Patriot Day 2010

As Chairman of our local County Republican Party I thought about having some sort of event today being the 9th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11. We looked at the logistics of an event and somewhere during the process of putting an event together I realized that this isn’t necessarily a day that needs to be crowded with special events of commemoration. As one of those days when everything stopped I think it is imperative upon us all to reflect on that tragic day in a manner we each hold dear.

Many folks will reflect on where they were when they heard of what was going on. 9/11 was one of those days when we all remember where we were when we heard the news; like Kennedy’s assassination or the Challenger explosion. We all know exactly where we were and most can remember the feelings we all had. 9/11 was a day when all of our problems, all of our trivialness, all of our disagreements were put aside and a nation came together.

I was midway through a six-moth deployment and as a member of the United States Navy I was once again away from home in Okinawa. As soon as I heard of the first plane, I tuned in and saw the second plane hit. I immediately called home and spoke to my Wife and then my parents. I knew it would not be too long before phone lines were all tied up and I wanted to make sure I spoke with them before the typhoon hit Okinawa (yes, we were in the middle of a typhoon also).

Nine years ago my three oldest children were in elementary school, but they were military brats and understood that Daddy and his buddies were already deployed and would probably have a good shot at being some of the first responders on site to bring some retribution to those who so cowardly struck out at America. I look at them now and the older two are away from home in college while the younger two are at home; one of them born after 9/11. He’ll have to hear about that day from his older siblings.

How time passes so quickly and how so many have seemed to have forgotten that day and everything it means to this country. Today when I watch the events from that day, I can’t help but tear up and reflect upon the feelings and thoughts that still go through my head. Many of us lost friends and family that day and it still breaks my heart to think about it.

So, on this ninth anniversary of this day I will spend it with my family and friends. I will call the kids not here with me and let them know how much I love them. I will visit my Grandmother. I will sit in the stands of a Baylor football game with my children who are home next to my father like I have since I was five years old. And later tonight, when my wife gets home from her job as an ER nurse, I will sit with her and quietly reflect on all our life is and has become. In short, I will do all those things that make life so very special.

To my friends here at home, I wish you all well. To my friends still in the service, stay safe. To my family, you are all precious to me, even if you don’t know that. And to all my family and friends, I love you all.

Take Care and God Bless,
Bill

Just a Little Technical Expertise – Please?

So the President has chosen his select panel to discuss and determine the causes of the BP oil spill; the cause and reforms need to be addressed, studied, and corrected to ensure that this sort of incident is handled correctly in the future. In the past, presidents have chosen panels that sufficiently represented public issues as well as technical issues. In the 80’s there were a sufficient number of technical experts on the panel that reviewed the Challenger explosion, and in the 70’s there were a substantial number of experts with nuclear knowledge that investigated the Three Mile Island incident. Now it is President Obama’s Turn to appoint a panel to investigate the current Gulf Oil Crisis.

As this is dealing with a huge technical, engineering and environmental crisis, it would only be natural to expect a list filled with industry experts, deep-water engineering authorities, as well as environmental specialists. Well, getting one out of the three of these is doing pretty good for this White House. Let’s take a short look at this panel of seven and see what expertise they bring to the table.

Co-Chair William Reilly is first up; he comes to the committee a career bureaucrat serving in many governmental capacities in various Republican administrations such as President George H. W. Bush’s EPA Secretary. He has a law degree from Harvard and is currently on the board of directors of many companies and organizations including DuPont and ConocoPhillips. He has a pedigree and some name recognition, but it appears he has no real world technical expertise on this subject.

Co-Chair Bob Graham is a former congressman from Florida and governor of said state; not only is he a career politician, but he is the son of a career politician also. Like Mr. Reilly he has a law degree from Harvard and sits on the board of many organizations; however, Mr. Graham has also been appointed by congress to serve on the Federal Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission. He must be extremely talented to serve on two such important committees at the same time. But alas, it appears that Mr. Graham has no real world expertise in the offshore oil industry either – Strike Two.

Frances Beinecke is a career environmentalist who has already made her position on this issue painfully obvious via her blogs as President of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). As a graduate of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies and her blogs describing her distain for the “abuse” of energy by Americans, it is difficult to see how Ms. Beinecke can even enter into the discussion in an impartial manner needed to make a clear decision on a matter so delicate to the nation’s future. On the Bright side, she did get to room with Sigourney Weaver in college!

Donald Boesch is currently the head of the University of Maryland’s Center for Environmental Science. Unlike the first three members of this panel, Mr. Boesch was educated in a non-ivy league environment. A Tulane undergrad, Boesch got his PhD at William & Mary concentrating in Biological Oceanography. Dr. Boesch has chaired numerous committees and panels on Climate Change issues – a definite plus in the Obama Administration. If there is a score to be kept so far we would be at 1 bureaucrat, 1 politician, and 2 environmentalists (zero technical expertise, but who’s counting).

Terry Garcia is the fifth member of the panel and the third law school grad (from George Washington University this time – Sorry Ivy League). He is currently the Vice President for Mission Programs at the National Geographic Society. Prior to that, he served in the Clinton Administration as Assistant Secretary of Commerce and as a Deputy Administrator of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Mr. Garcia gives the panel a second bureaucrat and third lawyer, but still no technical or engineering expert.

The sixth Member of the panel is Dr. Cherry Murray. She is the current Dean of the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Science, finally someone with some Engineering knowledge; however, upon a closer look we see that Dr. Cherry is a Physicist who is well known for her scientific accomplishments using light scattering. Now, I am sure Dr. Cherry’s work in light scattering is important and I will not belittle her work. What would be nice though is to know what light scattering has to do with offshore drilling. Dr. Cherry is also currently serving as the President of the American Physical Society and is the Chair of the Division of Engineering and Physical Science of the National Research Council. Just makes a person wonder where Dr. Cherry will find the time to meet all her obligations.

The last Member of the panel, and the individual who makes you wonder the most about her credentials on a panel investigating offshore drilling, is Frances Ulmer. Ulmer holds a law degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and in a former Legislator and Lt. Governor of the state of Alaska. Currently she is the Chancellor of the University of Alaska-Anchorage and is considered an expert in the field of election reform. Chancellor Ulmer did serve on the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission, so that must qualify her somehow to sit on a panel trying to figure out the cause and how to correct the causes of what may be the worst oil-related disaster in history.

These are the seven members of the panel chosen by the President to investigate the cause of and the reforms necessary to ensure that such an accident as the current Gulf Oil Crisis can be avoided in the future. Environmentalists, Lawyers, Bureaucrats, and career politicians; a perfect assembly to head a policy making group to create a propaganda driven global warming strategy, but hardly the group to identify and correct any issue involving a crisis of the sort that currently faces the country. But then again, what else could we expect?

Can’t Wait for the Results,
Bill

Arizona, Nice First Step – But…

Okay, first off let me say that I am a red-headed, freckled, white American. Now, after making that statement let me move on to say that I am not entirely sure the new legislation passed in Arizona should, or will, stand the litmus test of racial profiling, whatever that is.

With all that said, I think it is important to congratulate Arizona for taking a first step. President Obama ran for office and took office with the promise that he would address and get legislation passed that would take care of the illegal immigration issue. Now Arizona has called him on it. Yesterday in a Rose Garden citizenship ceremony for several service members, the President took this opportunity to praise these service members, who met the legal immigration requirements, by berating Arizona for calling his bluff – the Immigration one (not the Guantanamo bluff, or the transparency bluff, or the lobbyist bluff, or … Oh, but I digress).

The President said that the Federal Government (basically…HIM) has failed to act responsibly on the illegal immigration issue, but that does not give individual states the rights to act irresponsibly. Not I’m not an English professor, but aren’t both those irresponsible? Anyway, Arizona is anything but acting irresponsibly. Maybe a little hastily and not very tactfully, but they are taking responsibility for their border with Mexico, even if the Federal Government won’t.

Neighboring New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson said Arizona’s law would cause all sorts of problems with Mexico. AHEM…HELLO, first off, the border region with Mexico really is a crisis situation, probably the only time during the Obama Administration this term should be used that it hasn’t. People are being murdered at alarming rates all along the Mexican border and recently a rancher deep inside Arizona was executed in an across the border raid by Mexican assassins, ASSASSINS!

What else needs to happen to make the call for action more obvious? Well here you go, Arizona has one of the, if not the, highest rates of kidnapping in the WORLD; not America but the world and it’s coming from Mexico. This is no longer about illegal immigrants coming over the border to work and make a better life for themselves; it is now about hardcore organized crime threatening to take over the border region and the Mexican government powerless to do anything about it and the government in Washington being unwilling to do anything about it.

Arizona’s new law, no matter how it is carried out or ruled on by the courts, may not be a solid legal action, but it is an important first step. A first step that had to be taken to get the federal government off their collective rears and force them take notice, take action, and to finally take care of the problem.

Where’s my ID?
Bill