Weekly Comments Archive
Archived Issue
Sunday, November 23, 2014
ISSUE #814
We’re dealing. But is it good for us or the world?

Are China and Iran thankful?

Iran and China are in a race to see who can make the best deal with us. You can talk all you want about a Black Friday sale where you get a wide-screen TV for a dollar, but China signed a deal where we will cut carbon emissions by 25 percent by 2025. And what will they give in return? Nothing until 2030. And until 2030 they are free to keep increasing their carbon output to cancel our cuts.

If you want a hint on what it costs to greatly reduce pollution, look at what they did in Beijing when president Obama and other world leaders were there for a conference. China wanted those leaders, and all the TV cameras, to see sunshine and clear skies instead of thick smog. So here is how they did it: they shut down half of their manufacturing plants and told car owners to keep ‘em parked every other day. Of course, nothing that drastic will be needed to meet our part of the agreement, but still…  Well, there is one good angle from this China agreement; we can sell more coal to China to generate their electricity to offset the loss of coal burned here.

Iran was looking over our shoulder on the China confab and figuring out what kind of a deal they can get on their nuclear bomb. They don’t have a bomb yet, but it’s kinda like a new Ford with the spark plugs missing. They promise to keep the spark plugs on a shelf if we remove all economic sanctions. Israel says we should take away their spark plugs and all four tires, then destroy the Ford.

You’ve probably heard of “Net Neutrality.”  I ain’t sure myself what it is, but it has something to do with the internet and how it’s paid for. I think the debate is whether a person who spends all day watching movies sent live over the internet should pay more than someone who only uses it to check email twice a day. I don’t know the answer, but it will give you something besides football to argue about when the family gets together for Thanksgiving.

Historic quotes by Will Rogers:

       “Thanksgiving Day. In the days of our founders they were willing to give thanks for mighty little, for mighty little was all they expected. But now neither government or nature can give enough but what we think it’s too little. Those old boys in the fall of the year, if they could gather in a few pumpkins, potatoes and some corn for the winter, they was in a thanking mood. But if we can’t gather in a new Buick, a new radio, a tuxedo and some government relief, why we feel like the world is agin us.”  DT #2594, Nov. 28, 1934

       “Didn’t we pass an immigration law to keep people out of our country? Well that was all right. It was a good law. It’s our country and we got a right to say who shall come in.” WA #223, March 20, 1927

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