AN EASY WAY TO REDUCE THE SIZE AND COST OF GOV'T

Here is a very easy way to reduce the size and cost of the Federal Government.

The recent potential epidemic relative to swine flu has caused great concern in the US. The Federal Government rightfully took extreme steps to combat this potentially devastating plague. All handled by our Homeland Security Secretary! Why Homeland Security and not Health and Human services? There is presently no confirmed head of that branch of the Government, and probably (by inference) no one sufficiently competent in HHS to perform tasks such as combating a flu outbreak. So it appears that we do not need the HHS leadership bureaucrats, simply assign tasking of a greatly diminished organization to some other group.

During the time that the Homeland Security secretary was busy with her important tasks such as blasting returning war veterans and accusing them of being weak minded and disloyal, then making inflamatory remarks about the Canadians, and now not controlling and managing the suspicious flights of large airplanes in the vicinity of tall buildings in New York City (and failing to even inform NYC's mayor of the flight), she was off assuring us that the HHS function of controlling swine flu was in excellent hands. It seems that this "Leader" of this very important Bureaucratic organization (Homeland Security) is really not necessary and has always been ineffective. So, maybe the leadership of Homeland Security is useless and the only effective people in that organization could be directed by some other organization within the Government.

At one time, the functions of Homeland Security was mostly handled by the Department of Defense and the Surgeon General of the US worked under DOD as well. Maybe we should consolidate the three agencies into one (DOD) thereby reducing at least 3 layers of supervision (very high priced bureaucrats) for the two totally ineffective heads.

I believe that presently, the head of DOD is a Bush Administration holdover. Hmmm. What does this tell you?

THE NEW GREEN EVERYTHING

The term "Green [choose a subject]" is fast becoming a rather tired catch phrase. It purports to show a better more efficient and environmentally friendly item/way/source/etc. Unfortunately, advertising hucksters, so called environmentalists, and politicians have significantly subverted the original intent; that of promoting conservation of resources.

Advertisers simply change the label on their old products and sometimes infuse something that smells like lemon or orange and place a green colored label on the container.

Car manufacturers try to sell the idea of a better environmentally clean vehicle; sometimes all electric, sometimes a combination of electric and gas powered vehicle, then tout the fuel efficiency of the vehicle. Unfortunately, they continue to be constrained by a feeling of what the public wants and by "safety" regulations. All electric vehicles have a significant defect in their "environmental" desirability; batteries are really quite toxic to the environment, and, if sgnificant numbers of these vehicles were produced, in less than 5 years we would fill many dumps with the exhausted batteries and cry about the damage to the environment. Another fallacy about the cleanliness of the all electric vehicle is that it has a lower impact on air quality. Certainly, in the direct area of the vehicle this may be true, but, somewhere, there needs to be a facility that recharges these vehicles. There is no capability in reversing the laws of physics regarding energy generation.

Manufacturers could build vehicles today with significantly better fuel economy, but it would take massive changes in rules, regulations, and public opinion. Simply reduce the mass of the vehicle by, say, 75 percent, eliminate pollution and safety requirements, and start charging (maybe the dreaded word TAX) for heavy vehicles used for personal transportation. In the extreme, research the fuel efficiency of a moped weighing less than 200 lbs, powered by a lawn mower type engine of 5 to 15 hp, with four wheels for stability and big enough to carry 4 people. Require only that it have brakes, head and tail lights, mechanical speedometer, and maybe a windshield. Use an IPOD for the entertainment system. Even the battery could be eliminated (the lights could be powered by a small electric generator(alternator?) with a hand powered crank to start the engine.

Even with all the polution control devices removed from such a vehicle, the final product used by massive numbers of people would be shown to be much less polluting, in the long term than that which is produced today.

IRAN'S PROBLEM

Keith Jones' Blog showed a video clip of the start of Iran's president speech at the latest UN conference (supposedly to address racism). My observation is/was that the Iranian was quite distracted and unable to maintain his concentration on his subhect. True, there were some hecklers and dissident walk outs, but, that did not fully account for his poor beginnings. So, I thought it might be a good idea to explore the possible roots of his poor performance.

History shows:

1. In (approximately) 400 BC, during the 2nd Persian invasion of Greece, a small force of approximately 300 Greek Spartans withstood an assault by the entire Persian invading force at Thermopylae for a few weeks, and were dislodged and destroyed only after being betrayed.

2. Between 334 and 331 BC, Alexander, the Macedonian King (who had united the Greek City States (most of them) fought a series of battles in Persia against King Darius. The Macedonians maintained military forces around 35,000 men (maybe up to 42,000 by some accounts) who soundly defeated the Persian armies 3 times. At that time the Persians had an army engaged against Alexander estimated at between 40,ooo and 450,000 (total size was unknown due to rather poor record keeping); but still, a vastly superior force.

3. Between 1980 and 1988, Iraq and Iran (modern day name for Persia) fought a war of attrition that was finally settled by a UN sponsored cease fire. During this conflict, both sides lost approximately 1 million men and ended the conflict without either side gaining much ground.

4. In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait and occupied the entire country. Between early Jan 1991 and Feb 24, An army consisting of a colition of western and Arab countries dislodged the Iraqi's from Kuwait and the Iraqi armies were generally destroyed while the Allies lost relatively few soldiers in the fighting. It should be noted that the bulk of the forces engaged were American.

5. Between March and May 1st 2003, American and British forces invaded and destroyed Iraq's military structure, captured and eventually executed it leader and occupied the country.

6. Soon, (supposedly), all US combat forces will be withdrawn leaving behind a much different Government in Iraq.

If I were the President of Iran, and knew a little of this history, I think that I might be nervous about the Americans and Western powers as well. Bluster may get the soft politically weak Americans to back down, but, in the end, if pushed too far, Iran could also suffer the same fate as Iraq.

Remember, Iran and Iraq fought a war for 8 years with not positive results, while the Americans (and Allies) destroyed the fighting ability of Iraq in a few short weeks!

HIJACKED CREW ANALYSIS

I received the following forwarded e mail from a friend. It answers some of my questions regarding the recent hijacking attempt and its successful outcome.

This very "matter of fact" letter from the First Engineer aboard the
Maersk Alabama was written during the pirate incident. It was forwarded
as a lessons learned event.

These abbreviations may help... he is writing to a fellow Engineer
aboard another Maersk Sister Vessel

EDG= Emergency Diesel Generator
3/M= Third Mate
AB= Able bodied Seamen
ECR= Engine Control room
C/M= Chief Mate
ER= Engine Room
MOB= Man Overboard Boat

Sent: Friday, April 10, 2009 1:58 PM
To: Maersk Arkansas - 1st Engineer
Subject: from Matt Fisher
Hey Greg
Everyone on here is okay. We're on our way to Mombasa with Navy
Protection on board. Captain Phillips is still hostage in the lifeboat
with the 4 pirates. I hear they're flying out reliefs for everyone, but
I'm not sure what all's going to happen once we get to Mombasa.
Supposedly the FBI is coming out to investigate the crime. Maybe we'll
be on the next CSI Somalia. I wanted to let you know some of the lessons
we learned so you guys can better prepare yourselves for something
similar.
The only guys actually captured by the pirates were on the bridge: Capt,
3/M,and 2 AB's. I don't really know why they stayed on the bridge until
the pirates got up there. Then they had keys to everything and were able
to unlock everyone's rooms. The pirates got up to the bridge very
quickly once they were onboard. We had a locked cage door over the
ladder well from main deck, but it only took a second for them to shoot
it off. They then got to the bridge up the outside ladders. By that time
we had taken control of the engine and steering down below. Mike stayed
in the ECR and the C/M was out on deck tracking the pirates' movement.
We kept swinging the rudder side to side.
The pirates' boat capsized, though I'm not sure exactly when or what
caused it. After about 20 minutes the engine was killed, I don't know by
whom. At that point I shut off the air bottles and Mike killed power. He
was also able to get outside and trip the fuel shutoff for the EDG. I
think this was critical. The pirates were very reluctant to go into the
dark. We will be looking at a way to shut off the EDG from the ECR in
the future. All the crew had been mustered and secured in the steering
gear. Our Pirates didn't have any grenades, so they would have never
been able to break in there. The previous day we had welded a pad-eye on
the inside of the hatch to the fantail so it was secured from the
inside. The only problem with the steering gear was the heat and the
shortage of water. In the future we will store food and water in various
spots for emergency usage. I think we will also run a fresh water line
into the steering gear. We were able to make a run from the steering
gear to the E/R water fountain and fill up some empty oil sample bottles
we had back there. The C/M was also able to get some fruit and sodas
from the galley and drop them down the line standpipe.
The pirates sent the 3/M unescorted to go look for crewmembers, so he
was able to get away. One of the pirates then went with an AB down to
the E/R to look for people. Mike was able to jump him in the dark and we
took him prisoner in the steering gear. No one else came down into the
E/R.
As the day went on the pirates became desperate to get out of there.
Their boat was sunk, and they couldn't get our ship moving. The Captain
talked them into taking the MOB boat. The three remaining pirates went
down in the MOB boat with Phillips. We were then able to negotiate with
them over the radio. We dropped some food, water and diesel to them. We
started getting the plant back on line. Unfortunately, the MOB boat
wouldn't start. A couple of guys got in the lifeboat and dropped it.
They motored over and traded the lifeboat for the MOB boat. We were
supposed to exchange their guy for the Captain, but they ended up
keeping him. They motored off in the lifeboat.
They had no way of getting back aboard, so we followed them. The Navy
showed up a few hours later. We stayed close by for some time, but then
the Navy asked us to head out. I heard that several other pirate vessels
were heading our way and the Navy wanted us out of the way. That's about
it. I'll give you all the details some other time. Just to reiterate the
most important
points:

1. Have a well fortified location with food and water supply.
2. Kill all the lights.
3. Leave the alarms going, the noise helped cover our movements through
the house.
4. Flashlights and radios are very handy, as well as the sound-powered
phone.
Anyway, it was a pretty stressful situation. I have to say I am
impressed with how the entire crew responded. We didn't have anybody whowanted to give up. I'm pretty confident that Phillips will end up ok.
They have to know that if they kill him they'll be done.
I assume the company will be forced into taking some kind of action to
assure our security from now on.Hope everything is going well there. I'll talk to you later.
Matt
Very interesting stuff. It tends to support my prior submissions.

PIRATE (TERRORIST) CONTROL

A friend suggested that we could help defuse the pirate issue near Somalia with a few well placed munitions on some of their assets. I believe that if we want to defeat these terrorists (I am reluctant to glamorize these criminals) we, the USA, will have to make a concerted effort in destroying their capabilities. Have no fear, our so called allies and even our potential enemies have no stomach or desire to get mixed up with us on this or any other endeavor (except to accept our valuables and protection while damming us at the same time).

My approach to these Somalian terrorists would be somewhat costly, but probably not as expensive as our (and other nations) having to pay them yearly tribute.

1.First we should declare that the area adjacent to the Somalia coast extending out as far as necessary (500 mi?) and within Somalia itself including all navagible waterways to be a WAR zone.
2. Place as many as 3 surveillance aircraft over this region on a 24 hour/ 7 day basis.
3. Detail as many as 2 Aircraft Carriers (initially) to patrol the area.
4. Set up a screen of Combat Air Patrol (CAP) planes over the ares under the control of the surveillance aircraft.
5. Have helicopter gunship support in continous attendance in the area.
6. Detail the use of inshore patrol watercraft (maybe Coast Guard assets) to monitor close in to the Somalia coast to interdict all potentially hostile craft.
7. Interdict all watercraft through the use of the above assets. Destroy all hostile or potentially hostile forces.
8. Arm all merchant ships (or as many as could be convinced it would be for their own safety) or provide Military forces to ride thes merchant ships (a requirement for US flagged ships; optional for other nation's assets).
9. Require all merchant ships to transit the WAR area in convoys under military protection.

I believe that this approach would choke off the sea to the terrorists. Once this is done, go about the serious business of enforcing a stronger civil government for Somalia and pursuing the criminals in their own country. This effort would be quite a bit more costly than the seaborne phase.

I do not believe that the UN or any other organization (NATO, SEATO,ETC) would willingly participate, but maybe, if we, the US, could get some backbone, we might be able to impose peace in this area.

I wonder if the Israelis would be interested in such a venture (for consideration of course).

GOVERNMENT SPENDING

Arizona, a very small player in the Country is trying to quickly spend approximately 8 million dollars which is its share of the "Jobs" retraining stimulus money. The problem with this money is that the State must obligate these funds quickly in order not to lose them. And, Government must be able to account for the funds and justify their use. This program is worse because it is obvious that the same problem is being felt by 49 other states as well.
This task in my opinion is quite impossible. Wise usage of such funds would dictate careful and intelligent planning which cannot be quickly identified. So, the State Government will probably pass the monies out to the next best sounding program ginned up by some bureaucrats and their lobbyist buddies. The resultant will obviously be a total loss of the funds, some agonizing by the bureaucrats, and no one will be effectively retrained or initially trained. Since there is a requirement to account for the funds, the accounting costs must be borne by someone, either through monies from the Jobs Stimulus program or by other state obligations. I would guess that the cost to monitor could be as high as 50 percent of the total funds available.

Meanwhile, the 3 State Universities will continue to gouge the students (aka the "Stimulus Surcharge"), maintain a large number of useless baggage in the form of non productive tenured professors that seldom teach, and reduce the number of educational options and real instructors. Don't forget that the Universities will all three will continue the need to improve their sports programs and employ high priced coaches and maintain expensive infrastructure for sports programs.

Enough is enough! It is time to rid the State of all of these problems.

1. Return the Stimulus jobs money (and any other like structured fund initiatives).
2. Revise and redraw the tenure program so that performance in the classroom becomes the measure of success and remove the job protection aspect of tenure.
3. Completely redraw and revise ALL sports programs so that real fiscal responsibility may be imposed. Remove or reduce athletic scholarships except in instances where real talent in the classroom may be nurtured. This would also reduce and possibly eliminate the associated activities such as cheer leaders, pom lines, and marching bands and their attendant upkeep and maintenance costs.
4. Remove non valued student programs and classes. This item is really a tough issue since there will be very vocal arguments as to what is valuable.
5. Revise the tuition and fees costs to students to be more in line with State mandated requirements of being the lowest possible charges.
6. Realign the structure and location of the various campuses to affordable locations. I really question the cost effectiveness of the Downtown Phoenix campus.

Finally, maybe we need a real Republican Governor that does not sound and act like her Democratic predecessor. Someone who is less political and more businesslike.

USS Pueblo Revisted

Around 1801 the new United States fought a series of wars with a group of city states in North Africa called the Barbary States. These States were principally funded by acts of piracy. The US along with some intermittent allies fought a protracted war in order to secure the right of free passaqge of merchantmen. Successfully, of course because we stood up to them regardless of the cost. A now rather famous quote attributed to a US Senator of the time was "Millions for defense but not one penny for tribute" (actually an approximation of the actual words).
After WW2 and the Korean conflict, the US has become somewhat more spineless. In 1968 President Johnson allowed the USS Pueblo to be seized by the North Koreans who interned the crew for almost a year and still hold the ship as an example of US lack of resolve. We finally secured their release after paying the North Koreans and apologizing for our having allowed the ship and crew to be captured. Today, our chance of getting the North Koreans to adhere to US or UN mandates is very unlikely due to our refusal to confront them with force or even the real threat of force.
Today, an American Sea Captain is being held by some pirates, this time from a disorganized country called Somalia. These modern day pirates are also routinely waylay and hold for ransom various merchantmen from various nations. In 2008 the estimate was as many as 600 ships.

And still we, the US, is reluctant to take real military action against the pirates. So, I guess we will pay these pirates off to secure the release of our captain. And next week, month, etc. others will be waylaid and we will pay more TRIBUTE just so we do not have to confront the villians. Maybe we should just visit the country and offer a yearly sum of money (goods and services) so as to preclude further action by these pirates. Oh, but wait, that will not satisfy the next group of criminals, will it?

I guess it is time for the US to apologize for uttering those words about paying tribute, quite insensitive HUH?

JUST WHEN YOU THINK THAT IT CAN'T GET ANY WORSE

Here we are, a Country in turmoil; in a recession; close to double digit inflation; massive numbers of houses in foreclosure; and a new Federal Administration that is trying to impose a National Socialistic regime; when the latest item is:::

The Arizona Republic newspaper, our main source of news in this area, has decided to cut down on the number of pages and cartoons in the Sunday edition of the paper and inserted an extra page of advertisements in the section! Even my least favorite political cartoon, DOONESBURY, has been reduced to a quarter column. The bright side to this is that the type is so small now, I cannot read it without a magnifying glass, and, quite honestly, I prefer not to see it anyway.

This latest event is really quite inappropriate. Someone needs to register a serious protest and insist that the Sunday cartoon section be restored to its previous number of pages and cartoons.