DEFICIENCES & ANNOYANCES-75

People are quite right to be tired of the story of that slug, Sterling and to the list can be added the fortunately now defunct story of the missing Malaysian aero-plane as tragic as it was, however there was quite quickly no additional reliable news to be reported so it was unnecessary for the news media to keep dragging out the story. The Benghazi episode is a different matter. It also illustrates a couple of important points. Presidential administrations have a tendency to conceal, obfuscate, and cover-up embarrassing mistakes and miscalculations and the current administration is one of the worst in that regard. When Republicans are in control of even one branch of congress they make a hash of their investigations. Instead of convening a half dozen House committees that have different objectives and prerogatives, are not well focused, and therefore are not efficiently conducted, a House Select Committee should have been setup from the start. Count on the Republicans to be stupid. At least the chairman of this now soon to be convened committee, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), a former no nonsense prosecutor, is a good choice. It is now abundantly clear that the White House and the State Dept. changed the narrative of what caused the terrorist attack in Benghazi from an organized premeditated one to a spontaneous uprising based on an anti- Muslim video that practically no one saw. The objective was also clear. During the 2010 presidential campaign President Obama had said General Motors was alive and Osama ben Laden was dead and Al-Qaeda was on the run. This resurgence of an Al-Qaeda affiliate group in Libya did not mesh with the narrative put out by the Obama administration so it had to be changed even if that meant misleading the American public. As what happened became known and supporting facts slowly came out, poor Jay Carney had to twist himself into a pretzel to attempt to spin the story. As Charles Krauthammer said, “Carney is not paid enough for his job as Presidential Press Secretary.” There are still a number of important questions that the public has a right to know: 1.) Who in the White House and/or State Dept. selected Susan Rice and fed her false information to infamously disseminate to the public on those five TV shows on the following Sunday? The selection of Rice was curious in the first place because, as the American UN Ambassador, she was not directly involved. As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton should have been the one doing the talking. 2.) Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and the Chairman of the Joint Chefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey, briefed Obama hours after the attack. At that point they knew that it was a planned terrorist attack. What did they tell the president? 3.) Hillary Clinton telephoned Obama around 10:00 P.M. that evening to discuss the attack. What did she tell him and what did they both do after that? We know Obama was never in the White House Situation Room and that he went on a fund raising trip to the West Coast the next day. 4.) Despite requests from American Ambassador Stevens and others in Libya for additions security none was ever given. Why not? And for that matter what was Ambassador Stevens doing in such a dangerous place as Benghazi, which was a hotbed of unrest and terrorism? 5.) Even if military help could not have arrived in time to save the four dead Americans during the seven hour attack, and that is a debatable point, why was no effort made? Especially in the military as they famously try to save their own. Let us hope that even at this late date the Special Committee in the House will be able to come up with some valid answers. Now for the IRS scandal. Once again the Republicans in congress showed how inept they are. The main key to unraveling the malfeasance of the IRS and the duplicity of the White House in targeting mainly conservative group for special scrutiny and delays in granting tax exempt 501c3 status to their organizations is the testimony of Lois Lerner. When Lerner testified in front of a House committee for the first time the committee chairman should have told her that if she read an opening statement (and he would certainly know that she would) vouching for her own integrity, lawfulness, and probity she could not then refuse to answer questions from the committee or else she would not be allowed to make a statement. As it is now there is this argument whether she waived her constitutional right not to incriminate herself by refusing to answer the committee’s questions after she gave her opening statement. Even so, she should now be granted immunity from prosecution in order to compel her to say what she knows about this whole affair, which must be considerable. The story originally put out by the White House was that a few rogue agents in the Cincinnati IRS office improperly targeted some conservative groups for special scrutiny by submitting voluminous and personal questions to be answered, not asked of liberal groups, after receiving their requests for tax-exempt status. This was followed by long delays in considering the requests, again not imposed on liberal groups. Even Jay Carney at first was taking this line. The story had to change once e-mails concerning this matter came to light leading President Obama, in an interview, to say to Bill O’Reilly there not a “smidgen of corruption” involving the IRS after initially saying that he was outraged by the appearance of impropriety and would get the bottom of it. It is interesting that conservative Jay Sekulow, Chief Counsel for the American Center for Law and Justice, has received more pertinent and less redacted e-mails from the Administration by filing FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests than congressional committees have been able to obtain. It is clear that this administration does not respect the Republican House of Representatives, but does not want to get into a fight with the federal courts and all the controversy that would engender. It was in one of those e-mails that ensnared Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Adviser, Ben Rhodes, and tied the White House directly to the IRS scandal. One would hope and expect that the House committees investigating the IRS would do so in an objective manner, searching for the truth and not resorting to partisan politics against the presidential administration. If they do not then it will redound to the benefit of Democrats and the administration, as a large percentage of people will be turned off by it as politics as usual in Washington. However, if the committees do their investigations fairly and objectively and it is Democrats who are viewed as obstructionists then it is they who will experience adverse effects in the November elections. A further ever growing, bipartisan scandal has now enveloped the White House. This is malfeasance by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). Here the usual luck of President Obama has run out. Problems with the medical services and competency of the VA have been ongoing for decades without it blowing up into a full pledged scandal until now. A warning was given by the Bush team to the Obama team during the transitioning of the Bush administration to the Obama administration, yet nothing of any substance was done, nor had the Bush administration delved into it adequately during its time in office. However, it would be fair to say that with the country in a possible economic meltdown there were more pressing problems that needed to be addressed. Still, once this crisis had passed more could have been done. Further, at this time a new element has emerged which is the keeping of off-the-books lists of veterans who needed medical attention, but whose appointments were not officially listed until later and some times much later so as to make it seem that waiting times were considerably shorter than they actually were. Especially egregious were the conditions of the untreated veterans who died waiting for medical help. This situation has outraged Democrats in congress as well as Republicans, as well it might, for moral and political reasons. With bipartisan inquires and probing into these problems with the VA this issue is not going away any time soon and, unlike the other administration scandals, will not be largely ignored by the Main Stream Media (MSM). On Nov. 12, 2007 then Senator Obama said, “After seven years [this] administration has …..neglected the planning and preparation necessary to care for our returning heroes…..” And in 2012 President Obama continued to favorably compare the performance of the VA during his administration to Bush’s. What was it that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright said about chickens coming home to roost? There are exceptions on all sides of course, but as a general proposition I believe it can be said apodictically that Republicans are stupid, Democrats venal, and the MSM, since Obama first became a presidential candidate, previously was biased on the left has now evolved into being downright corrupt in either how political and social news are reported or not reported.

THE MOVIE NOAH VS. THE BIBLE STORY-74

This is about the movie NOAH vis-à-vis the Bible from which the movie was ostensibly and loosely based, as are many movies that are made from stories in books. The director of the movie, Darren Aronofsky, is an atheist so the name God was never mentioned explicitly in the movie and he said that Noah was a drunk. I was curious about that so I consulted the ultimate source, the Holy Bible. In the King James Version of the Bible in Genesis chapters 6 – 9, the word “God” is mentioned 19 times and the word “Lord” 11 times (If I have counted correctly). In the Bible story, God is punishing mankind because, except for Noah and his family, there are too many iniquitous and sinful people. The movie has a different take. The people are transgressing against Gaia; in other words Mother Earth. They were despoiling the planet. Naturally with their polluting automobiles, coal-fired electricity generating plants, nuclear power plants, and aeroplanes fouling the skies what is there not to object to in bringing down the wraith of God on the people in the form of drowning them. There is something not exactly correct about that postulation that I can’t quite seem to grasp. Perhaps the answer is that I am confusing their times with modern times. Do you think so? Understand that I love sarcasm, when deserved. Compared to now and even the conditions on the planet before dispositive rapscallion man populated the earth, those people in Genesis husbanded a practically pristine environment. What were those idiotic movie people going on about? The movie NOAH is a $132,000,000 extravaganza that tells a rollickingly good yarn, but it is not to be confused with what is presented in the Bible. Even given there are 138 minutes of movie time to fill that could hardly be done using only the four chapters of Genesis where the adventures and misadventures of Noah are told, the departures and outright contradictions in the movie compared to the Bible story make the movie a secular presentation of the story of Noah. I would guess that most truly religious people, including Jews and Muslims, but especially Christians, would find the movie somewhat objectionable. What I also discovered in the Bible is that Noah fathered three sons at age 500 years. He was 600 years, one month, and 17 days old when he entered the ark. Everyone, except the students at American University in Washington D.C. where a number of them were recently interviewed and only one could name even one US Senator, although nearly all knew that the hit song “Let It Go” was from the movie “Frozen”, has heard that Noah sent out a dove to check the water level three times (the last time the dove did not return to the ark), but did you know, according to the Good Book, Noah first sent out a raven? After the flood was over and the occupants of the ark had resettled on the land, Noah planted a vineyard and made wine from the grapes. He then proceeded to drink the wine and got drunk. It does not say that he did this more than once. Noah lived another 350 years after the flood, dying at the age of 950 years. And why not? He was the grandson of Methuselah, who, according to the Bible, lived to the ripe old age of 969 years. Some scholars have postulated that months were counted as years, but that is negated because these same units were used to count the age of Noah's father who would by that reckoning have been 5 years old when he fathered his first son. Consider that these Biblical people lived to great ages unheard of in these modern times. And they did so without modern medicine. No hospitals, antibiotics, myriad other drugs, current surgery techniques, or treatments for cancer and other ailments, inter alia. Those people must have been hardy indeed. Of course there is another explanation that is not as paralogistically challenged. They did not live nearly as long as was written in the Bible. To be rational and believe that is then to cast doubt on the literal interpretation of all the stories in the Bible. One cannot reasonably pick and chose which stories in the Bible to believe and which to cast aside. Much better in my opinion is to treat them all the same as allegories that strive to make moral points rather than being historically accurate. Flood stories predate the version in the Bible. Several ancient cultures in the West and in the East have recounted similar events where all of the known world or at least much of it was inundated with water. It strains credulity and violates logic and reason to ascribe these floods to the entire globe. Widespread localized floods perhaps, with the one in the Bible no exception. Does everyone who fancy themselves to be rationally and logically thinking beings really believe that the Biblical Flood actually put the entire earth under water? I would hope not. Interesting book, the Bible, especially the story of Noah, which is one of the very first in the Old Testament. Considering what I have recounted here perhaps is it not only such a so-called religion as Scientology that is a bit out of kilter in some aspects.

SELF-IDENTIFIED FRAUD-73

Who am I referring to? Why myself of course. After I have explained you may say, “tut, tut”, but I do not believe you will be too censorious of me. There were extenuating circumstances, as you shall see. In the late 1980’s or there abouts, the upper management of the corporation I worked for, Mobil Oil, decided to embrace the business fad of the day which was called New Culture. In the august wisdom (read ironic sarcasm into my words if you wish) of top Mobil management the publicity for being all inclusive and seemingly highly caring for the workforce of the corporation outweighed any additional expense incurred. Therefore seminars were set up for groups of employees to inculcate this New Culture into the Zeitgeist of the workforce. As I remember it employees in the building where I worked, including professionals, technicians, and secretaries, were put in groups according to what floor they work on to attend a couple of hours seminar continued for several days to discuss and be lectured on this concept of New Culture. An outside consulting company ran the seminars. There were a couple of useful features in it such that when teams are formed to work on particular company projects not only is it logical and necessary to have people on the team with different skills and specialties, but also with different personalities such as those who were spontaneous and quick with new ideas, even if some of the ideas were off-the-wall crazy and people who were more deliberate and well grounded if not as original in their thinking. At any rate I decided to have some fun with it because everyone knew that the whole thing was a business fad sold to the management of Mobil and was largely, even if not completely, a waste of everyone’s time. Ok, so how did I approach this sham of workforce propaganda? Simple. Knowing that the participants would be classified into categories of whether they were outgoing and spontaneous or reserved and contemplative I chose to deliberately and artificially exhibit characteristics of the former classification. My excuse was that I was just a few years away from wanting to retire so I allowed myself to make a game of it. I would not be too obvious or divulge to anyone what I was doing because I wanted to retire in a few years, not immediately. I rather logically figured that upper management would not be particularly pleased if word got out that I was playing games with their current pet project. The owner of this small consulting company had a couple of assistants who conducted seminars at our building as he did himself. I was in a seminar conducted by the owner who at least gave the impression of being confident in what he was doing. From the start of the first seminar session I was quick to both attempt to answer any questions asked by the seminar conductor and to be the first to weigh in on any issue or subject under discussion. At one point I attempted to immediately answer a question asked by the seminar conductor and as I was answering it I was thinking about it and started to moderate my answer as I continued to talk. He was quick to pick up on that and explained to the class that I was so prone to responding quickly before I had a chance to really evaluate the question that as I was talking I was thinking about it and changing my answer as I went on. Later on in the seminar as my immediate responses continued, the fellow commented that if I were in a room full of strangers I would make the rounds in the room and become the first person to be acquainted with everyone there. I smiled at this ersatz observation, but did not say anything. In the final evaluation by the consulting company, the group I was in was considered the most outgoing and spontaneous. We had some real extroverts in our group including professional explorationists, technicians, and one secretary in particular who was as talkative and voluble as anyone. Yet I was considered the most extroverted of all! Sacrebleu! I had successfully pulled off a great hoax. So confident was he in his evaluation of me that neither I nor anyone else could have convinced the consulting company owner who was our seminar leader what I had done; never in 1000 years would he have believed or have admitted he had been hoaxed. At work the day after the seminar ended people I knew would come up to me and express surprise that I was judged the most outgoing employee of all the groups. I would inevitably respond that it surprised me too, yet that was the conclusion of the consulting company. I did not tell anyone the truth until after I retired. I am no dummy. What to take away from this by now long ago experience? One thing is that if I, a rank amateur in the field of deception, could fool so many people so easily, including a man who fancied himself an expert in judging the personalities of people, then what could an experienced con man do? Clearly it is still the old, old lesson in being wary of what people say and do unless verified by facts. Years ago there was a best selling book titled Games People Play. Even without reading it I seemed to have mastered the art of whatever stratagems some people employ in their relations with others, as judged by what I have read of the book reviews. I suppose I could also claim that such an innocuous game as I played did no real harm to anybody. And I certainly enjoyed it. Now that you know the story of my deception, if I were one accustomed to betting I would put my money on you not judging me too harshly.

TO A MOUSE & BIRD-72

My apologies to the 18th century Scottish poet, Robert Burns, for paraphrasing the title of one of his epic poems. What my essay undertakes to comment on is my experience in 2013 with rats (which are overgrown mice really), squirrels, and the birds that I supply with supplementary victuals in the form of commercially available birdseeds. In spring of 2013 we installed a four perch cylindrical bird feeder, first in our patio, then moved it to the area just outside of our kitchen bay window on the other side of the house. For two days or so the birds were nonplused and as frustrated and confused as their little birdbrains could be. In those inchoate conditions some even flew through the air space where the feeder had been hanging apparently trying to sort out whether their eyes were deceiving them and the feeder was actually still there, but invisible. No, sadly it was gone. Not to be overly concerned – within two to three days our little avian friends discovered its new location. C’est bon - all was now well. Well, actually not completely well – a new species had discovered the free food source. Mr. Rat and his extended family now began feasting on the bounty. I put the seeds out for the birds so, quo jure, did this rodent conclude that he could share in ingesting the seeds? One evening we saw as many as four rats at one time on the feeder or in a small tree next to the feeder waiting their turn. I vowed that putatively this would not do; absolutely would not do. Time to take “arms against a sea of troubles” as the Bard of Avon phrased it. Rat traps were the ticket to end this intrusion on the feeding of the birds, and the more the better. Still, some precaution was in order to prevent trapping the naïve little feathered creatures. The first night I set out four traps on the ground around the feeder, baited with peanut butter. The next morning – nothing. After consulting with our daughter who had experience with birds, rats and such, she suggested using the seeds themselves as bait. The next morning - success. Four traps set out and 4 rats caught; the following morning 4 traps & 3 rats; then 4 traps & again 3 rats; 4 traps 2 rats; and 4 traps 1 rat. All totaled that summer there were 30 rats caught in traps and slain, big, small, & in between, in that area and on the patio where the rats were eating flower petals. I am glad and relieved to say that nary a bird was caught in a trap. I would set the traps out at night after the birds had stopped coming to the feeder and retrieve them early in the morning before the birds had commenced breaking their nightly fast (breakfast). Indeed, to almost quote the late actor James Cagney, those hapless, but far from helpless, dirty rats (Cagney actually said “you dirty, yellow-bellied rat” in a 1932 movie) found out their “best-laid schemes…. Aft gang agley.” Early on when the feeder was transferred to its new location there was another species that was interested in getting to the comestibles. It was a bushy tailed critter known as a “tree rat” or squirrel. These animals have a reputation for being persistent in their endeavors to gain access to food. That reputation is deserved. In particular, one indefatigably risible squirrel made a game and persistent attempt to get on the feeder. First he would try to egress the top of the fence going to the top of the feeder, but the rain guard on the feeder was unstable so he was unsuccessful after multiple tries. Then he would reach out from a limb of a nearby small tree and eventually made it. Not for long. After we pruned any branch from the tree that he could use to access the feeder he was stymied. The fellow returned a couple times in the next few days – all to no avail and apparently realizing that apodictically he would not success, he gave up in abject frustrated failure. Now about the birds. The species that came to the feeder either regularly or sporadically were sparrows, finches, cardinals, blue jays, and mourning doves. The smallest birds (sparrows & finches) often would come in large motley groups of from ½ dozen to a baker’s dozen at the same time. Naturally they would then fight each other for a place on one of the four perches or on the pan at the bottom of the feeder. I tried to get across to them that if they came in fewer numbers at a time there would be more eating and less fighting. I was not successful in conveying this stratagem to them. In this regard they were not unlike miscreant little human children. There was one sparrow that hung out alone at the feeder for hours. After the little bird’s appetite was sated he just sat on a perch on the feeder some times even with his eyes closed. Clearly he felt safe and serene in that location and would not stir until another bird or birds came to the feeder. This went on for weeks until he was seen no more. Likely he was done in by his natural life expectancy or by predation. Later there was a finch that became a semi-permanent resident (in a manner similar to the Arthur Conan Doyle story of the Resident Patient) although at longer intervals and shorter durations than the original sparrow. The cardinals, both male and female, but especially the males, are extremely wary or more judgmentally, cowardly in their reaction to humans even with a number of feet of distance and windows between them and us humans. They would fly away far more quickly and precipitously than other birds. As could be expected, with inclement weather, the bird traffic at the feeder increased and as I have indicated would, at times, become intense. Although usually one or two mourning doves would visit the feeder at the same time, sometimes there were more. One day I counted 5 of them on the feeder, on the fence next to the feeder, or on the ground gathering in the seeds that had dropped or had carelessly been ejected from the feeder by dissipative and undisciplined fellow flying creatures. At one point there was the episode of the male (red) cardinal, overcoming his usual reticence, feeding what was obviously his two offspring. The adult would get a seed or two from the feeder and go to either the nearby top of the fence or a limb of the small tree next to the feeder where the young cardinals were waiting and feed them beak-to-beak. Mr. Cardinal would continue this procedure several times at the same feeding and repeated it over several days. In fact we observed the youngling cardinals getting bigger over this interval of several days (young birds grow really quickly) such that they were fully 2/3 the size of their father by the end of this time with the feathers of one turning increasingly red and the other not. With one appearing to be a male and the other a female and the two almost certainly coming from separate eggs laid within minutes of each other, would they not be considered dizygotic twins? Talk about human parents pushing their overgrown offspring figuratively out of the nest, here was a poor harried and probably not too bright bird father feeding his offspring when clearly the young birds were fully capable of getting their own seeds out of the feeder. This is an obvious example that lazy ingrate offspring are not limited to the human species. Even though birds are not receptive to taking direction and advice they also much refrain from complaining – about anything. Never did I discern any grousing (so to speak) or whining about the type or lack of variety of the proffered provender. Try that with humans, especially teens and tweens. And by that I do not mean seeds, but foodstuffs that some people, normal people, would find tasty and nutritious and come back for 2nd helpings. Although I am not an inveterate birdwatcher whose métier is to go traipsing off into the woods to observe or listen to the many species of these fascinating fowl I do derive some enjoyment and relaxation in occasionally watching them congregate just outside (and I want to emphasize OUTSIDE) our kitchen bay window as they feast and fight and in general act in a termagant manner with their fellow species. Puck, in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was incomplete when he said “Lord, what fools these mortals be”, referring to humans. He could have included the devilish little creatures in the class: Aves. N’est-ce pas?

RUSSIA TODAY-71

Many people believe the United States has serious problems and they are not mistaken. However, I could ask compared to what? Here is a country that is clearly in greater peril than the USA. Below is a credible scenario supported by FACTS. I sent this to a long time friend of mine now living in London. We worked together for several years at Mobil Oil. He is a PhD in geology (now retired) who grew up in Leningrad, worked in the Soviet Union, and came to the USA in the middle 1980's. He agrees with what I have presented here, but hopes he does not live long enough to actually see the collapse of motherland Russia: Are you familiar with a man named Ilan Berman? He is Vice-President of an organization called the American Foreign Policy Council and an author of a recent book – Implosion: The End of Russia and What it Means for America. I heard him discuss his book over the weekend. He was born in this country and has made many trips to Russia. His parents were “Refuseniks” (otka3hnk). Berman talks about three intersecting trend lines that are difficult for the Russian government to deal with individually and taken together eventually will be catastrophic for the country. The first trend line is demographics: Berman says that Russia is dying. The replacement rate is 2.1 children per woman. As you know there are many countries in Europe with a lower fertility rate (F.R.) than that and Russia is one of the lowest at 1.6. In the last 8 months or so there has been an uptick in the F.R., but demographers say that is not at all unusual and the trend is clearly negative. There are other reasons for Russia’s declining population. Through natural death and emigration Russia is losing ½ million people per year. Currently the population is 142.9 million with a projected population of 107 million by 2050. The male life expectancy is 60 years – the same as Madagascar. The female life expectancy is 73 years – the same as Saudi Arabia. Russia experienced no “peace dividend” as did the United States after the end of the Cold War. The spending in Russia on health services is the same as it was in the mid 1990’s. These are all United Nations statistics. There has been a collapse of the family after the end of the Cold War. Previously the family was the glue that held people together even if not everyone in the extended family liked each other. Russia has the highest divorce rate in Europe and 60% of the divorces end in the 1st decade of marriage causing fewer multi-children families. Even during the Cold War abortion was high and was the main method of birth control. It is even higher now with an official estimate of 1.2 million abortions/yr. According to some medical people outside of the government that number may actually be twice as large. Therefore abortion may be approaching 2% of the population/yr. The Russia government admits there is an epidemic of AIDS in the Russian population with 1% being HIV positive and is fueled by drug use. Worldwide 1/5 of heroin consumption is in Russia and 1/3 of drug users are HIV positive. The population is fleeing. The pace of the exodus rivals that at the time of the breakup of the Soviet Union. Of Russians in general 1/5 want to emigrate and fully 40% of young people in the 18 – 35 age bracket want to leave. The 2nd trend line is that Russia is transforming: The Muslim population in Russia is currently about 15% or 21 million. It is projected to be close to 20% by the end of this decade and 50% by the middle of the century. The same maladies that plague non-Muslim Russians are significantly less in the Muslim population: i.e., lower rates of abortion, divorce, drug use, AIDS & HIV, and a higher fertility rate. And more like Western Europe rather than the USA, these Muslims are not well integrated into Russian society. Everyone has heard of the problems the Russian government has had with Muslim extremists in the North Caucasus, and in particular in Chechnya and Dagestan. This problem and this area are not in the world’s headlines as much now as previously. That does not mean that the trouble has abated; on the contrary it has migrated into the Russian heartland. Recently in the capital city of Kazan in Tatarstan two Muslim clerics were assassinated for not being radical enough. Rather than having the problem under control, the Russian government may have to face several Chechnya’s in the future. The third trend line: the Chinese are coming. The Russia Far East is huge; it is 4 million sq. miles. Berman says in the Soviet Union his parents were told where to live, as were tens of millions of other people. Now people are essentially free to migrate wherever they chose and they chose NOT to live in the Far East of Russia. In Western Siberia and the Far East there are 25+ million people, that works out to about 6 people / sq. mi. – not exactly the population density of Hong Kong. The Eastern part of Russia is an energy super area, especially for oil & natural gas, as well as exploitable for many mineral deposits so it does matter. The Chinese are making large financial investments there and increasingly so. Clearly the Chinese government sees this as an important area in their future. The airline distance from Moscow to Vladivostok is 4000 miles. The distance from Beijing to Vladivostok is 830 miles or almost five times closer. This land has been disputed between Russia and China for centuries. In 2001 there was a treaty concerning this area signed by Russia and China. The Russians wanted the agreement to have a long term “sunset” clause thereby extending the treaty well into the future. The Chinese said no, let’s have a 20 year length. The Chinese figured the demographics would change in their favor and they could then be bargaining from a stronger position. Clever those Chinese. Vladimir Putin seems to think only in the short term. He has a close circle of followers who engage in massive corruption, kickbacks, and graft. Putin used to give lip service to “managed democracy”, but does not even bother with that now. For Russia to fundamentally change that system would have to go and there is not the least chance of that happening. Putin has described the collapse of the Soviet Union as one of the greatest calamities of the 20th century. And both Bush and Obama thought they could do business with him? What is the operative word here: naive or stupid? Putin may very well have achieved recent international success with his handling of Syria and Iran vis-à-vis the USA, but it could also be interpreted as drawing attention away from the internal problems of Russia. Not much is likely to change in Russia in the next few years, however the real challenge for the USA in the next 20 to 30 years will be dealing with the weakness not the strength of Russia. And a still nuclear-armed Russia may look westward and attempt to again gain hegemony over Eastern Europe.

BIG SPENDING POLITICOS-70

In these troubling financial times will the American public become increasingly aware of the unprecedented (with the possible exception of WWII where the survival of the nation was at stake) expansion and expense of the federal government? According to Republicans, they are the party of smaller, more efficient government with concomitant lower federal taxes and lower expenditures while the Democrats are the party of big, expensive government and high taxes. Does that scenario stand up to scrutiny? I tell you what – let’s do something novel and exegetically look at some pertinent data then attempt to arrive at a conclusion. D’accord? As I have shown previously in a blog essay (THE USA SPENDING & DEBT PROBLEM), here are the increases of the national debt during the terms of recent presidents: Ronald Reagan $1 ¾ trillion in 8 years G.H.W. Bush $1.5 trillion in 4 years Bill Clinton $1.5 trillion in 8 years G.W. Bush $4.9 trillion in 8 years Barack Obama $6.0 trillion in 4 years For a historical perspective let’s look at the national debt over the centuries. In analyzing this type of data over a long time span the logical and legitimate method is by using inflation adjusted dollars. Here then are some inflation adjusted (2012 dollars) figures down through the centuries and decades. I will follow up with an analytical commentary: YEAR DEBT YEAR DEBT 1791 $1.8 billion 1940 $704 billion 1801 $1.5 billion 1946 $3.2 trillion 1811 $842 million 1949 $2.4 trillion 1821 $1.8 billion 1957 $2.2 trillion 1831 $1.0 billion 1975 $2.3 trillion 1835 $0.0* 1980 $2.5 trillion 1843 $1.0 billion** 1986 $4.4 trillion 1851 $2.0 billion 1987 $4.8 trillion 1861 $2.4 billion 1990 $5.7 trillion 1866 $40 billion 2000 $7.6 trillion 1888 $41 billion 2003 $8.5 trillion 1900 $58 billion 2009 $12.7 trillion 1919 $365 billion 2010 $14.3 trillion 1930 $222 billion 2013 $16.8 trillion *President Andrew Jackson paid off the debt – the only time in USA history where the country had no debt. ** At the end of the financial Panic of 1837 – 1843 the national debt had increased to the 1831 level. Everyone can draw their own conclusions concerning these numbers, however I will mention a few factors I find significant: (1.) When considering the absolute size of the debt through time it has to be remembered that the economy of the country grew tremendously. Therefore the sustainability of the debt has to be considered in light of the ratio of the debt to the gross domestic product (GDP) of the country at the time. Nevertheless, there has been a real increase in the debt over the centuries. (2.) Even a casual reading of the numbers reveals that only in the last four decades or so has there been a monotonic increase in the debt. (3.) The periods of war (1861-1866 Civil War; 1900-1919 WWI; 1940-1946 WWII) reflect a sharp increase in the debt as the federal government borrowed and spent money to carry on its wars. The Great Depression also saw a large increase in the national debt, going from $222 billion in 1930 to $704 billion in 1940. In the 47 years following the end of the Civil War there were 36 years of surpluses and 11 years of deficits. During this period 55% of the national debt was paid off. As a rough proxy for the GDP, the USA population over the years is as follows: 1791 (4 million); 1860 (31 ½) million; 1915 (100 million); 1940 (132 million); 1968 (200 million); 2006 (300 million); and today circa 315 million. Using the past population of the country as a ratio to the current population and multiplying this ratio to the debt at that time gives an idea of the comparative debt then to now. E.g., in 1791 the population was 4 million, so multiplying the 1791 debt ($1.8 billion) by the ration of 315 million (current population) over 4 million gives an adjusted 1791 debt of $142 billion. This is a far cry from our current national debt of $16.8 trillion. In truth, using population as a measure for the country’s GDP is an imprecise method for comparing the size of the debt relative to its productivity at various times in the history of the country. The increase in the country’s GDP owing to its increased mechanization in the gathering of resources, production of goods and services, and distribution of its products will clearly outstrip the mere in crease in the population of the country. Yet recovering valid GDP data beyond more recent times is also problematic. Perhaps one can say, without being overly precise, that by any measure, the debt to GDP ration has increased over time; especially in the last four decades or so. For the first time in the history of our country, federal spending exceeded $1 trillion in fiscal year 1987 ($1.004 T). The president at that time was Ronald Reagan – who, if I am not mistaken, was a Republican. For the first time in history, federal spending exceeded $2 trillion in fiscal year 2003 ($2.011 T). The president at that time was G.H.W. Bush – who, if I am not mistaken, was a Republican. For the first time in history, federal spending exceeded $3 trillion in fiscal year 2007 ($3.107 T). The president at that time was G.W. Bush – who, if I am not mistaken, was a Republican. The increase in federal spending from 1987 to early 2013 is astronomical. Barack Obama is on tract to break this Republican trend by being the first (Democrat) president to preside over federal spending exceeding $4 trillion. And given the size of the national debt increase during his administration, his is by far the biggest spending federal government in history. Democrats have lived up to their reputation as high tax and spend politicos and Republicans have shown that they are not pikers when it comes to spending the people’s money either. Currently the federal budget is approx. $3.8 trillion. From $1 trillion in 1987 to almost $4 trillion in 2013, even though not corrected for inflation, this is such an explosive expansion in federal government spending that everyone from left wing Democrats to right wing Republicans should not only be alarmed, but be prepared to vote for politicians who will promise and then act on reversing this ruinous trend. Think about it: What are the odds that corrective action will be taken? I am not sanguine that it will happen before the country undergoes a severe financial depression with serious social unrest. Can anyone envision Democrats and Republicans stopping to blame the other party for the country’s troubles long enough to agree on a solution that will save the country any time soon? Based on recent history it is beyond my imagination.

OUR WEIGHTY COUNTRY-69

According to a program of studies designed and implemented with the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 69% (approximately 160 million) of adult Americans are overweight. This is defined as having a Body Mass Index (BMI) of greater than 25. The BMI is calculated by the formula: BMI = mass (kg.) / (height (m.)) sq. or mass (lbs.) / (height (in.)) sq. x 703. An obese person has a BMI > 30 (36% of adults) and a person classified as extremely obese has a BMI > 40 (6%). The obesity rate in this country has doubled since the 1970’s. It is true there is no accounting in the survey of factors such as the size of an individual’s frame and their musculature to the extent that one person may be classified as a bit overweight, while another person is not considered overweight. However, when considering those factors the reverse could actually be true. Still, these are averages that are definitive overall. I can personally attest to this massive (so to speak) change in the heft of the American people. In a 1939 extended family photo of 38 people (I was the cute little tyke in the front row) one woman could be described as fat (obese) and two as “chubby” (overweight); that is all. The rest of us were not overweight. There is a hypothesis that during the Great Depression being poor meant being thin while now, owing to the abundance of cheap, but high caloric fast food, being poor means being overweight. There may be some validity to that, however I also believe being overweight means putting on the feedbag too often. Clearly there seems to be a more widespread (again, so to speak) tendency for a lack of discipline pervading the American population to a greater extent now than in the past. As with other excesses, this also applies to eating. A further breakdown of the weight situation of American adults by gender and race is given below: OVERWEIGHT OBESE EXTREMELY OBESE White Males 74% 36% 4% Black Males 70% 39% 7% Hispanic Males 82% 37% 4% White Females 60% 32% 7% Black Females 82% 59% 18% Hispanic Females 76% 41% 6% In 2012 I briskly walked 760 miles in segments from 2 to 5 miles that is the equivalent in distance of walking from Plano to Texarkana and back, twice. That seems like a lot, yet it is only circa 15 miles/week for 50 weeks. At a walking rate of 15 minutes/mile I thereby burned approx. 54,720 Kcals (190 hrs. @ 288 Kcals/hr.). The classical definition of a calorie is the amount of energy it takes to heat one gram (one cubic centimeter or 1/1000 of a liter) of water one degree Celsius. The calorie associated with weight loss/gain is really 1000 calories (commonly referred to as a Kcal or the amount of energy it takes to heat one kilogram, 1000 cc, or one liter of water one degree Celsius). There are approx. 3600 Kcals burned per pound of weight loss, therefore I lost about 15 lb. (only!) of weight for one year’s worth of walking (calories continue to be burned for a while after exercise stops so I may be understating the weight loss a bit). Look at it in the long term. By walking 50 weeks per year at the same distance/week the weight loss would be at least 15 lbs. and over 5 years, everything being the same, it would amount to 75 lbs. or a bit more (270,000+ Kcals). Of course everything would not be the same, nor would I want it to be else I would look like an inmate in the Civil War Andersonville military prison camp. Ironically, my exercise regimen means that I have to eat more than I would otherwise just to keep from expiring. Now for the amusing part of this essay which I extracted from my 2007 blog essay, Fools, Frauds, and Fakes and applied it to the weight problem of myriad Americans with a story as told by Jack Cashill in his 2005 book Hoodwinked: How Intellectual Huckstered Have Hijacked American Culture. Paul Ehrlich was not a fraud or a liar. He was a good old-fashioned fool and fanatic who sincerely believed all of the folderol he espoused. His exegetic antagonist would be a man named Julian Simon. Ehrlich wrote a number of best selling books – the two most famous were The Population Bomb in 1968 and The Population Explosion in 1991. Among the crack pot predictions he made were: “By 1985 enough millions will have died to reduce the earth’s population to some acceptable level, like 1.5 billion people [this writer’s note: the current world population is 7+ billion].” He predicted that by 1980 the United States would see its life expectancy drop to 42 years because of pesticides, and by 1999 its population would drop to 22.6 million [the current USA population is about 315 million]. He envisioned the president of the USA dissolving congress during the food riots of the 1980’s, followed by the United States suffering a nuclear attack for its mass use of insecticides. Jack Cashill opined that Ehrlich was postulating that the United States would get nuked for killing bugs! In his 1968 book Ehrlich’s most optimistic outcome for the world in the next decade or so was that a new Pope would give his blessing for abortion and only half a billion people would die of starvation. The most pessimistic prediction was that worldwide famine would cause a nuclear war and the most intelligent survivors would be cockroaches. And you may have thought I was grossly exaggerating when I intimated this guy was a real nut case. But don’t think he was some obscure ‘mad as a hatter’ recluse writing out of his basement in his B.V.D.’s. His book The Population Bomb sold 3 million copies and he made 20 appearances on the Johnny Carson show alone. Ehrlich helped push the Sierra Club and Greenpeace to even more leftwing radical positions – which is like encouraging an alcoholic to belly up to the bar more often; and he was, surprise, a founding father of Earth Day. The left just loved him, tendentiously supporting him and his risible theories, ipse dixit. He was awarded a $345,000 MacArthur Foundation grant and the Crawford Prize from the Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Nobel equivalent for environmentalists. Jack Cashill says about him, “In his naturalist faith, and rejection of God, Ehrlich hews to type. Giving Ehrlich the benefit of doubt, his is not the conscious fraud of the Bunco artist, but rather the self-deception of the blowhard. He appears to have drunk often at the well of his own snake oil.” Julian Simon became increasingly tired of hearing Ehrlich’s twin themes of population increase disasters and acute shortages of natural resources so he decided to challenge Ehrlich. Simon attended Harvard on a naval ROTC scholarship and served as a junior officer after graduation until the completion of his tour of duty. He received a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Chicago and then returned to New York to work in direct marketing. Not finding that line of work fulfilling, he went to the University of Maryland as a professor of business administration until he died in 1998. Simon made a famous bet with Ehrlich. He told Ehrlich to pick any five commodities and hold them for ten years. If scarcity caused the prices to rise at the end of ten years, then Simon would buy then from Ehrlich thereby giving Ehrlich the profit difference. However if the prices declined then Ehrlich would have to pay Simon the difference between the current price and what Ehrlich purchased them for. Ehrlich picked chromium, copper, nickel, tin, and tungsten. Not only did the prices decline on all five commodities, but of 35 standard metals 33 dropped in price as did oil and food. Ehrlich paid Simon $570.07 and he paid himself much more in lost reputation. Ehrlich allowed as how the bet might have been a mistake – he could have laid long odds that it was. Simon also had a thing or two to say about Al Gore’s book Earth in the Lurch (well, perhaps the actual title is Earth in the Balance). Simon said, “The book is as ignorant a collection of clichés as anything ever published on the subject.” And he exposed the clichés of vanishing farmland, poisonous DDT, deadly dioxin, and lethal Agent Orange with hard and undeniable data. Al Gore never tried to answer Simon anymore than he tried to justify calling the internal-combustion engine the most destructive invention of man in history. To this day some on the paralogistic left still support Ehrlich in his long ago discredited chimerical theories and Ehrlich himself said just last year that refutation of his predictions is like the man falling from a building who has not yet reached the ground and stating all is well. If Ehrlich were alive 100 years from now he would likely still dispositively be saying, you just wait and see, the world is about to end – et c’est definitif.