Truth About Green House Gas

I just reviewed a NASA study that stated that water vapor in the air accounted for approximately 75% of the green house affect and Carbon Dioxide accounted for about 20%.  Further, it state that it was the increase in Carbon Dioxide was the cause of the glaciers melting that covered New York.  This is very interesting since the ice started melting over a 100,000 years ago when there was "zero" human impact.  It seems like we need to find out where all the Carbon Dioxide came from 100,000 years ago since the same thing may happen again.

I know for a fact that most of the Carbon Dioxide is dissolved in our oceans.  Is that where the Carbon Dioxide came from?  If the water got warmer like a warm beer, the Carbon Dioxide would be forced out.  Did that happen?  If so what caused it?  Was the Earth hit with a shower of small meteors that shook up our oceans like what happens when you shake a beer?  If some thing like that were to happen today, we would have a major heat wave.

Let's look at coal.  The Earth has tons and tons of coal.  Where did it come from.  Most agree that it is made up of compressed plant material and those plants got their Carbon from the air just like plants do today.  When you think about it, there must have been a lot of Carbon Dioxide in the air for a very long time while this was going on.  Further, when you look at how thick some of the layers of coal are and the fact that it took millions of years for that much plant material to grow, the weather during those millions of years must have been very stable.  My guess is that it was a lot wetter and warmer during that time.  If you look at layers of coal, it seem clear that the Earth stopped making coal all of a sudden.  Given that the weather was stable for millions of years, you have to ask why it all changed so suddenly?

Another area that needs to be considered is basic weather.  Weather is mostly controlled by the uneven surface of the Earth and the uneven heating of the Earth by the Sun as it rotates.  We know that the Earth is getting smoother all the time until in the limit the Earth will be as smooth as a bowling ball and the Earth will be 100% covered by water.  You only have to look around the world to see that this is clear.  There are islands in the Caribbean that have no mountains that are bone dry deserts right next to islands with mountains that have rain forests.  As the Earth gets smoother it will look more and more like one of those flat desert island.

Another point is about the density of the atmosphere.  We know that the air pressure and air density is lower on top of high mountains and that is where it is colder and we have more rain and snow.  There is no coal being formed on top of mountains.  It is warmer and wetter at lower elevations where the air pressure and air density is higher.  This is where coal may have been formed.  Now, if we had more atmosphere in the past, it would have had the affect equivalent to lowering the elevation.  Under those conditions we would have had more jungles and places to grow the plants for coal.

What we need is something like Einstein's unification theory related to global warming.  The system is too big and too complex to just deal with single individual factors.  There is too much interaction between these factors over time and it can not be understood by just holding different factors constant.  I don't claim to have the answers, but it is clear to me that these so called experts don't either.

PS--Here is another point I got from my NOAA research.  They said that if we did not have green house gases in our atmosphere that the Earth would be a cold frozen planet today.  Interesting!  Given that the two most important green house gases are water vapor and carbon dioxide, we must have had a lot of this during the time the Earth was making coal.  If the atmosphere changed suddenly by something like a big energy storm on the Sun which drove off a lot of water vapor and carbon dioxide, it could have the affect of starting an ice age.  During that ice age, if we had a gradual increase in carbon dioxide, that increase in green house gas could account for why the ice age ended.  Have you heard any other theories about why the ice age started and ended?  It was clearly a gradual event and the increase in green house gas was also a gradual event!

Cost Of Renewable Energy Mandates

You are being screwed by the Global Warming crowd and you don't even know it.  They are doing it, not by passing higher tax laws that you will see being deducted from your pay checks.  They are doing it behind your back with "Mandates"!  What is a mandate?  It is a law or regulation that tells all of us that we "have to" buy energy that is 10% or 20% made up of renewable energy.  Everyone knows that renewable energy is more expensive than energy produced by the "free market" system.  What mandates do is to tell you that you can not use the "free market" system to produce and purchase your energy.  Using 4th grade logic, we all know that if the renewable energy market needs a mandate to exist that it must not be competitive.  If renewable energy was cost competitive, it wouldn't need a mandate.

The whole renewable energy industry is a bunch of con men and insiders who know how to pull the strings in Washington DC and state capitals to get them to pass mandates that funnel money into their pockets.  Look at Solindra in California where Obama wasted billions of us taxpayers' money.  Why would a company that wanted to be competitive ever have located in one of the most expensive areas to do business in the United States?  Notice that they are now out of business!

Not only have these renewable energy insiders gotten mandates that require that power companies have to buy their energy, no matter how much it costs.  The power companies have no choice but to pass the cost along to us users.  A study of the new mandate by North Carolina showed that it would cost about 50,000 jobs and significantly increase the cost of power for every family.  It is the same in many other states.  We keep hearing in the media that renewable energy is "good" and who doesn't want what is "good".  Our kids get beat in the head every day by union school teachers who don't even know what Carbon Dioxide is that renewable energy is "good".  Why is it that no one is telling us what "good" costs?  There are a lot of things that are "good" that are not worth it and when it comes to our tax money, we need special attention to be sure we are getting our monies worth.  Mandates have nothing to do with monies worth.  In most cases the true cost is hidden from our blind tax payers.

Rather than spending much of our wealth trying to save the world for 95% of the people in the world who do not live in the United States, we should save our money and let the rest of the world reduce their population to what their countries energy can support.  Look around the world and see how many trees they have per person to clean their air?  We have a lot of trees per person here in the United States, but not if we keep letting in immigrant breeders.

The economics are so bad for renewable energy that there is no improvement that will ever make them economical.  Both wind and solar systems have to be sized several times higher than the average rate of energy production.  This is clear waste.  Because renewable is not available 24/7, we still need just as many conventional power plants and the people to operate them.  When the Sun is out or the wind is blowing the workers in conventional power plants are still being paid.  Where is the savings?  The only ones who come out as a result of all these mandates are the con men and insiders who are screwing every one of us.

How do you like being screwed by the Global Warming crowd?

What's The Governments's Purpose?

This is a question that we should all be asking.  Why don't we ever hear anyone discussing this important topic?  That is the idea behind this blog.

Here is my definition of exactly what is the purpose of our government.  The "quality of life" for the median family in the United States.  Notice that there are a couple of extra points here.  The measurement should be the "median" family not the richest or the poorest.  We know that not matter what the government does, there are going to be people who get rich and there are others who are going to be poor.  I can tell you from experience that the main reason that people are poor is due to their own actions.  In Sunday School at about age 8 or 9 I learned that God helps those who help themselves.  The fact is that some people can not be helped.  The same is true of rich or very lucky people.  They are going to be rich no matter what.  That is why I keep this simple and focus on the "median" family.

When ever our government does or does not do something, we need to ask if it makes the the "quality of life" better or worse?  It is a simple concept and it allows us to judge if our government is doing the right thing.  An additional item that might be added into the decision process is whether it is "worth it" or not.  We all know from our own experience that when we spend the money that we have worked so hard for is "worth it" or not.  If this applies to us, you have to ask why the same measure does not apply to our government who is spending our hard earned tax money?  Which these concepts in mind, let's look at some examples.

How about immigration?  Does additional immigrants improve or worsen our quality of life?  The best measure of this is whether these immigrants increase or decrease our "median" income?  I think that I made this point before that our median family income has been going down and is now about $50,000 per year..  If an immigrant family can not earn at least $50,000, they will reduce the median family income.  You need to adjust this figure by the number of children these immigrants have too.  If the average United States family has 2 children, we need to adjust the median goal accordingly for immigrants who have 8 or 9 children.  My figure is that they need to earn at least $10,000 extra for each child beyond the 2.  Look at a typical Muslim family who has 8 kids.  They would need to earn $60,000 more than the typical United States family or they would lower the median quality of life here.  We are talking about $110,000 for a Muslim family.  Now, I ask you, how many of these Muslim families can earn that much?  My guess is about 1%.  If that is the case and we can't determine exactly who this 1% is, we have no choice but to keep them all out.  It that too cold hearted for you?  It is not a case of cold hearted, it is following the "purpose of government" that we agreed too above.

How about a tax policy that currently allows products to be imported into the United States for free?  It is clear that it causes jobs to be lost here in the United States.  What about extra taxes on businesses like social security?  Our businesses pay this tax, but it is not paid by products made outside the United States.  Is that fair?   What if we  took taxes off businesses and put these kind of taxes onto "both" businesses here and products imported?  Do you think that would level the playing field?  Do you think that it would make the "quality of life" better or worse?  When more people have jobs, I think that the "quality of life" here would be better than a bunch of people without jobs.

See how this works?  You test actions of our government against the above objective and see how they stack up.  If they make the "quality of life" here worse, they should be rejected.

Over Automation

The problem is not "Automation", it is "Over Automation" and our government policies encourage over automation and we need to recognize that as a fact and correct it. Here are some ideas that you will not see in the news or anyplace else.  We hear all kinds of comments about "automation" and how it is putting people out work and something needs to be done about it.  Before anyone can have a discussion about automation, they first need to have a little basic knowledge about the subject.  That is the point of this blog.

First off, why do businesses shift from manual labor to automation?  Is it any difference from when your mother got so happy with her new cloths washer?  How about that new vacuum cleaner?  These are examples of automation too.  Back to businesses.  Due to healthy competition, they want to make their products at as low of a cost that they can.  If they did not, they would be out of business and no one would have a job.  To avoid that outcome, the opt for automation.

Automation is not automatic.  The business has to pay for the automation equipment or tools.  That means that the tool can not cost more than the total cost of the labor that they eliminate.  Seems simple doesn't it?  Now, let' look a little deeper into the cost of labor.  The automation tool replaces exactly what cost.  Here are the elements:  (1) The pay that employee gets (2) The 7% social security that the employer pays (3) The health care that the employer pays (19% of GNP) (4) The special safety conditions mandates that the employer has to comply with (5)  The extra cost due to a high minimum wage  (6)  Extra time off for birthing.  This is only a partial list of the cost that would be eliminated with automation, but you can see it is big.  Imported products from places like Mexico does not include many of these costs.

Let's look at the affect of Obamacare.  This adds to the cost for the employer and makes it that much easier to justify buying the automation equipment.  Our companies pay far more for medical insurance than any other country in the world and thus it is easier to justify automation here than anyplace else.  If we were to shift the company's 7% of pay for social security to, some thing like sales tax that products from Mexico had to carry too, it would reduce the need for automation.  How about minimum  wage?  The higher that goes, the easier it is for an employer to automate.  Just look at McDonalds.

Are you starting to see how this works?

PS---When our tax policies pile our medical and other social taxes onto the products we make, it has the affect of encouraging  more and more automation to the point of "over" automation.  Our government has given clear incentives in the form of tax breaks for thing that they want to encourage, like "clean or renewable energy" so why not job for our citizens?

Oroville Dam

I lived in Thermalito back in 1942 long before the Oroville dam was built so I know a little about the area.  My uncle worked on the dam as well as several friends, so I know a little about the dam.  I was very surprised that it was a "dirt" dam and was so tall.  Shasta is a concrete dam with more water behind it on the Sacramento River.  I have some ideas about why the dam has failed.

If you have read some of my other blogs, you know that I am an engineer and a pilot.  That fact is important in how it applies to the Oroville dam.  Several years ago, I was looking at a metal prop on an airplane and noticed that on the trailing edge there seemed to be a crack that ran down the prop.  As an engineer, I was curious as to how a crack could form so uniformally down the trailing edge of the prop.  I started thinking in terms of the bending stress on the prop and other types of live loads.  None of these seemed to account for the strange cracks.  Finally I figured out what was happening and it was "cavitation".  Cavitation is the affects to water changing state.  As water changes from liquid to a gas and back to a liquid very concentrated amounts of energy are released.  It is not so much that there is lot of energy, but that it is concentrated in the very small area where the change of state occurred.  You have the same thing in boat props in water or the blades of water pumps.  This is what happened on the Oroville dam.

As water flows down the spill way on a dam, at some point the energy of the water "rubbing" against the concrete gets to the point where a few molecules of water change state from liquid to a gas and back to a liquid.  This is exactly what happens on boat props.  When boats were going slow, this was not a problem, but as the speed increased, the prop started to "cavitate".  In the case of dams and spill ways, cavitation was never a problem on small or short dams, but as the height of dams increased the speed of the water flowing down the spill way increased until it got to the point of cavitation just like it happened with boat props.

Concrete is very strong in compressions, but not in tension. Concrete can handle large forces "pushing" on it but not when the force is in tension or "pulling" on the concrete. The affects of cavitation tends to "pull" on the concrete and thus removes very small particles out of the concrete until larger and larger pieces of the concrete fail.

Notice that the spill ways did not fail at the top or at the bottom, they failed about halfway down the spill way where the speed of the water had a chance to get upto the speed necessary to start to "cavitate".  This is why cavitation is worse on high dams and this is the tallest dam in the United States.  I think that the concrete on the spill way only 12" thick and re-enforced with steel rods.  The dirt under the spill way appears to have gotten drier and drier from when it was built causing the dirt has shrunk thus providing less support for the spill way.  Like I said, concrete does not have much tensile strength and thus needs good support from the dirt under the concrete.  The weight of the concrete along with the weight of water appears to have been enough to crack the spill way concrete. Once there was a crack, the cavitation went on to destroy the spill way in that very local area.

The bottom line is that there are new design consideration that need to be taken into account with tall dams vs shorter dams.  Pilots, boaters and most mechanical engineers know this, but it appears that our civil engineers did not!

PS--Think of the spill way as a very long snow ski resting on a very steel hill.  Just like on snow, the spill way wants to slide down the hill.  Concrete is very heave and the more of it that "hangs" from the top of the dam, the harder it pulls.  Given the height of this dam (770') you are talking about a very very big force, on that is strong enough to crack the concrete and allow the concrete below the crack to slide down hill.  You have been on roads that had a 10% grade and if the Oroville dam spill way had a grade of 10%, the length of the spill way would have been 7,700'.  That is almost a mile and half and we know the spill way was not that long.  To save on concrete the spill way was only 12" thick and laid on "smooth" ground.  Smooth ground sounds like a smooth ski slope.

Medical School Directly Out Of High School

Why can't high school students go directly in to medical school?  Compared to most of the rest of the world, the United States has by far the most costly system for producing doctors.  That is the idea behind this blog.

I am an engineer and can tell you that I had to take all kinds of worthless classes that cost me both time and money.  For our medical doctors, the situation is much worse.  When our doctors graduate medial school and start serving patients, they are the "oldest" of any country in the world.  They have invested much more money and time, plus they have significantly fewer working years to get back their investment.  The impact is that we have a shortage of doctors and the most expensive doctors in the world.  With the picture being so clear, you have to ask why no one is addressing the problem.  It seems that the total focus is on insurance when it should be "cost".  If more people could afford their own medical costs, we would not need any big government program to run the medical system.

State governments control the two factors that seriously need change,  Those are the licensing medical doctors and lawyers.  We have too many lawyers and too few medical doctors,  I could say the same for engineers and liberal arts majors.  I feel that the student loan program should be totally changed and used to encourage college majors that strengthen the United States rather than providing recreation for spoiled students.  We have a limited population of potential doctors and engineers and we should be looking at programs to help them.  Fewer and fewer of our kids are selecting engineering and medicine as their majors as a percentage of our population.  The absolute numbers of both of these may have increased, but it has not kept up with the growth in the population.  That means we are falling farther behind.

I could go one step farther and that is in regards to specialization.  I have used this example before, but it deserves repeating.  How long do you think it would take for an above average kid to learn how to do simple carpal tunnel surgery?  My guess is that he could get very good at this in less than two years.  That means if he started at age 18, he would be doing carpal tunnel surgery by age 20 rather than the current age 36 or older.  If he worked to age 60, that would give him 40 years to get his bait back.  Compare that with the current situation where the average doctor only works 24 years!  It is no wonder that our medical costs so much.  Henry Ford figured out how to make cars cheap when he made his workers "specialize" on just one job until they got good and fast at it.  That was over 100 years ago.

How about reading x-rays?  Those are some of the highest paid doctors.  Why is that not a specialty like carpal tunnel surgery?  You can now e-mail images around the world and get them read any place and for a lot less than here in the United States.  In many cases, it is cheaper to fly to another country to have medical procedures done, even including the air fare.  We have to get off this "insurance" thing and start working on making medical procedures cheaper and I have not even started in on the cost of medicine.  I know from experience the most veterinarians use the same medicine as regular doctors, but it costs 90% less.  Why is that?

PS---Who is the best teacher?  The one who teachers the "smartest" students or the one who teachers "average" students?  It seems that teachers want to teach the "smartest" students so that they are viewed as the "best" teachers.  It has been my observation that the "smartest" students don't need teachers.  Our system for selecting medial school students only wants the "smartest" students.  What we need is a system where "average" students can be taught what they need to know to be good doctors.  I think it is a cop-out by our medical schools. That is the main reason we produce less than 50% of the doctors that we need.  What do you think is the solution? Make parents have "smarter" children or make our medical school do a better job of teaching?

French Miss Universe Oral Surgeon

This blog is go point out one more serious problem with the medical system of the United States.

I was watching the interview with the new Miss Universe who was from France and they asked her what her future plans were.  She answered that she had "two" more years of school and then she would be a "oral surgeon".  She said that she looked forward to being able to correct things like cleft pallet in children as a public service.  I think that  his went over the heads of most of the viewers.  I followed up and found that she was 24 years old and that meant she would be able to do dental surgery when she was 26 years old.  Do you that is a big deal?  I do and here is why.

One of my daughters is a dentist and had been a top student all the way thru school, but she was 30 by the time she was able to pull and fill teeth.  If she had continued with her education, she would have been 35 before she could do surgery for cleft pallet.  Think of the cost of all that time in school plus the loss of income for that period, plus the reduction in the length of her working career.  For a dental surgeon in the United States, they would have to charge two or three time what a person in France would have to charge to just get back the cost and waste of time used in education.  Do you think that our system is better than France?  Think about this.  The life expectancy in France is greater than that of the United States where we spend several times more on medical care.  Interesting!!

I don't know how long it is going to take for the United States to wake up and see that our total medical system needs to be overhauled.  Rather than total focus on "insurance" we need to start looking at the "cost" of our medical system.  The states control the medical schools and the licensing, so I think that one of the 50 states need to get off thire ### and start graduating doctors and dentists so that they can start serving the public by age "25".  I don't think that most of the public has any idea how our kids are being screwed by our colleges and medical schools.  We can not afford the cost of our current system.  There is far too much waste.  The two groups that need major change are out medical schools and professional licensing along with our predatory legal system.   

Sugar Corruption

Do you think that our government in Washington DC is corrupt?  Do you think the swamp needs to be drained?  Once you read this, I am sure you will.

We all buy sugar and things that have sugar in them, but did you know that there is a group of farmers along with your representatives in Washington DC who are screwing you?  I did't think so.  That is because this all happens behind the curtain and no one has the guts to pull back the curtain.  I'll give you a few facts to support what I am saying.

There are at least two ways that you government can screw you and those are by a "tax" or a "mandate".  When it comes to a "tax", that is mostly out in the open and you can see it with your own eyes.  It is a lot different with a "mandate".  For starters, Obamacare had a "mandate" that if your employer provided you with health insurance that he had to cover your kids until they were 26 years old.  Why they picked that age, I don't know, but here is how it works.  Your employer used to buy health insurance for you from some company "X" for $750 a month.  This cost did not show up on your pay check because your company paid for it.  With the "mandate", the insurance company your employer was dealing with now charged $1,000 to cover your kids up to age 26.  We all know that it can not be done for free.  Someone has to pay for it.  Most people see this as "free" since it did not affect their pay check directly.  It will in the future when you want a raise.  Are you following this?  Now the sugar.

The "mandate" on sugar is something like this.  The government limits the amount of sugar that can be imported so that the farmers in the United States can charge 50% more for their sugar and you are the one who is paying this 50% more.  Sugar for the rest of the world costs about half of what it does here.  If you look at the government books, you don't see any tax on anyone do you?  You don't see how much this "mandate" is costing tax payers do you?  It is hidden just like in Obamacare.  Here are some figures for you to consider.  For the average farmer who grows sugar beets or sugar cane, this added cost that you pay for your sugar amounts to $310,000 for every farmer.

If you travel to Europe, you will find that Coke and Pepsi are made with real sugar not high fructose corn syrup.  That is because it is cheaper to use real sugar to make soft drinks in Europe than high fructose corn syrup.  Just an extra point.

Here is a final point that will make you sick.  We have a lot of farmers in the United States and it is a big part of our economy, but farmers growing sugar beets and sugar cane only account for about 1.5% of the total value of farm products.  Small potatoes, right?  How could something this small have a big impact?  Here is the punch line.  When you add up all the money that farmers pay to lobby congress for favors, you will find that 40% is from those few sugar farmers.  You have to ask why such a small group would shell out so much to buy favors?   It is one of those cases where, "if there is smoke, there is fire".   With that kind of money floating around Washington DC, you know that it is feeding the animals in the swamp and keeping them very fat.  Can you believe that such a small group could be shelling out that kind of money?  Considering that each farmer gets a gift from Washington DC of $310,000, why wouldn't the farmer "share" that money with their bought and paid for friend in Washington DC?

You can bet that your Senator and Congress Man returns the telephone calls from sugar farmers.  Do you think they would return your call just as fast?  We don't need this kind of corruption.  It dates back to about 1933 and no one has had the guts to kill it.  I know that when the swamp is drained these types of things will finally die!!!

PS---Recall from above, imported sugar does not have an embargo tax, it is a "quota" that limits the amount that can be imported.  Now, who do you think gets to import sugar at 50% of the domestic price?  Do you think that there is corruption here?  Wouldn't you like to import sugar at 50% of the domestic price and then resale it at "full" domestic price?  Sweet!!  If Obama did a special deal with Cuba on sugar, who do you think would be making political donations?

9th District Court Decision

I am sure there are a lot of opinions out there about President Trump's decision and the 9th District Court's Decision.  As you might have guessed, I have my own opinion.

I like to form my opinions from different angles than most other people.  The original decision has at least two elements to it.

The first is harm to people in Washington state that can not be compensated by waiting until there is a final court decision or 90 days.  The other is that letting possible terrorists into the United States is not as bad as damage to foreigners in Washington state who can not travel in or out of the United States for the next 90 days.  Here is an example.  There is a person with a green card from one of the 7 designated countries who is pregnant and is expecting to deliver with in the 90 day period and wants to deliver her child in the United States so that it would be a citizens and make it easier for her to get a permanent visa.  It is clear that if this person is kept out of the United States for the next 90 days, she will loose for ever having her child a natural born citizen, like Obama.  With the clarification that President Trump has made regarding people with green cards, there is no damage that needs to be protected.  The only people that the decision helps are people who don't have green cards.  This is stupid!

The second seems to be that President Trump made a bad decision about the risk of terrorists getting into the United States.  This is clearly a second guessing by the judge who has never seen any of the confidential security briefings that the President has gotten.  The law is clear that the President has the authority to make such decisions and there is no requirement that he "justify" those decisions to anyone.

From a legal standpoint to bring an action in court, you must have  "standing" and in this case, it is a stretch for the state of Washington, which brought the action, to claim they are directly affected.

Here is another example.  Think about a situation where there is a line of people waiting at the border to get into the United States and there is a person at the head of the line who appears to be a terrorist and the agents are doing paper work needed to make a decision.  Those farther back in the line wait their turn which might be as long as 90 days.  Some in the line may have green cards that need to be checked to see if they are valid.  While the agents are dealing with the possible terrorist, do they need to go back thru the waiting people in the line and bring some to the front of the line?  That is what the judge is saying that the agents need to do.

Is the judge saying that the President needs to have "multiple" lines, one for terrorists and one for people with green cards?  I think you can see how stupid the judges decision was.  Since the original decision by President Trump, he has issued a revision that allows people with green cards to come to the head of the line.  Given that is the case, what is it that the state of  Washington is complaining about?  Why is there any need of a trial?

The World Is Analog

I don't think that there is any debate about the world being analog, but there are some among us who have not gotten the message.  They think that the world is digital or integer.  Oh!, you don't know the difference between analog and integer?  I will explain the difference and how it has a big impact on on liberals and conservatives.  That is what this blog is all about.

Let's say that you are cutting a board to some length.  You have a very accurate measuring tape and sharp saw.  Can you now cut that board to the "exact" length?  No mater how hard you try, you will never be able to cut the board to the "exact" length.  You can get it close, but it will always be a little too short or too long. I could use many other examples, and the results would be the same.  This is the problem with an "analog" world.  You can get close, but not "exact" or "perfect".  We have all heard the saying, "this is not a perfect world".  That is because it is an analog world.

There are a very few situations where things can be "perfect", but that is only in the integer worlds, with is very small.  An example is when the clerk in the store gives you back your change.  In this situation, there is an "exact" or "perfect" answer.  I don't think you can come up with very many situations like this.  Even something like the age of your children is never "exact".  By the time you say your son is 5 years old, time will have passed and your son is now little older.

In the analog world, we have to get used to answers that are "close enough" since we will never have an "exact" or "perfect" answer.  This brings me to the main point of this blog and that is the difference between liberals and conservatives.  It is easy for liberals to be critical of conservatives when conservatives accept "good enough" or "close enough" solutions to problems.  Liberals demand "perfect" solutions when there is no "perfect" solutions.  Their logic is seriously flawed and they and their followers can not see their folly.  Liberals take this lack of under standing of the real world to such lengths that they do not accept anyone into their group who is not an "exact" fit on every issue.  It is not a lot different from the mind set of Muslims who see the teachings of Mohammad as "perfect" or "exact" when we all know that the world is analog.  That is why Muslims are such a closed society where leaving could mean "death".

I don't think that there is any hope for liberals, just like I don't think there is any hope for Muslims in this analog world.  Until both have some kind of awakening, they appear to me to be dead end groups or movements.

PS--Think about this one.  We hear all kinds of complaints about the roll out of President Trump's 90 day suspension of immigration from some countries.  Some serious complainer was saying that President Trump did not tell or consult with certain members of congress.  In other words the complaints focused on the fact that the roll out was not "perfect".  Why didn't anyone ask the question, "Who or how many people should have been consulted?"  Would just 1% be OK or would it take 100% to satisfy these "liberals".   See the problem?

What Drives Liberals?

I have claimed in the past that I have figured out liberals, but like any understanding, it can always be improved.  I think this new factor of understanding will be interesting.

First off, I want to start out by saying that most liberals are very nice people and ones who most people would like to claim as friends.  It is not "who" they are that is the problem, it is "why" they "do" what they "do".  One example is, "Why do they not want to deport people who are here illegally?"  I will go thru this example to make my point.

It is clear that one of things that has made the United States a great place is our commitment to the "rule of law" and the fact that it applies to all of us "equally".  It is clearly "not fair" to allow some within our country to be exempt from our laws, no matter what they might claim.  Liberals are really no different from conservatives in many ways.  That is a fact.  Most people, regardless of their political leanings want to help people who find themselves in a difficult situation.  We all "feel good" when we help someone, even if it is a Boy Scout helping an older person across the street.  Where the difference comes in is that some people get addicted to that "feel good" feeling and want more.  It is not all that different from a dope addict who wants one more "fix".  What makes this addition even worse is that that the liberal is giving to the person who they want to help so that they "feel good" is often not theirs to give.  A liberal does not own the United States.  We all own it as a group and only us as a group (more than 50%) can give or share it with non citizens.  I don't have a problem for a liberal to get a job and earn some money and then give that money to someone in Africa or some other country.  Where I do have a problem is when that liberal thinks that they can allow an illegal immigrant into this country that we all own "together".

There are all kinds of examples of where people do good things for others to make themselves "feel good".  I would like to see more people doing good things with their own money and being silent about it.  Why do they so often want public recognition for their efforts?  Another group of liberals that I have a problem with are those who go around collecting money from others without putting any of their own money in the pot and then giving that money to some one who then "kisses their ring".

It seems that once a person gets into this liberal "feel good" cycle, they have a hard time ever getting out of it.  The only reason that I can think of is that it must be like some kind of drug. Paying taxes is somewhat like this.  Liberals seem to be at either extreme, either poor or rich, but not in between when it come to taxes.  Poor liberals see no problem taking tax money from those richer than themselves and using it for "do good" things that make the liberal "feel good".  Why is that?  On the other hand, rich people often come by their wealth by a degree of "luck" and don't understand that people in the economic middle are working very hard to just remain in the middle.  Their money is "easy come easy go" so they get the same thrill or "feel good" from sharing their wealth with those less fortunate.

Those in the middle who have to work every day for what they have also share with those less fortunate, but want to get their monies worth, also they don't want to waste their hard earned money on people who have not tried to help themselves.  Most of the poor people in the world are poor because they have been over breeding for years.  Many have made poor decisions with respect to drugs and education.  These people have a record of "not helping themselves" and conservatives have a rule that says,"you can't help a person who does not want to help themselves".  Conservatives who help others don't do it for recognition like liberals.  Conservatives "feel good" when they help others, but they are not addicted to it like liberals.

Liberals are nice people, but they have a serious addiction.  They often can not see much beyond their own noses.  People seem to be able the think more logically when it does not involve people, so let's move to the over breeding of dogs and cats.  A liberal's solution is to get the government to buy dog or cat food so the animals do not starve.  They either don't have the money to buy the food or they don't want to use their own money.  Conservatives look beyond the animals next meal and want all the animals neutered before they get and food.  Who is right?   Starting to see the problem?  It is an addiction and needs to be treated like any other addiction.

Quality of Life and Immigration

The Irish were the luckiest people in the world.  Why do I say that?  That is the point of this blog.

Think about this.  The Roman army invaded Ireland and converted them to the Catholic faith much as the Spanish army did to the Native Americans in Central America, but that is not all.  Ireland was first!  Following the teachings of the Catholic faith, the Irish had as many children as they could and to the point of over population for their small island.  The first stroke of luck was when Columbus discovered the potato being farmed by Native Americans and took it back to Europe.  This gave the over populated Ireland the food they needed to feed all those extra people.  The Irish had a second stroke of luck when the potato crop failed and they started starving when America needed Europeans to settle the land stolen  from the Native Americans.  The idea was that once the land was settled by Europeans, they would defend the land as if it were their own and thus there would be no need for a big army to defend the land.  Starving people from Ireland flocked to America by the millions, thus lowering the population of Ireland to a level that the island could feed. These two strokes of luck were "one of a kind" that never had happened before nor will likely ever happen again.

Now that that is out of the way, let's get real about quality of life and immigration.  Realize that there are no more situations like the ones that saved Ireland, we have to deal with realities.  I have said this before, but it is worth repeating.  When people talk about the economy, they always talk about the "total" size of the economy rather than the economy of the "individual".  In a few years the "total" economy of China will be the largest in the world and larger than that of the United States, but when you look at it on an "individual" basis you will find that China ranks no better than about  35 or 40th. Even when the United States ranked "first" of the basis of the "total" economy, we only ranked about 20th on the basis of the individual.

When I am sitting down at the table with my family, I am only concerned about the quality of life and the economy of my family, not people and places that I don't know anything about.  This is the case with most people when they really think about it. As far as I know, it is the "median income" that is the best measure of this "individual economy" that I am talking about.  Once we start to realize that it is this "individual economy" that is the primary objective, we can then start to discuss those actions that will best address this objective.  That will be the rest of this blog.

What are the things that you and your family see as factors that define "quality of life"?  If we were to each make a list of those factors and then test the actions by our government and ourselves against that list, I feel we could then start to make some progress.  You might be concerned about things like global warming and doing good things for people in far away lands.  There is nothing wrong with these factors, but they need to be tested to see if their "cost" is "worth" the "feel good" that you crave. Facts are helpful in this process.  It is a lot easier to estimate the cost first ant then compare it to the "feel good".

Let's start off with 1,000 immigrants from an over populated country (not Ireland).  Recognize that the reason that they are over populated is that they breed so fast that their population doubles every 25 years,  Compare that to the United States at about 75 years.  Now, let's look at another factor and that is the amount for fossil fuel that they use.  The data shows that immigrant countries use about 1/5th of what that of the United States does where it accounts for the higher quality of life that we enjoy.  Now we have enough data to do some 4th grade math.  We will do this on the basis of "with" and "without".

These 1,000 immigrants in 75 years will expand to 8,000.  If they had stayed  home, they will use 8,000 units of fossil fuel.  If they come here, they will use 40,000 units of fossil fuel.  People who are so concerned about global warming need to think more deeply about the impact or cost of their decision that is supposed to make them "feel good". I have thought this thru and don't think that more immigration is worth the "cost" to just make me "feel good".  I could have put garbage, loss of good farm land for houses or fresh clean water on my list and the answer would come out the same.  It is just not "worth it" to allow more immigrants to enter the United States.

The early period of mass immigration into the United States was a "one time" event just like the ones I described about the Irish above.  New Zealand and Australia have a similar "one time" event history and they understand that mass immigration can not continue.  We need to wake up and think about the quality of life for our children rather than "feel good" things that punish our own children.

PS--If the immigrants don't raise the median income per family, we don't need them.  They just make us poorer.  I don't know what the exact number is, but it is at least $100,000 annual income.  People below that take more out of the pot than they put in.  If you combine that with uncontrolled breeding, it is even worse over time.  What community with over 50% recent immigrants would you like to move your family into?  I did not think so. Remember, "feel good" is not free.  It has a cost and in many cases a very high cost to the future of your children!

I Think It Was About 1942

I think it was about 1942 and we were living in Thermalito.  My mother had just brought home my baby brother from the maternity home in Yuba City.  My father was still home and had not yet been drafted into the Army.  We had a small house with a couple of acres of land where my father was raising some pigs. I think that my father knew that it would only be a few weeks before he was drafted so he was arranging his affairs and that meant harvesting the pigs.  To prepare for that my father decided to build a smoke house for the meat.  I remember handing him nails as he built the smoke house.  I think it was building that smoke house that got me interested in building because it has been a part of my life ever since.  The other thing that I remember is that my father had a group of friends and relatives over to help with the butchering.  I over heard some of them saying that some of the pigs were very small and too young to have butchered.  I don't know why, but for some reason that statement has stuck with me for all these years.  I think it was because these people were contradicting my father's decision.  Even at my young age I think I had a strong family loyalty that has continued to be a major part of my character.

I think it was about 1943 when my father finally go his draft notice.  We were living in Wasco in a shack that has since fallen down.  It faced the alley that was dirt.  Even the main street out front was not paved.  When my father told the family that he had been drafted, he sat me down and told me that until he returned that, "I would be the man of the house".  He told me that I should sit in his chair at the dinner table, which I did.  I had no idea what it meant to be "man of the house", but I tried the best that I could to live up to his trust.  What do you think would be the impact on a child who was just about 4 years old, but that is what happened.  While my father was in the service, we did not hear much from him, but we carried on the best that we could.  When the War was over in the Pacific, fathers of kids in the area started returning home on the basis of how may dependants that they had.  Since my father had 3, he did not come home until later.  The night that he came home, we were all at the dinner table with me in his chair and I saw his head pass the kitchen window so I knew he was home.  I ran to the door to let him in.  For some reason, he knocked on his own door and I opened it.  I looked up at him and said in my strongest voice, "I guess you know that I am in kindergarten now."  Why I said that I do not know, but that is what I said.  My father went directly to my mother and gave her a big kiss.  When he did that my younger brother started to cry.  He had no idea who the person was since he was only about a year old when he was drafted.  My father opened his bag and took out some chocolate.  This was the first time that I ever tasted chocolate.  He gave my mother a string of real pearls.  I don't know what ever happened to that string of pearls after all these years.

I think it was about 1944 when my mother and I got on the Greyhound bus in Wasco to meet her mother's family who were camped under the Merced River bridge on highway 99.  My father was in the Sea Bees' some where in the Pacific.  The Greyhound bus followed 99 thru all the towns and stopped at some to let off and pick up travelers.  By the time we got to the Merced River bridge on highway 99, it was dark and the driver stopped the bus just after going over he bridge and let me and my mother off.  Do you think that you could get a bus driver to do something like that today?  We got our bags and walked across highway 99 and went down the steep bank.  My grandmother met us holding a Coleman lantern and showed us the way down the bank to where they were camped under the bridge. The whole family was picking peaches and living under the bridge.  It was a good place because they could catch fish to eat and use the water in the river to wash.  The next day, I investigated the Merced River with one of my cousins.  There was a woman there who was wearing blue bib overalls who looked at first like a man.  She pulled out her pocket knife and made me a whistle out of a branch of  Willow.  It was like magic and I will never forget that occasion.  I have made similar whistles myself for my own kids and I think they were equally impressed too.

I think that it was about 1946 when my father and my uncle Bill took me fishing in Tulare Lake.  We stopped along the way to sane minnows for bait for Crappie.  The week before, my father had been fishing in a big ditch that flowed into or out of Tulare Lake and caught all kinds of fish.  We were poor Okies and fished for food not sport.  This time we had driven up from Wasco and did not catch a single fish.  We fished with cane poles.  I did not know of anyone who owned a rod and reel.  The truth of it is that if the fish are biting, you can catch more fish with a cane pole than any fancy rod and reel.  I hear now that there isn't any Tulare Lake any more.  It has been drained for farm land and the water used for irrigation.  I am sad about that, but progress is progress and more people can now be fed than could have been fed if we still had Tulare Lake.  Life is not perfect, but it seems to have gotten better for most over time.

I think it was about 1947 over the 4th of July.  We were camped on the beach at Morro Bay.  I never stayed in a motel or hotel until about 1957.  We always camped when we were away from home.  My father and my uncle Bill had good luck fishing and caught several large Ling  Cod, so we had plenty to eat.  My mother only fixed fish one way and that was rolled in cornmeal and fried in lard.  I still think about how good we ate those days on the beach.  On the second day we were there, my cousin flew over from Bakersfield in his new Taylorcraft airplane.  He landed in a hay field near the beach and took all the kids for a ride.  We circled the giant Morro Rock and the family camped on the beach.  I was strapped in sitting on a parachute so that I could see out.  As we flew, I had a steering wheel right in front of me that went in and out and turned right and left as by magic.  For many years after wards, I have thought about how that could have happened.  It was not until many years latter that I found out that the wheel my cousin was turning was connected to the one in front of me.  It is amazing how an event like that can stick in your mind for all those years.  I now own my own Supercub and the mystery is solved.

I think that it was about 1948 when I had my best day at cotton picking one Saturday.  When school was on, I could only pick cotton after school and on Saturdays.  This one Saturday I had "good" cotton and it was paying 3.5 cents a pound.  You got paid at each sack weigh up so you could see how you were doing.  I like the feel of that money in my pocket and was very motivated to pick as much as I could.  I knew that I could pick more cotton than anyone near my age.  I guess that I was a lot more competitive than I thought.  On that day, I picked 200# of cotton and went home with $7.00 in my pocket.  That was a lot of money for an 8 year old and I took it directly to my savings account at Bank of America in Wasco, Ca.

I think it was about 1952 and we were living on a farm in Northern California where there were a lot of Pheasants.  We were poor and a Pheasant meant a good meal.  My father had purchase a "new" 1949 Chevy a few years back.  I don't know where he got the money.  He saw a group of Pheasants a short distance up the road from the house and figured that he could get close enough to shoot if he drove up in the car.  My uncle had loaned my father his automatic Browning shotgun and my father took it in the car and went up to get a Pheasant.  We heard two shots and my father came back a short time later with a Pheasant and a story to tell.  It seems that he shot a hole in the top of his car!  After shooting the Pheasant, he layed the gun against the seat and reached in with his finger to set the safety.  When he did that his finger hit the trigger.  He good friend was giving my father a bad time about shooting the hole in the roof of his car when one day my father was over at his friend;s house.  He had just gotten a new shot gun and wanted to show it to my father.  Wouldn't you know it.  When he started to hand the shot gun to my father, it went off and shot a hole in the roof of his house.  Seems his older sons had been using the shotgun and left it loaded in the closet.

I think it was about 1956 when I had a chance to do some duck hunting with my uncle Bill on Lake Buenavista in Kern County.  We got started out before day light.  We put in our boat in a small canal that dumped into the Lake.  My uncle was the only person who I knew who had both a boat with an outboard motor.  He was just as poor as us, but some how he always had good hunting and fishing equipment.  We had along one of Bill's good friends J.T. who I heard had played professional baseball, but I did not know for what team.  It was a cold morning when we got underway.  I was sitting up in the front of the boat and my uncle was at the rear steering the boat along.  All of a sudden the motor stopped!  I looked back and saw that we had "lost" the motor overboard.  I could see bubbles coming up about 25' behind the boat.  The boat gradually came to a stop and my uncle started paddling back to where the bubbles were coming up.  Just about that time J.T. had his close off and was jumping into the water.  Before I realized what was happening, his arm came up out of the water holding the motor.  Just as fast as it appeared it disappeared again.  It is one thing to lift a weight in water, but it is another when it clears the water.  J.T. shook the water off his face and told us that he was going down again for motor and wanted someone to grab it when it came up.  In another minute, J.T. had the motor up again and my uncle Bill grabbed it.   We then paddles over to the side of the canal and got the motor out on land.  We had along a Coleman stove that my uncle Bill planned to use to make hot coffee.  We dried off the motor the best that we could and tried to restart it, but it would not start...They took out the spark plug and dried it out with the stove and finally got the motor started.  If this had been anyone but my uncle Bill, they would have packed up and gone home, but not my uncle.  We went on out into Lake Buenavista and were able shoot two male Mallards.  I'll never forget that trip.  Like Tulare Lake, there is no longer a Lake Buenavista.  Progress again?

How About Global Warming

With all the talk about global warming, why don't we have more real facts and open minded analysis?  That is point of this blog.

I would like to look at this business of global warming from a different angle.  First, I would like to look at the heating from the Sun.  Why is it that we have heard so little about the energy coming from the Sun?  We know that it changes over time, but like watching grass grow, it does not change very fast in human terms.  This is just the first part.  How much heat from the Sun gets thru to the Earth is another factor.  Our atmosphere is the incoming filter for this energy and it too has changed over time.  Why don't we hear anything about this factor?  I think that the Earth's atmosphere has gotten thinner over time and thus lets in more direct energy from the Sun.  I base this on the fact that we see other planets in our solar system who have lost their atmosphere and are now much hotter.

Now, how about heat loss.  It seems clear that we had a lot more liquid water on Earth than we have today.  The main way that water escaped is by first changing state from liquid to a gas and then the gas escaped into outer space.  That means the Sun had to provide the energy to "boil" the liquid water into a gas.  As the amount of water and the amount of the Earth covered by water has gone down, the "cooling" affect of this evaporation has decreased.  This means that the Earth has less and less of an ability to cool itself over time.  Water is very critical due to the fact that it has a specific heat of 1.0, one of the highest for any material.  Like I mentioned above, we know that other planets in our solar system have had liquid water at one time, but not any more.  Over time, the Sun has boiled off that water just like it is now doing on Earth.

Many of those who claim that Carbon Dioxide is the main reason for what appears to be global warming omit the impact of other gases in the atmosphere or other factors. What we need to do is to recognize that there are many more factors that cause the Earth to gain and lose energy from the Sun.  If these people can not explain by science why things like the ice age happened or ended, how can we give total trust to other claims that they now make regarding global warming?

PS---Another thing.  Why is all the focus on the "average" temperature of the Earth and not on the range of wild swings in temperature?  If you try to live in a place with an average temperature of 70f, but with a range of 150f and -100f, you would be "dead".  As the atmosphere gets thinner, its ability to smooth out the variations in temperature goes down and that is what I think is happening.  We know that on some of the planets with no or very little atmosphere have day to night ranges in temperature from over 200f and - 150f so you can see the impact of a thin or no atmosphere.  I blogged in the past that the thickness of our atmosphere is thinner than a water film on a basket ball.  The Earth is 25,000 miles around, but 50% of the atmosphere is below just two miles.  Think about that.  If that basket ball were to dry out, we would all be dead.