Compressed Natural Gas: An Energy Solution Ready to Go

Yet another of Barack Obama’s green initiatives has hit the skids with the production stoppage of the Chevy Volt. You remember, this is the “all electric”…no…sort of all electric car…that was supposed to revolutionize how we drive. In theory, it was supposed to get 40 miles on a 12 hour battery charge, unless you decided you needed some things like heat or a radio or a windshield wiper, in which case the mileage would drop dramatically. Let’s not forget the huge government subidy given by Obama to General Motors to make the car, and the even larger tax credits given to those that bought it.

Notwithstanding rising gas prices, it’s an idea whose time is yet to come. An article in Business Week this past week has said conventional gasoline engines are more efficient than ever, with models like the Chevy Cruze getting better mileage per gallon than a Prius and other hybrids. Good for our valley!!!! And good for General Motors!!!!!

This past week the Vindicator ran a story about a company coming into our valley and installing a number of CNG (compressed natural gas) pumps to service the area vehicles that run on compressed natural gas. These are primarily busses, trucks, and government owned vehicles. The story was interesting because of the lack of fanfare and its matter of fact tone. Compressed natural gas? Who is paying any attention to that when the electric cars are grabbing the headlines?

As in all things technological, both the market place and regulators have to pick which new technology the nation is going to follow.  An example would be beta max or VHS recorders,  what are the standards for compact discs, or which technology would be used for High Definition Television. In the vehicular alternative energy choice, it appeared to be a three way battle: ethanol, electricity, or compressed natural gas.

The farmers pushed for ethanol, but since our climate would force us to rely on corn, the moral issue of using food for fuel was debated. Ultimately it was decided this wasn’t the way to go because it took more energy to produce the ethanol than it saved by using it in cars. That left natural gas and electricity.

This was a battle of the titans. T. Boone Pickens jumped into bed with Barack Obama pushing compressed natural gas as he bought up company after company that owned natural gas reserves. In the other corner was Jeff Imelt of General Electric, who did more than jump into bed with Obama. He stuck his head full up Obama’s posterior, and it became obvious that Obama was going to turn his back on compressed natural gas in favor of electricity and his best bus...Jeff Imelt.

And they were off to the races with government grants and tax credits for General Electric. Of course, one shouldn’t be surprised Obama was enamored by the electric cars. He hates fossil fuels, period, end of discussion. In his America, electricity would be produced by massive solar farms, and cars would plug into all of this power at home in our garages at night and the world would be as right as rain. Imelt drank the Kool Aid and took the money taking General Electric to the forefront of the electric car revolution by investing in the solar panel business full tilt. More importantly, it began the process of building and installing a 1.5 million electric charging stations throughout the United States.

Unfortunately for GE, and for the United States, the automobile manufacturing business ran smack into the limits of the car battery. It takes 12 hours to charge the battery to go probably 20 to 30 miles. In addition, the Volt battery had a penchant to catch fire…they run hot!!!! The government has decreed that there is nothing wrong with the Volt battery, but for some reason Americans don’t believe the government anymore on any of this stuff.  I wonder why!!!!

Meanwhile, gasoline prices have skyrocketed due to bum American foreign policy in the Mideast. But surprise, surprise…the market has begun to work brining compressed natural gas to the forefront. It turns out that America is the Saudi Arabia of natural gas, and it has gotten so inexpensive, that it has become THE alternative to the gasoline engine. Cost wise, a “gallon” of compressed natural gas would be $1.77 vs. $3.75 for a gallon of gasoline.

Compressed natural gas is something America can use now to alleviate a whole lot of problems if the infrastructure were in place to provide for it. Here’s why:

1) The technology already exists to make this work. CNG busses and trucks are already in mass operation and Honda already “mass produces” a CNG car priced at around $24,000.00.

2) Although the efficiency of the engine is only slightly less than the most efficient gasoline engine, the overall cost of operation is substantially lower.

3) It is a clean engine, and release practically no CO2 into the atmosphere. That makes it attractive to the global warming whack jobs.

4) Existing cars can actually be retrofitted to use CNG, albeit a bit pricey to do so.

5) There is plenty of natural gas in the United States to make us energy independent for years to come.

Barack Obama is right about one thing. America needs to move to alternative energy that is replaceable as the supply of oil and natural gas is not infinite. But CNG provides an immediate alternative while America searches for the renewable energy source.

In my humble opinion, I think electric cars will serve some purpose in our transportation future, but the battery brick wall is a tough one to get around, and disposal of those batteries, and the availability of the trace elements used to make them (they are in the mountains of Afghanistan) are a problem. The future will be in algae growth and waste conversion, and my choice hydrogen propelled cars (the technology is there and the by-product is water).

But compressed natural gas can be the bridge to the future while science and our government work to find a practical solution…and they are close to do doing so. In a speech last week, Obama seems to have seen the light and announced new government initiatives aimed at the development of compressed natural gas. It was a good speech. But his track record with promises surrounding fossil fuels is abysmal and I put very little faith in his promises when it comes to oil and gas.

On the other hand, the free market knows cheap fuel when it sees it, and it just may develop on its own…the way all things worthwhile in America happen.

1930's Redux

More and more those under the age of 30 are joined at the hip to their computers, their smart phones and their pads. It is chronic. Social skills are rapidly declining. More important, a phony sense of life is replacing reality. Folks are living in an alternative universe, an ersatz reality, a cyber life. It is clouding clear thinking, if there is any thinking taking place at all.

The answers to the difficult questions of life are not found in a computer. I am afraid there is a time coming very shortly in which some of us are going to learn some hard lessons. Rapid communication is a good thing. The wealth of information available to all of us is a good thing. But it cannot replace reality and the hard truths that come with. Life’s problems cannot and will not be solved by looking them up on Wikipedia.

Rick Santorum talked about evil in the world. He was poo-pooed. But he was right. There is evil in the world. Hitler was evil. Stalin was evil. Pol Pot was evil. And right now, there is a strain of Islam that is evil as is practiced at its worst in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iran. It is an evil philosophy implemented by evil men. And they are not going to go away. There is absolutely no moral justification for these people's actions in any way, shape or form.

We are going to have to face these folks sooner or later. I feel like I am living in Berlin in the 1930’s. Europe partied hardy while civilization was collapsing around them. The oceans won’t protect our homeland this time. Look what they did on 9-11 with 11 men and some box cutters. Imagine what they can do with an atomic bomb in a shipping container or a missile fired from Venezuela. A cyber attack will literally bring this nation to a standstill and throw us back to the stone age. 

This country needs to get its collective face out of the electronic gizmos and take a hard look at the reality that faces us. ½ of working Americans pay no taxes; 1 out of every 5 Americans is on food stamps; real unemployment is at 15%; the President of the United States is about to propose dismantling unilaterally 80% of the nuclear arsenal that has kept relative peace since World War II; oil prices are surging; the very existence of Israel is at stake; the national debt is reaching unsustainable levels in the trillions of trillions of dollars. And Obama is jamming the blues singing Sweet Home Chicago in the White House while the rest of America is mesmerized by all sorts of electronic gadgets and gizmos.

We need to wake up out of our electronic and digital fantasy world before it is too late. We need to get our heads out of the sand and at least for a little while take things seriously. No American can assume that he/she is safe from the evil that is in the world, or that it will simply go away by burying his/her head in an I-Pad. It doesn’t work that way.

Unless we do that, we will be in for a rude awakening when the juice is turned off, and won't we be surprised.  Life is a Cabaret, dear friend.  Come to the Cabaret.  

School lunches...Mind your own G-- D-- Business

It’s time to say enough is enough. Do we live in Nazi Germany? Do we live in Communist China? Do we live in Soviet Russia? Have we reached the point where we are actually paying a public employee to inspect home packed lunches in our schools? My God, is this what we have come to?

People make fun of me because of my political activity. Freedom is precious, and our freedom is being overwhelmed by a tsunami of do-gooder government regulations that have taken over our lives. We are watched everywhere we go. The government wants to know everything about you. It wants to know what you spend, where you go and what you do. They even want to send drones up into our skies to monitor you. Do you really want unmanned airplanes monitoring you?

Case in point is the four year old little girl in Fayetteville, North Carolina, who had her home packed lunch inspected by the government food police in school. It consisted of a turkey sandwich with cheese, a banana, potato chips and juice. The food police inspector decided the little girl didn’t have a vegetable, and ordered her a school lunch consisting of chicken nuggets telling the poor little girl that the lunch Mom packed was insufficient!!!  This is through a program run by North Carolina and funded by Obama's stimulus money....I mean your stimulous money.  Yoru tax dollars at work.

What is disturbing is the much of the initial debate surrounding this outrage of government monitoring every breath you take was initially centered on the contents of the lunch. Really? The outrage is that it happened at all. We, the taxpayers of the United States, at least the ½ of workers that actually pay taxes, are paying for that?

This comes on the back of the story last year about the school in Texas who videotaped what each student put on their tray in the cafeteria…and the school in California that determined so much of the “good” food was thrown in the trash or not taken at all, the school couldn’t afford to buy it anymore and went back to normal type menus.

I can’t think of one person who probably doesn’t think they know better what is for you than you do. But when this whack jobs get into government, they become dangerous. This is not a laughing matter. The American public looks at this, shrugs, and follows this nut jobs down the path to totalitarianism…step by step by step.

Folks, in the land of the so called free and home of the wusses, the government is telling you what you can put in your mouth.   Is this what our forefathers died for? How much do we have to take? How much do we have to pay for? To all of the sanctimonious busy bodies in at all levels of government…keep your freakin’ nose out of my bedroom, out of my bathroom, out of my light sockets, out of my car, out of my cigarettes, and above all, keep the hell out of my kid’s lunch box. Mind your own God damn business.

Only when all of America is ready to say what I just said will the gestapo in Washington take notice, and leave us all alone to enjoy life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness as intended by our forefathers...not life as envisioned by nanny Obama.  

Celebrities Self Destructing

The death of Whitney Houston is a tragedy. She was an outstanding talent and part of the soundtrack of our lives. Unfortunately, she is another in a long line of celebrities who practiced self destructive behavior which was condoned by their entourage and tolerated by the public. I want to feel sorry when something like this happens, but the addiction to drugs and booze by one of the most talented persons in America makes me shake my head and wonder what's going on.

Self destructive celebrities are nothing new to our culture. The earliest one I remember is Marilyn Monroe, although there are those who still say something was askew in Camelot with that one. Her contemporary Montgomery Clift didn’t fare much better. But things go back even further to W.C. Fields who drank his liver into oblivion. And then there was Judy Garland…who passed her talent onto her daughter Liza Minnelli who also has had her problems with various addictions. Dorothy Dandridge, Lenny Bruce, Elvis Presley, John Belushi, Heath Ledger, River Phoenix, Brad Renfro, Nick Adams, Chris Farley, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Amy Winehouse, and Michael Jackson are just a few on the list of self destructive celebrities whose talent was wasted on booze and drugs.

I am saddened by the loss of talent. But my sympathy for these types of folks is non-existent. These are folks who were blessed with an unending gift in which they could be fulfilled in their work and also reap unimaginable financial benefits. These aren’t folks struggling in poverty…a single mother with two or three kids working twelve hours a day trying to make a living. These folks were part of the 1%, those rich folks who put all the little folks down. And yet their addictions were tolerated, and often praised and sometimes, tragically, emulated.

How horrible could their lives have been? Michael Jackson was addicted to the point where he needed a general anesthetic to sleep. What was so awful in his life? Whitney Houston was one of the top, if not THE top selling recording artist of the past few decades selling millions upon millions of albums and starring in successful movies. Why should I feel sorry for her? What problems could she possibly have had that she had to bury herself in booze and drugs?

Maybe it’s time for America to start telling the truth about these folks. Celebrity mourning has been raised to an art form. While its certainly acceptable to mourn the lost talent, maybe America should pay more attention to the wasted talent. We need to stop glamorizing bad behavior. We need to look at these folks who have made tens of millions of dollars if not more, and say drug and booze addiction is not acceptable.

At my age I know more people than I care to admit that have passed to a better life. These are hard working folks, who raised families, who suffered financial reverses, who had to deal with nitty-gritty of daily life and struggle through day to day. These were family people who raised families on limited incomes and hard work. These are the true heroes. These are the people whose lives should be celebrated. There was no red carpet for them when they were trying to get through life, and there was no red carpet for them when they died. And most of them died clean and sober.

I certainly will miss Whitney Houston’s magnificent voice, and I will continue to listen to her music. The Preacher’s Wife is one of my favorite holiday movies. But as for watching celebrities mourn another  privileged member of the club who self destructed because they couldn’t handle whatever…I think I will pass. I know too many people with real problems.

Hurrah for Penney's!!!!

Have you ever opened up your mailbox only to have a plethora of coupons and papers and circulars and more coupons and more circulars, all touting BIG SALE 50% off, fall all over the street or the driveway or your front porch? It pisses me off. There I stand in the middle of the street in my business suit, my car running, and my butt sticking up in the air picking up all of this stuff that I neither requested nor wanted. Geez oh man, how many sales do they run? Macy’s is just one big sale, after sale, after sale. Come closer and I will show you where you can put that star.

Grocery stores are worse still. I HATE coupons!!! My wife and I both work full time, and have neither the inclination nor the time to sit around and figure out how to save 10 cents off a bottle of Prell. Do I really need a coupon to buy peanut butter?

And then there are those freakin’ loyalty cards. I had to have special pants made to carry all those cards in my wallet. All I want is a loaf of bread…where is your Giant Eagle card? All I want is a birthday card…where is your Hallmark card? All I want is some deodorant…where is your Walgreens card? All I want is a cup of coffee…where is your Dunkin Donuts card? All I want is some ink for my printer…where is your Staples card, and would you like to buy a package of paper for $5.00? NOOOOOO!!!!!!

But there is hope. A major retailer has seen the light, and in all seriousness, I wish them the best in the world and hope they make a killing. Penney’s has figured it out. It’s better to offer the merchandise at the lowest price they are able to sell it all of the time, than raise the price up 50% only to mark it down 20%, then 20% again, and spend a whole lot of money on advertising saying that you dropped the over inflated price.

Penney’s announced last week that it is lowering all of its store prices by at least 40% on a permanent basis. It will run very specific specials on regular days of the week, but the days of massive and continual sales are over. This makes sense to me, and actually is a sales technique used by Walmart.

Penney’s is revamping its “A” stores to make them more shopper friendly. It sent out a boffo catalogue last week that impressed the hell out of me. Classy and simple. The marketing strategy is being run by the same gentleman who ran the Apple retail stores, and he is using that template for Penney’s.

It works. I needed several pairs of shoes badly. Because I have a wide foot, I have to order my shoes on line (or as we said in the old days…by catalogue). I have been using Zappo’s, the online shoe retailer recently purchased by Amazon. Zappo’s used to offer fairly decent prices, but as of late not so much. The two pairs of Florsheim shoes I wanted were $145.00 through Zappo’s. I tried Reyer’s, and on line they were $105.00.

Then I thought about Penney’s. The website was a little slow because it was the first day after it announced its new pricing policy and it was “backed up.” But eventually I got through, and the shoes were $75.00/pair . Hurrah for me. Hurrah for the consumer. Hurrah for Penney's. It was like getting a two-fer, so I bought four pairs. And in my size!!!!!

I wish this is something that all stores would follow, especially grocery and drug stores. I am not so sure how long Penney’s will be able to hang in there with this sort of pricing policy at a store that is traditionally not a discount store. But I suspect that the bottom line of the store is going to jump. After the shoe experience, Penney’s will be the first place I look for staple clothing like shoes and Dockers and plain white shirts.

And I don’t need a loyalty card!!!!!!

Friday Night With Tony Bennett

Tony Bennett and Queen Latifah - Who Can I Turn To?

Tonight is the end of a bad Friday ending a really bad week. Outside it’s cold and windy, drizzly, usual northeast Ohio weather!!! A cold that I got over last week liked me so much it has decided to visit me again. My nose is running like sieve. What’s a body to do? Television is filled with more Republican debates and discussion and pundits yakking away on the same stuff they were talking about this morning, yesterday, last week…enough already. And television just plain sucks. People actually get paid to write this stuff! I must have picked the wrong profession.

So it was with a degree of trepidation that I sat in my chair dressed in my pajamas and robe, wrapped in my throw blanket with an angel stitched into the fabric to watch over me, and channel surfed hoping against hope to find something worth watching. I struck gold tonight.

PBS aired a ninety minute Great Performances program of Tony Bennett’s Duet II album. It featured all of the cuts from the album with a diverse range of partners from Lady Gaga to John Mayer to Amy Winehouse to Michael Buble and Josh Grobin to name a few. These weren’t ersatz duets recorded separately in different studios and mixed into a sellable product at the local electronic mixer store. These duets were recorded live and together, with the majority of them including all of the instrumentalists in the studio.

I am not a music critic. I don’t have any special talent that makes my opinion worth much more than anyone else’s. I just know what I like. And this was perfection. I sat in awe watching these talented people, one after another, open the American song book and hit each of the songs out of the park. It is a classic.

While others my age were doing the hippie freakie thing in 1968, my musical taste drifted towards Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Mel Torme, Steve and Edie Gorme, Dave Brubeck, Henry Mancini,and bossa novas by Antonio Carlos Jobim and Brazil 66. These performers had class. They represented a way of life that I always hoped for but never attained…maybe because it never really existed.

At the top of my list was Tony Bennett. He was then, and is now at the age of 85, the best of the best.  On my first trip to New York by myself when I was 18 I snuck into the back of the Empire Room at the Waldorf Astoria where he was performing.  I was in awe.   Many, many, MANY years later he came to Youngstown and I was fortunate enough to see him again. Still the best around.   And today, his voice is as clear and strong as it has ever been. His phrasing is impeccable. His tones are sustained and he can hit the high notes better now than he could 40 years ago.

I never could figure out what it is about him that I like. In an interview in tonight’s program, John Mayer spelled it out. Mayer said that his voice makes you feel safe. That’s it exactly. You can turn him on and let his voice wrap around you and you feel that everything is okay. I can’t think of one other singer that can do that.

From time to time I have written about finding the perfect chord and how it elevates you to a high. It doesn’t just have to be a chord. It can be an entire musical experience. I read some of the critical comments about Duets II. Well…everybody has their opinion. But for me, it doesn’t get any better than this. One song after another wraps you up and keeps you safe. Tony Bennett brings out the best in his partners. You can feel the chemistry.

The song choices are terrific. You can cry at the loss of a great talent with Amy Winehouse’s Body and Soul. You can pull out the Jack Daniels with John Mayer’s One for My Baby. Josh Grobin’s This is All I Ask is a stunner. Gaga shows she is a musician on par with Ella Fitzgerald as she camps it up with The Lady is Tramp. Michael Buble doesn’t have to worry about Don't Get Around Much Any More. He gets around just fine.

And through each of these songs, Tony Bennett shows his apparently ageless ability to match his vocal partner, and show that his talent knows no bounds. I can close my eyes and I am back at the Waldorf, standing in the back of the Empire Room watching an irreplaceable talent.

There’s nothing better than Friday night with Tony Bennett, unless I didn't have a cold!!! . And let the music play as long as there’s a song to sing. And I will be younger than spring.

Happy Birthday To Me!!!!!

Sunday was my birthday. Normally I am NOT a birthday person. I find them a tad more retrospective than I can tolerate. Let’s start with the ten pounds I gained since my last birthday. Don’t even talk about surprise parties. My wife threw me a surprise 40th birthday party, and I thought the house was being robbed. All I saw was this round thing pointed out the front door of my house right at me in the dark. Turned out to be a camera!! I thought it was gun. Took three years off my life!

My friend has the opposite attitude. He loves birthdays, especially his own. He says he looks good for his age, feels better than most his age, and there are several his age who no longer have to worry about birthdays, if you get my drift. I envy his attitude.

Notwithstanding, this year is different. This year is a landmark birthday. I turned 62. I can retire!!! So this is what retirement age feels like! And don’t forget all the additional senior discounts that come with the territory. Get me the senior special!!! 20% off at Perkins on Tuesday nights ain’t too shabby!

But you know what? I don’t feel like I am 62. I look in the mirror and say to myself I don’t look like someone who can retire. I know how my uncles looked when they retired. They looked OLD. I don’t look old. Well…maybe my hair is a little…a lot….thinner. And maybe it’s a little grayer…a lot grayer. My belly is – my belly is – well….it could be a lot worse than it actually is. That extender on my pants helps a bit. And I jump out of bed every morning, after I sit on the edge of the bed for ten minutes trying to get the kinks out of my back and some feeling back into my feet, which aren't too swollen…well, my left foot is swollen more than my right, except if I eat salty food and they both swell up, not as bad as mother’s. Maybe close!!! I should buy bigger shoes.

Seriously, this is the first birthday in a long time that I haven’t felt a little funky. In fact, it is just the opposite. I am elated. This is the first time I have been able to look at my life and say I made it. I survived. Each of us reaches that realization at some time. This is mine. Each of our journeys is different. Each of our advantages is different. Each of our crosses is different. Everyone has both. It’s just a matter of the mix.

In my case, the financial and educational advantages given to me were counterbalanced by serious issues in my household growing up that were hidden deep beneath the surface. In this day and age, those issues would not have been allowed to exist, but it was a different time back then. Coming to terms with those issues has been my struggle. But I survived! And God has compensated me many times over for those difficulties. Like I said…it’s all in the mix.

I remember a sermon given by my minister a few years ago. He said to look to the left of you, then look to the right of you, then look around the entire church. Find one person with whom you would want to trade places. It’s funny. Whatever the mix in life each of us had sitting in that church that Sunday morning, not one of us would trade places with another.

This birthday it's time celebrate the triumphs in life. My beautiful wife and great son and I have persevered and succeeded together. Now it's time to bury the past, celebrate the present, and look forward to an exciting future.

Of course, just because I can retire doesn’t mean I will. I am just beginning my life fresh doing things that will hopefully keep me young for years to come, expanding belly and graying hair notwithstanding!! Everyone knows that lawyers never retire. We are like a fungus. With a little ointment you can keep us in check, but we never go away!

So go have a piece of birthday cake on me, or at least a Hostess cupcake before they go out of business.

Happy Birthday to me!!!!