GLOBAL TEMPERATURES - 2015 IS THE HIGHEST

This year of 2015 is turning out to be the warmest year on record (135 yrs)*  You are encouraged to look at the original as it is interactive.

* http://www.cnbc.com/2015/12/28/feeling-a-little-warm-this-year-2015-will-set-a-record.html

OIL EXPORTS

Despite the U.S. decision to end its oil-export ban, the country remains more dependent on foreign oil than when the exports were banned 40 years ago, which raises the issue of peak oil, Forbes writes.*

There go our chances of becoming independent of Mid-East oil.  Looks like war until "hell freezes over."  Also looks like we can kiss lowering carbon dioxide levels goodbye.

* http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelkrancer/2015/12/22/the-end-of-the-crude-oil-export-ban-offers-promise-and-peril/

AMERICAN MANUFACTURING AND JOBS

As manufacturing increases increases in the U.S.  You would think that jobs in manufacturing would increase too,  but such is not the case:*

* mercatus.org/sites/default/files/manufacturing-for-web-pdf26.pdf
http://forexfactorynews24.com/?p=1132

CHRISTMAS IN JAPAN

Only about 1% of Japanese are Christians.  The rest are Buddhist and/or Shinto (You can be both.).  So it may come as a surprise that Christmas is a big deal in Japan though it is not a religious celebration but a romantic time..*  It is a time to consume KFC fried chicken and white frosted Christmas cake plus, usually on Christmas Eve, the exchange of presents.  Orders for the fried chicken start as early as October, and it is the busiest time of the year for KFC in Japan..

(Picture from WSJ, December 19, 2015))

Japanese can be surprised to find out that chicken is not the usual dish for Christmas in America or elsewhere.

When I was in Japan in 1965 there was no KFC in Japan, but then I returned in 1975,  KFC was all over the place, though I don't recall ever eating in one.  In addition, Mister Donut was prominent as well.  Because eating in restaurants in Japan is very expensive, I used to eat breakfast in a Mister. Donut, and it was very crowded.  Of course the Golden Arches of McDonalds was there in abundance, and a Big Mac cost $1.35 which was a lot more than in 85 cents in America at the time (in fact, expensive by Japanese standards), but they were cooked to order and were better than at home.  I often had a big Mac for dinner while in Tokyo in 1975.

* http://www.whychristmas.com/cultures/japan.shtml;
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/in-japan-christmas-isnt-a-holiday-its-kentucky-fried-chicken-day-2015-12-19

WHAT DOES "LEADING FROM BEHIND" MEAN?

Nelson Mandela seems to be the source of the phrase "Leading From Behind.".  Leading From Behnd in our political environmet is attributed to President Obama on our involvement in Libya and is usually said in a derogatory way by Republicans; however, in the rest of life, the term is usually viewed very favorably.

I imagine the phrase means "quietly getting someone to do something but let them take the credit," i.e "You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit.** (Ronald Reagan)

In the short term, the governing of Libya is in chaos by any measure.***  It should give pause to simply overthrowing Assad in Syria, though this doesn't seem to bother some politicians.  Hillary Clinton speculates that the governing problem in Libya will sort in self out in time (years).  Only time will tell.

* http://smallbusiness.chron.com/theory-leading-behind-76457.html; http://www.companyfounder.com/2011/07/leadership-great-leaders-often-lead-from-behind/
** http://www.quotes.net/quote/8259; http://smallbusiness.chron.com/theory-leading-behind-76457.html:
The theory of leading from behind is one proposed and championed by Linda Hill of the Harvard Business School. The professor had the idea when reading Nelson Mandela’s autobiography, in which he likens leaders to shepherds directing flocks from behind. Some sheep will move ahead, the flock following these trailblazers, but actually, it is the shepherd who oversees the flock. Hill says that today’s business climate requires leaders who act similarly, allowing their charges to emerge, lead and innovate. The manager, meanwhile, supports these initiatives, yet stays ever mindful of the bigger picture and direction.
*** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libya

CHINESE BUY ROCKY MOUNTAIN AIR

Can China really hold out until 2030 to start to attack its pollution problems?

A Canadian start-up company [Vanity Air] bottling fresh air from the Rocky Mountains has seen sales to China soar because of rising pollution levels.*
.........................................................
“Our first shipment of 500 bottles of fresh air were sold in four days,” co-founder Moses Lam says in a telephone interview with the Telegraph. 

A crate containing 4,000 more bottles is making its way to China, but he says most of that shipment  has been bought.
 .......................................................
A 7.7 Litre can of crisp air taken from Banff National Park in the majestic Rocky Mountains range sells for roughly 100 yuan (£10), which is 50 times more expensive than a bottle of mineral water in China. 

Vitality Air sells bottled fresh air and oxygen across North America, to India and the Middle East. But China remains its biggest overseas market.

* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/12051354/Chinese-buy-up-bottles-of-fresh-air-from-Canada.html

DONALD TRUMP - FINAL COMMENTS (I HOPE)

I only write this because the news media does not seem to understand what Donald Trump is doing (Mark Halperin is an exception).  Don't the commentators hear the applause when Trump says these outrageous things?  Make no mistake, everything Trump says is giving voice to a big percentage of the Republican party, it seems like at least 25% and could be much larger.  ALL his comments are carefully crafted to appeal to this large group of people who believe Obama was born outside the U.S., that he is a secret Muslim, that all Hispanic illegals should be deported, that we should build a wall on our southern border, that Muslims should not be allowed to enter America (I suspect many would find the idea appealing that all Muslims should be deported or placed in detention camps.), etc., etc.  It isn't pretty folks but there it is.  You aren't going to solve this hate by getting rid of Trump.  It will still be out there, as Trump is following these people, not leading them..

And don't believe that all these Trump supporters are only high school graduates or dropouts.  I know one person who owned his own business and by his life style it looks like he was very successful, another was a retired Captain in the Army, and a third was a successful real estate investor.  E-mails I got from retired military officers were so bad that when 9/11 occurred, I prayed it was not some retired Air Force officers who did it until I heard otherwise.

I say at least 25% above because most followers of Ted Cruz also believe these things.  In fact Ted Cruz is said to hope that Trump supporters will follow him (Cruz) if Trump departs the race.  I don't know why anyone wants Cruz for president, but the fact that he actually did shut down the government, rather than just talk about it, is probably an attraction.

Well, it is nice that various Republicans have expressed outrage over Trump's latest comments of barring Muslims from entering the country, including American citizens who happen to be abroad and also returning members of our armed forces.  But a number of the other candidates have expressed somewhat similar anti-Muslim views, but in more guarded ways (e.g. Only let Christians from Syria emigrate here).*  Trump gives these views to you raw.  I have called adherents to these ideas as red meat Republicans.

So how, some have asked, do you identify a Muslim?  Well the ancient Japanese showed the way.  In the battle of a Christian stronghold in Japan called the Great White Castle of Shimabara, the Shogun hired the Dutch fleet to come in and bombard the castle to help break it.  Thus the Japanese were able to break the stronghold.  Then they had the Christians step on a picture of the Cross (replicas of this can be purchased in the trinket shop).  If they refused, off with their heads.  If they stepped on the Cross, the Shogun figured they weren't good enough Christians to worry about.**  So Mr. Trump, you can have everyone who wants to enter the U.S,. to stomp on a copy of the Koran.  If they won't do it, no entry.  If they do it, they aren't good enough Muslims to worry about.  Now I suppose that many Christians, Jews and others will refuse to stomp on the Koran too, but I guess they can't enter and are just collateral damage

* http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/jeb-bush-syrian-refugees-christian-muslim_5648b98de4b045bf3def84df
** http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2014/08/the-tea-cup-seismograph-biographical.html
http://japanschristianheritage.com/2010/04/shimabara-rebellion/

OUR COLLECTIVE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN - II

Well, the latest from Donald Trump is that he issued a campaign statement calling on U.S. authorities to bar all Muslims from entering the country until the nation’s leaders can “figure out what is going on.”*

Many in the news media are beyond belief that Trump would propose this and in fact bar even American Muslims who are out of the country from reentering America (which is probably unconstitutional)  He no doubt includes this to eliminate those who have joined ISIS. Some in the news media feel this is the last straw.  But did they hear the applause after he said this?  I suspect that his poll numbers may increase as a result.

But I don't know, Cruse seems to be surging in Iowa and is now ahead of Trump in the polls. This is supposed to make me happy?  May the Saints preserve us! I hope he is just the flavor of the month?

Gloria Steinem said on Charley Rose the other night that "If Republicans had cancer and Obama was the only one who had a cure, the Republicans would probably refuse it." (Reconstructed as nearly as I can remember her comment.)**

* http://news.yahoo.com/trump-call-bar-muslims-u-111500000.html;_ylt=A0LEVivVTGdWNrcAQlUnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTByMjB0aG5zBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw--
** See Gloria Steinem on Charley Rose, December 4, 2015 "My Life On The Road" at http://www.charlierose.com/watch/60658259 but I couldn't bring it up.

CAN HE HOLD OUT?

(This post is written on December 7th, Remember Pearl Harbor 74 yrs ago)

Holy Cow, as recently as November 22, 2015,* I wrote a piece titled Our Collective Nervous Breakdown, and now we have had a terrorist attack in California with 14 people killed and 21 injured and people are ready to send a major ground force to the Middle East to destroy ISIS (polls say 57% in favor of this).  Please remember that on a average day in America around 30 people are murdered by guns and we accept that so the day in California could easily fit into a normal day.

So President Obama is grudgingly giving ground to these demands by first sending 50 special forces to Syria to do things and now maybe 200 more to Iraq to conduct raids, train, rescue, and generally do things against ISIS.  But so far, he is not panicing and sending a major force to "kill" ISIS.  First of all we are bound to lose many more troops in an ISIS ground war than are killed by terrorist attacks in America.  Even in response to 9/11 in which nearly 3,000 people died we lost almost twice as many troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan** as in this major terrorist attack.  In addition we had vastly more troops injured, many with life altering injuries including those whose brains got shook up by IED devices.  Some of these are essentially walking dead.

So can President Obama hold out against the calls for a large military expeditionary force to combat ISIS?  He has about 14 months to go in his presidency.  Time will tell.  In the meantime, we will have something like 12,000 people in America murdered by guns and perhaps 18,000 committing suicide with guns.  We will have about 30,0000 American killed in automobile accidents.  But of course, these are just normal life in America.  In contrast we probably will have a good deal fewer than 100 killed by terrorists.  These, however, are intolerable.

* http://stopcontinentaldrift.blogspot.com/2015/11/our-collective-nervous-breakdown.html
** I did support the war in Afghanistan because I felt we had to do something in response even if it was a failure, but I have never understood why we went into Iraq.

TRUMP OR CRUZ?

Donald Trump or Ted Cruz?  Now there is a choice for you, but Cruz has risen to the number two spot in the national polls so we must face this possibility.

After considerable thought on how to differentiate between these two candidates, I've decided to pick Trump.  Why?  Well Trump is a liar so all the bombast he is spewing may not be how he would actually govern.  He is probably saying all these things to appeal to the Republican base, but Cruz seems to mean what he says, at least most of the time.  After all he was willing to do things like shut down the government* over the ACA (AKA Obamacare) in a futile attempt that wasted a lot of money.  Cruz doesn't seem to have any compassion for heath care for the poor.**  He seems to favor unrestricted access to guns by everyone in the U.S. which would include the mentally unstable and even terrorists.  He attended a meeting where the chairman gave an impassioned rant about how the bible says gays should be killed (though not now because they should be given a chance to repent.).***  Cruz gave no criticism of the pastor who did this.  In general, Cruz seems to mean what he says so I find him scary.  Where he stands on the issues a can be seen at: http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/Profiles/Senate/Texas/Ted_Cruz/Views/ (somewhat dated)and http://www.ontheissues.org/senate/Ted_Cruz.htm.****

*  In doing this, we found out just how important people feel the national parks and monuments are, a pleasant surprise for me.
** Cruz favors a market based system, but actually ACA is supposed to be a market based system with competition among insurance companies.  He does not say in eliminating the ACA how poor people would be covered in health care.
*** http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/2015/11/06/23118593/christian-pastor-calls-for-execution-of-gays-at-event-attended-by-ted-cruz
**** One of my favorite original sayings is, "Politicians are skilled at the art of getting the votes of the people they plan to fleece."

CONFESSIONS OF A RECOVERING MORNING JOE ADDICT

I used to watch the 3 hr political morning news show called Morning Joe (Scarborough) since its inception.  I would record it so I could speed through the advertisements.  As the first 20 min. of the program is usually repeated in the third hour, I would also speed through that too.  Sometime in 2015 I got tired of Morning Joe's rants (usually negative) that went on and on and were repeated during and future programs.  As the year went on, I found I was speeding through more and more of the program as they discussed things like Donald Trump ad nauseam..  It finally got so I could race through the 3 hrs in about 1 hr.  The final straw, however, happened when guests on the program started ranting like Morning Joe.  For example, one referred to a TV statement by Sec. John Kerry that he should "shut up" and get some sleep.  Yes, he did look tired and it could have been said so in polite terms rather than the terms used by "red meat" Republicans ("bed wetting" liberals should "Sit Down And Shut Up," they like to say).

So I removed the recording of the program from my VCR about a week ago and have made due with CNN since, though I don't watch it like I used to watch Morning Joe.  It seems there is little new news around so they repeat what little they know about things like the Russian fighter shot down by the Turks, the shooting of the Planned Parenthood building in Colorado, and the shootings of unarmed African Americans (well I guess one had a knife, but he was walking away when shot 16 times).  So I don't record CNN as they seem to report a limited number of events over and over.