LEATHERNECKM31

It’s a drag….

On the road… (with apologies to Jacks Kerouac and Webb).

The story you are about to read is true. Only the names have been changed to protect me from the usual threat of law suits.

DFW. Thursday 2:15 p.m.

I’m working the waiting watch out of  boredom. My name is Thirsty; I have no partner what with the dogs boarded at Club Canine in Denton.

There had been a storm. They say in this part of Texas it’s normal. They cancelled my flight anyway.

I should be half way to Portland by now. Niece. Graduation -- MSW-School of Social Work. Five years… she’ll be a Republican.

Instead I’m in line with all the other cancelled flight non- fliers.

Behind me are Ben and Jerry (not really, I just decided to call them  that); Ben is an Episcopal Priest in the Diocese of New York and Jerry is his special friend, or “life partner” as Episcopals seem to prefer nowadays.

I ask if they’re baseball fans… “Mets,” Ben says. I discard the usual  the jokes… it’s been a long time since 1969, why rub it in?

I’m nursing a stress headache from trying to remember everything I had to do before take off. Tires me out. I forget stuff.

I try my sure-fire “Episcopals… they’re the Catholics who flunked Latin, right?”

Jerry quips back… “Catholic Lite”, he says.

I like Jerry.

We walk a yard or two and kick our carry-on bags along; mine is tan military canvas; Ben and Jerry’s are non-descript…. not flamboyant, like you’d expect.

Ben has a brother in Houston…. Ben’s complaint is that everything he smokes in the bar-b-que tastes like “it was left behind in a burning building.”

“Is it always brisket? I ask.

“Yes,? How did you know?”

“I live here,” I said.

In an hour I learn a great deal about Ben… not much about Jerry; I assume he’s a stay-at-home priest aide or something.

4:18 p.m.

Finally it’s our turn at the counter… the boys go to Houston and I have the 8:25 to Portland.

“Mozel Tov,” I say…. Ben gets it. Ben waves shyly.

I make my way to the first bar. “Tequillarealto”…. no doubt I can get a beer.

“Thirsty,” she asks, taking in my five-o-clock shadow.

It’s 5:43 p.m.

“Yes,” I said, “how’d you know?

Consuelo cards me. I smile and say thanks; It’s important that the public take an interest in law enforcement.

After two quick beers I pay the $28 tab and tell her not to declare her tips. It’s the only way a young working mom can make it in this crazy mixed-up world.

“Mozel tov, I say.

Consuelo says, “Que?”, she grabs the tip and backs away.

Back in the boarding area, it feels like I’m in one of those airplane disaster movies from the ‘70s.

I’m George Kennedy.

It’s 7:47 p.m.

Seated across from me are The College Co-Ed, an Army sergeant headed overseas or just getting back; Amy, the young secretary on her first trip with The Boss; there seem to be no blind people or guitar cases, and lastly…. Hector, a well-meaning but a very fat man who will have the seat next to me or will be unable to open the emergency hatch when we’re screaming to get out.

I should have driven…

… with the dogs.

CAFE standards... unsafe at any speed

 

I see them in their little Euro-box, tinfoil cars with their babies strapped down like Gregory Peck's Capt. Ahab in the final scene of Moby Dick, and I cannot help but wonder... is the little politically correct, Obama bumper-stickered family doomed like the crew of the Pequod?

Sadly, many such motorists (let us call them "The Greens") are.

I just filled up for $2.62/g (prices may vary in your area); don't look for that to hold because with oil below $80/b, the ragheads are gonna shut down the production spigot pretty soon.

Anyway... in my '05 Titan pickup I get 18 mpg highway on a good day; the Greens will go 50 to 75-percent farther than I on the same amount of fuel.  

But what's the real cost?

According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (via The Heritage Foundation), in the years since CAFE standards were mandated under the Energy Policy and Conservation Act of 1975:

• about 46,000 people have died (through 1998) in crashes that they would have survived if they had been traveling in bigger, heavier cars.
• This averages about 7,700 deaths for every mile per gallon gained by the mandated mileage standards.

Furthermore, a 1989 study by Harvard School of Public Health economists found that the weight of the average American automobile has been reduced 23 percent since 1974, much of this reduction a result of CAFE regulations. They concluded that "the negative relationship between weight and occupant fatality risk is one of the most secure findings in the safety literature." Also,

• government studies have found that making small cars heavier has seven times the safety benefit than making light trucks lighter.

"But GA, what about saving our planet and reducing consumption of Big Evil Oil? 

As fuel efficiency has improved, consumers have increased their driving, thus offsetting nearly all the gains in fuel efficiency.

Use your head... you know this to be true from your own life experience: it's the well-known "rebound effect"--greater energy efficiency leads to greater energy consumption.

For example... I don't care what mileage my Harley gets or what gasoline costs. I can putt as far as I want to go for next to nothing. (I think my '92 Soft Tail gets about 50 mpg and I run Premium). If I got 3.5 mpg, I'd think about it every time I climbed on. 

The CAFE program have done nothing to decrease our reliance on foreign oil--one of its many purported goals. Moreover, it has done nothing to "improve" the environment; but it has succeeded in slaughtering almost 50,000 of us... more than the total combat deaths were suffered in Vietnam.

On the verge of an election that is sure to herald a tsunami of leftist agenda legislation such as the CAFE standards, the above is just one example of how such liberals will increase your chance... every day, in many ways... of dying early.

So, go ahead and stuff your grand kids in a piece of crap Civic, Metro or Prius if you want.

It's the Rule of Unintended Consequences which I summarize this way: "The unintended consequence of swimming polls is drowned children."      

Lastly, here's some news for The Greens as they tremble before the coming onslaught of GLOBAL WARMING: 

Parts of California see coldest temps since 1893...

Cold temps in Oregon break 118-year-old record...

Alaska glaciers grew this year, thanks to colder weather...

No Country for Old Conservatives

Despite leaving a rainforest for 102 weather here yesterday, I'm glad to be back in Texas.

I found that the Pacific Northwest while beautiful, seemed to be on vacation like I was (with the exception of the lumber and dairy industries) .

Worse (for me) was the pronounced feeling that by arriving there, I had left my country.  Like the unique ecosystem that surrounds Lake Quinault, Washington and Oregon lives in separate reality; there is no doubt that living there is great scenery and climate-wise, but politically--for me--it's not unlike being in a foreign country.

Pacific Northwest dominate culture is only just parallel to what I consider America's culture--conservative, Christian and patriotic.

A recent Seattle poll shows Obama with 52-36 margin over McCain in Washington and a 49-39 lead in Oregon... I suspect the margin would be only slightly bigger in Canada or France.

Washington's U.S. Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray rank near the top of the most liberal in the Senate. Each of them received 100% ranking from the NAACP and NARASL -- the people who want to kill babies in the womb. 

But the League of Conservation Voters only rates them at 87%. Think about it, that means the enviro-whackos are farther left than virtually any leftist virus in the nation, even the ACLU.

Seaside

The little coastal towns are Victorian, interesting, and for the most part, not overtly "touristy".

Increasingly, I felt out of place and somewhat uncomfortable, knowing that I'd have to run an ad to find a fellow conservative. Fortunately, two of my major stops were in the air and space museum in McMinnville Oregon and the nautical museum in Astoria Washington. But naturally, most of the visitors to those venues were from a presumably more conservative somewhere else.        

I think I was able to narrow my reaction to this essential... for "them" my conservatism is dismissed as politics. I disagree... this is my country, my feelings are for my nation, not for a party. Why do these fellow citizens hate my country? Why do they hate it even more during this war which threatens our virtual existence?

Why do they shout down John McCain yet cheer Ahmadinejad who has threatened to destroy us and our stalwart ally, Israel?  

Why do they praise the mass-murderer Castro and scorn Ronald Reagan? 

To "them" my views are hopelessly archaic, while theirs are oh so enlightened and global.

That's because love of country in a large portion of this nation was strangled to death in the 1960s.   

And as my faithful readers know, I place the blame directly on us--The Worst Generation---those born between 1945-1960. It is not surprising the leftists from those years never grew up sufficiently to infuse in their young, a simple, heart-felt love of America.  

Sadly, I have lost... am deprived of...  beautiful areas, great cities, even states of my beloved country. It's as if The Second Civil War has ended in a draw, but the Americans have lost.

Best part of the trip? Dani and Oliver's wedding, and seeing for the first time, the legendary Spruce Goose.

It was wonderful to see two intelligent and sober young people begin married life surrounded by family and friends.

And it was really great to photograph, touch and marvel at some of the greatest aircraft in military history.

Yeah, I bought a t-shirt.