Motivation Monday

Never Enough

Great article today (Friday 3/29) in the WSJ by Peggy Noonan.  If you've read at all you know that she is one of my favorites.  I don't always agree and she is sometimes too passive, but I think today she hits the nail on the head.  It's all about the divisions in our culture and how we seem to not do anything but hate each other.  Read her article, especially the highlighted paragraph, below and then I'll give my take on this issue and others in our culture.

The Two Americas Have Grown Much Fiercer

The U.S. was divided 46 years ago. But no one saw it as a fight to the death.

 By Peggy Noonan

March 28, 2019 

Sometimes you write about the most obvious thing in the world because it is the most important thing. Reaction to the outcome of Robert Mueller’s investigation shows Americans again how divided we are. If you are more or less of the left, you experienced the probe as a search for truth that would restore the previous world of politics. Instead the traitor got away with it and you feel destabilized, deflated. If you are of the Trumpian right, it was from the beginning an attempted coup, the establishment using everything it had to remove a force it could not defeat at the polls. You are energized, elated.

Now both sides will settle down, with the left as forthcoming in its defeat as the right is forbearing in its victory. I just wanted to show you my fantasy life. The Trump forces will strike with a great pent-up anger, and the left will never let go.

Both sides will be intensely human. And inhuman. Because the past few years the character of our political divisions has changed, and this must be noted again. People are proud of their bitterness now. Old America used to accept our splits as part of the price of being us—numerous, varied, ornery. Current America, with its moderating institutions (churches) going down and its dividing institutions (the internet) rising, sees our polarization not as something to be healed but a reason for being, something to get up for. There’s a finality to it, a war-to-the-death quality.

It is, actually, shocking, and I say this as a person always generally unshocked by American political division, because I came of age in it. When I was a kid we came together as a nation when John F. Kennedy died and manned rockets went up, but after that it was pretty much turmoil—Vietnam, demonstrations, Watergate. You were on one side or the other. The terms left and right started replacing the boring old Democratic and Republican.

I will never forget seeing, on the cover of Time magazine, in October 1972, an essay by Lance Morrow that was ostensibly about the last days of the race between Richard Nixon and George McGovern but really about something bigger. I was in college, and it struck me hard. It was called “The Two Americas,” and was elegantly written and prescient. The candidates were so unlike each other that they seemed to represent different “instincts” about America. “They suggested almost two different countries, two different cultures, two different Americas,” Mr. Morrow wrote. “The McGovern campaign marches to the rhythms of the long, Wagnerian ’60s”—racial upheaval, the war, feminism, the sexual revolution. McGovernites had a more romantic conception of what leadership could be, should be.

In Nixon’s America, on the other hand, there was “the sense of ‘system.’ The free enterprise system, the law and order system, even the ‘family unit’ system.” They were protective of it, grateful to it. And the antonym to their idea of system wasn’t utopia, it was chaos. “They are apprehensive of the disorders that the late ’60s adumbrated to them, the turmoils that they suspect a McGovern accession might bring.” They wanted evolution, not revolution.

While Nixon supporters tended to be more “comfortable,” McGovern backers had their own kind of detachment. Harvard sociologist David Riesman was quoted on part of McGovern’s constituency, professional elites: “They have very little sense of that other day-by-day America.”

Mr. Morrow noted a dynamic still with us, only more so. On both sides, “voters repeat their candidate’s themes and even rhetoric with a precision that is sometimes eerie.” He concluded with the observation that within the two Americas he saw “one common denominator,” the sophistication of the people, their earnest desire, left, right and center, to find and support the best thing for America.

It was written with a respect and warmth toward the American people that is not so common now.

The notion of a country divided reinforced what I thought at the time I’d been seeing. The facts and feel of the divisions change, but division isn’t bad, it’s inevitable and human.

In my lifetime I have seen two things that have helped us reorder ourselves as a nation into some rough if temporary unity. Tragedy, such as 9/11, is one. Sheer political popularity is another. Ronald Reagan had two authentic landslides, the second time, in 1984, winning 49 states. Today’s America doesn’t yield outcomes like that. But there was something we did then that could never happen now.

Writing is never pleasurable, at least for anyone sane, but the most pleasurable and satisfying speeches I worked on with Reagan were those in which you get to bring your love for the other side. A Rose Garden speech praising the excellence of Scoop Jackson or JFK, a speech never given on the excellence of Eleanor Roosevelt. We quoted Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman more than Dwight Eisenhower. The boss had been a Democrat. He’d stumped for Truman in ’48 with Truman. Reagan was not sentimental about our divisions—he knew exactly why he was not a Democrat anymore—but he took every chance he could to reach across the lines and hold on.

But that kind of popularity is probably not possible in this environment. That’s for many reasons, and one is that policy demands have become maximalist. It’s not enough that contraceptives be covered in the government-mandated plan; the nuns must conform. It’s not enough you be sensitive to the effect of your words and language; you must be punished for saying or thinking the wrong thing. It’s not enough that gay marriage is legal; you must be forced to bake the cake. It won’t do that attention be paid to scientific arguments on the environment; America must upend itself with green new deals or be judged not to care about children.

Nothing can be moderate or incremental, everything must be sweeping and definitive. It is all so maximalist, and bullying.

In that environment people start to think that giving an inch is giving a yard. And so they won’t budge.

You don’t even get credit for being extreme in your views but mild in your manner, in the way that people called Barry Goldwater both extreme and mild. Now you must be extreme in your manner or it doesn’t count, you’re not one of us.

It is just such an air of extremeness on the field now, and it reflects a larger sense of societal alienation. We have the fierce teamism of the lonely, who find fellowship in their online fighting group and will say anything for its approval. There are the angry who find relief in politics because they can funnel their rage there, into that external thing, instead of examining closer and more uncomfortable causes. There are the people who cannot consider God and religion and have to put that energy somewhere.

America isn’t making fewer of the lonely, angry and unaffiliated, it’s making more every day.

So I am worried, which is the point of this piece. The war between Trump and not-Trump will continue, will not be resolved, will get meaner. One side will win and one side will lose and the nation will go on, changed.

Is it self-indulgent to note that this grieves me? I suppose it is. But it grieves me.

The phrase that really, really, really resonates with me is "...the policy demands have become maximalist".  We seem to have come to a place in our culture that for everything, and I mean absolutely every issue, you're either for someone or something, or you're against them.  No nuance.  No agreeing that things have changed and we need to recognize that without upending everything.  No incrementalism.  No quarter is given.  The thing is, cultural change is difficult and incremental.  You can't change people's hearts or minds overnight.  We see violence being used as an agent of change, but it is only for dramatic impact and to make a statement.  It never breeds permanent change.

An area that really exemplifies that attitude is in climate change.  We've all heard of the absurd Green New Deal and the exclamation that the world is going to end in 12 years if we don't upend everything we know and destroy our economy based on uncertain science.  But if you ask questions, you're a rube and a bumpkin and a denier and you just need to sit down and shut up.  I offered my thoughts on this craziness a few weeks ago here.

There is also a fair amount of hypocrisy in those who become outraged or mortally distressed by tragic events happening around them.  Violence is always bad and results in heartache and ruined lives.  But I see people "standing in solidarity" for this group or the other that has some tragic event befall them and this selective outrage grates on me.  I mean, there are tens and hundreds of this group or the other being killed every day.  Is it that all violence sympathy is local and people have a genuine feeling for their neighbors?  Or is it the politically correct thing to do?  I'm sure for some it is one and for some it is the other.  But offering "thoughts and prayers" or "standing in solidarity" is to me useless.  If you truly believe in something, do something.  Work for change.  Whatever it is.  I might not agree with it, but take a real stand.

In the realm of weapons, I see people outraged at the weapon and not the person pulling the trigger.  As if getting rid of weapons would get rid of violence.  Now don't get me wrong.  There is evil in the world and bad things happen.  But someone is behind that violence.  We seem to be incapable of figuring out how to take weapons out of the hands of crazy people.  Or we don't have the will to implement policies that would categorize people appropriately as not being someone who should possess a weapon.

You can't believe that abortion is a difficult issue and should be minimized without being labeled someone who hates women.  You can't think that abortions should be legal, safe and rare without people accusing you of wanting women to slink into dark alleys and get abortions with a coat hangar. You can't think that Planned Parenthood has some major and serious problems and has exhibited questionable behavior without being against women's health and wanting them to be subservient to men.  In this area in particular there is no room for reasonable dialog and questioning.  You're on either one side or the other.

One of the biggest maximalist issue today is our Southern border issue.  I written plenty about this but it's getting worse and worse.  It is the ultimate polarizing issue. If you discuss solutions that are anything short of open borders and amnesty, you are heartless.  You are for putting kids in cages.  You don't care about the poor Mothers bringing their kids here for opportunity.  If you talk about drugs flowing into the country, laws being broken, the lie of asking for asylum, or any other traditional and logical issue to solve the problem you are heartless.  

And so it goes.   Discussion of almost any issue we face today to include those above quickly dissolves into black and white.  There is no grey.  No questions are allowed.  And if you don't believe as I believe, you are evil.  Ruin the baker, demonize the Nuns, ground the airplanes, close the pipeline, imprison the politically incorrect!  You are demonized.  You are irrelevant.  I don't know...maybe I'm just getting old.  But it really makes me want to shout, GET OFF MY LAWN!

Friday Funnies

New golf rules effective April 1, 2019 for players over Age 65.

Rule 9.k.34(a) - If a tree is between the ball and the hole, and the tree is deemed to be younger than the player, then the ball can be moved without penalty. This is so because this is simply a question of timing; when the player was younger, the tree was not there so the player is being penalized because of his age.
Rule 2.- A ball sliced or hooked into the Rough shall be lifted and placed on the Fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the Rough with no penalty. The senior player should not be penalized for tall grass which ground keepers failed to mow.
Rule 2.d.6 (B) - A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed NOT to have hit the tree. This is simply bad luck and luck has no place in a scientific game. The senior player must estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree, and play the ball from there.
Rule 3.B.3(G) - There shall be no such thing as a lost ball. The missing ball is on or near the course and will eventually be found and pocketed by someone else, thereby making it a stolen ball. The senior player is not to compound the felony by charging himself with a penalty.
Rule 4.c.7(h) - If a putt passes over a hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The Law of Gravity supersedes the Rules of Golf.
Rule 5. - Putts that stop close enough to the cup that they could be blown in, may be blown in. This does not apply to balls more than three inches from the Hole. No one wants to make a mockery of the game.
Rule 6.a.9(k) - There is no penalty for so-called “out of bounds.” If penny-pinching golf course owners bought sufficient land, this would not occur. The senior player deserves an apology, not a penalty.
Rule 7.G.15(z) - There is no penalty for a ball in a water hazard, as golf balls should float. Senior players should not be penalized for any shortcomings of the manufacturers.
Rule 8.k.9(S) - Advertisements claim that golf scores can be improved by purchasing new golf equipment. Since this is financially impractical for many senior players, one-half stroke per hole may be subtracted for using old equipment.

Please advise all your senior friends of these important rule changes and keep multiple copies in your golf bag. Those not following the rules need to be provided a copy.
Golf is.... after all.... a game of integrity.

Allegiances

Every week at my Rotary Club we open the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance.  And every week one of the members is assigned to lead the group in the Pledge.  They are told that if they want to say a few words about the Pledge then that's okay but to keep it short and get to the Pledge because there is a lot going on at every meeting.  Over the course of the last few years people have research and discovered everything possible to say about the flag, the Pledge, the origins and modifications, the pronunciation and on, and on, and on.  You get the idea.  We literally are coming to the end of the road when it comes to the Pledge factoids.  So a lot of folks now simply stand up and say "please join me in the Pledge".  Which is just fine!  There doesn't need to be some big production.

So you guessed it.  This week was my turn.  So I dutifully visited my friend Google and started looking for something about the Pledge that hadn't been covered.  Something.  Anything.  And in the course of doing that and entering in all kinds of search parameters, I stumbled on the oath of allegiance taken by people who are gaining citizenship.  I had never seen it before and it is pretty interesting.  Here it is:

"I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state, or sovereignty of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the Armed Forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God." 

So that got me thinking about the oath of enlistment/re-enlistment that I administered to so many Sailors during my 25 years in the U.S. Navy.  Here it is:

"I, (state name of enlistee), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."

Although it's been almost 20 years since I retired from the Navy, those words came back to me.  I remembered that in almost every re-enlistment ceremony I took the time to emphasize and remind those listening that as Americans, we don't swear allegiance to a sovereign, a person, a piece of land or anything else besides the idea of living in freedom as set out in the Constitution.  It's a powerful thought that in the course of human history, ours is the only time and we are the only people who have decided that we are living our lives in freedom.  That there was a small band of geniuses (and there's no other word for it) who, 250 years ago threw off the shackles of tyranny and said in our Declaration of Independence that "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."  

So that thought naturally flowed to the Pledge of Allegiance.

"I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Every school kid says (or should say) the pledge.  We say it at Rotary.  There are a lot of other places we say it.  And I for one am proud to say it.  We are so lucky to live in this time, in this country, no matter our circumstances.  And I'm honored and humbled that I have been so lucky to have been born in this greatest experiment in freedom in the history of mankind.

So that's what I told them.  And...it was a big hit!

Friday Funnies

Motivation Monday

Friday Funnies

College, Crimes, and Collusion

It's only Wednesday and already there are three stories out there that give me pause.  One of them gives me more than pause...I'm shocked and saddened.  Shocked in the way Captain Louis Renault was in Casablanca when he found out that there was gambling was going on at Rick's.  Of course the rich and powerful have always tried to pull strings to their and their families advantage.  But to this degree?  Yikes!  And saddened at what this scandal is doing to us, to our culture, and to some innocent kids.

Of course I'm talking about the disgusting story of rich fat cats and celebrities cheating to get their kids into elite schools.  It is disgusting on so many levels.  You can't read a paper, or a news site or turn on the TV without hearing about it so I'll not link any of that.  Instead, one of my favorite writers knocked it out of the park with his analysis.  Jason Gay pulls no punches in his WSJ article..  Here it is:

"An Idiot’s Guide to Bribing and Cheating Your Way Into College

A college and college sports scam shows a flaw in the admissions system—and a culture of entitlement gone amok

 By Jason Gay 

March 13, 2019 

Like any modern parent, I believe that my children are geniuses—but, hey, who knows. At the moment, my son’s passion is melting crayons all over the living room radiator. His sister tells me that when she grows up, she wants to be a unicorn. They’re truly delightful kids, and may indeed wind up changing the world. It’s also possible they’re not Ivy League material.

The last bit is no shame. I’ve never been Ivy League material myself. But this week, I learned that if I want my kids to go to an elite university—or even a not-so-elite university—all I have to do is find the right fraudsters, deliver a brown envelope of cash and be willing to cheat, cheat, cheat and lie, lie, lie.

I may also need—and I’m going to require a little help with this, if anyone has the necessary computer expertise—to photo shop my children’s faces atop the bodies of some random water polo players or maybe a football kicker. (Back to this in a minute.)

Has there been a more exquisite snapshot of contemporary American privilege than this week’s news of the federal prosecution into cheating and bribery in college admissions? Dozens of wealthy parents—some of them titans of business, a couple of them celebrities—are charged with allegedly steering money to fixers, scammers and (of course) more than a few allegedly wayward college sports coaches to secure their children’s dubious entry into the colleges of their dreams.

A side door, they called it.

A sewer pipe of entitlement is probably a better term of art.

If you or your children earned admission to college the hard way, I am sorry. Those chumps who stay up all night with calculus, or slog through Faulkner, or ride the bench for junior varsity field hockey—that sort of earnest commitment is apparently for suckers. Turns out, if your parents are rich and crooked enough, there’s no need to be yearbook copy editor, student body treasurer, co-chair of the reptile club or spend any time in the driveway honing your 3-pointer.

That summer internship at the vet’s office is probably a waste of time, too. To hell with those cats.

I am half-horrified and half-entertained by this scandal, because it is such a calamitous example of 21st century priorities gone amok. An allegedly rogue college consultant turned informant has provided the government an alleged blueprint of a multimillion-dollar world of secret parental payoffs and loopholes used to avoid the aggravating scut work of, you know, kids actually working hard in high school to get a slot in college.

The government’s named source—William Rick Singer, who ran a California-based consulting agency called Edge College and Career Network LLC, but known widely as (you can’t make this up) “The Key”—has detailed a web of alleged payoffs and ruses that allowed ordinary candidates passage into schools including Yale, Stanford, Georgetown, USC, UCLA and Wake Forest.

In a few instances, the skulduggery was expensive but straightforward, like a parent allegedly paying $75,000 for a child to take the ACT exam privately, with a proctor on site to correct errors.

More often, college sports was the mechanism for the hustle. Singer allegedly built relationships with college coaches who allegedly agreed to push the candidacies of undeserving students—students who would later be admitted as full-paying athletic prospects, even if they lacked athletic talent. The coach allegedly got an envelope of cash. In return, a paying parent allegedly got a child admitted to a school he or she wouldn’t otherwise be admitted to. As soon as the kid showed up on campus, they could bail on the sport they couldn’t play, with no repercussion.

Hence a string of comical allegations: “rowers” who couldn’t row, allegedly drifting into USC. An alleged “soccer player” incapable of playing competitive soccer, allegedly rolling into Yale. A fake sailor allegedly trying to sail into Stanford; tennis hackers allegedly hacking into Georgetown and Texas, virtueless volleyball allegedly winding its way to Wake Forest.

And that kid’s face allegedly photoshopped atop the body of a random water polo player, to prove water polo prowess? That’s a real claim, too, allegedly submitted to USC. (Singer also allegedly doctored another student’s face onto the body of a football kicker—even though the student’s high school didn’t offer football.)

There’s no indication here that the children of these parents charged in this case were involved in the fraud.

But the parents who are alleged? Phew. Where to start?

These are not the first parents charged with buying their children’s way into college, of course; especially at the nation’s finest universities and colleges, there’s a hallowed tradition of admitting the mediocre spawn of the moneyed. On many campuses, you’ll find inspired buildings bankrolled by the families of uninspired brains.

Meanwhile, anyone who’s had a whiff of the contemporary college admissions process knows how parental money already greases the ritual, from the hiring of tutors and test-preppers to sports-video Scorseses who can edit a JV quarterback to resemble the next Brett Favre. Meritocracy is an illusion—long before an application shows up at a school, the system is legitimately stacked in favor of the wealthy. Kids who aren’t from privileged backgrounds are at a steep disadvantage, simply because they cannot afford the add-on accoutrements.

Now here, with the government’s case, comes a wave of high net-worth parents who allegedly aren’t even making a pretense of their children earning admission—Mom and Dad are just going to pay, and they’ll pay this underbelly of surrogates allegedly willing to make it happen, because the surrogates want the money, and they know the system is rigged.

There is something so entitled and 2019 about all of it—yet another example of the powerful endorsing cheating and lying, and rationalizing that the scammery doesn’t really matter, if the ends justify the means. Hard work, integrity, truth…those are increasingly quaint values to an entitlement culture conditioned to get what it wants, and believe what it wants to believe.

To the anxious parents and prospective applicants out there, a tip from a sports columnist who only scammed his way into college bars: None of this nonsense is worth it. College is college—some schools have more to offer than others, but in your life, you’re going to meet plenty of useless dingbats who went to the most distinguished colleges in the country. You’ll also encounter wizards who barely went to school at all.

Also this: Not everyone cheats. Not everyone cuts corners. There isn’t a diploma in the world that’s more valuable than your integrity—and you can’t buy your integrity back. These may be old-fashioned, naive notions, but I don’t care. This is what I’m telling my kids, after I remind them to stop melting crayons on the radiator, because it’s really a nightmare to clean.

Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com

Appeared in the March 14, 2019, print edition as 'An Idiot’s Guide to Bribing, Cheating Your Way Into College.'"

There's not much else to say.  These parents are beyond belief.  The kids are damaged.  The coaches are out of a job and a career.  The schools have lost some sheen.  And there are a lot of good, hard working kids who didn't get in somewhere becuase someone else had a slot bought and paid for.  It's just all so...smarmy!

And then we get to Manafort.  I can't think of him without thinking..."that poor bastard".  His is a white collar crime.  In many, many, many cases it wouldn't be prosecuted.  In fact there was knowledge of the purported activity for a long time by the U.S. Atorney and they declined to prosecute.  And if it were there would be a plea bargain that would be costly and hold him accountable, but it wouldn't be too heinous and out of proportion.  But since he was affiliated with Trump as an early campaign manager the Feds decided to go after him.  Maybe get him to flip, whatever that means.  And go after him they did.  A middle of the night raid on his house with guns drawn.  Thrown into solitary confinement.  Stripped of almost everything he owns or has.  He is broke, in jail, sick, disgraced.  I get that he broke the law.  But the result is way out of proportion.  And all because he was affiliated with Trump.  And now we hear that the NY District Attorney is going to go after him.  That's because if Trump pardons him they can still keep him in jail.  These people are like the Romans going after the Carthaginians.  Kill them all.  Rape and kill their wives.  Kill their children.  Burn their villages and salt their fields.  Brutal.

And finally we hear about testimony that Linda Page, the former FBI lawyer gave behind closed doors to the House Judiciary Committee last year.  It finally comes out.  And more will come out.  And what comes out is that the Obama Department of Justice instructed that Hillary would get a pass.  The FBI was considering Gross Negligence charges and the DOJ squashed it.  Nice, huh?  We've heard the word collusion a lot in the last two years.  If you look at how all this unfolded and the players involved, you can come to no other conclusion than there was massive collusion.  And if you've read this blog at all you know I have no doubt in my mind that Hillary is a criminal and should have been prosecuted.  I think gross negligence would be the least of the charges.

So where does all of this lead?  I can think of no other term that fits better than "the swamp".  We have people who are entitled beyond belief cheating, bribing and lying with impunity.  We have runaway prosecutors who are grossly inconsistent in response to crimes.  And we have a DOJ that is selective in it's punishment.  I don't know if it's being cleaned up, but I know that there's only one guy who has any potential to do so.  I hope he can get more done before they beat him down too much.

Motivation Monday

Friday Funnies

A picture is worth a thousand words.  You're welcome!

Climate Change

Climate change, especially as it relates to energy is in the news these days.  There are some folks who are absolutely positive that climate change is a potential catastrophe and that the end of the world is in sight.  Then there is the other end of the spectrum in which folks believe that it's all a hoax and it's really designed as a power grab to redistribute wealth.  What is it really?  I believe it's somewhere in the middle.  Like a lot of things, it's neither as bad as some would have you believe, but it's not something we should ignore.  The alarmists point to scientific facts and doom and gloom statistics to justify their hyperbole.  But everytime I look at it, there are just as many "scientists" who are on the other side.  I yearn for a rationale, non-hysterical, fact based discussion of the real situation.  But it's difficult to come by.  One scientist comes up with a scenario and another will refute it.  And don't give me opinions.  We all deserve facts and non-manipulated data.  I'm not a denier, but I am a fairly smart and experienced guy who can read.  I believe that, simply put, you can't put 7 billion people on the planet and not have it influenced by humans.  But only the most zealous and reactionary believe that it is a near-term emergency that we should radically disrupt our economy and way of life to attack.  Should we be figuring out how to minimize climate change?  Yes.  Should we be figuring out how to use alternative forms of energy in an expeditious manner?  Yes.  But should we implement policies that will both dramatically harm our economy and potentially backfire for something that might impact my Grandchildren's Grandchildren's Grandchildren.  Clearly no.

Another big problem is that the United States is by any measure the least polluting nation on earth (of industrialized nations).  We have by and large an educated populous who for the most part are personally working to make the earth better and are supportive of programs to ensure we do our part.  But the alarmists seem to want to heap greater blame on us than is warranted and make our country take a bigger burden than is deserved.  The Paris Climate Accords is a prime example.  It was an agreement without any teeth, without any definition, without any enforcement capability and without any accountability.  It was essentially a transfer of wealth rationalized by the need to "do something" about climate change.  

A big part of the climate change "business" is the need to find alternate sources of energy that are clean, renewable and safe.  Here's my frustration with the energy discussion.  We sent a man to walk on the moon 50 years ago with the computing power of today’s iPhone.  We have a little car that we sent to Mars that communicates and takes photos.  In less than a generation we’ve put enough computing power in your pocket to access every bit of knowledge in the world and make a call home from anywhere.  The Chinese built the Three Gorges Dam that can light up Beijing and Shanghai and have a lot of power left over.  And yet...we can’t figure out how to make coal, an abundant energy source, burn clean?  We can’t figure out how to build more dams producing hydro-electric power and oh by the way conserve water?  We can’t figure out how to make the absolutely cleanest source of power, Nuclear, safer.  And don't even get me started about wind power.  It's a great idea and produces results but will never make a dent into all of our energy needs.  And it is the ultimate NIMBY issue.  As the guys in ESPN would say, Come on, Man!  Climate change is real.  But so are lobbyists.  Follow the money.  There are forces in play in all aspects of energy that respond to economic pressures.  Not pressure to do the right thing.  Economic pressure.  So while the alarmists wail and gnash their teeth, behind the scenes lobbyists are making sure nothing changes that will upset their apple cart.

So where am I going with all this?  First, it's complicated.  Climate change can't be solved with sound bites.  Second, there are solutions.  We just need to have the will to find them.  Third, the U.S. isn't the bad guy.  Look to China, India and the Middle East and you'll find the polluters.  Squeeze them before squeezing us.  Fourth, I can't wrap my arms around this being anything else but a long-term problem that we should be working on in a rationale manner to solve.  To do that it takes leadership.  Not hysterical, sky is falling hyperbole.  Because when people hear that crap, they tune it out.  And of all the things that are dangerous about climate change, ignoring it is the greatest danger.   

Gridlock

Well...it was predicted.  When the Dems won the midterm elections and took over the House of Representatives, it was predicted that Trump would be beseiged by investigations and the Dems would exhibit rightous indignation.  Well...here we are.  I saw a list of committees opening investigations and it's a bit daunting.  I hope the White House lawyers are on top of their game, becauwe it's gonna get ugly.  Of course, as usual Trump doesn't give a shit.  He goes to CPAC and gives a two hour extemporaneous speech in which he gives as good as he gets.  That's fine, but at some point we're all going to be (if we're not already) exhausted.  But if the first couple of months of the new Congress are any indication, it's gonna be a long two years.

But here's the crazy thing.  I don't see anyone who can beat him.  The frontrunners for the Dems are Biden who is 77 years old and has been on the wrong side of every National Security issue his whole career.  And there's Bernie who is 76 years old and a Socialist.  Then there is a list of Senators (why they think they are qualified for an executive position is beyond me) who are nothing but political beasts who stick their thumb in the wind and respond in whatever way they think will give them more votes.  They are idiotically tacking to the left when no matter what anyone says, we are a center-right country.  They cannot win with a leftest ideology.  But hey, let them know themselves out.  And then throw in the independent Howard Schultz, former CEO of Starbucks.  He's going to be a giant pain in the ass to the Dems.  Maybe bigger than Ross Perot was to GHWB.  So given all that, unless something pretty dramatic happens, I think it's Trump again.  For four more years.  Man, that would be the equivalent of shoving a hot rod up the Dems ass and twisting.  But it is what it is.  And it will be semi-fun to watch.

Motivation Monday