The Frog; The Scorpion; and the Pennsylvania Primary

An old story came to mind last night while watching the Democratic Primary results in Pennsylvania. A scorpion was trying to cross a river, and saw a frog sitting on a lily pad close to shore. “Can you carry me across the river?” the scorpion asked the frog. “No,” the frog replied. “You will sting me and kill me.” The scorpion gave the frog his assurance that would not happen, and climbed on the frog’s back and they proceeded to cross the river. ½ way over, the scorpion stung the frog. “Now you have killed us both! Why did you do that?” the frog cried out. The scorpion replied “It’s my nature!”

Such is the nature of the far left and the Democratic Party. If the Democratic primary were held under Republican Party primary rules, the process would have been over last night, and Hillary Clinton would have been the nominee by a delegate landslide. But the liberal, activist wing of the party, the same folks who have castrated grades in schools, don’t want winners or losers in kids sports, and spend a great deal of time worrying about “fairness” and “inclusiveness”, has woven a hangman’s noose out of a ridiculous proportional delegate selection process, and is slowly killing itself. Such is the advantage of winner take all primaries….you actually get a winner.

Instead, the conundrum the Dems are now facing is Obama being ahead in the delegate count, mostly from states he can’t win in the general election. He is ahead in the popular vote, but only if you exclude Florida and Michigan, two states the Dems have to carry in the fall election. Include them in the total, Hillary is would be ahead in the popular vote, depending on which newscast you are watching. Hillary has won every big, industrial state except for Illinois, Obama’s home state. But to the left, that is irrelevant. Black Obama trumps female Hillary every time.

After finally being hit with tough debate questions last week as to his associations, Obama is now refusing to debate further, and you will see him cutting off press access as he hunkers down. It is “prevent” defense time. If Hillary wins Indiana and has a respectable showing in North Carolina, then it will be time to play the real race card.

The Democratic Party has something called super-delegates which are there to protect the party from another 1972 McGovern type debacle. After all, the Democratic Party is a big tent, but the coalition between blue collar “Reagan” Democrats and the Kerry/Kennedy/Gore limo and latte crowd is strained and threatening the tie ropes. The super-delegates are there to cut some slack.

Not this year. Fear has gripped the super delegates. While proportional delegate selection might satisfy left wing sensitivities, it doesn’t work that way in the general election where it is winner take all for the electoral votes. Just look at a map. With a moderate McCain giving the Reagan Democrats a place to go, an Obama nomination would be a fiasco. Under normal circumstances, this would be a no-brainer. The first term Senator from Illinois can’t win the old industrial states or Florida…go with Clinton.

But all the super-delegates will see is Obama’s race, and the inherent threat of a party collapse if they choose Hillary. The Soros crowd will freak, and the blacks….well, the commentary from the news pundits is downright scary. That, my friends, is the ultimate race card. Geraldine Ferraro called it when she said Obama would not be where he is if he wasn’t black. She is right.

This year should be an easy river crossing for the Democrats, but the left wing of the party is stinging them again. It’s their nature.

Solving the Energy Crisis for Dummies

As gasoline is approaching $4.00/gallon, and the cost of heating our homes and illuminating our houses reaches the stratosphere, it’s time that America comes to its senses with its energy policy, and fully understand and address the conundrum we have created. Unless we escape the cage into which we have locked ourselves, we are doomed as a nation. It is our Achilles heel. The cage will destroy our financial system.

I am no economist or business wunderkind. But I do have some common sense. The Federal Reserve regulates our economy by the insertion or depletion of money in and out of the system. If the economy slows down, it lowers interest rates and inserts money into the system to stimulate it. If the economy heats up, it raises interest rates and takes money out of the system to slow it down and stop inflation. It assumes, however, that there is a free market which will respond in a normal fashion to the stimulation or lack thereof.

Unfortunately, energy, and in particular oil, has ceased being a free market. Much of the supply is controlled by a cartel, or governments hostile to the interests of the United States. These folks have an agenda that really gives a rip about our well being. Even as late as 10 years ago, a slow down in the American economy would have had at least some effect on the financial well being of OPEC and other sympathetic countries. They learned that they could screw us; but if oil prices got too high, it would eventually hurt how much oil they could sell, and the prices would fall.

That has all changed as China and India have become economic powerhouses. The long and the short of it is the Fed can do whatever it wants, but it will not affect the price of oil because we have unlimited, worldwide demand, for a controlled and limited product. It would take a severe, worldwide depression to drive down the cost of oil.

What does that mean for us? It means that the Federal Reserve's arsenal of financial tricks is now depleted. It is the commodities, in particular oil, that has become the regulator of our financial stability. The Fed can try...but its interest rate manipulations can't compete with commodity prices in determining the strength of our economy. In fact, the Fed can hurt. The devaluation of our currency is a direct result of Fed action competing with commodity prices, and that exaggerates the commodity prices. The last ten bucks in oil costs are directly related to the devaluation of our currency as a result of the Fed rate cut. Any decrease in interest rates has been offset by the increasing oil prices.

And what are we doing in the United States to alleviate the situation? Nothing. Sure, we point the finger at the oil companies. They are an easy target with record profits, but their profit margin is actually 10%, which is an average profit margin for an American company. Microsoft’s profit margin is 17%. How much do we complain when we have to buy a new version of Microsoft Office every time we get a new computer?

Then we point the finger at the auto manufacturers. Yes, look at those gas guzzling SUV’s driving down the street. But I don’t think I saw the President of GM holding a gun to the head of that 100 lb. woman forcing her buy that Cadillac Escalade that she almost ran me off the road with this morning.

Then there are the environmentalist whackos. Don’t drill for oil, except if you are the Chinese drilling off the coast of Cuba, stealing American oil. Don’t build new refineries. Don’t put up windmills for electrical production, they hurt the birds. Don’t put up solar panels, they scar the environment. Don’t burn coal, global warming. Don’t build nuclear power plants, too much waste. And, oh my God, don’t build a damn for hydro electric power, except if you are the Chinese building the largest damn in the world, submerging 1000 year old cities. You might kill a fish.

Then you have the protectionists who want to scuttle NAFTA. Newsflash, folks, the 2nd largest oil reserves in the world are in CANADA!!!! Hello!! Do you really want to do that?

And let us not forget the peaceniks. We have just spent hundreds of billions of dollars to free Iraq of Saddam Hussein. But don’t touch the oil!!!!!!! Not even to repay us our out of pocket expenses?? It’s not moral, they say. We don’t fight wars for oil.

And finally, let’s not forget the farmers, who are thrilled to have historically high corn prices as we turn our food into Ethanol. How stupid is that!!!!

So there is the box we are in. Unless we break out of it, we are all going to be broke.

Here is the strategy:

1) Allow the oil companies to drill for oil off the coast of Florida and in Alaska. It can be monitored and kept environmentally friendly. Streamline the process to allow building of new refineries that can refine sour crude.

2) Give massive tax incentives and cash infusions to the American automakers to develop alternative modes of powering our cars, such as hydrogen fuel cells. We are close…it wouldn’t take much to reach the goal. Fund the building of the infrastructure that will be needed to make these cars go.

3) Muzzle the environmental whackos to allow the building and development of wind and solar power facilities, as well as clean coal burning power plants.

4) Work with Canada in developing its oil shale and oil sand resources.

5) Repay ourselves for the money spent in Iraq by taking in kind payment from Iraq’s oil.

6) Use corn for food. The increasing world population will support corn prices all by itself.

That’s how to do it folks. But what are the chances??

Seconds of Insanity; A Lifetime of Pain and Expense

Violence seems to be reaching new heights in the City of Youngstown. Senseless acts of violence stream across evening news daily. One guy is shot down in his driveway. Another has his car riddled with bullets in the middle of the day. Much of it is black on black violence, but not all of it by any means. Here is an entire black family, little ones, killed in their sleep when a disgruntled white neighbor set fire to their house at five in the morning.

Just when you think it can’t get any worse, a new low is hit. Joe Kaluza, a long time employee of Kentucky Fried Chicken and manager of a the KFC at Indianola and South Avenues, was making his trip out to Boardman to deposit his day’s cash receipts. A block from the restaurant, a car driven by a young black women, pulls out from a side street, passing him on left. It then pulls in front of him slamming on the brakes in order to cause Mr. Kaluza to crash into the back of the driver’s car. The woman then exits the car and approaches Mr. Kaluza and asks to use his cell phone. Meanwhile, another car pulls up behind Mr. Kaluza, and a young black man gets out of the car and approaches Mr. Kaluza from the other side of the vehicle, pulls a gun, and shoots Mr. Kaluza in the neck. The two then flee with approximately $300.00.

The whole thing was caught on tape by a camera mounted on a WRTA bus. The woman, Hattie Gilbert and her boyfriend Taran Helms, the shooter, now sit in jail and are awaiting whatever proceedings are to follow. According to Ms. Gilbert, this robbery was planned for some time with practice runs done actually following Mr. Kaluza several times in advance. It turns out that Ms. Gilbert’s mother worked for Mr. Kaluza sometime over the past year.

The consequences, however, are horrific. Mr. Kaluza survived the shooting, but is now paralyzed from the neck down, unable to breathe on his own. He and his wife are the parents of two mentally handicapped children, one of whom is an adult, both of whom live at home being cared for by their parents.

Here is what the Kaluza family, and society, is now facing. Mr. Kaluza’s life has been turned into a living hell needing continual and constant care. He will be eligible for workmen’s compensation, but that’s a spit in the ocean as to the costs he is going to be facing, not to mention the personal tragedy and horror of it all. His wife is now responsible for caring for 3 people, and it will be financially and physically impossible for her to do so. It seems almost impossible to imagine how she can do this without public assistance.

As to Ms. Gilbert and Mr. Helms, the state will appoint and pay lawyers to defend these dregs of society through trials then innumerable appeals. It will take up a court's time, and possibly a jury's. Then the state is going to have pay to “punish” these two scum bags in prison for a sentence that won’t be nearly enough because Mr. Kaluza survived the shooting. We don’t know if Ms. Gilbert or Mr. Helms have any children together or separately. If they do, the government will have to take care of them also.

This single, senseless act will likely cost the public treasury millions dollars over the course of the upcoming years. For the Kaluza family, the government and a generous public cannot do enough for them, and what we are able to do won’t come close to the quality of care and life they deserve. As to the thugs, any money spent on them is a waste. They are a public burden of the worst sort.

Senator Obama says he wants to have a frank discussion about race. So do I. Let’s start with this case.