A lovely mess for Spring's debut

Bensblurb #599 3/22/11

A lovely mess for Spring‘s debut.

As America slips possibly into double-dip recession, with unemployment still high and home sales still dismal, and while ally Japan suffers catastrophe, Obama gives our military more battle experience by test-firing keen missiles at Libyans. Not good. Congress stirs. (But our lovely Star Magnolia is once again in full bloom.)
　
Here’s Ben Stein, in American Spectator:

“Maybe I missed something, but wasn't that The Constitution of the United States of America that we just laid to rest this weekend?
It was buried in a private ceremony by Mr. Barack Obama of Chicago as he silently signed America on to the One World Government some of us have been worried about for decades.
Look at it this way: Where did Mr. Obama get the authority to commit United States forces to war in Libya? There was no declaration of war. There was no authorizing resolution by Congress allowing money to be spent on a war against Col. Gaddafi. As far as I know, there was no meeting of Mr. Obama and top leaders of Congress to discuss the subject in even rough form, let alone detail. There was no lengthy buildup in which the Congress was "allowed" to express the people's opinion on whether we want to be in a third concurrent war.
There was just a vote by the United Nations Security Council, a very far from unanimous vote, and suddenly, the President's Secretary of State, Mrs. Hillary Rodham Clinton, solemnly announced that we were at war.”


Timothy Carney agrees, in Washington Examiner:

“At once presumptuous and flippant, President Obama used a Saturday audio recording from Brazil to inform Americans he had authorized a third war -- a war in which America's role is unclear and the stated objectives are muddled.
Setting aside the wisdom of the intervention, Obama's entry into Libya's civil war is troubling on at least five counts. First is the legal and constitutional question. Second is the manner of Obama's announcement. Third is the complete disregard for public opinion and lack of debate. Fourth is the unclear role the United States will play in this coalition. Fifth is the lack of a clear endgame. Compounding all these problems is the lack of trust created by Obama's record of deception.
"Today, I authorized the armed forces of the United States to begin a limited military action in Libya," the president said. For him it was self-evident he had such authority. He gave no hint he would seek even ex post facto congressional approval. In fact, he never once mentioned Congress.”
--And to think that just a week ago, hawks were howling that Obama had dithered too long in making the unilateral decision. Yes, but that was then, this is now.

Basketball Heaven ?

Before I forget and the moment passes, I must reveal that my very own Stafford County lies within a long three-pointer of three, non-ACC, college basketball powers today: Richmond, Old Dominion (also in Richmond) and George Mason, up in Fairfax. Two of them are in the Sweet Sixteen. The NFL can go hang itself, and it's apparently building the scaffold as we speak.


--Ben Blankenship
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Nukes Bad, Thus CO2 Good?

Bensblurb #598 3/16/11

Nukes bad, CO2 Good?

Here’s Holman Jenkins in today’s Wall Street Journal: “In the unlikely event the world was ever going to make a concerted dent in CO2 output, nuclear was the key. Let’s just guess this possibility is now gone, for better or worse.”

Even so, today’s nuclear plants are much safer than the older ones spewing now. As Chaos Manor notes, via Instapundit:
“The important lesson from Japan is that we took obsolete reactors with old designs and safety features, and subjected them to a 9.0 quake and a very large tsunami, and the damage to the planet is an unfortunate but hardly decisive event. It is now time to stop worrying about this mess until things settle and we can see precisely what we have learned, and factor that into the next generation designs. Note that almost everywhere in the world we are building reactors with much better design and far better safety features than those being destroyed now. Concentration on how awful is the nuclear mess takes our attention off the economic and human disasters from the earthquake and tsunami.”

Back to CO2 and EPA’s power grab:

As I pontificated yesterday, in published reaction to Pajamas Media‘s Roger Kimball piece, “I watched some of the EPA administrator’s fending off of Reps’ questions yesterday on TV and wanted to throw up. In one instance, she said the Corps of Engineers had done things she had to correct and then turn down an approved application (which probably had been ruminating in the bureaucracy for years). The EPA, she indicated, has science on its side while the others don’t. What arrogance. The executive agencies, as exemplified by EPA, are running wild, thumbing their noses at Congress and getting away with it. We citizens don’t have a clue about their dominance. We’re in big trouble.”

--There, I feel better now. And by the way I consider it a badge of honor to have been banned last fall from further commentary in reaction to articles appearing in Huffington Post. Perhaps that kind of stifling of contrary opinion is why most of the reactions beneath HuffPo’s articles lean so strongly liberal.

EPA getting trashed?

So the Democrats are scrambling to combat a vote against the Obama administration’s climate regulations ahead of a possible Wednesday floor showdown, according to Politico. Senate Majority Leader Reid signaled he would allow a floor vote on a Republican amendment to nullify the EPA’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.

So what? Even if the measure were to pass both Houses, there stands President Passive to veto the thing anyhow. Alas.

--Ben Blankenship
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Energy woes multiply

Bensblurb #597 3/14/11

Energy woes multiply

Our energy problems are newly worsened by the riots in the oil-rich Middle East and the nuclear plant eruptions in Japan, hurting us at the gas pump and our U.S. industries, so dependent on oil and electricity, that are trying to lift us out of the economic blahs.
Then here came our boy president, before the earthquake hit Japan, babbling again about oil and his administration’s foolish foot dragging. At least, such concerns move “global warming” (remember that?) off everyone’s mind and “clean energy“ to the back burner, except of course in Washington.

First, here’s the Washington Examiner:

“It's not at all clear which Barack Obama was standing before the White House press corps Friday. It certainly wasn't the same one who stood before a meeting of Resources for the Future on Sept. 15, 2005, and declared: "But as we cut through all the talk and the politics in the energy debate, we can see what the debate is really about. We see the family that thinks twice about what they'll spend at the grocery store...Ultimately, we see a nation that cannot control its future as long as it cannot control the source of energy that keeps it running."...
But Friday's Obama seemed determined to make the price of gas go up as much as possible since his first day on the job in January 2009. He dramatically slowed, then completely stopped the federal government's issuance of drilling permits on federal lands and in offshore waters. He also slowed down the government auctions of leases for energy exploration on other federal lands. And since the Deepwater Horizon disaster last year, only two permits have been issued -- both within the last month -- to enable drilling to resume in the Gulf of Mexico, which supplies a third of U.S. oil and natural gas needs. He has withdrawn previously issued permits for drilling in Alaska and put millions of acres of federal land in the lower 48 states off-limits to future oil exploration.
His efforts have worked, too, as U.S. production has decreased dramatically. In 2007, the Energy Information Administration projected that 700 million barrels of oil would be produced offshore in 2010, but only 600 million actually were. And the same government agency predicted that onshore production last year would be 133 million barrels, but it was only 114 million. And EIA projects total U.S. oil production will go down 250,000 barrels per day next year...”

Politico adds to the madness...

“The Obama administration (3/4/11) appealed a judge's orders directing the Interior Department to act on several Gulf of Mexico deepwater drilling permits.[This] is the latest salvo in the ongoing fight over the speed with which Interior is – or isn't – letting oil drillers get back to work after last year's BP oil spill.
Gulf state lawmakers and the oil industry have accused the department of enacting a "de facto" moratorium against new drilling, while Interior says it needs to ensure safety and environmental protections are in place.
Friday's appeal challenges rulings by Judge Martin Feldman of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana, who on Feb. 17 gave Interior 30 days to make a verdict on five pending deepwater drilling permits applications. He later added two additional permits to that order.
Blustered Interior‘s Ken Salazar: “The judge in this particular case in my view is wrong," “And we will argue the case because I don’t believe that the court has the jurisdiction to basically tell the Department of Interior what my administrative responsibilities are.”
He added, “the policy we have in mind is unmistakingly clear: We are moving forward with the development of oil and gas” production."

Yeah, sure.

Friend Dennis Avery hits on another energy restricting effort by Washington...
　
“Farmers, along with the rest of us, could get hit with a triple jolt of regulatory shock if the Environment Protection Agency goes forward with its announced controls on carbon emissions. Consumers are already paying heavily for the federal mandate that puts a huge chunk of our corn crop, as ethanol, into our gas tanks instead of into our meat, milk, and eggs. While food costs soar, along with fuel costs, it is a waste of good corn as it contributes almost zero to our energy independence.
Now, the EPA is moving to impose tough limits on carbon emissions from the big power plants across the country—and then plans to screw the new carbon limits down tighter and tighter. Farmers’ fuel and electricity costs would go through the roof, along with everybody else’s.

Avery's distinguished friend and fellow author, Fred Singer, cites the big money in “clean energy”....

“But the financial subsidies [for reducing CO2] have established politically important stakeholders who will continue to fight for programs of "clean energy", "renewable energy", and other such programs -- all in the name of "saving the earth's climate for our children and grand-children."
One only has to look at the current situation in the United States to realize how bad things have become. Western states, under the leadership of California, have established the Western Climate Initiative. Eastern states have established a similar regime. One of the worst ideas is the so-called Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), which would force electric utilities to generate a certain percentage of their power from "renewable energy". Many of these groups demand a 20 percent "feed-in" quota by 2020, although politicians are playing all kinds of games with numbers. President Obama is calling for an 80 percent reduction by 2050. As he promised during the 2008 campaign, under his plan "electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."
　
---For sure, March Madness isn’t just about basketball.
　
Ben Blankenship
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Closing Borders---books

Bensblurb #596 1/11/11

Borders: aka Creative Destruction

So our local Borders is closing. Sad but inevitable, unless of course it had been a government installation.
Inevitable, you must surely agree, because who reads a book anymore, when we can gaze at our PC screens or those little electronic gadgets the youngsters carry around?

But we old fogies treasured our local, un-crowded Borders--an ideal place to browse and sip some coffee. In contrast, the one down in Central Park is usually crawling with nerds and way too busy.

A big problem, however, with both of them is that both, unlike a major competitor, have failed to provide lots of unprofitable PCs for free customer use.

Yes, their competition is virtually unique for Borders and other book stores. (They say Barnes & Noble is ill also.) Visit any local tax-supported library and you’ll see why. Notice their rows of PC screens. Users wait in lines to gain access, or something.

And they attract school kids galore. Not that our local libraries are governmental, per se. But they might as well be. They’re political sacred cows.

I don’t know what will take over that space in Stafford Market Place when Borders closes. Maybe another pet superstore? Just what we need.

What would be really nice: A new Olde Country Buffet, like the one near Potomac Mills or the other one that recently closed, unfortunately, on Route 3 west of Fredericksburg.

It may all be part of a process called creative destruction, a term coined by economist Joseph Schumpeter in 1942 to denote a "process of industrial mutation that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one," says Investopedia.

Of course, it doesn’t apply to government programs. The post office, ethanol, EPA, TSA and IRS leap to mind. Like the libraries, they keep rocking along. But with our governments increasingly going bust, we face a troubled future.

Meanwhile, the commercial sector makes needed changes. Remember Hecht. Woodies. Montgomery Ward. Pontiacs. And now, Borders. RIP.

Also close to home, I lament Bon Foods, Frank’s, Gargoyles, Fitness University. Instead, we get Rosner Toyota and a vacant desert in Aquia Towne Center. Seriously.

And just look where the fine old Roy Rogers used to be on U.S. 1 at 610. It became Arby’s, then Anita’s, and now who knows what.

Borders’ sad tale carries larger meaning, of course. As explained in a tract forwarded to me by friend Raymond McDaniel, “You say you will never give up the physical book ... I said the same thing...[but] you can browse a bookstore online and even read a preview chapter before you buy. And the price is less than half that of a real book. And...once you start flicking your fingers on the screen instead of the book, you find that you are lost in the story...and you forget that you're holding a gadget instead of a book.”

No way.

Ben Blankenship is a long-time journalist and a resident of Aquia Harbour. Reach him at Benblanken@aol.com
　

Here come the Hot Lanes

Bensblurb # 595 3/4/11

(For friends and fans living beyond Greater Stafford, this will be of academic interest at most...Unless you love to see the travails of creeping urbanization. Ben B.)


Hot lanes are coming...Great ?

So it looks like we’ll get hot lanes on I-95 down to Garrisonville Road. Someday. I hope I’ll still be around to see it happen.
Of course, my perspective is mainly as a casual observer, thank you very much, not a harassed commuter. But not completely casual. For right at our front door of Aquia Harbour, my beloved place, the southbound commuter hot lanes will dump onto Garrisonville Road and vicinity. I can think of no worse place on the Stafford stretch of I-95 to end it. What a mess that will be.

Surely our wacky parallel intersection problems of U.S. 1 and I-95 and the peculiar ramps will have to be fixed. And what, pray tell, is the sense of making Garrisonville Road an even busier pathway to...pristinely rural Fauquier County?

For our longtime residents who still long for a bygone, less crowded environment, lots of luck. The only way for that to happen, won’t. As Ronald Reagan once said, “..Government is not the solution to the problem, government is the problem.”
I’ll say. The end of Stafford’s tranquility came with the expansions of Quantico, and then the BRAC base-closing edicts that are luring even more bureaucrats and their hangers-on to ratcheer.

Hello, congestion, in spades. If you think those Rte 610 commuter lots are overcrowded now, just wait.

Looking on the bright side, however, we’ll see an influx of commuters who have lived up north seeking both the convenience of the hot lanes and the cheaper housing down here. Our real estate values will arise from the toilet.

And if North Stafford gets really desperate for commuter parking lots, here’s a suggestion. Many of Aquia Harbour’s 2,500 home-owning commuters would welcome parking virtually next door. To wit: The 35-acre plot of Aquia Harbour’s undeveloped and adjoining land very near U.S. 1 and just north of Harpoon Drive.

We should recruit Stafford supervisor Bob Woodson, in whose district the land lays, to champion such a development before he leaves office next fall. Lots of luck on that.

Now bear with me for a few remembrances. Commuting used to be hardly any problem back in the good old days (1978) when I and my family first relocated here voluntarily from Falls Church. We had a vanpool that organized just down the block, at the tennis courts. And our travel to downtown Washington took less than 1-1/2 hours, and just as fast on return.
There were no restricted lanes, just two lanes each way. Of course, that was when Aquia Harbour counted only 325 homeowners and our own section three was then only developer Bill Roth’s fondest dream. Garrisonville Road had its sole stoplight at U.S. 1. Stafford’s 40,000 residents (129,000 now) had no drug store within the county and only one high school. It would be three long years before Ronald Reagan became our nation’s leader.

My first opinion column on this page appeared in March 1997, and you have tolerated me, most of the time, ever since. Thanks kindly. An early concern of mine was that I would eventually run out of ideas to write about.
...Not yet.

Rising Star?

Bensblurb #594 3/2/11

Changes in our firmament:
A Rising Star.....
Rising Star? No, I’m not talking about that venerable town about an hour east of Abilene on Hwy 36. If I remember correctly from 50 years ago, there’s a stop sign for its fewer than a thousand residents. We’d pass through on the way to and from Texas A&M back in the good old days.
Neither is Rising Star any more our young president of recent vintage. He looks now to be, no longer hot, but in a cool-down with occasional cold spells. A couple examples of troubles in his drifting course are below.
Rather, the Rising Star I’m seeing now is an even younger, but surely ascending body in our northern reaches. In the spotlight now almost constantly, he’s shining brightly with welcome portents for the future.

Yes, he’s Wisconsin Gov. Walker...the fellow our President has been throwing curve balls at. But with no strike-outs. As Scott Johnson has noted in Powerline, “Can Obama make an argument without false premises, without false conclusions, or without begging the question? You have to wonder. Coming from the most fiscally irresponsible president in American history, Obama's criticism of Governor Walker is, shall we say, ironic. It doesn't do ...any good to denigrate or vilify governors who are acting responsibly to balance their budgets!

On Fox News, Gov. Walker reacted to the White House offensive: “I'm sure the President knows that most federal employees do not have collective bargaining for wages and benefits while our plan allows it for base pay. And I'm sure the President knows that the average federal worker pays twice as much for health insurance as what we are asking for in Wisconsin. At least I would hope he knows these facts. Furthermore, I'm sure the President knows that we have repeatedly praised the more than 300,000 government workers who come to work every day in Wisconsin. I'm sure that President Obama simply misunderstands the issues in Wisconsin, and isn't acting like the union bosses in saying one thing and doing another.”--an excellent example of irony, meaning the opposite of what he says.
Clearly, unlike Obama, Walker’s star is rising, especially in comparison with his chief critic.

Meanwhile, see what columnist Jonah Goldberg wrote about Obama’s DOMA squirming: "There's good reason to believe that Obama has always been lying -- yes, lying -- about opposing gay marriage. For example, in 1996, he told The Windy City Times, 'I favor legalizing same-sex marriages, and would fight efforts to prohibit such marriages.' But by 2004, Obama very much wanted to be president, and he understood that supporting gay marriage would be a political liability. So he opted for something other than honesty. And in a 2004 interview with a gay publication, Obama strongly hinted his opposition was strategic, not philosophical. ... President Obama says DOMA [Defense of Marriage Act] is unconstitutional, and yet the 'law professor' says he will continue to enforce it. In a properly ordered constitutional republic, this would be a scandal. But in America today, it's cause for eye-rolling, shrugs and platitudes about the demands of politics."

And now even Ruth Marcus of Real Clear Politics piles on: “For a man who won office talking about change we can believe in, Barack Obama can be a strangely passive president. There are a startling number of occasions in which the president has been missing in action — unwilling, reluctant or late to weigh in on the issue of the moment. He is, too often, more reactive than inspirational, more cautious than forceful. . . . Where’s Obama? No matter how hard you look, sometimes he’s impossible to find.”

As Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit put it: It’s as if we elected an inexperienced community organizer who’s in way over his head or something. But the establishment media seems increasingly willing to point this out lately. That’s big, because without them to prop him up, he’s toast.

The Wall Street Journal's Kimberly Strassel adds perspective: to the larger irony expressed in Walker's statement: “Fact: President Obama is the boss of a civil work force that numbers up to two million (excluding postal workers and uniformed military). Fact: Those federal workers cannot bargain for wages or benefits. Fact: Washington, D.C. is, in the purest sense, a "right to work zone." Federal employees are not compelled to join a union, nor to pay union dues. Fact: Neither Mr. Obama, nor the prior Democratic majority, ever acted to give their union chums a better federal deal.

About Walker, finally, here’s PJ Tatler: “Say what you will about him, but Scott Walker is serious. His plan to save the state budget is serious and his behavior in the face of insults and attack from the White House on down has been serious. He is taking on the unions and the far left in their house, you might say, in one of the most union-friendly states in the country. And as things have shaken out, he has to win now. For his opponents to get the upper hand at this point would be to empower those who abuse the democratic process from one end to the other, recycling tax dollars into campaign dollars via union dues on the one hand, and flat out running from duty when the duty got tough on the other hand. That just shouldn’t stand.

---In short, it looks like we’re heading for a collision, right soon. Will the Rising Star be deflected?

Stay tuned.

Ben Blankenship
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