Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Gore Gored

NASA reported ocean levels have receeded one quarter of an inch this year. CERN reports that cosmic rays from sun affect cloud cover, warming and cooling climate. I have long maintained that the green house gas effect as a cause of global climate change was only a small part of the total picture of climate change and that there are a myriad of factors affecting the climate, The green house effect is popular as a theory because it is simple to present and leads us to believe we can do things to influence changes. Unfortunately, reality is not easy to manipulate and the more science examines the causes of climate variation the more complex the process appears. Go buy your carbon offsets from Gore's companies if it makes you feel good but don't expect much other reward

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

What Benefits for Big Oil

I have asked repeatedly for someone to enlighten me on the benefits "Big Oil" recieves from the federal government. The depletion allowance benefit was removed in 1975. The only thing that I know of is the allowance of intangible drilling costs as an expense intead of forcing capitalization of such costs and I can't see how this is benefit because if you capitalize a dry hole on accounting basis that would be an asset.. I can see the ridiculous situation evolving that the more dry holes you drill the greater your assets. Canada tried this for a while back in the 50's it was a disaster.. The only benefits I can find that "Big Oil" gets are the same benefits any corporation gets under the tax laws. If any of my readers know of benefits please enlighten me. I have a hunch that the attack on "Big Oil" benefits is a political ploy to draw attention away from the money being wasted on Ethanol and many other subsidized "Green Energy" initiatives.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

sauce for the goose

If Bill keller, outgoing editor of the N Y Times wants faith questions on the table will he support questioning wether president obama's early exposure to Islam will affect his decisions, or if his attendance at reverend wright's fundamentalist black liberation church will be more in ascendance. I am an atheist and peoples religous beliefs are immaterial to me, take 'em or leave'em., but does the president get a pass as a religous person on the creation- evolution brouhaha ? He has, because of the assumption that any Columbia, Harvard "intellectual" is ,of course an ardent evolutionist


Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Greetings Gate Lets Regulate

The congress creates agencies . The administration appoints the heads . Then agencies are on their own to do what they do best, grow. The more they grow the more power they have , the more people they have the more money they get. There are two prime fertiizers to their growth, a congress that is inattentive because it is raising money for the next election and regulations. The more regulations they promulgate the more power they have and the more employees they need. This has effects, it creates an entrenched bureaucracy and insures votes for favored congress people. The explosion of regulation over the past years is unfathomable, the tax code is 75,000 pages, there are 4400 actions criminal under statutes, now we are faced with new regulations coming almost daily from the EPA , FDA, HUD. Obamacare is going to bring a plethora of sub-agencies , an army of new employees as is the Dodd-Frank bill. There is no end in sight . Our only hope is the bureacrats will be so innundated with their own paperwork they'll leave productive people alone.

Friday, August 12, 2011

nostalgia bites

i remember, i remember the time i was a child watching the building of the triboro bridge in the midst of the depression­. when city kids wore knickers and sold copies of "Liberty" magazine in hopes of winning a football. when a rather talented violinist would prowl the back alleys playing and accepting pennies wrapped in newspaper thrown from apartment windows., when the "buy ole clothes man "toured the nieghborho­od with his garbled soft cry. when entertainm­ent for my elders was a Saturday night of penny poker , radio music and a shared growler of beer. i also remember when the WPA built many of the structures we still use today and the CCC worked in national parks. Perhaps the country needs a WPA and CCC today instead of 99 weeks of unemployme­nt insurance. ry

Saturday, August 06, 2011

FDA and governer perry

I must admit I am jealous of governor Perry. He was able to get a purely experimental treatment of his back problem with the use of stem cells. I on the other hand have been trying to get stem cell treatment of an arthritic shoulder with a stem cell treatment which has a wealth of expermental experience behind it. This treatment successful with two of my acquaintances and and was available in Colorado. However the FDA in its infinite bureacratic wisdom sued to stop the practice , not alledging that it was ineffective or harmful, but that injecting a patient with his own stem cells was use of an illegal drug. The desire to get this treatment was fueled by the hope of avoiding shoulder arthoplasty whih is a serious surgical procedure. I could get this stem treatment in other countries and still may do so. The FDA ignores tested procedures used for years around the world for example hyaluronic acid for use in joints other than knees,EDAP treatments for prostate cancer and other available researched procedures. The agency belatedly accepted as true that bacteria caused ulcers. I believe that they are still frightend of another thalidomide mistake and spend more time covering their rearends than furthering the course of medicine. It may be hyperbole but i think we would still be using leeches if te agency existed in the 19th century.