Wesley Howe

I thought the 2010 US Census was a done deal, but today I saw that there are at least some employees still working. It reminded me that I have a true census story to repeat, I will change it just a little to hide the original teller’s personal identity.

To set the background: I live in a rural, nay, a very rural location. Many of the homes are 1/2 mile or more apart, set in farming and ranching country in Central Texas (there are certainly more cattle than residents nearby). A lot of these properties have been in the same family several generations, and property owners generally know pretty much everything about their land, going back for years.

One of the residents in the area, long after mailing in their Census form, got a follow-up call asking about the trailer in the back of their house. Resident responds “there is no trailer behind the house”. Later on, a field person shows up at the house, asking again about the trailer behind their house. Resident insists there is no trailer behind the house. They point out the few mobile homes in the nearby area. Field agent insists that there is a “yellow trailer right in back of the home”.

It turns out that, from an aerial view, someone had identified several long rows of large, round hay bales sitting in a fenced off area (a hay lot, fenced to keep the cattle from getting in) as a mobile home with a fence around it. And the tractor tracks leading to it as a driveway. And therefore there needed to be a determination of why this “residence” with the “yellow trailer” did not show up on their address list.

I leave it to readers to use their own judgment about efficiency and thoroughness, but the person who related this to me was certainly not grateful for the attentiveness.

While I am not planning to espouse any particular political position here, at least not today, I have been somewhat bemused at the worries being expressed elsewhere about militias and anger. My observation is that the anger is a normal reaction to the arrogant exercise of power that culminated in passage of the recent health care legislation, and a result of popular opinion being ignored to do so.

A substantial number of people do not want bad medicine shoved down their throat. The entire process reeked of backroom deals and a condescending attitude of lawmakers who explained away their insistence on moving against public opinion through a belief that they knew better what was needed than the electorate. Let them eat cake. So yes, people are upset.

Now it seems that some have come to the realization that there are more than enough guns, high-capacity magazines and ammunition in this country to make a war against the citizenry a difficult proposition. Yes, that is why the second amendment is there. Any dispassionate reading of the plain text reveals that the intention is that the citizenry is to be allowed to prepare themselves to resist tyranny, which can be defined as oppressive power exerted by government.

Those who recognize that the reason history repeats itself is that certain human behavior triggers reactionary human behavior should pause to remember the last time the government undertook major initiatives to squash dissension, they only triggered more. [Here I am referring to the series of events that ended in the Oklahoma City bombing].

While we haven’t seen the bullets flying like they did in Waco, or tanks being deployed against civilian structures, calmer heads should remember that specific, repressive actions undertaken by the government contribute to the growth of anti-governmental sentiment as surely as the rain contributes to the growth of flowers.

One has to wonder if the cycle of governmental attempts at repression is once again on a upswing. The suspicion that politics was behind the arrests of the “Hutaree” group is there, and any continuance of efforts to make more high-profile arrests will surely be followed by a greater level of resistance. A lack of parity in weaponry has never hindered resistance to oppression, for some examples look to the United States, France, Mexico, Cuba and most recently Kyrgyzstan to see how well received tyranny is.

The raw exercise of power in contravention of popular opinion runs counter to the spirit of our representative system, as described by Abraham Lincoln, in his Gettysburg Address, as a “…government of the people, by the people, for the people…“. Being a duly elected representative is no license to substitute personal opinions for public opinions.

While I do not hope for a resurgence in violence (or the repression which feeds it), I think there will be a revolution of sorts this Fall, at the polls. Some people just never seem to remember history, even when it was less that twenty years ago.

Al Gore has spoken again. In a New York Times opinion piece, he attempts to defend his sinking climate change emergency position against mounting criticism. And fares poorly, I might add.

I have been amazed at the vast difference of popular opinion between other (particularly European) countries and those in the U.S. The street view here is that it is a con job, designed to part more working people from their money and pass it to entities favored by powerful political interests.

The evidence is not very definitive, even if you avoid looking outside. The last winter in the U.S. with this much snow was probably 1978. Who needs climate-gate emails when the weather does not cooperate. Climate is merely a scientific endeavor to assess the longer term patterns for weather. Some of that is very important for me, such as the prediction of El Nino conditions starting this past fall. I have to spend real money to buy enough forage for my animals for the winter… higher moisture will increase the growth of cool-season grasses, reducing the amount of hay my animals consume over the winter (anything fresh is preferred to dried hay). If I buy too little and run low before winter is over, I will be paying more for lower quality hay.

But even the climatologists don’t get it right over two years, but we have a ‘consensus’ of scientists that can tell us what will happen 100 years from now, and have laid it on thick. Sadly, much of the case was made using the worst case scenarios, and all that has done is create more skepticism.

I know first had that over the five hundred or so years between when Europeans traveled to the Americas and today, sea levels have risen feet. You don’t need expensive research equipment, just head out into the Gulf of Mexico on a diving trip and find  submerged tree stumps 30 miles from shore.

Or do what I did… I built a dock out 200 ft. from shore. One significant obstacle to the effort was the remains for pine tree stumps under the sand where I was trying to set the vertical piers to support the walkway. Under a foot of sand were the remains of stumps, at a level below where oxygen penetrated, which slowed their decomposition greatly. When the Spanish sailed through, those were trees along the banks of the bay. Today, the beach is hundreds of feet further inland.

If this happened across 500 years without a mass acceleration over the last 50, then we certainly have time to determine what parts of the science is real (yes, there is some usable data there) and separate out the hype and politics. Once the scientists started hyping some of the results, making hockey-sticks out of thin facts, they attracted a political element that thought they could use this raised awareness to justify increased regulation of larger segments of human industry.

After all, additional regulation brings not only increased revenue from taxes, permit fees and licenses, but it requires a larger cadre of dedicated workers to enforce these new rules. And it will be no secret to these new bureaucrats which part is responsible for creating these new jobs, and thus why they need to vote a certain way to keep their jobs. I would call it politics 101, but I am sure the process preceded written history.

Finally, there is no feeling of emergency. Talk of tipping points generates yawns, and this winter is a fine example of why no one not already starry-eyed believes such blather. If the sea rose a foot, people would build larger seawalls and truck in more sand from the main land. We already cited what happened with a half-foot rise per-century of 500 years…. during that time Florida went from colony of Spain populated with a few missions to the fourth-largest state.

Credibility is what is lacking here. Scientific (and some not-so-scientific ones)  ideas were sensationalized into science-fiction movies with huge waves crashing and gargantuan storms ruining large, populous portions of the country. We all saw Star Wars, and The Terminator… they had great graphics too, and a fun plot you could get into by suspending disbelief. Not so with this stuff, it is unbelievable to the vast majority.

Not to be confused with ending foreign dependence on oil, or reducing all dependence on oil. People already believe this. Here in Texas, there are vast amounts of Wind Power currently undeveloped only because they are waiting for completion of a larger mainline to move the electricity from the sparsely populated areas in West Texas where it is being made to the more populous Eastern and Northern parts of the state where it is needed. No one needs to wake up on that one, it just need to run to completion.

Biofuels are becoming a large force. Whether the climate goes up or down, or does nether, we are well served by broadening our inventories of energy sources, for many reasons, including security.

I suspect this winter has killed all chance of a massive cap’n trade or carbon tax solution being implemented here. Hey, they haven’t got past arguing about health care. Nothing will happen next year, it is an election year, and unless things change a lot, the chances of progressive solutions winning more congressional seats are pretty diminished. You can hear that in the shrillness of arguments like one from Nancy Pelosi “A bill can be bipartisan without bipartisan votes.” A Who What?

For further thought, read my post from before the election (Oct. 10, 2008) where I predicted Barack O’Bama would be as successful as Jiminy Carter at his presidency.

Their latest tune? Money.

In the State of the Union speech last night, political rhetoric would be expected. The President, as winner-in-chief, is the nominal head of his party, although the dogs are always nipping at his heels. But his public excoriation of a decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (on political funding) during a joint session is nothing but a scrap of raw meat to try to rally the more determined left half of his party.

This was no different politically than Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro blaming social problems on the United States. In this case, he is an elected, term-limited leader who rhetorically is challenging the judgment of a group of unelected, life-tenured judges, who we depend on to referee the important issues for us. Not everybody likes a call that goes against your team, but it is unsportsmanlike to try to dump on the referee, and that  is exactly what he is doing.

This country managed to support two vastly different political parties, with peaceful transitions of power for two centuries without the limits the McCain-Feingold act imposed. But you would think the sky is falling to listen to some of the people that disagree with the ruling, including Mr. Obama.

At the heart of this is the recognition that after the loss in Massachusetts, something has to be done to retain the interest of (and contributions from) the party faithful, by creating a caricature of a new enemy lurking amongst us. The tactic is not new, and not left-wing, other examples include the Roe v. Wade decision (which has raised countless funds for both sides of the argument).

Well, so much for post-partisan politics. It’s like 1977 all over again.

The press is full of reports and opinions regarding attacks on Google from China. while I am no security expert, I have my own email server, and I have seen a huge increase in phishing attempts in the last month.

Like Google claims, these are targeted emails. Some are pretty good, especially the Facebook ones, where they copied the graphics and layout well. Unlike the sad attempts from Nigeria, the English used is generally flawless… business impersonal, but with proper grammar and spelling, and definitely American English, none of the British spellings and phrases.

So while I can do nothing but watch Google and the other security experts, I can be careful about the emails. The Facebook ones were coming even though I didn’t have a Facebook account until a few days ago, and others I have been getting claim that new security measures require me to update my email account. That fails big time here because I administer the email accounts on my server, and the accounts are limited to Kay and myself.

But I don’t doubt that they are catching quite a few phish this way, so don’t click on that link.

I saw this little item on a large newspaper article:

“The White House said Friday that the $787-billion stimulus package had created or saved about 1 million jobs so far…”

Some people are questioning the accuracy of the 1 million claim. I am not, I concede the estimate is the best that can be made given that it is impossible to actually know what would have happened if the stimulus had not been enacted into law.

Except that $787 Billion divided by 1 Million is $787, 000, over 3/4 of a million dollars spent or committed to be spent for each of these jobs. What a country!

I haven’t had very many new topics I wanted to talk about here for a while, not that I have no opinions, but I have little to add to the political debate in the U.S.

I was prompted to my thoughts today by reading a news article discussing how the iPod will be redesigned in the E.U. to have a lower default volume. It appears that new rules specify a safe maximum volume, aimed at avoiding hearing loss, and that the new standard requires companies to limit the default volume in order to have the presumption of providing a safe product, in lieu of specific tests.

I don’t have any problem with guidelines, but it is part of a pattern of growth in government regulation using safety and welfare. One bit at a time, the regulations become more detailed and cover ever so smaller risks. Many of these ideas are in themselves good, commonsense solutions, but what ever happened to personal choice?

What, you say, people can choose for themselves? Pete Townshend (of the Who) has admitted to having hearing loss, and it is believed to be associated with his being the guitarist in what was one of the loudest bands of its time.

Well, neither he nor Roger Daltry died before they got old (although their bandmates did), but what kind of generation would they have been without big amplifiers and even bigger speaker cabinets to destroy?

Now, all we have left is bureaucrats gone wild…

I got a copy of a document that was prepared by out U.S. Homeland Security, a “lexicon” of “extremists”. I will also refer to the fact that Michael Savage, a talk radio show personality, was banned from travel to the U.K. for his positions. Certainly, if you believe that freedom of speech and association are Constitutional rights, think of ideas being defined as indicators of  suspicious activity.

This is not a healthy trend. People that belong to groups that have done nothing wrong will get lumped together with genuine extremists in a guilt-by-association. You could find your travel restricted, be wiretapped and have your movements secretly tracked (by electronic or physical surveillance).

While the general theme is to prevent violence from extremists, the scope of what they are on the alert for is wide-ranging. Some of the parts of the document I find unnerving classify people for being having such views as:

“They believe animals are sentient creatures that experience emotional, physical, and mental awareness and deserve many of the same rights as human beings; (more…)

We have seen a recent example of the anti-citizen attitude among the big-government elitists that are running this country (or maybe flying it into the ground). I am referring to the recently released report by her oneness, Ms. Napoletano, equating anti-government positions right-wing and dangerous, and further characterizing military veterans as a threat.

This should be no surprise, just look at the vast numbers of former Clinton political appointees that are back in control in Washington and you will see that the same people that shot and killed unarmed people in Idaho, turned tanks with indendriary devices loose on wooden structures in Waco and sent 150 SWAT team members complete with boots, bullet-proof vests and high-power weapons to snatch a boy from an unarmed home in Miami are running the show now.

If the agenda is big government, then anyone that thinks there is more than enough government already must be “anti-government” and these sort of attitudes should be investigated, unless they should spread and infect others with the spirit of self-determination. After all, this tea party stuff must be subversive, and if it catches on it will seriously erode the “mandate” that the Democrats have.

As usual, the Democrats are overreaching, and know it. They are determined to reverse twenty years of  policy changes in Mr. Obama’s first 100 days in office, which are just about over. It appears they have now hit a point of popular resistance to their efforts, and they don’t like it.

Nevertheless, watch the news… it won’t be long before we once again see our goverment protecting us from these dastardly anti-governmental agitators with troops, automatic weapons and armed personnel carriers. Darned civil liberties freaks… up against the wall!

Some people are upset about the Chinese government blocking access to specific websites for what the government considers to be inappropriate material for their citizens. It was reported they had recently completely blocked access to all of UTube.

A lot of people are concerned about human rights and censorship of anti-government statements by the Chinese. Besides large commercial sites, small blogger sites have been banned for statements that are critical of the Chinese government.

My opinion is that if the Chinese banned this website, I would have a lot fewer headaches because the number of  attempts to hack the website would go down considerably. Serious attempts are made regularly by Chinese websites to compromise web pages and steal information from end users. While Eastern Europe and Russia are also hotbeds of hacker activities, China certainly hosts many online criminals.

Having them banned from your accessing your website would be a blessing for most webmasters.