Wonderful machines

My grandfather was an early power enthusiast. It is no wonder, having been born in 1904, the streets of Erie, Pa., were still crowded with horse-drawn freight wagons during his formative years. My Poppy relied on handsaws and hand braces (drills) and hand planes when building walls and roofs and cabinets. So when electric power tools, and more wonderfully, internal combustion lawn and garden tools appeared, he was enthralled.




A life-long love affair, Poppy would never pass up the chance to mow a lawn or rototill a garden or snowblow a driveway or rip a 2x8 with a power saw. He was captivated.

And that devotion was communicated to me. As the first boy in his family after three female daughters and an initial granddaughter, I was his dream come true. Poppy poured out all of his knowledge, all of his love, for things mechanical to me.

At six years old, I sat in his lap while we mowed the lawn on his small but beloved lawn tractor. The smell of the exhaust as the machine came to life, after carefully checking the oil, perhaps cleaning the sparkplug, and pulling vigorously on the starting rope, will never leave me.

“No, never step off until the blade is disengaged!” “Be very careful on a slide slope, do not turn abruptly uphill or you will overturn the machine and no one will be happy.” “Slowly, slowly, speed is not the goal.”

Eventually, I was signed off to solo and at the age of seven, nothing gave me greater pleasure than being handed the responsibility for mowing his great, hilly lawn, but safely, oh so slowly and safely.

My own love for power grew, and after our family moved to the country, the neighboring farmer recognized that spark. At eight years old, he had me stand between his knees and guide a huge farm tractor, steering at his command. At ten, I was allowed to perform simple tasks solo, such as parking the tractor or moving it to the fuel drum for replenishment.

By the time I was twelve, I was snaking logs out of the woods, plowing and discing fields, and driving the farm truck in the hayfields while the older teenagers hoisted the heavy bales of hay aboard. My Poppy’s love for things mechanical had been passed on, and I was hooked.

So what has just happened in Massachusetts? A law banning those under 14 years of age from operating ATVs. The State, collectively, has determined that individual parents (and grandparents and other responsible adults) are not capable of guiding and mentoring their young. The State, in its collective wisdom, had assumed yet another parental prerogative. You, the father, you the grandfather, you the scout leader, are not capable of teaching and recognizing the abilities and limitations of your charges. Only the State is competent to do so.

It is another sad usurpation of our individual freedom, committed by well meaning, but misdirected, busybodies.

Ruminations on D-Day

On June 6, 1944, the Allies launched an invasion to lift the Nazi boot from the neck of the European continent. Sixty-six years later, the aptly named Greta Berlin of “Free Gaza” instructs us that “What Israel needs to understand is that nothing is accomplished by force.”

This particular brand of liberal thought is in concert with bumper stickers commonly found on Berkley and Amherst and Cambridge Volvo’s proclaiming that “War leaves all children behind”. As the Allies advanced into Germany and freed large numbers of prisoners from concentration camps, the many children should have, apparently, abhorred the Allies’ use of force.

Now we have Helen Thomas, grand dame of the White House press corps, calling for Israelis to be forced from their homes and deported to Germany and Poland. The twisted, hateful, racist ramblings of a liberal icon will go unremarked, but Arizonans being assaulted by MS-13 and drug gangs must passively endure.

Yes, the mechanisms of the liberal mind remain a mystery.

A healthy debate...

What a weekend it’s been in the health care debate. We learned from James McGovern (D-MA) via our local political observer that the Republicans actually wrote the Democratic health care bill. And in a Sunday editorial, our local paper castigates Scott Brown for his health care position, forgetting that he is representing the wishes of 1,168,107 Massachusetts citizens who resoundingly elected him to office.

It is too easy to forget what the problem is and how we got here. The problem, simply put, is that health care costs have been skyrocketing because there is no price information flowing between consumers and suppliers. That came about when the government froze wages during WWII and firms competing for workers offered paid health insurance instead of raises. It’s been downhill ever since and Democrats think the cure is massively greater government intervention.

Consider an individual citizen’s support hierarchy, i.e., where does the responsibility lie for our health, wealth, well-being and happiness? The Republicans think it looks like this (from most to least responsibility):

1. Self
2. Family
3. Charities and churches
4. Local and state government
5. Federal government

Now turn that list completely upside down and you have the Democrats’ view.

Scott Brown, in his 3/13 GOP radio address, said "Somehow, the greater the public opposition to the health care bill, the more determined they seem to force it on us anyway." That is no mystery at all, given that the Democrats see us as the weak, ignorant, helpless masses, who need a benevolent autocracy providing and guiding our destinies. No thanks.

Settled Science

Science is the means by which we attempt to understand our universe. It is attractive to think in terms of black and white “settled” science, where grand truths are discovered and understood and embraced, unchanging forever. But reality is always a bit more complex, and a bit more messy, than we know.

For instance, we are often told that “the skin absorbs vitamin D through direct sunlight.” This conjures up a vision of swarms of vitamin D particles emanating from the sun which are then absorbed into our skin upon impact.

In reality, the sun emanates nothing but photons, some of which in the UVB wavelength (270-300 nm) interact with cholesterol molecules in the skin to create vitamin D. A more thorough understanding reveals that we must both synthesize cholesterol in the body and be exposed to unfiltered ultraviolet B sunlight (with no sunscreen or glass to block it) in order to manufacture vitamin D.

Scientific reality is always more complicated than the common understanding. And settled science is often found to be resting on quicksand. Here are a few examples:

• For centuries, the geocentric model of the universe was believed to be settled science and was tightly embraced by the Catholic Church. According to this theory, the Earth is the center of the universe and all other objects (the Sun, other planets, and stars) revolve around it. The theory had no serious challenge until 1534 when Copernicus published his hypothesis that the Earth and other planets revolve around the Sun. But it was not until 1610 that Galileo Galilei used the newly invented optical telescope to prove the theory. (Galileo was convicted by the Roman Inquisition for his trouble and spent the rest of his life under house arrest).

• More contemporarily, the British medical journal Lancet recently retracted a 1998 study that had associated certain vaccines with autism. Many concerned parents and consumer groups waged a 10-year campaign against vaccines based on this study, but aren't expected to be mollified that it was found invalid.

• Functional MRI brain scans had become wildly popular among neuroscientists as a means to relate human emotions to physical areas of the brain. Many experiments were performed to determine which parts of the brain were involved with pain, love, joy, and other emotions. That was until a recent study that duplicated the results... with a salmon. A dead salmon. So much settled science out the window.

• The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was recently forced to retract its Nobel Prize winning claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035. It was determined that the “science” behind that claim was a magazine article written by an advocacy group.

These are only a few of many cases of settled science becoming very unsettled. It seems that we, the poor, ignorant general public, should believe with reservation, keep an open mind, and maintain a healthy skepticism of things scientific. Especially when they are wrapped in an aura of religious fervor.

Foundering on the Shoals of Massachusetts

It is difficult to overstate the significance of Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts special election of January 19th. He will take a U.S. Senate seat that has been continuously held by Democrats since John F. Kennedy defeated Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. in November of 1952. If Martha Coakley had won that seat, it would have shortly been eligible to retire and collect Social Security.

It has been extremely entertaining this past week watching liberal politicians and pundits struggle to explain their catastrophe. The voters were sexist. No, they were racist. And angry, or maybe fearful, but certainly stupid. What a flattering view the Democrats have of the electorate.

Perhaps it wasn’t the voters, but the candidate, who only portrayed himself as a political outsider. His 30-plus years of Army National Guard service was a red herring that did not truly inform his insight on terrorism. His semi-nude modeling, in 1982 while a college student, was a clear disqualifier of which the voters were clearly (and stupidly) unconcerned.

OK, maybe not the candidate, but the competition. Coakley ran a weak campaign. If she had not won the primary, a stronger candidate (e.g., Representative Michael Capuano) would have assuredly prevailed against Brown.

Democrats consumed a post-election poll sponsored by Moveon.org and concluded that the election was a stinging repudiation of George W. Bush and a ringing endorsement of the Obama agenda. So, not a catastrophe at all, they convinced themselves, but a sign that they had not hewn far enough to the left, and the voters had simply voiced their disapproval thereof.

Barack Obama took that message to heart and, in his interminable State of the Union address, reaffirmed his focus on growing government, taking over the health care system, imposing a massive energy tax, and picked very public fights with Wall Street and the Supreme Court – all intended, of course, to stimulate the creation of private sector jobs.

It is as if the ship of state, with Admiral Obama at the helm, is clawing off a lee shore, rife with crippling shoals and dangerous rocks. The wind and seas are brutal, and suddenly a flare ascends from this Massachusetts shoreline. It is Scott Brown, crying “Tack to starboard, tack now! You are in terrible danger of foundering!” But Obama, in his willful hubris, instead tacks to port.

We can only hope that the November elections will send a clear, unambiguous, unmistakable message that we must take that starboard tack – and that it happens before our hull is pierced and torn. That would be the true catastrophe.


On a Lee Shore
Winslow Homer – 1900
(Note – this image is in the public domain as the creator has been deceased for over 70 years)

Why are Republicans working to make us less safe?

Our local political columnist, spurred by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s quasi-successful Christmas day terrorist attack on Northwest flight 253, relates how Republicans are working hard to make us less safe. “(Democrats)… point out that Republicans have blocked the appointment of the head of the Transportation Security Administration and fought against funding for screening machines at airports.” This theme is reverberating throughout the fever swamps of partisan liberal blogs (Huffington Post, Democratic Underground, etc.).

It is true that Republicans are opposed to the confirmation of Obama’s choice for TSA director, Erroll Southers. This is because Mr. Southers may not continue the current prohibition of TSA collective bargaining. Republicans fear that if TSA employees were to “work to rule”, we would be less able to respond quickly to changing terrorist tactics, hence making us less safe. Republican concern of this eventuality is warranted. On October 20, 2008, candidate Obama wrote to John Gage, President of the American Federation of Government Employees, with the following commitment: “If I am elected President, I will work to ensure that TSOs (Transportation Security Officers) have collective bargaining rights…” This, coupled with Mr. Southers' refusal to answer the collective bargaining question has raised alarms.

The charge that Republicans “fought against funding for screening machines” is misleading and borders on prevarication. How many Republicans -- all of them? A majority? Why are they fighting screening machines? The questions raised here beg for answers, but you will never see them in the liberal blogs or media.

The 110th congress passed H.R.1, “Implementing Recommendations of the 9/11 Commission Act of 2007(1)” by a bi-partisan majority on July 27, 2007. A majority of Republican senators (36) voted for the bill, and a small minority (8), against. The bill consists of 183 sections, only one of which relates to airport screening machines (section 1601). The Republicans who voted against the bill did not object to section 1601, but that the overall bill allocated funds based on political calculus (e.g., pork) rather than risk. They also did not feel that the mandate to inspect 100% of incoming ship cargo was feasible, and that it would disrupt the then-present practice of inspecting high-risk cargo, thereby making us less safe.

Now, you may well disagree with the Republicans’ reasoning. But is it possible that, in their best judgment, they are trying to make us more safe, not less so?

(1) This bill was known in the Senate version as Improving America's Security Act of 2007.

Crime and punishment (or lack thereof)

On August 22, 2009, James Zupkofska, 45, a corrections officer in Norfolk County, was struck and killed while jogging. Proximate cause of death? The rather odd Massachusetts practice of criminalizing behavior without actually inconveniencing citizens with enforcement.

Case in point – “Lawmakers’ bills target drunken, reckless drivers,” Attleboro Sun Chronicle, 9/28/09 – in which new laws are described that “increase fines and criminal penalties for motorists who violate the right of way,” resulting in the injury or death of pedestrians or bicyclists.

It is odd that, when there is a problem with speeding, the response is to lower the speed limit. If they keep exceeding 30 mph, then let’s make it 25. Then 20. How about 12 ½? Boy, that sure slowed ‘em down! All it cost was to change the signs.

Or when littering becomes a problem, just increase fines to $1,000, then $5,000! Yes, the streets are much cleaner now.

The disconnect here is that Massachusetts politicians (state and local) just don’t get the relationship between crime and deterrence. Here, serious traffic charges are rarely levied unless an accident has occurred – after the fact and much too late. You can criminalize until the cows come home, but unless there is a cost to be paid for bad behavior, that behavior won’t change.

Instead of posturing and passing feel-good legislation, here’s a recipe for truly making a difference. Let’s fund state and local police departments to actually stop and ticket motorists for bad behavior – such as weaving, tailgating, and red-light running, prior to an accident.

That might have actually kept Mr. Zupkofska alive.