Hooray!

East Anglia will now release all climate raw data pending the negotiation of a number of non-publication agreements.

So, how long are we going to hang on to this data?  Long enough to pass cap and trade?  Long enough to put the world’s economies under the yolk of some global governance scheme courtesy the Copenhagen summit?  And, then we get to see the fraud beneath the surface?

No, full disclosure now for these reasons:

First, regardless of other commercial agreements, much of this data comes from grants backed by public monies.  Taxes.  My taxes.  My money.  I own that data.  It’s mine just as it’s any else’s.

Second, the data involved is increasingly becoming entangled in massive fraud.  Fraud that now clearly wades into the area of criminal.  We need this data out in the context of a full public inquiry.  On both sides of the Atlantic–England and the US.  We need to know what was being hidden.  Who hid it.  Who knew what and when.

Third, you have to show the conclusions that you present in ‘peer reviewed’ journals can be replicated.  That means you have to have the raw data so that other scientists can assemble the data to see if the same conclusion can be replicated.  You need to describe your methods and procedures so that others can re-do your experiment and, again, replicate your results and, ultimately, conclusions.  As a physician and engineer, I’ve been in the business of evaluating scientific experiments and studies to know that if you tried to present this data in a manner similar to global warming you’d be laughed out of any FDA drug approval process.

But, oh no!  The raw data at CRU is gone, the tapes and files thrown away during a move to a new facility!  All they have is ‘enhanced’ data!  How many billions of my tax dollars have gone into generating this data; and its all just tossed out.

The dog ate my homework.  Who did that?  Why?  Who knew what and when?

To the hacker that release the original e-mails; please hack again.  We need the raw data out in the public domain and now.  Unfortunately, you’ll probably be too late this time.

And seeing what sticks.

The benefit of substantial Democratic majorities is to allow the glib leadership (in both houses and the oval office) a chance to fully take the reins and render perfection out of our oh so obviously broken-down health care system.  Now that they’re in control, they can rectify those glaring deficiencies with their brilliant solutions that seems to have just eluded millions of doctors, nurses and sundry health professionals too dim-witted to see the obvious solutions only apparent to the enlighten few that now run the executive and legislative branches our the federal government.

Except that three hundred million people have unique medical needs that somehow don’t fit into any tight delivery scheme.  Certainly not the lowest common denominator expectations that Obama’s “best practices” will generate.  ”Best practices” really do work except in the cases of exceptions.  Exceptions that occur about every time a new patient walks into your office.

Now that the Democrats literally have the votes to pass anything they want, they also discover that they will own what ever mess they will create when they move this country into the Nirvana of “reformed” and “universal” health care.

And, everyone is starting to discover, now that the Democrats are seriously scheming to destroy the best health system in the world, that as bad as our system may be, every alternative is worse.

There was a reason to rush this “reform” through in the dark of night.  That reason became abundantly clear when a whole summer’s worth of town hall meetings laid bare some of the myths that drove this reform need–those pesky peasants from fly-over country; just don’t know what’s best for them.   Those same said peasants also objected to the price tag because one trillion dollars is a lot of money.  900 billion dollars is a lot of money.  In fact, in the hurly-burly of making your household budget balance, 100 bucks is a lot of money.

In the process we learned that there are, as Mark Twain noted, lies, damn lies and statistics.  We learned that American medicine does the best job in treating cancer, shortest waiting times and bringing the latest medical innovations to the patient fastest.  We learned that American life expectancy is increasing.  We learned that, factoring traffic accidents and homicide, we have the best life expectancy on earth.  We learned that our infant mortality rate isn’t the best because we count premature births as live births unlike other countries who only count full-term births as live births.  And, we have highly skilled neonatologists that that actually try to save these premies.

We learned that for all the griping, most Americans are satisfied with their medical coverage.

We learned, surprise, surprise, that there will be rationing.  That rationing will be borne, in particular, by the elderly.  That rationing will be forced by penalizing the the top ten percent of doctors (in terms of resource use).

We learned, courtesy former Labor Secretary Reich, that if you’re old we’re going to let you die.  Further, don’t expect further increases in life expectancy since money for innovation will no longer be there.  Yet, for all the contractions and cuts in care and resources for care; for all the taxes proposed–many to fall squarely on the middle class–we still have “reform” that will destroy the level of care we have now and beggar this country, our children and their grandchildren.

Yet, folks like Reid and Pelosi persist.  Especially with their stalking horse for socialized medicine–the “public option.”  In some respects, it is almost an obsession of a gambling addict that keeps doubling the ante in the center of the table in hopes of winning the jackpot.

There is no reason for this “reform” when more reasonable alternative are available.  Equal tax treatment for all insurance plans whether purchased by an employer or an individual.  Allowing insurance companies to purchase plans across state lines.

No, the real reason is the push to bring the entire medical system under governmental control.  And, the folks pushing it the most are the Democratic leadership in both houses who all share a common trait of being superannuated Woodstock hippies who sense that this will be the last time, in a generation, that they can push medical socialization through.  For them, the leadership in particular, it will be the last time in their lives since most of these individuals are 70 or older.  These were the folks who were going to “change the system” by “working in the system.”  Now, at the end of their careers, having labored for so long in the vinyards of the hall of congress, they finally have the perfect convergence to get their dream of socialism through.  But, even now, their overreaching with things like the “stimulus” leave them just inches short.

They need to do this because socialized medicine is the surest vehicle to wreck a country.  France and Britain used to be major players in world affairs–with military muscle to back it up.  But, thanks to the enormous drain of resources by their respective social welfare programs, they are now, well, second rate.  Now, it is our turn.  This an attempt to so consume our country in spending and taxes so as to bleed every other priority dry–especially defense.  And, to run individual initiative and economic into the ground; bye bye American Exceptionalism.  These aging hippies will finally have the sure-fire solution to any future “Vietnams.”  A solution to America’s “horrible oppressions” in the world. Bankrupt America.

]]> http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/obamacare-throwing-st-up-against-the-wall/feed/ 0 mountainmusings http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/aging-hippies-and-congressional-leadership/ http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/aging-hippies-and-congressional-leadership/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 17:15:55 +0000 mountainmusings http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/?p=1330 ]]>

The headlong, damn-the-torpedoes approach to health care “reform” is a function of democratic congressional leadership in the hands of a bunch of aging Woodstock era hippies.  Much of the top leadership hails from the early 1970’s, especially from the class of 1974; Democrats elected at the height of the Watergate scandal.  Many of these were the hippies or fellow travelers who were going to carry the revolution to the establishment by working “in the system” and thereby undermine the “system.”

But, their 30 year journey was greatly frustrated by a misalignment of stars.  The last time the Democrats held the balance of power as they do now was in Jimmy Carter’s first two years (1977-78).  At that time these hippies were much too junior to exert much influence in the House and Senate.  And, so the dream to radicalize America fizzled.

But, now comes the next opportunity.  But, for the leadership, their last opportunity since many of them are in their 70’s and will literally be pushing up daisies  when the next opportunity comes around.  So, we see the most heavy handed legislative pushes on record to move health care “reform,” cap and trade and card check to remake America as some socialist utopia.

True to their boomer roots this leadership will push this agenda forward with out the slightest care about the consequences and damages their children and grandchildren will have to bear.  They care not a whit for unintended consequences since they will live their remaining years on a lush congressional pension and then be dead shortly thereafter.  They have exempted themselves from the maw of rationing that will be unloaded on the rest of America thanks to their socialized medical monstrosity.  And, they will be able to avail themselves of what was once the finest medical system on earth before their “reforms” grind American medicine into the socialized mediocrity that now graces England and Canada.

Reid plans to jam health care reform through on reconciliation or some other obscure parliamentary trick to side it through on 51 votes.  This will in effect kill the filibuster and turn the Senate into a more grandiose version of the House. Frankly, Reid has the votes; it only takes 51 votes to kill the filibuster right now.  But, once that rule is gone, it’ll never come back.  But, what does Reid care that he’ll turn the deliberative functions of the Senate into an over-glorified student senate.  He’ll be departed from the scene; hopefully as soon as November 2010.

And, this same leadership is fighting to jam this bill through before anyone has a chance to read it.  This may give Reid, Pelosi and company some cheap thrills.  But, it’ll be murder for their party.  Because the Republicans, going into 2010 and 2012 will have over a thousand pages of selective quotes from that unvetted bill to bludgeon the Democrats. Remember, the actual reform doesn’t take place until 2013.  So, the actual vote buying potential of this entitlement will not be around until after the 2010 mid-term elections.  Nor the 2012 presidential election.

To hell with all of you left on the Titanic, suckers, I’ve already got my place on the lifeboat.

]]> http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/10/07/aging-hippies-and-congressional-leadership/feed/ 0 mountainmusings http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/gm-an-abortion-known-as-industrial-policy/ http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/2009/05/30/gm-an-abortion-known-as-industrial-policy/#comments Sat, 30 May 2009 23:17:14 +0000 mountainmusings http://elkhorncreeklodge.wordpress.com/?p=1297 ]]>

“What’s good for GM is good….”  You know the rest.  The irony, is that GM and the US government has been bound at the hip for nearly three quarters of a century.  It started with the Wagner National Labor Relations act.  And, ended there.  For this company, in particular, became the vehicle that has been the government-mandated honey pot for the UAW.  

Indeed, with governmental help, GM evolved into a Social Security agency and a Medicare agency; with three out of every four UAW members drawing down on retirement benefits.  It a wonder that GM had any time to make cars.  This charade led to GM’s current business model of manufacturing large cars, SUV’s and trucks to generate the profits needed to subsidize the lush benefits that the UAW now enjoys.  Moreover, the CAFE standards were originally conceived to keep small car production in the US, thereby guaranteeing more UAW jobs.  So, those same said large cars and trucks also had to subsidize small car production as well.

This delicate homeostasis succeeded until energy became politicized by the environmentalists.  The act of pumping gas became political statement.  And, scientific inquiry about global weather patterns became similarly politicized.  

An energy policy designed to create scarcity, to drive up the price of gas, succeeded with four dollar per gallon gas last summer.  And, GM’s balancing act collapsed.  Not that any of this ever had to happen.  Because, most Americans like large cars.  We are, generally, a country that has a very low population density.  Ours is under 100 persons per square mile as opposed to populations densities in the hundreds if not over a thousand persons per square foot in Europe or Asia.  We therefore, on average travel farther for a given trip.  And, given these longer trips will want to carry more.  Hence the need for a bigger car.

Energy policy that abandoned the flat-earth mythology of global-warming (sorry, climate change), could easily provide the necessary gas, well under two dollars per gallon, by off-shore drilling.  Extraction of shale-oil.  Nuclear power.  The energy densities of these sources outstrip all other sources.  It is only because of energy production politicization that “alternative” power sources are remotely economically viable. 

Yes, there are people who live in very congested inner-city areas who would want a very small car.  But, the free market is more than capable of providing such cars.  But, in America, we engage in gigantic carbon-footprint activities such as having, instead of aborting, children and that, with our low population density makes for a demand for larger vehicles–like Obama’s Tahoe.  But, how about letting individuals choose what they want to drive?  I guess not in Obama’s command economy.

So, welcome to the brave new world of econo-boxes.  Mandated by Obama’s acolytes in the EPA and department of transportation.  Actually, the brave-old world of econo-boxes.  Once again, thanks to Reagan and the prosperity his policies engendered, we have a whole generation of people who simply forgot or never experienced the world of the 70’s.  Remember the le Car?  Or, the Gremlin, Pinto or Maverick?  How about the incredibly sexy 1974 Mustang?  Or, a car so bad, it became the official wheels of Wayne’s World–the AMC Pacer.

And, so, the picture at the top of this post is supposed to represent the new, Obama controlled GM (h.t., Drudge).  What we have is a state controlled car company capable of being as innovative as the old Soviet block manufacturers that gave us the Lada or the Trabant.  GM is going to require permanent government subsidies to give away these cars.  Because, for those with some pocket change left after Obama’s systematic looting via taxes, you aren’t going to lay down one penny more on something out of GM.  We’ll also know when some lowly bureaucrat is out an about since they’ll be driving one of those ridiculous GM econo-boxes.  The GSA is going to become the official buyer of all products, GM.  How else to prop up the US Treasury’s investment in GM.

Since, Obama’s GM will keep the Cadillac nameplate, we’ll also be producing the Zil.  So, our solons will be able to look down upon all of us unwashed rubes as they are whisked to their oh so important governmental meetings.  We could even, like in the old Soviet Union, have special lanes reserved for the limousines of the high party big-shots.  

In a way, it’s fitting.  Keep  GM. Because GM has been the province of the government and the UAW since 1935.  Produce exactly the kind of cars that the enviro’s get wet dreams over.  And, keep the UAW as an object lesson, with three retirees for every worker on the line, for the future of Medicare and Social Security.

Rep. Steny Hoyer will allow investigations of “torture” to proceed with he inclusion of investigations of Pelosi’s knowledge.  Oh, there are the usual bromides about how the GOP diverting attention from the “truth” to a witch hunt about what the Democrats knew and when.  

The real truth is that Hoyer knows that everyone knew, the practice of water-boarding was very circumscribed and used with specific intent on specific suspects.  And, that specific intent was the fact that there was information, life saving information, that had to be extracted.  Hoyer also knows that this use of so-called torture was not used gratuitously to extract a confession for some Stalin-purge show trial.  

In sum, this subject as a useful weapon against the GOP is kaput.  And, Hoyer knows that too.  So, Hoyer is now going to use this weapon against an equally inviting target–Pelosi.  He’s got a payback to deliver.  Force her out and he’s the speaker.  Hoyer also knows that the minute Pelosi gets sworn in, these hearing are going to turn into the when-did-Pelosi-know hearings.  At this point, it won’t matter if former vice-President Cheney gets arrested with thumbscrews in his back pocket.

And, then the law of unintended consequences kicks in.  First, you can bet that if Pelosi gets called on the rug, she’s going to be sure she’s got as many fellow democrats who “knew” up there with her.  Further, with the long knives out, there’s a very good chance that just about every other agenda on the Hill is going to be dropped.  Especially, if there’s any chance that there’s going to be a shake up in the House leadership.  And, Obama might as well as take his teleprompter to Death Valley to yammer on about having his program priorities delivered to his desk by thus and such a date.

All of which points to the lack of leadership and executive experience of either Pelosi or Obama.  Obama farmed out his agenda to rich dilettante, by virtue of marrying well, whose first act was to come up with a “stimulus” bill that beyond caricatured the “tax and spend” liberal.  Then Obama came up with these torture memo releases with the full knowledge, despite his protestations to the contrary, that his fellow travelers would immediately use them in an anti-Bush show trial vendetta.

All of which, increasingly, will distract from issues that will really make or break Obama’s presidency–putting the country back on track to prosperity.  Executive experience would inform Obama that you need to focus your agenda, sort through all the chaff and distractions to find the real issues that need to be addressed and to pick your lieutenants very carefully.  Of which, Pelosi turned out to be a very poor choice.  Not that I’m complaining that hard.  There’s a very good chance that Obama’s agenda is going down in flames all over informed executive experience that would have told our President that there are somethings you just leave alone.

Barry O, prime minister of the world, is now going to solve our traffic jams with high speed rail.  The brilliance of the guy just doesn’t stop.  Here it is, the solution, heretofore hidden from the rest of us lesser mortals, until his superior intellect hits on the idea and makes it clear to rest of us.  But, somewhere along the way Obama missed why the railroads got out of the passenger business–and unloaded Amtrak on us.  And, why intraurban mass transit it a horrible money loser propped up only by tax subsidies.  

Let’s start with the logistics.  Mass transit, of any type, depends on a lot of people going to and from the same destination at about the same time.  This requires densely populated corridors or two terminuses that have a lot of like minded people–like minded in that they want to travel to and from these two terminuses.  

Moreover, one must account for the fact that you don’t just travel from train station to train station (or airport to airport for that matter), but you must come from your home or place of business and ultimately arrive at another such destination such as a hotel or another place of business.  So, you step off your high speed train and you still may be miles from your ultimate destination.  

From my own experience, if I can reach a particular destination in four hours by car, it’s probably faster to do that than take the train or plane.  Simply because the time spent getting to, through and out of an airport more than makes up for the time saved by the actual flying.  Also, once you get to your destination, you’re going to need a car anyway.  If you drove, you have one.  If you flew, that’s even more time waiting for the car rental bus to transport you to the far reaches of the airport to get said rental.

Interurban high speed rail has the same limitations at either terminus.  But, even at 150 miles per hour, said train is going to be about half as fast as the plane.

Which gets us to speed.  You’re going to have to build trackage parallel to the existing trackage.  The existing trackage is completely saturated with freight traffic.  More importantly, the current trackage cannot support rail trackage if excess of about 80 miles per hour; about what you can do on the interstate highway system.  The high speed trains that run in Europe and Japan run on special trackage that will actually support train speeds well in excess of 100 miles per hour.  In sum, Obama’s high speed rail will need a parallel rail system solely dedicated to these high speed trains.  

By the way, the cost of materials is about $100 per foot of track.  Then there’s the cost of labor and cost of the underlying right-of-way. Here as of 2003. One rail is going to run you about $20 per foot.  A standard 200 foot wide right of way works out to about 24 acres of land per mile.

The next limitation is that European rail solutions will not work here.  Naturally, Obama and his bi-coastal elites think anything European is naturally superior.  But, on the practical side, Europe is generally crowded and densely populated.  Therefore, you are going to have a lot of people filling the criteria of a lot of people going to the same places at the same time.  Moreover, Europe is smaller making distances traveled shorter.  The overall effect is shorter, more heavily travelled corridors making such high speed rail a consideration.  And, there are such corridors in the United States; the Northeast Corridor between Boston and Washington being the best example.  By some mysterious coincidence train service exists there.  With the Acela Express leading the was with an average speed of 80 mph; it being impossible to get the money or past the NIMBY’s to construct trackage for exclusive use by the Acela.  So kiss 150 mph speed good bye.

Here’s the map from the White House web site showing the rest of the high speed corridors “envisioned” for the future.  You find a lot of the trackage is going to go over a lot of empty land.  Take a look at the Houston/New Orleans route; a lot of that goes over swamp just like the current Interstate 10.  Then there’s the Texarkana/Little Rock corridor.  Wow, must be lots of folks who need to get to the Bill Clinton Library.  Oh, and there’s that Tulsa/Oklahoma City corridor.

The fact of the matter is that the US has an overall population density of less than 100 persons per square mile.  Far less than the population densities of Europe or Japan that have hundreds if not over a thousand persons per square mile.  Our transportation system is reliant on the car for that simple reason–population densities are too low to make mass transit viable except in some select urban corridors.  Highways are cheaper to construct and maintain.  Highways allow people to travel at will, thereby eliminating the need to try to schedule or run train schedules that would result in very expensive conveyances with only one or two passengers.  For the really long haul, it’s far cheaper to pave two miles of concrete at each end of the trip; they’re call runways.

Our transport system is the reflection of the efforts of thousands of civil engineers and tens of millions of the traveling public who already worked through all of the above.  Yet, in their supreme arrogance, Obama and his toadies seems to think they have hit on a solution that has somehow eluded the rest of us since the invention of the wheel.

The really sad thing is that all of the above is already apparent to Obama.  But, all Obama cares about is coming up with any excuse to stiff our great-grandchildren as much spending as that quick little mind between those big ears can gin up.

Let’s just put the concept to rest; that global warming is bad.  Long before the emergence of SUV’s the earth has warmed and cooled.  Probably secondarily to solar activity.  The biggest advances in human civilization occurred during periods of warming.  Longer growing seasons, more more land, further north, available for settling and cultivation and so on.  Here we see a case that some of greatest advances in civilization occurred during such periods of warm.  The Roman warming, from 300 B.C. to 400 A.D. coincided with the rise of Rome and the Pax Romana.  And, when earth starting cooling in 400 A.D. tribes from the north were pushed against the boundaries of Rome.  Rome fell and the dark ages commenced.  

In general, a rough pattern emerges.  Civilizational advances during times of warming and contractions during times of cooling.  Rome and the Pax Romana rose during the Roman warming only do fall with the onset of the dark ages in 400 A.D.  The Medieval warming from 900 A.D.  to 1300 A.D.  I would submit one of the factors that led to the Renaissance.  Now, since the end of the little Ice age since about 1850 is our current warming period with its contaminant advances in science, technology and prosperity.  

It all makes sense.  Cooling periods make less land available for food production and living.  Relative scarcity and crowding will lead, as it did, to famines and plagues.  And death.

So, given that some of these past warming periods greatly exceeded our current warming period, we have very little evidence that we have anything approaching a crisis.  In fact, the historical record would clearly show that warming periods produced untold benefit for the human race and cooling periods the reverse.  Of course, the bi-coastal elite trust-fund babies aren’t terribly worried that they will have to suffer the least privation that lesser humans will have to bear with the next cooling.

Let’s look at what the EPA now wants to regulate in the name of global warming–nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons and perfluorocarbons.  These are gases released from volcanoes.  Go to Yellowstone National Park and smell the rotten egg smell around the geysers near Old Faithful.  Yes, sulfur compounds.  Naturally released from  volcanic activity that existed from time immemorial.  Long before an SUV ever graced the roads of Yellowstone NP.  (Lake Yellowstone is actually a super-volcano caldera.)  Maybe, in the name of global warming, Albert Gore needs to pave over Old Faithful.

And, the EPA wants to regulate methane and carbon dioxide.  The former is what we fart out and the latter what we breathe out.  We are going to regulate farts and breath.  

So, what we really have is a whole political movement based on fraud.  Not only is global warming not a problem, it historically has been times of some of the greatest advances in the human condition.  The warm that we now have is something to be welcomed and cherished; for hard times, dark and cold will come again.

The purpose of this fraud?  Global warming is the latest manifestation of a rapacious governing class, and their fellow travelers, to gin up a rationalization for even more power and revenue.  A rapaciousness so out of control that it will create any myth with only the thinnest veneer of “science” to create an excuse to regulate an newly discovered “health menace” and to impose an economy killing tax known as cap-and-trade.  Even if this regulation, at its core, is to regulate farts and breath.  Farts and breath.

Throughout the last ten to fifteen years, the executives that led these many financial, brokerage and banking firms on Wall Street, were a wholly owned subsisdery of the Democratic Party.  Who actually ran the social networks in the politically correct swamps of the Hamptons?  And, what did all of this butt-kissing buy?  Another Obama-style throwing under the bus.  The latest being the 90 percent tax on the AIG bonuses.

Good.

Maybe, at last, some of these oh-so avant-garde execuctives can now understand that when you’re in the business of creating wealth, you have a job that diametrically opposed to the role of government, which, in its Democratic-party form, is to skim wealth to buy votes.  And, if all of these bribes over the years would tame the ravenous wolf that is the taxman, they hopefully now understand that the demand for these bribes will only grow.

The silver lining of this 90 percent tax is that it will chase away more private sector players.  Hopefully, we may actually see some in the government realize that the real way out of this current economic downturn is through economic growth.  And, that growth will only come from the private sector.  More importantly, our oh so clever solons who now run the executive and legislative branches of our government may begin to appreciate that the private sector is to be respected and not regarded a flock of sheep to be fleeced to fund their personal whims and agendas.  It may even come to pass that trendy conversation out in the Hamptons may even find such topics as rule of law, bill of attainder, ex post facto, and property rights as passing the politically correct muster.

Leadership involves, among other qualities, the ability to adapt to a variety of changing contiditions; sometimes radical and very rapid.  Yet, Obama has yet to truly understand the nature of the conditions facing him.  and, he’s refused to adapt to those changes.

Obama spent his life in the unprecedented prosperity of Reagan’s economic policies.  Indeed, at least for his adult life, he has known no other.  Like Obama, a huge proportion of the American population simply doesn’t know of real hardship since the last such era was in the Carter era of 1977 to 1981.  When Obama started his quest for the White House some two years ago, he based his campaign on the then operative paradigm of nearly 30 years of essentially unbroken prosperity.  Prosperity that for many Americans has been the only economic paradigm they’ve ever known.

Obama’s campaign game plan was to use the current discontent to get elected and then, in a socialist remake of America, “spread the wealth” by taking the economic gains of the last 30 years and distribute such to his friends and favored constituencies.  Then, last September, the bottom fell out and the wealth that Obama was to redistribute vanished.  Yet, true to his baby boomer roots, he tried to have it both ways–redistribute wealth that was no longer there and take on the task of economic recovery.  (I didn’t say that was realistic.)  

The issue now is that the economic crisis that guaranteed his election is the weather change that he, Obama, has not the executive or leadership experience to sense or appropriately adjust for these changes.  Real leadership would have called for a immediate reordering of his priorities to delay the rest of his agenda to focus fully on the current economic crisis.  Moreover, he had four months to plan and make those necessary changes to re-order his governing priorities with specific plans to address this economic downturn.  But, Obama’s obsession with using this downturn as a vehicle to create America’s socialist makeover.

The real irony is that focusing and solving this economic downturn would have accrued such goodwill and political capital that his socialist agenda, in the long term, would have been a so much simpler sell.  But, that necessary political capital is being destroyed faster than the plummeting dow averages.  But, this precisely is the incompetence and inexperience of our commander in chief.  He is so focused on socialist agenda that he has not the flexibility and foresight of a true leader, of real executive leadership, to modify his course of action.  Nor, does he have the vision or creativity to use adversity as opportunities to achieving goals by alternate paths.

It’s my dream that the court proceedings trying to adjudicate the close senatorial election between Coleman and Franken could be turned into a “teaching moment” (I think that’s the liberal term) by throwing the entire election out and demanding a new election.  I don’t know that the courts have that authority, but they could in effect by demanding strict accountability for every vote cast.  

The point is not to come to some particular conclusion, but to establish legal president for what sort of electoral behavior will have standing in the courts.  So, I would propose that the courts demand a “chain of custody,” so to speak, that would ensure that there is a validity to every electoral evolution with the ultimate goal of making any given election free of any taint of fraud.

Who ever wins this election will win by a margin that falls within the margin of error.  It become even more important that every effort was made to insure the validity of each vote.  

Therefore, I would love to see the court demand that voter registration rolls are accurate.  Moreover, to have legal standing the state of Minnesota would have to demonstrate, in a very transparent manner and public manner, that voter rolls are kept scrupulously accurate.  Perhaps by insisting that voter registration close a certain specified number of weeks prior to an given election to allow the state of square those tallies.  

I’d love to see the courts then insist, for a successful challenge that each voter be matched to those voter registration rolls by means of biometric data–a governmental issued photo ID.  Then, finally to insist, again for standing in a court challenge, to have physical evidence (a marked ballot) to correlate with each vote tally.  I’d like to see strict physical accounting for each ballot published and no batches of ballots somehow being “discovered” in someone’s car trunk.  Finally, guidelines for the election judges to insure exacting and uniform standards treating the counting of each ballot.  In other words, I’d like to see the Coleman/Franken court challenge be turned into an exercise of exacting accountability every step of the way.  

Put it this way, would you like to see the decision for a radical mastectomy, made on the basis of a breast biopsy, that was handled in the same manner as some of the ballots that mysteriously appeared in some envelope that someone “overlooked.”  Speaking as a physician, that would constitute a slam-dunk malpractice action; just settle ’cause you’re never going to get it past the jury.

People make a whole big deal about the “right” to vote.  But, the right to vote, like any right, entail certain responsibility.  I could never see what was so difficult about voting with the old punch card; the ones of “chad” fame.  You simple check your ballot after marking it to make sure that the chads have been punched out.  Frankly, if you can’t do that you don’t belong in the voting booth.  In a similar fashion, it’s not rocket science to follow directions and put an “x” in a box next to the candidate of your choice.   Or, to fill out an oval if the ballot is to be electronically read.  

The first time I voted, I voted absentee.  That meant I just got a booklet and a punch card.  I then had to find a chad labeled, say #34, in order to vote for a particular candidate. I didn’t have the advantage of a voting machine that would allow me to line up the card and just punch a hole in the machine desk top to punch that particular chad.  Boy, was that stressful.  The state of Illinois should have provided me with psychotherapy afterwards.  But, of course, Obamacare wasn’t available in 1976.  

Seriously, though.  Participation in any democratic process requires a certain level of personal responsibility and, dare I say it, virtue.  And, if  you can’t cope with a little personal responsibility, you can move to Northern Pakistan where the Taliban will tell you what to do.