Imagine for a moment that you are a farmer, and on your nice plot of land you grow potatoes. Every year you grow 10,000 pounds of potatoes, sell them on the open market and make enough of a profit to keep you in business another year.
Across the road from you is another potato farmer, on a similar piece of land, but he's kind of a lazy guy. He scatters a few seeds around, doesn't fertilize, lets the weeds grow, and each year his crop fails.
Then one year the government comes along and announces that they believe there are too many potatoes on the market, and they find it necessary to "cap" the number of potatoes being produced. They will give each farmer a permit to produce 5,000 pounds of potatoes, but if the farmer wants, he can sell his permit to another grower.
So the lazy neighbor comes over one day and offers to sell you his permit for a few thousand dollars. Since you need to continue producing 10,000 pounds of potatoes to stay profitable, you buy the permit. Of course, you now have to recover the cost of buying the permit, so you raise the price of potatoes to cover that cost.
Net result: There is no increase in the number of potatoes being produced, the cost of potatoes to consumers has risen and a chunk of your wealth is now in the hands of the non-producing neighbor. The only person who wins in this scenario is the non-producing neighbor, who now gets something for nothing.
Now, replace "you" with "Developed countries," replace "neighbor" with "underdeveloped countries," and replace "potatoes" with "energy," and you will understand what the underdeveloped countries of the world are trying to accomplish at the "climate summit" in Copenhagen.
Third-world countries - mostly African dictatorships - are using the make-believe threat of "global warming" to try and guilt the developed countries into agreeing to a cap-and-trade scheme that will give each country permissible amount of carbon emissions (the "cap"), which would then force developed countries to buy the permits from poorer countries (the "trade") in order for the larger countries to maintain their energy output and continue to grow their economies.
Of course the underdeveloped countries remain underdeveloped, in large part, because they are reluctant to embrace concepts like democracy and free enterprise, which would put them on the path to growth, prosperity and peace. It's more fun to run a dictatorship, oppress the people and then come up with ways to get bigger, more successful countries to transfer some of their wealth to you.
This same "cap and trade" concept is behind the bill passed earlier this year in the U.S. House of Representatives, except it applies to businesses in the United States. The government would auction off carbon emission permits, which could then be traded among various industries. So if you are Xcel Energy, for example, you might have to buy a permit from another company in order to continue to produce energy for your customers. Of course, the only way to recoup the permit cost is to raise rates on your customers. There won't be any fewer carbon emissions, you'll just end up with a higher utility bill each month.
Fortunately the proposal is so stupid, the Senate hasn't even considered it. But when you hear "cap and trade," it's time to guard your wallet, because the only thing these schemes are designed to do is separate you from your money.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Why I love Sarah Palin
A week ago tonight I was contemplating getting up really early on Monday morning, say, about 4 a.m., and traveling to Mall of America so I could stand in line and wait to get my copy of Going Rogue signed by Sarah Palin. Eventually I decided that was a little too early, and the lines would likely be too long, and I decided not to go.
As it turned out, it was a pretty orderly process, more books were signed than were expected, and I wish I would have gone, although I expect I'll have other opportunities in the future to get the book signed.
I'm a big fan though, and I've read a good chunk of the book already. I was at the Republican National Convention in 2008 when she spoke, and the atmosphere in the Xcel Energy Center was absolutely electric that night. I can say that it was like having a rock star in the building, because I have been in that building many times with actual rock stars, like Paul McCartney, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, Elton John, and others, and there has never been an atmosphere like that night. Everyone wanted to see this relatively unknown Governor of Alaska, and she didn't disappoint. She gave a knockout speech and had the crowd - and much of the nation -in the palm of her hand.
Since that night, my appreciation of her has only grown, for two reasons:
1) She destroyed liberal feminism. Ever since high school, I've had to listen to my liberal friends talk about: a) The importance of electing more women to office, and b) How feminism was all about "expanding opportunities" and "respecting choices." I was sympathetic to both points of view. From an electoral standpoint, a gender that is more than 50% of the population maybe SHOULD have 50% of elective offices. And if a woman happens to have an aptitude for anything in particular - math, science, engineering, whatever - there's no reason she should be denied an opportunity to pursue those interests because of gender stereotyping.
Given that philosophy, Palin should have been a feminist's dream. Here is a bright, talented woman who had won high political office and was seeking an even higher office. Early in her career she broke into a male-dominated field - television sportscasting - and she could hold her own hunting moose and racing snowmobiles, two other areas usually left to the men. Juggling a challenging family and a rising career, Palin should be considered the very embodiment of female empowerment.
But no! Turns out that ever liberal feminist I know immediately - and I mean within 72 hours of Palin being introduced - already hated her. Turns out that some of the choices Palin made in her life weren't the choices liberal feminists would make. Like being pro-life. Like choosing to give birth to a Down syndrome child. Like supporting the military. Like believing in American exceptionalism.
All of these things were utterly unacceptable to the left. And in those same 72 hours, I realized that the feminists had been lying to me for 40 years. They didn't care about electing women, they only cared about electing liberals. Gender was just a tool to hide behind, and to use for leverage. There are no "sisters" in feminism, there are only fellow liberals, who are required to march in line and follow orders from the feminist elites.
When I realized that a "feminist" could love Ted Kennedy - a misogynist, serial abuser of women - and despise Sarah Palin, I realized the feminist ideology had nothing to do with benefitting women, and that the ideology was dead.
(Fun thing to do: Next time someone starts ranting about how unfair the world is to women, just say, "You must have been really disappointed that Sarah Palin didn't win." Shuts them up like a mute.)
2) I love the fact that she makes liberals NUTS. She drives them absolutely crazy. Any sense of fairness or decency goes right out the window when they discuss Palin. They'll call her names, spread vicious lies, tell barbaric jokes about her children, cut-and-paste her face on pornographic pictures. Nothing is too low for a Palin-hater.
There are a million hateful quotes out there, but one of my personal favorites is this one, from someone named Wendy Doniger, a religion professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, who wrote for the Washington Post that "Her (Palin's) greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."
Imagine that coming from someone whose job is to instruct
future teachers of Christianity.
(Here are Palin and Doniger. You can decide for yourself which one is really a woman.)
Criticize Hillary Clinton's position on the Middle East, and the lefties will call you a sexist, fascist, woman-hating, neanderthal pig and maybe charge you with a hate crime. But say that Palin looks like a "slutty flight attendant" and you're simply "talking about the issues."
Palin has turned large portions of the political left into absolute moonbats, simply by being herself. And I love it when the left goes nuts like this, because when they get this way, they do really stupid things.
George W. Bush did the same thing to them. They hated him - just absolutely HATED him - so much that they were willing to do whatever they could to defeat him. And when they lost twice to him, their hatred made them so nuts that they ran out and grabbed a naive, inexperienced, not-too-bright guy to be their presidential nominee, simply because they could leverage his skin color into the election win they so desperately wanted.
Their hatred of Bush led them to Obama, and Obama is going to set them back 20 years, just like Jimmy Carter did.
Will Sarah Palin ever be president? I doubt it, for a variety of reasons, but she doesn't have to be president to have performed a valuable service to the nation. The thousands and thousands of people that are turning out for her book signings are evidence that there is a great untapped reserve of political energy in this country that will be the scourge of liberals for the next generation, and we'll have Palin to thank for it.
As it turned out, it was a pretty orderly process, more books were signed than were expected, and I wish I would have gone, although I expect I'll have other opportunities in the future to get the book signed.
I'm a big fan though, and I've read a good chunk of the book already. I was at the Republican National Convention in 2008 when she spoke, and the atmosphere in the Xcel Energy Center was absolutely electric that night. I can say that it was like having a rock star in the building, because I have been in that building many times with actual rock stars, like Paul McCartney, AC/DC, Bon Jovi, Billy Joel, Elton John, and others, and there has never been an atmosphere like that night. Everyone wanted to see this relatively unknown Governor of Alaska, and she didn't disappoint. She gave a knockout speech and had the crowd - and much of the nation -in the palm of her hand.
Since that night, my appreciation of her has only grown, for two reasons:
1) She destroyed liberal feminism. Ever since high school, I've had to listen to my liberal friends talk about: a) The importance of electing more women to office, and b) How feminism was all about "expanding opportunities" and "respecting choices." I was sympathetic to both points of view. From an electoral standpoint, a gender that is more than 50% of the population maybe SHOULD have 50% of elective offices. And if a woman happens to have an aptitude for anything in particular - math, science, engineering, whatever - there's no reason she should be denied an opportunity to pursue those interests because of gender stereotyping.
Given that philosophy, Palin should have been a feminist's dream. Here is a bright, talented woman who had won high political office and was seeking an even higher office. Early in her career she broke into a male-dominated field - television sportscasting - and she could hold her own hunting moose and racing snowmobiles, two other areas usually left to the men. Juggling a challenging family and a rising career, Palin should be considered the very embodiment of female empowerment.
But no! Turns out that ever liberal feminist I know immediately - and I mean within 72 hours of Palin being introduced - already hated her. Turns out that some of the choices Palin made in her life weren't the choices liberal feminists would make. Like being pro-life. Like choosing to give birth to a Down syndrome child. Like supporting the military. Like believing in American exceptionalism.
All of these things were utterly unacceptable to the left. And in those same 72 hours, I realized that the feminists had been lying to me for 40 years. They didn't care about electing women, they only cared about electing liberals. Gender was just a tool to hide behind, and to use for leverage. There are no "sisters" in feminism, there are only fellow liberals, who are required to march in line and follow orders from the feminist elites.
When I realized that a "feminist" could love Ted Kennedy - a misogynist, serial abuser of women - and despise Sarah Palin, I realized the feminist ideology had nothing to do with benefitting women, and that the ideology was dead.
(Fun thing to do: Next time someone starts ranting about how unfair the world is to women, just say, "You must have been really disappointed that Sarah Palin didn't win." Shuts them up like a mute.)
2) I love the fact that she makes liberals NUTS. She drives them absolutely crazy. Any sense of fairness or decency goes right out the window when they discuss Palin. They'll call her names, spread vicious lies, tell barbaric jokes about her children, cut-and-paste her face on pornographic pictures. Nothing is too low for a Palin-hater.
There are a million hateful quotes out there, but one of my personal favorites is this one, from someone named Wendy Doniger, a religion professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, who wrote for the Washington Post that "Her (Palin's) greatest hypocrisy is in her pretense that she is a woman."
Imagine that coming from someone whose job is to instructfuture teachers of Christianity.
(Here are Palin and Doniger. You can decide for yourself which one is really a woman.)
Criticize Hillary Clinton's position on the Middle East, and the lefties will call you a sexist, fascist, woman-hating, neanderthal pig and maybe charge you with a hate crime. But say that Palin looks like a "slutty flight attendant" and you're simply "talking about the issues."
Palin has turned large portions of the political left into absolute moonbats, simply by being herself. And I love it when the left goes nuts like this, because when they get this way, they do really stupid things.
George W. Bush did the same thing to them. They hated him - just absolutely HATED him - so much that they were willing to do whatever they could to defeat him. And when they lost twice to him, their hatred made them so nuts that they ran out and grabbed a naive, inexperienced, not-too-bright guy to be their presidential nominee, simply because they could leverage his skin color into the election win they so desperately wanted.
Their hatred of Bush led them to Obama, and Obama is going to set them back 20 years, just like Jimmy Carter did.
Will Sarah Palin ever be president? I doubt it, for a variety of reasons, but she doesn't have to be president to have performed a valuable service to the nation. The thousands and thousands of people that are turning out for her book signings are evidence that there is a great untapped reserve of political energy in this country that will be the scourge of liberals for the next generation, and we'll have Palin to thank for it.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Al Gore and I chat about global warming
Since the climate alarmists are gathering in Copenhagen - many arriving via private jets, which really cuts down on "carbon footprints" - to flap their gums about supposed "global warming," it seemed a good time to share my up-close-and-personal experience with the fledgling climate change movement, way back in 1990.
In 1988, a year or so after I had become Press Secretary to Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, Rudy got interested in the then-relatively unknown subject of man-made global warming. For a fellow who grew up just outside of New York City, Rudy always had a pretty keen interest in environmental issues, in part because he made his fortune selling lumber (he founded Plywood Minnesota - now called Home Valu - a chain of home improvement stores) which helped him realize the importance of responsible resource management.
That summer President Reagan appointed Rudy as a congressional representative to the United Nations, and so for a six-month period we would occasionally hop the shuttle up to New York, where Rudy would speak at the UN on various topics. He decided he wanted to speak on global warming, and addressed the UN on that subject that summer.
As one of the people in charge of helping shape Rudy's image, I have to admit that I loved the topic, but for very cynical reasons. First of all, it helped shore up Rudy's environmental credibility, which was important to voters in Minnesota. Secondly, no one was really sure it was a problem - and there was no way to prove that it was. Finally, if it was a problem, it was waaaaay off in the distance, and we wouldn't have to step on anyone's toes to deal with it. From a PR standpoint, it was ideal: A vague problem with no concrete solution that allowed Rudy to highlight his legitimate environmental interests without ticking off anyone important.
(Let me emphasize that that was MY position on the issue, not Rudy's. He was the statesman; I was the cynical political hack. At the time he genuinely believed there was a threat, although he has since moved 180 degrees on the issue and has become a big supporter of the Hudson Institute's debunking of the global warming scare. For more on the Hudson Institute's important work, click here.)
Rudy's interest in the issue caught the attention of the junior senator from Tennessee, one Albert Gore. And in early 1990, a relatively new group called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) held one of its first meetings in Washington D.C. To add a little credibility, they decided to round up some senators to be listed as "hosts" for the event. Gore jumped to the head of the line, and easily signed up a couple other Democrats (I forget who, but I think Bill Bradley was one of them), but he needed a Republican to create the appearance of balance, and he approached Rudy, who agreed to be a host.
And so, for three days, Rudy went down to the J.W. Marriott on Pennsylvania Ave. for the conference, and listened to the doomsayers talk about all of the evils that were about to fall upon the world if we didn't stop eating meat, driving cars, etc., etc. By the third day, I think Rudy was beginning to understand that this group wasn't interested in real science, it was just a bunch of environmental wackos who were shoving all of their socialist, Walden Pond dreams into a vessel called "global warming."
Whenever a senator had to go to a meeting away from Capitol Hill, it was normal procedure to have a staff person drive them there and pick them up. Washington is crowded, there's limited parking, and it was just a more efficient way of doing things. For staffers, it was a chance to have some "face time" with the senator, and I often had the duty of driving and picking up Rudy for a couple of reasons. First, I could bring along any work that I wanted him to review, and he could make his comments while I was driving.
Secondly, Rudy had a perverse sort of affinity for my car, which was a badly beat-up 1970 Mustang convertible. Dents, scratches, faded paint, ratty interior...this car had it all. Rudy liked to ride in it because, in his words, "Anyone who sees this car knows that Republicans aren't all rich fat cats." A little Jewish humor at my expense.
On the final day of the conference, I drove down to the Marriott to pick up Rudy. My car, as usual, was a mess. On a normal day, the back seat would have my golf clubs, my dirty softball pants and gear, a pile of empty fast-food wrappers, maybe a change of clothes or two and who knows what else. It didn't really matter, because seldom did anyone ever ride in the back seat because it was so tiny. And if someone did, it was probably some intern who would just shove the mess to one side and make room. Suffice it to say that Rudy was used to it.
I rolled down Pennsylvania Ave. and pulled up in front of the Marriott, and there was Rudy, standing next to Al Gore. Rudy opened the door and said, "Al's ride hasn't shown up, could we take him back with us?"
"Not a problem," I said, "But he'll have to make a little room."
So Rudy flipped the front seat forward, making way for Al to climb into the back seat. I'll never forget the look on his face as he peered into the tiny, cramped seat and realized he was going to have to sit on what was basically a pile of dirty laundry, sporting goods and trash.
I reached back and started frantically pulling the pile over to one side, trying to create some space, while Al was trying to stretch his 6-foot-1 frame into the car, slide behind the front seat and find a perch amidst the rubble.
He finally got in. Rudy climbed in front and right away said to Al, "I'll move this seat up and give you some room."
To which I answered, "I'm sorry, the seat is stuck in that position."
"That's okay," Al said, with his knees almost up to his chin. "Where's the seat belt?"
Again, I had to apologize. "There aren't any. But don't worry, I'm a careful driver."
Al didn't look too reassured, and he seemed even less so when I pulled a quick u-turn across Pennsylvania Ave. to get us headed back up to the Capitol.
"So, how was the conference?" I asked.
"It was excellent," Al said. "You know, Rudy, we should look at co-sponsoring a bill on some of this."
As I said, I was already pretty cynical about the whole idea, but I wanted to be polite, so I said something like, "Yeah, things could be a lot different a few hundred years from now."
Al didn't like that at all, and said something along the lines of "Oh, no, the problem is right now. We have to stop this now before it's too late."
Which led to a kind of uncomfortable silence. As I said, Rudy was beginning to have his doubts, and I was only paying attention because of the potential political benefits, so I decided on a quick change of subject.
"Senator, I'd really like to get down to see that University of Tennessee football stadium sometime. It must be great to hear all those people sing 'Rocky Top.' "
Which got Al off of the subject of global warming, and on to the subject of the University of Tennessee, which occupied the couple of minutes it took to drive back to the Capitol. Rudy got out, flipped the seat up and extended a hand to help lift Al out of his tiny, filthy compartment. "Thanks for the lift," Al said, and I answered, "Anytime, Senator."
It certainly wasn't a monumental moment at the time. Al was just the junior senator from Tennessee, only in office about three years, but soon he was ready to hit the big time. Just over two years later, Bill Clinton would tap him as a running mate, and suddenly the guy from my back seat was Vice-President of the United States. Then he published Earth in the Balance, and pretty soon he was the world's biggest global warming scold.
After losing the 2000 election, he figured out how to get rich off of environmental doomsaying and flies around the world in a private jet so he could tell people how to reduce their "carbon footprint."
The world is quickly catching on to the junk science and beginning to see that "global warming" is little more than a fraud and a hoax, as evidenced by the recently released e-mails from a British university, in which the "scientists" talk about manipulating and suppressing climate data that didn't fit their pre-supposed notions, and how they can't explain why the world hasn't been warming up at all for the past decade or so.
A while ago I mentioned that afternoon to Rudy, and said, "If I had known Al was going to become such a nut, I wouldn't have given him a ride back from the conference."
Ruefully, Rudy said, "Al took that conference very seriously."
What still strikes me about that day was the absolute certainty Al had about the problem. That was almost 20 years ago, and today there is no proven science that demonstrates the problem even exists, but in 1990 Al was already prepared to sacrifice the global economy and sentence millions of third world people into permanent poverty on the basis of junk science. I still find that a little frightening. (See the November 19 blog post here to learn more about my thoughts on Al.)
As for the Mustang, it didn't last much longer. I junked it, replaced it with a beat-up Volkswagen Cabriolet, and by the time that car was finished, two senators and a governor had ridden in it. The Smithsonian has not asked for permission to display either vehicle.
(UPDATE: A picture of the Mustang in question has been unearthed. See it here.)
In 1988, a year or so after I had become Press Secretary to Sen. Rudy Boschwitz, Rudy got interested in the then-relatively unknown subject of man-made global warming. For a fellow who grew up just outside of New York City, Rudy always had a pretty keen interest in environmental issues, in part because he made his fortune selling lumber (he founded Plywood Minnesota - now called Home Valu - a chain of home improvement stores) which helped him realize the importance of responsible resource management.
That summer President Reagan appointed Rudy as a congressional representative to the United Nations, and so for a six-month period we would occasionally hop the shuttle up to New York, where Rudy would speak at the UN on various topics. He decided he wanted to speak on global warming, and addressed the UN on that subject that summer.
As one of the people in charge of helping shape Rudy's image, I have to admit that I loved the topic, but for very cynical reasons. First of all, it helped shore up Rudy's environmental credibility, which was important to voters in Minnesota. Secondly, no one was really sure it was a problem - and there was no way to prove that it was. Finally, if it was a problem, it was waaaaay off in the distance, and we wouldn't have to step on anyone's toes to deal with it. From a PR standpoint, it was ideal: A vague problem with no concrete solution that allowed Rudy to highlight his legitimate environmental interests without ticking off anyone important.
(Let me emphasize that that was MY position on the issue, not Rudy's. He was the statesman; I was the cynical political hack. At the time he genuinely believed there was a threat, although he has since moved 180 degrees on the issue and has become a big supporter of the Hudson Institute's debunking of the global warming scare. For more on the Hudson Institute's important work, click here.)
Rudy's interest in the issue caught the attention of the junior senator from Tennessee, one Albert Gore. And in early 1990, a relatively new group called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) held one of its first meetings in Washington D.C. To add a little credibility, they decided to round up some senators to be listed as "hosts" for the event. Gore jumped to the head of the line, and easily signed up a couple other Democrats (I forget who, but I think Bill Bradley was one of them), but he needed a Republican to create the appearance of balance, and he approached Rudy, who agreed to be a host.
And so, for three days, Rudy went down to the J.W. Marriott on Pennsylvania Ave. for the conference, and listened to the doomsayers talk about all of the evils that were about to fall upon the world if we didn't stop eating meat, driving cars, etc., etc. By the third day, I think Rudy was beginning to understand that this group wasn't interested in real science, it was just a bunch of environmental wackos who were shoving all of their socialist, Walden Pond dreams into a vessel called "global warming."
Whenever a senator had to go to a meeting away from Capitol Hill, it was normal procedure to have a staff person drive them there and pick them up. Washington is crowded, there's limited parking, and it was just a more efficient way of doing things. For staffers, it was a chance to have some "face time" with the senator, and I often had the duty of driving and picking up Rudy for a couple of reasons. First, I could bring along any work that I wanted him to review, and he could make his comments while I was driving.
Secondly, Rudy had a perverse sort of affinity for my car, which was a badly beat-up 1970 Mustang convertible. Dents, scratches, faded paint, ratty interior...this car had it all. Rudy liked to ride in it because, in his words, "Anyone who sees this car knows that Republicans aren't all rich fat cats." A little Jewish humor at my expense.
On the final day of the conference, I drove down to the Marriott to pick up Rudy. My car, as usual, was a mess. On a normal day, the back seat would have my golf clubs, my dirty softball pants and gear, a pile of empty fast-food wrappers, maybe a change of clothes or two and who knows what else. It didn't really matter, because seldom did anyone ever ride in the back seat because it was so tiny. And if someone did, it was probably some intern who would just shove the mess to one side and make room. Suffice it to say that Rudy was used to it.
I rolled down Pennsylvania Ave. and pulled up in front of the Marriott, and there was Rudy, standing next to Al Gore. Rudy opened the door and said, "Al's ride hasn't shown up, could we take him back with us?"
"Not a problem," I said, "But he'll have to make a little room."
So Rudy flipped the front seat forward, making way for Al to climb into the back seat. I'll never forget the look on his face as he peered into the tiny, cramped seat and realized he was going to have to sit on what was basically a pile of dirty laundry, sporting goods and trash.
I reached back and started frantically pulling the pile over to one side, trying to create some space, while Al was trying to stretch his 6-foot-1 frame into the car, slide behind the front seat and find a perch amidst the rubble.
He finally got in. Rudy climbed in front and right away said to Al, "I'll move this seat up and give you some room."
To which I answered, "I'm sorry, the seat is stuck in that position."
"That's okay," Al said, with his knees almost up to his chin. "Where's the seat belt?"
Again, I had to apologize. "There aren't any. But don't worry, I'm a careful driver."
Al didn't look too reassured, and he seemed even less so when I pulled a quick u-turn across Pennsylvania Ave. to get us headed back up to the Capitol.
"So, how was the conference?" I asked.
"It was excellent," Al said. "You know, Rudy, we should look at co-sponsoring a bill on some of this."
As I said, I was already pretty cynical about the whole idea, but I wanted to be polite, so I said something like, "Yeah, things could be a lot different a few hundred years from now."
Al didn't like that at all, and said something along the lines of "Oh, no, the problem is right now. We have to stop this now before it's too late."
Which led to a kind of uncomfortable silence. As I said, Rudy was beginning to have his doubts, and I was only paying attention because of the potential political benefits, so I decided on a quick change of subject.
"Senator, I'd really like to get down to see that University of Tennessee football stadium sometime. It must be great to hear all those people sing 'Rocky Top.' "
Which got Al off of the subject of global warming, and on to the subject of the University of Tennessee, which occupied the couple of minutes it took to drive back to the Capitol. Rudy got out, flipped the seat up and extended a hand to help lift Al out of his tiny, filthy compartment. "Thanks for the lift," Al said, and I answered, "Anytime, Senator."
It certainly wasn't a monumental moment at the time. Al was just the junior senator from Tennessee, only in office about three years, but soon he was ready to hit the big time. Just over two years later, Bill Clinton would tap him as a running mate, and suddenly the guy from my back seat was Vice-President of the United States. Then he published Earth in the Balance, and pretty soon he was the world's biggest global warming scold.
After losing the 2000 election, he figured out how to get rich off of environmental doomsaying and flies around the world in a private jet so he could tell people how to reduce their "carbon footprint."
The world is quickly catching on to the junk science and beginning to see that "global warming" is little more than a fraud and a hoax, as evidenced by the recently released e-mails from a British university, in which the "scientists" talk about manipulating and suppressing climate data that didn't fit their pre-supposed notions, and how they can't explain why the world hasn't been warming up at all for the past decade or so.
A while ago I mentioned that afternoon to Rudy, and said, "If I had known Al was going to become such a nut, I wouldn't have given him a ride back from the conference."
Ruefully, Rudy said, "Al took that conference very seriously."
What still strikes me about that day was the absolute certainty Al had about the problem. That was almost 20 years ago, and today there is no proven science that demonstrates the problem even exists, but in 1990 Al was already prepared to sacrifice the global economy and sentence millions of third world people into permanent poverty on the basis of junk science. I still find that a little frightening. (See the November 19 blog post here to learn more about my thoughts on Al.)
As for the Mustang, it didn't last much longer. I junked it, replaced it with a beat-up Volkswagen Cabriolet, and by the time that car was finished, two senators and a governor had ridden in it. The Smithsonian has not asked for permission to display either vehicle.
(UPDATE: A picture of the Mustang in question has been unearthed. See it here.)
Thursday, December 3, 2009
When did WCCO radio become irrelevant?
The Wild played at home Tuesday night, and one of the things I like to do on the drive home after the game is listen to Coach Richards' post-game press conference on WCCO radio.
The good ol' 8-3-0 has been around my entire life, of course, and there was a time when it was one of the premier radio stations in the country. A "clear channel" station, its nighttime signal could be picked up over wide swaths of the nation, and it had a well-earned reputation as a great source for breaking news. When something big happened, there used to be a sort of automatic reflex to turn to 'CCO and find out what was going on.
On the drive home I listened to Richards, then listened to the post-game chatter between Wild studio guy Kevin Falness and 'CCO nighttime "personality" Dark Star. After the hockey talk ended - about 10:30 - I would normally have switched the channel or plugged in my MP3, but right about then I reached Hastings.
What I saw was a sea of police lights. Cop cars were blocking Hwy. 61, forcing us over to the side streets. TV trucks were parked all over, and clearly something big had happened. After a few blocks on the side streets, I cut back to Hwy. 61, and went only two blocks before finding another big area blocked off by police cars.
Having no idea what had happened, I decided to leave the radio tuned to 'CCO, where I assumed I'd get the story. Instead, I got about 20 minutes of Dark Star chatting with some buddy of his who apparently owns a restaurant where Dark Star likes to eat. They chatted about the economy, the President's laughable speech on Afghanistan and a couple other things. Dark Star's buddy had no real insights to offer, but then, he's not a news guy, he's just Dark Star's buddy.
I put up with the gibberish because the top of the hour was coming up, which generally means the CBS network news break, then local news. 11:00 p.m. came, we went to CBS, and at 11:05 we went to local news. Nothing about Hastings. Whatever event had happened that was big enough to close chunks of U.S. Hwy 61, bring out dozens of police cars and attract TV news trucks wasn't a big enough deal to mention on WCCO Radio.
So I thought, well, either it wasn't that big a deal, or it just happened in the last 15 minutes and 'CCO hasn't had time to get someone on the story. Wrong on both counts.
Turns out that police had a felony arrest warrant for a guy, who was suspected of stealing a truck, and when they tried to stop him, he started ramming into squad cars. Police started shooting, and when they were done the suspect was hauled away in an ambulance and bystanders said there were more than 20 bullet holes in the car.
And all of this happened between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m., more than two hours before I drove through Hastings. But, again, it didn't merit a mention on WCCO radio news.
If the news-gathering capability of this once-great station has fallen that far, there's pretty much no reason for it to exist except to bring us the fabulous Wild hockey broadcasts of Bob Kurtz and Tom Reid, along with Coach Richards' press conferences. The other 280 or so days of the year they may as well shut it down. Which is kind of sad.
The good ol' 8-3-0 has been around my entire life, of course, and there was a time when it was one of the premier radio stations in the country. A "clear channel" station, its nighttime signal could be picked up over wide swaths of the nation, and it had a well-earned reputation as a great source for breaking news. When something big happened, there used to be a sort of automatic reflex to turn to 'CCO and find out what was going on.
On the drive home I listened to Richards, then listened to the post-game chatter between Wild studio guy Kevin Falness and 'CCO nighttime "personality" Dark Star. After the hockey talk ended - about 10:30 - I would normally have switched the channel or plugged in my MP3, but right about then I reached Hastings.
What I saw was a sea of police lights. Cop cars were blocking Hwy. 61, forcing us over to the side streets. TV trucks were parked all over, and clearly something big had happened. After a few blocks on the side streets, I cut back to Hwy. 61, and went only two blocks before finding another big area blocked off by police cars.
Having no idea what had happened, I decided to leave the radio tuned to 'CCO, where I assumed I'd get the story. Instead, I got about 20 minutes of Dark Star chatting with some buddy of his who apparently owns a restaurant where Dark Star likes to eat. They chatted about the economy, the President's laughable speech on Afghanistan and a couple other things. Dark Star's buddy had no real insights to offer, but then, he's not a news guy, he's just Dark Star's buddy.
I put up with the gibberish because the top of the hour was coming up, which generally means the CBS network news break, then local news. 11:00 p.m. came, we went to CBS, and at 11:05 we went to local news. Nothing about Hastings. Whatever event had happened that was big enough to close chunks of U.S. Hwy 61, bring out dozens of police cars and attract TV news trucks wasn't a big enough deal to mention on WCCO Radio.
So I thought, well, either it wasn't that big a deal, or it just happened in the last 15 minutes and 'CCO hasn't had time to get someone on the story. Wrong on both counts.
Turns out that police had a felony arrest warrant for a guy, who was suspected of stealing a truck, and when they tried to stop him, he started ramming into squad cars. Police started shooting, and when they were done the suspect was hauled away in an ambulance and bystanders said there were more than 20 bullet holes in the car.
And all of this happened between 8:00 and 8:30 p.m., more than two hours before I drove through Hastings. But, again, it didn't merit a mention on WCCO radio news.
If the news-gathering capability of this once-great station has fallen that far, there's pretty much no reason for it to exist except to bring us the fabulous Wild hockey broadcasts of Bob Kurtz and Tom Reid, along with Coach Richards' press conferences. The other 280 or so days of the year they may as well shut it down. Which is kind of sad.
Monday, November 30, 2009
As my head explodes....
....Just for my birthday, Marian Gaborik scored tonight to become the first player in the NHL this season to reach 20 goals. Then, just for good measure, he scored his 21st later in the period. See the magical hands in action here.
That's 240 goals in his career...just five more and he will already have scored more than 10% of his career goals as a New York Ranger, despite playing for them just two months. As mentioned in the post last April 9, in 10 years no one will remember that one of the best players in history was ever a member of the Minnesota Wild.
It's killing me.
That's 240 goals in his career...just five more and he will already have scored more than 10% of his career goals as a New York Ranger, despite playing for them just two months. As mentioned in the post last April 9, in 10 years no one will remember that one of the best players in history was ever a member of the Minnesota Wild.
It's killing me.
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Have they turned a corner?
The first 20 or so games of the Wild season didn't give us much to cheer about, nor much optimism about the season. It wasn't just that they had the second-worst record in team history after 20 games, it was also the fact that they didn't look energetic, they didn't look cohesive and on most nights the on-ice product was downright ugly.
There were some injuries - most notably the concussion that has kept Pierre-Marc Bouchard out of the lineup for all but the first game of the season - and there obviously was going to be a period of adjustment to the system of new coach Todd Richards. But none of this seemed to explain the dull, listless team that blew a lead and lost at Tampa, lost three days later in Carolina, and lost again three days after that at home to Phoenix. There wasn't much energy inside the X, and there was even talk of the benefit of having a horrible record so we could get a high draft choice.
But after that Phoenix loss - which was one of the most unwatchable games ever played in the Xcel Energy Center - something seemed to happen. On Friday the 20th, they earned a gritty win over the Islanders, when Owen Nolan scored late in the game. Over the next couple of days, they picked up center Andrew Ebbettt off of waivers from Chicago, and then traded away Benoit Puliot for Guillaume Latendresse. Also, Chuck Kobasew came back from an injury. And something about the chemistry of the team seemed to change.
We'd been hearing since training camp that the Richards system encouraged aggressive forechecking, with all three forwards free to go after the puck-carrier, as opposed to the Jacques Lemaire system of the first eight years, which relied more on a single forechecker and tried to disrupt the other team's attack as it moved through the neutral zone. But for 20 or 22 games, we didn't see much of that.
But over the past four games, it's starting to happen. Wild forwards are crashing hard in the offensive zone, forcing turnovers and creating chances. The defensemen are getting more integrated into the attack and the Wild have had long stretches of puck possession in the offensive zone, something we saw little of in the Lemaire years. Ebbett scored in his first game. Kobasew had a hat trick against Colorado, and Latendresse scored the tying goal tonight in Denver. Suddenly the team is creating a lot of quality chances.
And yet the defense isn't suffering. The night before Thanksgiving, they held Boston to just seven shots through two periods, and tonight they held Colorado to 22 shots in a shootout win at the Pepsi Center. They have three wins and an OT loss in their last four games (seven out of a possible eight points) and suddenly there seems to be a good vibe around the team, even though Martin Havlat, Brent Burns, Petr Sykora and Marek Zidlicky are all injured right now.
It might just be an illusion - we tend to do well against the less-physical Eastern Conference teams, and the Avalanche are having struggles of their own right now - but I think there's a chance this team is much better than it showed the first six weeks of the season.
December's schedule is brutal - 16 games in 30 days, nine of them on the road - and so we'll do another reality check around New Year's Day, but right now I'm cautiously optimistic that this group can climb back into serious contention for a playoff spot.
There were some injuries - most notably the concussion that has kept Pierre-Marc Bouchard out of the lineup for all but the first game of the season - and there obviously was going to be a period of adjustment to the system of new coach Todd Richards. But none of this seemed to explain the dull, listless team that blew a lead and lost at Tampa, lost three days later in Carolina, and lost again three days after that at home to Phoenix. There wasn't much energy inside the X, and there was even talk of the benefit of having a horrible record so we could get a high draft choice.
But after that Phoenix loss - which was one of the most unwatchable games ever played in the Xcel Energy Center - something seemed to happen. On Friday the 20th, they earned a gritty win over the Islanders, when Owen Nolan scored late in the game. Over the next couple of days, they picked up center Andrew Ebbettt off of waivers from Chicago, and then traded away Benoit Puliot for Guillaume Latendresse. Also, Chuck Kobasew came back from an injury. And something about the chemistry of the team seemed to change.
We'd been hearing since training camp that the Richards system encouraged aggressive forechecking, with all three forwards free to go after the puck-carrier, as opposed to the Jacques Lemaire system of the first eight years, which relied more on a single forechecker and tried to disrupt the other team's attack as it moved through the neutral zone. But for 20 or 22 games, we didn't see much of that.
But over the past four games, it's starting to happen. Wild forwards are crashing hard in the offensive zone, forcing turnovers and creating chances. The defensemen are getting more integrated into the attack and the Wild have had long stretches of puck possession in the offensive zone, something we saw little of in the Lemaire years. Ebbett scored in his first game. Kobasew had a hat trick against Colorado, and Latendresse scored the tying goal tonight in Denver. Suddenly the team is creating a lot of quality chances.
And yet the defense isn't suffering. The night before Thanksgiving, they held Boston to just seven shots through two periods, and tonight they held Colorado to 22 shots in a shootout win at the Pepsi Center. They have three wins and an OT loss in their last four games (seven out of a possible eight points) and suddenly there seems to be a good vibe around the team, even though Martin Havlat, Brent Burns, Petr Sykora and Marek Zidlicky are all injured right now.
It might just be an illusion - we tend to do well against the less-physical Eastern Conference teams, and the Avalanche are having struggles of their own right now - but I think there's a chance this team is much better than it showed the first six weeks of the season.
December's schedule is brutal - 16 games in 30 days, nine of them on the road - and so we'll do another reality check around New Year's Day, but right now I'm cautiously optimistic that this group can climb back into serious contention for a playoff spot.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Now THAT'S a promise!
Perhaps I didn't realize just how much was at stake in the Senate health care debate. Now, thanks to the Sen. Harry Reid (D-Candyland), I finally understand why everyone should be supporting this bill. This is from his Saturday night floor statement:
"Today we vote whether to even discuss one of the greatest issues of our generation - indeed, one of the greatest issues this body has ever face: whether this nation will finally guarantee its people the right to live free from the fear of illness and death, which can be prevented by decent health care for all."
Imagine that: The United States Senate can make it possible for all of us to live free from the fear of illness and death. Had I known about the immortality option when I worked in the Senate, I would have signed up for it right away.
"Today we vote whether to even discuss one of the greatest issues of our generation - indeed, one of the greatest issues this body has ever face: whether this nation will finally guarantee its people the right to live free from the fear of illness and death, which can be prevented by decent health care for all."
Imagine that: The United States Senate can make it possible for all of us to live free from the fear of illness and death. Had I known about the immortality option when I worked in the Senate, I would have signed up for it right away.
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