RobertMcNickle.com

Where To Cut Government Spending? Start Here

CJ Box reports at Ricochet.com on the "personal cost of big government thuggery."

"For seven years, Mike and Chantell Sackett fought our government.  It consumed their lives.  Dozens of government lawyers and hundreds of bureaucrats – paid for by your taxes – aligned to ruin them.  By the time the Sacketts arrived at the U.S. Supreme Court, our government said they owed $110 million in fines.
Even as the case wound its way upward through the system and it became more and more obvious that the EPA had no real case, not a single EPA bureaucrat tried to settle or apologize – not even privately.   Even after the Court shot them down 9-0."

Unbelievable. 

Amazing Grace

UPDATE: May 28, 2012  Here are some more stories for your Memorial Day reading.

"21 Steps" by Dave Carter at Ricochet.com.

"In Loving Memory" by Robert Mitchell at Ricochet.com.

The Marines made a bed for her.  An article by Lily Burana in the NYT.

"Robert Higgin's War" by Sean Higgins at NRO.

--------------------------------------------

The grace that we Americans recieve from those who "gave the last full measure of devotion," is truly amazing.  Today is the day we pause to honor these Americans.  Or so it should be.

In the WSJ, Col. Tom Manion, USMCR (Ret.), writes about why they serve, even when they know that we are at war.  Col. Manion knows of which he speaks.

Over at The Corner, David French reminds us of the power of that "amazing grace."

And don't miss this video about Honor Flight Stories, an effort to bring WWII vets to Washington to visit their memorial and share their stories.  These folks are dying before our very eyes these days, and all will be gone soon.  Check it out.

Why Religious Liberty Matters

Father Robert Barron on why religious liberty matters.

You can see more of his talks at Word on Fire.

Also, Father Barron has just been named rector of Mundelein Seminary, and in this post he talks about The New Evangelism and what he wants to communicate to seminarians.

Crash

Patrick Smith reports on the 10 worst airplane crashes.  Interesting that 4 involved crashes that were the result of being shot or blown out of the sky, and pilot error was only a factor in 3 of the smashups.

I found the above photo of the Tenerife crash on this site.

The Facebook Fiasco

Henry Blodget at Business Insider has some interesting thoughts and "scuttlebutt" on the Facebook IPO.

I just clicked over to the BI home page to get the url for the above link and found this article on the front page.

And there is this from Holman Jenkins at the WSJ.

Ouch

This note from Phil Kerpin, President of American Commitment, has some bad news about coming electricity rates in the mid-Atlantic and eastern mid-west states.

"The market-clearing price for new 2015 capacity – almost all natural gas – was $136 per megawatt. That’s eight times higher than the price for 2012, which was just $16 per megawatt. In the mid-Atlantic area covering New Jersey, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and DC the new price is $167 per megawatt. For the northern Ohio territory served by FirstEnergy, the price is a shocking $357 per megawatt.Why the massive price increases?

Andy Ott from PJM stated the obvious: “Capacity prices were higher than last year's because of retirements of existing coal-fired generation resulting largely from environmental regulations which go into effect in 2015.” Northern Ohio is suffering from more forced coal-plant retirements than the rest of the region, hence the even higher price.

These are not computer models or projections or estimates. These are the actual prices that electric distributors have agreed to pay for new capacity. The costs will be passed on to consumers at the retail level."

I have no doubt that when these price increases filter down to the consumer, the news will be reported as "unexpected," but it's totally expected when we elect guys like this.

Wow!

I stumbled on these two posts this morning.

Cisco® Visual Networking Index (VNI) Global Mobile Data Traffic Forecast Update

CTIA-The Wireless Association Semi-Annual Survey

Highlights-

Mobile data traffic grew 133% in 2011, video traffic makes up more than 50%, and speeds increased 66%.

Smartphones are only 12% of the handsets, but use 82% of handset traffic.

By the end of 2012, the number of mobile-connected devices will exceed the number of people on earth, and by 2016 there will be 1.4 mobile devices per capita. 

    It already does in the US (322.9m vs 315.5m)

Look at the growth forecasts.  Wow!

Dragon Makes Orbit

UPDATE: May 23, 2012  I finally found some launch photos, from Spaceflight Now, and PM has a brief summary of what's next for Dragon as it chases down the ISS.

---------------------------------------

Finally, some fun space news.

SpaceX launched it's Dragon capsule this morning on a mission to the International Space Station.  It's the first privately developed spaceship (and rocket) to be sent to the ISS.  On this test flight the Dragon is carrying 1,150 pounds of cargo bound for the station.  SpaceX has a contract with NASA for 12 cargo flights to the station using the Falcon 9 booster and the Dragon capsule.  In addition, SpaceX has a development contract to add human rating to the capsule for crew transportation to low Earth orbit.

Spaceflight Now has coverage here and here.

Space.com's story is here.

And here is the NASA story.

Here We Go....

UPDATE: May 24, 2012  Mollie Hemingway at Ricochet.com has some news on how the news is covering this story.  As I have been saying, this issue is about freedom-period, not just religious freedom, and as such is a much bigger story than most realize.  Maybe the media is doing the Pauline Kael gig.  Michael Barone suggests that is not a very good idea.

Scott Johnson at PowerLine says don't bother reading EJ Dionne oped on the lawsuits.

-----------------------------------

UPDATE: May 22, 2012  Here are some more thoughts on the lawsuits-

From Kathryn Jean Lopez' blog, Father Jenkins said the suit was filed "with sober determination."

The NY Sun applies the "cake and eat it too" principle to the issue, saying that the mandate requires that the Church is "being forced to submit to an intrusive investigation as to its own bona fides as a religious institution."

And at PowerLine, Paul Mirengoff speculates as to the motive behind the timing of the lawsuits.

Just up at PowerLine, Scott Johnson offers thoughts on the Notre Dame complaint.

And former Ambassador Mary Ann Glendon, in the WSJ, where she says, "At the deepest level, we are witnessing an attack on the institutions of civil society that are essential to limited government and are important buffers between the citizen and the all-powerful state."  Amen.

----------------------------------

Forty three Catholic institutions filed lawsuits today over the US HHS insurance mandates which are now US law and go into effect on August 1, 2012.  

George Weigel had this to say-

"A victory in the lawsuits filed against the administration’s mandate will be more than a victory for religious freedom, important as that will be. It will be a victory in defense of the social architecture of American democracy. Government is not the only custodian of the common good. The institutions of civil society bear a significant and irreducible responsibility for the common good, a responsibility they must be able to fulfill freely, without unwarranted interference from an overweening state that is ignorant of the limits of its legitimate reach. That is the truth for which today’s Catholic litigants are contesting — and they are doing so on behalf of all Americans."

That's my bold in the above quote.

Here is the WaPo's news article on the issue.

Here's the CNSNews story.

I didn't see a certain university on the Potomac in Washington listed in the articles.  Hmmmm.....

From the CNS story, Cardinal Dolan said, "We have tried negotiation with the Administration and legislation with the Congress--and we’ll keep at it--but there's still no fix."

According to Weigel's post, Father Jenkins said “this [suit] is about the freedom of a religious organization to live its mission.” 

I think it's bigger than that.  It's about freedom, period!

.....isms Rule

Thomas Sowell, writing about the purveyors of all the ".....isms" that we have created in the past 50 years and the potential danger to American society-

"There is not much we can do about demographic trends. But the changing composition of the American population is not, in itself, the fundamental danger. After all, vast millions of immigrants crossed the Atlantic for generations on end, and began the process of becoming Americans. Millions of black people likewise began that process after being set free.

Demography is not destiny. But the history of Balkanized and polarized societies in the 20th century is a history of horrors that we dare not ignore.

 We are not at that terrible point yet. But that is the direction in which we are headed, under the spell of magic words like "multiculturalism" and "diversity," which have become substitutes for thoughts, even among those who pride themselves on being "thinking people."

Our whole educational system, from the elementary schools to the universities, is permeated with ideologies of group grievances and resentments, painting each group into the corner of its own separate subculture, instead of drawing them into the mainstream of the American culture that made this the greatest nation on earth.

Unless the fashionable Balkanization is stopped, demography can become destiny -- and a tragedy for all." 

"Endowed By Our Creator"

From this piece by Supreme Knight Carl Anderson at NRO.

"The fact is that in the United States we are “one nation under God,” operating under the rule of law as citizens “endowed by our Creator” with unalienable rights that the state cannot abrogate.

 Such an understanding is not partisan. It is American. It represents the views of presidents from Washington to Jefferson to Lincoln to Kennedy to Reagan. In this country we may sometimes have to defend our rights vigorously, but we must also do so with civility if we would do justice to the responsibilities our rights entail."

Carl strongly recommends that we all go see "For Greater Glory."

Dragon/Falcon 9 Launch Scrubbed

Computers scrubbed the launch of SpaceX's Falcon 9 early this morning after detecting a high pressure reading in engine number 5.  The engines were shut down with a half a second to go in the countdown of the first commercial mission to the International Space Station.

SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell said in a post scrub briefing that the next launch attempt could occur as soon as Tuesday, May 22nd, pending inspections of the engine and correction of whatever issues are discovered.  

Funny

I know this is old, but still pretty funny.

G8 Protests Frederick, MD

I was out and about today, as school is closed at the request of Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins due to security and traffic concerns for the G8 Summit at Camp David.

There was an event at the library for 4 hours today called the "Occupy G8 Peoples’ Summit".  You can review the objectives and agenda here.  I listened to a little bit of one lecture near the end where the speaker (Emily Kamano of this outfit) was claiming that corrupt governments have come about as a result of Keynes' economic theories.  

I was too young to remember much of the 60's protest movement but this lecture sounded like a pitch for living in a commune, growing our food together, and just have everybody get along with each other.  Sounds great until reality intrudes.  Didn't the Pilgrims try that until they realized that they were going to starve?  Something about human nature.  There were about 35-40 people in attendance.

The cops sure were out in force, including the Park Police and their mounted patrol.  They kept riding around the block almost daring someone to drop a gum wrapper on the ground.  (OK, that's just my impression.)

These folks walked by me at the Square Corner as I was waiting for the march to begin.  As you can see in the video below, they ended up leading the march, such as it is.

As to the actual protest march, it was about 75 people, headed for Baker Park.  I caught this video on West Patrick near the Weinberg.  Check out the signs.  I saw:

The typical G8 with a circle and line through it.

"Tear down all the jails"-yea, that will work well.  Let's just ask all the criminals to play nice.

"Cops murder everywhere"-I wonder how the Frederick cops who were out in force today providing traffic control for these folks felt about that one.

"Abolish WTO"-I could probably agree with that.

And then there was the black guy with this one-"Liars talk about hope, Occupy acts to bring change."  If he votes, and he is "representing" (as they say) the President is in a heap of trouble come November.

I don't understand the need to obscure ones identity when marching in these sorts of protests.  I had a little fun with two friends of mine who were in the march, one wearing a bandana and stocking cap almost completely covering his face, and the other wearing a bandana pulled up to just below his eyes.  If what you are promoting is of value, why cover up your identity?

"Locke Is The True Liberal"

Just like me.  Hee, hee.

"An apt description of modern liberalism.  But what you describe really isn't liberalism.  Why have we allowed the left to high jack this word?  I would argue  Locke is the true liberal.  A Lockean existence is full of  human folly.  But somebody that believes in liberty believes that man can correct his behavior thru trial and error and understanding the consequences of his own actions.  The modern Hobbsian doesn't want man to go thru that process.  We are to be protected from ourselves and our vices."

From the comments to this post on Ricochet.com.

I have often thought about this same question.  Locke's view, or Hobbes'?  If you spend any time in society in Frederick (I do, walking around and riding TransIT) you see plenty of behavior that would (at least from my perspective) call for the leviathan of the state to crack down on the idiotic behavior of the individuals.  At the same time, you see many activities where, in exercising it's existing power, the state acts as badly as the idiotic individuals.

Madison and the founders recognized this, as he wrote in Federalist 51-

"Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions."

Among the founders there was also the understanding that for government to work, in the manner in which they were developing it, the society had to be a moral one.

John Adams-

 "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

George Washington-

“Religion and morality are the essential pillars of civil society.”

Ben Franklin-

"[O]nly a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt and vicious, they have more need of masters."

That last quote from Franklin is scary if you look around at behavior in America today.  Some time ago I had a conversation with a friend about this issue.  My take on human nature (despite my Catholic faith) is that we are essentially bad and corrupt.  Hers was that we are at least born neutral, and become bad through our weakness to temptation, but have just as much opportunity to be good, through our strength to resist temptation.  The strength comes from what we learn as we grow.  That strength comes from our parents, family, friends, teachers, mentors, coaches, pastors, etc.

I think all of us who fill those roles in our kids lives need to tune it up a notch for the Locke view to prevail.

It Just Doesn't Work

Human nature, you just can't beat it.  

There is a Gospel verse from chapter 2 of John's that I really like where John says "But Jesus would not trust himself to them because he knew them all, and did not need anyone to testify about human nature.  He himself understood it well."

As much as we struggle against the bad, human nature is human nature.  That's why Socialism, Marxism, Communism, etc. don't work.  Because they all fundamentally go against human nature.  History has proven it time and time again, often with deadly results.

But we still don't get it.

David French takes up the case at The Corner with this post.  Please read it all, but here's the key point-

"Yet human nature still prevails, doesn’t it? It turns out that the euro couldn’t turn Greeks and Italians into Germans, that cradle-to-grave welfare benefits have the same impact on the work ethic and productivity of millions of Europeans as they had on millions of Americans, and that “post-Christian Europe” was hardly a more-rational Europe."

This issue is what November's election is about.  Do we vote for, or against human nature?  If we vote against human nature, future pundits will be wondering "how could they not know." 

Swimming In Energy

There is a lot of talk these days about our use of, the supply of (or lack thereof), and our policies regarding energy.  Energy will figure prominently in the presidential campaign this year as it relates to jobs and the economy.

If you want to gain a clearer understanding of energy use, supply, and the revelant issues, here are some thoughts and posts well worth reading:

Think we're running out of carbon based fuels, think again-

We are swimming in oil reserves, despite the President's claim about "only 2%" of the world's reserves exist in the US.  (He conveniently leaves "proved" out of that sentence each time he uses it.)  The GAO recently testified that the Green River Basin holds as much oil as all of the world's proved reserves.

Same-o, same-o with natural gas.  The EIA estimates that there are 2,543 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves in the US that are technically recoverable.  On the charts at the link, you can see the difference between reserves and proved reserves.  The amount of gas out there is staggering.  According to the EIA we are forecast to use about 24 trillion cubic feet next year, making these reserves a 100 year supply.  Here's a Reuters report on EIA estimates from November 2010, and here's a National Geographic post from February questioning the real amount of shale gas in the Marcellus.  

Think bio fuels are a great idea, think again-

MIT says that there is no way the US will meet it's bio fuel mandates as directed by Congress.  I wonder why.  Congress (and nanny states like my home) seem to think that it will just be so if they legislate it.  But you can't legislate science and you can't tell the markets what to do.  It's Hayek's "fatal conceit" all over again.  Bio fuels work if you want to use all of our corn and farm land for energy production, and also if you don't care how much cellulosic ethanol costs.  Legislating idiots won't change that.

What about solar and wind, aren't they "free," think again-

Do the math.  The capital cost for the solar plant in this example is approximately $8.3 million per megawatt generated.  The gas plant in the same article cost $932 thousand per megawatt of capacity.  Using David's load factor and life expectancy for the plants, that capital cost works out to $0.127 per kwh for the solar plant and $0.004 per kwh for the gas plant.  That's before any operating or maintenance costs are factored in.  Like I said, do the math.  David wraps up his post with this conclusion-

"The capex for solar power plants averages between $6- and $7-million per MW of installed capacity. Coal-fired plants generally run less than $2-million per MW and natural gas plants currently run less than $1-million per MW. The average retail residential electricity rate in the U.S. is currently less than 12¢ per kWh. The levelized generation cost for the plants being financed by the Obama administration is more than 20¢ per kWh. His “green” centralized industrial policy will drive the wholesale cost of electricity to nearly double the current retail rate."

According to this report, wind power generated 1.2% of the energy used in the US in 2011, and solar generated 0.1%.  This despite the government spending billions of our tax dollars in subsidies for both wind and solar.  From the same report-

"In fiscal year 2010, the subsidies were even higher.  For solar power, they were $775.64 per megawatt hour, for wind $56.29, for nuclear $3.14, for hydroelectric power $0.82, for coal $0.64, and for natural gas a petroleum liquids $0.64."

And the wind doesn't always blow.  And, like solar, wind turbines take up a ton of space.  The IER says that "it would take 7700 3.6Mw wind turbines to produce as much energy per year as a high quality gas well."  7700 turbines would cover 1475 square miles.  That's a square of land 38 miles on each side.

So let's go nuclear, why not-

Check out this post for a discussion of energy density for various sources.  (I am not sure what density mean in terms of solar.)  Enriched uranium has 88,305 times the energy density of oil.  Seems like a no brainer to me.  Let's build lots of nuclear power plants.  In fact, let's build so many that we get to the point where they are so small, safe, and powerful that we can have one in our neighborhood, or even basement.  Kinda like a Mr. Fusion, or a gas fired furnace, if you think about it.  One hundred years ago, how many people thought it was a good idea to have a gas furnace in their basement?

If the greenies were serious about generating clean energy, we would have been doing exactly that for the past 30 years, instead of this.

I love this quote from this post at NRO a few years ago-

"In fact a 110-car “unit train” of coal has more energy in the uranium traces in the coal than in the coal itself."

So what's the solution to this mess that we have ourselves in?  Three words, which if taken seriously would create lots of jobs, provide the energy a growing US economy needs, eliminate, or drastically reduce the influence of the bad guys (think Saudi Arabia and other middle east and African dictators), improve the environment (you really think they are cleaner when drilling in Africa than we are in the US?), and generate huge amounts of greenbacks in government fees and taxes.  Those three words-  DRILL, BABY, DRILL!

Only The Government

Can make lousy investment/business decisions like these.  But only if we continue to allow it to do so.

Let's see, a solar plant costs $8.3 million per megawatt of generating capacity.  A gas plant costs $932 thousand per megawatt of capacity.

Electricity from the solar plant has a cap ex cost of 12 cents per kwh.  The gas plant's cap ex cost is less than half a cent per kwh.

If you were the customer, shareholder, owner, CEO, or manager in charge of this project, which generating methodology would you choose?

Please stop allowing our government to make these insane choices with our money, and our future.

Love

Don't miss George Will's latest on the occasion of the 40th birthday of his son Jon.

Totally normal.

Chilling

UPDATE: May 1, 2012  I wrote this post back in December after reading the transcript of the last minutes of AF447.  Now the final report is due next month and The Telegraph has this account of the crash.

(Bumped to today's date)

-----------------------------------------------------------

Difficult to say sitting at my desk typing, but this could have been avoided is the unmistakable

conclusion after reading the transcript from the cockpit voice recorder of the last 11 minutes of Air France flight 447.  AF447 disapeared into the Atlantic in the early morning hours of June 1, 2009.

According to the transcript, and PM's analysis, repeated stall warnings, weather radar not set properly, instrument failure procedures not followed, de-icing equipment not enabled, inexperience, and fright all combined to bring this flight down.

When the recordings stopped, the aircraft (an Airbus A330-200) had a vertical speed of -10,912 fpm, 107 knots forward speed, 16.2 degrees nose up pitch, and the engine control levers were in the idle detent.  In other words, the aircraft was in an aerodynamic stall, and actually had been for the last three and one half mintues before impacting the surface of the Atlantic.  Four minutes prior, it was flying at 37,500 feet altitude.

I hope we learn something about training and the need to follow procedures from this crash.