Tell Me What You Want To Hear

Thank You to Time Magazine and reporters Alex Altman and Alex Rogers for the idea and some content.

Tell Me What You Want To Hear

When it comes to politics, believing is seeing. Partisan Republicans see Barack Obama as dishonest; partisan Democrats see Mitt Romney the same way. Voters see candidates they support as truth tellers; they regard candidates they oppose as shadier

Conservative friends of mine who believe the government is in a desperate, non-stop spiral into socialism, read material from authors who believe the same way. Similarly, most liberal friends believe our government is strictly a “board of directors” for corporate America, and they lean towards authors who consistently reinforce their views.

We are suffering from a national case of confirmation bias – the idea that we lend credence to information that confirms our opinions and ignore evidence that doesn’t – even in the face of facts.

The most disturbing truth here is not about the falsehoods of any one candidate, but the scientific studies showing that voters with more information are likely to be more biased than those who know less. That is worrisome in a country where government derives its’ powers from the consent of the governed.

Voters in the US have shown less and less interest in punishing candidates who deceive, because those who feel a deeper affinity for one side or another have developed a tendency to forgive the home team’s fibs. No matter their ideology, many voters increasingly inhabit information bubbles in which they are LESS likely to hear their view of the world contradicted.

With almost instant access to any information on the planet, why do we only seek out the information that reinforces our own belief system?

My paternal grandfather’s politics leaned a little left, but he read things from all over the spectrum. He said, “to make an intelligent decision you have to have perspective, and to have perspective, you have to know what EVERYONE is up to.” Not anymore.

We’ve become a country of people who choose our media based on its’ ability to reinforce our foundation of beliefs. We’ve stopped collecting news that informs us, and collecting only news that affirms us. It used to be that we disagreed on the solution but at least agreed on the problem. Now we don’t even agree on the problem.

All of this contributes to an environment in which voters simply filter out unwanted facts, and political discourse is reduced to screaming loudly at each other across the street.

Poor U.S. Math Skills and a Balanced U.S. Budget

Poor U.S. math skills allow frantic hyperbole by politicians...film at 11 (or maybe 12?).

Lately, the republican and democratic parties have played political badminton with two items each thinks should be cut from the annual federal budget. The democrats want the $4 billion tax breaks to the big oil companies stopped, and the republicans want the money to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting stopped. Everyone is screaming about a balanced budget, but no one seems to be able to figure it out. Well, I'm no genius, but I'm going to give it a shot.

Here are the official numbers for the United States 2012 Federal Budget

CATEGORY                      REQUESTED       ENACTED
Total Revenue                 $2.627 trillion     $2.469 trillion
Total Expenditures           $3.729 trillion     $3.796 trillion
Deficit                            $1.101 trillion     $1.327 trillion

The $445 million to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is 0.01175 percent of Total Expenditures.

The $4 billion in tax breaks to big oil is 0.1055 percent of Total Expenditures.

Some context:
Defense budget: $676 billion
State Department budget for Afghanistan: $2.3 billion
State Department budget for Iraq: $1.0 billion
Amtrak federal capital grants and operating subsidies: $1.4 billion
Federal office space acquisition budget: $864 million

For you math weenies, here’s what should have happened...

The government should have taken the amount of Total Revenue Enacted and divided it by the amount of Total Expenditures Enacted. This gives us a percentage of 65%. Then, they should have then reduced EACH AND EVERY single line item in the budget by 40%, which would have given us a balanced budget for 2012, and left over 5% ($123.5 B) to begin reducing the national debt.

This would result in...
Defense budget: $405.6 billion
State Department budget for Afghanistan: $1.38 billion
State Department budget for Iraq: $600 million
Amtrak federal capital grants and operating subsidies: $840 million
Federal office space acquisition budget: $518.4 million

and...
Corporation for Public Broadcasting: $267 million
Tax breaks to big oil: $2.4 billion

Seems really simple to me. How about you?

Death Of A Saint

I lost my mother on Tuesday, June 26, 2012, at 9:31 PM.

Mom was 73½ years old, but was a very "young" 73½. I was with her when she left us, and now realize one very important thing; there is never enough time to say all you want to say - ever. We could all have lifetimes measured in millenniums rather than decades, but even then, it would not be enough time.

With a father that traveled for his work, my mom was the glue that held the family together. She was an anachronism in today's society; a life-long housewife who kept an immaculate home, and could make a three-course meal out of nothing.

After I left home many years ago, we used to talk on Tuesdays. She would call and start the conversation with “Guess what? It’s Tuesday, and you’re loved extra special on Tuesdays!” It became our thing. It was a contest to see who would call who first, because the person who called got to say it. The proper response was “I know!” What I realized long ago was that my mother loved me extra special every day.

My sadness at her bedside in the hospital was nothing more than selfishness on my part, because I will miss her sweet glowing face, her cheerful encouraging voice, and hugging her very squeezable body.

I celebrate her life as one that was lived properly, and will always remember all the things, good and bad, that made my mother who she was. She would not want her death to make me to lay down and wrap myself in a sadness that would prevent me from moving on with my life.

She would say the same thing to me she used to say to one of my brother-in-laws when he would tell her over early morning coffee how worried he was about getting his day’s work done; “Well what are you doing still sitting here? You should have been gone before daylight!”

I realize that it's okay to be a little selfish in my sadness that she is no longer physically with me, but I won’t let that last very long. Instead, I will use her life as an example of how to better lead mine; as a champion for her children, in service to others and as a messenger of encouragement.

I am thankful I had a mother who cared enough to whip me when I needed it, and I am a better person because of her.

I love you mom.

Lost Civility

The loss of civility in our civilization is one of the things that concerns me most about our nation, because we’ve forgotten how to disagree without being disagreeable. The truth is, you can still walk hand-in-hand even though you don’t see eye-to-eye.
 
What we desperately need in our country is unity, not uniformity. We have major differences, politically, religiously, and economically in our nation, and we also have many different social streams. We are not all going to believe the same, ever. Any politician who acts like we do, or ever will, is either lying to the public or fooling himself, although it makes for a nice campaign statement. We’ve always had major differences, and many of those differences just aren’t solvable.
 
What is solvable is how we treat each other when we disagree. If you are a Christian, you are commanded to love everybody. Other people may hate you, but as a Christian, you are not allowed to hate anyone. In fact, the Bible says in I Peter 2:17, “Respect everyone, and love your Christian brothers and sisters.” This means that you must show respect to everyone, even people of different faiths, or those you totally disagree with. Romans 12:14 “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.”
 
You can't fix problems as long as you spend all your time and energy spouting hate and laying blame. The thing I dislike most about our current American discourse is people are constantly blaming everyone else for problems rather than fixing them.
 
The rise of television and the internet changed the way our politicians behave. Regardless of what they say or do, they are not interested in solving your problems. They are interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of your problems and telling you who's to blame for them. It’s been an effective formula for winning elections for over 50 years.
 
But, this strategy drives hard wedges betweens groups of citizens, and fuels the very discourse we are suffering from because it strikes us in a very emotional place, and causes us to respond emotionally towards those we disagree with.
 
We must somehow return civility to our civilization in order to get along and move on, and demand that our politicians do the same. And there must be a spiritual basis to the reason for civility. If you don't have a spiritual foundation in your dealings with others, then you're always going to have the viewpoint of “We need to win. We need to win on this issue. We need to win in this election. We need to win.”
 
I imagine and desire a government where the politicians do not care about getting re-elected, and where the pay for their services is linked directly to real efforts towards solving real problems. The next time a politician stands up to talk about another politician, or anything other than their own beliefs and position on a topic, check your pulse and your attitude before jumping up to go yell at your neighbor. My guess is that’s exactly what he wanted you to do.

Capturing Lost Youth?

I’ve been playing sleuth a bit over the past year or so, looking around on Facebook and other social network sites, for people I knew between 1977 and 1987, between the ages of 20 and 30.  That was an influential era for me, and looking back at that time now, I realize I was more impressionable during that span than ever admitted to myself. The memories from that decade are careening upon me now; and it’s bittersweet.

My life over the last 24-plus years has been beyond awesome and phenomenal because it’s included my wife, Shelley, and our daughter Ryan, coupled with some of the best friends and experiences I’ve ever known. Looking back, I can honestly say that I have no regrets, and it feels good to say that with an honest heart and a fulfilled soul.

So what’s been pushing me to find and reconnect with people from that part of my life? I don’t know, and I’m not all that sure that I’ll ever really know, part of me just wants to sit back and enjoy the ride. And on this ride I found some folks from my first overseas military assignment (1977-79) at Torrejon AFB near Madrid, Spain. My first wife and I had some great friends in our apartment building, among them were Judy and Bill who had a set of ten-year-old twin boys, Raymond and Nathan. Bill was the person who taught me how to play guitar, a hobby I still enjoy today. I was fortunate enough to catch up with both twins and Judy on Facebook, and was pleased to hear that they are all doing well. The memories we’ve shared have been incredible, and I look forward to seeing them in California soon.

I found Rodney, another Air Force friend I knew from my second overseas assignment in Turkey, and we also were stationed together stateside at Bergstrom AFB in Austin, TX. Rod made the Air Force a career, then retired to Arizona. Woody is another military retiree I was stationed with in Austin who is originally from my home town of Fort Worth. He is now a civil service technical instructor who lives on the Mississippi gulf coast, and  teaches new technologies to Air Force officers. Ed didn’t retire from the Air Force, but he served his country and then settled in San Angelo, TX. Ed and I take great pride in our high-spirited, but civil political debates that give us both perspective in our lives. Seeing how friends’ lives have evolved has been a great lesson in human nature.

Facebook has been great for finding old high school friends too. It’s interesting how people can change through the years. Gary was a friend from high school who was my roommate at Texas A&M, and enlisted in the Air Force the same time I did. We lost touch in the early eighties, but saw each other at our 20-year high school reunion. Gary retired from the Air Force, and settled in New Mexico. He now has a solid and sincere relationship with God, which is a far cry from who he was in his youth. This is an example of the kind of incongruence that happens after losing contact with a close friend for a long time. The picture in my mind of who they were all those years ago is so clear, that who they are now gets filtered through that image of the past, often creating a mental mismatch that takes a while to work through.

There has been sadness on the search as well. One friend, Susie, who was always a lady, did not make it to her 39^th birthday. She was a renegade soul, as sweet and honest as they come, and was the spitting image of Debra Winger, with the same hair, eyes, and crooked smile. Our friendship worked well because we both enjoyed each other’s company immensely, and we had zero demands or expectations regarding the relationship. I found her obituary from November 2001 online several weeks ago, and it affected me greatly. Two of her sisters are on Facebook, but I have not contacted them because I’ve never met them, and I don’t know if trying to connect with them would be good for them. I do know that I miss Susie dearly.

I found another renegade soul in my wife, Shelley, though she would try to convince you that she is anything but. She is a very strong woman, independent and not needy or possessive, with an incredible physical beauty that mostly comes from her confidence in who she is as a person, and that she is comfortable in her own skin. Professionally she operates within a very staid, conservative environment, but she makes changes when and where she can, not just for the sake of change, but when it is pragmatic to do so.

Those close to me now know that I had an experience on the side of a highway in July 2010 that should have ended differently. It was a one-in-a-million experience, and maybe the fact that I am that one-in-a-million guy is motivating my search for the past.

Other real-life changes could be motivating me as well. The closing of two of my previous military duty stations in Spain and Austin encroach on my memories of the past, attempting to eliminate the memories by removing the physical evidence that support them. The only thing that keeps them alive are the people I shared them with.

Finally, I think I am looking for old friends to seek out the relationships where I wasn’t always a good friend; those where I took more than I gave back. I’d really like to see those people again, ask forgiveness for my selfishness, and make it up to them somehow. With few exceptions, I genuinely like the man that I am now, and I long for some of my old friends to see a person they didn’t get a chance to know and like.

Maybe I’ve reached that point in my life where I can look back honestly on who I was in my youth, and know that I wasn’t always the best I could be. If so, not dying on the side of the road on that July day is because God isn’t quite done with me.

I sure hope so.

Keystone XL

KILGORE, TX
January 29, 2012

The U.S. imports both crude oil and other petroleum products from many countries, but this article focuses only on crude oil imports. The numbers used were average barrels imported per day from Jan 2011 through Sep 2011, because these are the last available statistics, and 2010’s numbers are so similar that they don’t affect the averages significantly. See the numbers here: http://www.eia.gov/pub/oil_gas/petroleum/data_publications/company_level_imports/current/import.html

Based on these numbers, the crude imports from the top 15 countries supplying the U.S. account for over 95% of all imports. Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Kuwait, and Oman are the only four middle-east countries to make the Top-15 list. Canada alone supplies 16% more crude oil per day than the four middle-east countries combined. Canada and Mexico together account for almost 40% of our crude imports.

After extraction and preparing for export, Canadian oil is very clean, meaning the vast majority of all solids, salts, water, sulfur, coke, and other materials have been removed. This makes it very desirable for refining into finished products, because some of the processing needed to convert the crude into finished products is already done. Cleaner, simpler, smaller refineries can handle the Canadian crude, turning it quickly into gasoline, jet fuel, and other products needed here in the states.

Crude oil from Venezuela and most areas in the middle-east is very heavy, and has less BTU potential than light, sweet oil from places such as North Sea, West Texas, and Canada. The process to refine this heavy oil requires more energy input, and creates more waste product than lighter crudes.

Earlier this month, President Obama sided with the environmentalist when he decided against building a major pipeline that would bring massive quantities of this quality Canadian crude to our major high-volume refineries along the U.S. Gulf Coast. Whatever his reasoning, it can’t be because the proposed path crosses pristine, sensitive areas previously untouched by the industry.

If a person looks at the current U.S. petroleum product pipeline system, they will see major long-haul pipelines already crossing the very same areas as the path for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
http://www.theodora.com/pipelines/united_states_pipelines_map.jpg

The map at the link above shows only the major long-haul main lines. There are thousands of smaller feeder and spur lines also in the same areas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_us_ng_pipelines.gif

So, why haven’t we broken ground on the Keystone XL? Because our own government has turned the project into a game of political ping-pong.

Democrats always have both labor and environmentalists on their side, but they’ve sided with the greenies on this one, even though the unions have a solid 4-1 majority over environment. Logic dictates that a politician who sides with both should always pick labor when the two sides disagree. It’s strictly a numbers game.

Republicans have spent way too much time the last three years telling us how the man currently in the White House is the cause for our pain and suffering, even though the problem was already all over us before the election. The Republicans screwed up the economy with bad banking regulations, and are now trying to insure we stay angry about the Democrats not fixing a problem they created.

I suppose it’s too much to expect for the politicians on both sides to take a break from flinging crap at each other to get something done that actually needs doing. There is a real opportunity in front of us to reduce our dependency on crude oil from the middle-east and South America, but only if we can get it from the oil sands of northern Alberta to our high-volume refineries on the Gulf Coast. It’s time for our politicians to quit worrying about what’s in it for them, and do something that will benefit us all.

NCAA Division I Football - The Time Has Come

Jan 15, 2012

Tim Cowlishaw with the Dallas Morning News is not only one of my favorite sports writers, he’s also my favorite on ESPN’s show “Around The Horn.” So how awesome was it when I picked up this morning’s Sunday sports section of the paper and saw Tim’s column on page 1, top dead center. The topic was the same as a good friend’s recent blog that dealt with the poor TV ratings of all the NCAA football bowl games, and the beginnings of the dreaded "playoff" discussion.

Just like my friend Chip, Cowlishaw was happy enough that the NCAA and conference commissioners were at least “discussing possible changes to the postseason model.” Tim said the immediate probable changes would be “baby steps”, which really means the NCAA and commissioners are looking at every conceivable angle of this to make sure they squeeze the absolute last drop of blood out of this and any future deals on playoffs.

I love being the “Ron Paul” on this deal, meaning my message and plan for a Division I playoff haven’t changed since before the old bowl coalition days, before the first day the plan for the BCS was ever announced. The plan insures that we never again end up with one (or more) deserving teams on the outside looking in.

In a nutshell, here it is...

At the end of the regular football season, including any conference championships, use all three major polls – AP, USA Today, BCS – to establish the consensus top 8 Division I football teams in the country regardless of conference. Let the players take final exams and spend some time with family, prohibiting practice and other team-related activities until after December 15^th.

Use the seven bowl games below to go from eight teams to a champion in three rounds of play. Scheduling the three rounds can be set up so that the final game is played between Jan 2-5 every year. The seven games would rotate through the three levels of the playoffs so that each bowl game would spend four years at round 1, two years at round 2, and one year as the championship game.

Sugar Bowl, Superdome, New Orleans, LA
Cotton Bowl, Cowboy Stadium, Arlington, TX
Chick-fil-A Bowl, Georgia Dome, Atlanta, GA
Orange Bowl, Sun Life Stadium, Miami Gardens, FL
Meineke Bowl, Reliant Stadium, Houston, TX
Fiesta Bowl, U. of Phoenix Stadium, Glendale, AZ
Rose Bowl, Rose Bowl, Pasadena, CA

If these seven games don’t suit your sensibilities, build something like it around the big 4 (Rose, Sugar, Fiesta, Orange). Just remember to keep all the games in warm weather climates.

Of course, under this system there will be years when people will clamor about who should be 8 versus 9. An argument of who is 8 versus 9 interests me much less than an undefeated number 3 being left out of the mix.

To those who say bowls generate money for schools, that money won’t be there if TV advertisers start pulling ads due to poor ratings. And revenue sharing between all the schools in represented conferences is a must.

To summarize: four are too few, sixteen are too many. Let the discussion begin.

P.S. – To Roger Goodell and the NFL owners...we DO NOT want an 18-game NFL season with a Super Bowl in March. It gets in the way of the last few weeks of the regular NCAA basketball season, which is the second best part. If the NFL also wants a television ratings problem, just get in the way of March Madness.

Just Two Parties?

Thank you Judge Napolitano, the only voice of reason on Fox News

I continue to be amazed by friends, relatives, and people in general regarding the frenzy known as our presidential election. It’s as if people actually believe a new president will make there lives better. For people who claim to love freedom, that sure is a lot of power to give one person over your personal autonomy.

Voting in this country is participation in a process that validates an establishment that never meaningfully changes, because the establishment neither wants or has the consent of the governed.

The two-party system is a mechanism used to limit public opinion. Big issues are more than just two sided, but the two parties want to box us into a corner; one of their corners.

There is no such thing as public opinion, because every thinking person has opinions that are uniquely his or her own. Public opinion is just a manufactured narrative that makes it easier to convince people that if their views are different, then there’s something wrong with that, or something wrong with them.

The whole purpose of the Democratic and Republican parties is not to expand voters’ choices, but to limit them, because those widely perceived differences between the two parties is just an illusion. The heart of government policy remains the same no matter who is in the White House, or what the people want.

Those hugely vaunted differences between Democrat and Republican are just minor disagreements about things that are toward the bottom of most people’s priority list. Both parties just want power, and are willing to have young people fight meaningless wars in order to enhance that power. Both parties continue to fight the war on drugs, just to give bureaucrats and cops bigger budgets and more jobs.

Government policy doesn’t change when government leaders do, because no matter who wins an election, government stays the same. Government is really a revolving door for political hacks bent on exploiting the people once they’re in charge. Both parties support welfare, war, debt, bailouts, and big government.

When a politician asks the question, “Are you better off now than four years ago?”, the most important part of the answer is why. What is the real reason you are better or worse than four years ago? I doubt seriously the government had much, if anything, to do with it.

The rhetoric political candidates display on the campaign trail is dumped after electoral victory. You have to make promises to get elected; you don’t have to keep them.

Barack Obama campaigned as an anti-war, pro civil liberties candidate, but has waged senseless wars while also assaulting our rights that the constitution is supposed to protect. Nothing has changed at Guantanamo Bay, and the trials initiated by George W. Bush were re-started. Obama courted both labor and environmentalists to get elected, but how does he reconcile the two when it comes to big-ticket items like the Keystone XL pipeline project?

George W. Bush campaigned on a platform of non-intervention and small government, and then waged a foreign policy of muscular military intervention, and a domestic policy of vast government borrowing and growth, signing the $700 billion Wall Street bailout into law one month before the 2008 presidential election.

Bill Clinton declared that the era of big government was over, but actually just convinced Republicans like Newt Gingrich that they could get what they want out of big government too. Of course, the Republicans went along with it.

George H.W. Bush was swept into office on the good-feeling coat tails of Ronald Reagan. His 80%-plus approval ratings came crashing down when he compromised with Democrats to try to lower Federal deficits, reneging on his promise not to raise taxes, dropping his approval rating to 40%, and costing him a second term.

Ronald Reagan spent six years running for president, promising to shrink the government, but then the national debt grew from $907 billion to $3.25 trillion dollars during his eight years in office. Notwithstanding his ideas, cheerfulness, and libertarian rhetoric, there really was no “Reagan Revolution" at all.

And now all this is happening again as the empty political rhetoric is being shuffled around and repackaged. But instead of one year out of every four, the campaign for the next one starts the day after inauguration.

Rick Santorum is being embraced by voters who want small government, even though Senator Santorum voted for the Patriotic Act, an expansion of Medicare, and raising the debt ceiling by trillions of dollars.

Mitt Romney is being embraced by voters who want anyone but Barack Obama, but other than skin color, they don’t realize that Mitt Romney might as well be Barack Obama on everything from warfare to welfare.

Ron Paul is being ignored by the media, not because, as they claim, he’s unappealing or unelectable, but because he doesn’t fit into the pre-manufactured public opinion mold used by the establishment to pigeon-hole the electorate, and create the so-called narrative that drives the media coverage of elections.

The biggest difference between most candidates is not substance but style. These stylistic differences are packaged as substantive ones to reinforce the illusion of a difference between Democrats and Republicans. If Mitt Romney wins and continues the same policies Barack Obama promoted, which are merely extensions from George W. Bush, we are left with more of the same.

What if a government that manipulates us, and lacks the true and knowing consent of the governed could be dismissed?

What if it were possible to have a real game changer?

What if we need someone like Ron Paul to preserve and protect our freedoms from the government?

What if we could make elections matter again?