It Just Makes Sense

On the sixty-sixth anniversary of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Barack Obama introduced S.2433. It is a Senate Bill with a couple of other names. One is the “Global Poverty Act,” which sounds nice and caring. Who would dare oppose a bill designed to reduce global poverty? The other name is the “Obama Bill,” which sounds friendly enough. Who would dare to oppose the handsome, baritone Senator from Illinois? The answer to both of those question is, only those Americans who would rather maintain our sovereignty than to become a puppet state under the rule of the United Nations.

I know this sounds like a stretch. In fact, it sounds nearly insane. So I’ve included a few supporting documents for you to reference if you’d like to read them for yourself. Here’s the bill that was introduced and here’s the updated version from April 24 that added names to the supporting list. You’ll notice that this is not just a Democratic Party member backed event, but Republican Party members are on record and sponsors of this attempted raid on American coffers and liberties.

Ready for the sticker shock? The bill’s backers refer to it as .7 percent of the nation’s GDP. However, over a 13-year period it adds up to $845,000,000,000. That’s 845 billion US dollars to fund the United Nations’ program. Of course that is in addition to the $300 billion we already plan to invest in global aid. And it doesn’t count the tremendous amount of foreign aid that comes from American churches and private organizations. That’s a lot of money.

Obama’s Global Poverty Act is not a source document. It is built from, and is designed to advance the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals (General Assembly Resolution 55/2). Back in the year 2000, The UN came up with the plan to not only fix global poverty, but a lot of other things too–all for only .7 percent of the productive world’s GDP.

As I read it, the UN will basically become the controlling legal authority on Earth. The International Criminal Court will trump our Supreme Court, private ownership of small arms and light weapons will be banned, the Kyoto Protocol will become law, they will control the use of fresh water and all types of forests, and they’re going to end war.

End war? Now, how are they going to do that?

Well, they’ll use the billions of dollars coughed up by American taxpayer to establish a standing UN Army, and they will eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Don’t you feel safer already?

Imagine a squad of goose-stepping, blue beret wearing, international-socialist storm-troopers kicking in your front door and demanding you surrender your illegal small arms. While they’re there they’ll make sure you’re Kyoto compliant. And after they have your guns and your money, I guess they’ll be able to do just about anything else they’d like to do. If you have a complaint, take it up with the World Court.
Imagine that. With the humanitarian goal of ending global poverty, we’ll surrender first our money, then our sovereignty, and finally our liberty.
Back in 1776, a resilient breed of Americans, who loved liberty above life, put everything they had on the line so you and your children could have the liberty you enjoy today. Now 232 years later, we’ve freely elected enough “representatives” who believe in the hollow promises of international socialism that they are willing to give it away.

What founding father ever said Americans should surrender their hard-earned money to support the rest of the world? What American today believes we can add 1.5 billion people to our welfare roles without destroying ourselves? After decades of UN failures, which includes exposed corruption with fraud, waste, and abuse of the resources they have controlled, is there any American taxpayer who really believes the UN will be a good steward of the money?

Once we surrender all, what will it take to get it back? You don’t want to know.

You might want to know how to contact your Senator. You might want to send them a message about how you feel about the “Global Poverty Act.” You might want to tell them that you could never vote for the re-election of a Senator who votes for S.2433.

Do you want to know how to contact your Congressman? Not much sense in doing so. It was already rushed through the House and passed with a “unanimous” voice vote under the title of H.R. 1302. The backers of the bill did a great job of getting the sheep to vote for a bill they hadn’t researched or even heard about. I guess most of us would have fallen for the same trick. However … most of us aren’t Congressmen.

If this bill is passed in the Senate, then every American will have one last chance to let our President know how you feel about him signing it in to law. He shouldn’t have the chance to veto the bill, if we can just stop the Senate from passing S.2433.

If you lived in Lexington back on 14 April 1775, a knock would have sounded on your door. Then a neighbor would have told you to collect your musket and to assemble on the village green. All the men, and some of the boys, in the small village answered the call. Later that afternoon, a few of them died at the hands of foreign soldiers, but it started a movement that led to a free America.

That same America fought itself to end slavery, defeated the National Socialists of Germany and the fascist regimes of Italy and Japan, contained Soviet Socialism until it imploded, and now stands as the primary obstacle to global terrorism. But international socialism lurks in the darkest, waiting for it turn to control the world.

Today, you might get an email or read this column. All you need to do is click here, find your Senators’ names and then send a respectful message saying you will not tolerate them voting for S.2433, the Global Poverty Act.

We shouldn’t surrender freely what our founders gave their lives for us to have.

It just makes sense.

As Americans have carried the lion’s share of the war against the global terrorists, we seem to have come under assault from all directions: A former US senator and vice-president leads a world-wide publicity stunt to destroy our economy backed by millionaire Hollywood singers, dancers, and pretenders. He is given an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize along with an an opulent lifestyle for his prevaricating power-point presentation; Our trade policies have fueled an ever threatening Asian giant with tens of billions of dollars, which they are using to transform themselves into a military superpower; Our once solid dollar is losing value against almost every other currency in the world; A nuclear North Korea seems intent on exporting that technology to nations that back global terrorists; Iran is openly defiant about not only developing their nuclear capabilities, but also about continuing to promise to “wipe Israel off the map” as soon as they can; And even our allies in OPEC cooperate with the malevolent voices that call for greater efforts to pump up crude oil prices, even though they have risen over 94% in the last year, nearly 380% in the last five. 

OPEC does not completely control the price of oil. They influence part of the supply, but academics will tell you that the total supply and demand for oil drive the price. Other countries also produce oil, thus affecting the supply. The environmentalist movement in the United States, and the members of Congress that agree with it, have prevented drilling for the known American reserves, which would have helped to keep down prices by increasing supply.

Meanwhile, the oil-thirsty, rapidly growing economy of China and other nations help to prop up prices by increasing demand.At least the Chinese are doing what they can to increase oil supplies. Among other things, they are drilling between Cuba and Florida. A place where our government’s environmental policies prohibits US companies from drilling.

The US has been pursuing other ways to affect supplies. From investing in the development of various emerging technologies to converting corn into biofuels. All this has generated some unintended consequences for everyone.

Food supplies have dwindled, which has pushed the price up. The record harsh winters of the last couple of years, despite Hollywood’s global warming, along with the biofuel movement have reduced the world’s food supply. Additionally, the parasitic price of oil has driven up the costs to produce food and to deliver it to where it needs to go. Food prices are soaring, and the world can’t do without food.

Unlike the oil-crop of OPEC nations, food-crops require more than simply harvesting it and sending it to processing. Farmers work their magic the world over, but especially in America.

American farmers have some advantages. They are blessed with great crop lands and an abundant supply of fresh water, something lacking in most countries–especially OPEC nations. If food-exporting nations wanted to extract a payback for the inflated oil prices it wouldn’t take long to recoup the looting of past years. Even without an organized effort, that may happen anyway.

If oil exporters continue their artificial pumping up of oil prices, it will be met with market-driven price increases in food products. When their cost of food imports exceed their return on oil exports, it will be too late for them to make smart corrections in oil production to save themselves.

When their economies finally collapse, so will the price-bubble of oil. It will take a couple of growing seasons after that for food prices to drop accordingly, but they will just have to be patient and tighten their belts, while the food-producing nations of the world save them again. First from a life of goat herding, then from their home-grown global terrorists, and then finally from starvation.

Our problem with China’s growing militarism may also be solved with rising food prices. Over the last several years the Chinese standard of living has increased, but it still lags behind what we enjoy in America. The average American spends 10% or less of their income on food, but in China it is different–it is nearly 50%.

America produces much more food than it consumes. If our supplies dwindled, we’ll take it out of our exports, but we’ll still have food. And if food-prices double, Americans will just spend less on Hollywood movies and maybe eat at home more often. But we still eat and many of us will still be fat. But if food-prices double for the Chinese…

The Chinese government will be forced to curtail their massive offensive weapons build-up and then to subsidize food for their people. Those billions of dollars they’ve collected in trade imbalances with America and the rest of the world will be their solution to impending starvation and unrest. When that happens, the Chinese will be the first to wish the US dollar was worth more.

The Chinese people are smart and hard-working. They are aware of the world around them–they have more internet users than we have in America. They will not sheepishly permit themselves to starve as the people of North Korea have. They know a starving people do not a great nation make. And they want to be great.

While this may not be exactly “beating swords into plowshares” as prophesied in Isaiah 2:2-4, it might be an interesting start to a better state of peace.

In the long run it all boils down to the food standard.

It just makes sense.

That’s what Newt Gingrich told the National Press Club he was afraid was going to happen before America would react to the growing menace to our way of life. Part of our reaction would include a ruthlessness imposed on ourselves. What we would do to our enemies was left to the imagination.

More recently, Hillary Clinton discussed what she would do as President concerning nuclear attacks from terrorist nations against our allies. She strongly suggested we would obliterate Iran if they nuked Israel. That means to destroy utterly. To cause to become invisible. Strong words from a Senator who declared in February that any action against Iran would have to be first approved by Congress.

That provides an interesting chain of command for those familiar with what it takes to employ nuclear weapons. I’ve been out of it for a while, but I don’t think Congress carries the football. But it is an election year, and sometimes the arguments get interesting.

For instance, my last article explained how Barack Obama’s intentions to rid the United States of nuclear and technologically advanced weapons was near suicide as a nation. After viewing his mini-speech on YouTube, the lesser evil of the two international socialists became very obvious. Even with Hillary as the most desirable democratic party nominee hopeful, her doctrine is flawed in at least two areas.
First, the American President should chose words of threat carefully. If you say you’re going to obliterate a country for attacking an ally, and you don’t when they do, you’ve made yourself into a liar. A weak liar. An afraid, weak liar. The President needs to keep a bit of a veil over how much of a price an antagonist will pay.

Better words are something like, “We view any nuclear attack on our allies the same as a nuclear attack on ourselves. It is completely unacceptable, and we would deal with that in a most harsh manner.”

It gives America the latitude to be flexible in our immediate and long-range responses, without making the terrorists think they have a chance of getting away with it.

Secondly, the massive retaliation doctrine was tailored for Soviet expansionist ambitions. The Soviets sought to dominate a world of puppet governments, hand-picked by them. If in the process of waging war with the United States the USSR became militarily the equal of the post-war Germany, they wouldn’t get to pick anything. A world of third, fourth, and fifth place nations would have run the show.

Sure, the outcome of a Soviet attack would have been terrible for the US, but it would have ended even the slightest dream of Soviet world domination. The implosion of Soviet Socialism changed the world. While some individuals in Russia might dream of being Earth King, it is not a national policy. And that makes all the difference.

In order to deter an antagonist like the USSR or the folks in charge of Iran, you have to understand what is most precious to them. Deterrence must go to the core values of decision makers for it to work best. To attempt to apply a Cold War deterrence strategy to a Global War on Terrorism antagonist presupposes that their core values are the same as Stalin’s. Nobody really believes that, do they?

The arrogant zeal associated with plotting and executing the 9/11 attacks clearly demonstrates that something else is at play here. The bold, defiant, near-public pursuit of nuclear weapons by Iran suggests they are either not afraid or they don’t believe America will kill 70 million people, no matter what they do.

They have a low opinion of America. They call us names, and we shrug. They call their children to become sucide-martyrs, and we express astonishment. They declare war on us, and we bicker with ourselves. They seek the most destructive weapons on Earth, and we say, “You’d better not.”

Declaring that we’re going to kill all of them after they destroy one of our cities is not enough. Unless we quickly learn how to use the value system of the terrorist’s centers of gravity to our advantage, they will obtain nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons in the control of terrorist nations will shortly turn into detonations on our allies and ourselves. We have to do something now, before we lose a city.

It just makes sense.

The BUFF still carries the water.

In 2002, the B-52 celebrated the 50th anniversary of the XB-52 first flight. The models flying today are much newer. The H-models were built in 1960 and 1961, making them 47 to 48 years young. Imagine that.

Combat aircraft lasting longer than a general’s career. Projected to remain in service for another 30 to 40 years, those airplanes will last longer than the average life span of a typical American. Time will tell whether that is an accounting trick or a new standard in combat aviation. The B-52 is without equal–the undisputed heavy-weight champion.

Ironically designed as an “interim bomber,” it proved superior to airframes designed to replace it. From the Mach 3+ B-70 to the current collection of bombers with names that sound more like bingo squares, the B-52 has remained the resolute American bomber. However, time and politics has taken a toll on its numbers. Of the 744 bombers built, only 94 remain in service–and that took an act of congress.

Following the demise of SAC, the fighter-minded Air Combat Command took administrative control of the aircraft. In 1993, they took action to reduce the aircraft down to as few as 43 airframes and to cut the crews down to a number to match. The Air Force used personnel tools like a Reduction in Force (RIF) and the selective early retirement board (SERB) to deplete the ranks of the “excess” B-52 crew members.

One bomber pilot, who was serving as an instructor at the Air Command and Staff College, was actually told that his career was over because the BUFF’s utility was obsolete. Looking at the thousands of combat hours flown in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT), it is easy to see that his non-rated boss was wrong about the BUFF. Unfortunately, perspectives are easier to correct than terminated careers are to resurrect.

March 24, 1993 was another dark day when many soon-to-be-missed B-52 Lt Colonels were told to pack their bags. Eventually, a respected bomber general testified before congress, and the Air Force was over-ruled with its plans to gut the bomber force.

Memory of that general has mostly faded away in the 15 years since his career was flat-lined by his noble actions, but the B-52’s flexibility and versatility has continued to serve the nation well. Those who were fated to fly the B-52 have developed a band-of-brothers mentality as they’ve become part of the legend of the mighty BUFF.

Even after its long history, today the B-52 has the highest mission capable rate when compared to the bingo bombers: B-1 and B-2. In contrast the utility of the B-1 remained in question until the JDAM became operational. That GPS-guided weapon, which was initially developed on the B-52, provided the B-1 with a real-world capability to replace it’s public-relations rhetoric of being called the “primary bomber” of the Air Force. The B-2 is in it’s sixth week of what is being called a “temporary pause,” the politically correct term for the grounding of a billion dollar plus aircraft. The pause followed the baffling loss of a B-2 in Guam where the aircraft became uncontrollable immediately after take-off.

Air Force officials assure us that the diminutive B-2 fleet could resume flying should national necessity dictate. Until that necessity presents itself, I agree that it is prudent to isolate the problem that caused the early rotation and subsequent stall of the high-tech heavy bomber.

Technology is a wonderful thing when it works.

We can enjoy the luxury of a temporary-pause option because we bask in the glow of a decision made by Congress to keep a sufficient number of the smoky, noisy, cabled-driven, hydraulic pump actuated, big, not-so-ugly, flying fellows that strike fear into the hearts of our enemies, pride in the hearts of those that fly them, and envy in the libido of those who can’t.

However you stack the numbers, the BUFF is the greatest heavy-weight champion of heavy-bombers that has ever flown. I agree that other airplanes are prettier than the B-52, and in a Hollywood society, that is an important attribute. But when the world gets ugly, we need combat aircraft that can fly, fight, and win.

It just makes sense.

Most people agree that Barack Obama, the first-term Senator from Illinois and front runner for the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominee, is a handsome man with a voice tailor-made for public speaking. Even with all that going for him, the 137 words he used during a 52 second video suggest great peril awaits America if he should ever have the power to implement his ideas.

“I am the only major candidate who has opposed this war from the beginning, and as President I will end it. Second, I will cut tens of billions of dollars of wasteful spending. I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of future combat systems, and I will institute an independent, defense priorities board to ensure that the quadrennial defense review is not used to justify unnecessary spending. Third, I will set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. To seek that goal I will not develop new nuclear weapons I will seek a global ban on the production of fissile material and I will negotiate with Russia to take our ICBMs off hair-trigger alert, and to achieve deep cuts in our nuclear arsenal.”

A lot of Americans have grown weary of the war of attrition in the Iraqi theater of the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). That’s actually part of attrition-war strategy–wear down your opponent physically and mentally. If that was all there was to it, we probably could just cut and run, unfortunately for Americans the other part of our enemies strategy is to kill us all. Surrender certainly “ends it,” but considering our enemies long-term vision, wouldn’t it be better to win it?

Along with ending the war, Obama seeks to end America’s technological edge over the same enemies that seek to kill us. Yes, it is easier and cheaper to build offensive missiles than it is to build a system to defend against them. But if we abandon our efforts to perfect, procure, and put into action missile defense systems, we actually encourage those who wish to kill us to build old-technology, offensive missiles.

Lacking a cutting-edge defensive system, we would have to depend on the Cold War concept of assuring our enemies we would use our offensive capabilities should they attack us. However, Barack Obama said he plans to remove that from America’s arsenal of options also. His logic is fundamentally flawed.

First of all, America and the Russians no longer control who develops nuclear weapons. North Korea dances to their own drummer, and Iran’s public defiance of UN and American pressures clearly demonstrates that our deterrence strategy, at least in that area, has failed. We have to face the reality that nations, controlled by people who want to kill us, will soon have multiple nuclear weapons and delivery systems. Ignoring the problem doesn’t defend America.

Secondly, the stultifying declaration that America’s ICBMs are on “hair-trigger alert” summons forth cartoonish images of uniformed simpletons hovering over a big red button. It naively disregards the multi-layered nuclear safeguards in effect, and aligns itself more with myriad low-budget movies from the 1960s and 70s than with any reality.

America’s nuclear arsenal has historically served as a deterrence against our enemies’ use of weapons of mass destruction, especially nuclear weapons, against us or our friends. In addition, it serves as a hedge against the sudden emergence of any other overwhelming threat. America has historically used nuclear weapons to keep the peace. Destroying our nuclear arsenal, especially in the light of the GWOT, could destroy the peace.

Finally, a nation with a over 300 million people can find other ways to defend itself without spending a lot of treasure. The solution would be to spend lots of lives. Using only 10% of our population, we could field an Army of 30 million soldiers armed with rifles and bayonets that could stop any invading army. Unless of course, they nuked us.

America needs to continue to use our two-fold blessings of leading-edge technology and an unprecedented wealth to field defensive forces using that technology. We are winning the GWOT, and we should not surrender ourselves or our allies to the terrorists. Surrendering to an enemy with a long-term vision of killing you is not going to “end“ anything.

It just makes sense.

Former President Jimmy Carter is planning to meet with the leader of Hamas next week during his nine-day tour of the middle east.  The State Department has advised him against such a meeting. Why would the State Department think Jimmy Carter, the founding father of the global terrorist movement that sparked our Global War on Terrorism, would listen to them?

According to the US State Department, Hamas is funded by Iran. Hamas can’t do what it does without funding. Iran wouldn’t fund Hamas if it wasn’t for Jimmy Carter’s policies during his long four-years as our leader.

Most Americans have either forgotten or never knew that Iran used to be one of our most dependable allies. Shah Mohammand Reza Pahlavi was praised by US Presidents Johnson, Nixon, and Ford. They trusted him with just about any technology and weapons we had, short of nuclear weapons. In spite of the sweeping reforms in the economic and social arena of Iran, there were still dark forces working against him.

With Soviet-sponsored Socialists, known as “Communists” scratching at the door of freedom while fledgling Islamic Fascism lurked in the shadows, our very own Jimmy Carter decided to wage a political war against the Shah’s human rights record.

The Shah was guilty of using military tribunals to jail about 3000 Communists, Islamic Fascists, and terrorists. Some of those prisoners were reported to have been tortured. Jimmy Carter referred to them as political prisoners and insisted the Shah release them and use civil courts to try them. The subsequent “civil” trials turned into soap-boxes for the prophets of evil to turn the masses against what Carter had called, “an island of stability in a trouble region.”

To make matters worse, Carter insisted that the Shah allow his people to have freedom of assembly, which resulted in propagating the seed of terrorism. The liberal-media broadcasted the anti-Shah rallies to the globe, and brought Ayatollah Khomeini, living in obscure exile, to celebrity status with the Iranian people. The PLO supplied weapons and terrorism experts to Khomeini’s legions to bloody the streets with their free-assemblies. The Shah initially used an iron fist of excessive military force to disperse the violent masses. Eventually the military switched allegiance, and the Shah fled to the United States, dying of cancer, while another cancer consumed the people of the one-time great ally of the United States. The once stable island was sunk.

What happened to the Shah’s prisoners? Khomeini freed the few he wanted, but the rest were murdered along with tens of thousands of westernized Iranians.

Freedom was set-back decades, while death and suffering flourished. Anything considered to be a freedom by Westerners was removed from the Iranian people. Minor infractions of the new Fascist regime was answered with arrests, tortures, or executions. The Soviets took advantage of the chaos and invaded Afghanistan. Carter responded with a boycott of the 1980 Olympics, which only punished American athletes.

Jimmy Carter said Khomeini was a “holy man” and he used ineffectual words through showy teeth to no avail. Most Americans have heard of the 444 days that the Americans from the US embassy were illegally held hostage by the Iranian government. The same day of President Reagan’s inauguration, the Iranians agreed to release the hostages. President Reagan allowed Jimmy Carter to make the announcement to the American public, possibly to help Jimmy Carter with his stained legacy.

By the way, Carter also failed miserably with the Cold War. Millions across Africa and even Central America were rolled into the Communists’ murderous leftist system. Thus, by the time Carter was leaving office, the West was losing the Cold War, Islamic Fascism controlled sovereign nations, and the US economy was failing in the face of double digit inflation. Thank you, Jimmy, and goodbye.

Since the Islamic Fascists don’t have nuclear weapons, or a first class military to fight us with, they chose terrorist attacks as the weapon of choice to kill us. Some say enough has been said about 9/11, but I wonder if we could ever say enough about that. Out of politeness, the US usually says very little about Jimmy Carter failures, but he keeps talking.

Despite the lessons about evil that Jimmy Carter should have learned from his failed presidency, he continues to excrete some outlandish opinions.

For instance, in 2004 during an interview on MSNBC, Jimmy Carter tried to explain that all wars are bad. He said the Revolutionary War was an unnecessary war. Imagine that!

The establishment of the United States was the single most pivotal event towards human liberty since the resurrection of Christ, yet Jimmy Carter believes that a nation founded on the principles of our Declaration of Independence and then our Constitution was unnecessary. Unnecessary!

And now he is going to consort with Hamas in Syria. Why not? It is right in line with everything Jimmy Carter has done in international affairs. This meeting will probably give Hamas more prestige, and just quicken them in their efforts to do more violence.

While Jimmy Carter is the closest thing to a Founding Father of global terrorism, he did win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2002. But don’t let that sway any negative opinions you have of the man, since it only gives him more in common with Yasser Arafat, Gorbachev, and Algore–prize winners all.

Jimmy Carter uses talk as the solution to all international problems. Talk is cheap, but the result of talk, where action needs to be taken, can be the most costly of all possible actions. In some cases, talk is nothing–it is really inaction.

When the decision-makers in the United States fail to take action, when they could have, to protect American lives from terrorists, they turn the government of the United States into a terrorist organization.

Jimmy Carter’s inaction as President was a dishonor to those that came before him and a danger to those who came after him.

He had his say in his day, but that day is done. Nations fell, and hundreds of thousands have died, and maybe millions more will because of what came out of his mouth. America voted his incompetent ideas out of office back in 1980. He does not speak for America today.

It just makes sense.

In response to rising gasoline prices, many Americans have chosen to spend more time at home. In addition to slightly reducing demand for gasoline, it presents an opportunity for that “quality time” so many wealth-seeking experts told us in the last decade would fix our family woes. But other things are keeping us at home too.

Grocery bills are rising, but so are restaurant prices. Food costs are helping Americans to decide to eat at home a little more. Some folks say that might be good for our waistlines, but that’s more of a stupid comment than a solution-oriented discussion.

We’re in trouble.

As oil prices sky-rocket, it is producing a cascading effect into everything else we buy.

Petroleum price increases the costs for transportation, packaging, and processing every consumer good we use–including food. Global food prices are just starting to show the systemic influence of high oil prices. This will affect all the nations.

Even in times of feast for Americans, food shortages are all over the world. Americans have a long history of trying to feed the world out of our charity-mindedness. However as Americans feel the crunch of oil and food based inflation, the shortages around the world will increase. When the crunch hits America hard enough, our charitable givings will slow and maybe decrease, who knows–maybe even stop.

People will starve.

Before they starve, they will seek food using all means available to them. They will riot, loot, kill and even form organized raids into other communities. Some nations will go to war. For food. Then the people will suffer from starvation and war.

America will feel an obligation to do something about the wars. It will take a while before we learn to just watch the other folks around the world kill themselves while we try to balance our budget. Thankfully, we’re not at that point yet.

Some have argued that the solution to the food problem is just to grow more food. Sounds simple enough, but that takes energy. Increased energy demands will drive the price of oil higher, making everything, including food, cost more. We really can’t fix this problem until we fix the energy problem.

Interestingly, one solution is to use a portion of our food supply to make biofuels. Using grain that would normally feed cattle to stretch petroleum reserves causes the price of grain and then of beef to rise. At the same time, transportation and processing costs increase because the cost of oil continues to climb.

Billions or maybe even trillions of barrels of oil lay under a frozen north, hidden in shale, or off the coast of the United States. The American government has rules and laws in place that prevent the harvesting of those energy resources. Well, at least it prevents US oil companies from drilling there. The 36 Cuban oil wells operated by Chinese oil companies as close as 50 miles off the coast of Florida will not extract oil fast enough to stop the starvations that will probably happen within the next few years.

All this sounds a little like a well-meaning man trying to survive the winter in a forest. He doesn’t want to hurt the trees because his teacher told him in the third-grade that trees are people too. So he burns his coat to stay warm for a while. Eventually he faces the winter cold without a coat or a fire. He is then faced with the choice of freezing or growing a brain.

We need to grow a brain.

It just makes sense.

No! God has not damned America.

To the contrary, He has never blessed another nation to any greater extent.  And no other nation has blessed the world to any greater extent.  The relationship between giving blessings and being blessed can be a precarious one.

For instance, the initial group of Americans were blessed with miracle after miracle in shucking off the yoke of a mortal king.  A new nation was formed.   It was an imperfect union.  Yet, it was more perfect than anything else on earth.

As time went on, many challenges arose.  Our elected leaders made choices, based off of a set of values that were passed down to them from history.  As “acceptable” changed, we changed.  Some of the most influential voices during our revolution and then formative years of the nineteenth century were from the pulpit.

We eventually battled with ourselves.  Killing a million Americans, laying waste to several states, and from the ashes we rebuilt ourselves into a single United States called America.

Then America offered its youth to rescue Europe, and maybe even humanity, from the horrors of the “Great War.”  While our work was global, our leadership was pushed to the backseat of the world order that followed.  A generation later, the world was in the grasps of National Socialism and other shades of Totalitarianism that threatened to snuff out the last hope of individual freedoms.

Fortunately, America chose to once again answer the call for help.  Hundreds of thousands of Americans gave their lives for the millions who were dying at the hands of evil from that mid-twentieth century global war.  Our outlay of treasure for the cause was without equal in history.  After the dirty part of stopping evil was done, America demanded a front seat in global leadership.

Since then Americans have continued to freely give their lives and treasures so that the world might have a chance to know peace, prosperity, and liberty.  America is the bright, shining city on a hill that leads the world with her productivity, prosperity, and technology.

Even when America was attacked on 9/11 she showed great concern for humanity.  Possessing the power to kill by the tens-of-millions, America showed great restraint by choosing to surgically removing two evil governments from power, freeing their people, and teaching them to fight the terrorists lurking in their midst.  It takes a long time, and it cost a lot to do it like that.  America has a long history of investing in peace with it’s blessing of technology and treasure.  Likewise Americans don’t just rely on their elected government to organize all the investments.  Billions of dollars are collected by Americans by way of private organizations that do what they can to make life better for folks at home and abroad.  Many American dedicate their lives to going to strange, often wild lands just so they can help others.  Too many of those folks ultimately give their lives in that quest to bless others.

These blessings are not unnoticed by the all powerful, all knowing God.  He blesses America because America is good.

The occasional corrupted clergy-person may be able to whip his congregations into a frenzy with poetic lies to the contrary.  While it might keep hate alive, and promote the growth of racism in his flock, it won’t change God’s perspective.

God is never fooled.

Oh certainly, America is still less than perfect.  The holocaust on America’s unborn will be a stain on our country forever.  Individual Americans will continue to commit horrible crimes like pedophilia-based crimes, rape, and murder.  Some American politicians will violate the trust given to them by lying, cheating, stealing, and tolerating others that also do.

Yes, tolerating them is bad too.  You can’t always be a uniter, sometimes you have to divide the goats from the sheep.

But even with all this imperfection, there is still enough good in America for God to tarry with his judgment on the world.

Yes, America is imperfect, but it is still more perfect than any other nation.  God is still blessing America for being good.

While past blessing performance is no guarantee of a nation’s future favor with God, they do provide a common-sense guide for future sermons.

It just makes sense.

OIL SURGES TO $500 A BARREL, RIOTS IN CONGRESS

By The Chuck
15 March 2028

WASHINGTON–Oil prices finally broke the $500 a barrel threshold, closing slightly lower at $499.69 by the end of the day.  Once considered impossible by the petroleum market experts, the breaking of this barrier suggests the price of oil will never stabilize.  After the markets closed, President Jose Villa called an emergency session of Congress.

“We’ve waited long enough!  The increasing demand for oil, as our world has suffered the harshest winters in recorded history over the last decade, has drastically brought about our economic downfall.  Now is the time to act.  It might even be to late too undo the damage.”

President Villa’s critics were rebuked by thousand of protesters, who were able to rush past Capitol Police barricades.  It took almost an hour to clear out the protesters, and another two hours to clear out the effects of the tear gas.  Nevertheless the halls of congress were cleared and the session continued.

Since the implosion of the Democratic Party in 2012 and then the Republican Party in 2016, political debates have often erupted into violence.  Fortunately during Friday’s clash, only three people were killed with less than thirty requiring hospitalization. Speaker of the House Jung Mao required medical attention from on-scene medics due to a head wound from a thrown brick.

Members of the America First Party accused Villa of organizing the violence by using supporters of his Norte American Republic Party.  A fact he flatly denied.

“The people are just upset because the price of oil is destroying their lifestyles.  I’m submitting a bill to congress that we harvest the 10.5 billion barrels of oil in ANWAR.  In addition, the oil shale in Green River Basin contains nearly 2 trillion barrels of oil we can use.  And finally, we need to drill the oil fields  off the coast of Florida.  We have been transferring our national wealth to foreign lands for too long.”  The members of the Norte American Republic Party gave Villa a standing ovation.  However there are many obstacles to overcome before this can become a reality.

Currently China, the largest economic power in the world, operates over a hundred oil platforms in the international waters off the coast of Florida for Cuban companies.  It is not expected that the Chinese government will let any attempts by the US to drill in what has been their oil harvesting region for the last 20 years go without challenge.

President Villa is still a very popular leader and is expected to win his re-election bid later this year.  Some noteworthy accomplishments were going back on the gold standard in 2025, fixing the value of gold at $3500 an ounce and then convincing India to allow a US astronaut to go along on their 2027 voyage to Mars.

Getting an American back into space was a moment of great national pride, especially  after the humiliating eviction from the Moon by Japanese landlords in 2022.  If the energy crisis can be overturned, the US might even restart their decommissioned  space program, as long as they can get a permit from the United Nations space regulators.

Wait!  It’s only 2008, and we still have time.

The United States has many challenges in front of us. If we don’t use things to our advantage, someone else will win the advantage.

It just makes sense.

According to the Associated Press, the Air Force will change the way bomber crews organize for their nuclear training missions.  B-52 crews will train exclusively for nuclear missions for 6-months at a time, maybe even 12 months.

This is supposed to be the solution to fix part of the process that resulted in some serious mistakes in the handling of nuclear weapons back in August.  However, the Air Force had better be careful when it comes to executing this strategy.

A reader of the Feb 29 news story could be led into believing that B-52 crews will begin some kind of cycle where they transition between nukes and non-nuclear training missions.  Let’s consider the flow.

One scenario might be, the crews begin a 6-month cycle of nuke training.  At first the crews will be astonished at how little they really know about nukes.  Then about the time the cycle is completed, they will finally be comfortable with the mission.  

But then they have to go back to the C-mission only to discover that they’ve forgotten a lot of things.  Without a doubt, they will have lost their edge.  After a month or so, they will build their proficiency and almost be ready to deploy, which they will.  They’ll live the C-mission once again, while they support the ground operations of the Global War of Attrition on Terrorism.  But eventually the party will end.

They’ll start another N-mission cycle, only to discover they’ve forgotten a lot of things.  After a  few months, they’ll be as good as new.  Rinse and reapply.

In the end, we’ll have a process where the B-52 crews are uncomfortable with their mission about 1/3 of the time.  There has to be a better way.  Here it is:

Assign a B-52 squadron a nuke mission.  Keep the others units conventional.  This way, the Air Force will always have a fully competent, capable, and confident nuclear B-52 force.  Meanwhile the conventional tasked B-52 units will be able to concentrate on the knowledge and skills required to support the AEF missions.

Some folks might argue that the nuke squadron will at a disadvantage when it comes to promotions because they won’t be logging combat hours.   However, all but the most junior B-52 crewmembers have logged plenty of combat sorties since the GWOT began.  Veteran aircrews could be assigned to the nuke squadron.  Their previous combat time should be sufficient to satisfy any combat squares that need checking to demonstrate their leadership potential.  

Following the First Gulf War, six months worth of combat sorties carried many aviators from captain up to colonel and even beyond for some, all without additional combat time.  Besides, if the officers sitting on promotions boards can’t understand the leadership potential of qualified nuclear crews even if they haven’t orbited over Asia for long hours, the Air Force has already promoted the wrong people.  Finally, the purpose of military service isn’t for promotion.  The core values are declared to be integrity first, service before self, and excellence in everything they do.

Just as the decathlon champion does not take the Olympic gold medal in each of the separate events, or as the medical general practitioner does not replace a neurologist, we live in an age of specialists.  We need a cadre of heavy bomber nuclear experts.

It just makes sense.