Trivial Knowledge: Station Wagons

-- by Micheal

Okay, I know that compared to a global economic slowdown, leftover word trivia from childhood is pretty, well, trivial. But still, I found myself dancing around with glee (metaphorically speaking) like the old woman in the Bible who found her lost penny when I found my answer.

Did you ever have one of those nagging little questions as a kid, which no one ever answered? I don't mean big stuff like why is man here on the earth. I mean trivial stuff, like my friend Randy and I used to argue about in the back seat. "Is glass clear or is it really 'white' because it passes all colors?" Proof that a little bit of 3rd grade science is a dangerous thing.

One of my naggy little questions was: Why do they call square-backed cars "station wagons"? A related question was why was woodgrain somehow associated with them such that they'd bother to put wood-grain printed metal trim on them, or wood-grain printed vinyl wallpaper on their doors? It made no sense to me. No one I asked seemed to know why. They just accepted it and moved on.

The other day, quite by random, I remembered my childhood question so set about researching it. The answer turned out to be rather easy to find, once I started looking.

Station Wagons: These predate the automobile, actually. They were wagons with several bench seats and a space behind for luggage that ferried passengers from the train station to their hotels. The courtesy vans at today's airports are doing the exact same job. Hence the name station wagons. Train-station wagons.

In the early days of the automobile, station wagons also went horseless. Automobiles in that day had bodies made mostly of wood, in the carriage-making tradition. On consumer-grade automobiles, sheet metal was overlayed and painted to protect the wood. As bare-bone utility vehicles, they left off the shmancy metal. They had just the bare wood.

People with the time and money to be railroad passengers and hotel guests tended to be more upscale, understandably. They thought the bare-bones utility cars used by the train stations were quaint and started buying them to do the grunt work around their vacation homes. Thus began the association of wood bodied cars with rich folks, hence the snob appeal of the wooden trimmed cars in the suburbs.

After WWII, real wood bodies were impractical to build. Factories could make steel bodies much more efficiently. Still, the need to "look" like wood was still there. So wood printed steel trim was applied. The association of wood trim with upscale station wagons persisted until well into the 1980s at least.

Well, there you have it. Another of life's trivial mysteries solved. No need to thank me. It's my job, ma'am.

Infamy is Fleeting

---by Micheal

President Roosevelt said that December 7th would be "a day that will live in infamy." He was speaking about the attack on Pearl Harbor, on December 7th, 1941. For a great many years, he seemed to have been right. People remembered. It was one of our nation's shared experiences, rather like 9/11 has become.

Infamy, however, seems to be fleeting, much like fame is said to be. A few years ago I noticed that the major networks didn't mark the day like they used to. Today, I asked people if they knew what day this was. "Sunday?" I even gave them the hint of saying it's a day that will live in infamy. They still didn't get it. One older man finally did catch on. "Oh, Pearl Harbor Day."

Maybe it's a healing process or something benign like that. Still, I can't help but lament at how much our culture is able to forget the lessons of its own past. Since we're able to forget history, we're pretty much setting ourselves up to repeat it.

For now, however, I still want to remember and salute all those men and women who died on that Sunday morning in 1941. The nation as a whole may be forgetting, but I haven't. God bless your families.

Detroit Bailout: Trabant Reborn!

---by Micheal

For those of you who are not car geeks, the Trabant was a small East German car. It was the product of GDR government's auto industry from the late 1950s until 1991.

At the end of WWII, the communists took control over existing automobile factories in eastern Germany. To supply automobiles for their masses, and provide jobs for their laborers, they developed the Trabant in the late 50s. It had room for four (barely) and plastic body panels integrating soviet industrial byproducts, such as cotton fibers, wool or even paper fibers. The Trabi's two-cylinder engine gave it all the power of a medium-sized garden tractor.

It was small, cramped, noisy and weak, but, it was all the people had. That's what their government decided they would get. Even then, people had to wait years, sometimes, to get a Trabi they'd ordered. Used western cars fetched a better price than a new Trabi. When introduced, it was already technologically 10 years behind its times. Engineers proposed improvements and upgrades now and then, but the government controllers turned them down. Keep costs down. Even in the 1980s, the Trabant factories were turning out a car that was little changed from its debut in 1957. Production remained a largely labor-intense affair. Modernizing would hurt jobs.

This, I fear, is what we'll get if the Big Three bailout amounts to government control over Detroit. Not that I think Detroit's 3 have done such a good job on their own. They've basically bungled their way into a deep hole. But would government control be better, or just a different sort of bungling?

I can see the socialist agenda of the new administration thinking that control over Detroit would mean they could dictate what kind of cars should be built for American masses. No more SUVs (not that I like SUVs). Hybrids for Everyone! Maybe they'll dictate a hybrid be produced by their new National Motors factories. But, much like the Trabant was a feeble compromise of conflicting government agenda, a new "green" People's Hybrid will be a similarly feeble, labor intense, set of compromises. When has a government agency been able to produce something simple and efficient?

Maybe the Democrats will make sure we all get our People's Hybrids so we can reduce greenhouse gasses and keep the autoworker's unions happy. What we'll ultimately get, though, is a new Trabant. All the charm of a bread box and all the power of a lawn tractor. And if it follows the Trabant's pattern, our People's Hybrids won't change much for many years. Innovation is not something government committees are good at.

We'd best not complain, though. To want anything else will be deemed unpatriotic.

Ban Cartoon Parents?

---by Micheal

A "watchdog" group in England has spoken out against food company cartoon characters like Tony the Tiger and the Quick bunny. The group (called "Which?" -- that cannot help but remind us of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First" routine) has called Tony and the others "cartoon villains." (click here for the Skynews.com story)

Why? Because they feel these cartoon characters promote childhood obesity. How can a printed tiger on cardboard affect the 3D world, you might wonder. The group says that happy, attractive cartoon characters promote eating the wrong foods and do not promote healthy eating habits in youngsters. The group stops short of demanding an outright ban on Tony and his gang. Instead, they want the food industry to be forced to make Tony promote healthy eating.

This proves that some "watchdog" groups really do not have anything useful to do.

Where in the blazes have the parents been all this time? Are these fat kids buying cereal and chocolate milk mix on their own? Where'd they get the money? What with child labor laws, they can't have jobs. Are these kids selling drugs or stealing to get cereal money? And, as long as I've got a rant going, since when has a product box become a kid's legal guardian? A whole 'nother scary thought is whether we are seeing the dawn of the Food Police Era. "Good" foods are permitted to have pretty packaging, but foods deemed "bad" must wear black or brown paper wrappers, or (in a nod to Hawthorne) a big scarlet "B"?

Now, maybe things have deteriorated to this sorry state in the UK. I don't know. I've not been there. Perhaps in the UK, cereal boxes really have become kids' parents. If this is true, then the UK has much larger problems to solve than fat kids. Oprah should be told. Liberalism needs to create another tax-funded agency or at least hold a benefit rock concert.

But for now, here in the US, parents are still supposed to be in charge -- not the kids, and certainly not the cereal boxes. If a child has an eating problem, such as over eating, look first to the parents. Of the few families I know with overweight kids, the parents also have a problem with food (bad choices and far too much consumed). The kids are not learning to overeat or eat fatty foods from Tony. They're watching what mom and dad eat and how much.

The silly group in the UK might force Kelloggs into drawing Tony with a fork of broccoli and saying, "It's Grrrreat!", or force him to wear the scarlet B, but it will have no effect. The kids are not looking to Tony for diet advice. They never were. Talk to the parents. Junior is not fat because Tony made him eat Frosted Flakes, or six bowls of them. That's mom and dad's doing.

Obama: The B-Movie

--- by Micheal

I've listened to the media's best packaging of Obama. Just why the media are so infatuated with Obama is fodder for a different post. The important upshot is that the media are feeding us only the glossy best of Obama, much as a movie studio puts out trailers. All the best action shots and special effects get into the trailers. Never the slow talky development scenes. These "trailers" for Obama: The Movie show that Obama's handlers have learned a thing or two from 50s B-movie directors. Let audience imagination fill in their blanks.

A moment's digression to explain: The 50s was a hot market for movies -- any movie. Production of low-budget "B" movies was a thriving market. Monster movies and sci-fi were popular. B-movie producers could not afford an impressive monster costume or elaborate alien robot props. One good long look would reveal that "it" was just a hairy suit and rubber mask, or spray-painted cardboard. A shrewd B-movie director would avoid giving his audience a good look at his budget monster. Instead, he'd use shadows, or a quick glimpse of a claw, etc. Let the audience imagine what the monster was like. Their imagination could cook up a far more impressive monster than his B-budget could ever hope to create.

Listening to the media's chosen Obama bits reminds me of the clever B-movie director. I've been shown very little, really. They're counting on my imagination to conjure up whatever amazing image appeals to me. "Change!" Obama says. Some cheer, imagining between the empty lines whatever change they desire. There are as many utopias as there are dreamers. Since Obama never actually specifies what would change, he's never on any specific hooks to deliver on any of those utopias. Just getting elected would qualify as having made a change. Big deal.

His new slogan "Change we need," is the same B-movie monster shadow trick. There are as many needs as there are needy. By leaving things empty (again), he's left people to imagine that their need is the one he'll address. Given that many of our collected needs are mutually contradictory, someone -- a lot of someones -- are going to be disappointed. The Democratic Party has too many conflicting interests. Someone is going to get hosed, they just don't know it yet.

Hey, I don't begrudge any politician from making empty promises. That's hardly a surprise. What does concern me are the varied Obama acolytes who dreamily imagine that he will grant their wish. Call me a wet blanket, but he won't. He can't.

If you're envisioning Obama calling down from heaven your vision of a shining New America with streets of gold, etc., you're sadly naive. Worse, you're being used.

Playing It (too) Safe?

--- by Micheal

Is our culture going to hell in a hand basket -- a nice safe hand basket? I got to wondering that. Is America deteriorating due to an overactive sense of safety? We see a symptom of this "disease" as the common foundation of litigation over someone getting hurt. Whatever it was that caused their injury, it's someone else's fault, never the person. You put scalding hot liquid between your legs and get scaled, it's the restaurant's fault. You drive like an moron and flip over your SUV, it's Suzuki's fault. Whatever environment we find ourselves in, the prevailing presumption is that it will be 100% totally safe. If it isn't, someone else's must pay! Big time.

This came back to my attention recently when working on a new playground design for a zoo. There are tons of rules, standards and regulations governing what a "proper" playground must be. Tire swings must be far enough away from their support poles that a kid can't bang himself into one. There must be bumpers beneath teeter totters to cushion the landing and prevent a leg from getting trapped under there. There must be protective surfacing in front and back of a swing twice however high it is.

What sent me into a curmudgeonly rant was seeing the chart for what qualified as "protective surfacing". Grass does not qualify. For a swing, it needs to be 9 inches of shredded rubber or wood chips, etc. to protect the child from a fall from 10 feet up. What? I shouted to myself. What is a kid doing falling from 10 feet up? If he's up on top of the swing set horsing around and falls, why is this the playground owner's fault?

I know, I know, every curmudgeon out there usually begins his rant with, "When I was a kid..." But I'm going to do it anyway. When I was a kid in grade school, there was nothing beneath the teeter-totter but hard packed soil. There was nothing beneath the swings but more hard soil and the stray tuft or two of grass which we hadn't yet trampled to death. Beneath the monkey bars was more hard soil with maybe a skiff of sand. That was just how it was. We could all see it. We knew the risks.

If I jumped out of my swing, I landed on hard dirt. I could skin up my hands if I landed badly. I knew that going in. If a kid was goofing around on the monkey bars -- "Hey lookie what I can do!" -- and fell, he got the wind knocked out of him. I'd seen that plenty of times. What all that did was teach me some respect for the physical world. I learned some important lessons on that playground. (1) The ground is hard. (2) If you do stupid stuff, you can get hurt.

What do kids nowadays learn? (1) Falling should never hurt. (2) Nothing they do is stupid.

If they do get hurt, it's someone else's fault. Mommy will sue the school system or McDonalds or whoever was fool enough to let them in. I'm certainly not suggesting that playgrounds be made of broken glass and jagged rusty steel. It should not hurt to swing or climb the monkey bars. I also feel badly when a child gets hurt, but kids get hurt. Is it ALWAYS someone else's fault?

We're training our new generation to be habitual victims. They won't fail to get hurt at some point. The "world" they are growing up in is designed to protect them from a 10 foot fall. It makes 10 foot falls expected. Trouble is, the rest of the world -- the REAL world -- is not covered with protective surfacing. It's hard.

Isn't this what we're seeing now in the financial markets? Bear Sterns, Lehman Brothers, AIG, they were all goofing around at the top of the financial monkey bars and fell off. Instead of having the wind knocked out of them, like it would anybody else, they're bellyaching that their falls shouldn't hurt. Someone should be providing "protective surfacing" for them.

Our culture is going to hell in a hand basket -- a nice soft, round-cornered hand basket.

Who is making race an issue?

---by Micheal

The Obama camp has been quick and almost shrill in trying to decry any perceived hint of race becoming an issue. Race, they are quick to preach, should never be brought into the campaign. That belongs to the bad old days, not today.

Lofty sentiments, to be sure, and I could agree with them thus far. The candidates should be judged by who they are inside, who they are positionally and by their character. Skin color should not be how one selects a president.

Lofty, but it just ain't happenin'. All over the press as the Democratic Convention played out, were signs, posters and buttons announcing how wonderful it was that Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream was coming true. How great it was that a black man was (in the Democratic optimism) going to become president.

But this is all judging him by his skin. Just because he's got semi-black skin, he's a wonderful thing? Obama was never part of the grand old Civil Rights Movement culture. Early critics of him (such as Rev. Jackson) were quick to point out that Obama really wasn't "one of them." He grew up in an entirely different culture than the group who struggled through 50s and 60s in the south, segregation, bussing and "Jail no bail". Obama is not one of King's fellow protesters. He was too late, and waaaay outside of that orbit.

The only connection Obama has to the MLK and Civil Rights culture is the color of his skin. Yet, this is EXACTLY what the teary-eyed Democrats are so proud of. He's got black skin. Isn't that wonderful?

Make no mistake. Race is already being made an issue -- by the Democrats. The unstated rule is: you can make race an issue, only if it favors the black man. (Even though double-standards are supposed to be wrong.)

Change What?

---by Micheal

The headline across USA Today's front page read, "Time to Change America" as summarizing Barack Obama's and the Democrats' bumper sticker slogan for November. The TV has been stuffed to nauseating fullness with gushy blather about "bringing change" and "fixing things." It's all too much like a fast talking vacuum cleaner salesman's pitch. Lot's of high-sounding words, but conspicuously devoid of particulars. What exactly are they in such a big hurry to change?

In street magician style, the vague talk suggests things like more jobs and lower taxes and better education, etc. etc., but no one is really promising anything specific there. Thus far, it's just been a lot of waving of hands and wafts of smoke.

It's when Obama staffers speak out against McCain that you get a hint of what the change is they have in mind. They fret over abortion rights and gay marriage. THAT is what appears to be really important to them. The rest is intentional diversion stuff for those not paying close attention.

Not all change is good. -- Right now, abortion is already legal. Change would mean making it illegal. Do they really want to change America? Me thinks not. Gay marriage is not a federal right. Perhaps that is what they're in such an all-fired hurry to change.

The liberal agenda has (for the past forty years) been in a huge hurry to get God removed from America and let humanist doctrine run everything. Free love, everyone entitled to everything equally, except that extra-affirmative-action should ensure that anyone who felt oppressed by white males at any point in their family history, should be entitled to preferred treatment. (What happens to white males who felt oppressed by other white males?)

There are so many ways to totally screw up this country, that some vague sloganizing about changing America sounds like a very risky deal. I might change a few things, sure, but I'm not so sure America needs all that much changing. The political process in Washington needs improving, but a big injection of more humanist doctrine will only make the monster stronger, not better.

Do we LOVE being lied to?

---by Micheal

First was the revelation that the impressive "footsteps" fireworks at the Olympic opening ceremonies were fake. CGI for TV only. Then today comes the revelation that the cute little girl singing at the opening ceremonies was lip-syncing. The real little girl singing was deemed not pretty enough to appear on TV.

Just a few more examples of how we're regularly fed the "pretty lies".

As easy as it would be to rail at the Chinese politicos for such fakery, half the blame has to fall in our own laps. How much do we prefer -- if not demand -- the pretty lie?

A short while back, while listening to NPR's Cokie Roberts, she was gushing all sorts of praise at Obama for his "wonderful" European tour. "Brilliant," she called it. She couldn't hardly get a word out without tripping over another praise. (This is the journalist who favors word spins like Obama is the "presidential hopeful" while McCain is the "presumptive nominee.")

She was talking about a very heavily stage managed string of photo-ops orchestrated by the Obama campaign. It was the same pageantry stuff as the Olympics opening ceremonies. Nothing real. Nothing substantial. Just a big show intended to dazzle. In short, we're being lied to -- given the pretty face to watch and carefully crafted audio to go with it. Some, perhaps many?, like Ms Roberts are buying into the lie, lock stock and barrel.

As we go into the home stretch on the elections (both state and national), do we as voters fall for the pretty lies? Worse yet, do we subtly expect the pretty lies? "Tell me what I want to hear regardless of how impossible it is." Are we semi-consciously demanding that our politicians will be the pretty face, have the soothing voice and promise us a gilded utopia?

One big test for this Pretty Lie Fixation is how you react (inside) if a politician does not promise you your utopia? Do you angrily demand your silk purse, or do you try to figure out what you can do with that sow's ear?

If you demand the pretty lie, you'll get it, but that's all you'll get.

Orwell - right again

---by Dave Buhlman

This is a brief story about two guys calling the Archbishop of a large Catholic congregation. One guy is a regular communicant, while the other is better known.

The regular communicant has supported the Church for over thirty years, and is a staunch supporter of all of the positions and teachings of the Catholic Church. He is pro-life and has attended prayer vigils outside of abortuaries, oversees the collections at weekend Masses, is a member of the Knights of Columbus, had three kids who were altar servers, attends Mass an average of five days a week, and confesses his sins about once a month. Also, he prays for those caught up in the sins of engaging in or supporting abortion, and homosexual acts. He is a good, practicing Catholic.

The better known guy is about the exact opposite of the lesser known soul described above. He pretends to be Catholic, but his vocal public positions on the major issues goes against everything the Church teaches. Some lower level Church officials (i.e., priests) refer to this better known as a “Scandal for the Church”.

The lesser known guy is calling the Archbishop to express his displeasure that a number of Church leaders who supported pedophile priests remain members in good standing in the Church. His main example of a Church leader who should get the boot, is Bernard Cardinal Law, formerly the Cardinal/Archbishop for the Archdiocese of Boston.

“Hello, Archbishop McGuire’s office,” said a chirpy voice on the other end of the phone.

“Hello, this is Bob Larson of Rochester,” the lesser known responded, now a little nervous that he was actually in the midst of the call he had considered making for years.

“Oh yes,” responded the secretary, “do you personally know the Archbishop?”

“Uh, no,” Larson said, in a strained voice. “I just want to express my thoughts about something, uh the pedophile priest situation. I think...”

“Oh, you should write a letter,” the secretary interrupted. “Archbishop McGuire is very busy and can’t respond to every call.”

Bob felt the heat rise in his face. “But I’ve been active in the Church for over thirty years. I even considered becoming a priest, and...” he began in response, but was cut off again.

“So have millions of others, Mr., uh.., what did you say your name was?” the secretary sniffed.

“Larson”, came the weak, defeated reply. “I’m disappointed I can’t talk to or see the Archbishop, but I suppose you know best.”

“That’s right, Mr. Larson, we look forward to your letter. Goodbye,” the secretary said, ending the conversation.

“OK. Bye.”, the good communicant responded.

Then the better known guy called and fared much better than Bob did. The conversation for this guy, began with the Archbishop beaming, “Senator Kerry! Great to hear from you. What can I do for you?”

Indeed, even in the Church view, sometimes, “Some animals are more equal than others.”

Dave Buhlman is a former New Hampshire State Representative who hopes Ed O’Reilly gives Senator Kerry a good scare in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senator in Massachusetts in a replay of “The World Turned Upside Down”.

What about Juan; what about O?

---by Dave Buhlman

In recent news it was announced that the Mexican government will bestow the highest honor it has available to honor foreign dignitaries, on Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. They are pleased with his support of the millions of illegal immigrants Mexico has foisted on America. They are very pleased that Kennedy thinks the US taxpayers should shoulder the burdens created by these poor souls, instead of the Mexican government. I wonder if the federal government will be looking into indicting Kennedy as an accessory after the fact of millions of crimes, and maybe even for some form of subversion, or even treason. Probably not.

Another painful aspect of this "honor" is that the Mexican government is not recognizing Kennedy's main partner in crime, the cosponsor of the bill to grant citizenship to illegal immigrants, that good Republican, Senator John (Juan) McCain of Atzlan, er... I mean, Arizona. McCain should be incensed at this slight by the Mexican government, but he probably understands why he isn't getting his. After all, the Mexican government does not want to foul up the campaign for president of one of its boon amigos. Senator Obama, with his undying support for maximizing illegal immigration, is in line for similar honors, but he likely understands the slight against him by the Mexican government too.

One good thing about the 2008 American presidential elections is that the Mexican government can't lose no matter who wins. They will have an honorary Mexican in the Oval Office to replace the one who is leaving. This will not be good for the American people, but, then again, what is lately?

On the dismal economic/financial front, how many remember what Congressman Ron Paul predicted? How dare he be so right!

Dave Buhlman is a former New Hampshire State Representative who is praying for a warm winter.

Race: The Double Standard

---by Micheal

Favoring one person based on his race, and disfavoring another of a different race -- having a double standard -- is supposed to be a bad thing. Years of indoctrination by the public school system has beaten that into my brain. Yet, this year's presidential race has proven that double standards are only bad for some people.

Despite his efforts to be simply a presidential candidate, Barak Obama is regularly heralded as the "black" or african-american candidate. Given the long reach of "affirmative action", most of the media are falling all over themselves to say only nice things and cut him more slack than anyone in recent memory.

Recently, Juan Williams (a notable name in the black history and civil rights movement) enthused about how great a reception Obama should get when addressing the NAACP convention. Why? Because he's the first african-american candidate. Simply put, since Obama is "black", every other black person ought to love him. Isn't this just acceptable racism? If a white voter likes a white candidate because he's white, that makes him a damnable racist. But black voters ought to love a black candidate because he's black. That's all fine.

When McCain also addresses the NAACP convention, he will be judged by what he says, doesn't say or ought to have said, etc. etc. Williams expects McCain to receive a cool reception because of McCain's prior legislative record and presumed ties to the current administration. He will be judged by his words and record. Obama, on the other hand, must be loved simply because he's black.

Jesse Jackson was lambasted for daring to criticize or disagree with Obama. I'm no fan of Jackson, but why must black people be a monolith of opinion? White people are always going after each other for their stances or policies. Why are black people excused this political feature?

For all the liberal public-school "education" I endured about not judging someone by the color of their skin, it seems to be only half true. White people dare not, but black folks CAN (and according to Williams, should) judge someone by their skin. If you're black, you must like Obama because he's black.

How shallow is this? Wasn't Mr. Williams getting the same educational dogma as I was?

How to get back on track - Part II

---by Dave Buhlman

July 4, 2008 - 232 years and...

Last week several ideas were presented on how to get the country back on track and away from the edge of the cliff. The topics were the money system, ending our involvement in destructive treaties, controlling illegal immigration, and fixing our nuthouse foreign policy.

First on the agenda today is health care. It’s pretty simple to fix. The government has to start backing out of its intrusions into the system before we end up in long lines for surgeries, as in Canada and other countries where socialized medicine is mandated. The federal government started on the road to ruin in the 1970s by creating HMOs. Today, medical doctors are dictated to by the insurance companies, sometimes by gum-snapping kids, and millions are on Medicare and Medicaid. Medicare and its twin dark star, Social Security, will bankrupt the government; that is, unless the endless wars and the fiat money system do us in first. As the federal government backs off, market forces will fill the gap. For those cases where people need help, it has to be done on the state and local level, not by the DC behemoth.

There are over two million Americans in prison, which matches up well, proportionately, with the incarceration rate in mainland China. This is not the American way. To reduce this population, all those who are in for minor drug offenses should be released, and no more people should be imprisoned for ingesting certain drugs that are no more harmful than alcohol. Then the Ninth and Tenth Amendments need to be applied to get the feds out of the failed drug war. Let the states handle it, as was originally intended, and as guaranteed by these two Amendments. Each state can decide what’s legal within their sovereign control. And we need to stop having law enforcement personnel patrolling the streets of America with automatic weapons and masks on. Why are they hiding from us? We don’t need Hezbollah here.

An in-depth look needs to be undertaken regarding the federal tax system in order to get the weight off of regular, wage- earning citizens who are burdened with a total tax bill of about 50 percent when federal, state, and local taxes and fees are added together. Give those who claim that the Sixteenth Amendment was not ratified, and those who claim that the federal income tax does not apply to most Americans, a fair hearing. After all, when he claimed that the earth revolved around the sun, and not vice-versa, Galileo was threatened with imprisonment by the authorities in the 1600s. I guess we know who turned out to be right. It’s long past time to get shirkers, both here and abroad, corporate sharpies, and UN bureaucrats off of our backs. Americans deserve this protection. Instead, the government sets us up for the shearing. While we’re at it, let’s look at repealing the Seventeenth Amendment and go back to having US Senators elected by state legislatures.

The long snouts of special interests need to be pulled out of the DC trough. We can begin with Planned Parenthood. This group, founded by the racist, Margaret Sanger (Hitler loved her ideas), is on the federal dole for over 200 million a year. There have been nearly 50 million abortions since the US Supreme Court invented the “right” to it in 1973. Many of us know that abortion is murder, and ache over the tragedy. We should not be forced to pay for it by any level of government. As described in the US Constitution, Congress can end federal court involvement in any issue it wants, including abortion, but it chooses to shirk its responsibilities.

The First Amendment needs to be applied to end the influence of the religion of environmentalism, which is fast becoming the state religion, in clear violation of the First Amendment. If this green jihad is not stopped, Americans will be fist fighting over candles in the aisles of Walmart. We need to get back to nuclear power and start drilling in the teeny tiny area of the Alaska wilderness that has been under consideration for years. Maybe when Americans open their bills for the 2008 heating season, our state religion-induced pain will become clearer.

In summary, Americans have to realize that those who run the show do not have their best interests at heart, and that the back-breaking bill for the callousness of the elite will soon land on our doorsteps. There remains a lot of good in America, but some detrius needs to be cleared to let more of it shine through.

Dave Buhlman is a former New Hampshire State Representative.

How to get back on track - Part I

---by Dave Buhlman

The American economy and spirit are on the decline. This is to be expected after all of the maneuvering in the political and social realms over the past fifty years. Government has grown at a rapid pace and the acknowledged public debt exceeds $9 trillion, a number hard for most of us to fathom. Experts tell us that when unfunded liabilities, such as Social Security, Medicare, and pensions are added in, the debt is more than $60 trillion, a number even more difficult to grasp. Many people are worried about how to pay for gas at the pump, and how they will pay to heat their homes next fall and winter. Thus we are threatened at very basic levels, places where we never thought would be a concern. The stock market is tumbling, and dragging down the retirement plans of many with it. Is life in America about to become, “nasty, brutish and short”, as one philosopher put it?

These times call for innovative ideas, new ways to approach how things are run, but these are sorely lacking in the papers and speeches of the nominees of the two parties. We need to look at how we got to this point, where the tragedy began, and fix the bad things that brought us to this dark place. The candidates hawk a number of ideas, but they all amount to either putting a band aid on a cancerous sore, or building upon the failed past policies that resulted in a shaky America in the summer of 2008. They may want to present other approaches, but are concerned that the power elite will withdraw their support because of them, so they stay quiet in order to continue on their quest for the power of the presidency by “attacking” their adversary. Watching this “gotcha” game has become tedious and tiring after having endured it since I first voted in a presidential election. That was 1972, when Nixon took forty-nine states and McGovern took only one, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

Given the dearth of original thinking from those quarters, I humbly offer the following as a way to get us back on track.

First, nationalize the privately-owned Federal Reserve Bank with the aim of eliminating it and turning its functions over to the US Treasury where they belong.. This bank is not federal and there are no reserves, so even the name is a misnomer. As part of this effort, start on the road back to the gold standard to end the killing inflation caused by our current fiat money system, which is backed only by a belief that the dollar has value. Belief can be a fleeting emotion, while gold has intrinsic value in and of itself. Let’s stop the hidden robbery of our pocketbooks caused by deflating the value of the few dollars most of us hold for the ever shortening period between when we get it and when we pay our bills.

Second, repudiate the NAFTA and GATT treaties, and all others like them. Such treaties have benefitted foreigners, and a small cadre of the connected here, while devastating American industries and causing a severe loss of good jobs in America.

On illegal immigration, when politicians recommend giving illegal immigrants amnesty, citizenship and public benefits, they should not be engaged in debate, but arrested for treason or sedition. We would not hesitate to do this is if they suggested giving the Northwest to mainland China. At a minimum, they should be ignored and ushered from the political stage as the dangerous lunatics they are. Both Obama and McCain are for giving it all to illegal immigrants at the expense of ordinary Americans, although McCain has flipped and flopped all over the place on this. But we remember McCain-Kennedy, John. We remember.

Foreign policy has been run by the elites such that it is completely foreign to the well being of regular Americans, especially those called to fight and die in civil/tribal wars of other countries. While remaining wide open to trade and commerce with all nations, tell them they’re on their own when it comes to Americans dying for the nuttiness that plagues too many places in the world. We will, by all means, arm those who are oppressed so that they can defend themselves. For example, had we done this with the Kurds in the early 1980s, Saddam Hussein wouldn’t have gone on his murdering spree in Kurdish areas. Tyrants are cowards at heart, as are they that they send to do their bidding, so shooting back at them really works. Another avenue of semi-intervention is the president issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal, as described in the US Constitution. This was done in the 1800s to tame the Barbary Pirates. With Letters, the president puts a price on the head of a bad guy and private entities, such as retired special forces guys join together to get the bad guy and collect the price on his head. They may die in the effort, but it’s their choice. This is a big difference from being forced to fight, as many have been in my lifetime, God bless them.

In the next installment, the rest of the program will be presented.

Dave Buhlman is a former New Hampshire State Representative.

Gas, Not Too Expensive to SOME People

---by Micheal

Okay, so gasoline is expensive. What are you going to do? Gripe, but keep guzzling? Or, reduce how much you have to buy?

I've opted to save. Some people obviously don't think gas costs too much. Me? I've been practicing "hypermiling" (see previous post) techniques for just over a year now. I've increased my mileage from 18 to 27%.

Some hypermile techniques are invisible to other drivers -- increase your tire pressure, don't carry around any extra weight, etc. No one cares if you do these things because they don't get in their way. (Heaven forbid!)

Some hypermile techniques, however, do affect other drivers. One hypermile tenet is "Don't Stop at Red Lights." This doesn't mean to run red lights, but rather to avoid braking (which is essentially burning off energy you just consumed gas to create. It's like regulating the heat of your house in winter by opening the windows instead of turning down the thermostat). You adjust your speed such that by the time you get up to the light, it will have changed to green and you can proceed on through at a steady speed. Saves gas. Other drivers don't like it, though. A great many people like to race up to the red light as if their pants were on fire, brake hard to a stop and sit there idling (and fuming about how long the lights are) so they can punch it and roar back up to 10 mph over the speed limit when the light turns green.

For these folks, gas is clearly not too expensive.

Another hypermile tenet is to leave a few minutes earlier so you don't have to drive fast to get there on time. The goal is to drive slower. It takes energy to make your car push air out of its way. How much energy it takes grows exponentially with speed. (Try fanning with a big piece of cardboard for two full minutes. You'll feel how much energy it takes to move air.) At lower speeds, you spend energy to push air out of your way. At higher speeds, you're actually compressing air. That takes a LOT more energy. It takes 10% to 15% more gas to drive 70 instead of 60. It can take 35% more gas to drive 80. Want to save gas? Try driving the speed limit. Want to make people mad? Try driving the speed limit.

For all those angry-eyed people in my rearview mirror, gas is obviously not too expensive. They'd rather leave a few minutes late, drive like scalded bats out of hell and pay whatever it takes to Chavez or Prince Sahud for those precious few minutes.

Me? I've been hypermiling for over a year. I've increased my mileage by roughly 20%, usually more. I'm counterculture. Drivers around me don't want to slow down a little, or float through traffic lights. They have their type-A, get outta-MY-way, gas wasting habits and they don't want to change.

Perhaps this marks me as a social loser. 5 minutes of my time is not worth the extra gas.

But, for all these very important people, gas is apparently not too expensive.

Not Rich Enough to Be "Green"

-- by Micheal

From the media spin, the thing to do to save gas (and the planet, they tell me), is to downsize my vehicle or buy a hybrid. Greeaaat. This is like Marie Antoinette's dietary advice.

With a mortgage payment up by $500 a month (because the schools simply MUST have more and more and more money), and various other expenses dramatically increased. I don't have a spare $25,000 to buy a hybrid. What I've got (and is paid for, btw), is a Ford Ranger pickup. While I could save on gas if I rode a Vespa scooter, I would have a heck of a time hauling fire wood, or rock or bark mulch, etc. (which I do weekly) on a Vespa.

Even if someone out there comes up with the all-electric "green" pick-up, I don't have the abundant liquidity of the richer liberal set who preach the get-a-hybrid advice. I can't buy a different vehicle. No, I'm stuck with my Ranger. All I can do is tighten my gas consumption belt as tight as I can.

What do I do? (I know you didn't ask) For one, I don't drive make unnecessary trips. I make my daughter angry at me because I won't drive into town that day because she's out of her special shampoo. "It'll wait until tomorrow," I said, "when we'll be driving right by there." (I was right. The world did not end that day for lack of shampoo.)

What I have done is scour the web for gas saving techniques that the rest of us non-Antoinette folk can use. Some are age-old maxims, such as keeping your tire pressure up, and not carrying around unnecessary weight. Others are less obvious and take more constant effort. One of those is to NOT keep a constant speed on hilly roads. Keep a steady throttle position. Let your speed dwindle going up hill and let it increase going down hill -- not to a crawl going up or careening 40 mph over the speed limit on the downside. Safety and legality are still in play. But, don't obsessed with constant speed. Allow that gravity exists.

All these techniques are called hypermiling (hyper-mile-ing) -- trying to get the highest mileage you can. Some hypermile enthusiasts go to extremes, such as installing a full body pan under their car to improve it's aerodynamics, etc. (I can't afford that either. )

Me? I just do what I can because I can't afford Marie's cake.

Gas does NOT cost too much

---by Micheal

It does for me, but apparently not for the vast majority of folks. Oh sure, they gripe and complain as though they'd been mugged, but actions speak much louder than words. By the actions of drivers I see, gas still doesn't cost too much.

For example, while in the Walmart parking lot, a young mother sat in her minivan-SUV-thing idling for almost 20 minutes. I think she was going through flyers or something. Eventually, she shut off her engine and went in to shop. It was a drizzly day. No need for A/C. She just liked having her engine running, I guess.

For another example, I was in the cell phone lot at Manchester Airport, waiting to pick up my mother-in-law. When I got there, several cars already there awhile, sat idling. I shut mine off for the 10 minutes I was there. The others were still idling when I left. Obviously, gas does not cost too much for those people.

For a bigger example, I commute daily to Boston in a van-pool. We're having trouble getting enough riders to keep it viable. Yet, every day, I-93 is choked with thousands of cars, each with a single occupant. When we get the occasional enquiry, they decline to van-pool because our departure time is a half hour after when they want to leave. So, they drive in. It boggles the mind. All that wasted time behind the wheel, and hundreds of dollars in gas -- all for a half hour? What are they doing with those gold-plated half hours? It must be very VERY important. (though I suspect not).

Clearly, for all those people happily driving alone in to Boston every day, gas is not too expensive. Even at $4.00 a gallon, that precious half hour is worth it.

Gas might not be too expensive for them, but it is for me. I've been engaged in "Hypermiling" (hyper-mile-ing) for about a year now. (more on that in a later post), but I'm still astounded how much people's personal preferences win out over economy. Since people are too fussy to change their driving habits, One can only conclude that gas really is NOT too expensive.

Is God Knocking?

---by Dave Buhlman

In Matthew Chapter 24, Jesus explains the end times, how things will be before His Second Coming. He mentions earthquakes, famines, war and pestilence. We have always had these afflictions, but they do seem more prevalent lately. Non-believers scoff at the whole concept, while believers argue endlessly about the subtlety of meanings in Matthew 24, and many other places in the Bible. But Jesus was quite clear that things will not be going well just before He returns.

I do not keep statistical tabs on how many earthquakes and other natural disasters there have been in, say, the last ten years. So far as I know, the experts say that there is no special pattern occurring these days, but I wonder. China’s earthquake, the typhoon in Myanmar, and the floods in the Midwest have all happened in the last month or so. These are quite significant events that caused tremendous loss of life, staggering disruptions to regular life, and catastrophic destruction of property. Regarding war and rumors of war (with Iran?), they are constantly with us. Famine and pestilence are also. When all is known at the end of time, we will see that we brought most of the famine and disease on ourselves. Famine is due largely to greed, and much of the disease we see today stems from bizarre sexual practices. Certainly the endless wars are all on mankind’s tab. God has an ordained and a permissive Will, and it can be difficult to draw the line between the two. But there is no question that we bring many of our troubles on ourselves. For one thing, it’s 2008, we have sent men to the moon, and had other worthy accomplishments, but our government is unwilling to allow levees and other flood control structures to be built that, while not simple to design, involve only basic engineering principles that have been practiced for thousands of years. Doing that one thing right would avoid much havoc.

We should be considering whether or not we have gone too far. The United States lies its way into wars that kill hundreds of thousands, homosexuality has been raised above heterosexuality in some quarters (Massachusetts government, for one), the Church built upon the Rock of Peter allowed child-molesting priests to continue their abuse virtually unchallenged, abortions run into the billions worldwide, with the United States accounting for nearly 50 million victims of this staggering horror, and environmentalism, with its tenets aimed at control over all of our activities, is the new religion guiding the world.

Also quite disturbing is that people with bad bodies mounted their bicycles and rode naked through the streets to protest the use of cars. Didn’t public nudity used to be a crime?

Dave Buhlman is a former New Hampshire State Representative.

Pondering

---by Dave Buhlman

As we slog through our days, gasping at the rising price of gas, various thoughts occur to us all. Here are several of mine.

When is the last time President Bush paid for a gallon of gas? Maybe for tooling around his ranch in a pickup, or is that tab also picked up by the beleaguered taxpayers? The same likely applies to Senators McCain and Obama, along with many others who have their hands on the controls.

What caused Building 7 at the World Trade Center to collapse on September 11, 2001? The government states that the Twin Towers were brought down by the airplane hits and subsequent fires (very doubtful physics involved with that theory), but nothing except a little debris hit the 44 story Building 7, so what caused this other steel-supported building to collapse? The government doesn’t exactly say. I wonder why.

France gets about ninety percent of its power from nuclear plants. If the French can do it, what are we so afraid of?

With the value of a dollar sliding faster than a roller coaster, when will the government start working its way back to the solidness of a gold-backed money system, as Congressman Ron Paul suggested? Probably never under our current system where whim trumps law. Watch for the introduction of the new North American currency, the Amero.

How much money is Algore making from the three-card monte like global warming scam? Does he have utterly no shame?

It was a great pleasure to see the Texas Children’s “Services” fascists have to return those kids to their parents. Granted, Yearning for Zion is an odd group, but the government can cast any group in that light. Nice to see judges do the right thing for a change. But the government will try to get those kids again.

With same-sex “marriage” approved by the Kaliphonia Supreme Court, the slide into our morally decrepit state continues. Look for a blood brother and sister to give having their “marriage” validated by judicial fiat a whirl; maybe a man and his dog. They will rely on Lawrence v. Texas, and other decisions. Welcome to the monkey house.

Has Governor John Lynch become a complete cardboard cutout? And the Republicans can’t find anyone to beat this guy?

More importantly, when will Ron Dupuis be back on duty? Let’s all keep praying for a complete recovery for our good friend.

Dave Buhlman is a former New Hampshire State Representative.

Where Did D-Day Go?

---by Micheal

Maybe this is just a sign that the relentless glacier of history has moved us too far from World War 2 to see it anymore. Maybe this is just another proof that I've become an old coot. Where are all the media announcements that today (June 6th) is the 64th anniversary of the landings on the beaches of Normandy? Used to be, that TV and newspapers would talk about D-Day for at least a few days before the 6th, and have ready some photo montages to run on the news, or interview with vets, etc.

Now? Hardly a peep. What was perhaps THE pivotal event of that century, has slipped under the bridge and floated downstream.

Perhaps it's our fruitfly-like attention spans. Perhaps it's our cultural-myopia that can only think about events of the past year or two. Whatever the reason, the symptom is there. We're no longer remembering. At least, we're no longer remembering out loud How will the youth of today (and by youth I mean anyone under 30) ever know that such a huge event took place?

Answer: they won't if we don't tell them. Tonight, I plan to take down a couple of my WW II history books (the ones with pictures) and remind both of my kids what happened on this day, 64 years ago.

No, I wasn't there. I wasn't even born yet. But D-Day is one of those historical forks in the road which leads to the nation we all live in today. How can we forget this? How can we allow ourselves and our kids to forget?

My kids will more than likely roll their eyes at me -- yet another pointless rant from the old man -- but they'll have heard. They may not remember, years from now, but it WON'T be because I didn't tell them.

Oil Bubble: The New Stupid

---by Micheal

Oil just hit a new high, $138 per barrel. This sudden jump was sparked by anxiety over mideast peace (Israel's statement that it would bomb Iran if its nuke program goes too far). But no one has bombed anyone yet. No supplies have been disrupted yet. This spike in prices is all in the speculative futures market.

Speculation. Not facts. As it said in a New York Times article today: "Prices keep rising despite a lack of shortages in the market, and strong evidence of lower consumption in industrialized countries. But investors seem to be caught in a bullish mood, focusing instead on perceived risks to future oil supplies and continued growth in oil demand from emerging economies that subsidize fuels."

We just experienced (or are still) the effects of a housing speculation bubble that burst. Before we've even had a chance to learn our lessons from that speculation stupidity, we're all getting sucked into another one. Impatient investors are going to plunk down big bucks on potentially expensive future oil -- all assuming that war in the middle east breaks out. There's big bucks to be made quick. Buy oil futures now at $138 on the presumption that it will be $150 in a couple months. Sell quick and reap the profits. Woohoo! Easy money.

But, if no war breaks out, and people (like me) continue to drive less and conserve, there will be an even greater oversupply than demand. Oil might not hit $150. Might even decline. Then we'll have a whole new crop of idiot speculators who will be ruined for lack of windfall. Will I shed a tear for them? No. But, they'll manage to take down a part of our economy with them -- pension funds and people's jobs, etc. that somehow got entangled with them.

Stupid, it seems, knows know bounds -- and learns no lessons

Green Folly: Billions for Nothin'

---by Micheal

The global warming alarmists try to spook the public lemming herd with tales of dire woe. "If we don't halt global warming, our coastal cities will be inundated." With this as a battle cry, they seek to pry billions of dollars from the lemmings.

First off, they glibly presume that if X Y or Z program to reduce "greenhouse gasses" is funded, that global warming will stop (or reverse). Folly! Here's an example. A study analyzed the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the famed Kyoto protocol (which President Bush is so easily bashed for). The study showed that if all the carbon-based initiatives in the CDM were 100% successful, it would slow the increase of carbon dioxide emissions by 6.5 days. Yes, 6 and a half days.

If nothing were done, the world would achieve a benchmark of accumulated carbon emissions by June 1, 2012. If all of the carbon-based CDM programs were totally successful, the world would achieve that same benchmark on the morning of June 7, 2012. Billions and BILLIONS of dollars to manage carbon emissions and all it buys us is six days? What's the bleepin' point?

And, this all assumes that the globe will continue to warm in proportion to those carbon emissions. This is by no means such a fiat accompli. Resist the green coyotes trying to get you, as a member of the public herd, to stampede. Take a closer look before blindly handing over your money. You can donate all you like, but if it's not going to make any real difference, why do it?

Green Folly: Trying to Hold Back the Sea

---by Micheal

The last of Spencer Reiss's list of green re-thinks, is that the globe is warming, get used to it.

If the globe continues to warm, and glaciers melt, raising sea levels. Yes, this will pose a problem for cities built along the coasts. The problem is not global warming. The globe has warmed and cooled many times before. The real problem is that our civilization, out of smug hubris, opted to build large expensive cities on coastlines. Coastlines, like riverbanks, are ever-changing. So now, we've built our sandcastles near the waves and demand that everyone DO SOMETHING because the tide is coming in. Sheesh.

Many thousands of years ago, when North America was just past the peak of the last ice age, the ocean levels much were lower. The New England coastline was a hundred miles south of Nantucket. The indigenous folks back then probably dug clams along the beaches, much as the Narragansett or Massachusett indians did a few hundred years ago. They'd make up little shelter settlements near the beach. When the sea levels began to rise, they didn't gnash their teeth and rend their garments over having to build another log hut further inland. They just moved inland. They certainly didn't sit around trying to figure out how they could keep the sea from rising. Or, how they could demand that everyone else had to kick in some wampum to fund a government program that would stop the sea. Only WE are dumb enough to do that.

If the rise in global temperatures is going to raise sea levels, then folks need to plan for how they're going to deal with a higher ocean. All this talk of reducing carbon to prevent the seas from rising, is green folly talk. Instead of spending billions to reduce carbon (which really just puts the billions in certain people's hands and does little, if anything, to reduce warming), put those billions into mega-seawalls for NYC, Boston, etc. The whole carbon-management scheme will only LOOK like it's making a difference. The seas will still rise, and the coastal cities will have only pretty printed government reports with which to hold back the sea. Good luck with that.

Only bureaucrats and enviro-liberals think they're more powerful than nature.

Forced bussed

---by Dave Buhlman

First, please keep our leader and chief guide, Ron Dupuis, in your thoughts and prayers as he continues to recover from surgery. May he be back on line soon with a vengeance!

Forced bussed is the term generated in the 1970's in Boston when a federal judge decided single handedly to take over the Boston Public School system and determine where all students in the system should go to to school. Judge schoolmarm had kids on buses going from one side of the city to the other based on one characteristic - race. He did this to help reduce alleged racial bias in the school system. And I guess it worked, at least by liberal interventionist rules and measures. The school system went from about 70 percent white to about 10 percent white - and dropping. Many white families voted with their feet, as has been done throughout history to avoid oppressive regimes.

Judge schoolmarm lived in the very upscale town of Wellesley ("Wealthly", we used to call it growing up in the Roslindale section of Boston), so his kids were never in danger of being forced bussed. Do as I say, etc.

But the forced bussing I'm now referring to is not exactly forced but, given traffic conditions and the price of gas, it certainly beats driving from New Hampshire to my job in Boston. My fellow travelers (literally, not like Hillary, Bill and Lenin) are pretty much like me. Headed to and fro to jobs they may love or hate, but have to have to survive. So it's the 6:20 AM out of Londonderry, or maybe the 6:40, if that's your pleasure. The service is good and the professional drivers can get through traffic jams better than most of us.

These people represent the core of what keeps America going. They travel to jobs, pay a load of taxes, take little in government giveaways, and die quietly in the manner of ITS Eliot's "J. Alfred Prufrock". For these quiet lives they are rewarded with the gratitude of congressmen, the French, villagers in Zimbabwe, delegates to the United Nations, Haliburton executives, and all those south of the Rio Grande. Thank you, Citizens!

Dave Buhlman is a former two-term NH State Representative and published author.

Green: Hard to Swallow?

When it comes to energy demands, we're our own worst enemy. One of the "invisible" ways we consume fuels (adding to cost, supply depletion and pollution) is how far our food must be shipped before it gets to us. Grapes from Chile. Oranges from the middle east. Even grain from the Midwest or seafood from the gulf. What we eat has to trucked a long way to get to our tables. We're told by green evangelists to buy local produce instead. But can we?

This phenomenon of long-distance food is really only a hundred and fifty years old, though. Back in the mid 1800s, people mostly ate local -- because they had no choice. New England farmers battled the rocky ground to grow grains. These grains were ground in local mills and baked in local bakeries. Local farms raised cattle and produced milk. These very perishable foodstuffs couldn't travel far without spoiling.

Before refrigeration, people laid up a winter's worth of food. They salted meat butchered in the autumn. They stored away the autumn grain harvest carefully so it could be turned into bread through the dark cold months. If you were doing well, the winter diet of salted meat, bread and some rootstocks would be getting boring by the time spring came. If you were less well off, you were running out of food before the spring grass gave cattle something to eat again (resuming milk production) People got through the winter on a pretty short menu.

Things changed in the mid-1800s when railroads opened up Midwest farms to a larger market. It became cheaper to buy grain from Ohio than to grow it in New Hampshire. Local New Hampshire farmers turned to perishable foods which couldn't come from Ohio (yet). One was dairy (hence the famous Hood dairies of Derry) and apples, (hence the many orchards of Londonderry, etc.)

This trend has gone global. Food comes from all over now. But what if you tried to a good green do-bee? What could you eat that was grown locally? New Hampshire produces about $53 million in dairy, $21 million in livestock, $12 million in veggies and $8 million in apples. Compare this roughly $100 million in food with the $380 million NH grows in "ornamental horticulture". Could New Hampshire live off what we grow? It isn't sounding too likely.

But here's the question for you. Would YOU be willing to lay up a larder of cheeses, some salt beef, a few dried veggies and dried apples, (and bushels of dried flowers) to live on all winter? I don't see many hands being raised. How can we "buy locally" if we're not willing to (a) eat what's grown locally or (b) grow locally what we want to eat?

It's easy to preach green. It's a lot harder to put your mouth where you dogma is.

Cutting Wood, Being Green

For the past couple of weeks, I've been cutting up trees to burn as heating fuel next winter. It turns out I'm doing a "good" thing, as far as trendy environmentalism goes. (Not that I was trying to, mind you)

As it turns out, trees are only a temporary solution to carbon dioxide. Sure, they absorb CO2 while alive and growing, but when they die and rot, they give it all back to the atmosphere. All that "green" piety of buying indulgences for your SUV by planting trees, is a crock. Your "carbon offset" is only a loan, at best. It's like saying my family budget is "neutral", but I'm using my credit card to make up for the income I don't have. That pigeon will come home to roost eventually.

Trees do help absorb CO2 while their alive, but dead, they're a liability. This hurts the time-honored "green" mantra of saving old growth forests at all costs. Not that we should then cut them all down. Rather, we need to see that there is give AND take. Dead or nearly dead old growth would (from the greenhouse gases point of view) be better off cut into lumber or burned as fuel.

Actually, burning wood releases less carbon than rotting wood does. Who'd have thought? While I've not found useful figures on the amount of CO2 released by a cord of wood vs 100 gallons of fuel oil, it's a sure bet that burning the oil AND letting the wood rot is a double whammy.

To tell you the truth, I really didn't care about reducing my CO2 "footprint". (such a trendy gimmick) I'm laying up a winter's worth of wood because I can scarcely afford heating oil. I suppose I feel less guilt. Actually, I think I feel a little relieved that the enviro-activists won't be screeching at me when I'm just trying to keep my family marginally warm this winter.

Green Dilemma: Food or Fuel?

---by Micheal

Another example of not getting to have our cake and eat it too, is the problem of biofuels and food. Yes, converting from non-renewable crude oil to bio-fuels has merits, but as we're discovering, to simply divert a big chunk of agricultural resources to fuel means a decrease in food for an already hungry world.

A quick look at basic statistics shows the problem. There are 6.6 billion people in the world. There are about 7.7 billion arable acres in the world. That's only a little over an acre of farm land per person. In pre-industrial times, it took around 4 acres to grow food to sustain one person. Industrial farming has dramatically improved that ratio, but it can only be pushed so far. Factor in how yields vary from year to year and not all land remains equally productive, and you can see how we're already living on the edge.

To take a chunk of that 1 acre per person out to raise bio-fuels pushes things to the brink. Biofuels are not a simple answer.

Another example of the food vs fuel conundrum shows up in Spiess's first green counterinutitive: Live in large cities. Living in very dense clusters (on the order of Manhattan) will free up once-sprawled land, but it only adds to the problem of bringing food to all those millions living in the concrete canyons. Their food must by hauled in to them. That takes more fuel. You gain some land, but increase fuel requirements. Dense urbanization helps one problem, but generates another.

There are no simple easy answers. Beware who say there are. They're either naive, or after your wallet.

Blissful Green Ignorance. Ten Ways to Be Wrong

---by Micheal

Crowds love quick answers. They don't have to be correct answers, mind you. They just have to be easy to remember and assimilate. The currently trendy "green" wave running through our culture is a perfect example. So many people swell with genuine zeal to "save the planet", yet charge off half-cocked to subdue mere windmills. In reality, they're doing virtually no good (beyond feeling good.)

A fine spotlight on this Pointlessly Green phenomenon was highlighted in a recent article in Wired magazine: Inconvenient Truths: Get Ready to Rethink What it Means to Be Green.. Author Spencer Reiss lists off ten counterintuitive (for crowd-think) truths about the environment.

1. Live in Cities: Stacking us up in urban density is easier on the rest of the planet
2. A/C is OK: It uses less energy to cool a home than heat one. Move south.
3. Organics Hurt: Organic crops and meats actually produce more greenhouse gases.
4. Farm Old Growth Forests: Old trees absorb less CO2 than young growing ones.
5. China is the Solution: Whatever that many people do, will matter a lot.
6. Accept Genetic Engineering: Tweaked crops and animals can require less energy.
7. Carbon Trading Doesn't Work: It's a shell game.
8. Embrace Nukes: Like 'em or not, they produce tons of power without CO2
9. Used Cars, Not Hybrids: Hybrids require lots more energy to make. Go used.
10. Prepare for the Worst: The planet is warming. Deal with it.

Most of these reveal how complex the world actually is. We can't simply adopt one "wonder" solution (such as avoiding nuclear waste) and ride off into the sunset. Each choice has ramifications which need to be weighed.

Are we really open to the personal changes required of "reducing our carbon footprint"? (which is the trendy noble thing to pretend to want to do) Are you willing to sell your suburban house and take an apartment downtown? Are you willing to give up your car? Are you willing to eat whatever's best for the planet and not what you want?

A couple of Reiss's points were interesting food for thought. More on those in later posts.

Stop the War (well, duh)

---by Micheal

The "activist" sign seen at right has been on that barn for quite awhile. I've seen a few others (albeit smaller) crop up at roadsides too. At first, they seem all noble and neo-60s protest like. After a bit of reflection, however, I thought the statement quite fatuous. Who doesn't want the "war" to stop? Is anyone saying "woohoo! I hope the killing goes on without any discernible change!"?

No. Even the most hawkish people I know (and there are a few) also want to stop the war. President Bush wants to stop the war. The big difference is how. He just wants to stop when Iraq is strong enough itself to stand against the internal terrorist pressures. The same for Afghanistan. Bush doesn't want perpetual fighting. He wants it over too. The trouble for many folks is that he's defined a criteria by which to decide when it's over.

The neo-hippy left, with their simplistic motto of "stop the war" usually don't like any criteria. They advocate simply stopping the war by bringing all our troops home and leaving Iraq to whatever wolves are waiting for it. The assumption, I guess, is that the "war" only exists because we are there. If we leave, peace will break out. A lovely, though naive, view.

When I was in eighth grade, a tough-guy student named Brad was bullying his fellow students. This wasn't unusual for Brad. Richard stood up to Brad and told him to stop. Brad knew that a brawl in the halls would work against him, so challenged Richard to a fight in the woods across from the school. A few of us came to see if a fight would actually occur. (most were only threats) Richard was no powerhouse, but felt duty-bound to show up. Brad punched Richard hard, making his lip bleed. Richard tried to reason with Brad. Blood had been drawn, Brad's "honor" satisfied, could they call it off now? No. Brad pummeled Richard. To his credit, Richard gave pacifism an honest try. He never punched back and kept appealing to honor. "I'm not fighting back. Can you really hit someone who won't hit back?" Brad could, and did. His anger wasn't satisfied until poor Richard lay face-down in the dust. None of us curious nerds were in a position to do anything.

Richard thought he could end the fight by not participating in it. He was sorely mistaken. A bully intent on a fight will keep right on pummeling. If you don't hit back, he's guaranteed to win.

We could bring all our troops home in a few weeks, and abandon Iraq and Afghanistan. We could feel all noble, like Richard did, but those who hate America will not stop hating us. Just because we stopped deploying our troops, it does not mean they'll disarm and start selling used cars or vacuum cleaners. They'll keep on fighting. If not in Iraq, the perhaps here. Why is having Americans die in America better?

Final Warning

---by Dave Buhlman

Following is an excerpt from my novel, "Final Warning". It presents a rather bleak picture of a possible future, but developments over the past few years have better set the groundwork for an all-encompassing state.

Begin Excerpt

The conveyance used by the Grassers to transport John to Concord Jail was an electric‑powered jeep that seated six. John was positioned in the back seat between the two Grassers who had controlled and beaten him in his bedroom. He was helpless, but held on to the faint hope that Paige would proceed with their plans and run for Idaho with the children.

The Grassers were silent during the twenty minute ride from Norwood to Concord, which unnerved John. These people had the power of life and death in their hands - his life, his death - and they weren't saying anything to give him a clue about his fate. The Grassers served as judge, jury and executioners for the population outside of the established elite. They were given this power by the UN Security Council to keep order and to strike immediate paralyzing fear into the populace, especially those with a bent toward rebellion. At that moment John could have used some human interaction, even from those who might put him to death. He was scared for himself, and the prospect of never seeing his family again was making him feel desperate. A deep fear gripped him as he realized that he could be used as an example to deter others from becoming breeders. Public torture was a possibility. He hoped that Paige would prevent the children from seeing it on the vidscreen if that horrible event came to pass.

The Grassers were the elite of the world government control forces and John was nervous being in their presence. Their reputation was similar to that held by Nazi storm troopers in the nineteen forties. The training was exceptionally grueling and only one in a hundred made the grade. For this effort they were assured of a good lifetime job with excellent government benefits, including retirement at the age of forty-five. If their loyalty faltered, however, they could be put to death immediately. Like the storm troopers, Grassers rarely fought with anyone who was armed. They liked having all the power in any confrontation.

The jeep pulled up to the gate at Concord Jail and John could hear the howls of those being tortured. In past years the jail and the adjacent farm had served the Commonwealth of Massachusetts as a minimum security lockup. Now it was used by the UN District government to administer all degrees of punishment, including torture and death. There was also a large crematorium on the grounds which served the area northwest of Boston.

John was taken to a building that was very well lighted on the outside and inside.
"Get out," the lead Grasser ordered while yanking John out of the back seat, making sure to whack his head on the door.

They led him into the bright building and pushed him into a room. All he could make out in the brightness was a small desk with a shadow sitting behind it. The Grassers pushed him down to sit on the floor in front of the desk and took off the handcuffs. There was no possibility of escape and any threatening gestures would result in immediate death.
A woman's voice spoke from behind the desk. "Breeder, you're going to die a horrible death. We suspect that you're part of an elaborate scheme to undermine the government's authority and scoff at our fine Gaian laws. Wilson was your football coach, wasn't he?"

The switch to Wilson confused John and actually made him smile at the absurd juxtaposition of the interrogator's question.
"Assistant football coach," was all he could manage in reply.
'Are you mocking me, Larson?" This comment was coupled with a kick to the right kidney area from an unseen Grasser. The pain shot through his entire body, and he cried out.

"If that little bit bothers you, I suggest that you be more selective in your responses," came the voice from the desk. "You know, Larson, we're always looking for conspiracy insiders to declare their loyalty and work for us weeding out the chaff of the society. It's something you might consider."

John wasn't part of a conspiracy, at least not any outside of his family, so he couldn't even fake at taking the bait. Still feeling the pain from the kick, he wished for a moment that he could turn traitor to some movement or another, but he didn't even know of any. He was certainly no zealot and some of the changes made by the new society were beneficial. Street crime was just a bad memory, for example. You could walk the streets at night, at least until the national nine o'clock curfew. All the guns had been confiscated from regular citizens for the stated purpose of preventing crime, but the confiscation was really undertaken to assure that the Grassers and other police forces would not meet with any opposition when they came to take someone away. It was standard practice for totalitarian governments.

"I'm deeply honored, officer, but I am not involved in any conspiracy. If I were, I assure you, I would tell you to avoid punishment. I'm only a husband and father, and, please believe me, I'm not saying that to be at all controversial. I respect the government and its representatives. I had nothing to do with Wilson, and only saw him occasionally in Norwood Center. He was basically a nut." John felt somewhat depraved at his complete supplication, but he was in a life-threatening situation.

No retaliation came so John felt that he had done all right. It was by no means time to relax, but he felt that he might have earned a little breathing room. Then the Grasser on his left side hit him in the head with a nightstick, knocking him to the floor. He was almost unconscious.
"You talk too much, breeder," said the shadow as it approached John. "We certainly don't need abject cowards in our government. Go and arrest the others in his household. Under the new law, they're guilty by association. We'll take care of the whole bunch at once. Breeder extermination makes a great spectacle for the masses." John was heartbroken. He hoped, and prayed for the first time in many years, that Paige was planning to be on the move before the Grassers came back to the house.
"Yes, Commander," the Grasser responded.
John was taken to a tiny, dirty cell and thrown in with such force that he hit the end wall hard, bruising his left shoulder. His head was still bleeding and the pain in his lower back was excruciating. He had little hope that Paige and the kids would escape by the time the Grassers got to them, but they actually had no intention of bothering with her right away, as Parmenter had implied. The statement was made to increase John's suffering. And it did.

As he lay on his bunk, he was thankful that he and Paige had begun planning soon after the government mandated attendance at the Exhibits of Enlightenment. Although the edict was harmless enough, compared to many of the others, it was a clear portent that government control would never cease to increase. The exhibits were ineffective attempts at mind control but people were forced to attend, and that amounted to additional power over the time of peoples' lives. It was a warning sign that worse was to come. And worse did come in the form of forced abortions, government-sponsored WOMBSA coercion techniques, and forced euthanasia at the age of sixty.

It was four o'clock on the morning and John was exhausted. There was intense pain in his head and body, and screams coming from adjacent cells.

Despite his condition, he began to nod off. He thought of his father, a postal worker who had died in John's first year of college. A lot of what his father had warned him about, John now realized, had come true. But he ignored his dad, as most others did.

End Excerpt

Dave Buhlman is a former two term NH State Representative.

There is a difference

By Dave Buhlman

First, we at IMHO are praying for the speedy recovery of our leader, Ron Dupuis. Ron had surgery and is experiencing some difficulties in the recovery. Please pray that all is well and that he’s back very soon displaying his ability to cut right to the heart of the matter through logic and humor.

There is a difference between the two major parties, at least on the state level. Since the Democrats took over in 2006, the state has been plunged into deeper debt caused by too much spending and obvious mismanagement. I was a State Representative for two terms while the Republicans were in charge. As one who believes in liberty and limited government, it was somewhat frustrating that many in Republican leadership positions seemed to go along with Democrats too often. But I suppose that’s the nature of leadership - some compromise to keep the government machine churning. On balance, however, the Republicans held the line on more spending and no tax increases. This was especially true when Craig Benson was Governor. Benson had the courage to hold the line and take the hits. I hope he runs again.

I had a number of good friends in the Legislature who were Democrats. With the exception of their undying support for abortion on demand, their hearts were in the right place. They wanted to help people. Their giant flaw, which remains to this day, is that they believe that government is the answer for providing this help. It isn’t. Granted, on a limited level, government should be there to help people get over a hump in their lives. But when government becomes the problem solver of first resort, things are a mess. They raise taxes on cigarettes under the pretense that the government needs the money to help smokers quit, and for an endless string of other reasons, while in fact the additional money is needed mainly to provide jobs for their friends with Masters in Social Work who are otherwise unemployable. In raising the tax on butts, they are hurting many in the lower economic strata who are just getting by. What these folks sure don’t need is a higher tax on a pack of butts, or increased registration fees on their cars. But the Democrats give it to them anyway, like it or not. They believe that they know better.

Regarding the butt tax, the legislature is now considering about the fourth increase in that tax in as many years. They have no shame singling out this group of addicts to punish. No shame at all. As soon as the Massachusetts House voted to increase the tax on a pack down there by a buck, I predicted that the New Hampshire Democrats would jump on that increased tax gap, and sure enough, they did. Increasing the tax on a pack of cigarettes is the first refuge of a politician with no imagination and no courage. They probably thinks it’s okay to kick a guy when he’s down, too, as long as it’s for what they perceive as a greater good. Another driving force for Democrats is that all or most of those in leadership, including Governor Lynch, have not had to worry for years about how to pay the bills. They seem to forget that not all of their constituents are living off trust funds, good pensions, or good luck with investments. They talk a good game about helping people without realizing that when government helps one group, it has to hurt another group of innocents to make the scheme work.

In November, 2008, New Hampshire voters will have a chance to return the state to some semblance of sanity by giving control of the Legislature back to the Republicans, and voting in a Republican Governor and Executive Council. It won’t be perfect, but it will sure be better than these days when we have to keep a constant watch on our wallets to prevent intrusion by light-fingered do gooders with a D after their names.

Dave Buhlman served two terms as a New Hampshire State Representative. His novel, Final Warning, introduced the Environmental Freedom Party, champions of the three card monte game known as global warming.

Bob Clegg for Congress

---by Dave Buhlman

There was some welcome news a month ago when State Senator Bob Clegg of Hudson announced his candidacy for the 2nd Congressional District.

Senator Clegg has fourteen years of experience in the New Hampshire legislature, both as a Representative and Senator. For many of these years, he held leadership positions where he exercised a strong influence over legislation and in promoting conservative positions to protect the welfare and pocketbooks of his constituents. Since the Democrats took over the Legislature in the 2006 election, Senator Clegg has opposed all bills that raised fees and taxes on New Hampshire residents. Due to a majority of Democrats in both the House and the Senate, combined with the strong support of Democratic Governor John Lynch, these bills inevitably passed, and we feel the hit when registering vehicles and in other arenas of our lives.

Bob Clegg is an expert in state relations with the federal government, and has fiercely opposed any unfunded mandates proposed by the federal government. He has also been successful in maximizing federal aid to the state to reduce financial impacts on his constituents and the entire state. As a former two-term State Representative, I observed Bob Clegg's effectiveness in these matters from the inside, and know of the great resepect he enjoyed in the State House.

Previous to his political career, Bob Clegg was a successful contractor who owned a business that had to meet a weekly payroll. Based on this experience, he well understands the concerns of the business community regarding taxes and regulation, and he understands the pressures on wage earners to make ends meet.

The election is several months away, but please keep Senator Clegg's experience in mind as the campaigns get underway. No else vying for the 2nd Congressional District seat can match his experience, and this experience is desperately needed in Washington, DC

Dave Buhlman is a former two-term NH State Representative.

"Perp" on the loose

By Dave Buhlman

I read in the Boston Herald that the Pope is coming to the United States this week. According to the article, and Cardinal Sean O’Malley of Boston, part of the reason for the Pope’s visit is to heal the wounds caused by the pedophile priests abuse scandal, discovered in Boston in the early 2000s. As a Catholic Christian, I wish the Holy Father success in this effort, and his other undertakings during his visit.

But there’s a big flaw in the basis for the healing the Pope seeks. Bernard Cardinal Law, formerly of Boston, is now ensconced in a high position in Vatican City, as head of one of the churches there. Cardinal Law was the main facilitator, the main enabler, of abusing priests in the Boston Archdiocese. There are too many instances of his passing on priests, that he knew were abusers, to other parishes. A number of these sorry excuses for human beings abused yet more kids in the assignments Law gave them. Then it was off for more counseling for these very sick men, then onto yet other parishes when they returned, courtesy of Cardinal Law.

Back a few years ago I remember a big Boston lawyer on a radio show stating that then MA Attorney General Reilly, as the head civil authority involved, could have indicted Cardinal Law, but did not. High places connect to high places, I guess. So Law was transferred rather quickly to Rome where he has enjoyed respect and lived a pampered existence as a Prince of the Church. This would be comparable to the FBI sending disgraced former agent John Connolly to a comfy gig in the tropics. Connolly was a finger man for Whitey Bulger, a Boston gangster, serial killer and pedophile in his own right. He set up victims for Whitey, the Corrupt Midget’s brother (thanks, Howie). Connolly is not in the tropics; he is quite rightfully serving time. Cardinal Law should be too.

One shudders to think of what guides the mind of a Cardinal Law. As a well educated member of the world elite, he must know, as even most of us commoners do, that pedophiles cannot be cured. Yet he sent them on to abuse other little kids, many of whom grew up with big-time troubles, some even committing suicide. Rough stuff. But Law was able to live with this knowledge for years, before he and the other perps were caught. For us run-of-the-mill sinners it’s hard to imagine doing this and living with yourself once, for even a day. The vast majority of us would go crazy with guilt.

So if the Pope wants to be taken more seriously in his efforts to heal, he needs to boot Cardinal Law, and others with a similar sordid history (e.g., the Archbishop of Manchester, NH, one of Law’s main assistants in Boston), out of the Church. We will all heal a lot better with these heels gone.

Dave Buhlman is a sinner who depends on Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ for salvation.

China rises over a cup of tea

By Ron Dupuis
Beijing vs. Shanghai. As tense and gray as Beijing was, Shanghai was the opposite. The people there were helpful and friendly. They wanted to know as much about us as we them. The following event could never have happen in Beijing.

At about 6:30 in the morning, the Shanghai streets become busy with men and women rushing to get their children to school and still arrive to work on time. The transportation of choice seems to be bicycle or motorized scooter, although there are just enough private cars and full to capacity busses to cause the familiar morning and evening "rush hour" traffic jams of any modern city.

While getting a little exercise one morning I found myself in a small neighborhood tea room speaking with an elderly college professor who had a pretty good command of English. He informed me China, as an emerging world power, has come a long way since his youth.

"In my younger days, school was not necessarily mandatory. You pretty much went as far as your state mandatory proficiency exams would carry you." "Then" he continued, "you were pretty much regulated to the labor force that your parents worked in, the farm or factories."

"I was fortunate" he said in between sip of green tea and bites of some sort of dough cake with a flavored rice filling. "Academics came easy for me and I always tested well right on through university." "When I became a teacher it was the happiest day of my life."

My elderly Chinese friend went on to tell me how he now lives with his son and daughter-in-law. He receives a pension from the state and earns a few extra dollars, or "yuan," tutoring high school students in preparation for their college exams. "It's not much, but I have few needs."

When he finished his meal he poured himself another cup of tea then took out a pack of Chinese cigarettes. Keeping with Chinese custom he held the pack in both hands offering me one, saying "Do you smoke?" I answered "Yes, however I'm not used to smoking inside."

"In China almost everyone smokes despite the government's displeasure." "Some of the older generation like myself even consider tobacco a healing herb," he said with a broad smile.

"Boy, don't ever come to America," I thought to myself.

He began to tell me about his son and like dads around the world he sat a little taller and smiled, sort of off in the distance when one is thinking fond memories. He said his son was educated in Beijing and then went to school in London. He now travels the world as an import/export banker.

"My only unhappiness comes from not having any grandchildren yet. My son keeps telling me, 'Soon.'"

The conversation with my new friend lasted a little more than an hour. I found him both open and candid. We discussed his life as an educator and his son's life as a banker. It is pretty safe to say we both, subconsciously or not, stayed away from politics or human rights. I did however ask if he felt a Communist-controlled country could emerge as a valid economic world power. He smiled knowingly and told me China was an imperialist nation for thousands of years and perhaps we needed someone like Mao and the "Cultural Revolution" in order to arrive to the point we are at today.

"What point is that," I asked?

He responded: "My son tells me we are on the verge of significantly impacting world economic policies and this could only mean a better life for the billion and a half Chinese citizens."

I managed to get in one last question before we finished and went our separate ways. "Why is it the Chinese students studying in America all seem to be high achievers?"

He smiled knowingly yet answered, a little incredulously, "We have a population of over a billion people." "We send you only our best and brightest."

Rocky Clinton and Professor Gore

By Ron Dupuis

If you were a Pulitzer Prize-winning author you couldn't make this stuff up if you tried.

Last week, Hillary "Rocky" Clinton claimed that along with her daughter, and upon the completion of a tactical, defensive-type landing in Bosnia, a heads-down run for the car was necessary because of sniper fire. This claim was not just made once, but during several recent campaign speeches. Other prevarications include "Rocky" Clinton's role in the Irish Peace Accords, her support/opposition for NAFTA, and for those of you with short memories, her claim to not have made a dime in the Madison Guarantee Savings and Loan scandal.

Most people lie sometime during their life. They lie for varied reasons: To protect themselves, protect a friend, to create a favorable situation, create an unfavorable situation for others, and finally, to puff their own importance and ego. The last being why most all politicians lie.

Hillary's mentor and most ardent supporter is her husband, former President Bill Clinton. Let's not forget despite all his charm and charisma, Bill Clinton is a disgraced, disbarred lawyer, who among other discretions, lied to Congress, judges and the American people. Who can ever forget that obnoxious pointy finger scene and the "I did not have sex with that woman" fabrication? If, in fact, lying to Congress precludes you from practicing law, in Hillary's case, lying to the American people should preclude you from being president of the United States. Besides, who among us can bear the thought of Bill wandering throughout the White House with nothing to do except prey on women and young interns?

Other issues: One of my favorite musicals of all time is Meredith Wilson's "The Music Man." In the story, con man Professor Harold Hill convinces an unsuspecting Midwest town of a perceived problem "made clear by the presence of a pool table right here in your community." Not to worry though. Like every good con man, Professor Hill has a solution in the form of a boy's band, which is nothing more than a scheme to collect money and skip town.

"In My Humble Opinion" is here to warn unsuspecting earthlings that Professor Hill is back in the form of Al Gore. Professor Gore has not only identified the problem for us mere unsuspecting mortals: "Man is destroying life as we know it," he has graciously provided the solution in the form of "carbon credits." These "credits" are merely part of a scheme set up by Professor Gore in the form of a company he heads called Generation Investment Management. This legitimate company is going to take funds from large corporations and pension funds that want to ostensibly invest in a greener Earth but more importantly the carbon-offset market. A little more sophisticated than Harold Hill, but nonetheless, a money making scheme. I wonder if Professor Gore intends to skip town like Professor Hill's plan.

More on China: The Dupuis family, despite illness, managed to spend the first few days in Beijing doing all the touristy things visitors do in this mysterious city. There were visits to parks and temples observing local residents in their daily routine of exercise and socialization. There were visits to jade carving factories and pearl markets. The culmination was a walk along The Great Wall. Beijing, at the time of our visit, was a spotlessly clean city. The people were accommodating, however, not necessarily friendly.

An incident at Tiananmen Square gave me cause for concern. Around Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City, in fact, throughout Beijing for that matter, the military is everywhere. When a group of citizens gathered and became a little vocal about concerns in Tibet a squad of soldiers quickly and quietly gathered them up, put them in trucks and hauled them off to God knows where. Not a riot by any standard, however for the remaining time in this city we kept our distance from any type of gatherings.