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Tuesday, August 28, 2012

Get us out of Afghanistan! - Letters to my Reps

To: Representative  Todd Russell Plats, Senator Pat Toomey, and Senator Bob Casey:
Following is a copy of an email that I sent to you in Oct 2009. Since that time over 1200 of our young people have died in Afghanistan & Iraq, many more have been horribly maimed and disfigured:
Oct. 2009:  "Bring the troops home from Afghanistan. It is unrealistic to believe that the current administration will do what is necessary to responsibly prosecute this military action. I understand that the complete destruction of the Taliban would be in the best security interests of this country; however, it is not realistic to believe that is going to happen under the current administration. Neither is the complete destruction of al Qaeda, which has havens and cells spread throughout the world. It is even unrealistic to believe that we can permanently deprive al Qaeda of Afghanistan as a launching ground or home base for terrorist attacks since that depends on wresting control of all territory in the region from the Taliban. I also understand how tempting it might be to some politicians to try and craft some politically advantageous half-measures that would leave our troops stranded in enemy territory (again) without a clear objective, exit strategy, or the absolute best support we can provide. To allow that to happen again, especially after what we learned in Vietnam, would be a tragedy and a moral outrage."
Today: Our troops can no longer call in close air support without getting it approved by higher-ups back at headquarters. Barack Obama has proposed requiring our special operations forces to conduct their ops only in daylight and his administration has leaked vital operational secrets to those who are trying to kill them. Iraq is helping fund Iran's nuclear program. Afghan troops and police are slaughtering our troops at will, troops that were unarmed while on base until just this week. The well-being of our troops has been subjugated to the ambitions of our politicians. Our calls to bring the troops home have been ignored and instead politicians have tied their hands and interfered with their attempts to employ tried and true combat techniques getting even more of our precious young people maimed and killed. Like I said: a tragedy and a moral outrage. We've got to stop this nation-building junk and get back to defending our country. Really, that's all we are able to do anyway. Focusing on anything else is recklessly dangerous and ridiculously naive.

Ethanol Sucks! - Letters to my Reps

June 30, 2008

I heard something on the radio yesterday that I just couldn’t believe.  I was listening to a “money” talk-show and the guy said that there is a 40% tariff on Brazilian ethanol.  Please tell me that you guys aren’t taxing the best and least expensive ethanol in the world at an additional rate of 40% after MANDATING that at least 10% of our fuel be ethanol at a time when gas prices are approaching $4.00 per gallon and our economy is grinding to a halt!

If you are, then I’ve got to ask, WHY?! 

Who is this supposed to help?  You mandate ethanol use and then you turn right around and effectively prohibit the sale of the least expensive and highest quality ethanol in the world here in the US?

Again, who is this ethanol initiative supposed to help?  It sure doesn’t help me at the gas pump.  Turning a staple food source into fuel sure isn’t good for the starving children of the world.  It’s not even good for the environment!  (US ethanol production actually increases our total CO2 output and even our total fossil fuel consumption.)

OK, I know who it’s supposed to help.  There is only one group in this country that benefits from this and that’s the ethanol producers and, by extension, corn farmers. 

Please repeal this unethical tariff. 

Better yet, reverse course on this whole immoral ethanol initiative.


August 25, 2012

Today was a good day.  I found a new source for ethanol-free gas.  Now I can buy that chainsaw that I’ve been wanting.  You see, I decided not to buy any more gasoline powered tools until I found a source for ethanol-free gas because I knew that the ethanol that’s in the gas now would just eat them up.  I’ve lost 3 lawn mowers, 2 line trimmers and a chainsaw to that junk!  I wonder if all the environmentalists figured all that smoke that billowed out of each of these tools as they burned up into their fancy equations?

What am I saying?  Everyone knows that ethanol isn’t really being produced and mixed into the nation’s fuel supply for environmental reasons.  There are no sound environmental reasons to do that.  Everyone knows that  it takes more fuel and produces more pollution to produce a gallon of ethanol than is saved by it’s use at its eventual destination.  Even the environmentalists have moved on. We all know why we are being forced to sacrifice our lawn equipment and pay higher food prices at the grocery store:  It is called corruption.

Come on guys!  I’d be embarrassed if I was you.  This is not going unnoticed.  It has become one of the most glaring signposts of the corrupt times in which we live.

Oh, what I’d give for the good old days when corruption was too complicated and obscure for us dummies back home to notice it.