Government Does not Create; it Destroys

When Missouri achieved statehood in 1821, tens of thousands of immigrants rushed in looking for a better life. Many were escaping political, religious and economic oppression in Europe. Missouri's abundant and virtually untapped resources attracted large numbers of immigrants from Germany, France, Switzerland, Austria and eventually Italy. The rich soils, expansive waterway connections, timber and abundant game made Missouri a veritable Eden for the poor and the landless.

In 1824, Gottfried Duden, an optimistic traveler from Germany, arrived
on Missouri soil. He believed that many of Germany's woes resulted from overpopulation and poverty. Thinking emigration was the solution to these problems, Duden and his friend Louis Eversmann had set sail for America
to study the possibilities of German settlement in the United States.

Arriving in St. Louis, Duden and Eversmann found Nathan Boone, son of Daniel Boone and surveyor of government lands. Boone led them on a tour of the Missouri River valley.  For almost three years he lived in a cabin near Lake Creek, recording the weather, growing conditions and daily doings on his farm. In 1829 Duden published his findings back in Germany and it soon became a best-seller. To struggling—even starving—Germans back home, these words offered an almost irresistible allure of freedom and plenty. Feeling the oppression back home, the promotional writings of many Germans, including Duden's glowing account, inspired thousands of Germans to emigrate to the "New Rhineland."

As German settlers pushed westward, many carried carefully-wrapped clippings from their old world vineyards. Many of the groups traveled down the Ohio River from Cincinnati, to the Mississippi and up to the mouth of the Missouri River at St. Louis, right in the footsteps of Gottfried Duden.

Moving to a new land caused a deep yearning to preserve their heritage. In 1836, the German Settlement Society was intent on establishing a new "Fatherland" in America. They selected some land on the south bank of the Missouri River, west of St. Louis, and founded Hermann. The original town was laid out with some plots originally sold as wine plots, beginning in the 1840s. Though their settlement met with many hardships and the soil on the hills nearby wasn't appropriate for many forms of agriculture, by 1846 they had produced their first wine from locally cultivated grapes. In 1848, the town's wineries produced 1,000 gallons. By 1855, 500 acres of vineyard were in production and wine was being shipped to St. Louis and beyond. 

By 1870 Missouri led the nation in wine production and the North American Norton grape produced a wine made by a Missouri winery which won a gold medal in a Vienna competition in 1873. Five years later, another Missouri Norton Wine  Gold in Paris.  Norton wine was lauded not just for its taste but also for its presumed healthfulness as “the best medicinal wine in America.”  Missouri wines won eight gold medals at world fairs between 1873 and 1904

By 1900, Stone Hill Winery, which the German immigrant Michael Poeschel began building in 1847, was the third largest winery in the world (second largest in the U.S.), producing more than a million gallons of wine a year.

Before 1920, there were wineries in 48 Missouri counties. Long before anyone had ever heard of Harry Truman, Independence MO was known for its wine production. In fact, Missouri's Wine region grew to include more than 100 wineries.

It all came to an abrupt halt in 1920 with the passing of the Volstead Act and the addition of the 18th amendment to the Constitution.  Prohibition dealt a fatal blow to Missouri's wine industry. Many families lost their livelihood. The destruction of Stone Hill Winery completely ruined the local economy.  A full decade before the stock market crash of 1929, Hermann was plunged into the Great Depression.

It is said that when the Government Agents, “Revenuers” came to Stone Hill and began pouring the wine out, it flowed through the streets from three in the afternoon until two in the morning in a river three inches deep down the street and into the Missouri River.

But they didn’t stop there.  They destroyed all the equipment in such a way it could never be used again.  In most cases the only wine making equipment that survived was that which was taken to local churches, because they were exempted from the act so they could make their sacramental wines.   In fact, the only Missouri winery to survive this dry period was St. Stanislaus Novitiate, located in St. Louis, where the Jesuits continued to produce sacramental wine.

Following repeal of the act in 1934, Missouri's wine industry was nothing but a memory. High liquor taxes and license fees discouraged the industry's rebirth. People’s tasts had shifted as well to hard liquor as a result of the speakeasies, bathtub gin, gangsters, and moonshiners. A few dozen wineries did reopen, but much of Missouri remained legally dry, and a there was little demand for anything other than sweet, dessert-style wines. 

Some Norton vines survived in Missouri in what has been described as the vineyard of a bootlegger.  Prohibition’s destruction eradicated the Norton grape entirely from Virginia, its birthplace.

In 1965 Jim Held, a legitimate vintner obtained cuttings and started bringing the vine and Missouri winemaking back. Winemaking is on the rise in Missouri again, but the industry as a whole was probably set back one hundred years.  One article at the time says that a billion dollars (1920 dollars, second only to US Steel) was lost in the US in an instant due to the complete and utter destruction of the Alcohol Industry and lest we forget that is not just breweries, distilleries and vineyards. 

It is farms, labor, equipment manufacturers, bottlers, distributors (rail, sea, and highway), salesman, advertisers, retailers…everything: gone or greatly reduced.

But think about this, whether you like wine, or even don’t drink a drop of alcohol at all; this was a big big industry.  This was people’s culture, it was their livelihoods and their life’s work.  They came HERE from somewhere else to live their dreams.  They built something from nothing. The came to the US to build something and to make their families’ lives better and believed in the promise this country held enough to risk their lives to come here.  They were the leaders in their fields the champions of the industry.  They did it here, it was in America.  It was a legacy.  If not for prohibition Missouri, and by extension US wine, could have eclipsed all French or Italian winemaking.  We will never know.

How many of us would like to see our life’s work run through the streets and into the river and be gone; destroyed simply because of political pressure and authority?

We lost our history, people lost fortunes.  And it wasn’t an outside force that did it.  It was well meaning do-gooders who thought they could legislate morality.  We did it to ourselves, and we used our own government against us.

Think of all the other things that the US was or is known for being truly exceptional at.  Would you like to lose those simply due to government involvement?

The Automobile industry?  Oh, wait….nevermind.

The Fast Food and Soft drink industry…under assault

Possibly the best example:  The oil industry and our dependence on foreign oil.

The cost of gasoline in this country today is a direct result of us allowing political pressure to mandate economic and industrial reality based on a set of beliefs that are held by a certain set of people to the detriment of us all.  It is because of climate change alarmists and what amounts to a Volstead Act on the Oil Industry in this country.

Government is only force, fire, and destruction; it cannot create one thing and it is a power that doesn’t care who it is directed at.  It is simply a monster of destruction and chaos and you can never control it, and it would just as soon hurt one group as it would another.

Our only defense is in understanding what has been done with it in the past.

Top 10 Best US Presidents of All Time 10 thru 8

Cross Posted at Left Coast Rebel

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So a few days ago I posted my list of 10 Worst Presidents of all Time, I was prompted to do this because of the recent publishing of a ranking of the presidents by someone in the Legacy Obama Echo Chamber media.  THAT list was pretty much upside down and inside out, so I thought I would make my own list.  You will notice that in my list character and personal honor may take a higher position than some miraculous political achievement, and that is totally by design.

#10 [Tie]  two one term presidents (by choice) are tied for #10 To have the power of the Presidency and voluntarily give it up speaks to a man’s character and that is one reason I put these two on the list.  One shaped our boundaries in the west. (a blessing and a curse), and the other had undeniable character and a vision for the panama canal.

Polk - was a workaholic who worked long hours. He was elected to the House of Representatives and became Jackson's floor leader in the fight against the National Bank. His term as President was 1845-1849. Polk achieved his four major objectives - the acquisition of California, the settlement of the Oregon question, the reduction of the tariff, and the establishment of the independent treasury.  Polk had announced before taking office that he would not seek a second term, a promise he kept. 

Hayes – Accepted the nomination for House of Representatives but refused to campaign because he was still commissioned and on active duty in the military.    Won the Presidency in an election that seemed to be replayed in 2000.  Hayes insisted that all political appointments be based on merit and made his advisors rotate posts so that they did not become complacent.  Hayes never planned to run for a second term in office and retired in 1881. He spent the rest of his life devoted to causes of importance to him such as providing scholarships to African Americans and encouraging temperance. He believed in and proposed civil service reform measures. Further, he set down a policy that would eventually lead to the development of the Panama Canal.

#9 Truman – Did not even want to be vice-President, telling FDR’s man to “go to hell, I am for Jimmy Byrne”  later was convinced to take it.  When FDR died he said, “Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. ... When they told me what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me. I've got the most terribly responsible job a man ever had."  George Will called Truman the last great leader the nation has had. As president at a most crucial period in the nation's history, it fell to him to make decisions that would determine the shape of events, both at home and abroad, for the next half-century. He set the course not only for the Free World's resistance to the march of communism, but for the resurgence of Western Europe. His policies laid the foundation for the recovery of Germany and Japan and the integration of Europe. Truman insisted that atomic power should serve the ends of peace and not only war. He took the first steps toward re-integration of the races in the military after Woodrow Wilson segregated them.  Maybe one of the most humble presidents we have had, especially in the 20th century.

 

   #8  Eisenhower –Ike understood the battle that would shape the twentieth and, so far, the 21st century: “Now we face a battle to extinction. … Our form of government is under deadly, persistent, and constant attack.” He warned friends about liberals who “would merely advance us one more step toward total socialism, just beyond which lies total dictatorship.” It was time, he proclaimed, to “combat remorselessly all those paternalistic and collectivistic ideas" that would eventually cause "the collapse of self-government.” Eisenhower was the first Cold Warrior, and he understood that the ideological war was very real.   In 1953, Eisenhower brought all these views with him into the White House. His first inaugural address set the tone: “Forces of good and evil are massed and armed and opposed as rarely before in history.…Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark.” To the end of his presidency, his basic message never changed. Midway through his second term, he was still warning that “the menace of communist imperialism” had “almost unlimited power.” “Peace, national safety—survival itself—demand of America strength in its every aspect.”  Yep ,“I like Ike”

How am I doing so far?

Stay tuned for the rest of the list…

-KOOK

Made in the USA: Bill Cosby

Socialism, Social Justice, and Collectivist Redistribution schemes only work because the Statist/Collectivist/Socialist/Communist etc. is able to convince people that they cannot make it in the  Free Market, Liberty and Freedom loving system that we (used to?) have.  But there has never been a wealth creation machine better than our (old?) system.  As an aside, I picked Cosby because it is his birthday today. 

Bill Cosby, born July 12, 1937, and raised in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is one of four sons born to Anna Pearl (née Hite), a maid, and William Henry Cosby, Sr., a sailor in the U.S. Navy. During much of his early childhood, Cosby's father was away in the U.S. armed forces during World War II.

As a student, he described himself as a class clown.  But he was a devoted athlete,  was the captain of the baseball and track and field teams at his elementary school in Philadelphia and was also class president.  In Junior High, Cosby began acting in plays as well as continuing his devotion to sports.   He went to Central High School, but in addition to the sports, Cosby was working before and after school selling produce, shining shoes, and stocking shelves at a supermarket to help the family. He failed the tenth grade and instead of repeating the 10th grade he dropped out…

…In our collectivist narrative this is where the story would start to play sad music, young Cosby would be forced into gangs and violence, a rich capitalist would be found to blame, and Cosby would have either died of a drug OD, or from Gang violence; living in the projects and on the government dole.  Just more glaring proof that what we need around here is more redistribution of wealth.  Some Social Justice…

BUT:

He got a job as an apprentice at a shoe repair shop which he liked, but could not see himself doing it the rest of his life.  After deciding the life of a cobbler was not for him he joined the Navy.  While serving in the Navy, Cosby worked in physical therapy with seriously injured Korean War vets.  This helped refocus his priorities.  He soon realized the need for an education and finished his equivalency diploma via correspondence courses.

WHAT?  he finished school?! 

He  won a track and field scholarship to Philadelphia's Temple University in 1961-62, and studied physical education while running track and playing fullback on the football team. Cosby also joined the school's chapter of the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

HE WENT TO COLLEGE? 

Even as he progressed through his undergraduate studies, Cosby had continued to hone his talent for humor.  When he began bar tending at  a club in Philadelphia, he became fully aware of his ability to make people laugh. He worked his customers and saw his tips increase, then ventured on to the stage.

…AND WORKED!?

Cosby left Temple to pursue a career in comedy, and in 1963, he received national exposure on NBC's The Tonight Show.  He went on to release Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow...Right!, the first of a series of popular comedy albums in 1964.

DROPPED OUT OF SCHOOL AGAIN?

In 1965, when he was cast alongside Robert Culp in the I Spy adventure series, Cosby became the first African-American co-star in a dramatic television series, and NBC became the first to present such a series.  I Spy finished among the twenty most-watched shows that year, and Cosby would be honored with three consecutive Emmy Awards for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series. Cosby went on tot become a regular guest host on The Tonight Show.   

SUCCESS!

He returned with another series in 1969, The Bill Cosby Show, a situation comedy that ran for two seasons.  While only a modest critical success, the show was a ratings hit, finishing eleventh in its first season.  Still the show was cancelled.

HE MET WITH SOME MORE FAILURE… And:

After The Bill Cosby Show left the air, Cosby returned to his education. He began graduate work at the University of Massachusetts, qualifying under a special program that allowed for the admission of students who had not completed their bachelor's degrees, but who had had a significant impact on society through their careers. This professional interest led to his involvement in the PBS series The Electric Company, for which he recorded several segments teaching reading skills to young children.

WENT BACK TO SCHOOL?

In 1972, Cosby received a Masters degree from the University of Massachusetts and was also back in prime time with a variety series, The New Bill Cosby Show. However, this time he met with poor ratings, and the show lasted only a season.

FAILED AGAIN….and then….

He was much more  successful with the Saturday morning show, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids.  Cosby received his Doctorate in 1976 from the University of Massachusetts.   Temple University, where Cosby had begun but never finished, would grant him his bachelor's degree on the basis of "life experience".

SUCCESS!…and FAILURE…

During the 1970s, Cosby, made some successful comedy films that countered the violent "blaxploitation" films of the era. However, much of his work could be considered failures such as: Mother, Jugs & Speed (1976) ; A Piece of the Action; and California Suite. In addition, Cos (1976) an hour-long variety show featuring puppets, sketches, and musical numbers, was canceled inside of a year.

RATINGS GOLD:

Cosby's greatest television success came in September, 1984 with the debut of The Cosby Show. The program aired weekly on NBC and went on to become the highest ranking sitcom of all time. The Cosby Show was unprecedented in its portrayal of an intelligent, affluent, nonstereotypical African-American family.

 The Cosby Show is one of only two American programs that have been #1 in the Nielsen ratings for five consecutive seasons.  Cosby, always outspoken for his views on the decay of what he considers black culture, the breakup of the black family, people not taking responsibility for themselves, etc.,   came under sharp criticism for His Pound Cake speech. He was largely unapologetic for his stance when he made similar remarks during a speech in a July 1 meeting commemorating the anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education. He further described those who he felt needed help as "blacks [who] had forgotten the sacrifices of those in the Civil Rights Movement." Cornel West defended Cosby and his remarks, saying, "[H]e's speaking out of great compassion and trying to get folk to get on the right track, 'cause we've got some brothers and sisters who are not doing the right things, just like in times in our own lives, we don't do the right thing.”

So from the son of a maid and a Navy fighting man, shoe shine boy, high school dropout…To a college educated, critically acclaimed, wildly successful, multi millionaire ($400m+ est.)… He wasn’t born rich, he was not a great student, no foreign benefactors(cough)….but he made it in the USA

Of course, he was also a failure many times.

-KOOK

Postal Service Death Throes

So just heard that postage stamps are to go up AGAIN to 46 cents. So tell me, who corresponds via letter anymore? How many still pay bills by mail? I realize many of us receive bills by mail; but is that necessary? All I get in the mail any more are sale bills and credit card offers. Hell, people don't even get their welfare checks anymore they get it on their "benefits card". I have said it before and I will say it again. There is a reason we do not use the pony express: we have the telegraph. There is a reason we do not use the telegraph: Bell invented the telephone. There is a reason we more and more do not use land lines: motorola invented the cell phone. There is a reason we don't light our homes with kerosene: electricity. There is a reason that we don't do wagon trains: passenger trains. There is a reason the government subsidizes amtrac: planes and cars and unions. And there is a reason we keep dragging this dead carcass of a post office behind us: government type unionized jobs. It is not because it is efficient, profitable, well loved, or necessary. It is 18th century technology. Lets put it out of it's misery.



One last thing to think about, in my earliest memory of canned soda they cost 50 cents and a stamp was 22. A can of soda in a machine can still be found for 50 cents.




When I was in high school you could get a double cheese burger fries and a large drink at Mickey D's for $3.16 and a stamp was 28 cents. Two days ago I got a mcdouble small fries and large ice tea for $3.22; stamps cost 44 cents and soon to be 46.

Just something to think about.

UPDATE:  at least one other person agrees with us...http://ladydi-quickwit.blogspot.com/2010/07/post-offices-slow-and-inefficient.html

-Kook
via iPhone

Dear Govt., RE: Oil Spill, You're STILL doing it wrong - reason 86,348 the Free Market is Better - A, B, & C Whale

Yesterday I shared with you reason 86,347 that the free market is better than Government, Kevin Costner. Today, Lo, and Behold, there is yet ANOTHER story of interest along the same lines. Presenting, A Whale:

This behemoth, 1,115-foot, 10-story tall ship was originally designed to be an oil tanker. But then Mr Nobu Su, CEO of TMT Corporation of Taiwan, had a wild idea. His idea involved turning this large oil tanker into the worlds largest oil skimming ship. His radical design involved cutting slits in the side of the ship, a chore that required the ship first be sailed from Shanghai to Portugal to a suitable shipyard for modification before eventually making its way to the gulf coast. Of course, along the way he hit a snag: The US Federal Government. Now, it must be said that the system he is using is unproven, no one, including Mr. Su, knows just how well it will work in practice. It is estimated however that A Whale could suck up as much as 500,000 barrels daily of spilled oil and water—250 times the capacity of the other ships now engaged in the cleanup. If it works he will begin work to retrofit another one, B Whale, and start sailing C Whale to the Shipyard.

According to Su, Big Problems, require Big Solutions. Sometimes eccentric, out of the box thinking is what is necessary. Su’s team generously gives credit to the USA for creating his entrepreneurial and innovative spirit that he says is part of his Taiwanese upbringing. His senior vice president, T.K. Ong, says the environment for success was created by the “moral and material support” provided by the USA to the island nation after it broke from mainland China. (back in our more freedom loving years)
He has already beaten the odds and the government on one score; after making the decision to act about May 1st', the completed ship arrived in the U.S. by June 25—a timetable that U.S. officials had considered impossible to achieve. (our Government and Our People used to make careers out of believing and doing the impossible) Even if the ship is only marginally effective, only removing 50 % of the oil from the water, is that not an enormous improvement? Common sense says yes, EPA regulations say, not really. EPA regs state that in order for water to be released it must be over 99% oil free. That is a tall order. An order that President Obama could rescind with a stroke of a pen, but it has not happened…yet. Also, the Jones act is still in play, preventing ships of foreign registry and crewed by foreign workers to help with the cleanup. Bush lifted the act in the aftermath of Katrina, a feat Obama seems unwilling to do. Finally the Coast Guard must sign off on the safety and efficacy of the vessel itself, but that sounds as though it will not be as big of an issue. Coast Guard inspectors toured the ship for about four hours on Thursday, said Capt. Matthew Sisson, commanding officer of the Coast Guard's Research and Development arm in New London, Conn. "We take all offers of alternative technology very seriously," Sisson said. The ship, he said, is "an impressive engineering feat." Another plus on the side of A Whale is that Su says the mammoth vessel can withstand what others cannot, so it would be the last ship that had to leave due to weather—and the first to return to oil removal work. Because his company also operates oil drilling platforms in Asia, Su is familiar with the challenges of weather. Although he was originally dismissed when he shared his concept with BP and U.S. officials immediately after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, Su was not deterred and spent millions, when they initially refused his request to stage a test, he secured an invite to bring her into port from the Governor of VA, where he then staged a big media blitz. Once there, it became the whale in the room, unable to be ignored. A Whale is now scheduled for a test run, and Su has nothing but kind words for the Coast Guard and BP’s willingness to accept his offer to help. To be sure, this “help” will not come cheap, Nobu spent millions getting A Whale moved and retrofitted, and her operating costs are probably huge, but at this point, if she works, who cares. BP is on the hook for the entire cleanup, and now is not the time to be pinching pennies. What is galling is the amount of money being spent FIGHTING efforts at cleanup. Government spending money to halt cleanup efforts….typical. Entrepreneurs making money while coming up with innovative solutions AND helping people…also typical.

 

 

 -KOOK

Dear Government, Re: Oil Spill, You’re doing it wrong; Kevin Costner & reason 86,347 the Free Market is better.

Cross posted at Left Coast Rebel

From a recent piece written by Dick Morris:

“It's one thing to say that Obama's administration showed ineptitude and mismanagement in its handling of the Gulf oil spill. It is quite another to grasp the situation up close, as I did during a recent visit to Alabama.
According to state disaster relief officials, Alabama conceived a plan -- early on -- to erect huge booms offshore to shield the approximately 200 miles of the state's coastline from oil. Rather than install the relatively light and shallow booms in use elsewhere, the state (with assistance from the Coast Guard) canvassed the world and located enough huge, heavy booms -- some weighing tons and seven meters high -- to guard their coast.
But...no sooner were the booms in place than the Coast Guard… uprooted them and moved them to guard the Louisiana coastline instead.
So Alabama decided on a backup plan. It would buy snare booms to catch the oil as it began to wash up on the beaches.
But...the Fish and Wildlife Administration vetoed the plan, saying it would endanger sea turtles that nest on the beaches.
So Alabama…decided to hire 400 workers to patrol the beaches in person, scooping up oil that had washed ashore.
But...OSHA  refused to allow them to work more than 20 minutes out of every hour and required an hour break after 40 minutes of work, so the cleanup proceeded at a very slow pace.
The short answer is that every agency -- each with its own particular bureaucratic agenda -- was able to veto each aspect of any plan to fight the spill, with the unintended consequence that nothing stopped the oil from destroying hundreds of miles of wetlands, habitats, beaches, fisheries and recreational facilities.”

So, as per usual and standard, the government has completely road blocked every single effort People have come up with to clean this mess up, whilethe Fedzilla goes about the business of protecting us from ourselves and the breeding habitat of turtles. Turtles that will likely soon die in an oil slick before they can breed again anyway.  Let us not forget Obama’s refusal to step on Union toes and rescind the Jones act for this emergency.

But, once again proving that when there is a problem that needs solved, someone will invent it and it will not be the Government.  Enter Kevin Costner.  Now, I do not know what the man’s politics are but apparently he is a Capitalist.  That is at least a good starting point.

Apparently more than ten years ago Kevin Costner, of Dances with Wolves and Robin Hood fame,  wondered why we had so much trouble separating oil from water and decided to put his not-inconsiderable-wealth where his curiosity was.

Costner  became inspired to work on a solution after watching coverage of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. The Valdez spill happened in 1989 and occurred off the coast of Alaska when the Exxon Valdez hit a reef. Approximately 11 million gallons of oil spilled into Prince William Sound, causing widespread harm to the local wildlife, environment and economy. 

In 1993 Kevin,along with his Scientist brother, Dan, procured a technology transfer from the Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory for a centrifugal oil-water separator.  Apparently the Government could not get the technology to work (imagine that).  He founded Costner Industries (CINC) and committed the next 15 years, and over $20 million (possibly as much as $24 million) toward R&D of his oil separator. The oil separator is a powerful centrifuge that can separate oil from water by spinning it at a high speed,  leaving the water 99 percent oil free.

In his recent congressional testimony for government approval to allow BP to test them, Costner recounted his struggle to effectively market the centrifuge (in the past). He explained that although the machines are quite effective, they can still leave trace amounts of oil in the treated water that exceeds current environmental regulations. Because of that regulatory hurdle, he said, he had great difficulty getting oil industry giants interested without first having the approval of the federal government.  So, just another example of the Government worried about one snowball during an avalanche.

So does the thing work?

BP Chief Operating Officer Doug Suttles said,  "We tested it in some of the toughest environments we could find, and actually what it's done — it's quite robust," Saying,  "This is real technology with real science behind it, and it's passed all of those tests." He added that Costner's device has proved effective at processing 128,000 barrels of water a day, which "can make a real difference to our spill response efforts."

How big of a difference? 

The largest machines are designed to separate 200 gallons of oil from the water per minute. That's about 210,000 gallons of oil per day.   The most recent estimates suggest that between 20,000 and 40,000 barrels of oil per day are leaking out of the Deepwater Horizon well. A barrel of oil is 42 gallons. So, if we take the highest estimates, that's about 1,680,000 gallons of oil per day. That would take just eight of the OTC machines to clean up the new oil each day, not  counting the petroleum that's already in the water.

Henry Fountain explains in the New York Times, the gadget in question marks a major breakthrough in spill cleanup technology. And BP, after trial runs with the device, is ordering 32 more of the Costner-endorsed centrifuges to aid the Gulf cleanup.  Suttles said the additional machines will be used to build four new deep-water systems: on two barges and two 280-foot supply boats.

It's true, as Fountain notes in the Times, that innovation on spill technology has been hobbled in part by the reach of federal regulation — though Fountain also notes that oil companies have elected to devote comparatively little money for researching cleanup devices. 

Then again, why would they, when 99% effective is not good enough? 

Imagine if we held Government to the same standard…

 

 

 

-KOOK

Yahoo News, Product Design and Development, AP,ecorazzi.com, USA Newsweek, Ocean Therapy Solutions, www.gawker.com

Voices from the past, speaking to our present

"Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions. In full enjoyment of the gifts of heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law. But when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions...to make the rich
richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of our society -the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time or the means of securing political favors to themselves have the right to complain of the injustices of their government.

There are no necessary evils of government.

Its evils exist only in its abuses."

Those are the words 'ol Hickory, Andrew Jackson, seventh president of the United States, spoke during his veto of the charter of the Second National Bank, which came back bigger and worse as our current Federal Reserve.

Two quick points:

1. Jackson knew that a bank that was basically above the laws of the land would only work to serve the interests of the captains of industry and more importantly and ominously the nuveau aristocracy of the political class. It, the 2nd National Bank, was heavily in the business of buying off congressmen and using it's extreme special interest influence to pick winners and losers. This should sound eerily familiar.

2. These words also have a broader implication. They speak to the injustice of a government that attempts social engineering. In this case it was to tilt the playing field towards the new aristocracy of the government and the big businesses. In our current situatuon it is to destroy any semblence of wealth to give entitlements out as bribes and payoffs...to tilt the playing field towards the aristocracy of the political class in government.

Same deal, been going on for over two hundred two thousand years.



-Kook
via iPhone

Environmentalism, Conservation, Animal Rights, & Stewardship

The difference between Environmentalism/Animal Rights and Conservation/Stewardship is that one is espoused by Progressive Politicians, Neo-Hippies, and members of the Glitterati and the other is lived day by day by people with Jobs and Families and Taxes and Bills to pay.

Part 1- Natural Resources Conservation

  Al Gore wakes up in the morning in his palatial estate, no doubt filled with all the opulence and decadence that being the worlds first Green Billionaire can provide, He is driven in his gas guzzling Limousine to his private Jet and flown to his destination where another Limo invariably picks him up for his speech about our Carbon Footprints (whatever that really means).  Meanwhile, Joe Blow gets up in the morning in his 1200 sq. foot house that was built in the fifties and walks to the bus station to get to his job collecting trash on the back of a truck or works in  a recycling business for aluminum cans, or works for a business that converts used oil into a useful product.  Who is actually doing  more for the environment?

  

Environmentalists chain themselves to trees and lie down in front of logging equipment.  Conservationists know that unless the deadfall and diseased trees are harvested they pose a serious risk of spreading fires when a lightning strike happens and choke out new growth.  Environmentalists stage protests and wield megaphones; Conservationists plant saplings after logging an area.  Environmentalists scream save the bison, save the wolves, save the polar bears, save the seals.  Conservationists know that when humans start living in an area that animals are going to have to be controlled, that is part of our responsibility as humans.  In order to control the Bison herds we have to help their population.  Bison do not know that they are supposed to stay in the parks.  They spread, this brings them and the domestic cattle into contact which is not healthy for either side (bison carry diseases that we vaccinate for in cattle, and  yet cattle can give bison diseases that are not normally in a bison herd) 

Everyone loves wolves, but wolves want to eat things.

We control the herd animals that wolves like to eat, so wolves want to eat domestic cattle, so we control the wolf population because if we didn’t they would a) starve and b) get into trouble in towns and cities.

Look at the Mountain Lion situation in California, California in its’ vast wisdom prohibits hunting mountain lions and yet opens up bicycle and hiking paths in prime Mountain Lion real estate.  The result, Mountain Lions have killed several bikers, hikers, and kids in the last decade.  We don’t want the mountain lion to go extinct, but clearly we do not want them eating our citizenry.  We also like for people to have recreation in the outdoors.  It is called Risk Management: you have to weigh the situation out and make appropriate decisions.  If the available habitat can easily support X mountain lions and we have 2X mountain lions in the habitat alongside people, guess what, Kitties are going to eat Folks.  So the solution is remove the people or remove an appropriate number of cats.  California needs revenue and hunters would pay money to take care of their cat problem.  It would be a Capitalist solution.  Or, they can continue to do what they are doing which is to have the fish and game folks to live trap the cat and put it somewhere else or kill it themselves at an expense.  Control the population and make money doing it, or control the population and spend money doing it. Hard Choices.  Of course, if we let hunters do it, there will be people in the  California woods and trails with GUNS, and apparently that is scarier than getting eaten by a big cat.   The more looney of the environmentalist herd believe that the Human population is the one that needs controlled.  Clearly we do have choices to make: We can limit our population, or limit and manage wildlife populations.  I am not willing to kill humans so there can safely be more deer.  That is the difference between conservation/stewardship and animal rights/environmentalism.  

Same deal with Polar Bears and Seals and every other critter.  Common sense management goes a long way.  This is why we have deer seasons, left unchecked deer would become a pestilence and their genetics would seriously suffer.  Hunting is part and parcel of good wildlife management.

Part II- Food Production:

I watched a program on animal production recently and the whole thing made me so irritated that I have not even been able to process it until now.  Let me talk a minute about animal production, specifically Hog and Poultry.  In the old days of Hog farming a farmer turned all the hogs loose out on the open range.  You marked your hog’s ears with a knife so you could sort out yours and everyone else’s later and let them fend for themselves.  The result was that the meat quality was different than we are now used to, and it was a willy nilly business with the genetics being decided by the hogs.  Now hogs are raised in houses and due to improvements in their diet and genetics grow rapidly and can be turned into delicious bacon in a short period of time. Likewise, poultry farming is now a big business instead of something that the Farmer’s wife does.  All of this means that we can feed more people and do it cheaper than ever before.  It also means that since the animals are in close proximity they are a little more susceptible to disease so many times they are given antibiotics in their food as a preventative measure.  This has the Neo-Hippies in a major uproar.

They see the antibiotics as the reason little Billy and little Sally are fatso’s (like me)…and believe it has nothing to do with the preparation of the food or the lack of exercise in Billy and Sally’s lives.  So if you follow the (il)logic:  antibitoics are bad, only necessary because the animals are too close, cramming animals together is bad for their mental well being.  So they propose to make laws requiring a certain space for every animal and to prohibit feeding animals antibiotics.  The Danish have discovered that they can get a hog just a big without antibiotics if they don’t put them too close together and give them more food.  Wel…DUH! of course they can.  The goal is not to get the hog bigger than they would normally get.  The goal is the get them that way Faster, and Cheaper.  People don’t like pictures of hogs and chickens in houses, and yet, they don’t like 8 dollar value meals and 6 dollar a pound bacon either.  Europeans don’t know the difference, their bacon has always been 12 dollars a pound (don’t quote me on exact numbers I know meat is exorbitant in Europe and that is my only point.)

Which brings me to my last point on the Hog and Poultry rant portion of this post.   If you regulate that every hog has to have X amount of living space or Lebensraum (a nice Nazi German word there) that will also translate into transportation space.  Now instead of 100 hogs going to the slaughterhouse in a truck, we will have 25.  Meaning we will need 4 times as many trucks and 4 times as much oil being used.  But that won’t raise prices at all will it?  Remember…we are going to EAT them anyway.

I am NOT saying it is ok to mistreat animals.  I love animals, and when I hunt, I understand that I am killing something, and there is a responsibility when I remove something from the circle of life to do it in a beneficial and humane way.  I also do not want to see an animal made needlessly uncomfortable or injured even right before I shoot it in the head, cut its’ throat,  and cut it up into pork chops and nuggets…but for Pete's sakes it is FOOD.  While researching pictures for this post I found a graph by some Neo-Hippie group that claimed in all seriousness that Vultures kill more Cattle than Wolves and Bears.  Vultures…!  Vultures DO NOT predate on cattle, they are SCAVENGERS…ridiculous.  But other folks will see that crap and take it at face value because they do not know better.

Farmers,  Ranchers, Outdoorsmen, and Arborists have been and continue to do  more to further Wildlife’s wellbeing and Animal Science/Food Production than the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, PETA, or Pam Anderson’s big boobies ever will.  Why do we listen to people who don’t raise animals, and do not live near the wild when it comes to raising animals and managing wildlife?

  Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs says it very very well and I think has his finger right on the issue:

“Like my friends who espouse all things  Green, I want to live on a healthy planet. I really do. But I’m tired of the guilt; I’m suspicious of the manipulation. And I’m weary of being lectured by people who seem to care more about the planet than the people on it. Hollywood and Washington have shaped the issue, and now, all things Eco-friendly are up for sale. Well, that’s fine. But when it comes to jobs, the people who make a difference aren’t covered in green. They’re covered in Brown – dirt, mud, grime, grease, or maybe something worse. I’m no expert, but if we’re going to save the Earth, the color of Dirt makes a heck of a lot more sense than the color of Envy. The way I see it, if we really want to get clean and green, we’re gonna have to get down with brown. In other words, we’re going to have to get our hands dirty.”

Well said Mike, well said.

-KOOK

The First Objective of Business by The Rational Jingo

 I got nothin to add to this, she says it right.

I am about to state something very controversial to the left. The first objective of a business is to stay in business. People do not risk everything they have, often times, to create entities to employ others. They only hire others when they have so much business the only way to continue getting and keeping new business is with additional bodies and brains. It is that simple. To believe anything else, is to engage in utopian thinking.

The left has zero understanding of this. Perfectly illustrated by Barack Obama's own words last week. Obama seemingly never having actually held a job, let alone run a business and has never left the left wing bubble of academia, rabble rousing and the political class.

OBAMA: “Despite the progress we've made, many businesses are still skittish about hiring. Some are still digging themselves out of the losses they incurred over the past year. Many have figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers. And that cost-cutting has become embedded in their operations and in their culture. That may result in good profits, but it's not translating into hiring and so that's the question that we have to ask ourselves today: How do we get businesses to start hiring again?”

Let me also call in the words of pied piper of the deranged left, Michael Moore, to get a more thorough understanding of the mindset.

"F##k all these small businesses — f##k ‘em all! Bring in the chains. The small businesspeople are the rednecks that run the town and suppress the people. F##k ‘em all. That's how I feel."~Micheal Moore

Where do you even start with this stuff? The chief reason the left is able to get away with this is that our young people are absolutely clueless and have been brainwashed for most of their young lives to see the government as the source of all good things and private industry as the harbinger of all of life's ills. But it is one thing when it is a 21 year old college student who wants to throw a brick through the Starbuck's window. It is quite another when it is the leader of what is left of the free world saying hopelessly ignorant and irresponsible things such as:

”Many have figured out how to squeeze more productivity out of fewer workers…”

Obama is so completely and hopelessly ignorant of the real world he actually thinks that a businessman adjusting his operations in order to meet changing economic conditions is some kind of trick of exploitation and greed. He actually believes this stuff. What is next? Hiring quotas? Taxes on lay offs and not meeting quotas? 32 hour work weeks? [ok, I lied, I do want to add one thing…this statement is not even rhetorical, it isnt even satirical.  I believe very much that if Big O had his way this is absolutely where we would be heading.  Google “Blue Eagle” and read up on it.  It has been done HERE before.]

People are not hiring because of his administration. They have zero faith that things are going to improve. Some are even closing the doors in anticipation of how bad things are going to get.
These are common sense laws of supply and demand. Calling it the "new" economy, "green" jobs" or whatever collectivist code word is in vogue does nothing to change it. Supply and demand.

Say, I am a businessman, and once I reach a certain level of profit, I can and need to hire help. Employee and I make more money, and we soon reach enough profitability to hire employee #2. In comes Government with taxes, fees and regulations I must comply with. Profit level decreases. Government returns and taxes me even more. Now, I must lose an employee. Government is threatening me with more taxes by promising the country free stuff. I do not replace employee #1 and I think about losing employee #2.

The effects ripple. I am no longer as productive. The guy down the road where I buy product X to make my product Y is getting less orders from me and people in my similar situation. And there are many of us. He makes adjustments and has to reduce his workforce. Like dominoes we all fall.

It's simple, basic, and irrefutable common sense. There are no alternatives. They've all been tried. You can re-label collectivism, repackage it, re-brand it, and      villain-ize free market principles and business all day long but at the end of the day collectivism still fails everywhere it is implemented.

The Rational Jingo: The First Objective of Business