Month: September 2023

Which hot political and economic topics would you like to read about today?

High inflation and the resulting higher mortgage costs and lower house values. President Biden’s growing disapproval ratings. Overwhelmed and overloaded sanctuary cities complaining about illegal immigrants. Republican Congressmen who can’t agree on a budget. The UAW and Hollywood Writers strikes. The United Nations infatuation with climate change. Donald Trump’s plan to skip the second Republican Presidential debate to concentrate on winning 4 trials. How to dress a Senator.

How about “None of the above?”  Yeah!

Instead, how about if I talk about farming innovations and football victories? Yes!

The Farm Science Review, presented annually by Ohio State University was last week.  We had perfect weather which helped attract over 116,000 participants to check out “what’s new” from 700 exhibitors. Demonstrations in the field included innovative futuristic equipment. You know about drones being used in our military. The 5 drones demonstrated here operate like a helicopter and cost about $35,000. They can apply crop protection chemicals and spread cover crop seeds. With mounted cameras, they can spot problems in crops and be used on ranches to check on cattle, determine forage availability and water supply.

You also know about driverless cars. A driverless tractor was programmed to mow an entire field after the boundary was established and any obstacles, such as trees or electric poles, were mapped. The autonomous tractor can also pull a tillage implement or a planter.

An autonomous irrigation machine was demonstrated in corn. The 3-wheeled, high clearance machine can run (very sloowwwlly) through tall corn, with no damage to the crop. It irrigates with water or liquid manure, covering 32 rows (80 feet) per pass. Dairy or swine manure adds nitrogen to increase corn yield.

New combines harvested corn and soybeans. One combine header for soybeans was 62 feet wide (30 feet is common today).

The goal, whether it’s with new machinery, improved seed genetics, plant protection chemicals, biologicals, or grain handling and processing, is to make farming more efficient and profitable, and keep food a nutritious bargain.

Moving on to football, this was a memorable weekend. For a special birthday gift, our son and daughter took me to a Cleveland Browns game. The weather was perfect and the Browns beat the Tennessee Titans 27-3.

On Saturday night, Ohio State beat Notre Dame in a classic thriller, 17-14. The Buckeyes scored a touchdown, barely reaching the goal line, with one second on the clock. And earlier, my alma mater West Virginia University beat Texas Tech 20-13. The Will Rogers statue on the TTU campus in Lubbock may be “dressed” in black today.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“(a farmer) has to be an optimist or he wouldn’t still be a farmer.” WA #57, Jan. 13, 1924

       “You got to do more than just live in the country to be a Farmer.” WA #196, Sept. 12, 1926

      “Dr. Wilce, the Ohio State coach, just showed me their new stadium, seating 100,000, built by hard study and excellent scholarship. They can seat 200 students to every book in the university.” DT #139, Jan. 14, 1927

      “Poor Knute Rockne [Notre Dame coach]! In his time he has lost games by bad umpiring, illness, failure to kick goal, and every ordinary known method.” DT #1348, Nov. 18, 1930

      “Well, here we are in the famous Notre Dame. You know why these kids can play football?… here you are either studying or catching forward passes. There is a great spirit that makes this such an institution.” DT #2635, Jan.15, 1935

Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced an “inquiry” to see if Republicans can uncover any concrete evidence that President Biden should be impeached. Now in case you’re concerned, an inquiry is as far as this will go. As the president himself responded concerning Impeachment, “Lots of luck.”

The inquiry will verify some connections between Hunter Biden’s accumulation of wealth from China, Russia, and Ukraine.  Does anyone believe he would have been paid over $20,000,000 from 2014 to 2016 if his dad was not Vice-President? We may learn where the money was deposited in bank accounts for nine Biden family members, and why Joe Biden used three fake email names.

But impeachment is off the board because Speaker McCarthy knows that no matter what juicy evidence is verified, the House won’t vote for Impeachment. Clearly, the Democrats in the Senate would never convict President Biden.

The United Auto Workers are on strike. Considering the high inflation, and recent raises for other unions, does anyone doubt the UAW deserves higher wages? But does anyone who plans to buy a vehicle in the next few years want the labor rate to go up 40%? Or for them to work only 4 days a week with 5 days of pay (an additional 20% raise)? Other demands are directly related to the pressure on the manufacturers to push Electric Vehicles.

A main argument favoring the UAW is that Electric Vehicles require a lot less labor to manufacture and many workers will lose their jobs if Democrats in charge achieve their goal of eliminating gas-powered vehicles. This brings up a logical question: if labor costs for an EV are far lower, why is the price $10,000 to $15,000 higher than a gasoline powered car?

This week, Tuesday-Thursday, you can find me and about 120,000 others at Farm Science Review, located near London, Ohio. If you want to see the latest in technology to improve our food production system, you’ll find it here. Equipment will be displayed. Other machines will be harvesting corn and soybeans and tilling the ground. Drones will be flying. And you might even see an Electric-powered farm tractor. Details at: fsr.osu.edu/home.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“In Europe Public men DO resign. But here it’s a lost Art. You have to Impeach ’em.” Life magazine, June 7, 1928

“They will never impeach this baby [Oklahoma Governor Murray]; he’s too slick for ’em.” DT #1413, Feb. 2, 1931

“Lots of times individual strikes when they are just, and conducted along fair lines have won their case, and they should, for manufacturers have associations for their mutual betterment, and there is nothing fairer than workmen having unions for their mutual benefit.” WA #608, Aug. 19, 1934

How much do you know? This is not a quiz. There will be no grade or ranking at the end.

Have you read or heard these statements below? Do you agree or disagree with them, one by one? What was the source? (Answers at the bottom)

1. President Biden has done more to secure the Mexican border than any other President.
2. President Biden has created more than 13 million jobs as President.
3. Our public education system is the best in the world.
4. The only existential threat in the world is climate change. Not nuclear war. Not China.
5. Bidenomics has reduced inflation, increased real wages, and made some medicines more affordable.
6. We’ll build the economy from the middle out and the bottom up and the top one percent will pay for it.
7. Joe Biden has never discussed any foreign business with his son Hunter.
8. Joe Biden has never participated with Hunter in any foreign business.
9. Joe Biden has not received a dime from Hunter’s business dealings.
10. Former President Donald Trump is guilty of insurrection for the January 6, 2021 invasion of the Capitol.
11. Expansion of solar and wind energy systems will make electricity more affordable and dependable and employ everyone laid off from fossil fuel jobs.
12. Hunter Biden and the Biden family collected at least $20,000,000 from foreign entities while Joe was V-P.
13. Over 7 million immigrants have entered illegally since January 2021. They have received free transportation, housing, food, health care and education for youth in border states and sanctuary cities across the country.
14. Plant-based food must replace beef, chicken, and other meat in our diets to solve global warming.
15. On Sept. 11, 2001, Osama bin Laden and other radical Islamic terrorists from Saudi Arabia, a major oil supplier, attacked the USA.
16. Twenty-two years later, on Sept. 11, 2023, President Biden will fly to Alaska to effectively eliminate Alaska as a major oil supplier.
17. On Sept. 12, Alaska will ask Congress for permission to negotiate a return to Russia.
18. The Cleveland Browns expect to win their first Super Bowl this season.

In case you need help with the sources, #1 to #11 are statements made by President Biden or his spokespersons. #12 was testimony to Congress, under oath. #13 is from U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). The remainder are my own observations, or foolish opinions (#17, #18).

Historic Quotes by Will Rogers:

 “A fool that knows he is a fool is one that knows he don’t know all about anything, but the fool that don’t know he is a fool is the one that thinks he knows all about anything. Then he is a dam fool.” DT #325, Aug. 7, 1927

“If you ever injected truth into politics you have no politics.” WA #31, July 15, 1923

Has our climate changed? Yes! If climate hadn’t changed you wouldn’t find seashells on a mountain in Utah. If climate hadn’t changed, we wouldn’t have a hundred million acres of prime farmland south of the Great Lakes (they wouldn’t exist either). If climate hadn’t changed, President Biden couldn’t enjoy the hot sand at Rehoboth Beach because his house would be fifty miles from the coast.

Have you noticed that President Biden won’t comment on any disaster (except gun violence) unless he can blame it on climate change? The wildfire that wiped out most of Lahaina, Hawaii (killing over 100 people), forest fires in the Northwest, and a hurricane in Florida got his attention because he claims they were caused by a change in climate. He is waiting until a speechwriter comes up with a way to blame train derailments on global warming before he visits East Palestine, Ohio.

I’m not saying the President is old enough to remember the Ice Age, but anyone in national politics for fifty years should know that forest fires, hurricanes, floods, droughts, blizzards, and volcanos were a common occurrence long before Henry Ford mass-produced the Model T.

It is widely recognized that the United States contributes only 15% of the global warming gases. Do you really believe if we totally stopped burning fossil fuel, the climate would stop changing? The President’s admonitions about global warming should be directed at China and India. Now, if we want to assist poor countries, let’s help them import liquefied natural gas (LNG) and build pipelines so they can stop cooking and heating with wood, crop residue, and cow dung.

I read in the paper that we have racked up the highest credit card debt in history, over a Trillion dollars. It’s not that we bought more stuff or traveled more than a few years ago, but inflation has caused prices to rise 15 to 25 percent. Pay more, get less; the opposite of prosperity.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

“(Herbert) Hoover, (didn’t) go out to play Golf… Hoover, being a great Red Cross man, he picked up a few Tornadoes and Hurricanes to kinder help fill in his spare time, and now and again a flood to sorter keep his hand in feeding the destitute. The first thing you know he had made himself so valuable at it that it looked like we couldent have a Calamity till he could get there to handle it. A lot of Calamitys that would have happened, we had to hold ’em off just on that account, for the man was booked up.” How To Be Funny, Jan. 19, 1929

      “We’ll show the world we are prosperous if we have to go broke to do it.” DT #413, Nov. 18, 1927

      “(on Prosperity) You will try and show that we are prosperous, because we HAVE MORE. I will show where we are NOT prosperous because we havent PAID for it YET.” Life magazine, August 9, 1928