time of the December 2006 Iraqi election, the Iraqi did not even have equivalents to our thirteen politically functioning states to elect a Continental Congress.

 

The Democrats give no credit to the progress being reported in the military now that is has become recognized by even the national press corps and the thousands of refugee Iraqi returning from Syria. Rather, they have fallen back on blaming the slow political progress toward legislative and constitutional organization as an excuse to force loss of the United States military successes by withholding funds to continue progress to a successful conclusion and honorable withdrawal. That sore from the 2000 election would have the United States abandon Iraq and the war against radical Islam for no purpose than a belief that it strikes a blow against Bush. It is not a true

 

Maybe it is fortunate that we are seeing only hypocrisy opposing a war that is being waged to keep us reasonably free of suicide bombers and increasingly dangerous travel. The radical Moslems would not leave it to hypocrisy alone.

 

Willie

 

    ====================================================================================

The Experts are all predicting severe air travel problems over the Thanksgiving holidays. Willie can only hope that other San Diego travelers have a better experience than Willie had on a Delta Airlines flight to Athens Greece. He takes this opportunity to relay his mis-adventures with Delta by using today's Blog to include an copy of his letter, with some editing on Willies problems with Delta as a handicapped traveler, that was sent to the CEO of Delta on October 24. To date there has been no response from Delta.

=========================================================================================

San Diego                            November 16,  2007

                                                                                                                                                                                                                             October 24, 2007

Richard Anderson, CEO

Delta Air Lines, Inc.

P, O, Box 20706

Atlanta, GA 30320-6001

 

Dear Mr. Anderson,

 

My first Delta Airlines flight was on a DC-3. Since that flight I have flown thousands of domestic and international travel miles, many of them with Delta, while in senior management positions for Douglas, Litton, and Hughes. My recent trip on Delta to Athens Greece from San Diego became a culmination of all negative experiences from those years piled twofold into one round trip on Delta. I cannot remember a single occasion in those years that equated to my recent Delta experiences in New York, Milan, Athens or Atlanta. With exception of two at JFK, I found no Delta employees who provided informed or correct information or assistance in navigating airports, making connections with Delta flights, lost baggage, or wheel chair assistance.

 

I am eighty seven with a handicap that limits walking to moving slowly and for short distance. I was accompanied by a younger active traveler and long term female friend to provide limited assistance in Athens. I made reservations through a travel agent experienced in planning international travel rather than on the internet in order to more likely get a pleasant travel experience.  My Delta business class reservations were for Willie and Friend on FLT. 98 to New York,  FLT 132 to Athens with return on FLT 545 to Atlanta, and first class FLT. 732 to San Diego. A one hour transfer time in New York was reduced to fifty five minutes due to a Delta change subsequent to booking. I questioned this and was assured by the travel agent that Delta supported this transfer time as acceptable at JFK. (Later confirmed by Delta Customer Service agent)

 

. I asked the flight attendant if she would get the status and gate number of the connecting flight, information provided many times in the past before landing, and was told she could not do that but assured me that Delta representatives at the gate would be able to assist me and wheel chair transport would be available. The configuration of the aircraft put first class passengers in competition with coach passengers at the exit. At the gate, there was no active Delta employee. We found one Delta uniformed female in an “off duty” stance whom I asked about the Athens flight. Her response in an unconcerned “too bad” manner was that the flight had departed ten minutes ago. She added that she “heard” they were working on rebooking passengers at gate eleven. The flight to Athens had left the gate twenty five minutes ahead of schedule. I was later told they needed the gate, so presumably my seats were filled by stand-bys rather than wait for two passengers in the landing stack.

 

After a wait in line at the Delta first class counter for rebooking we encountered an agent who had no idea of what she should do about booking us on another flight. After several minutes looking at the display and punching the keyboard, she went for someone else for instructions. That person consulted the display, determined we were at the wrong counter and directed us to the international counter with “go down that way and turn right”. We arrived at the Delta’s Elite International counter line approximately forty minutes after leaving the San Diego aircraft. The first young man worked with my companion for alternatives that included transfers in half the cities in Europe as alternative to waiting twenty-four hours for the next Delta to Athens plane. I had a hotel reservation in Athens that was beyond the twenty four hour cancellation charge and scheduled plans for the next morning. After ten minutes or so he was joined by another young man who added suggestions of alternatives and working with my companion as they searched flight schedules. These two made an extended effort to find a suitable accommodation showing a working together attitude with a Delta customer. Finally a flight to Milan on Delta FLT 84 and transfer to an Aegean FLT 661 was agreed upon followed by another fifteen minutes getting tickets issued and printed. This put our scheduled arrival in Athens over six hours late and beyond our planned afternoon activity.

We had about an hour and fifteen minutes until flight time that had to include going through security, getting to a gate at some distance and being there thirty minutes before flight time so as not to get bumped again.The Delta flight arrived in Milan a few minutes ahead of time. We boarded the Aegean flight and were seated in different rows of the Economy class for the three and half hour flight to Athens. Upon arrival in Athens we found that our baggage did not arrive there with us. The Aegean attendant informed us that Delta had not delivered our baggage to Aegean but they would put it on Aegean’s next flight when ever Delta did so. By then it was too late to do anything except dinner at the hotel and re-plan seeing Athens. Fortunately, the hotel provided bathrobes so we did not have to sleep in our traveling clothes that were full of the results of JFK humidity. At six the next morning the hotel called to say they were sending up our baggage. OUR baggage was only HER baggage. My two bags did not arrive.

A call to Aegean again traced the bags as still in Delta’s possession in JFK or Milan. A call to Delta office in Athens informed me that I would have to contact Aegean. While I always hold a civil tongue and language, I can get noisy with a note of irritation that was sufficient for the Delta agent to transfer me to a customer service agent in New York. From her I was still unable to get any information on my baggage other than I should contact Aegean. I questioned her about the Athens flight leaving twenty minutes ahead of time from JFK and was told there was a shortage of gates and they could not hold seats if I was not there thirty minutes before scheduled departure even though on a connecting Delta flight. I asked that if the fifty-five minutes scheduled connection time was approved by Delta, how a half hour could be taken away for a connecting Delta flight. She confirmed as accepted the transfer schedule and added with these exact words “We schedule for a perfect world, but the world is not perfect.” So much for Delta Customer Relations.

 

After that conversation, with my clothing becoming more malodorous and with no promise from Delta or Aegean for ever getting my baggage, I spent three hours on Tuesday morning finding a men’s general clothing store for a basic wardrobe. After investing over eleven thousand dollars on transportation and reservations, I did not choose to wait in a hotel room until or if Delta found my luggage and was kind enough to provide it to Aegean for delivery on one of their not too frequent flights from Milan. A list of the items purchased is attached and I expect Delta to reimburse me in equivalent American dollars. My baggage was delivered on Wednesday morning, our third day.

 

The return flight was only a little better. Our baggage and connection was successful, but not Delta passenger relations. A call to Delta the day before scheduled flight informed me that two and a half to three hours for security and customs were required for arrival at Athens airport before departure time. We arrived about two hours and forty five minutes before departure time. At Delta check in, we found that US Customs in Athens was only a passport check and declaration of purchased items. In Atlanta, we would have to go to the baggage claim area and retrieve our baggage, then go through Delta check in and security in Atlanta.  I recognize this is not a Delta rule, but why was I told to check in more than two hours early? Upon boarding the plane for the flight to San Diego, we found that the seat backs did not recline.  So much for cross country domestic First Class travel with Delta airlines. I would rate it somewhat close to a recent trip in a Great Lakes Airline DeHavilin twin turboprop from Denver to Laramie Wyoming. The flight attendant who greets you onto the plane and checks seat belts changes to a co-pilot jacket at flight time. They did provide a wheelchair and someone to push it at the Denver terminal on the return flight.

 

This entire misadventure started with travel agent booking the Delta approved one hour transfer time, subsequently reduced to fifty minutes by Delta rescheduling, at JFK when requiring a thirty minute appearance ahead of scheduled departure time at departure gate. Twenty minutes for unloading, finding the departure gate and arriving there in order to hold a seat reservation can almost be classified as arrogance and total disregard by Delta for its passengers. High load factors today should not be reason to forget tomorrow’s traveler. The travel agent making this reservation serves the most affluent clientele in San Diego. While I am not in that category, I suspect she will find a better travel plan for future clients.

 

The attached sheet lists financial costs incurred due to Delta Business/First class service, or lack thereof, and EU mandated bumped passenger compensation for which I expect prompt and full reimbursement. I could find no Customer Service listed on the Delta website and the “EmailUs” form is not suitable for this complaint or for a bumped passenger’s request for reimbursement.

 

 

Signed by Willie

 

 

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The fact that we have a global warming happening can only be opposed by those who are unwilling to accept that reasonable proof exists it has happened before and may well happening again. How much is man's contribution is arguable just as is whether environmental measures proposed by all the various environmental factions collectivly can have even a small impact onchanging it today. Can man control the single factor that is mans contribution to the warming cycle? Willie thinks NO!

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San Diego                                      September 26, 2007

 

General Motors has been “their world” for several generations of thousands of its employees. Today, striking employees and General Motors are fighting for their existence. In 1981 Roger Smith took over as CEO of General Motors and in Willy’s view contributed greatly to start of the company’s present loss in the world market. He grew up in the world of GM finance apparently never finding out that the company business was designing and building automobiles that the public would buy and making money was dependent on the success of both. Building a higher quality and more attractive auto got lost in his financial agenda. The GM product lines lost their individual identities in order to produce his one body shell fits all models policy to reduce styling and manufacturing costs. Roger also read that the Japanese were using robots to lower assembly costs, but neglected to find out that the auto had to be designed and tooled for a non-thinking robot to assemble it.  Millions were spent on robot based assembly lines and supporting primitive computer programs that didn’t work on cars that needed humans to hand fit poorly produced parts when assembling the auto. The Japanese had found that only designing for robot assembly and quality pieces could allow assembly by robots. What has this to do with Willy’s hot topic today; global warming?

 

The earth spent millions of years developing an environment of air, land, vegetation and animal life. A reasonable balance developed in the harsh challenge for air, land and water to support the vegetation and animal life. But one form of animal life grew to become able to use, and destroy, small pieces of the food chain and supporting air, land and water. Man became the top of the chain and grew to become the big CEO of the world. To paraphrase the GM cliché, what was good for man was good for the world. As man became more successful his population increased the demand for more and more from the supporting air, land and water grew, and his ability to take added pieces of the chain grew and in time many pieces disappeared because of direct consumption or because the air, land, water, and then food supply, had been taken by man. Every human body is a heater using enough fuel to maintain an operating temperature some 25 degrees above our desired ambient air temperature and each human being has to have a cooling system to keep that temperature under control.   The problems cannot be fixed one piece at a time by attacking just the symptoms. Only changing the fundamental problem, stopping and even reversing world wide population growth, can have any long term success.

 

Today, the collective environmental movement has become the Roger Smith of the world ecology. Each group has decided that their robot is going to save a piece of the overall ecology. Over fishing has not only reduced the whale population, but many more of the sea’s contribution to the food chain, salmon being an easy one to name. But not just in the sea. Saving a fish has generated one major potential water problem in California between the people who live in the cities and the people who grow the food for the people who live in the cities. People in the non-developed countries have overpopulated the ability of the land and its fresh water supply to support them for many years. NBC News featured the water problem in Africa with on-site report of widespread water bourn diseases and a village that shared a small muddy pond with elephants and other wild life.  Despite millions of deaths and Herculean efforts to bring in food from outside, they continue to produce more babies to face starvation. Domestic meat production everywhere makes major demands on use of land and water for producing and then polluting water. Bio-fuels move from hydrocarbon air quality problems to land and water problems. The San Diego Mayor says water conservation. Can we conserve enough to support even added population demands? The City Attorney says hold added development in the city. So they develop more residences outside the city and increase the traffic problem and air pollution. 

 

Willie believes that man surely has contributed to global warming, but how much comes from man and how much is another of the normal cycles that the world has endured since the little ice age in the 1600 s period will take centuries to determine.  All the proposed environmental restraints and all the protected species laws will have no more success than Roger Smith's robots. Only by being willing to accept and addressing the fundamental cause, worldwide population growth, can reverse the contribution of man to this cycle.

 

Willie is leaving on the 30th for a ten day trip to Athens Greece and is unlikely to be writing about his musings again for a couple of weeks. He is sure all the problems that have inspired his rambling thoughts will remain unsolved for him to again do some musings about both local and national levels.

 

 

Willie

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Charley Rangel wants to recover 800 million tax lost by Bush tax cuts according to Robert Novak. Rangel, using his committee chairmanship, won’t allow “patch” to save 23 million middle class Americans snared into high taxes by general inflation pulling them into the “egregious lunacy” of the Alternate Minimum Tax rates. With housing costs averaging over $400,000 in many parts of the country, Rangel wants families making $200,000 to be included in a return to the old 36% tax rate.

 

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San Diego                                   September 18, 2007

 

An opinion by Robert Novak published in September 18 Union-Tribune provides a view of the Democrat Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee chairman, Charley Rangel and his plans for extending the Alternative Minimum Tax. The tax was originally intended for the few millionaires who had paid no taxes. With inflation, it has now snared middle class citizens who don’t pay enough tax for Rangel and who wants to regain $800 billion lost in the Bush tax cuts by expanding the number of Americans paying the top 36 percent income tax rate according to Novak.

 

To Willie, the tides that have made reversals in the party majorities have also made the seniority practice for committee chairpersons a significant reason for the chasm that has developed between the party leaderships. Gerrymandered districts nationwide guarantee a majority of districts to a predetermined party. Many districts, where the gerrymandering has not kept pace with changing demographics, have moved to the center. There, party demographic changes frequently occur that elect new representatives who will have no seniority. Meanwhile, the most extreme lawmakers in each party, locked into office by  election from the demographically static districts, generate seniority that puts them into committee chairmanships. Chairpersons determine what legislation will be submitted to the floor for vote. Those new members most likely to work on true bipartisan legislation never get an opportunity to get it to the floor while party discipline pushes them into supporting the fringe leadership. The only saving force is having a President from the party not in control of the Congress, but that is only a block to extremes and not a relationship likely to bring forth good and needed legislation.

 

In San Diego the Bull in the Crockery Shop has ventured into our surely to happen water crisis. And when there is no meaningful action in the Crockery shop, this bull is sure to rush in. We have a real and undeniable water problem facing all of San Diego County. A recent ruling by a judge that could limit San Diego water supply very soon serves well to bring the inevitable water shortage to the fore. How much longer can the City Council push this problem down the road? The “Toilet to Tap” bumper sticker name applied to one solution to the water problem rates right with “touch screen” being the solution  to all voting problems. They become battle cries for uninformed and emotional individuals and organizations who are against anything and have workable plans for less.

 

Millions of people in locations that take their water from rivers have been drinking toilet to tap water all their lives. And they then dump their toilet water back into the river for the next town down stream just as those upstream from them did. Certainly the Bull’s idea of stopping new development is not a solution as long as population continues to grow. And what business is it of the City Attorney until the Council asks for legal help? Maybe because they don’t see need help with a problem they refuse to face.

 

We are now seeing as real probably Bush’s primary reason for not replacing Gonzales much earlier. It was the knowledge that the Democrats would turn hearings for a replacement nominee into character assassination, TV ego shows and opportunities to make demands on the Executive branch not available to them under the separation of powers laid out in our Constitution. Character assassination has become a primary tool used in confirmation hearings. Only an individual with the shell of a turtle can accept an appointment to an Executive branch position requiring Senate confirmation. Surely, we miss out on service from the most competent individuals who refuse to undergo this demeaning process.

 

Willie

 

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“Weary” California lawmakers sent a bill to reduce college fees for law breaker immigrants to governor before ending 2007 session just before 3:30 AM but did not get around to health care and making every vote count by opening representative district determination from the gerrymandered party lock of the present.

 

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San Diego                                   September 13, 2007

 

The UT reports that Democrat Speaker Núñez said “I think this has been a pretty good legislative year”. They did pass laws to require restaurant chains to add nutrition information to their menus,  make illegal immigrants eligible for tax-payer money to attend University California, California State and state community colleges, chase down motorists who smoke while a child is in their auto (but not the 22 hours per day at home),  a non binding “advisory” statement against the war in Iraq, rewrote a Senate bill to make the wealthy developer of an entertainment and hotel complex eligible for public bond funds, and diverted voter approved funds to make Anschultz Entertainment Group eligible for grants from the 2.8 billion housing bond issue.  Unimportant things such as health care and overhauling the way districts are drawn were left for another day.

 

Principal Doris Alvarez of the Preuss charter high school is on paid leave while investigations of grading irregularities for last three to four years are conducted. Her son-in-law, Phil Ensberg, an “academic adviser” at Preuss was also placed on paid leave. Basis of the investigation are apparent students receiving grades for courses in which they were not registered, and grades that were changed and recorded inappropriately. The school is dedicated to successfully preparing poor and minority students for college. If allegations of several people including former teachers prove true, and with the don’t ask, don’t tell citizenship status of students in the public schools, the Preuss school has likely been assuring that at least some students will be qualified to receive the tax payer money provided by the state legislature to illegal applicants for college level study. Now students are wondering how the upgrading will affect how  higher level education  entrance committees will trust grades for those who earned them. Until educators learn that false promotion and special rights have a negative effect on minorities learning early that it doesn’t work that way in real life.

 

Counties around Atlanta had a seven year “grammar” school and a four year “high” school system during the depression days. Those who met the college track graduation requirements in high school were ready for college acceptance after the eleven years. There was also a trade track for those who did not expect to afford or achieve a college education. The eleven year schooling did not allow much room for other than basic education subjects. They did have art and music appreciation classes, something generally missing in today’s twelve years. Social promotion was not a term in the education dictionary, and remedial classes were not often offered in the colleges and universities..

 

 Willie changed counties between grammar and high school, and failed English grammar his freshman high school year. His mother offered a lot of help by saying “what are you going to do about it”?  Willie went to Miss Bohannan, who taught both freshman and sophomore English, and begged to be allowed to take first year English grammar over in place of a study period while also taking second year. Chemistry, algebra and Latin or French were required for the second year and Willie’s mother had pushed Latin.  It was a hard year in thirty six student classrooms, but he graduated from high school on schedule after the eleventh year. The point here is that hundreds of students who came from those eleven year thirty six student classroom schools allowed this country to beat the Germans and Russians technologically and put the world into the nuclear and space age. Today, in a twelve year school system that is located in a most fertile education location with especially selected students, Preuss is accused of hyping their success with fictional classes and fudged grades.

 

What has changed?  Why do parochial schools succeed with high percentages of poor and minority students?  They require parental participation, classroom discipline and have no tenure for poor teachers. Willie opposes vouchers because they would allow a cop-out for politicians and parents alike. A special effort by parents in addition to just desire for a better school is required to finance and meet the participation parochial schools require.  Parochial schools do not have to keep unruly students and face suits by parents when attempts to discipline students are made. Teacher qualifications can be held to how well they teach, not their education record. Students know that they must demonstrate they have learned a portion of a subject in order to get a passing grade. Until some changes in these obstructions occur, public schools are doomed to provide education that fails to educate for this country to compete in the world’s marketplace and position of power.

 

Willie

 

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Congress Democrats criticize lack of progress in organization by the Iraqi while the 2007 Congressional session has failed to pass critical legislation in this country

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San Diego                                      September 11, 2007

 

As Willie watched some of the memorials to the 9/11 terrorist attack, he had to wonder how  Andrew Cockburn  whose essay on 9/9 published in the Union-Tribune could possibly so naively say that we are not in danger from militant terrorists. He proposes that the government’s warnings of threat are concocted as part of the military-industrial complex using exaggerated warnings of non-existent danger to build bigger bureaucracies and put money into their corporate supporters pockets. Willie termed the article an essay as his dictionary defines essay as “a composition usually dealing with its subject from a limited personal point of view”. Limited might be an exaggerated label for another description.

 

Then the New York Times went the UT one better by carrying the MoveOn.org advertisement  labeling General Petraeus as “betraying us” with his report to Congress. It was the Democrats in Congress who were so insistent that he report to Congress in September on the surge in Iraq, then before hearing what he had to say, loudly criticized him for not reporting defeat as they had expected and wanted. Willie finds it unworthy of the Democrats to spend their time making speeches at a “hearing” of the General rather than asking questions. Obama and Boxer thought it more important to hear them selves talk than to ask questions of the General on Iraq problems. While they berate the Legislature in Iraq for not getting an organized working government made up of members who have no prior experience in self government, it seems disingenuous that they have spent a near full legislative period unable to make even token progress on Social Security, Health care, an Energy plan and effective ear-mark controls.

 

UT reports that the Municipal Employees Association (union) has solicited a veteran taxpayer’s advocate to conduct an audit of the Bull in the Crockery Shop, City Attorney Aguirre’s, office to determine if his litigations have been cost effective. San Diego’s City government could not qualify for china in the China Shop cliché, but Aguirre surely qualifies as the bull whose time had come for San Diego. Willie wonders if the taxpayer advocate audited the unfunded give away to public employees by the City Council.

 

Over 100 drunks were arrested at the Chargers game on Sunday. The best that can mean is that the beach residents get a reprieve when the Chargers are in town.

 

Willie