Open Borders = Problem

I read this article and one thing jumped out at me. See if it does for you. CNN is describing a major problem in Russia with women and girls being forced into prostitution. Not Russian women, either.

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN) — Young women in bright miniskirts and high heels line up to sell themselves in the dingy back streets throughout the Russian capital. Moscow's illegal flesh markets are flourishing, with up to 30 women at each pickup point, or tochka, standing in order of price for the night.

Customers light up the lines with their car headlights and are asked to pay between $100 and $700 for a woman.

Aid workers for groups fighting for women's rights say Moscow is witnessing a surge in prostitution, including forced prostitution, as a result of Russia's booming economy.

They say thousands of young women are made to work as sex slaves on the city's streets, unable to escape from the ruthless and violent criminal gangs who traffic them….

…..Russian police acknowledge that human trafficking for sexual exploitation is a major problem, saying they do what they can to fight it by raiding brothels suspected of forced prostitution and arresting gang members who run them. But the problem, they say, lies elsewhere.

"First of all, we have virtually open borders, and badly controlled migration flows from nearby countries," said Alexander Krasnov of Russia's Interior Ministry Police.

Think about that for a moment.

Cold, Wet Summer

The Daily Mail is cheerfully explaining why Britons are now going to suffer devastating personal damage due to the cold, wet, dreary summer the country is experiencing.

'A large proportion of us will be suffering from general weather blues and will feel resentful and frustrated. Unless conditions improve or we have an Indian Summer later this autumn, more and more people are going to feel generally down.

'Depression is brought about when we feel we cannot control a situation and that is exactly the situation here  -  unless we go on holiday there is nothing we can do.

'In addition it is fair to say that people will not have ventured outside very much this summer so they will only have been exposed to artificial light which does not provide the same chemical reactions as sunlight. It's very important that we all put on their sou'westers and head out into the rain just to get a small amount of natural light.'

Alison Kelly, spokesman for the mental health charity Mind, said: 'We have recently carried out research that showed there was a direct link between people feeling good about themselves and how much exercise they undertake outside in the sunlight.

'If conditions prevent them from doing this then it is fair to say that more people will be feeling gloomy.

People have had hardly any opportunity to go outside and enjoy barbecues and socialise outdoors so they have been inclined to stay inside and this will reduce their mood.'

The projected high temperatures this week? Less than 70 degrees Fahrenheit.

Canute Get There From Here

Andrew Revkin at the New York Times Dot Earth blog does his best to annotate Al Gore's latest climate hysteria. From the perspective of an engineer who has worked in the utility area, I think Revkin misses an important point. Simply put, Gore has no clue - whatsoever - what he is talking about. None. Take this quote:

To be sure, reaching the goal of 100 percent renewable and truly clean electricity within 10 years will require us to overcome many obstacles. At present, for example, we do not have a unified national grid that is sufficiently advanced to link the areas where the sun shines and the wind blows to the cities in the East and the West that need the electricity.

The fact is, we do have an interconnected grid - or nothing would be working the way it does. The other fact is that the laws of physics dictate how line losses work. It is not possible to transmit power from "where the sun shines and the wind blows" to anywhere all that distant from those places. This has to do with the pure physical constraints of how electricity is produced and transmitted. All those overhead transmission lines have real - and absolute - physical constraints on them. Al Gore cannot wave his magic wand and remove those constraints.

When Gore can pull off what King Canute could not and repeal the laws of physics that govern how things work in the real world, I'll listen to him.

I rahter doubt I'll ever have to.

Mementos

On my pilgrimage to Gettysburg, I did manage to procure a couple of mementos of the trip. One thing I brought back was a replica of a Confederate cavalry saber. My youngest boy had already prevailed upon me for a replica of a Union cavalry saber, so I thought I'd get something different than he had. The other thing I got was an intact, unfired round from a Spencer carbine, dug by a memorabilia hunter in an area north of Gettysburg. The .56-56 rimfire round is not a dud, just unfired. I hope whoever dropped it did not need it later.

Party Animal

A British businessman who installed a swimming pool for his family got a bit of a surprise when the first swimmer turned out to be an escaped bull.

The dramatic pool-party took place on Friday. Work had just been completed on the luxury outdoor heated swimming pool Mr Stewart had ordered for his home.

Workmen had spent the day pumping in ten thousand gallons of water and Mr Stewart's guests started to arrive in the late afternoon for the inaugural swim.

However celebrations took a surprise turn when a two-year-old bull from a neighbouring farm jumped a fence and escaped from his pasture.

The young animal, whose full show-name is Broombrae Tramp, was apparently intent on making closer acquaintance with a herd of cows in another field.

But when his owner, farmer Alexander Jack, gave chase, the bull changed course and instead crashed into Mr Stewart's garden.

The bull then executed a bovine version of a swan dive directly into Mr. Stewart's pool. You realize that the bull was attempting to impress the women attending the pool party, don't you? Talk about beefcake.

Hallowed Ground

I rousted the family out early, ignoring their grumbling. The weather report promised highs in the upper 80s, but without too much humidity. Still, I thought it would be good to arrive early and beat both the crowds and the heat. So I prodded them along, fed them breakfast and arrived at the new Gettysburg Visitor Center shortly after it opened at 8am.

We had heard that hiring on of the tour guides available at the center was well worth the money. So, we made arrangements to book one. This turned out to be a good move, since he knew his way around the battlefield and its history. Even better, he drove so we were all free to look around.

We set out to tour the site in chronological order, starting with the stand by Buford’s cavalry northwest of the town of Gettysburg that precipitated the general battle that followed.

We traveled south along an access road and saw where Longstreet’s Corps had massed for the attacks of the second day. These are the North Carolina and Virginia markers.

We saw the Peach Orchard, all replanted recently with new trees. 

We saw the Wheat Field. Then we reached Plum Run and the Devil’s Den. Tourists scrambled over the boulders where men once fought and died. Up and into the woods to where the far left flank of Meade’s fishhook was anchored on Little Round Top by a few men from Maine.

We saw the spot where the 20th Maine stood, fought and finally charged into the men from the 15th Alabama, driving them back and holding the flank. On up the hill we saw where the 140th New York, from Rochester, New York plugged the hole when the Confederates breeched the lines. Their colonel, Patrick O’Rourke fell there, leading his men from the front.

We stood on the rocky little hill and saw the vast battlefield spread out all around us. The Devil’s Den was taken by the Confederates, but the little hill remained the anchor for Meade’s line.

Onward then to the place that marked the high water mark of the Confederacy on Cemetery Ridge. We stood on the spot where the few men from Pickett’s charge that survived the bloody advance across almost a mile of naked ground briefly broke the Union line.

Pickett’s men and the reserves Lee was able to muster charged into the artillery hell and rifle crossfire that the Union had waiting for them. It is a wonder any of them made it to the top of the hill. More than half of the 12,000 who made that advance did not return from it.

I would like to go back when I can spend more time.

Long Drive

We covered 2,867 miles on our trip and finished a final 22 hour drive just after 7am this morning. A couple of hours of sleep has done little to erase the sheer fatigue of a very long drive. I have pictures from Gettysburg but currently lack the energy to edit them. Hopefully, I will be a bit more energetic as the day progresses.

Pilgrimage

Despite growing up mostly in Rochester, New York only a fairly short trip from it, I had never visited Gettysburg. Well, that has been corrected now. I am writing this from a hotel right in the center of the town of Gettysburg. We rolled in here at around 4pm and have not had a chance to see much yet. My wife and I strolled a bit through the town and we've taken the kids to dinner. They just went out to take a "Ghost Tour" of the city, something I have no interest in whatsoever. Tomorrow, I plan to visit the places I have only read about. But places I know well from the words of others. The Peach Orchard. The Wheat Field. Devil's Den. Culp's Hill.

Little Round Top.

I'll have pictures.

Seeing Red Over “Green” Taxes

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown is about to get raked over the coals in parliament over his latest greenmail scheme. The proposed "green" change to road taxes will subject a huge number of Britons to a massive tax increase - retroactively - for driving cars with larger engines. British MPs are furious.

The Treasury admitted on Wednesday that almost half of all drivers will be hit with significant rises in Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) on cars with larger engines.
 
Less than 20 per cent will be better off because of tax cuts on cars with lower emissions.

But only last month in the House of Commons, the Prime Minister told David Cameron, the Tory leader, that if he looked at the VED plan, "he will see that the majority of drivers will benefit from it."

George Osborne, the Tory shadow chancellor, has said that Mr Brown "misled" parliament, and called on the Prime Minister to explain his remark…..

….The plans - against which The Daily Telegraph has campaigned - are especially controversial because they are effectively back-dated, applying to cars that are already on the road.

Treasury figures slipped out in a parliamentary answer show that of the 21.9 million cars that will be on British roads by 2010/11, 43 per cent - or 9.4 million - will pay higher VED in real terms than they do now.

Another 39 per cent - 8.4 million - will be left no better off. Just 18 per cent - 4.1 million - will actually benefit.

Of the 9.4 million who will be worse off, 1.18 million motorists will be dragged into the highest two tax bands, where the annual cost is upwards of £400.

How bad is it? Well, even Greenpeace is saying the scheme gives "green" taxes a bad name. Just a quick prediction here. The scheme will get changed before it take effect and Gordon Brown will be gainfully unemployed when he next faces the voters.

Visitors

While we were in Canada, we returned to our hotel room one evening to find a family of raccoons waiting outside our door. This is in the middle of Niagara Falls right on Clifton Hill, mind you. I think they're stalking me.

Drunk On Disappointment

Or looking at the world through morose-colored glasses. Monica Hesse, writing at The Washington Post, examines the results of a new Pew study into the outlooks of Americans of various generations. The result?

Baby Boomers whine. A lot.

The baby boomers — that prominent group of middle-agers whose massive numbers invite never-ending dissection and speculation — have once again spoken. What they have said is, " Waaaaaahhh."

This is according to a social and demographic trends survey released recently by the Pew Research Center. The survey measured the pessimism, dissatisfaction and general curmudgeonliness of 2,413 adults in various generations.

The results validate any member of the Greatest Generation who ever looked at his or her offspring and sadly thought, "soft." Simply put, boomers are a bunch of . . . whiners.

More than older or younger generations, boomers — born from 1946 to 1964 — worry that their income won't keep up with rising costs of living. They say it's harder to get ahead today than it was 10 years ago. They are more likely to say that their standard of living is lower than their folks' but that things don't look too good for their kids either (67 percent of younger generations, meanwhile, feel they have it better than their parents).

Everything stinks, except for the things that stink even more, and it's not exactly clear why, considering that this is the population with the highest median income. Boomers also have fewer difficulties affording housing or medical care, the survey says, and they enjoyed greater job security last year than older or younger generations.

There are some very interesting points made in the article. Funny points, in many cases.

Personally, I took my kids through the old neighborhood I grew up in yesterday. It was an eye-opener for them. The streets were a little meaner than when I lived in that area and I'm sure it is more dangerous since there are gang problems these days that didn't really exist back when I was growing up. But the same hopelessness of a poor, crime-ridden neighborhood was there. The same dirty streets, the same rundown houses. My kids were stunned at where I had once lived. And I didn't show them the really bad places.

Maybe coming from that background saved me from the angst of the boomer generation. My mother raised five kids alone on a secretary's salary. We lived hand-to-mouth at best and we lived in very poor neighborhoods. But three of us managed to work our way through college. My youngest brother has a highly-skilled (and highly paid) job repairing boat engines. We worked our way out of poverty.

It's probably best that Pew didn't interview me. I would have been an outlier. I'd rather not spend my whole life drunk on disappointment like too many of my generation.

Pix

Brown Bess demonstration (A .75 caliber musket.) Fort George, Ontario

American Falls and Bridal Veil Falls from The Maid of the Mist, Niagara Falls, Ontario

Under the Horseshoe Falls, Niagara Falls, Ontario

The Whirlpool (MUCH more impressive when in a small boat inside it!) Niagara Falls, Ontario

Traction, Part Two

The Democrats have a real problem. Prior to the holiday recess, they announced how super-confident they were that they had the Republicans in a political corner with their enlightened energy policies. Except they have withdrawn all their big bills from consideration - because the people, bless their hearts - want DOMESTIC solutions that don't count on windy promises.

House Democrats are in a bind on the focal point of their energy plan.

Worried that a floor vote on any energy-related measure would trigger a Republican-forced vote on domestic drilling, the leadership has scrubbed the floor schedule of the energy legislation that it vowed to tackle after the Fourth of July recess.

Just before leaving for their districts, a number of House Democrats called a press conference to declare victory on a number of energy bills — including overwhelming passage of a bill to rein in excessive oil market speculation.

Democrats declared victory on a bill they failed to pass on the suspension calendar — their “use it or lose it bill” to force energy companies to either start drilling on their federally leased land or give it back — saying they had put 176 Republicans on record as siding with the oil companies over consumers.

And they vowed that the bill, the centerpiece of their energy message, would be back.

“We’ve taken some bold steps this week, and we’re going to build on that [after recess] with the bills we take up,” Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman John Larson (Conn.) said at the press conference.

But, as of Monday afternoon, neither “use it or lose it” nor any other energy measure had been scheduled for floor action this week.

Democrats said they were simply taking a different approach to passing their top energy-related priorities.

What is their super-whamadyne strategy? The money quote:

“Right now, our strategy on gas prices is ‘Drive small cars and wait for the wind,’ ” said a Democratic aide.

Larger families - which exist in large numbers - the Democratic strategy leaves out. Those who actually understand the realities of power generation are shaking their heads - trust me on this. Regardless of what your political beliefs are, wind power is available about 30% of the time. Period. Most of the time the wind is either too weak or too strong to produce power.

Politics by wishful thinking is not going to solve the energy problem. Waiting for windy promises is downright stupid. The Democrats are terrified of having to vote an up-or-down "drill now" bill.

Because they would lose.

Are We, As A People, Really This Dumb?

I really hate the "cry baby" portion of America…I really do.  Case in point: 'Zero' chance lottery tickets stun some players

When Scott Hoover bought a $5 scratch-off ticket in Virginia called "Beginner's Luck" last summer, he carefully studied the odds. Even though he figured his chances of winning were a long shot, he felt the odds were reasonable.

Hoover, a business professor at Washington and Lee University in Virginia, wasn't surprised when his tickets didn't bring him the $75,000 grand prize, but he was shocked to learn the top prize had been awarded before he bought the ticket.

"I felt duped into buying these things," Hoover said.

He discovered the Virginia State Lottery was continuing to sell tickets for games in which the top prizes were no longer available. Public records showed that someone had already won the top prize one month before Hoover played. He is now suing the state of Virginia for breach of contract.

The mind boggles. You really have to be an academic to not understand the concept of "scratch off" lottery games.  All you have to do is think about it for 10 seconds to realize even before the top prize has been awarded you can buy tickets that have "no chance."  For example, you may never visit the town the tickets is randomly shipped to, or you may never visit the particular store selling the top prize.  Therefore, all of the tickets you buy have "no chance" to win the top prize.

Somebody with a PhD in Business needs this explained to them?  Really?  (There goes Washington & Lee off the list of schools I'd willingly send my children.)

Of course I'd feel better if the story also contained a regular person style "voice of sanity" perspective.  No such luck.

In New Jersey, tickets for the "$1,000,000 Explosion" scratch-off game were still on sale last week, even though the million-dollar grand prize was already awarded.

Lottery ticket buyers outside a New Jersey convenience store were stunned to hear the news.

"Oh really? I didn't know that," one shopper told CNN. Another added, "That's just not right."

I forget….how many generations of imbeciles was enough?

Vacation

I've posted some of the travel adventures we've been having. Today we head for Upstate New York to visit family. I'll try and post a few more things from there if I can. I am currently sitting in a hotel lobby in Niagara Falls, Ontario using the free WiFi they advertise. Unfortunately, the free WiFi is only available here, not in my room. Hence the bulk posting rather than a few retail ones.