SeniorJunior

Here's another brazen suggestion for what Prez Obama might say to the Joint Session of Congress next Tuesday. (I've played this game before. See this .) The Fearless Usually Win When things are scary, it’s time to be rational. Be cool. Keep your head while all about you are losing theirs. Be a leader and show the frightened how not to lose their heads. It’s time for all of us to be leaders. The rational, cool thing for Americans to do in this economic situation is to make spending decisions without fear. For instance, if you need a new machine at your small business for productivity or safety reasons, and you have thought it through carefully, don’t let fear keep you from making the right decision. Or if you think some work on landscaping your house will improve its value in the long run and your personal satisfaction in the short run, don’t let fear lock up your thinking. The “fear” influence on decision-making might cause you to just reject a produ...

UnderGrounding So how much did that Kentucky ice storm cost? Millions of people without power, plus of course, their factories, shops, offices, banks, government installations, plus the call-up of the whole Kentucky National Guard... on and on, the costs skyrocketed. Main problem? Power lines. Wires on top of poles, the way we have distributed electricity since the first days of the telegraph set the standard. Power line wires run by and through trees. They not only collect unsupportable ice weight during bad ice storms, but the trees around them are worse, crashing down on millions of lines. So here we are at the crucial crossroads of a decaying infrastructure that can't function through a normal weather phenomenon (what? a "fifty year storm?"), and an economic meltdown that demands government spending to replace all the missing consumer spending. Simple idea: Let's start turning overhead power lines into underground power lines. Then bring on the storms, the j...