The Colonel's Forum

After 32 years on this planet, I am still amazed at the level of ignorance that educated adults can exhibit. There is absolutely zero uncertainty within the scientific community that the average global temperature is on the rise. The polar ice cap is absolutely melting. Seasonal arctic sea ice is disappearing earlier and earlier each year. Animal habitats, breeding, and migratory patterns have been impacted. Swamps that turned to perma-frost a million years ago are thawing out and turning back into swamps. These things are facts. Yet, still, I actually heard a friend say this week "it snowed in Houston this year, how can there be global warming?" Good point. I'll just tell all those climate scientists to find new careers. They've been studying trends over millions of years of course, using that silly "scientific method." How can all that research any analysis possibly stack up against your brilliant observation that it snowed, in one city, on one d...

Yes, I know, I've been neglecting my blog here. Here's a brief update on what's been happening in my life since September. October, of course, is racing season at Keeneland. As usual, we had a steady stream of friends and family come visit to wager on the ponies. Keeneland started publishing its race meet statistics online, and I created a database to analyze them. Sounds geeky, and it is. I also won my first Superfecta with the trends I identified, so I'm geeky all the way to the teller window. The trends, by the way, were quite surprising. You want to bet on horses that have run a race within the past 4-6 weeks at a distance that is within 1 furlong of today's race. You want the last race to be on an all-weather surface or on the turf, and horses that start in the #3 starting position do well at Keeneland. Certain jockeys also do better with certain lengths of race and some are better at helping a horse transition between different surfaces. October also ...

I have decided to move my political ramblings back to my blog. I think my friends are getting tired of seeing all that stuff on facebook. This disappoints me, because I like to think of my friends as more politically savvy than most, but in reality I understand that 1) not many people share the interest in politics that I do, 2) people have good reason to believe that their views on the issues are irrelevant because the morons in Washington have to please more than just the electorate these days and 3) everyone is busy these days, and following current events is just not a high priority for some people. Today's note is quite simple. This is a great article from Evan Handler. Yes, it's on the wacky liberal Huffington post. Get over it. I found it via Google news, which means bazillions of internet users (that's a technical term) found it interesting enough that some computer program flagged it as "popular." In it, he points out exactly why Joe Wilson is a ...

I'd like to take a quick review of South Carolina politics this year. 1) Republican Governor Mark Sanford hikes the Appalachian trail to Argentina , where he happened to run into his mistress. 2) Republican Senator Jim DeMint says “If we’re able to stop Obama on this [health care] it will be his Waterloo. It will break him.” Nice. 3) Republican Congressman Joe Wilson calls the President a liar . 4) Republican Senator Lindsey Graham pulls an [Mythbuster] Adam Savage in describing the President's speech to Congress this week, going for the "I reject your reality and substitute my own" approach. Graham hit the press with repeated claims that Obama was "combative" and showed "little sign of compromise." Really? If anyone reading this is a resident of South Carolina, could you please see that the Palmetto state puts some brighter people in office? Otherwise, we may need to take away your electoral votes. Thanks.

There was a news story that came out today which did not receive much press, but yet it's the kind of new story that should be front page news. This story is related to a court case brought against our government by a US citizen. This citizen, let's call him Dave, a married man with two children, was arrested at a Dulles International Airport ticket counter. He was handcuffed, taken to the airport’s police substation, and interrogated. Over the next sixteen days, he was confined in high security cells lit twenty-four hours a day in Virginia, Oklahoma, and then Idaho, during which he was strip searched on multiple occasions. Each time Dave was transferred to a different facility, he was handcuffed and shackled about his wrists, legs, and waist. He was eventually released from custody by court order, on the conditions that he live with his wife and in-laws in Nevada, limit his travel to Nevada and three other states, surrender his travel documents, regularly report to a probatio...

OK, "This American Life" is actually the title of a (great) radio show from WBEZ up in Chicago, but the topics they cover are the topics we all deal with every day - what it's like to live in America in 2009. I've been on the bench this week (in-between projects), and I've been reflecting a lot about the state of affairs in this patch of land we call the United States of America. Here's what I've noticed: 1) There are still a lot of people in this country who think that Barack Obama is crazier and more powerful than any President in American history. When I say "a lot" of people, I not just talking about your typical right wing nuts here. There are people who think that his Hawaiian birth certificate is not real so he's not a citizen. The NRA has successfully convinced its members that he's going to take their guns. He's a socialist, a Marxist, a racist and/or a communist, depending on which Fox News anchor you prefer. He's...

Here I sit in my lovely home office, killing time on a conference call. I think conference calls are almost worse than an in-person status meeting, especially in terms of the frequency with which they are abused/over-used. My own theory is that such meetings/calls are generally held for the benefit of just one person. In my own experience it's often true that the one person in question is holding the meeting or call simply because they are too lazy to do the leg work necessary to gather the information they need. Come on people! We're all busy these days. We're all working for companies that have laid off half the work force and expect the rest of us to absorb the additional work load. Don't ask me to join a call unless you need me to - how hard is that? I could be playing Mafia Wars or Rock Band or something. Hopefully, this time on the bench will be short-lived. There has been talk of projects in New Jersey, Alaska, Montreal, and Cincinnati. Hopefully one of...

Check out this article from the town of Corydon, Indiana. Senator Williams decided to puff himself up real big and take a big stand against gambling, and the Indiana casinos couldn't be happier. Everyone knows that all this does is 1) delay the inevitable and (more significantly) 2) hurt the horse industry, Kentucky's biggest revenue generator. Way to go Senator Williams. I hope your fountain pen explodes in your pocket.

The Supreme Court today decided that you're not allowed to use race as the grounds for promoting people. A bunch of firefighters in Connecticut took a test. The white guys (and the Hispanic) did better than the blacks. So the city threw out the test results and promoted the blacks. The white guys and the Hispanic took the city to court for discrimination, and today, they got a favorable verdict from the U.S. Supreme Court. http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idUSN2936044120090629

Ah yes, there's still nothing like the sound of pre-recorded predator birds squawking at 4:45AM. After the "double bird strike" of that plane that landed in the Hudson river though, I guess I should quit complaining that Bluegrass Airport is attempting to scare off as many birds as possible. We don't exactly have a convenient river to ditch in if we hit a couple birds on take-off. This also means of course that I'm on the road again. This time it's off to Danbury, CT for a "reunion" project with the guys I worked with in Sweden a few years back. I'm also hoping that Danbury in June is warmer than Sweden in February, but I think that's a safe bet. Speaking of bets, the Kentucky State Senate is receiving a bill today that just passed our House of Representatives; a bill that would allow video gaming machines at horse tracks. This is one of those things that still amazes me - that Kentucky can't pass a gambling bill. It's no secr...

That's the nifty airline term I learned today. Me: Hello - I'd like to find out where I am on the standby list for this flight? Delta Lady: You're first on the list, but right now we are in a negative inventory situation on that flight. Me: I'm sorry? Delta Lady: That just means that we have more people with confirmed seats on that flight than the total number of seats on the plane Me: Oh. So it's oversold. Delta Lady: You could say that. She went on to explain that they were oversold by 6 people. In order for me to hop on an earlier flight home, I simply needed 7 people who had already checked in for the flight to vanish. I called "Condi" Rice and inquired about the possibility of a mid-airport rendition, but she told me she and Cheney were busy this afternoon frying ants with a magnifying glass. Bummer. It was a long weekend, but a good one. We took a buddy to Miami this weekend for his bachelor party. Most of us had never been to Miami, and...

I’d really like to be able to say that I’m not worried about the “recession” (or whatever we’re calling it) that seems to dominate the news these days, but that would not be completely accurate. While it’s not something I worry about, it is something that is on my mind a lot these days. Specifically, I think this is the first time in my life where I’m actually wishing things were a bit more like the environment my parents enjoyed when they joined the workforce. You know, back when you could count on some degree of loyalty from your employer, back when pensions were still common, back when you couldn’t get a mortgage for a home you couldn’t afford, back when everyone paid off their credit cards each month… Ella and I are just now getting on our feet. She’s making real money in real estate these days, after we’ve spent several years investing in her career. I’ve finally landed a job that I enjoy and that pays really well. We’ve spent 3 years fixing up our home and it’s finally gett...

I'm absolutely done with CNN. They've been annoying me for years, and today they finally pushed me over the line. "Outbreak Fears Spread" was their banner for most of the day. The swine flu is coming to get us all. Aren't you panicked? All my friends, family and co-workers are. Oh wait, that's not the case at all. In fact, I don't know a single person with "outbreak fears." I remember in 2001 when the introduced the permanent ticker. I hate the permanent ticker, mostly because other news agencies felt obligated to follow suit. You're nothing in the news business these days if you don't have a ticker. CNN uses these ridiculous pseudo-headlines ending in question marks like "End of the world coming on Tuesday?" and "Dick Cheney actually a robot?" OK, so maybe Cheney is a robot but whatever. You need the ticker in case there is some piece of news that's so insanely urgent that you have to get it out there...

It was one of those beautiful spring days that makes life in the Bluegrass so nice. Jason and Kim.5 came down with Leo, and we all tailgated at Keeneland with the Parrotheads. I say Kim.5 because they're having another kid! With many of my friends two kids would concern me, but these two are probably the most grounded set of parents I know. The Budweiser Clydesdales were at the track and boy did Leo think that was cool. Well it was cool, actually. Seeing a Clydesdale next to a dinky little Thoroughbred makes you wonder why they don't race draft horses! I'll bet the average Clydesdale poop weighs more than the average Thoroughbred jockey. We walked Leo around the barns to visit some of the big money horses racing this weekend, then I went inside the track to do my great grandfather proud by losing some money at the track. He's probably up there somewhere wondering why I was making those measly $2 bets. Ella and I were going to do Thunder over Louisville, but her ...

Today, the new Treasury Secretary (Tim Geithner) announced his proposal for implementing some new regulations in the financial markets. In short, he has come up with a system of checks and balances to ensure that things like hedge funds, credit default swaps, and other financial instruments that have remained largely unregulated start getting some oversight. There are a lot of people out there who will say "this is awful, the government should stay out of the markets," or "the government can't do anything right, they'll ruin capitalism." Republicans and conservatives will argue that this is just a massive expansion of government that's going to cost the taxpayers billions. Newsflash - it's the absence of regulation that got us into this mess. People (let's call them idiots) theorized that the investment banks would self-regulate in a free market. Now, we're spending billions of taxpayer dollars to bail them out and avoid the complete coll...

Found this on the L.A. Times political blog today and decided to post it in its entirety: President Obama today signed a document countermanding some documents signed by his predecessor and saying he won't sign so many other documents like that called signing documents. This is another one of those little-known nifty Washington gadgets that cause the Real World out here to stare and go, "Say what?" A signing document is basically an addendum that a president signs after signing legislation saying, in effect, yes, I know I signed this legislation but I really don't like/disagree with/suspect are unconstitutional/or all of the above the following parts. This is basically his instructions/permission to the vast D.C. bureaucracy to ignore the disputed parts, even though the people's elected representatives passed it and the nation's chief executive officially signed it allegedly into law -- albeit with a Washington wink. No, really. Like signing and init...

Some friends got me curious about income taxes this week. I suggested that anyone who doesn't like Obama could send me any tax breaks he delivers for them. The response I got was "I'll give you Obama's tax break money if you'll pay for the tax increases that will follow." The implication of course is that Obama will eventually raise taxes. This got me to wondering - are tax hikes inevitable? Is it written somewhere that all Democrats raise taxes and all Republicans lower them? Do taxes always increase over time? Here's what I found: When income taxes were first introduced (1913), the rich paid 7%, the poor paid 1%. Today the rich pay 35%, the poor pay 10%. The highest rates (and biggest gap) were in 1945 when war time increases had the rich paying 94% and the poor paying 23%. My own opinion after learning this is that any tax proposal that does not return us to the 1% and 7% 1913 rates is complete BS. I was trying to see if Democrats or Repub...

I've been fortunate this year to have already visited some of my favorite places - San Francisco, Chicago, and New Orleans. There are things about each of those three cities that I like to think will be with me all my life. To me, there's just something about a great city that inspires. Our most recent trip was New Orleans for Mardi Gras, of course. We took some rookies with us who were great sports and let us drag them all over creation trying to cram in 200 activities in 4 days. The trip was a blast, and the only bad part was not being able to fit in everything we wanted to do. But then again that just gives us an excuse for a follow-up trip. With all the talk of economic doom and gloom these days, I feel badly for people who have nothing to look forward to in life. I was thinking about this while we were on the Golden Gate bridge and we saw these signs. An average of 19 people jump off that bridge every year, and that's just the ones they "recover." Most...

I think it's just a funny word. The idea sounds good - that our government should give the economy a swift kick in the rear to snap out of this recessionary trend. How does taking out more debt help us though? I read the Economist every week, and I still can't make sense of it. And whether Obama wants to admit it or not, there is clearly some pork in the $787 billion spending bill that passed. One thing which has not made much news but I am putting in the "it's about damn time" category is recovery.gov - the government's web site where you can track how they're spending your money. Why have we not had this before? I've argued for years that if Americans were forced to write Uncle Sam a check every month for the tax money coming out of our paychecks, that government accountability would be MUCH better than it is. Of course that's not practical, but hopefully you get my point. I give the government more in taxes every month than I pay on my ...

In case you were wondering what an ice storm can do to a tree, here's a close up view. The sun came out today after about 4 days of cold and ice. The official weather report says we only got .5 inches of ice, but I think this picture tells a different story, especially when you consider the ice has been melting for almost 24 hours at this point.

The day has finally arrived. I watched today's inauguration in Plainfield, IL which is just outside Chicago. I know that nothing huge has changed in my personal life today, but still I feel a sense of relief. There is no longer an idiot in the Oval office. No more inventing words. No more giving everyone in the executive branch stupid nicknames like "Condi" and "Brownie." I hope this also means an end to bad intelligence (i.e. "Iraq has WMD so we need to invade..."), but that's probably asking too much. I do know for a fact that neither Obama's campaign or his inauguration were funded by unions, corporations, or special interest groups, and I know the same could not be said for "W." To me this means that at least our next President can start his first day in office tomorrow without feeling like he owes anything to anyone except the millions of citizens who voted for him. It's a shame that this is such a radical concept. ...

The holidays are always a challenge for me. This is primarily because I'm a real Grinch about Christmas, but I also recognize that it's important to spend time with friends and family celebrating all that I have to be thankful for. New Years and my birthday just remind me that I'm older, so that can be a drag too. So I guess I really like Thanksgiving the most. This season was more or less like others in the recent past. Travel to Carmel, Asheville, spend time in Lexington with our friends here... This year included a trip to Kansas for my cousin Tim's wedding. We would've preferred that it was in Miami, but what can you do. They're a beautiful couple and it's great to see his life coming together so well. A few more weeks of training and they'll put his name on a Cobra helicopter and ship him to North Carolina. Sadly, that also means he's also that much closer to getting shipped off to "Afghani-Paki-really-really-bad" or wherever ...