40 Seconds

Today, I take a break from the regular political talk to reflect on quickly things can change. Last night while preparing for dinner for cheddar bratwurst, green beans, and coleslaw an event took place that re-shaped the landscape of our household. After setting up the chimney to fire up the coals and putting the hot coals into the grill, I ventured inside to get the cheddar bratwursts. As I went inside, I made sure the outside door shut as our young boxer CeCe does her best to sneak into the house behind you.

Both dogs and Taytum were near the front door as I closed the outside door. The cheddar bratwursts were sitting on the counter, right where I put them after purchasing earlier in the day and I needed to find the tongs. The tongs were not in their normal location but I found them relatively quickly. With cheddar bratwurst and tongs in hand, I proceeded back outside to the dogs, Taytum, and a hot grill.

As I opened the door I noticed that Taytum was in the middle of the yard, Mischka was running around her one of the trees in the front yard, and CeCe was over across the street in the neighbor’s yard. Before I could put down the cheddar bratwursts on the table outside the front door, CeCe started to make her away back. As she approached the street a white service van was coming down the street. CeCe darted out in front of the van. The van driver did not see CeCe. The result was CeCe being hit twice – once by the left front tire and then again by the left rear tire.

I could not have been inside the house for more than 40 seconds. 40 seconds is all it took to change the landscape of our household. While Taytum saw the entire thing and realize quickly what took place, time will only tell how impactful the CeCe’s death has on the psyche of Taytum. Accidents will take place and life is fragile. Cherish the time one has and taken nothing for granted.

Senate Save America!!!

After Fridays House of Representatives vote on Climate Control Bill which passed 219-212. A group of reporters conducted an interview of President Obama, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and White House coordinator of energy Carol Browner. President Obama stated (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/29/us/politics/29climate-text.html?pagewanted=1&ref=politics), in regards to the passing of the bill, “I think this was an extraordinary first step.” While I watched the debate on the House floor on Friday, deals were being cut on the House floor for future consideration and even leaving an open line in the bill if were to pass to insert a place for an earmark for a Florida research center on hurricanes.

The bill that passed was written to emulate Spain’s efforts to create “Green Jobs” while controlling carbon emissions. Gabriel Calzada Alvarez, PhD, published a report on Spain’s outcomes of their “green” jobs initiatives called Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources. http://www.juandemariana.org/pdf/090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf In the Executive Summary, the “study’s results demonstrate how such “green jobs” policy clearly hinders Spain’s way out of the current economic crisis, even while U.S. politicians insist that rushing into such a scheme will ease their own emergence from the turmoil.”

President Obama, and others in Congress, touts the Climate Control Bill as a job creation bill. Yes, it will create jobs in the new “green” sector. The bigger question is will the bill have a net positive in jobs. According to Dr. Alvarez’s study, Spain has seen “9 jobs lost for every 4 created” in the energy industry while leading to an additional “2.2 jobs destroyed for every “green job” created” elsewhere in the economy.

Many on the House floor on Friday argued that it “taxes” Americans. Now there is not straight out tax on consumers but there is on the producers of energy through the permits they will need to purchase. In every business model I have seen, not one has it where the company will absorb the price of purchasing carbon permits. The cost will passed along to the consumer in rate hikes. Some companies are already trying to get ahead of the curve by raising rates now.

While everyone agrees that America’s dependence on foreign oil promotes security risks to the future of the United States, the question is Congress prepared to pass a net-job loss bill that will drive up energy costs (total amount is up for discussion) and drive industry to countries, China or India, that do not have the same emission standards. Now to help level the playing field the Climate Control Bill does provide for tariffs of goods from countries that do not meet the new U.S. standards.

During the group reporter interview on Sunday with President Obama, a reporter asked, “One of the provisions that got added very late to this bill that senators had expressed some reservations about was the one that puts tariffs on goods imported from countries that don’t have these sorts of restrictions. What do you think of that revision and would you like to see the Senate strip it out?”

President Obama responded by saying, “At a time when the economy worldwide is still deep in recession and we’ve seen a significant drop in global trade, I think we have to be very careful about sending any protectionist signals out there. “ One of the Obama’s campaign promises was to keep jobs in the United States and penalize companies that ship jobs overseas. An argument against the Climate Change Bill was that companies will move their factories to countries with lower energy costs.

This argument is echoed in Dr. Alvarez’s study as Spain saw several companies, Ferroatlantica and Grupo Celsa, move parts of their operations to other countries. The two mentioned went to France where nuclear power is the prime energy source. While America will see an increase in “green jobs” mainly because the industry doesn’t really exists. The trouble, as demonstrated by Dr. Alvarez’s study, is the net is a job loss and increases costs to lower and middle class.

City of Minneapolis vs. Bar Owners (Gabby's)

On Friday the Star Tribune ran an article reporting that the City Council of Minneapolis was considering adding an ordinance that would make bar owners responsible for the actions of their patrons when they leave the premises. I commented to Star Tribune after reading the article and it was printed, with a few slight modifications made by the Star Tribune, in the paper on Saturday. Here is the link in case you don't get the paper.

http://www.startribune.com/opinion/letters/49237137.html?page=2&c=y

My original email was:

Is the City of Minneapolis serious in their attempt to hold bar owners liable and accountable for actions undertaken by patrons that leave their premises? I see their attempt to place such ordinance in place an abuse power and an attempt to strike back at Gabby's bar for the lawsuit they lost. Shame on those on the Minneapolis City Council who see this attempt as a viable option to deal with the issue at hand.

Paying girls to stay baby free; ethical?

An interesting program has been in place since 1996 at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro campus called College Bound Sisters. The program’s goals are to help girls avoid pregnancy, graduate from high school, and enroll in college. To assist girls in achieving the goals, the program pays each girl enrolled a $1 for each day they remain baby free. The money is deposited into a fund that each girl will get when they enroll in college. Girls can enroll in the program as early as 12 years of age.

According to College Bound Sisters website, http://nursing.uncg.edu/cbs/index.html, to be eligible the girls need to between the ages of 12-16, has a sister who had a baby before age 18, has never been pregnant, wants to attend college, and is willing to attend a 1.5 hour meeting each week at the University of North Carolina-Greensboro campus. The girls are broken up into two groups during the 90 minute meetings – 12-14 and 15-18. Joshua Miller in his article North Carolina Program Pays Girls a Dollar a Day Not to Get Pregnant that “Dr. Hazel Brown, co-director of the program, said six girls of the 125 who have been enrolled for six months or longer have gotten pregnant or otherwise dropped out since it began in 1997.”

Dr. Brown explained the program as, “We talk about abstinence, but it’s not a requirement. We teach decision-making, being responsible and avoiding pregnancy. The meetings are very interactive.” The program was originally funded by a grant from the North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services. Bill Albert, chief program office at the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy is reported, in Mr. Miller’s article, as saying, “It makes me a bit uneasy. I do have mixed feelings. It’s hard to pay people to do something that we think they should be doing regardless. It would be like if you didn’t want young people to experiment with marijuana, you’d pay them not to do it.”

Although I think Mr. Albert’s stretch to marijuana deludes the conversation, it does raise interesting question. The program only enrolls 24 girls at a time. With only 125 girls involved since 1997, it may be too early to pass judgment on the program. Yet, the idea of paying at risk girls to attend meetings, stay baby free, and enroll in college is interesting. Since the girls have to stay enrolled until they go to college to receive the money, it does give good incentive for the girls to stay baby free.

Rep. Frank at it again....

Here we go again. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) is at it again. This time Rep. Frank is asking Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to “make appropriate adjustments” in regard to mortgage guarantee’s for condos. Currently, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae are “no longer guarantee mortgages on condos in buildings where fewer than 70 percent of the units have been sold” according to a Reuters report (Fannie, Freddie asked to relax condo loan rules: report) Reuters also reports, in the same article, that “Fannie Mae will also not purchase mortgages in buildings where 15 percent of owners are delinquent on condo association dues or where one owner has more than 10 percent of units.”

The Wall Street Journal in an article Barney the Underwriter echoes Reuters report with “After two years of telling us how lax lending standards drove up the market and led to loans that should never have been made, Mr. Frank wants Fannie and Freddie to take more risk in condo developments with high percentages of unsold units, high delinquency rates or high concentrations of ownership within the development.” Does this make sense? Isn’t this how America got into a recession? Can America afford a second housing bubble as many predict is about to occur?

If America cannot then why in the world do we want to lax lending practices anywhere? Common sense and learning from history is not taking place here. Rep. Frank does wield a lot of power in Washington evident by his ability to take a parts dealership off the chopping block, when GM and Chrysler were deciding to scale back operations, in his home district.

Rep. Frank was on O’Reilly Factor last night. Last time Rep. Frank showed up on O’Reilly Factor the conversation ended in a shouting match and didn’t accomplish much. While they talked on an array of topics with one of them being Rep. Frank’s request to lax lending practices. O’Reilly challenged Rep. Frank to defend the Wall Street Journal report that he is looking to lax rules on condo mortgages. Rep. Frank response was, “with the condiminiums we are not talking about sub-prime or poor people. We do have this problem in cities with vacant properties causing serious problems to the cities. What I want is to say his heres the rule, they have a rule that they will not finance a condiminium unless 70 percent of the units in the building is already sold; I am not talking at all if that borrower can pay for them. They should not allow any borrower who cannot pay for it to do it. But I think they have a fisious cycle. If you won’t fund anybody until its 70 percent it will never by 70 percent and you have a serious problem with cities and vacant properties.” Rep. Frank also claimed that he “was opposed to the sub-prime mortgages”.

Really, that is why in 2000 Rep. Frank quipped, in response to a report that Freddie and Fannie may be insolvent because of the guaranteed sub-prime loans, “no federal liability there whatsoever.” Than in 2003 when President Bush pushed for reform after Fannie and Freddie inflated earnings report by $10.6B, Rep. Frank quipped, “Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are not facing any kind of financial crisis. The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.”

Now that brings us back to the topic at hand. Rep. Frank feels, as he said on the O’Reilly Factor, that unless something is done to assist condominium developments with less than 70 percent units sold we will “have serious problems with cities and vacant properties.” Perhaps it’s the current housing market that has seen an increase in the number of homes for sale. According to Realestateabc.com, the inventory of homes on the market “rose to 3.97million units, an 8.8 percent increase from the 3.737 million in March.” That being said, if not offering lower rates (subprime) how else does Rep. Frank see condiminium developers filling the remaining 30 + percent vacancy rate that Freddie and Fannie are refusing to offer loans to?

President Obama on right track with Iran

Yesterday brought the toughest rhetoric by President Obama to date on the aftermath of Iran’s June 12th election results. In a press conference that was to take place in the Rose Garden, President Obama stated that he was “appalled and outraged by the threats, beatings and imprisonments of the past few days.” When pressed by reporters on further sanctions or policy shift toward Iran for the continual media blackout and treatment of demonstrators, President Obama still left the door open to talk without pre-conditions with Iran leaders.

The major media outlets are confused as to how to react with the message being sent out by the White House. With all the campaigning and continual intimate working with the White House, the major media outlets are pulling punches on their critique of President Obama’s handling of Iran. Yet, some of those gloves may have come off as President Obama was asked for a third time by MSNBC correspondent Chuck Todd on what future sanctions or policy changes will take place in light of recent events in Iran (namely the video of two killings being streamed across the internet). President Obama, obviously perturbed by the repeated question, simply stated that although the media lives in a “24/7 news cycle” he does not.

The President is right on this. American’s have become a society of NOW and forget that some things take time to iron themselves out. Iran is one of those places. The road that President Obama is taking is right on topic. Iran’s top officials have acknowledged that some irregularities did take place during the June 12th election but not enough for a recount or a new election. Although that position may have softened as the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has agreed to allow the Guardian Council an additional five days to review the election results.

Now if President Obama comes out with stern sanctions and stronger words against Iran will only give fuel to Iranian hardliners. The fuel will be in the form of rhetoric that the West is meddling in Iranian affairs. President Obama stated during his new conference that, “They’ve got some of the comments that I’ve made being mistranslated in Iran, suggesting that I’m telling rioter to go out and riot some more. There are reports suggesting that the CIA is behind all this. All of which is patently false. But it gives you a sense of the narrative that the Iranian government would love to play into.”

Recognition of this point is not playing out in our media. Instead of understanding the tight rope President Obama must walk, the media asks if Iranian diplomats are still being invited to the 4th of July celebrations in Washington. President Obama only response was that the United States and Iran do not have diplomatic relations. The response was a shot at the media. The path that President Obama is right on track as the West cannot fan the flames of past actions; CIA intervention.

Zummerfest Recap

With clouds carrying rain, lightning, and thunderous booms passing to the north of Hamburg, Zummerfest kicked off on Friday night. The Castaways hit the stage and belted out song after song with the last one being sung around midnight. After a couple of softball games, I made it back to Hamburg to participate in activities. When I arrived back the bon fire was ablaze with some new faces around it.

The fire raged on until around 1:30 am. Saturday morning came early as many that were around the bon fire were set to participate in the annual horseshoe tourney. The horseshoe tourney started at 9 am with the registration of teams. 9 teams squared off for the rights to be the 2009 Zummerfest horseshoe champs. Round Robin Ten-shoe format played out with the top four scoring teams squaring off in a final bracket for all the marbles.

Much to our surprise, Rachel and I made the final four. We only one match and had two ties during round robin play but our 72 point total was enough to make the final four. We outscored the 5th place team by 4 points who happened to be the only team we beat. During the finals, we started off with the highest scoring team. The match was close for a while until we fell behind 10-15. The final score was 21-10 in the semi-final match. After that we played for 3rd and 4th place. That match we lost as well but the score was much closer 21-14. For our efforts and 4th place finish we received a free pitcher of beer.

Later in the afternoon we attended the Demo Derby. The number of participants was less than last year and the stands reflected that as well. Perhaps the economy contributed to the lowering numbers. Below are pictures from the Demo Derby.

After watching the powder puff match, we made our way back to the homestead for burgers. As we ate we debated about going to the wrestling show at 8 pm. With no band going on during the wrestling show or after, a few of us ventured up to watch Buck and his crew in the squared circle. My brother and neighbor arrived early to get ringside. Below is a picture of battle royal.

While the town was being entertained by wrestling at the community hall, we fired up another bon fire. About 10:30 pm the wrestling group made their way back to the bon fire with glowing reviews of what was seen. The bon fire raged on with similar faces until 12:30 am.

With no church service at the park, we waited until 11 am to venture down to the park on Sunday. The events on the list for Sunday were the pork chop dinner, tractor pull, and kiddie pedal pull. Finally an event for the children!!!

The kids enjoyed themselves as they bounced back and forth between the tractor pull and the safety house. The safety house informed children what to do in the event of a fire. Thanks goes to the Hamburg Fire Department for staffing and teaching the kids.

After going through the safety house twice, the kids and I ventured over to the location where the kiddie pedal pull was to take place. The event was a nationally sanctioned event and the top three winners at each age bracket were invited to the state in Hutchinson later this year. The age of kids participating range from 4 to 11. Both boys and girls did their best to pedal the small tractors as far as they could. Many kids had full pulls and several age brackets had additional pulls to determine a winner.

Only Miles and Spencer could participate in the pedal pull. Both gave their best. All kids were reward with a ribbon, ticket for ice cream, and a can of Dr. Pepper. After the pedal pull was complete, the raffle took place. The tractor pull raged on until about 5 pm when all of Zummerfest call it a weekend. Even though some events were cancelled due to a lack of participation, the weekend was successful and enjoyable.