Upper case and lower case

Today Linda and I visited the National Park Service’s replica of Benjamin Franklin’s print shop in Philadelphia.  The man who was operating the press showed us how it worked, and then told us that after a printing was complete, an apprentice took the type out of the press and put it in cases.  

There were two cases for the letters , an upper case and a lower case.  Guess which one held the capital letters.  

You learn something new every day.

Wine and Spirits Store Quiz

1.  Name the only department in the Pennsylvania state government that not only funds itself 100%, but also brings in millions of dollars each year to the state coffers.

2.  Name the department in the Pennsylvania state government that the Republican House members, including Doyle Heffley, have voted to sell.

Answer:  The state-run Wine and Spirits stores.  

Bill O'Reilly, War Correspondent

Except he wasn’t.  He claimed that during the Falkland Islands War, he was in a war zone.  He was in Argentina covering a demonstration.  Some shots were fired--over the crowd’s head.  No one was killed.

It’s ok though.  O’Reilly is no Brian Williams.  We expect Mr. Williams to be truthful, and he should have been fired.  We hold O’Reilly to a different standard; i.e., we expect him to embroider, to make stuff up, to lie like a rug.

Some people who watch Fox News think they are getting real news.  Those people are called idiots.  They deserve O’Reilly.

Sally Kern of Oklahoma City

On April 19, 1995, 168 people, many of them children, were killed in a bomb blast in Oklahoma City.  Over 600 people were injured in the blast, carried out by Timothy McVeigh, since executed, and Terry Nichols, currently serving a life term.

This past week an Oklahoma legislative committee endorsed a bill to protect “conversion therapy.”  This refers to “therapy” that is supposed to cure homosexuality by such methods as prayer, psychiatric counseling, or aversion therapy.  The committee is chaired by Sally Kern, a Republican representative from Oklahoma City.

According to today’s Times, in 2008 Rep. Kern described homosexuality as a greater threat to America than terrorism.  

That is one sick woman.

Candidate night in Carbon County

All the Democratic candidates for county office appeared at a candidate’s forum in Jim Thorpe this evening to make a pitch for votes.  What an impressive group of people they were.  The positions open this year include Prothonotary, Sheriff, District Attorney, Recorder of Deeds, Controller, County Commissioner, and Coroner.

Three people are running for two commissioner seats and five people are running to succeed the current coroner, Bruce Nalesnik, who is retiring from that position.

I came away from the meeting impressed with the caliber of all of the candidates.  Everyone is well-qualified, intelligent, and reasonable.  At a time when so many Tea Party kooks and ideological misfits are running for office, it is refreshing to know that in Carbon County, at least, the Democratic Party is fielding candidates whom voters can support with confidence and pride.

Warren vs. Clinton

I received a call tonight from a nice young women who asked me for $200 to elect progressive Democrats.  After I laughed, she went on to say that her organization was only supporting progressives like Elizabeth Warren, not Blue Dog Democrats.  I asked her if Hillary Clinton was considered too conservative, and she said the organization was evaluating all candidates, and no decision had been made on Clinton.

I said that I was putting my efforts and money into defeating a fracking pipeline, and she said, “You do know that Hillary is supporting that pipeline.”  I told her I was talking about the PennEast pipeline in Pennsylvania, not the Keystone XL.

I finally hung up, no money pledged.  My heart is with Warren, but she has said she is not interested in running for President, it is too late (yes, two years until the election, and it is already too late), and I’m not sure she would make a good president anyway, since she has very little administrative experience.  I guess it is Clinton by default.

Plus, I have a pipeline to stop.

Hope for Obama bashers

Many of the letters to the editor critical of the President published in the Morning Call are not only critical, they are downright ugly and vitriolic.  The letters are sent by people who not only don’t like Obama’s policies, they loath the man himself in irrational hostility.

I have been concerned about these Obama haters.  They have less than two years left.  What will they do after he is no longer president?  Where will they vent their spleen?  They’ll be adrift, uncertain of their purpose in a world without a President Obama.  I pitied them.

Then it hit me.  They can turn their irrational hatred against President Hillary Clinton.  That will give them another eight years.  They’ll have a whole new purpose in life.  

Consider the source

My mother seemed to have expressions that summed up situations in just a few words.  When a person said something really stupid, she would simply say,”Consider the source.”  With those three words she could dismiss both stupid people and the stupid things they said.

Former New York Mayor Giuliani said President Obama doesn’t love America.  Before you get too upset, consider the source.

Obama and the crusades

Why is it that just about every utterance of the President is attacked, disputed, or belittled.  In a recent speech the President noted that various religions at one time or another had done terrible deeds in the name of god, and he mentioned the Crusades and the Inquisition as examples.

People went nuts.

Maybe the President was talking about the members of the First Crusade.  According to a Christian chronicler of the time, when the Crusaders reached the town of Mainz in the Rhineland in 1096, they broke into a hall where Jews had taken refuge.  

“Breaking the bolts and doors, they killed the Jews, about seven hundred in number, who in vain resisted the force and attack of so many thousands.  They killed the women, also, and with their swords pierced tender children of whatever age and sex....  Horrible to say, mothers cut the throats for nursing children with knives and stabbed others, preferring them to perish thus by their own hands rather than to killed by the weapons of the uncircumcised.”   (From “The First Victims of the First Crusade,” by Susan Jacoby in The New York Times, Feb. 15, 2015, P. SR5.)

Actually, we don’t have to go back to 1096.  In the 1990s Christian Serbs were slaughtering Bosnian Muslims.  

Fanatics killing people in the name of various gods, which has been occurring for millennia and shows no sighs of abating, is about the most irrational and stupid thing I can think of.  If you balanced the good religions have done against the harm they’ve done, I think the harm side would win out.

A promise

I lay awake last night thinking that I shouldn’t have sent out that post on Turkey last night.  I assume that most of you knew that the President of Turkey really hadn’t thanked evangelical Christians for the idea of prayer in the schools, but I also am aware that some people believe everything they read on the internet.

The first paragraph of last night’s post was factual.  The second paragraph about the evangelical Christians was my fabrication.  

In almost all cases, the material I post is factual to the best of my knowledge.  Once I start goofing around, however, how would you know what is true and what is me goofing around?  

So, if I do make stuff up, I will tell you at the end of the post.  The only exception might be April 1.  

Prayer returns to the public schools

After decades of a secular educational system, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is pushing to increase the number of religious classes, lowering the starting age of religious classes from 9 to 6, teaching religious values to pre-school children, and ending the school ritual in which students pledged allegiance to secular principles.

President Erdogan, elected by popular vote, said he got the idea to increase religious training and prayer from American evangelicals.  He said, “Although a majority of people favor teaching the values of Islam, we have been stymied by a minority of godless people.”  He thought that a return to prayer in the schools would make children not only more religious, but also more obedient and better citizens.  Erdogan said, “Those American Christians have been an inspiration.”

Strange bedfellows

One of the things I like about American politics is that occasionally people who have almost nothing in common politically can still join together on a specific issue.  Here’s an example.  

A bill was recently introduced in the Missouri General Assembly to limit the amount of revenue that Missouri towns can collect from traffic fines.  One of the complaints of African Americans in Ferguson was that residents were pulled over and fined for minor infractions.

Many states have speed traps.  My daughter fell victim to one in Wathena, Kansas.  (If you are ever in Kansas, be careful in Wathena.  It’s on Route 6.)  The municipalities that run speed traps care nothing about highway safety, only about increasing revenue from fines.

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Back to Missouri.  Testifying for the bill to limit municipalities were the St. Louis Tea Party Coalition and the American Civil Liberties Union.  According to an article in the Times on February 15, the leader of the Tea Party told a legislative committee, “If the St. Louis Tea Party coalition and the A.C.L.U. are on the same page on something, we must be going down the right path.”

The groups have different motives, of course.  Conservatives cite intrusive government; liberals cite racial injustice.  Both groups are correct.

Presidents' Day

This is the dumbest holiday ever.  We once celebrated Lincoln’s birthday (understandable and warranted) and Washington’s birthday (not quite on the same level, but still a great man).  As luck would have it, both men were born in February, and their birthdays often fell on a weekday. 

In the land of the three-day weekend, that can’t be allowed, so the date was moved to the third Monday.  (Washington’s real birthdate is Feb. 22.)  That wouldn’t be too bad, but instead of celebrating Washington and Lincoln, we now are supposed to honor all Presidents, such as Jackson of the Trail of Tears; William Henry Harrison, who took sick on inauguration day and died a few weeks later; the first Johnson, who should have been impeached; the nonentity Warren Harding; Nixon the Crook; Reagan, who wrecked the economy; and Bush Junior, who wasn’t even legally elected.  

C’mon.  This is ridiculous.  Let’s change it back.

And while we are at it, let’s celebrate Martin Luther King day on election day.  It would increase turnout, and it would honor King in a way he would appreciate.  

Alabama Chief Justice Ray Moore flunks history

Judge Moore was the guy who put a granite monument to the Ten Commandments in the rotunda of the Alabama Judicial System building and is more recently famous for defying a federal court order legalizing gay marriage in Alabama.  In an interview Judge Moore stated:

“Our rights, contained in the Bill of Rights, do not come from the Constitution, they come from God.”

Actually the Bill of Rights was added to the Constitution to mollify the Anti-Federalists, and was written in large part by James Madison.  The Amendments read a much better than the 10 Commandments, and the 14th Amendment applied them to the states--even Alabama.

Monarch butterflies

The monarch butterfly population has decreased by 90%, the lowest recorded population occurring in the 2013-14 season.

The Federal government has announced a program to restore 200,000 acres of habitat from California to the Corn Belt, and the program will include more than 750 schoolyard habitats and pollinator gardens.

I think that is wonderful, but when one considers that the PennEast pipeline project is a billion-dollar project, the $3.2 million federal expenditure for monarchs seems rather puny.

In the meantime, let your milkweeds bloom.

The info on the federal program was taken from Lancaster Farming, Feb. 14, 2015, p. B9.

Death Penalty

The Obama Administration has introduced a plan to interdict illegal wildlife trafficking.  U.S. Intelligence agencies, including presumably the CIA, will help to track and arrest the people involved in the trade, which is estimated to involve about $20 billion a year.

Today’s Times had a picture of some of the ivory and rhino horns seized by officials.  U.S. citizens are involved in this activity.

Unfortunately, we have about the same number of officers to track illegal animal trafficking as we had in the 70’s, and I doubt if the Republican Congress will be willing to increase funding.

I have thought long and hard about the death penalty.  On principle I’m opposed, but I have decided that people who kill endangered species for money should be executed.  Once a species is extinct, it is gone forever.  People who are killing endangered animals for simple greed do not deserve to live.

Note:

A friend told me today he heard that Linda and I were collecting money to sue PennEast Pipeline company.  That is ridiculous, and I have no idea where that rumor started.  I can assure you than neither Linda nor I plan to sue PennEast Pipeline Company, although we will continue to fight the proposed pipeline.

FERC captured

Gather ‘round,. boys and girls.  It’s time for another political science lecture from Dr. Roy.  Today’s topic is Independent Regulatory Commissions, with a special emphasis on the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, known as FERC.

The United States government has created a number of agencies that are independent of Congress and the President.  While the President appoints members of these commissions with the approval of the Senate, once members are appointed they can’t be removed unless they do something really bad and are impeached.  Most members serve staggered terms of five or seven years.  The idea is that the members can make decisions without regard to politics, hence the name independent.  They usually regulate some aspect of the economy, hence the name regulatory.  They usually have five or seven members, hence the name board or commission.

Some of them you may have heard of are the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the Consumer Products Safety Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and perhaps most importantly, the Federal Reserve Board.

Here’s a problem.  Let’s say you are the President, and you need to appoint a member to fill vacancy on the Securities and Exchange Commission, which regulates the stock market.  Who knows about the stock market?  Not plumbers.  Not farmers.  Not astronauts.  No, the pool of people who know about the stock market are stock brokers, financial analysts, and Wall Street operators.  

Consider who the SEC will be dealing with on a day-to-day basis.  Not plumbers.  Not farmers.  Not astronauts.  No, the SEC, when it holds hearings, will be hearing from stock brokers, financial analysts, and Wall Street operators.

As a result, the Independent Regulatory Agencies get “captured.”  The appointment process and the day-to-day dealings of the agencies mean that they will adopt the interests and world-view of the very people they are supposed to be regulating.

This, I believe, is what has happened to FERC.  It was obvious to me that the FERC staffers who took testimony on Wednesday night at Penn’s Peak were really not interested in what participants had to say.  I know a great deal about Wild Creek Falls and the Wild Creek Cove on Beltzville Lake, far more than the PennEast Pipeline company, yet I was cut off at three minutes.

FERC has adopted the mindset of the pipeline companies.  The very fact that it has approved 100% of pipeline applications is a telling statistic.  The worst part of this is that it does me no good to write to my U.S. Representative or my U.S. Senators.  The Independent Regulatory Agencies are walled off from political pressure.  They are not, however, walled off from the very interests they are supposed to be regulating.

Pipeline jobs

Tonight Linda and I testified at a “scoping” hearing sponsored by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.  The hearing is part of the requirements under the National Environmental Policy Act.

A number of representatives from the Laborers’ Union and the Steamfitters’ Union spoke about all the construction jobs the pipeline would create, and at least one mentioned how fracking had helped the economies of northern counties.

The best rebuttal to this came late in the evening from a young woman who is a river rafting guide.  She noted the importance of the tourist industry in Carbon County.  For example, four different companies are involved in river rafting on the Lehigh.  If the pipeline cuts through Lehigh Gorge State Park as planned, tourists might stay home.  If tourists stay home, all kinds of jobs--shopkeepers in Jim Thorpe, river guides, park naturalists, ski instructors--could disappear.

The economic study that projected job growth was sponsored by PennEast, which in itself makes the conclusions dubious.  As one sign pointed out, “The PennEast study on economic benefits is like a tobacco company study on cancer.

We need another study on economic costs and job losses sponsored by a truly neutral body.  I’m fairly certain costs would outweigh benefits, especially if costs to the environment are factored in.

Short Answers to FAQ on the PennEast Pipeline

1.  Do natural gas pipelines ever blow up?

Ans.:  Yes.

2.  Do compressor stations make noise 24 hours a day?

Ans.:  Yes.

3.  Do compressor stations leak harmful gasses?

Ans.:  Yes.

4.  Is an interstate pipeline company allowed to use eminent domain proceedings against private property?

Ans.:  Yes.

5.  If a pipeline crosses private property, is the value of that property lowered?

Ans.:  Yes.

6.  Does the proposed PennEast pipeline route cross three Pennsylvania State Parks in Carbon County?

Ans.:  Yes.

7.  Does the proposed PennEast pipeline route cross preserved farms under the Pennsylvania Farm Preservation program?

Ans.:  Yes.

8.  Does the proposed PennEast pipeline route cross habitat that could be home to endangered species?

Ans.:  Yes.

9.  Does the proposed PennEast pipeline create a permanent fifty-foot open corridor across the federally-designated Appalachian Trail?

Ans.:  Yes.

10.  Will PennEast pay property taxes on the proposed pipeline?

Ans.:  No

10.  Is PennEast mandated to hire local workers when the pipeline is constructed?

Ans.:  No.

11.  Will the proposed PennEast pipeline result in hundreds of permanent jobs involved in pipeline maintenance?

Ans.:  No.

12.  Was the Drexel study touting the economic benefits of the PennEast pipeline paid for by the PennEast Company?

Ans.:  Yes.

Ice and snow

When I moved back here to Pennsylvania, I couldn’t understand why so many people spent the winter months in Florida.  Why would you go down to Orlando or Fort Myers and miss the beauty of the snow on the hemlocks, of ice on the lake, of the sculptured drifts in the fields, of icicles hanging from the eaves?  

I’m beginning to understand it better.

Follow the money

Private property rights are important to conservatives.  For many conservatives, private property rights ought to supersede environmental regulations and zoning laws.  If a property owner cuts down all of his trees or keeps junked cars in the front lawn, that’s nobody’s else’s business.

I naturally assumed that our conservative legislators and local political groups would be aghast that the proposed PennEast Pipeline company could force private property owners to accept a pipeline slicing through their land.  If the property owners resist selling an easement, they can be compelled to do so, since private for-profit pipeline companies will be granted eminent domain rights. 

Imagine my surprise when I heard that the local 9/12 group favored the PennEast Pipeline.  Why would that group put a pipeline company above private property interests?

Then I remembered that last year the “Americans for Prosperity,” a front group for the Koch Brothers, sent representatives to speak at a 9/12 meeting.  I will even speculate that the Koch Brothers may help to fund the 9/12 group, although they don’t open their books to public scrutiny, so there is no way to tell for sure.  The Koch Brothers, of course, are heavily involved in the petroleum industry and are major supporters of Keystone XL.

I am hoping that our local 9/12ers will realize that private property rights are worth defending, and that if a pipeline company can overrule property rights, other corporations won’t be far behind.

Critical thinking

One requirement to graduate from San Jose State University was that students had to take a “critical thinking” class.  Students were supposed to learn how to reason, how to think logically, how not to be stupid.  

The Political Science Department course that satisfied the requirement was entitled “Controversial Legal Issues.”  I taught it a number of times, and we discussed such topics as abortion, gun control, the death penalty, and affirmative action.  

Students learned how to recognize and avoid fallacies in argument and how to examine emotional issues dispassionately.  

I thought about that course on Friday, when I read the following letter in the Morning Call.  I will quote the entire letter, but I won’t include the author’s name--why embarrass him further?  

The Islamic State burns a Jordanian pilot alive to death in a cage.

But President Obama says waterboarding is cruel and unusual punishment!

I can’t wait until 2017.

A non sequitur is an argument in which the conclusion does not follow from its premises.  That letter, my friends, is a perfect example.

NIMBY

A number of people have told me that I oppose the PennEast pipeline because it goes through our farm, creating a potential danger, lowering property values, and decreasing crop production.  They say my opposition is simply a case of “not in my back yard.”

Let me explain something.  I oppose the Keystone XL pipeline.  I don’t own any land or farms along its route.  I am in no danger if it explodes.  My fields won’t be affected.  

I oppose Keystone and PennEast pipelines because they are carrying petroleum products that are produced from processes that are incredibly harmful to the environment and increase global climate change.  I oppose those pipelines because the damage they do is external to the cost of the product, to be borne by the taxpayers.  I oppose them because they are not in the public interest, but rather in the interests of petroleum companies and their stockholders.

If the PennEast pipeline is moved five miles east or west from our farm, it won’t be in my back yard, but it will be in someone else’s, and I will continue to oppose it.  NIABBY!

Sen. Casey, Toomey Clone?

Senator Casey recently voted with Sen. Toomey to exempt waste coal plants from clean air standards.  (It failed.)  Then he voted with Toomey to repeal the medical device tax.  And he voted for the Keystone Pipeline.

Why would he do that?  Campaign contributions?  Inherent conservatism?  Lack of courage?  Pandering to the right?  

I don’t know the reason, but Casey is a disappointment. 

Ron Paul and measles

When I was living in Santa Clara County, California, an amazing courtroom drama took place.  A family refused medical treatment for their child for religious reasons.  The child, present, in the courtroom, was dying.  The judge, whose name I wish I could remember, ruled against the parents and accompanied the car carrying the child to the Stanford Medical Center in case the police had any questions about why the car was speeding.  The child lived.

Contrast that with Rand Paul, so-called libertarian, who was quoted in today’s Times saying the right to refuse to vaccinate one’s child was a matter of “freedom.”  Mr. Paul said, “The state doesn’t own your children.  Parents own the children.”

Actually, Mr. Paul, they don’t.  Parents can’t sexually exploit their children.  They can’t send them off to work 16 hours a day.  They can’t refuse to give their children life-saving blood transfusions.  They can’t beat their children to death.

Children are part of our community, and we can demand that they get vaccinated for measles so they--and our own children--don’t die.

Carbon County Agriculture

In 2012, the last year for which figures are available, total value of agricultural sales in Carbon County was $9,339,000.  That figure came from a county-by-county breakdown in the latest issue of the Center For Rural Pennsylvania Newsletter.  The largest commodity group for Carbon was nursery and greenhouse, which surprised me, since I wasn’t aware of all that many nurseries and greenhouses.

The figure for Monroe County to our east was $10,974,000 with the largest commodity being grains.  Lancaster County, of course, was first and the only county over a billion:  $1,474,954,000.  The main commodity was poultry and eggs.

Superbowl #49

The game is on now while I’m writing this.  I love that companies spend millions of dollars for Superbowl ads, and I don’t watch them.  Of course, I’m really not the demographic category at which the ads are aimed.  

As you can see from the previous sentence, I’m of the generation that was taught not to end a sentence with a preposition.  The people for whom the ads are produced don’t know what a preposition is.

How did I ever get so old and cranky?