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Predictions

trzupr — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 14:36:04 +0000

Ever notice how much Carnac looks like Floyd?

When President Obama speaks to America on Tuesday night about the war in Iraq he will be engaged in a political mission, one that will require the ultimate in political finesse. Democrats can’t claim much in the way of success after and year and a half of hope and change, so the mission will be to attach themselves to the success that our troops have achieved in Iraq without doing so in manner that is overtly crass or partisan. Subtlety is the key and Obama’s people are savvy enough to understand that.

How to do that? Were I my evil twin working as a speechwriter for Obama, here’s what I would suggest – below the fold.

Obama has a complicated mission tonight. Obviously, he must sing the praises and honor the sacrifices of the men and women who won this war. That’s a no brainer. Something like “whatever our political differences, we can all agree on this at least: that the courage and dedication of the men and women serving our nation in uniform is second to none and we, along with the people of Iraq, thank them for their sacrifice and devotion to duty.”

The President cannot completely ignore the fact that his predecessor pushed forward against all odds – including the opposition of Obama’s party and Obama himself – but nor can he focus on that fact. How to ride the fence on that uncomfortable issue? Something like this will do the trick: “while Americans have not always agreed that it was wise to go to war in Iraq, there is no question that our goals have been noble: to deliver the gifts of self-determination and liberty to a people who have been oppressed for so long. We might have argued among ourselves about the best way to do that, but having finally accomplished that goal it’s time for all of us to unite and celebrate what we have accomplished during this very difficult time in our history.”

That’s a sop – admittedly not much of a sop, but not much of a sop is needed – tossed toward those of us who supported the Iraqi War and the surge. We don’t actually matter. The last bit necessary is to send a signal to the administration’s supporters on the left that they were right all along. This message is easily sent, as in: “We have been successful in dividing our true enemies – the fanatics that loathe American and American ideals – from those people in Iraq who have not previously been able to come to grips with the fact that America has not invaded their country to conquer, but has rather joined with their nation to heal. We have reached out and we have found friends. We have established trust between the Iraqi and American peoples and we could hope to do no more.”

That pretty much covers it. Barack Obama won’t try to take overt credit for victory in Iraq, because his handlers know that would be patently offensive. Instead, the president will try to create a scenario in which Americans who might be on the fence conclude that he has done so. This is not a matter of appealing to the right – for he knows that there is no appealing to the right in 2010 – but it’s rather an effort to push the center back toward his side. Good luck with that Barack. As far as lost causes go, this one would seem to be just that.

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Signs of the Apocalypse

trzupr — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 16:26:07 +0000

This one will frighten you: I’ll be publishing a new book in the Spring of 2011. It’s called Regulators Gone Wild: How the EPA is Ruining American Industry and will be published by Encounter Books. The last Trzupek-authored tome was a techno-geek crap. This is a lot more in the political mainstream. Will it sell? It will if you force everyone you know to promise to buy a copy when it comes out.

If you’ve ever written a book, you know that the process of writing is both exhilarating and exhausting, but finishing the book is about as good is it gets. Who said “I hate writing, but I love having written?” I don’t quite feel that way – I love to write – but writing a book is a whole different beast. You have be disciplined and determined and you have to fight your way through all the times that you’re sick of looking at the damned thing. But – as of today – the manuscript is finished and has been shipped to Encounter (on time!) Anyway, the “brain trust” (using the term loosely) here at threedonia have known about the project for a while, but I didn’t want to break the news to y’all until I was actually done. Which now I am (save for all of the inevitable editing from the publisher to come) so now you know too.

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Missed One

trzupr — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 18:30:33 +0000

Yesterday, Mr. FN Floyd penned an excellent post about what makes America unique. Interesting thoughts and interesting contributions in the comments. Nothing at all to disagree with, but I was a mite surprised that nobody mentioned one particular aspect of America’s uniqueness. It’s the one that – to my mind anyway – is the most important factor of all. Ponder for a moment, before clicking through to find the answer revealed, below the fold.

God.

I am a religious, if not particularly pious, person. I don’t believe that God takes as personal an interest in what happens within the United States as some more pious conservatives like Beck do. On the other hand, I am certain that America’s unique relationship with and our attitude about Providence makes us special – and blessed.

There’s nothing unique about rulers appealing to a Higher Power. Monarchs have claimed Divine Right since the first caveman decided that he needed to tell the rest of the tribe what to do. But America’s relationship with God has been different. Rather than saying the Will of God flowed through our rulers down to the people, the Founding Fathers believed that the Will of God manifested itself in the people themselves and flowed upward to those charged with taking care of the nation’s business.

Today, most everyone on the left believes that America is a secular nation that tolerates religion. They’ve got it backwards. America is – or at least has been up to now – a Godly nation that recognizes the inherent value of secular government. America is not a theocracy, but neither is America or the American ideal atheistic. We’re a unique blend of faith and reason. Here’s praying we stay that way.

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Blunder-Butts

trzupr — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 03:24:10 +0000

Exhibit A: Hazards of recoil

Mr. Floyd’s excellent post about the EPA declining to try to ban lead in bullets (the opening of the EPA’s press release on the issue read: ‘EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson hailed the Agency’s decision not ban lead bullets, saying: “See, we’re not entirely morons!” ‘) reminded me of a case I was peripherally involved with some years ago. It involved a gun club that decided to sell its property and move to a new location.

Being good, responsible guys and gals, the gun club’s membership authorized and paid for removal of the dirt on the range and they shipped it off to a hazardous waste landfill – just to make sure that none of the lead slugs would remain when the new owners did whatever they were going to do with the land. (Breed baby seals maybe? I can’t remember). The proper forms were filled out and the landfill that took the dirt was authorized and constructed to handle lead-containing materials. But, in spite of that, the EPA sued the gun club for over $1 million dollars. Care to guess why? Ponder for a moment, before I reveal the answer – below the fold.

The EPA sued the gun club for operating an illegal hazardous waste dump – which would be the gun club itself.

Now you’re probably thinking: how the hell can that be? That would make every gun club and every shooting range in the nation an illegal hazardous waste dump. Not according to regulatory logic my friends. According to EPA logic, an item becomes a waste when it is no longer used for its intended purpose. They decided that the act of firing a gun, the bullet exiting the barrel of the gun, the bullet passing through the target and the bullet falling to the ground are all part of a bullet’s job. However, when somebody digs the bullet up out the ground, well – that’s something different! It is not part of bullet’s intended purpose to be removed from the ground once it has been discharged from a firearm.

In other words, by cleaning up the gun range, the gun club magically transformed the spent bullets from “products” to “wastes” and, once the spent bullets became wastes, the gun club was obliged to seek a permit to operate a hazardous waste dump under the provisions of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. On the other hand, if the gun club did nothing – if they left the lead in the ground – then they would have been fine.

I am not making this up.

I can’t emphasize enough how often crap like this goes down in the day job. As maddeningly creative and interpretive as liberal judges are when it comes to interpreting the law and the Constitution to achieve the ends they want, the flip side is that regulators are about as narrow-minded and inflexible (and downright idiotic) as possible when it comes to enforcing environmental (and other) regulations – actual effects be damned! Why in the hell should an Agency charged with protecting the environment create impediments to doing so? Yet, the EPA does stupid stuff like this all of the time.

It should be noted in closing that the gun club fought the EPA and took the agency to court. The club eventually won their case, but it cost them several hundred thousand dollars in legal fees to force the EPA to back off. It was a victory, but of the decidedly Pyrrhic variety, for win or lose the process itself is usually penalty enough.

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Weirdo

trzupr — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 16:18:03 +0000

Marvin Gaye’s performs for The Association of Stereotypical White People

This is a weekend truth or dare folks. Your challenge: reveal something that’s a little offbeat – strange – weird even – about yourself. Not disturbing (Floyd take note: NOT disturbing – we don’t care if the statute of limitations has run out or not: we don’t want to know!), but rather a little quirk that you might not advertise in church, yet which you can talk about in the freedom of cyberspace. I’ll start:

I never put down a book if the page I’m stopping on is divisible by three, nor will I stop at the end of the third paragraph on a page. No idea when or why this started, but I’ve been doing it forever. In general, I’m not very OCD but in this particular thing, I very much am.

OCD behaviors in general aren’t bad, as long as they don’t take over a person’s life. I suspect that they are most often used as just another way of coping with life’s unknowns – fooling ourselves that we can control fate, just like superstitions, the use of talisman, etc. Prayer is (obviously) the preferred approach for dealing with the great unknown for any person of faith, but silly pagan rituals still creep into many lives that are otherwise very religous.

Anyway, that’s weirdo me. How about weirdo you?

Also, please feel free to out your spouse’s weird behavior – they won’t mind a bit! Promise!

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Burn It Up Baby

trzupr — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 18:44:33 +0000

Burn Notice season finale tonight – I can’t wait!

Proving that there is an exception to prove each and every rule, I an enamored with Fiona. Her’s is not usually my preferred body type – nothing against the Victoria’s Secret model archetype, it’s just not my personal favorite cup of tea. But who doesn’t love Fi? Sigh…

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Pandora’s Box Having Been Opened…

trzupr — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 13:05:24 +0000

When the history of Threedonia is written, this will be the known as “They Day Everything Went to Hell”.

h/t: Mrs. Trzupr

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Feeling Hot Hot Hot

trzupr — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 13:00:53 +0000

Airplanes are, by their nature, awfully beautiful things. And, fixed-wing airframes are far more attractive than their rotary-winged cousins. An Apache is scary as hell, but it’s not very sexy (sorry Outlaw). So, herewith is my top five sexiest fixed-wing aircraft of all time. For the record: I am none too committed to this list. Aviation engineers have produced so many attractive aircraft over the years that it’s hard to narrow down the list to five. I’m sure that I’ve missed many a plane that deserves attention, and I’m equally sure that y’all will correct my oversights.

It’s worth noting that I generally bend over backwards to duly consider foreign aircraft in these lists, yet this one is dominated by the U.S. of A. I tried hard to give the rest of the world its due, but – when it comes to airframes – the fact that I landed back in America this time should merely serve as a reminder of how cool we really are. (Take THAT BHO!)

I expect that some will wonder why I didn’t include the SR-71 on this list. Well, sexy is in the eye of the beholder. The Blackbird is a singular work of aviation history and it’s got looks aplenty, but – for me – they’re not sexy looks. One doesn’t have to necessarily disconnect bad-ass and sexy (e.g.: Lara Croft) but the SR-71 seems much more the former than that latter – but perhaps that’s just me.

Didn’t include experimental aircraft by the way – they’ve got an unfair advantage in this kind of contest. Anyway, read on McDuffs – below the fold:

# Honorable Mention – Lockheed L-1049 Constellation. Triple-tailed, streamlined and far faster than any other civilian airliner in the air at the time, the Connie was a groundbreaker designed by the ultimate groundbreaker – Kelly Johnson. Given its civilian mission, the Connie could never be as attractive as “built for speed” military aircraft, but its sleek design was the ultimate in sexiness for the civilian market.

#5 – North American P-51 Mustang. Slender, sleek and speedy, the P-51 was the ultimate air superiority fighter in WWII. Piston engine fighters didn’t get any better than the Mustang.

#4 – Supermarine Spitfire – The Spit wasn’t superior to the Mustang in any discernable terms, but, with its elliptical wings, it was more beautiful IMHO.

#3 – Republic F-105 Thunderchief – The workhorse of the bombing campaign in Vietnam was the penultimate creation of Republic Aviation. (Assuming you don’t count the A-10, but that was built after Fairchild acquired Republic). Those air inlets positioned at the wing roots are uber-cool.

#2 – North Amerian F-86 Sabre – A tad slower, but a more reliable and stable gun platform than its great Korean War opponent, the Mig-15, the F-86 represents the first giant leap in American air dominance in the jet age. The fact that it’s a beauty is just icing on the cake.

#1 – Convair B-58 Hustler – The Hustler’s operational life would last less than a decade, from 1960 to 1969, because Soviet surface to air missiles quickly made it obsolete. No matter. The Hustler exuded speed (Mach 2, as a matter of fact) and it was as sexy an aircraft as has ever been designed in the US. Sure, the B-1 is just about as spectacular when its wings are tucked in, but I still prefer the B-58. Damn thing looks like it’s breaking the sound barrier when it’s parked.

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What NOT To Get Me For My B-Day

trzupr — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 15:06:29 +0000

Doc - why I can’t get over my agoraphobia?

According to this story, Los Angeles Steve Hermann just completed his latest project: a 13,875 square foot glass walled house. Price tag? $35 million. According to Hermann:

“Here I have complete privacy. It allows you to be one with nature inside the house.”

Personally, if I want to be one with nature, I walk outside the house. That’s why God invented doors, I think. Light streaming through a window is fabulous. Nature pouring in from all sides through glass walls is disturbing – it’s like the opposite of a refuge. No doubt that living in such a place will lead to a new, yet to be named, psychological condition.

More pics here. And, to answer the question that’s on your mind: it appears that the guy had enough sense not to use glass walls on the crappers.

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$787 Billion Later

trzupr — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 18:02:48 +0000

It is often said that public cannot recall anything that happened more than 72 hours ago. Yet, we Threedonians have longer memories than that, don’t we? Excepting Fritz of course, what with the impending Alzheimer’s and all. (He’ll forget I wrote that by the time he reaches the end of the post, so I’m not really worried about retaliation).

So, cast your minds back to January 2009. The economy was in the crapper – just like it is today – but the freak-out level about it was far higher. Fortunately we had a new president who was going to fix everything. The key to fixing everything was something called the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, otherwise known as “the stimulus”. We were told that the stimulus would spur economic recovery and save jobs. One of the key documents supporting that theory was authored by Christina Romer, then a designee for the incoming president’s council of economic advisors, and Jared Bernstein, part of Vice-President Biden’s staff. That document, entitled “The Job Impact of American Recovery and Reinvestment Act,” showed just how badly we needed the stimulus to avoid crippling unemployment. The graph below the fold, summarizing the predicted job impact of the stimulus, is taken from Romer and Bernstein’s study. I’ve added a necessary modification, but otherwise the graph is exactly as published. I believe that it speaks for itself:

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