I'm still trying to understand this "debate" that's going on these days.
It appears that the whole conversation is centered on what aspects of various proposals are good ideas, or which will work properly, or which won't have unintended consequences (as if anything doesn't).
It seems to me that this misses the whole point - it really doesn't matter which proposal would work better, as they're all so far outside the tightly circumscribed powers of the federal government that they should merit no discussion at all.
This isn't an enumerated power, and thus Washington is prohibited from doing anything at all.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Carnage du Jour - 12 September 09
Mmm - Lamb and Lentil Stew on a chilly night in Sleeper State Park.
OK, I cheated and used electricity to cook dinner for the assembled masses (20 or so), but I really didn't want to have to sit there pumping up the Coleman stove all afternoon, just to keep the slow flame burning under a big pot.
Still, leg of lamb, lentils, onions, carrots, and celery, some stock with tomato paste, and a bit of wine and beer and several hours later it was a happy meal in a bowl.
Oh, and the company was great too!
OK, I cheated and used electricity to cook dinner for the assembled masses (20 or so), but I really didn't want to have to sit there pumping up the Coleman stove all afternoon, just to keep the slow flame burning under a big pot.
Still, leg of lamb, lentils, onions, carrots, and celery, some stock with tomato paste, and a bit of wine and beer and several hours later it was a happy meal in a bowl.
Oh, and the company was great too!
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Carnage du Jour - 24 August 09
Wow -
I asked Jon whether he thought the Norwegian Salmon were worth the extra cost per pound, and he answered from experience. In essence, he told me that he didn't really believe it until he tried it himself, and it's a whole different kind of salmon.
Apparently these salmon are fed in such a way to have double or triple the fat content of our domestic farm-raised types. This lends a roundness and buttery mouth feel - basically, theses are Kobe Salmon, but instead of sake, they get akvavit. (OK, I just made up that last part.)
At any rate, a quick bake / braise with a few herbs and a bit of olive oil later, and I was a convert as well. Delicious with some sour cream-laced mashed potatoes and buttery green beans. (No, not haricots verts - these were good old American green beans.)
Yum!
I asked Jon whether he thought the Norwegian Salmon were worth the extra cost per pound, and he answered from experience. In essence, he told me that he didn't really believe it until he tried it himself, and it's a whole different kind of salmon.
Apparently these salmon are fed in such a way to have double or triple the fat content of our domestic farm-raised types. This lends a roundness and buttery mouth feel - basically, theses are Kobe Salmon, but instead of sake, they get akvavit. (OK, I just made up that last part.)
At any rate, a quick bake / braise with a few herbs and a bit of olive oil later, and I was a convert as well. Delicious with some sour cream-laced mashed potatoes and buttery green beans. (No, not haricots verts - these were good old American green beans.)
Yum!
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Friday, August 07, 2009
A Random-ish Thought
If the federal government had acted on my proposal back 15-20 years ago, we wouldn't be in much of the mess in which we find ourselves.
As you probably know, China is proposing a new base currency, or a new monetary standard to replace the broken or breaking system we've been using for decades - currencies that aren't really backed by anything other than government promises. Ah but promises of what? Certainly not gold any more - you can't go get gold for your dollars from the government, and I don't see many silver certificates out there any more (although I wouldn't mind finding a few).
Why the current angst about the dollar as the world's reserve currency? Well, it goes beyond the Wizard of Oz situation of a man behind the curtain - at this point, when we look at where that man behind the curtain is doing things, we find that there's no there there. It's all based on everyone trusting everyone else to never ask for anything real. And that's fine for a while - clearly it's worked for quite some time now, but the checkbooks are coming home to roost, and there's nothing left to pay the piper, as it were (to mix a metaphor or two).
So what was my proposal? Simply to once again back the dollar with something of real value. Rather than a return to the gold standard, I proposed that we go on the kWh standard.
Whatever the then-prevailing cost of a kilowatt-hour of energy would be the basis for saying that the dollar was worth (for example) 35 kWh. When technology made processes more efficient, that would mean that it took fewer dollars to power things. Dollars would go farther, be worth more, wealth could be directly created by technological advance.
Further, we couldn't reasonably have allowed ourselves to remain dependent upon foreign sources of energy to run our economy - that would have meant buying energy to pay our debts. Instead, we would have developed our own resources (which are huge an largely untapped) as well as making significant forays into nuclear power, almost certainly finding ways to produce electricity more safely than we can today, given the total lack of focus on that industry lo these many years.
Given a currency backed by something "tangible" and real, it would become that much more difficult for the government to take the Doritos approach to the dollar, "Spend all you want, we'll print more." There would have to be a real something there.
And to think, I had the solution years ago.
grr.
As you probably know, China is proposing a new base currency, or a new monetary standard to replace the broken or breaking system we've been using for decades - currencies that aren't really backed by anything other than government promises. Ah but promises of what? Certainly not gold any more - you can't go get gold for your dollars from the government, and I don't see many silver certificates out there any more (although I wouldn't mind finding a few).
Why the current angst about the dollar as the world's reserve currency? Well, it goes beyond the Wizard of Oz situation of a man behind the curtain - at this point, when we look at where that man behind the curtain is doing things, we find that there's no there there. It's all based on everyone trusting everyone else to never ask for anything real. And that's fine for a while - clearly it's worked for quite some time now, but the checkbooks are coming home to roost, and there's nothing left to pay the piper, as it were (to mix a metaphor or two).
So what was my proposal? Simply to once again back the dollar with something of real value. Rather than a return to the gold standard, I proposed that we go on the kWh standard.
Whatever the then-prevailing cost of a kilowatt-hour of energy would be the basis for saying that the dollar was worth (for example) 35 kWh. When technology made processes more efficient, that would mean that it took fewer dollars to power things. Dollars would go farther, be worth more, wealth could be directly created by technological advance.
Further, we couldn't reasonably have allowed ourselves to remain dependent upon foreign sources of energy to run our economy - that would have meant buying energy to pay our debts. Instead, we would have developed our own resources (which are huge an largely untapped) as well as making significant forays into nuclear power, almost certainly finding ways to produce electricity more safely than we can today, given the total lack of focus on that industry lo these many years.
Given a currency backed by something "tangible" and real, it would become that much more difficult for the government to take the Doritos approach to the dollar, "Spend all you want, we'll print more." There would have to be a real something there.
And to think, I had the solution years ago.
grr.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Not much of a title
but I did want to note that I'll be trying to chronicle just what it's like living here in our post-Contitutional United States.
Disheartening? sure.
Frightening? sometimes.
Angering? almost always.
Uninteresting? never.
grr.
Disheartening? sure.
Frightening? sometimes.
Angering? almost always.
Uninteresting? never.
grr.
Wednesday, July 01, 2009
Wondering Where I've Been?
I'm sure all my readers have been wondering just that.
If you're really interested, take a side-trip over to the Heritage Tour 2009 blog to see what was up the past couple weeks. Ironically, it was quite an excellent trip.
If you're really interested, take a side-trip over to the Heritage Tour 2009 blog to see what was up the past couple weeks. Ironically, it was quite an excellent trip.
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