Sleepless in Midland

Slime and TPMS

Can TPMS tolerate Slime?

TPMS, or tire pressure maintenance system, is the system in cars which alerts the driver when the pressure is low in one or more of the tires. It would be a nice convenience, and it might have been a nice option for car buyers to consider. But thanks to the Clinton administration, it's not an option. It's required by law in new cars sold after 9/1/2007 because nanny lawmakers thought drivers shouldn't have to check their tire pressure the old fashioned way.

I had some Uniroyal tires with a factory installed sealant in them called "Nailguard" that stopped up any holes that developed. That was a great feature, and I never had a flat while I owned those tires. On one occasion I pulled out a screw, the sealant plugged the hole, and I was on my way. But those tires are no longer available because sealants would ruin the TPMS in any tire that had it.

I've complained about this before in case this particular rant sounds familiar. See Things we didn't need -- Tire Pressure Monitoring Systems in our cars.

So here's the reason this comes up again today. Walmart sells a tire sealant called Slime which says on the label that it's OK to use on tires with TPMS. This is from the Slime website:

Does your vehicle have a TPMS (Tire Pressure Monitoring System)? Use our yellow label sealants with the TPMS Safe icon. They are specially designed for use in tires with these systems.

Hooray for American ingenuity. It's just a shame that so much effort has to expended to get around useless laws.

The get-out-the-vote verdict

While it would have been nice and easy had the Supreme Court ruled Obamacare unconstitutional in its entirety in National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius, the ballot box is really a better place to battle it out.

As Chief Justice Roberts said in the opinion:

We do not consider whether the Act embodies sound policies. That judgment is entrusted to the Nation’s elected leaders. page 2

It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices. page 6

In other words, elect a bunch of idiots and expect to get idiotic laws. You get what you deserve, and don't expect the Supreme Court to come bail you out.

Election day in November 2012 will be a defining moment for the nation. It's tempting to think that voters in 2008 simply put their brains on pause and let their emotions get swept along by Obama's rock star aura. But after four years, few of those brains should still be on pause. And it's time to hit the reset button. If a majority of voters reelect Barack Obama then we know they don't want the U.S. to be a beacon of individualism, freedom and enterprise but instead want a nation more like those in Europe and South American with the government as nanny, citizens as obedient subjects, and the economy shackled by uncertainty.

Mitt Romney is not the perfect candidate, but he doesn't have to be. He simply needs to be able to steer the nation away from the course set by Barack Obama.

Obamacare - explain it like I'm five

Obamacare is declared the law of the land by the Supreme Court, so for anyone who doesn't understand Obamacare, this picto explains how it fits in nicely with normal human behavior.

By Captainpixysticks and Kelachris and found here and here.

No wonder fireworks sellers fight so hard against burn bans

A few years ago on the night of July 4th a friend took me to the outskirts of town for a good view of the fireworks over Midland, Texas. It was quite a sight.

There was no way to count them all, but every few seconds a rocket went up somewhere in the city. And sometimes there were several rockets in the air at a time. At $10 to $30 per rocket, there was a lot of money going up smoke. (See some sample prices in this catalog.)

The morning paper told us that the fireworks vendors are very exited about sales prospects this season with nary a hint of how much money is involved. But there's no question that a lot of money changes hands to make this happen. It's no wonder the sellers fought so hard against the firework bans.

License to work -- paying your state in order to do your job

The Institute for Justice asks “Should You Need the Government’s Permission to Work?”

They've compiled searchable lists of states and jobs which require a license. Some of them make sense. For example, a license for an electrician might insure a minimum level of competence. But for other jobs, like barbers and cosmetologists, one has to question the necessity of a license. For some jobs a requirement for a license is merely a technique that limits competition and protects established businesses.

The IJ site for Texas shows a long list of jobs that require licenses, but their list is questionable as it lists Travel Guide as a job requiring a license. It would be fun to make fun of that one -- the state has to make sure the guide knows the difference between the Alamo and Alamo Beer. However, my own search didn't uncover any Texas state license requirement for a travel guide. However, there are plenty of other jobs that do require licenses.

Take a look at the State of Texas license search page and click the arrow below "Inquire by License Type" to get a list of the jobs requiring a license. That's actually a fun site for the casually curious. [User note: the search site might require acceptance of cookies.] For example, you can learn that there are 51 Combative Sports Timekeepers licensed in Texas. Those would be the bell ringers at boxing matches. They need a license to watch a clock? Who knew?

Among other professions that require a license is Identity Recovery Service Contract Provider of which there is a grand total of one currently licensed in Texas.

The records show there are fewer than 15,000 barbers but over 200,000 cosmetologists licensed in Texas. Maybe that's why Texas women are so beautiful.

There are 257 polygraph examiners. And get this, 66 booting company/operators. What's a booting company/operator? That's someone who puts a boot on the tire of a car they think is illegally parked.

The state is pretty hard on those who don't follow their rules, and browsing though the punishment section is equally instructive. Again, click on a profession then "search" to find administrative actions such as a fine of $550 when, "Respondent leased space in a salon to an individual who engaged in the practice of cosmetology with an expired cosmetology license," or a fine of $350 for an Air Conditioning/Refrigeration Contractor who failed to submit his change of business affiliation within 30 days, or a fine of $375 for a talent agent who "failed to state the registration number of the talent agency on a publication or advertisement."

It must be tough being in a licensed profession in Texas. The state agency might do a better job of demonstrating the need for licensing if they didn't use their regs like a club. However, you might be glad to know the Combative Sports Timekeepers didn't incur any fines. Now there's one profession that knows that its business.

Jack Cashill, narrative buster

"Mythbuster" was already taken, but "narrative buster" will do nicely. It's CSI Obama bookville.

Sleepless readers will remember Jack Cashill's scrutiny of Barack Obama's "Dreams of My Father" in which he provides much circumstantial evidence that the book was actually authored by Bill Ayers, not Barack Obama. See previously on these pages Where were the main stream media when we needed them in 2008?

Cashill has applied his extraordinary detective skills to the new Obama biography by David Maraniss, titled Barack Obama: The Story, in which he notes the gaps in the Obama narrative. While Maraniss despises the birthers, he's given them more ammo, Mr. Cashill notes in Maraniss Bio Deepens Obama Birth Mystery.

He goes on to tell us that a paper Obama wrote in 1983 for a Columbia University publication called the Sundial contained several grammar and punctuation errors. Those same errors were on display in some of Obama's other available writings, so Cashill used the Sundial article as the Obama Roseta Stone. However, in Maraniss's book that Sundial article and various letters reproduced there were curiously error free. Someone cleaned them up, and the only logical reason was to make Obama look better than he was. Read about it yourself at Did Maraniss Commit Fraud to Protect Obama?

The narrative mismatch goes on for as long as anyone wants to read about it. For more, go to Cashill's bibliography at AmericanThinker.com.

Quote of the day -- Milton Friedman

Timothy P. Carney made the observation today that the Left may be shifting its focus a little bit from a goal of big government as a check on the pursuit of profit to the goal of big government as a partner with business. See An expanding partnership between business and government.

So maybe this is a good time to bring out the late Milton Friedman, articulate and understandable, with his observations about government and business. Watch him here as he explains it to Phil Donahue. Here's the quote at about the 1:20 mark.

Friedman: So that the record of history is absolutely crystal clear, that there is no alternative way so far discovered of improving the lot of the ordinary people that can hold a candle to the productive activities that are unleashed by the free enterprise system.

Runner up quote of the day, same clip near the end -- To Donahue's argument that free enterprise doesn't reward virtue as much as it does the ability to manipulate the system, Friedman politely explains that government is not motivated by virtue, and ...

Friedman: Is it really true that political self interest is nobler somehow than economic self interest? ... Tell me where in the world do you find these angels who are going to organize society for you?
Donahue: Well ...
Friedman: I don't even trust you to do that.

He's right, of course. Government as a partner with business will simply reward those businesses that, to borrow Donahue's words, can manipulate the system at the expense of their competitors. We've got that already.

But the bank said the check cleared

The victims were scammed anyway.

Here's the way it works.  A potential client in another country contacts a law firm asking for help collecting a debt. The firm takes the case, and shortly thereafter, they receive a check from the debtor for the full amount. The client tells the law firm to deposit the check into the law firm's bank account then wire to the client the amount of the first check less the law firm's fee. The law firm complies, but that check from the debtor was hot. So the law firm is out whatever they paid to the scamming client. See page 17 of the IC3 2011 Internet Crime Report.

That scam has been going on since at least 2007, and the news is that law firms were so quick to wire money before determining whether the bogus checks cleared. But here's the twist. There are some cases in which the law firms did ask. And in a case in New York state a banker told the lawyer that the check cleared and that the funds were available. The law firm acted on that information, but the check was no good. The law firm sued the bank and lost with the NY appellate court holding that "cleared" was an ambiguous term. See Greenberg, Trager & Herbst, LLP, Appellant, v HSBC Bank USA et al., Respondent.

GTH's claim{**17 NY3d at 580} is based on the alleged oral statement by the HSBC representative that the check had "cleared"—an ambiguous remark that may have been intended to mean only that the amount of the check was available (as indeed it was) in GTH's account. Reliance on this statement as assurance that final settlement had occurred was, under the circumstances here, unreasonable as a matter of law.

Ouch, that must have hurt. Via via via.

Closer to home, a similar scam can target everyday sellers. LooksTooGoodToBeTrue.com gives us this advice:

IF YOU ANSWER “YES” TO ANY OF THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS, YOU MAY BE GETTING SCAMMED!
Are you about to cash a check from an item you sold on the Internet, such as a car, boat, jewelry, etc?
Is it the result of communicating with someone by email?
Did it arrive via an overnight delivery service?
Is it from a business or individual account that is different from the person buying your item or product?
Is the amount for more than the item’s selling price?

What's missing is a way to determine whether the check really did clear.  It's a jungle out there.  Best to ask for a money order and hope it isn't counterfeit.

Attention Texas shoppers - 7 shopping days left til Amazon starts collecting sales tax

This coming week is likely to be a good one for Amazon.com as it will be the last one during which they don't collect Texas sales tax on sales to Texas residents.

It might have been a moral dilemma for some -- buy local and pay a steep sales tax or shop online and avoid the tax.

But for most it wasn't a dilemma at all as they saw the state budget problems as the governments own making. And whatever the revenue stream was, the government spent it and wanted more. As for local stores who wanted the customer cash, they faced the problem when Walmart arrived. And the winners were stores that provided that extra something.

While newspaper editorial writers cheer the tax on the theory that everyone will be contributing their fair share, smart shoppers will still seek the best deal. And for one more week it might be at Amazon.

FedEx uses post office for that last mile

This delivery practice has probably been occurring for a while, but I'm just now catching up to it.

I ordered a portable hard drive from Amazon.com last week and tracked the free shipping through the FedEx tracking site.

The item was picked up at Phoenix by FedEx and shipped to Dallas. Another FedEx leg took it from Dallas to Midland. Then an interesting thing happened. When it arrived at Midland it got turned over to the USPS, i.e., dropped in the mail. And the ultimate deliverer was the USPS letter carrier who placed it in my mail box.

Both the FedEx and USPS tracking sites show the course the package took.

FedEx is simply paying the USPS postage fee so as not to have to drive all over town delivering small packages. Called FedEx SmartPost, it seems like a good utilization of resources by FedEx.

Whether the post office profits from this arrangement isn't known. The USPS is constantly held up to ridicule as a poorly run government program. But the problem is well known. It's shackled by pension commitments, handcuffed by union contracts, and manhandled by the lawmakers. Let it go and it could turn a profit.

Tornado map

The other day we linked to a Wind Map which presents an amazing digital display of wind across the U.S.

Today it's tornadoes. John Nelson at IDV Solutions gathered the raw data and put together maps showing tornado strikes in the U.S for the years 1950 - 2011. The one you see on the right is a small sampler copied from his page and doesn't really do the project justice. To get the big (humongous) picture click 5393 x 2939.

But don't stop there. He's also got them sorted by F scale and by season.

Haven't had enough? This video show strikes by month where he notes, "Animation shows the annual migration of tornadoes northward throughout the season." And this one shows strikes by year.

Some parts of the country appear to be at minimal risk. But the rest of us might be tempted to start digging our own shovel ready project.

Via  via.

Slave states - present day

Much has been made of the period in American history during which humans served as slaves. Indeed, much is made about it 150 years later.

Abe Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation took effect in 1863, however had Abe not done it when he did, it would have happened eventually simply because it was the right thing to do. News of the Proclamation didn't reach Texas until June 19, 1865, and the great Juneteenth holiday was born.

That the U.S. Department of State issued a report on worldwide slavery on June 19, 2012, was certainly not coincidental, and perhaps Secretary Hillary Clinton thinks there might be some political gain in this very important election year. Of course she neglected to mention that the program was a Bush Administration initiative.

In any event, let's take a cursory look at what they came up with. They identify seven categories of slavery, or "human trafficking" as it is now called: sex trafficking, child sex trafficking, forced labor, bonded labor or debt bondage, involuntary domestic servitude, forced child labor, unlawful recruitment and use of child soldiers.

Then they put countries into four tiers:
Tier One -- countries with governments that meet the minimum standard.
Tier Two -- countries with governments that don't meet the minimum standard but are improving.
Tier Two Watch List -- don't meet the minimum standard and getting worse, however the government promised to do better.
Tier Three -- don't meet the minimum standard and aren't even trying.

Sanctions can be placed on Tier Three countries unless the President waives them. The Tier Two Watch List looks like a category for those countries the DOS would prefer not to address, like Afghanistan. "I'm gonna count to three. One ... two ... two and a half ..."

Let's see who they put in Tier Three:

• Algeria
• Central African Rep
• Congo (DRC)
• Cuba
• Equatorial Guinea
• Eritrea
• Korea, North
• Kuwait
• Libya
• Madagascar (I thought that was a kid's movie)
• Papua New Guinea
• Saudi Arabia
• Sudan
• Syria
• Yemen, and finally
• Zimbabwe

See the entire list here and notice, for example, that Switzerland, Japan, Brazil and Mexico, among others, are Tier Two states.

Digitizing the wind for a cool looking map

The image on the left was snipped at about 4:00 pm Eastern today at Wind Map. What you see here is a static image which really doesn't do the site justice. Go there to see the wind flow.  Zoom in on one of those spirals and you can almost feel it.

 
The image on the right is an old fashioned weather map snipped at Accuweather.com at around the same time, although it says 5:00pm Eastern. Note how the low pressure line on that map correlates so nicely to all of that activity on the wind map.

Blow, blow like the wind.

Fisticuffs at the firehouse

What's with all the firefighter fistfights? It was just a few months ago that the media here in Midland, Texas, were all over the story about how a civilian shot the finger at Fire Marshall Jeff Meiner. Meiner caught up with him, a fight broke out, and the civilian went to jail. See previously.

So last Friday I was driving down the street minding my own business, and right there in the front yard of a fire station was a confrontation involving a civilian and four guys in firefighter attire. The odds were against the lone guy, and by the time I circled the block and had my camera ready, police had arrived, and the civilian was penned to the ground.

What triggered this confrontation? It would be nice to hear both sides.

BTW, some people still think it isn't news unless it's reported by the news media.  So by that standard this was a non event. Move along. Nothing to see here.

Updated:  The story sure took a turn.  See the 1st comment, below.  Firefighters coming to the aid of a damsel in distress -- now that's a story worth telling.

Funny Father's Day Cards

Found at listoftheday.blogspot.com.

Found at coolmaterial.com.

Found at thefw.com. Hey, here's a good idea for Mother's Day -- "Thanks for not aborting me."

And my favorite.

Found at Someecards.com.

Click the links for more.

And happy Father's Day to all you dads out there.

FBI crime stats for 2011 - crunching the numbers

The FBI crime stats for 2011 are available now for viewing at the links provided here. However, city comparison is easier in the Excel version available here.

Crime is down for the most part in cities across the nation, and even Flint, Michigan, shows improvement in some of the categories. The website 24/7WallSt.com provides a top ten list for us using the Violent Crimes column for their comparison. Flint was listed as the most dangerous city in America with 23 violent crimes per 1,000 people. The rest of the list contains Detroit at 21, St. Louis at 18.5, Oakland at 17, Memphis at 16, Little Rock at 15, Birmingham at 15, Atlanta at 14, Baltimore at 14 and Stockton rounding out the top ten at 14. (The numbers come from a spreadsheet I'll attach below for anyone who wants to check my math.)

Let's play with the numbers a bit for a comparison of the arson rate. The motives for arson might vary, but the one that seems to make the most sense would be for insurance fraud. And one implication we might make would be that the areas with the highest arson rates had a bad experience with the housing bubble.

So using the arson column we divide the arsons by the population of the city, then multiply that fraction by 10,000 to get the number of arson cases in 2011 per city per 10,000 people.

Doing that, we get a slightly different top ten list, as follows:

1. Flint, MI, at 28.04 arsons per 10,000 of population;
2. Detroit, MI, at 13.42;
3. Buffalo, NY, at 13.22;
4. Toledo, OH, at 12.71;
5. Cincinnati, OH, at 11.04;
6. Dayton, OH, at 10.52;
7. Rochester, NY, at 8.37;
8. Cleveland, OH, at 8.01;
9. Baton Rouge, LA, at 7.73;
10. Hartford, CN, at 7.28.

Interestingly, four of the cities are in Ohio. Is the rust belt in flames?  Baton Rouge is the surprise on the list.  There were no arson cases listed for New Orleans, but that was most likely a reporting deficiency.

The spreadsheet called Crime_data is the one I've customized to play with those numbers in Open Office.  Try it yourself.  It's fun.

Little UK girl photos and blogs about her school lunches -- town council shuts her down

Her blog is NeverSeconds.blogspot.co.uk where she writes under the pseudonym "Veg" about her school lunches complete with photos and ratings. For example: Almost Triple Pasta!

Food-o-meter- 4/10
Mouthfuls- 33
Courses- main/dessert
Health Rating- 5/10
Price- £2
Pieces of hair- 0
Wristband- Orange
Mary's Meal Total-161 children fed for a year or 21% of a kitchen. I will write to say thanks to you all at the weekend.

No pieces of hair, now that's worthwhile information. (Mary's Meal is a charity for which she is raising money.)

Apparently, there was a local newspaper article about the blog, and the town council reacted by banning her photos. Here's her Goodbye post with a note from her dad.

Via Slashdot.org.

A government that bans photographs has something to hide.

Updated 6/16/12: The council reversed the ruling. She says she'll be back online Monday.

In case you missed it -- the infamous head on pike scene

The Last Tradition has a link to the Youtube video clip from the Game of Thrones episode in which the producers used a prop George W. Bush head on a pike. I watched it with the sound off, and it's still pretty gruesome. (If you just want to see the part with the head, which starts at about 1:08 and continues for about two seconds, here's a link to the same vid starting at 1:07.)

I understand the show is quite popular. But who can account for some people's taste?

The show's creators are quoted in Dailymail.co.uk:

"It's not a choice. It's not a political statement," one says. "It's just.. we had to use what heads we had lying around."

Nevertheless, they couldn't resist the urge to boast about it in the DVD commentary.

As others have said, there's simply no way on earth that they would have used Obama's head.

Yahoo, Microsoft and AOL are selling our info to politicians

It has long been known that websites have been gathering information about us, and most of us assumed it was for commercial purposes. We've probably all experienced a situation in which an ad shows up on a website for some product that we had been researching earlier.

Politicians are buying that information, too. Propublica.org has been studying this and is collecting campaign emails for comparison. They tell us, for example, that their readers forwarded over 100 emails sent by the Obama campaign about the fund raising dinner at Sarah Jessica Parker's house and that there were seven different variations of that email. So the messages are obviously being tailored to the information the campaign has about the recipients.

It's reassuring that not all websites sell the info. In another article Propublica.org says that "Google's privacy policy classifies political beliefs as "sensitive personal information," which should not be used for online ad targeting."

They go on to say, "Facebook does allow political campaigns to target political advertisements, but only on the basis of political beliefs reported by the users themselves, rather than information culled from their voting records." In other words, the info someone enters into Facebook is fair game.

Microsoft, Yahoo and AOL don't have any problem with it either, and that should encourage users to search for the "opt out" switch at every opportunity, utilize their browser's "do not track" feature, and disable cookies except when absolutely necessary.

John McCain's top ten examples of Farm Bill pork

John McCain Twitters a top ten list of wasteful spending in the proposed farm bill. Jamie Dupree lists them all in one spot:

"#1 - Creates new USDA office to inspect catfish. FDA already inspects catfish, so this one’s a real bottom-feeder.
#2 - $200 mil Market Access Program promoting brands overseas. Example: Holding "liquor mixology demonstrations" in Russia.
#3 - $25 million to study health benefits of peas, lentils and garbanzo beans. Pretty sure they’re healthy.
#4 - Subsidies for mohair (AKA goat wool), which have cost taxpayers $20 million+ since 1954
#5 - New subsidy for popcorn producers. Yes, popcorn subsidies - after popcorn prices rose 40% in recent yrs.
#6 - $10 million to establish new USDA program to eradicate feral pigs. Talk about pork!
#7 - $15 million to establish a new grant program to “improve” the U.S. sheep industry. A ba-a-a-a-a-a-d idea.
#8 - $700 million for “Ag and Food Research Initiative” funding grants to research pine trees in FL & study moth pheromones
#9 - $40 million in grants from USDA to states to encourage private land owners to use land for bird watching or hunting
#10 - $200 million for “Value Added Grant Program” often used to give grants to wine producers (& cheese makers too) "

Each time a new farm bill comes alone agribusiness farms it for profit. The farm bill is a relic from FDR's new deal, and whether that was a good thing or a bad thing at the time, government handouts became a permanent fixture. It has evolved into an example of crony capitalism.

One more thing white people can't do - Google the "N" word

Using Google Insights, a Harvard doctoral student compiled a paper purporting to demonstrate that areas of the country in which there were a high number of "racially charged searches," i.e., searches for the "N" word, also had a poor voter turnout for Obama in 2008 as compared with the turnout in those same areas for John Kerry in 2004. Here's his article at nytimes.com: How Racist Are We? Ask Google (via yahoo.com). Excerpt:

Add up the totals throughout the country, and racial animus cost Mr. Obama three to five percentage points of the popular vote. In other words, racial prejudice gave John McCain the equivalent of a home-state advantage nationally.

Rather astonishing. He dismisses the concept that many people voted for Obama because of his race because he believes those voters would have voted for Obama anyway.

As for the next election, there's this:

If my findings are correct, race could very well prove decisive against Mr. Obama in 2012. Most modern presidential elections are close. Losing even two percentage points lowers the probability of a candidate’s winning the popular vote by a third. And prejudice could cost Mr. Obama crucial states like Ohio, Florida and even Pennsylvania.

[Bold added.] We knew someone would say it: If Obama loses it's because of racism.

Actually, there are many reasons to vote against Obama this time around that have nothing to do with race -- the dismal job situation, the security leaks, the stagnant economy, the growing government debt burden, the regulatory uncertainty, and on and on. However, one thing that should be of concern for race researchers is whether the experience of having Barack Obama for president will make it harder in the future for black Democrats in national races. Shouldn't be a problem for black Republicans as Herman Cain demonstrated before he exited the primaries.

Meanwhile, the take-away lesson from all of this is that something as seemingly innocuous as a Google search can and will be used against us regardless of the purpose of that search.

Collateral damage in Afghanistan -- silence from the left

President Obama toils over his kill list trying to decide who the next drone target will be. And it's inevitable that a missile is going to miss and kill some innocent people.

Just last week in Afghanistan some 18 or so civilians perished in a fire fight resulting from an attempt by U.S. Marines to capture a Taliban operative.

With all the apologizing Obama did to other nations in his first couple of years in office, he's absent on this one. Instead, a Marine General had to go with hat in hand to apologize to the grieving families. It's barely news in the U.S.

Go back in time, way back to George H. W. Bush's presidency. Following the expulsion of the Iraq invaders from Kuwait, sanctions were placed on Iraq. Remember that?

What about all the innocent babies who starved to death because of those sanctions? That was a ruse perpetrated by Saddam Hussein. But it was plausible enough that the left in the U.S. used it like a club against Bush 41.

So where is the left now that innocents are dying? It's the dog that didn't bark. There is and always has been less concern for innocent deaths than for scoring political points.

Plastic bag bans on the wane

Government plastic bag bans seem to be on the wane after Los Angeles famously banned plastic bags at supermarket checkout lines.

Instead of government involvement, this is a job for citizens. Plastic bags are very durable. In fact, that's the main complaint about them as they don't deteriorate as they adorn the countryside. But that durability is also its advantage. The can be reused many times.

At least locally, volunteerism proved to be the solution. A few months ago many vacant lots adjacent to popular stores looked hideous with plastic bags waving from the mesquite bushes. Keep Midland Beautiful held a clean-up day which brought out hundreds of volunteers to pick up and haul off litter. Vacant lots were returned to their natural state of weedy beauty.

Citizens pitched in and it paid off.

For a discussion on the subject between environmentalist Michael Bolinder and libertarian Nick Gillespie see NPR's Do Plastic Bags Bans Help The Environment? in which Gillespie makes the reasonable point that there should be a pretty high bar for government interference with commerce, choice and lifestyle.

Keeping up with the Martians

There's a very ambitious reality show show in the works which will involve people traveling to, living on, and colonizing the planet Mars. Actually Mars One is a scientific mission. But it will cost $6 billion to send the first four pilgrims up there. And the financing will come if someone wants to pay to have the astronaut selection, preparation, launch, landing, and life on Mars televised.

One of the project ambassadors is Paul Römer, co-creator of the TV show Big Brother, so the groundwork is being laid for this hot TV property.

They are hoping to get the first team off of Earth in the year 2022:

All water, oxygen and atmosphere production will be ready by early 2022, which is when the Earth crew gets a go-ahead for the launch of team one. Each component of the Mars transit vehicle is launched into a low orbit, and linked together. September 14, 2022 goes down in history as the first four astronauts are launched on their journey after last checks. Every part of this adventure will be available to watch on our website, 24/7.

They'll extract water from the soil, separate oxygen from the water molecules, and grow food in greenhouses. One question not answered in their FAQ: Where do the players go who get voted off the planet?

Watch Promotional video.

Via.

Left lane closed. No, your other left.

Left lane closed ahead.

No, your other left.

P.S. A snarky blogger might make a political joke right about now. Something like,

Shutting down the left is a shovel ready job, or

Government - the left hand doesn't know what the left hand is doing. No wait, it's the other way around.

But no. Here at Sleepless in Midland we're above that sort of thing.

The Farm Bill gives Republicans an opportunity to show real fiscal conservatism

While Republicans are celebrating Scott Walker's victory in Wisconsin, it might pay to remember that on a national level when Republicans have the power they are barely better than Democrats.

At this point in time the voting public is intensely focused on government spending, deficits, and debt. That's a good thing. There have always been politicians and voters concerned about it, but we have Barack Obama to thank for giving the issue such a high profile that it has become the dominating electoral issue in much of the country.

But if/when Republicans take charge of the White House and both houses of Congress, will they be able to do the hard thing and cut spending? Or will they gang up to defend their own spending turfs? The farm bill comes to mind.

The farm bill is a new-deal era subsidy program that doles out big bucks to a powerful clientele. That clientele sucked up over $15 billion in 2010.

According to Veronique de Rugy, "The agribusiness sector as a whole spent $124 million for lobbying in 2011." It will take some genuine conservative Senators and Representatives to just say no to the big farm lobbies and turn down that money.

It's a golden opportunity for Republicans to demonstrate true fiscal conservatism. In the words of Ms. de Rugy, end this cronyism already.

John Yoo on Obama's killings

John Yoo came under blistering attack for his legal opinions to the Bush Administration about the pursuit of terrorists because those opinions didn't conform to the Democrat party line as it was at the time. So his observations about President Obama's pursuit of terrorists are particularly noteworthy.

In today's Wall Street Journal, Obama, Drones and Thomas Aquinas:

President Obama notched another victory in the war on terror Monday, when a CIA drone strike killed al Qaeda's second-in-command in Pakistan. ...

Al-Libi's death, however, may represent tactical success in the drone war at the expense of broader strategy.

He goes on to chide Obama over his take-no-prisoners approach -- dead men tell no tales. Further, the flowing faucet of security leaks is frightening away friends who might have otherwise shared intelligence.

Mr. Yoo certainly got the last laugh. And he's once again demonstrated that the attacks on the Bush Administration were about as sincere as campaign bumper stickers and just as partisan.

Remembering those anti-Bush Democrats

Have you ever had to read an acquaintance's email that had some wrong headed opinion that just stuck with you for years?

Happened to me. It was way back in the summer of 2007 when an opinionated former classmate let loose with an email rant about George W. Bush. You've heard it all before, but to summarize, GWB had torn up the Constitution and was trampling over the rights of the people detained at Gitmo. Bush was the worst president the country had had since Richard Nixon. They condoned torture, prisoners were held without habeas corpus, and the U.S. was occupying a country that had not invaded us. The Bush administration had outed a CIA operative -- remember Valarie Plame? Bush and Cheney had shamed the U.S. in the eyes of the world and should be impeached.

That was then, and it was really only partisan politics although at the time it wasn't so easy to prove it. Anyway, Matt K. Lewis' column brought all that back in When hat tips are due. Yes, Obama owes George W. Bush a hat tip for setting up the infrastructure Obama used to conduct his own war on terror. The notable difference is that Obama adopted a take-no-prisoners approach. What an easy way to keep them out of Gitmo.

We would do well to remember that the evil devices of the other side are really just convenient tools for your own side.

Sarah Jessica Parker fund raising for Obama

Celebrity worshipers, get out your checkbooks. President Obama has scheduled another fundraiser with a star. This time it's Sarah Jessica Parker. And just like with the George Clooney party, commoners will have the opportunity to win an invitation with the purchase of a lottery ticket.

The president seems to have discovered something -- the hoi polloi will pay up to hobnob with the haut monde.

The strategy worked for him once, so it might work again. Sarah wants you to be there. Wear your best shoes.

Obama's unsecret wars

The other day we remarked that the U.S. must not have been involved in the Stuxnet Iranian-centrifuge virus, otherwise Obama would certainly have been boasting about it. Spoke too soon. Obama did boast about it.

Here's an NPR article titled 'Obama's Secret Wars' Against America's Threats about the David Sanger's book which exposes those secrets.

The NPR doesn't answer the question of whether Obama started that project or just followed it through. For that answer we have to go leave NPR and go to Fox News to learn that it was started in the Bush administration.

It also makes one wonder what inspired the Obama administration to disclose that information. John McCain thinks he knows. According to WSJ he said on the Senate floor that the leaks raised the prospect that they are "an attempt to further the president's political ambitions for the sake of his re-election at the expense of our national security." It's difficult to come up with another reason.