Long live the conservatives

Long live the conservatives (Bensblurb #671 )

By: BEN BLANKENSHIP | For the Stafford County Sun
Published: July 18, 2012 Updated: July 18, 2012 - 11:57 AM

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@Staffordcountysun.com

Our long hot summer, combined with our country’s prolonged jobless recovery, would be problematical even if there were no elections coming up in November. But, as we are constantly being reminded, they are.

So, contrary to Nat King Cole’s happy tune serenading those lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer, we old folks on the sidelines of the action are left to remember fondly those times way back when, when things were looking up, and not so cock-eyed and frustrating as now.

True, the Nationals are surprisingly good at baseball. And wouldn’t it be nice to see…wait for it…a Yankee-Nats World Series!

Even better (WARNING:political diatribe ahead), it would be great to see the GOP win the House, Senate, and of course, the White House. Otherwise, I fear that our national slog of the past four years will continue or worsen. Things aren’t a bit better today, I say.

About the only good thing I have gotten in recent years is older. Fact is, I have now outlived the life expectancy of today’s men, which is said to average 78.5 years.

Why? Maybe it’s good breeding or something. More to the point, it’s said that certain healthy behaviors help extend our years. Moreover, researchers have found that your personality could affect how many birthdays you celebrate. According to stuff on the Internet (which surely should know), six personality traits in particular are more common in those who lead longer lives. They are: Conscientious, easy to laugh, socially connected, optimistic, happy, extroverted. I score well most of the time, and I would add one more: Conservative. Read on.

Arthur Brooks of the American Enterprise Institute, in the New York Times, explained why conservatives describe themselves as so much happier than liberals. They (we) favor an explanation focusing on lifestyle differences, such as marriage and faith. Most conservatives are married; most liberals are not. (The percentages are 53 percent to 33 percent, and almost none of the gap is due to the fact that liberals tend to be younger than conservatives.) Marriage and happiness go together.

I do applaud proposed measures to cut the size of government. Simply put, it’s way too big. But let’s not go overboard. The armed forces need help, not hindrance. As I have claimed before, it’s almost criminal the way our troops are sent back on second and third deployments and even more. Support our troops.

Also, we need to be careful in blasting the Post Office. It does need trimming. But to my neighbors in Aquia Harbour (in 2,500 homes) I would advise muted criticism. For if big cutbacks happened, our mail boxes could all be aggregated at the entrance gate. Many townhouse communities have such community boxes. Besides, it wasn’t too long ago that Stafford County, frustrated by our lack of progress in improving our roads, threatened to pick up and drop off our school children only at one spot near the entrance.

So let’s be prudent, conservatives, and live life longer.

Ben Blankenship, a long-time columnist, can be reached at info@staffordcountysun.com.

Grads on the prowl

Grads are on the prowl

By: BEN BLANKENSHIP

 

It’s no secret that the job situation remains tight. New graduates face a prolonged rough spell. Things aren’t getting better, and won’t until our national fiscal crisis wanes. The government’s debt now equals gross domestic product — for the first time since WWII.

We are fortunate that Stafford County is in such good shape on the jobs front. Our unemployment is well below average.

Even so, a college education no longer guarantees a job anywhere. Instead, it too often produces a grad’s huge debt burden. Worse, nearly a fourth of former grads’ student loans are now in default, as today’s huge tuition burdens keep rising.

Not without comment. Listen to Mark Cuban, billionaire owner of the Dallas Mavericks…“… New high end, unaccredited schools are popping up that will offer better educations for far, far less and create better job opportunities…particularly in the tech world, with online and physical classrooms. They respond to needs in the market…assuring those who excel that they will get a job. All for far less money than traditional schools... It’s far too easy to borrow money for college…[yielding] more outstanding debt now for student loans than there is for auto loans or credit card loans.”

But not to worry? According to a recent blog post, a new law permits graduates to pay no more than 10 percent of their income toward federal student loans at a given time, regardless of how much they owe. And if they haven’t paid back the full amount after 20 years of working, the remainder is forgiven…by us taxpayers. Oh swell.

Meanwhile, for new high school grads, here are some handy reminders (from a speech by Microsoft’s Bill Gates):

“Life is not fair…The world won’t care about your self-esteem. It will expect you to accomplish something before you feel good about yourself…If you think your teacher was tough, wait ‘til you get a boss…if you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes…Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not…Life isn’t divided into semesters; you don’t get summers off and few employers are interested in helping you find yourself; do it on your own time… Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.”

College bound? Brace yourself: “…[M]any students enter university lacking the basic skills and knowledge to succeed in their courses… they often arrive essentially unteachable, lacking the personal qualities necessary to respond to criticism.” — Janice Fiamengo,UniversityofOttawa English professor.

But so what? The degrees come easier today. It’s claimed that college students get more As than any other grade although they spend less time studying.

Finally, a friendly neighborhood reminder: A good community college is now nearby — Germanna Community College’s Stafford Center in Aquia Park, just south of State Route 610 at U.S. 1.

Also,Stafford’s political leaders are working to create a tech research park that will serve as an incubator where entrepreneurs could work with researchers to build new technologies and companies.

Great, but not on my dime, please.

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The Good Old Days 5/12

By: BEN BLANKENSHIP | For the Stafford County Sun

“In the middle of May, I met a gal named June…

And they were married, in the middle of May.”

But things are sadly different today. Admittedly, one tends to generalize from the specific. My generation, the Depression babies, will often use our own experiences to essentially look down our noses at those who arrived later. For ours were the good old days.

“They don’t make ‘em like they used to,” we grumble. But that’s generally a good thing. Folks my age are living proof that our longer life spans have benefited from great advances in medicine and science.

Another real and lifelong benefit for us, however, is often overlooked. We Depression babies got a wonderful favor. Most adults at the time had few of us. Thus, our age cohort has benefited greatly.

We then entered our working years during an era of rising prosperity. It was easy to find a job. Not only that, but unlike today, we males had little competition for employment from the girls. They stayed at home. We worked. It was a nice combination, especially for us males and our families.

True, we hear complaints today that working women are at a real disadvantage, that they are paid less than males. However, it’s not often pointed out that they also work, in general, fewer hours per week — a major factor.

We old guys also got good educations on the cheap, unlike today. So we started work with a clean slate.

Today, it’s said that college graduates face the world with huge loan burdens, owing thousands of dollars that even possible future bankruptcies can’t erase from their liabilities. For some 37 million adults owing student loans nowadays, most of them aren’t paying down balances.

My goodness. Fees for a semester for us guys at Texas A&M totaled Less than $400. That included room, board, and uniform for all us fortunate all-male, military students.

Financial burdens? The first house I bought and signed a mortgage for cost $16,500. And from then until recently, the booming home market has been instrumental in building elders’ estates. But today’s homeowners with mortgages are in a fix, with the housing market continuing its long slog. Owners now financially under water on their home loans may not see relief from a real estate recovery anytime soon (although North Stafford seems to be reviving lately).

And seldom have we citizens ever faced such an unsettling, bewildering political future. Yes the Clinton years were unsettling, but the economy soon bounced back. Now a nervous President Obama presides over a mess. It’s said he has already had more campaign fundraisers than the previous five presidents combined. Two huge Supreme Court decisions, due shortly, could smack down his one major accomplishment, Obamacare, plus his Attorney General’s veto of Arizona’s border-control law.

Meanwhile, Congress can’t get anything done and we soon face a federal financial disaster as a consequence.

Such matters are of little real moment for me and my wife. But we do worry about what our heirs face — an uncertain, troubling future.

Global Warming Bull

Richard Muller, a climatologist of note, has written a climate-skeptic's piece in the current What's Up With That blog. It claims that no amount of CO2 reduction by the U.S. will have the slightest effect in cutting global CO2 levels. Why? Because India and China are going hell for leather to increase industrial production--with coal and oil the main drivers. They, not we, are the main and growing producers of things now. Unless and until we come out of the Obama recession, we'll be hard pressed to ever catch up with them again. Stick that in your friends' recipes for global warming solutions

Extraneous thoughts on Mothers Day

Bensblurb #607 Extraneous thoughts on Mothers Day, 5/8/11

Obama: Tough Guy?
So he got lucky, thank goodness, in ordering the Bin Laden attack. Will that be enough to bury his silly past?

Historian Victor Davis Hanson summarizes the national security positions asserted by then Senator Obama...and contrasts them with the positions he has taken as president...
Senator Obama opposed tribunals, renditions, Guantanamo, preventive detention, Predator-drone attacks, the Iraq War, wiretaps, and intercepts -- before President Obama either continued or expanded nearly all of them, in addition to embracing targeted assassinations, new body scanning and patdowns at airports, and a third preemptive war against an oil-exporting Arab Muslim nation -- this one including NATO efforts to kill the Qaddafi family. The only thing more surreal than Barack Obama's radical transformation is the sudden approval of it by the once hysterical Left....Also, Obama didn’t spike the ball in the end zone, but he did take numerous victory laps around the Bin Laden track.
Anti-South?

Meanwhile, Obama’s NLRB tries to stiff S. Carolina in Boeing factory there, and he stiffs Virginia’s request for emergency assistance for tornado damage....Then in Texas, his Fish and Wildlife Service tries to get a sand lizard on endangered list and squelch oil drilling....A pattern here?
　
Please stiff AG

Maybe he will, for a change, put a lid on his Attorney General Holder. But don’t hold your breath. Here’s Linda Chavez, in Washington Examiner:　
While the Obama administration deservedly revels in the success of the U.S. operation to kill Osama bin Laden...one question remains: Why is the Justice Department threatening criminal prosecution of the men who made the mission possible?
CIA Director Leon Panetta has acknowledged that the initial information that led to the discovery of bin Laden's hideout in Abbottabad came, in part, from information obtained by "enhanced interrogation techniques against some of those detainees." Yet, Attorney General Holder persists in what appears to be a vendetta against these very CIA interrogators.
In August 2009, Holder ordered a continued investigation into "enhanced interrogation" techniques used by the CIA, even though an earlier investigation by career prosecutors concluded that no crimes were committed. The irony in all of this is made worse by President Obama's acknowledgment of intelligence agencies' role when he announced that bin Laden had been killed.
Armed Forces Day, May 21...

A proposed new law would provide an opportunity for all of our children to be able to say with dignity that they honorably served their nation. Having a draft would not necessarily mean that everyone called to duty would be required to serve in the Armed Forces. Whether that service to our country is in our military, in our schools, in our hospitals, or in our airports, the Universal National Service act would require young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 to commit themselves to two years of national service.
For the civilian service, we wouldn't be starting from scratch, but instead building on the current community service infrastructure that we have through national programs like Americorps or local initiatives like NYC Serve. From helping to rebuild New Orleans, providing security at our nation's ports, or working in areas of extreme poverty in this country, there are plenty of jobs that will not only help our young adults learn about their country, but also provide them with invaluable experiences and training that will enrich their lives. Just like the Peace Corps, but for our nation, universal national service would a positive bonding experience for an entire generation to give back to their country.
Conscription, when everyone is called to serve, has powered some of our nation's greatest military victories, including WWII. The need for a draft is not a condemnation of our current military force, but a strong belief in equality and that the sacrifices needed to maintain a vibrant economy should be shared by all.
Currently the burden of defending our nation is carried by an increasingly smaller segment of our population. Only 1 percent of the American population currently makes the sacrifice of laying down life and limb for our country.
Far too many are being forced into repeated tours of duty, sometimes as many as six deployments. This repeated combat exposure to our troops is why 25 percent of America's active duty military personnel suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is why the Army's current suicide rate is far above the civilian rate at 22 per 100,000. The rate for the Marine Corps is even higher.
These statistics regarding the well-being of our troops are staggering. We cannot merely stand by as a minor segment of our population make continuous sacrifices on our collective behalf.

The bill’s author? Charlie Rangel...!


--Ben Blankenship
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Virginia's next governor?

Our next governor? Bensblurb #606 5/6/11

What’s an activist? Someone carrying signs and writing hate mail to public officials?

The pejorative typically describes a leftist, an anti-government drumbeater or nutty conspiracy monger.

But consider Ken Cuccinelli. He’s Virginia’s Attorney General. He’s also an activist by any measure with a headline-grabbing talent to rival Tea Partiers while fighting both the global warmists and the Environmental Protection Agency.

In addition, he’s taking on Obamacare, claiming it’s unconstitutional because it wrongly invokes the interstate commerce clause in forcing everyone to subscribe. The courts so far agree, and disagree, now slapping down Virginia’s request for expedited review of the Obamacare lawsuit, forcing us to spend more taxpayer money on Obamacare in the meantime. He’ll argue the case in the Court of Appeals in Richmond next week.

What’s behind Cuccinelli’s busy agenda? Besides being naturally energetic, he likely has other goals in mind, like becoming Virginia’s next governor, since the incumbent can’t run again.

Whatever, his legal opinions do stir the headline writers. “Bullets and Bibles spark Va. debate,” blared the Washington Post after Cuccinelli issued an advisory opinion this spring allowing parishioners to carry guns to services.

His political energies trace back at least to his election to the Virginia Senate, representing Fairfax County from 2002 to 2010. According to Wikipedia, during that time he took conservative positions on abortion, gay marriage, illegal immigration, taxes, government spending, eminent domain and more, while supporting law enforcement and the mentally disabled.

Now as Attorney General he’s into numerous divisive legal thickets. As a global warming skeptic, he brought suit to force the University of Virginia to release records of climate scientist Michael Mann who worked there, supported by taxpayer-funded grants. Mann, later at Penn State, constructed the infamous “hockey stick” graph that erroneously depicted much worse global warming than had occurred.
He’s also ridiculed EPA’s proposed rules to limit trucks’ tailpipe emissions. In a Tea Party speech at a rally in January, he said, “[If] fully implemented...they will keep the temperature from rising nearly five one-hundredths of a degree Fahrenheit. By 2050."

An EPA spokesperson later affirmed: "Although the projected reductions are small...they are quantifiable and would contribute to reducing climate change risks." Uh, huh.
Then there’s this nugget from a February press conference. Cuccinelli: “The decision by the EPA to regulate carbon dioxide as a dangerous pollutant is going to have a severe impact on the people of Virginia...[Obama] wants to force the coal industry out of business because of the carbon dioxide emitted when coal is burned to create electricity. Coal, as you know, is the economic engine of the southwestern part of Virginia and is one of the main job providers down there...Getting rid of coal means that energy prices are going to skyrocket...”

This young fellow may go far. Stay tuned. Our next election for governor and other state elected positions: Nov. 2013.

Lizard to blame for oil prices?

Bensblurb # 605 4/30/11

High gas prices? Blame Industry, everyone else

“...[The] president condemned politicians who ‘score a few points’ by offering quick-fix solutions whenever there is a spike in gas prices. ‘The truth is, there’s no silver bullet that can bring down gas prices right away,’ Obama said...The White House unveiled a task force ...which would investigate ‘fraud or manipulation’ in oil markets that could affect gas prices.”--Politico blog (Aside: Bush and Clinton had tried the same thing, with zero effect.)
　
“...[On] July 14, 2008, oil prices suddenly plummeted from their historic high of $145 a barrel. Why? Because that was the day President George W. Bush signed an executive order lifting the moratorium on off-shore drilling in the eastern half of the Gulf of Mexico and off the U.S. Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Overnight, the price per barrel of oil plunged...Obama could with the stroke of a pen sign an executive order telling his appointees at EPA, the Department of Interior and the Department of Energy to stop throwing up obstacles to increased U.S. oil and natural gas production.” --Washington Examiner

Obstacles? You betcha. For instance: The Fish and Wildlife Service is holding hearings in a huge West Texas oilfield on severely limiting activity there. Why? Because bureaucrats want to list the dune sagebrush lizard there as an endangered species. Peculiar, indeed. But it’s happened elsewhere too--an owl to shut down logging in the Northwest, a mouse to shut down wheat farming in Colorado, a minnow and rat to end vegetable growing in California, and more.
But you already knew the federal g
overnment’s power is just too awesome, from an example right here in the Harbour. Yes, we benefited from a wacky environmental directive, at a construction company’s expense.

In constructing the new Wilson Bridge over the Potomac River several years ago, the company was forced to compensate for destroying some mudflat acreage there, by creating newly sacred “wetlands.” Where? Right here on Aquia Creek, just past the end of Dewey Drive in section two. You can drive up to the elevated sea wall there and fish from it.

Contractors had dug out about an acre and a half there beside the creek, so its water would “naturally” soak it at just the right depth for the introduced weeds. Our land surrendered for the project netted us about $96,000.

Many thanks. Even so, I don’t know about you, but I say our all-powerful bureaucracy in Washington is too full of itself, and needs to be taken down a peg or two.

Also, "Growing the economy is simple. The key is that America’s citizens must push for policy-induced prosperity. Wouldn’t it be great if the federal government once again helped, instead of hindered?" --Newsmax Ben Blankenship
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