What Food Establishments Are the Left Boycotting Now?

The Left loves nothing better than a good boycott.  Especially an establishment that their refined palates would reject like a bad kidney.  Salon has offered up five fooderies that they say are run by people who support hyperscary right wing zealots.  Of course they put Mitt Romney in that category too, so take it with a grain of salt.

Here's the list:

1. Chick Fil A (of course)  Come on, Salon, surprise us.

2.  Carl's Jr./Hardees. When would a left winger ever set foot into the carnival for carnivores?  The air itself is probably too gluten saturated for them to enter without a mask.  This place has some of the thickest hamburgers piled high with the best toppings.  Then they add all kinds of other foods, such as giant colas and milkshakes, that Michelle Obama eats and forbids everyone else.

3.  Domino's Pizza.  Domino's Pizza sits right at average.  Good enough to eat if there, but nothing too special.  This is actually a step up from where they once were, which was south of Little Caesar's.  A good deal for feeding a lot of people who just want pizza.  

4.  White Castle.  Never been there, but people swear they're good.

5.  Waffle House.  Of course the Left hates Waffle House.  Nothing looks more All American than the Waffle House.  You can belly up to the counter, order a Coke or a coffee, and watch them scatter and smother your hash browns to your heart's content.  

They stay open always, even on Christmas.  Non Christians pile into Waffle House on Christmas Day, when even Denny's is closed.  Christmas night at the Waffle House is a true study in diversity, every race and religion represented, waiting to be served by the most capitalist of capitalists.  It's not like college diversity, which is really separatism.  It's honest to goodness American diversity.  People sitting cheek to jowl, interacting with waitresses who all call you "hon" regardless of age, gender, religion, or nationality.  They don't care who you are or where you came from, they just want to serve good old fashioned Southern food, make you happy, and get you on your way so someone else can sit down.

Waffle House is exactly what is great about America.  Which is exactly why the Left hates it.

It's not likely that a left wing boycott would make a dent in the profit margin of any of these fine businesses.  In fact, Chick Fil A actually sells more since its targeting by the Left.  None of these places are trendy, even in the anti-trendiness of hipster tastes.  Nothing in these places would appeal to left wingers in the first place. These restaurants' idea of "vegan" is scraping the animal product off of your plate if you complain, while quietly cussing you.  It would be almost as effective as threatening Ford with a boycott of their F 150s.

All Salon did was to help conservatives identify even more places to support with their business.  

Great job!

Another Review of Noah

Well before an atheist director and Russell Crowe teamed up to create an epic film and spark intense controversy among Christians, America's greatest humorist since Mark Twain addressed the subject of Noah.

Bill Cosby's Noah routine was one of his most famous before tales of family life in Bill Cosby, Himself elevated him to middle aged family man stardom.  Cosby in both cases showed why he was and is the master of comedy.  He could tell gut busting stories based on traditional values without undermining them.

Cosby was and is no conservative. He definitely is a liberal in many ways. In fact, he shows many signs of being influenced by William du Bois' idea of "The Talented Tenth."  Du Bois believed that one in ten black men had the potential to lead in life's largest stages.  Cosby played varsity football at Temple University, earned a doctorate, and worked his way into becoming one of television's most influential stars.  Holding fast to the doctrine of education and work, Cosby get treated like the Left's cranky uncle.  He cannot be ignored, but they rarely like what he has to say.

His take on Noah is worth a revisit in light of a revival of interest in the Great Flood event. 

According to Genesis 6:8, Noah "found grace in the eyes of the Lord."

But as the Old Testament explains with many similar individuals, this is never an easy path. Cosby puts Noah in a modern context.  First, he thinks God is playing a practical joke on him.  Then comes the social consequences of "walking" with the Lord.  God asks men such as Noah, Jonah, Moses, and others to break out of their comfortable lives.  They must do things that are not only uncomfortable, but will definitely aggravate family, friends, and authorities.

Cosby's Noah, in the third sequence, unloads his frustration.  Elephants give birth on him, he has to go get another hippopotamus because he accidentally got two males, the entire neighborhood is laughing at him, and he threatens to quit.  Until, of course, it starts raining.  Then he changes his tune "You and me, Lord.  Always been you and me, right?"  

Despite Noah's anger and social ostracism, however, he did still complete the task God set in front of him.

In this routine, Cosby tells the typical story of Old Testament prophecy.  People have a hard time dealing with God's expectations and usually prefer that He finds someone else.  One could probably guess that God chooses individuals less like Charlton Heston in Ten Commandments and more like John Denver in Oh God. 

Walking closely with God is not an easy task at any level and the demands expose all human frailties.  Like anything else in life, it is not stumbling and struggling that define us as much as working through and completing the tasks set for us in life to the best of our abilities and efforts. Despite how drop dead funny Cosby's Noah routine is, this is still the underlying message.

Younger Generation Bashing Never Goes Out of Style. It should.

In the High Middle Ages, a professor at the University of Paris wrote a diatribe against college students "these days."  He moaned that students in his day took their studies more seriously, worked harder, dilly-dallied less.  But as he got older, he noticed that his students worked more lackadaisically, focused more on chasing liquor and women, and generally could not have cared less about serious study.

Sound familiar?  This is the tune that the old always sing about the young.  Entire cottage industries pop up to help the older relate to the younger, as seen in this CBS News piece.

And it gets political, too.  Conservative pundits jumped on "Pajama Boy," as the visual image of Obamacare and the Obama young voter.  A young man, living at home, spending all morning in his onesie pajamas, sipping expensive coffee that his parents bought.  He dreams not of great things, but of how to obtain government services and to keep living off of his parents.

How can such a generation continue to build a great America?

In the spring of 1942, history gets its first glimpse of John Hager Randolph Jr.  He is matriculating at Virginia Military Institute, idling away while many in his generation have already gone to war.  Randolph writes his parents, as many college students have through the years, begging for more money.  He worries about which girl, or girls to date.  What stresses him the most is his parents' potential reaction to his grades, nearly all bad.

The letters home from Randolph, collected in the Library of Virginia, show a rapidly maturing young man.  He joined the Army Air Corps, trained hard, and earned deployment to the Marianas Islands in April 1945.

Randolph's letters home unpack his anxiety.  He worries about flying on dangerous air raids, relating "there's only one thing I don't like about combat - it ain't safe!"  But as he gains experience and confidence, anxiety decreases and bravado edges into his letters.  In mid May, he proclaims "this is a real Air Mail letter telling the hottest news there is."  His parents probably gasped and worried as they read letters written by their son as he returned from highly dangerous raids involving accurate "flak," or anti-aircraft fire.

The Great Depression and the most destructive war ever fought shaped his generation, much like a stagnant economy, Iraq, and Afghanistan shaped the millenials.  War and want shaped leaders and hard workers undaunted by the challenges facing the US in the 1950s and 60s.  This generation shaped the Reagan prosperity and won the Cold War.

Randolph did not do so badly.  After service in World War II and Korea, he became president of a Virginia based savings and loan, later president of the United States Savings and Loan League.

And all this from a man whose thoughts only dwelt on girls, bad grades, and getting money from Mom and Dad.

The prospects for the upcoming Millennials are high.  With competition at its keenest, each one must be sharper to succeed.  Many already soured on them, but millennials may be the greatest American generation yet.

How to Fail At Public Relations the Washington Redskins Way

The Washington Redskins, as the saying goes, can't win for losing.

At least under Dan Snyder, anyway.  Redskins fans date their franchise to the days before and after Dan. "Before" the team won Super Bowls and the ownership reigned over professional football as respected winners do.  The Dan years brought misery occasionally tinged with high, but unrealistic hopes.  Almost worse than losing came the embarrassments.  Snyder cutting down trees on park land, Snyder hiring a college coach who was clearly in over his head, Snyder filing a defamation suit over satire.  But none of those moves seem as oafish as what transpired last week.

Of all the franchises and colleges who, decades ago, used some sort of American Indian reference as a nickname, only the Washington Redskins has still not made their peace.  Many colleges changed their name to something generic. Others, such as Florida State, paid to keep the name without protest.  The Kansas City Chiefs' name strikes many as respectful instead of offensive.  Same with the Cleveland Indians, who changed their name from the Spiders to honor an Indian star pitcher, Chief Bender.

The Redskins alone remain defiant and unrepentant. Despite the historical context, it is much tougher to sell the name Redskins.  On the other hand, the Redskins fan base seems generally uninterested in considering alternatives.

Until now, Snyder and the Redskins kept that public stance.  At the same time, they gobbled up the rights to a number of alternatives, such as "Washington Warriors."  Last week, however, he launched an interesting endeavor called the "Original Americans' Foundation."  Deadspin gleefully dubbed it O.A.F. and likely plans to have no end of fun with it.

Not since Richard Nixon "CREEP"ed back into office in 1972, has a Washington DC based effort been so badly named.

Even worse, Snyder picked a CEO once investigated by the federal government. What was he accused of doing?  It involved a "defective" and "unusable" contract between his group and, wait for it, the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Snyder wrote a four page letter describing the origin and intent of the foundation. Four months of study and research based on visits to 26 Indian reservations went into this organization.  But four minutes of thought should tell a person that naming the organization "OAF" and picking an individual with baggage to lead it smacks of half efforts.

The second most popular professional sport in Washington is piling on Dan Snyder.  He does not represent evil in the world.  Many of his past and present players refer to him respectfully as "Mr. Snyder."  But his new foundation reflects the same lack of thought and foresight that has often characterized his public relations as well as his operation of the football team itself.

Why I am Supporting Alex Mooney For #WV02 (and why you should as well!)

Written opinion of Stephen Smoot.

It's not a secret that I am backing Alex Mooney for the Republican Party nomination for the Second Congressional District of West Virginia.  I want to take this opportunity to explain my support to my friends, family, and others.

I have known Alex and his family for years.  They definitely understand the pressures and strains that the average West Virginia family has to bear.  Other major candidates for this seat were able to lift hundreds of thousands of dollars from their own fortunes to help their own cause.  While financial success is admirable, Alex is more like the rest of us.  His family lives on a budget to pay their bills, worries about the rising cost of health care, and is straining to make sure that they can send their children to college.

In other words, Alex gets it.  Families are very nervous about the future, especially for their children.

A lot of us worry about freedom.  Alex was raised on stories of how his Cuban born mother was arrested and imprisoned for many months by Fidel Castro.  His father fought Communism in Vietnam.  From both, he learned about the value of liberty, what must be done to protect it, and what happens if it is lost.

Unlike most other candidates in this race, Alex served in his state legislature.  A lot of people have made a big fuss that he served in Maryland.  But consider this.  Try fighting against tax increases in Maryland.  Try fighting for second amendment rights in Maryland.  Try fighting for the rights of unborn children in Maryland.  Maryland seizes guns for little or no reason, charges a tax on rainfall, and wants taxpayers to pay for abortions. His values, commonly held by members of both parties in West Virginia, were sometimes hotly debated among people calling themselves conservatives.

Alex has fought these fights many times and never backed down.  DC is rough on people trying to hang onto your values.  Alex's experience proves that he will stand by his principles and our interests.

West Virginia has a long tradition, from US Senator Stephen Elkins to current state Attorney General Patrick Morrissey, of welcoming experienced and capable people from other states to serve and fight for our voters and values.  Elkins came from New York and Morrissey from New Jersey.  Both performed outstandingly.  Alex and his family just hopped across the river.

Until a few years ago, Alex led a media education foundation in Washington.  I worked there under his leadership for almost two years.  For seven years, he supervised the training of up and coming reporters.  Some of the interns who passed through in those years are now media leaders, editing magazines, online news, and exposing waste and fraud in government.  Alex took the fight to the Obama Administration and its cronies.  One of his interns played a key role in busting the infamous ACORN racket. Another intern later exposed the incompetence of the federal stimulus regime.

No one else in this race worked from day one of the Obama Administration to expose its waste and incompetence.

From there, Alex went into business.  And, as a small businessman, he understands how tough it can be to comply with state and federal regulations and taxes while also fighting for a piece of the market.

I am going to keep running this every so often on my Facebook because 2014 is important.  We have to get as many people in Congress as possible who we know will fight hard.

Who will fight for farms and coal against the EPA.

Who will fight for our complete right to keep and bear arms, with no infringements.

Who understands how families cannot take anymore from a broken Obamacare system and rising costs across the board.

Please join me in supporting and voting for Alex Mooney.  Thank you for your attention!

Senate Democrats and Municipalities Line Up to Ban Water Vapor

Water vapor, basically.  Several Senate Democrats and a number of local governments across the country want to ban a device that exposes people to nothing more than water vapor.

The device is an e cigarette.   It delivers nicotine into the user in the same way as a cigarette,  but instead of carcinogen filled smoke, it uses water vapor.  Makers of the devices claim that they can help smokers cease using tobacco.

A number of Democratic senators called them, however, "candy coated poisons," and claimed they hurt "the children."  They called for extensive regulations that, makers say, might choke out their ability to even sell the product.

CBS News reported on a study that concluded that e cigarettes did not help smokers to stop using tobacco,  It also quoted an American Cancer Society official as claiming the study "has limitations" and "problems."

No study, however, has shown that e cigarettes damage a body anymore than drinks that contain the highly addictive drug caffeine.  And also come in sweet flavors enticing to children.

New York Times writers from last year called on regulators to "tolerate" e cigarettes.  Health officials in New York City fretted that those smoking e cigarettes could brazenly light up in areas that banned smoking.  This runs the risk of exposing the public to visible water vapor.  Officials also argued that the device represented a "gateway" to actual smoking of actual tobacco.

With nothing better to do, Democrats and bureaucrats scurry to save the general public from the scourge of water vapor.

Update:  Philadelphia City Council actually does ban water vapor.

What Is to Be Done?

Obama's responses to Russian belligerence have not only been wrong, but almost the worst possible actions.  He postured, threatened, then leveled meaningless sanctions against Putin's Russia.  Obama's impotence only made his Russian counterpart that much more popular.  Russians historically appreciate dramatic action that builds national strength and international respect.  Adding to the land area of the nation does not hurt either.  Russians see the mano y mano struggle with Obama as being without consequences because under this president, the United States has only rarely shown strength.

Here is what Obama could do to regain some leverage.

Stop everything you are doing now.  No more talking with the Russians.  No kicking them out of international clubs.  And definitely no sanctions.  Stop doing anything that is pointless presidential posturing with nothing behind it.  The Russians know these are public relations moves, not serious diplomacy.

And sanctions do not work against a nation that has pretty much everything.

Concede the Crimea; anticipate the next move.  Crimea belongs to Russia now.  Stop making it the issue because it deflects world attention from what could come next.  It also happens to be the move Russia can sell best to its own people.  No way the West can peacefully get him out.

Go to Canossa.  When the Soviets moved aggressively after World War II, Harry Truman had to do something that he hated worse than anything on Earth . . . talk to Republicans.  Truman wanted to ramp up American support of free nations while Republicans wanted to save money.  He struck a deal with GOP senators that underlay American resistance to Communist aggression for the next four decades.  

Obama needs the House of Representatives in his camp on this issue.  To get the Russians' attention, he must get funding for the A-10 and the armored divisions.  The A-10 kills tanks more effectively than anything on the planet.  American tanks have not lost an armored engagement in most peoples' living memories.  Both are designed to engage Russian forces in northern or eastern Europe. Reinstating these programs shows Putin that the US is serious.

So too will Obama offering up sacrifices to gain Republican confidence and support.

Supporting allies.  The United States needs to reassure Europe that we remain committed to the NATO alliance.  Military forces could perform public, yet peaceful, joint exercises with Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, and Poland.  Since all are NATO allies, Russia has no cause to publicly complain, but it remains a message sent.  An extra carrier strike group could visit Portsmouth, or some other allied naval base.

Turn on the taps.  Lift export restrictions on natural gas, rescind EPA regulations passed on coal since 2009, and approve oil and gas drilling quickly.  This ensures that energy remains inexpensive in the United States and prices drop around the world.  Russia relies heavily on energy exports to support its prosperity.  American market dominance could cripple the bear.

Messages that the United States will not fail its allies, combined with real measures that will weaken the Russian economy can halt Putin in his tracks.  The United States, with a wise and strong policy, can block Russia's future ambitions

Should West Virginia Counties Consolidate? (Topic Hat Tip to @CamMatheny)

West Virginia, in land area, is one of the smallest states in the union.  Yet, it has a fairly large number of counties, 55.

Most states with large areas of sparse population have fewer counties.  California, much larger than West Virginia in both geographic and population size, has 57 counties.  West Virginia, however, formed nearly all of its counties before railroads started extending into every nook and cranny of the state seeking to extract timber and coal.  The ridges and hills, valleys and hollows, dictated that local government be granted a relatively small space in underpopulated areas.

Two counties, Mineral and Grant, cleaved off of their mother counties (Hampshire and Hardy respectively.) They feared that returning Confederates would seize local government and tyrannize these Union supporting and Republican dominated areas.

So let's do a fun exercise.  Let's get the number of West Virginia counties down to 30, while trying to not do anything outrageous.  This includes imposing unnecessary travel burdens to the county seat, gerrymandering one politically dominant area into another, creating megacounties, etc.

Here are the counties which we will eliminate, as well as where we will put them and why:

Fold Hancock and Brooke counties into Ohio.

Rationale: All of these counties are tied to the Pittsburgh metropolitan area.  They have similar problems and possibilities.

Fold Wetzel and Tyler into Marshall:

Rationale: All Ohio River counties with similar terrain.  Marshall gets to keep the name because he was more historically prominent.  

Pleasants, Ritchie, and Doddridge combine to form a single county.

Rationale: Again, similarities of terrain, population.  Pick a name from West Virginia history (not Byrd) to adorn this county.  None of the three names stands out as more important than the other.

Fold Wirt into Wood

Rationale: No brainer.  Wirt is part of Parkersburg's metropolitian area

Taylor should join Marion County.

Rationale: Two counties are connected by US 250.  While Taylor and Harrison are connected by a better highway, (US 50) Harrison already has two decent sized cities.

Tucker and Preston counties unite

Rationale: This creates a county of monstrous geographical size (for West Virginia, anyway) but neither county has a large population.  A legislative district straddles the two counties anyway.  Plus, they have similar interests in timber, extractive industries, and tourism.

Fold Gilmer into Lewis County, Calhoun into Roane

Rationale: A number of counties in the middle of the state have small size, sparse population, but sit astride important highways.  This grouping reduces the number of counties as much as possible while keeping the US 33 counties together.  A vice president and senator normally deserves to keep the county name over a Virginia judge, but Calhoun was a strident defender of slavery.  Gilmer versus Lewis?  Pick 'em.

Combine Braxton and Clay

Rationale: Interstate 79 corridor.  Clay, a secretary of state, gets the nod.

Combine Monroe, Summers, and Mercer

Rationale: Again, similar area with similar terrain and issues.  Monroe is a president, but George Summers was a prominent western Virginian.  

Partition Mingo County

Rationale:  First thought was getting rid of Wyoming County through partitioning by its neighbors.  But looking at its terrain and roads, it's hard to make sensible choices out of where to put what parts of the county.  Mingo may be the only county eliminated in part because of its inability to sensibly govern itself.  Like Poland in the 1700s, government lapsed into constant turmoil.  Wayne, Logan, Wyoming, and McDowell could share the spoils.  

Some counties escape the process.  Morgan County exists between two gigantic walls that keep it from sensibly combining with Berkeley or Hampshire.  Yes, Jefferson sticks out at the end of the state from Berkeley.  But Berkeley is staunchly Republican and Jefferson is smaller, but just as staunchly Democratic.  Not really fair to fold Jefferson into GOP rule like that, especially since it still grows.

So this is just a proposal made half in fun and half in real consideration of what could be done.  County consolidation likely will never happen.  Too many traditions, vested interests, and county jobs at stake, even though it makes more sense for the taxpayer.

Wayne or Eastwood? Why Do Culture Elitists Love One and Despise the Other?

At some point, the natural laws of the cosmos dictated that John Wayne and Clint Eastwood could never appear in a movie together.  Indeed they seemed to come from two separate universes entirely to rival each other in heroics without either seeming to acknowledge the other.

Generations grew up seeing Wayne and Eastwood as archetypes of the American man, both here and abroad.  Cultural elitists originally hated both of them as ultramasculine formula characters repeating in movie after movie.  Only now has Eastwood been grudgingly acknowledged, like Johnny Cash in music, as an authentic expression of American art.  Partly because Eastwood's characters, like Cash's actual life, have all too human flaws that they eventually overcome.  And this, despite a world around them that seems hopelessly degenerate.

Eastwood's characters were usually realists who accepted the bleakness of the world around them, but did not give up on their own duty.  In The Outlaw Josie Wales, that duty was simple avenging the raid of rogue Union guerrillas who destroyed his home and family, then tricked his Confederate unit into marching into a massacre.  In his most recent masterpiece, Gran Torino, his character befriends and defends honest Asian immigrants from the seemingly inescapable doom of violence plagued modern Detroit.

The men he portrayed could do terrible things, even though always working toward some form of good. In The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, he abandons a protagonist to what he assumes will be a fairly horrible and slow death in the desert.  Tuco Ramirez, however, survives and inflicts similar torment on Eastwood's unnamed character.  

Elitist culture accepts Clint Eastwood's anti-hero, but despises the John Wayne idealist. Upon examination, one has to wonder why.

John Wayne represents idealism and optimism in most of his movies.  Although hardly a Democrat, he personified the kind of spirit underlying the Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman presidencies.  

Wayne's movies featured powerful women, much more often than Eastwood's.  In Big Jake, he has to cooperate with his estranged wife, played by Maureen O'Hara.  His best film by far, The Shootist, puts him opposite of a strong willed Lauren Bacall.  Bacall's character runs a boarding house and initially fears the influence of a gunfighter on her son.  The Sons of Katie Elder successfully makes a powerful and almost controlling figure out of the main characters' dead mother.  Probably the toughest female that a Wayne character had to confront was Mattie Ross in True Grit. Wayne plays Rooster Cogburn who is employed by the teenaged Mattie to gain revenge for the murder of her father.

Also, Wayne's films took care to portray both Mexicans and Indians as complex characters instead of two dimensional caricatures, at least relative to other films of the time.  Wayne had great respect for both cultures.  

One of the strong connecting themes running through many of Wayne's movies is a strong aversion to bullying and an almost unfailing duty to protect and build up the underdog.  Another one of Wayne's greatest films, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, posits him opposite James Stewart.  Wayne's roughneck frontiersman teaches, protects, and cajoles Stewart's cultivated eastern character into adapting to the reality of the Wild West.  Liberty Valance, one of the most odious characters ever put on film, makes Stewart's character a target of intimidation.  With Wayne's help, Stewart's character not only overcomes Valance, but brings civil society to the territory.

That is a microcosm of most John Wayne movies.  In his realm the world, if not good at the time, has the potential to be.  Wayne's characters take on the hard duty of bringing that world into being.  Usually, Wayne himself loses out in some way.  In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, he loses his love.  In The Shootist, he loses his life.  

Wayne's movie world has strong women, respects other cultures, and sees evil as something that can be ultimately defeated.  In Eastwood movies the world is inherently evil, but man's duty is to try to do good anyway.  

Again, culture elitists finally accept Eastwood's greatness as both an actor and a cultural figure.  Not yet, John Wayne.  

One way to measure the greatness of an actor is to watch him perform with other greats.  John Wayne was a towering cultural figure, but could he act?  Alongside the greatest performers of his time, including Stewart, Bacall, Robert Mitchum, James Caan, Henry Fonda, Richard Burton, and many others, Wayne dominated the screen.  Even in smaller roles, his screen presence was masterful alongside some of the best actors in the past hundred years.  

In many movies, admittedly, he played John Wayne, just as Eastwood brought variations of the same on screen persona to many films.  Both actors, however, played roles that exhibited tremendous depth.  Gran Torino and The Shootist showed the range of each man.  And both brought unforgettable characters to the screen, such as Rooster Cogburn and The Man With No Name.

Both men's body of work, overall, represented a different view of the world and humanity in general.  It's high time that cultural elitists got off their high horse and recognize that both men made great contributions to American film and culture.

Addendum.  Totally irrelevant, but it is worth mentioning that Richard Pryor and John Wayne both desperately wanted to play Bart and Jim respectively in Mel Brooks' Blazing Saddles. This is one time where it would have been worth it to make the same movie twice with different casts.  Cleavon Little and Gene Wilder cannot be beaten in these roles, but the idea of seeing John Wayne partnering with Richard Pryor is the most amazingly surreal thought.  Both had larger than life presence in their own ways, which was likely why Brooks went with the more subtle, but still talented Little and Wilder.

Dan Aykroyd, the Free Market, and Saturday Night Live

Hollywood deserves its bad rap for endless left wing sermonizing, but not everyone should be wedged into the same box.  Some major stars have put together a body of work that reaffirms the values of individual work in the private sector.

I don't know Dan Aykroyd's politics and really do not care to research them.  They do not really matter.  Time and time again Aykroyd has played important roles in work that affirms a free market, perhaps a fully libertarian, message. It's possible too that the unique role that Saturday Night Live plays in the careers of performers like Dan Aykoyd may have helped to inspire a slew of movies that rely on traditional free market values.

At the very beginning of his career, Aykroyd teamed up with John Belushi to create one of film's most memorable partnerships.  Their love of music inspired the creation of the "Blues Brothers."  This started out as a nightclub act, moved onto television's Saturday Night Live, then became one of the most expensive films ever made at that point.

The Blues Brothers portrays Jake and Elwood Blues efforts to save their childhood home, a Roman Catholic orphanage.  It faces an insurmountable tax debt from Cook County and the Blues brothers resolve to pay it off and save the orphanage.  To do it, they put together a business plan.  Reform their old band.  Earn enough money to help the nuns.  Entrepreneurship saves the day, regardless of the extra legal hijinx necessary to save the day.  Underlying the story is the stock placed in the underlying goodness of Jake and Elwood, taught to them by the nuns.

Aykroyd's best work might be his collaboration with another Saturday Night Live star, Eddie Murphy.  Their 1983 film Trading Places casts Aykroyd as Louis Winthorp III, a trader working for a classic example of established crony capitalism, the firm of Duke and Duke.  Randolph and Mortimer Duke, the brothers who own the firm, form a wager.  They bet over whether or not a homeless man could be trained to do as good of a job as the culturally cultivated, Ivy League educated Winthorp.

The Dukes engineer the complete ouster of Winthorp from his society.  He loses everything and has to rely on a prostitute, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, for help just to survive. Eddie Murphy's character, Billy Ray Valentine, uses his street smarts to figure out the ins and out of commodities trading.  Winthorp becomes desperate and broken, criminal and suicidal.

The plot turns when Valentine figures out the plot.  Winthorp and Valentine come up with a scheme to enrich themselves and the butler and prostitute who help them while at the same time landing the Dukes in complete privation.

The best part of Trading Places? At the end, no one makes a false sounding sermon about learning that there are things more important than money.  The four conspirators take their riches to the Caribbean and live the good life.  The very last line of the movie comes as Valentine and Winthorp yell between yacht and sandy white beach. "Looking good Billy Ray!"  "Feeling good, Louis!"  Murphy shortly thereafter stars in his own movie extolling starting at the bottom and working your way up combined with a healthy dose of respect for small business in Coming to America.

In Ghostbusters, Aykroyd is part of a team of academics turned businessmen who tackle New York City's supernatural epidemic.  Their main human foe?  The Environmental Protection Agency, who meddles with their operation and almost causes the Apocalypse.

Aykroyd later teamed with Chris Farley and David Spade, again the Saturday Night Live connection, to give the 1990s film Tommy Boy some star power.  Farley played a character who in modern slang would be called a "bro."  No responsibilities except rugby and doing the minimum to get through school.  Tommy Boy does not rely on the same tired father son tension that infuses almost every other such relationship in film or television.  The love that Tommy and his father share is deep and unconditional and underscores every aspect of the film.  It is also the element that makes Tommy Boy superior to all of Farley's other work.

Tommy's father Big Tom Callahan, played by Brian Dennehy, dies suddenly, leaving Tommy in control of the family auto parts company.  Aykroyd plays Zalinsky, a hard bitten and remorseless auto parts magnate wants to buy the company just for the respected name and close all operations.  This would put the workers out of a job and hurt the town.  To save the business, Tommy teams up with Richard, played by David Spade.  On the road, Tommy learns about responsibility, hard work, and salesmanship.  At the end of the day, he makes the sales and convinces Zalinsky to back off of his plans.

Zalinsky's character is not a typical anti-capitalism portrayal of big business.  He is aggressive and hard nosed.  At the end, Tommy makes a hard won deal with Zalinsky that will profit both companies.  Zalinsky is not made to look like a capitalist devil.  The free market is the catalyst of a resolution that benefits everyone who deserves benefit.

Two other films show Aykroyd's libertarian streak, at least in filmography.  In Coneheads, Aykroyd plays an actual space alien who builds a business and raises a respectable middle class family, despite the constant threat of detection by Immigration and Naturalization Services agents.  Nothing But Trouble is a funny, but bizarre story about New York travelers falling into the trap of a corrupt, and possibly mutant, local New Jersey judge.  Again, government emerges as a villain (although coal companies get blamed for causing the whole mess.)

The Saturday Night Live alumni include quite a few conservatives and libertarians and that should surprise no one.  Some have moved onto political activism, others stay outside of politics.  But the show's unique use of talent might be conducive to giving its performers more individualist mind sets.  It takes performers who are nearly all struggling when signed on, an opportunity to work extremely hard and advance their careers.  Some connection may exist between that and, at the very least, a fairly large number of films that celebrate hard work, entrepreneurship, learning on the job, and other similar values.

One can't prove it, but it is an interesting point.

No, There's No "White Trashing" of Television. Currently, Anyway

I respect the Weekly Standard's John Podhoretz and agree with him most of the time.  Not, however, on his recent critique of Hollywood's recent embrace of compelling stories set in places that seem odd to America's affluent metrodwellers.

American literary culture has a long tradition of local color writing.  Anne Royall's early 1800s writings of traveling through the Kanawha Valley of (at the time) Virginia and its surroundings reflect her vastly different background compared to the people that she meets and the scenery she encounters.  Sometimes Royall writes of the beautiful surroundings, other times she describes the impact of early salt making on the surrounding forest.

After the Civil War came a wave of local color.  In themselves, the stories and books by writers such as Mary Noailles Murfree (whose claim to knowledge was childhood vacations to Tennessee)  or John Fox Jr. did little harm.  They took stereotypes of hill people from time immemorial, dressed them up in the conflict between an idealized country and encroaching industrial civilization, then presented them as morality tales.  Sometimes the country taught the city, more often the city taught the country.  Rarely did they get it right, except for Rebecca Harding Davis (mother of famed war correspondent Richard Harding Davis) who actually lived in the valleys of Hampshire County, Virginia/West Virginia)

The harm came when people endeavored to "cure" the backcountry.  It was not so much the industrialists. They purchased the land at market value and offered cash jobs that allowed people to live better than subsistence or low level commercial farming.  There is a checkered record there, but not as bad as that of the government.

Government bureaucrats read the books and magazine stories and took them for fact.  They decided by the 1930s that farmers and mountain dwellers, for example, in Tennessee, no longer had rights to land.  To build national parks and experiment with hydroelectric social engineering, they drove men and women from land owned by their families since the 1700s. They made up a place called "Appalachia," poured hundreds of millions of dollars into it, but also applied a ruthless characterization to all who lived there.

Charles Kurault's CBS special "Christmas in Appalachia" did more damage than any work of fiction.  Using the credibility of "news," Kurault excised one hollow from one county in Kentucky and generalized the images as pervasive to thousands of square miles over several states.  Certainly those portrayed did live in poverty, but not unlike their brethren in the inner cities, the southern lowlands, the Midwest, the Rockies, or anywhere else.  Murfree, Fox, and their colleagues just wrote stories.  Kurault manufactured an image that, when wedded to the "CBS News" brand, made it a rallying cry for Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty.

Podhoretz includes the show Justified among the offenders.  The problem with Justified is that the stories of corruption, abuse of power, and crime depicted in Harlan County pale in comparison to actual events that unfolded in Mingo County, West Virginia just an hour to the northeast. The writers take great care with the mountain characters.  Many are intelligent, educated, and complex, although some, like Dewey Crowe, are dumb as a box of rocks.  The way of the world is that some people, especially criminals, are actually pretty dumb, Dewey accurately represents that.

Unlike Kurault, Justified takes pains to note that a variety of types of people of different classes with different interests live in southeastern Kentucky.  And it did accurately depict the paradox of pride and resentfulness toward coal and the coal industry that permeates some of these communities.  Justified also stars one of the most aggressively outspoken conservatives in Hollywood, Nick Searcy.

Minor quibble.  Justified is obviously filmed in California.  The Golden State looks as little like Kentucky as it looked like Georgia when Dukes of Hazzard was filmed there.

The AMC program Walking Dead features one of the best characterizations of a "redneck" ever made.  Darryl is everything that redneck characters have never been.  Again, writers took pains to give this character a multitude of dimensions rarely seen in movies or television that are not themselves written by people from the area.

Unmentioned by Podhoretz, but interesting nonetheless, is Archer's Ray Gillette. The character Gillette is a gay intelligence agent who was an Olympic gold medal winner and graduated from Marshall University.  Someone grew up in Southern West Virginia, went to Marshall, and ended up writing for that show.  Nothing else can explain the funny yet respectful portrayals, as well as some near inside jokes referring to Marshall.

To someone who grew up in West Virginia, studied Appalachian history and culture in college, and has seen a lot of crap come and go, this is actually a golden era.  At no other time in living memory has television (if not Hollywood yet) come so close to accurate, respectful, and non exploitative characterizations.  These shows explore stories and issues without ridiculing or sermonizing on the positive values of the people who live there.  That takes dexterity and care.

So long as policymakers watch these shows and remember, as we tell our children, that these are just stories, it will be fine.

Pet Projects and Wasted Money: the Lunchtime Saga Continues

During the New Deal, President Franklin Roosevelt had an impasse with his Interior Secretary Harold Ickes. Ickes came to the president to argue against a hare brained scheme of the First Lady.  She wanted to build socialist commune style towns in the mountains of West Virginia.  There people would make traditional handcrafts, living off whatever pittance consumers decided to throw their way.  As Arthur Schlesinger wrote, the pragmatic Roosevelt assured Ickes that he knew it would not work. But, he needed to get Eleanor off of his back.

Arthurdale and Eleanor turned out, as predicted, to be wastes of taxpayer dollars.  The project of Michelle Obama, designed to force unappetizing meals into children while encouraging exercise, has as well.

According to the Washington Examiner, Obama cherry picked information from a Centers for Disease Control report.  She claimed that her program had caused a 43 percent drop in childhood obesity, which would have been a breathtaking change, were it true. The CDC report actually concluded that no appreciable change had taken place.

Schoolchildren often rejected the new mandated lunches.  Districts across the country reported higher levels of waste.  Meanwhile the 850 calorie limit imposed for a time left athletes, who need hundreds of calories more than the average student, underfed.

Had Obama merely stopped at encouraging more exercise, perhaps trying to find ways to get schools to allow more time for it, that would have helped.  But, being an Obama, she had to move into pointless social engineering which undermined the original goal.

First, Second Amendment Under Threat. Plus, More People Hurt By Obamacare

Stories from Obama's America . . .

Natalie deMacedo in American Spectator brings three stories that Harry Reid and the New York Times claim do not exist.  Real Americans who were caused hardship by Obamacare.

Melissa Quinn of Red Alert Politics reports that a US Marine veteran gun store owner in California refused ATF demands to turn over customer information lists.

Meanwhile, the Washington Examiner's Leijla Sarcevic explains that the United States has fallen below 50th on the world press freedom list.  Sarcevic reports that the federal government's ignoring of Freedom of Information Act laws are a major reason why.  So might also be illegal seizures of reporter notes.

It's been a tough few years for the Bill of Rights . . .

Are Conservatives Not Funny?

The Atlantic published an incisive piece on conservatives, comedy, the industry, and the market exploring why the right dominates the market in news, but not comedy.

Academics enjoy poking at "harmonized and slow" conservatism, claiming that it destroys the "conditions necessary" for comedy to flourish. In the 21st century, conservatives find themselves in the minority, or even outcast, roles in academia, media and elsewhere.  Great comedy always comes from the powerless jester who has nothing to lose by poking fun at the system.  Example, liberals and leftists could not possibly make a convincing Animal House type movie today.  What on earth could they make fun of besides themselves?

Conservatives are in a much better social position, especially now, to ridicule and satirize.

The article does not mention that two decades ago, conservative performers actually dominated Saturday Night Live.  Victoria Jackson, Norm Macdonald, and others set the standard of political and social satire in their time.  Dana Carvey's "Church Lady" character gently satirized evangelical Christianity's excesses without ridiculing underlying beliefs.  This let everyone laugh at the character, scored points, and offended no one. Carvey also entertained President George H. W. Bush with an off beat, but still gentle caricature of that president. Phil Hartman's 1980s impersonation of President Reagan was considered spot on, portraying a man gentle and grandfatherly in public, aggressive and in charge behind the scenes.

After SNL, Chris Farley, David Spade, and Dan Aykroyd made Tommy Boy, a hilarious look at business, competition, and sales that managed to also celebrate the free market. Aykroyd also starred in libertarian favorite Ghostbusters.

But can conservatives and libertarians match the level of comedy churned out on Comedy Central?  Yes.  Daily Caller produced an exact parody of a puffy self-congratulatory video produced by Politico. Their "Morning Bro" series is a daily dose of satirical hits on the media and politics.  One of libertarianism's primary publications, Reason, rebutted media and presidential attacks on civil discourse.  This video turned over the top political campaign statements from 1800 into modern television attack ads. Watching John Adams and Thomas Jefferson savage each other is hilarious, but also shows that today's civil discourse is much more tame than 200 years ago.

Yes conservatives are funny.  You just have to look.

Ukraine and the Woodrow Wilson Problem

Vladimir Putin currently uses his ideas as justification for Russian moves in the Crimea.  Although the situation is not the same, Hitler referenced the same intellect?  Whose world shaking words served to justify slicing away chunks of weaker states?  Woodrow Wilson.

The end of World War I spelled the end of three multi-national empires, Russia, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire.  Each one of these states formed around core ethnic groups, Great Russians, Austrians, and Turks.  Each group established a powerful state that absorbed surrounding territories peopled by different ethnic, linguistic, and religious groups.  Another tie binding the three lay in their belief that they fulfilled the Roman Imperial tradition.  This, they believed, gave them the legitimate right to rule others.

The 20th Century challenged that notion and tore it down.  Long standing dynasties and loose ties to the Roman Empire no longer mattered.  Legitimacy remained a powerful word, but what made a government and its power legitimate?  The Bolsheviks substituted class warfare for czarism and kept their empire going.  The other two broke up.

Austria-Hungary challenged the West.  About 15 different ethnic groups populated the empire and many wanted free of Austro-Hungarian imperial power.  Wilson suggested that the peace treaties ending World War I reorder the world on national self-determination.  No one, however, defined what that meant.  It has remained a staple of US diplomacy ever since, but not without raising puzzling questions?.

Does it mean that each ethnic group has the right to rule itself?  Wilson certainly did not think that extended to black Americans and Indian nations.

Does self-determination require democracy?

Does every group have this right, or only groups large enough to form a viable country?

No one knows for sure and we have made it up as we went along.  This mostly resulted in good results.

But it also provides justification for National Socialists, white supremacists, and ethnic cleansing.  The logic of national self-determination carried to its logical conclusion leads to messy problems, such as Hitler demanding that Czechoslovakia hand over the Sudetenland because it had Germans there.  Of course after World War II, to prevent such a thing from happening again, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and other countries expelled every German from fear of this happening again.  Serbs and Croats later feared the influence of minority Bosnians in their countries and drove them out.

Crimea is mostly populated by Russians, but is under Ukrainian control according to international law.  Putin is, as many have done, appealing to the Wilsonian ideal of national self-determination.  The Russian implemented vote in the Crimea chose Russia (whether or not that was a fair vote is highly debatable.)

Putin has put the West in a bind by turning the ideals of Woodrow Wilson and the imposed treaties ending World War I back against it.  When addressing Putin, the West will have to deal with the hundred year old specter of the idea of national self-determination as well.  Not that it was a bad idea, but a clear definition is way overdue.

Senator Manchin Helps to Sink Obama Department of Justice Appointee

Joe Manchin and six other Senate Democrats voted this week to reject Obama's appointment to head the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division.  They, along with every Republican, slammed to door on Debo Adegbile's bid for the office.

Adegbile supported the release of convicted police officer murderer Mumia Abu-Jamal.  As the National Review notes, Abu-Jamal was found guilty of murdering a Philadelphia police officer.  Adegbile, apart from his activism, has worked for the NAACP and currently serves as counsel for Senate Democrats on the Judiciary Committee.

Bob Casey (D) Pa explained his vote, saying that support for Abu-Jamal was important.  He described the pain still felt by the officer's family and the city of Philadelphia.

The Civil Rights Division is supposed to "uphold the civil and constitutional rights of all Americans."  Whoever oversees the division has some latitude to interpret and decide who to go after and why.  The character of that man or woman is vital to ensuring that civil rights cases do not devolve into witch hunts.

In a larger sense, this illustrates an important split in the Democratic Party.  Traditional liberals and moderates rejected a left wing appointee of a left wing president.  Only two of these Democrats face voters this year.  Manchin's electorate would not decide his fate based on this vote alone.

This also sets up a subtext to the 2016 presidential election.  Will a moderate run on the Democratic side?  The appearance of one not connected to the Obama Administration could make for a lively race and produce headaches for Republicans.

Putin, Ukraine, and an Abysmal Failure of US Foreign Policy

It did not have to be this way.

Today, Vladimir Putin's forces hold the Autonomous Republic of Crimea, part of the sovereign nation of Ukraine.  Barack Obama looks weaker than ever, his presidency's previous shambles even look good by comparison.  Pundits decry the loss of US influence.  The stark truth is that there is little that the United States can do to alter the situation.

But why?

First, Putin actually has defensible reasons to enter Ukraine.  This is not to say that he could not have achieved better results with a less dramatic move.  But a border country approaching chaos gives Russia a powerful excuse to protect Russian ethnics and Russian facilities there.  What if Mexico devolved even more into violence and instability?  At some point in the near future, US forces may have to occupy parts of that country to bring stability and protect Americans living there.  Before criticizing others, a nation must consider what it would have to do in a similar situation.

The West failed in Ukraine because the United States abdicated its role, dating back to the Treaty of Versailles, to bolster free societies and free markets around the globe.  US policy has, at times used the Franklin Roosevelt philosophy of "he's a sonofabitch, but he's our sonofabitch" in backing friendly authoritarian regimes.  But the overall goal has always been transition into free societies with economic opportunity.

That does not happen by dumping money or bombs on a nation.  It comes from a consistently articulated vision by the US foreign policy establishment that natural rights, free markets, rule of law are essential to human happiness and world peace.  Praising democratic friends, such as Britain and Israel, helps to broaden the "city on the hill" ideal articulated by Democratic and Republican presidents alike in different ways.

The vision does not just come from talking about freedom.  Diplomatic, other government, and private groups must engage fragile societies to help educate and develop faith in the essential aspects of freedom and prosperity.  Internationalize the values that Americans and others take for granted.

Instead, Obama tore apart the fabric.  He blamed the United States for the trouble in the world, never realizing that wise use of American power and influence more often puts us in the referee role.  We are keeping more conflicts apart than anyone realizes.  Until the influence and respect dissipates and the world runs riot.

We are not the world's policeman, nor should we be.  But constant engagement of rhetoric, policy, and economic influence has helped to keep the world at peace.  Obama could not see the overall benefit of US power, only the rare times that it has not turned out right.  He tore it down and now instability hits one country after another.

Power seeks a vacuum,  Obama created one.  Putin and China have been happy to step in.

And so you get what we had here last week.  Which is the way he wants it.

As for Putin, he is more Bismarck than Stalin.  He's willing to bend his own region to his economic and security goals, use social issues to rally his supporters and alienate his political opponents.  Russia's sudden worry about gays smacks of Bismarck's kulturkampf against political Catholics.  But Bismarck did not want to completely revise the international system, just strengthen Germany's position within it.  The Russian Czars acted in the same way.  Russia traditionally seeks security on its borderlands and will aggressively move to ensure it.

Had the United States remained engaged in Ukraine and kept its near century old commitment to supporting freedom, that country may have solved its own problems.  It may have remained solid enough to deter Russian fears or thoughts of aggrandizement.

China is more worrisome for a number of reasons.  As is Iran.  Both countries have more revisionist fantasies.

Why Do We Have Failure to Communicate?

Communication is a necessity for every successful group.  Most fail to do it well and reach almost no one.  And that is not the way anyone wants it.

Bad communication comes from barriers established by gibberish, which is unintelligible speech or writing.  Most gibberish comes from either the least articulate or the most highly capable.  People in between tend to actually get their points across pretty well.

Young people often communicate very poorly, more from the lack of experience than intelligence.  Generally they don't give much thought to language style or word use.  As a result, young people experiment and play with word use and definitions, creating slang.  Some of these elevate into general use, like the word "cool."  "Cool" entered slang decades ago, meaning a calm person, a good situation, and other things.  It passed into political diction with "Keep Cool With Coolidge."

Words and phrases that don't make the cut fall quickly into dated disuse, a funny reminder of the place and time used.  Where did "23 skiddoo" come from?  Who knows?  But it was slang for almost two decades.

Those trying to communicate with young people often make the mistake of trying to communicate in this invented lingo.  They think it establishes rapport, but it really makes the listeners feel uncomfortable.  Most likely, the awkwardness stems from the fact that most slang is just plain silly and comes from young people's inability to really use language precisely. The silliness is reflected in the surrealism of an older person speaking or writing in this way.

Invention of slang and playing with language is an effective collective stage for each generation, especially with the sharp decline of English language education.  If any individual of any age wants to learn to communicate well, unless they went to a select few schools, they have to teach themselves.  And innovation is not bad.  At its best, slang keeps the language dynamic and relevant.  But most slang is ridiculous.

Young people want messages related in the same way as anyone else, clearly and without fuss.  Speaking to them in their own way smacks of condescension.

Other gibberish spewers deserve blame because they should know better.  In this category fall business people, academics, and public policy wonks.  Lawyers get a pass when they are trying to anticipate all legal variables which, honestly, is an almost impossible job.  Lawyers are using necessary tools, not producing gibberish.

The rest of this crowd sets up barriers that do not need to be there, and they know better.  Most understand that they can communicate more simply.  They train themselves to speak gibberish just like a young person has to train themselves to like cigarettes. One has to overcome the initial revulsion of doing something unnatural until it becomes a comfortable, addicting habit.

But why? Likely because of an inferiority complex initially.  One wants to sound "professional," be accepted as a peer.  To moo using the same notes as the rest of the herd.  To be a good cow.

This makes no sense in business.  Certainly, each individual seeks acceptance as a professional and endeavors to reduce the gap between their actual employment position and their perceived professional goals (see how that works?  Dreadful!)  But the great corporate founders did not and do not speak that way.  Tom Watson, Andrew Carnegie, Sam Walton never spoke like that.  Bill Gates, one of the most brilliant minds in business, does not speak in gibberish.  They use simple terms.  They want to get their message across.  Why business professionals don't emulate their models remains a great mystery.

Academics deserve no sympathy.  Their entire job is communication and they purposefully erect gibberish walls to keep us commoners out, then blame us for not comprehending their point.  The walls insulate their intellects, protecting them and their ideas from the vulgar Aristotlean world.  Which is why their thoughts are often not practical and make no sense.  They not so secretly hate accomplished writers like David McCullough whose writing has influenced generations.  How?  Instead of acres of pointless, dry, thick wordage he tells stories and produces beautiful prose.

Breaking the gibberish habit is simple.  First, read George Orwell's "Politics and the English Language."  Some of it does reflect linguistic nationalism, but the rest offers good advice.  Use simpler words when possible.  Follow the rules, but don't be afraid to break them if they lead you to writing something "barbarous."

Also, remove 10 percent of the total word count as part of the first edit.  It forces the writer to simplify gibberish and communicate in the same way as normal humans.

The vast middle ground actually communicates well.  For most people, simple and honest communication is a necessity.  The barriers of bad language would keep them from accomplishing anything in their normal lives.  The young and the professional world often condemn simple communicators as Philistines, but they could learn a lot from us.

Cold Winter Forces Soon To Be Closed Coal Fired Plants to Operate At Full Capacity

The State Journal reports that the winter cold forced many plants marked for EPA mandated closure to operate at high, sometimes full capacity.  Officials say, however, that the law remains unchanged and that they will still close as scheduled.

Melissa McHenry, speaking for American Electric Power to the State Journal noted that 89 percent of the plants scheduled for closure had to run during the cold weather.

She went on to say that AEP is making investments in generation capacity to try and make up for what will be lost.  McHenry also said that Washington regulators would need to help all power companies ensure that they could provide consistent power to customers during peak times.

After all, loss of power during very cold or very hot weather could harm their most vulnerable customers.

Added to the loss of jobs will come the higher cost of electricity.  The Washington Examiner reports that an Obama Administration official predicts an 80 percent hike in the average electric bill to pay for EPA mandates.  Although rates may eventually plateau, they are never expected to drop to current levels.

Bad news for those on fixed incomes and families already struggling in this economy.

American Electric Power plans to retire power generation plants in Mason and Kanawha County.

The Smallest US Military Force Since 1939: Why This Is Scary

The Obama Administration has determined that the US military will shrink to its smallest size since 1939.

Man for man we will remain the best.  Any US soldier, Marine, sailor, airman, Coast Guard, or National Guardsman is the best trained and most professional on Earth.  A few nations are close, namely Israel, Britain, Australia, Japan, and a few others.  None are better.

Experts say that a smaller force is less expensive and preferable.  They say that the challenges we face come from international operatives, terrorists, rogue nations and statelets.  The days of Great Power warfare are gone.

Not so fast.

China has stepped up its aggressiveness, claiming territory of friends, allies, and other states.  They want their sovereign claims over open ocean recognized.  They do not yet have a fleet that can challenge us.  But their army is massive and their military branches expanding.

They seek to revise the international status quo, starting first by establishing dominance over their neighbors.

A century ago, Great Britain ruled the waves much as we do today.  Her army was small compared to others, but it was trained and geared toward handling small scale conflicts. A 100 percent professional force, its man for man effectiveness far outstripped any other nation on Earth. Britain did not foresee having to use it in a major war of attrition against a revisionist power. While other nations counted millions in their armed forces, the British relied on hundreds of thousands.

And the British paid dearly for their error, suffering more casualties per capita than any other major power in World War I.

We are blindly stuck in the present, much as Britain a century ago.  We hope for the best, but our treaty obligations, much like Britain's with Belgium, put us square in the center of a possible coming conflict.  We are stripping our armored divisions, discontinuing production of a feared tank killer aircraft, and destroying any chance of quickly reacting, or even maintaining respect in the Far East.

Our military needs to ensure that it can respond effectively to both small war scenarios and a Great Power war.  We do not need many millions of troops, but we do need equipment and formations that serve as a foundation in case we need it.  Where do we get the money?  Start by slicing away at the bloated Defense Department bureaucracy.  Stop the foolish waste of money on "green fuels." Get back to making national security the only priority of the military.

Britain lost its entire prewar army in the first year of World War I.  They were not prepared or equipped to fight a modern war against another Great Power.  Obama is putting us in the same predicament.