According to CNN Barack Obama has resigned from his church of the past 20 years thereby distancing himself from one of the most important factors in becoming the big-time Chicago politico that he has. He can't be happy about that. The congregation will not be either.

I can't help but think that for his political carreer to extend beyond the expiration of his senate term he has to win in November because he may not be re-electable as a Senator now.

Given the success of rail projects in West Texas since the completion of the UPRR in the late 1800s, I like to watch for news regarding the latest attempt at North-South Rail in the Basin, specifically the Seagraves-McCamey rail line.

It seems the La Entrada El Pacifico Rural Rail Transportation District and MOTRAN have had the 46-page Economic and Feasibility Study by Cambridge Systematics since late March. The MRT had a quick blurb about the study being presented to the MDC, but details were few and far between.

Recently, the plan was presented to the Seminole EDC, and their reporting was a little more insightful. Where the MOTRAN officials quoted the $3.7 Million per mile figure, the folks in Seminole did the math for the readers:

In total, the estimated price tag presented by Cambridge Systematics, Inc. in the report for the 147.6 mile extension from Seagraves to McCamey would cost $556.2 million to develop.

Now Seminole is mainly interested in the first phase of the project which would extend the line to them from Seagrages for about $44.4 Million. This part may be economically feasible, but the rest?

According to 2003 highway figures produced by Cambridge Systematics, Inc., a line extension south from Seagraves to Seminole or Odessa has the potential to divert 34,067 annual trucks from U.S. Hwy. 385 to rail, which would represent an estimated 6,500 rail carloads annually. The report further stated the segment between Seagraves and Seminole (U.S. Hwy. 385) displayed the highest tonnage in goods--2.8 million tons annually--with 1.5 million of that total figured into the transpiration of non-metallic materials.

Since this is a Ports-Plains enterprise, I did a little checking and a cottonseed rail car from Lubbock to Denver will cost you about $2300 (UPRR Published Rates), while according to truckloadrate.com, trucks are running about $1.90/mile. So at 6,500 rail cars, that's $14.95 million/year and for the one way to Denver (550 miles) is $35.6 million. Now, that may seem like a lot of savings, but you can't charge the entire difference to fund the bonds (you have to make it worth wile), which means of the $20 Million in annual savings, you're looking at maybe 40% or $8.25 Million a year available to fund a $556 million dollar project. Provided trucking prices hold at these high levels. No wonder they aren't talking it up....which reminds me:

This was a publicly financed report and neither TxDOT, La Entrada, MOTRAN, the MDC or any other likely entity have a copy of this report available for download. I guess they are all still working on that communication thing all their high dollar consultants told them about.

The man could bring the funny.

I really wanted it to be good.

Perhaps the Council is just providing the Midland Development Corporation a little more time to get an incentive package together for the developer.

Okay, that was a cheap shot. But not so cheap that I am not going to use it.

But it does cause me to raise the question once again: What is it that the housing "pros" know that the Downtown backers not know? The Blue Ridge Apartments project would add 209 badly needed housing units to the inventory and the developer is pushing hard to build it even in the face of a good deal of resistance on the part of the City Council.

On the other hand, the council is willing to bend over forwards for anyone that is willing to build like units downtown and there are no takers. At least no takers at the current subsidy levels.

Downtown still awaits the game-changer.

Meanwhile, up on the Loop the pros don't consider it a game at all.

To those being subsidized, sure. But what about the rest of us?

Not so much.

From the Las Cruces Sun-News:

A top official of an Roswell aircraft painting shop will pay $300,000 in fines in an illegal immigration case. Carl Baldwin, vice president of Dean Baldwin Painting Inc., pleaded guilty Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Robert Scott in Albuquerque to three misdemeanor counts of knowingly employing and accepting falsified documents from illegal immigrants, U.S. Attorney Gregory Fouratt said.

Baldwin admitted employing illegal immigrants from 2002 to 2005, Fouratt said.

The U.S. attorney said the fine was the largest of its kind ever imposed in an immigration case in New Mexico.

Read the rest here.

Over at Politburo Diktat 2.0:

They don't say 'uppity' any more; now it's 'elitist.'

Some quotes from the non-elitist wife of the non-elitist candidate for Hope and Change. And Change. Oh, and did I mention Hope?:

"I know we're spending -- I added it up for the first time -- we spend between the two kids, on extracurriculars outside the classroom, we're spending about $10,000 a year on piano and dance and sports supplements and so on and so forth," Mrs. Obama tells the women. "And summer programs. That's the other huge cost. Barack is saying, 'Whyyyyyy are we spending that?' And I'm saying, 'Do you know what summer camp costs?'"

"We don't complain because we've got resources because of our education. We've got family structure," she says. "So I tell people don't cry for me."

I'm sorry....but when she is talking to an audience in an area where the median income is $37,000 per year and "feeling their pain" (as it were) and provides as an example of this pain-feeling how hard it is to scrape together $10,000 per year for dance and piano lessons for her daughters (and this doesn't even include summer camp!) then, yeah, she may be opening herself up to the idea that maybe she doesn't "relate" as much as she thinks she does.

Especially when she thinks that anyone in that audience would consider for a minute "crying for her."

Obama groupies can hear in their heads Neil Young's "Southern Man" all they want as they picture us going to the polls down here...but their guy is essentially George McGovern.

A McGovern with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement but without any B-24 missions to his name.

What is there more evidence of? Man-made global warming or that "The Surge" in Iraq is working?

Unfortunately, Jimmy Stewart has been replaced by George Clooney and Frank Capra by Brian de Palma....men "much too fine for nationhood."

Hollywood has gone back to war. And this time, it's appalling. All autumn long, the film industry released movies about America's battle against global jihad. With one exception--the competent actioner The Kingdom--each of these movies distorted an urgent, ongoing historical enterprise through the lens of a filmmaker's unthinking leftism. Redacted, Rendition, In the Valley of Elah, and Lions for Lambs characterize our soldiers and government agents as rapists, madmen, murderers, torturers of the innocent, or simply victims caught up in a venal and bloodthirsty American foreign policy. All this at the very moment when our real-life soldiers and agents are risking, and sometimes losing, their lives fighting the most hateful and cancerous worldview since Nazism.

But I guess that's showbiz.

Needless to say, it wasn't always thus. During World War II, Hollywood stars like James Stewart and directors like Frank Capra enlisted in the military to combat dictators as willingly as Sean Penn and Michael Moore now tootle down to Venezuela and Cuba to embrace them.

The best article on Hollywood's cosmopolitan anti-nationalism yet.

If there is a Hall of Fame for governmental bureaucracies then the Croatian Police have garnered themselves an entire wing for this little episode.

Hedviga Golik, who was born in 1924, had apparently made herself a cup of tea before sitting in her favourite armchair in front of her black and white television.

Croatian police said she was last seen by neighbours in 1966, when she would have been 42 years old.

Her neighbours thought she had moved out of her flat in the capital, Zagreb.

But she was found by police and bailiffs who had broken in to help the authorities establish who owned the flat.

What gets this into the Hall of Fame is that she was reported missing almost immediately back in 1966 and the authorities did not manage to locate her in front of her TV in her flat.

This article from May 9, 2007 concerning the breakdown in communication between the City Council and the Midland Development Corporation still nags at me because it raises at least as many questions as it answers.

Item One: "The Game Changer"

In order for downtown revitalization to work, council members said they need to invest money in the area, but in an appropriate way to make it a "game changer."

"Housing is that game changer," Councilman John James said.

The council agreed condominiums would help address the greater need of housing and the downtown area would be a great place to start.

Is downtown housing really a game changer? Even with oil at $125 per barrel we can't really get people downtown to work in offices. Indeed, space is actually being torn down. Is there really some pent-up demand for downtown housing that will be unleashed with some...you know...creative, game-changing public subisidies? I can see where there might be some demand for housing, period, that would cause many to live downtown until such time as the market can catch up with the overall demand. In a town like Midland, where one end of town is fifteen whole minutes from the other will people actually choose to live in downtown Midland when the supply of more traditional housing catches up? I am guessing that they will not.

Item Two: The "800 Pound Gorilla"

In order to improve communication, James suggested during the meeting the two entities should come together soon to discuss the "800-pound gorilla."

I am still unclear on what the "800 Pound Gorilla" actually is. Is it the recognition that the Council and the MDC may have completely different philosophies regarding how economic development money should be spent? Is it the growing public perception that the whole economic development scheme is an ineffective waste of money at $50/bbl oil, much less $125/bbl oil? Is it the fact that we have an taxpayer-funded entity essentially making investments in single stocks (MDC subsidized companies) and there is no one on the MDC Board or staff who is qualified to do any sort of high level financial analysis? Or are there more than one 800 pound gorillas?

Item Three: Entrada Business Park Building A

In 2004, the MDC embarked on an approximately $1.5 million project to create a business park with a $40,000 [sic] shell of a building that would be ready for a company to move in and begin its operations.

Since its completion last year, the MDC-owned building remains empty.

In the article MDC Officials were quoted as saying that, "it takes a year and a half to two years for a before a spec building is occupied." In an otherwise excellent article I really wish Ms. Bacalso had followed up with, "Why is that?"

Has anyone seen any real discussion on why this building remains empty while the local economy is exploding and metal buildings are going up everywhere? Just before the council met with the MDC to drive a stake in the heart of the Dean Baldwin Painting deal we suggested to the City Council that they ask the MDC board this (among other) questions:

Building A of the Entrada Business Park remains unoccupied after two years. What kind of restrictions, if any, is the MDC placing on Building A that keep that building now demonstrably less attractive than other alternatives in what has to be a seller's market? And what, if any, of these kind of restrictions or conditions would also be applied to these hangars under the stewardship of the MDC rather than the City of Midland?

It is still a valid question. And a pressing one at that considering that now the plan is to create an "entrepreneurial center" that, using a More! Intense! And! Creative! system will encourage businesses to grow and develop ideas.

Because, as you know, the private sector always looks to unelected de facto governmental agencies for their ideas and cues as to when and where to expand. Always.

And the idea is to use as the catalyst and hub for this new system....wait for it.....a building that they haven't been able to get anyone to move into for almost two years now.

Now that's intense.

"Our problem in America gets solved when we aggressively go for domestic exploration. Our problem in America gets solved if we expand our refining capacity, promote nuclear energy and continue our strategy for the advancing of alternative energies as well as conservation," he said.

"One interesting thing about American politics these days is those who are screaming the loudest for increased production from Saudi Arabia are the very same people who are fighting the fiercest against domestic exploration, against the development of nuclear power and against expanding refining capacity."

George W. Bush. Will this get any play in the MSM?

Todays' MRT Story about the Midland Municipal Management District bailing out Downtown Midland, Inc. is fascinating, to say the least.

The part of the story I find most telling is that once DMI got the MMMD and TIRZ going, and the associated taxes and fees, the downtown property owners quit paying dues to Downtown Midland, Inc. (surprise).

But, beyond that I think it is of great importance to the taxpaying public that Downtown Midland no longer has a board to handle its affairs. No board? That means those who pushed the hardest for the revitalization and utilization of Downtown Midland, DON'T SEEM TO CARE ANYMORE.

Maybe this apathy can be attributed to the creation of the other two entities, since it is their job now, or maybe die hard Downtown Midland boosters have really thrown in the towel. Either way, why are our City Leaders and Economic Development Leaders continuing to push downtown projects and downtown revitalization, when the very people who have been presenting this agenda to our leaders and the community for decades have abandoned their flagship entity and left a string of old debts to be settled by a tax supported body?

I know the various taxing entities and boards have spent a fortune on downtown plans, but, if this isn't a sign that the redevelopment plans for downtown Midland which have been hatched over the past decades need to be scrapped, I don't know what is. A plan without vision and energized people to see it through is worthless. Downtown Midland Inc. is dead, there is no need to try and resuscitate it by loaning it a couple of the MMMD's board members.

The plans for Downtown Midland need a radically new direction, that is locally and downtown property owner driven. It is time to cut out the out-of-town consultants and the multiple layers of quasi-governmental and taxing entities created to revitalize downtown, because the downtown property owners have spoken very loudly with their abandonment of DMI. I'm pretty sure they would abandon the TIRZ and MMMD, but those taxes and fees are mandatory.

UPDATE: What is the City going to do now that one of the Troika of entities entrusted with implementing the 2007 Midland SMART Downtown Plan is defunct (pg. 45)?

Recently Britain's Channel Four won damages and a public apology resulting from a libel suit with the West Midlands Police and the Crown Prosecution Service--their attorney general. Channel Four's program, Undercover Mosque, showed "respectable" mosques which were actually fronts for the vilest sort of religious fanaticism: the persecution of unbelievers, the murder of homosexuals, and all the general Islamist brutal repression of women, and just about anything else which a heterosexual male might want in the service of Allah.

Channel Four exposed these inciters to hatred and murder and instead of prosecuting them, the police and the CPS sniveled that Channel Four had instead engaged in selective editing and had presented a deliberately distorted picture. In other words, they covered for thugs inciting murder, kidnapping and just plain old violence.

The cops and the CPS lost in court, and had to apologize and pay up. And brought to light were the normal habits of the police: they did not investigate these fundamentalist rabble-rousers unless they were involved in an actual plot to kill people. It is common for Muslim women to flee their families for freedom, for a Muslim woman is chattel, forced to marry against her will, forced into de facto slavery. In some Muslim societies a woman can be gang-raped--and instead of being succored, her sister is gang-raped by the religious police because obviously the first raped woman had asked for it and was in violations of Mohammed's edicts on female chastity.

There are shelters for these women, and those who run these shelters are often reluctant to go to the police if an Asian officer is on duty. One such officer offered to help the very people that a woman was fleeing track her down--to bring her back to a life of slavery, or to death by an honor killing.

Ah. Multiculturism. A white Christian man can be charged with sexual harassment if he tells a woman that she looks good, whereas a British police office will try to track down a woman fleeing for her life, to deliver her to what could well be her death. And the difference? It's in their culture and therefore it's just fine.

While over at The Spectator, on one of their blogs (and they give good RSS), I came across this

I was impressed. Being a goody two-shoes in school, I wanted what was not then called street cred and so I educated myself on profanity as much as possible. This one educated me.

I cannot remember being more amused, that is since Jimmy Swaggart got caught with the Tijuana hooker. That was good enough, and made better when his spokesman said that Brother Swaggart would resume preaching as soon as he was back on his feet. And this was made even better when the joke went round about the McDonalds's McSwaggart burger: you buy it and watch someone else eat it.

And on the seemingly triumphant side, we have Michelle Obama, in full-throated barking moonbat mode, which she wears like her makeup, addressing women of limited means on how hard it is to make ends meet on their million a year--she understands. She also complained that she was told that she didn't have scores good enough to get into Princeton--and she was complaining. In Princeton. And let's never forget that gift that keeps giving, the Right Reverend Jeremiah Wright, who had to go out of his way to embarrass HopePeaceChangeYadayadayada before HPCY would disown him, and even then not until he'd thrown his white grandmother under the bus to avoid disowning this revolting preacher. You can choose your pastor but not your grandmother, and it's telling when you dump your blameless, ailing, aging grandmother, the one who raised you, before you are forced to dump a race-baiting hate-America religious hustler by remarks he made which were utterly the same as the remarks that he's always made, but in a venue that had to be taken seriously.

(This poses a question. If vicious lunacy is said in a black church and is ignored but when the same lunacy is said in front of the National Press Club, isn't it racist to consider it lunacy only after it gets out of a black venue? Isn't that just the same thing as British imperialists saying, "The natives are restless tonight" and ordering another G&T? But it's a different thing when the natives are restless on the veranda drinking your G&T.)

Now that I think of it, the only clear signal that HopePeaceChangeYadayadayada has sent is that he will crap on the people who have been the best to him. Does that apply to the Chablis-and-brie set? Will they notice that HPCY is trying to have it both ways? That he has never answered a question? That he has never advanced a concrete plan? That he is entirely hot air? That the only thing that we have found is that he is very good at is hiding his opportunism? Nah. They're never wrong, especially when they really are. The cognitive dissonance is drowned out by the clink of wine glasses and the purr of their satisfied voices.

I'm left with a sneaking admiration for the Hildebeest. I knew that she would cause a great deal of trouble. I just had no idea that she, that woman, Mrs. Clinton, could ever give me pleasure.

Life is good.

Yesterday, by an over 2 to 1 margin, the voters of our sister city to the east, Abilene, voted down a proposition to fund with public monies a "youth sports complex." This complex was touted to be a cure for low sports participation among the area youth, a cure for childhood obesity and a boon for hotel revenue for the city. Interestingly, the funding mechanism for the complex was to be to tap into Abilene's economic development fund sales tax revenue stream. Plus a large wad of private money. On top of donated land.

Sound familiar?

Well, the plan sounded familar to some Abilenians who paid attention to our sports complex. I would have been unaware of the issue were it not for a radio ad I heard on an Abilene station while cruising down I-20 last week. The ad cited our specific experience with the Midland sports complex: it's having been sold on the basis that it would not cost local taxpayers, but that the reality has turned out somewhat differently, with taxpayers spending hundreds of thousands of dollars per year to maintain the facility. And no earthquakes of tournaments, games, etc. bringing in tsunamis of hotel-tax-paying out-of-towners. We know this, eh? I am glad that someone learned from us.

A pre-election article is here (registration may be required).

...the Good Jobs for Abilene PAC, which is against using the economic development tax for a sports complex, continues to wage what treasurer Ray Ferguson said started as an "uphill battle" that now appears to be winnable.

Looks like he was right.

Sometime in the near future the City Council will sit down with the High Priests of the Church of EcDev to discuss what is being described by both sides as a "breakdown in communication."

What caused this breakdown is unclear, but I have an idea.

Currently, the MDC board had assigned a one-on-one system of informing the council: a board member partnering with a council member.

Is it just me (a rhetorical question, so shut up) or is this the system of communication you would use if you purposely wanted to create as many mixed signals as possible between the Council and the MDC?

Ask any law enforcement officer how many accounts he can get from x number of eye-itnesses to an incident of any kind. The number of version is always closer to x than it is to 1. So now we have six possible twists on a project coming out of the MDC and, using my own bastardized version of Magic ChamberMath we have a multiplier effect when it hits the seven council members.

Personally, I don't think that that is where the breakdown of communication occured.

The problem could be more serious than that. I have yet to read anywhere or get any kind of indication that the amount of information that the council received from the MDC on the Dean Baldwin Painting deal was any less or different than than what they have received on any other deal handled by the MDC.

On the Council's end, does the council really have a more intimate knowledge of the operations of Trace Engines than they do of Dean Baldwin's or were they just suitably comforted by the fact that is owned and operated by favored local friendlies including a former council member and former Chamber President?

And on the MDC's end, you have to get the feeling that they were shocked that the council would feel it necessary to have more information than was provided them by the MDC.

And on the public's side...why did the Dean Baldwin Painting Deal ultimately fail? Did it fail because information became available to the council that it was not that keen of a deal?

Or was it because that information became available to everyone?

The 45th vice president of the United States of America, the quondam Senator from Tennessee, whose state did not vote for him for President, and now high priest to Gaia, patron goddess of the First Church of Climatology, has now delivered himself of a bull in which he states that that the Burmese typhoon was a result of global warming. A report on his remarks is here.

This despite the evidence that the earth is not warming, but cooling off after a record period of warmth. This after some very good evidence linking the earth's temperature with sun spots--no sun spots, cold weather. I've seen the science involved: the sun spots emit radiation which affect our ozone and thus our weather. Note that the ozone is not affected by Freon other man-made chemicals, but the sun. It's only a matter of time until the collectivists pass laws on the sun's behavior. Well, they try it every day on economics: during the Depression, Algore's own state of Tennessee decreed that calculating with pi being equal approximately to 3.14159 was too much trouble so pi would henceforth be 3. And after all this magnificent disregard of reality, done with the insolence of a spoiled child, it is hard to imagine them regulating the sun? Not for me.

Something broke when Gore lost in 2000. He defined himself by his acquisition of the presidency. I've written in these pages before that he might have done less damage had he actually been in the Oval Office instead of spreading environmental bullshit to MSM types who are credulous, sensationalist and bossy, for he might have contented himself tinkering with trivia as did James Earl Carter, the stupidest, meanest, and most sanctimonious president of the last century. I, for one, felt much better knowing that Jimmy was occupied with trivia, which is made for small and interfering minds, and is our best friend.

NGSG released their quarterly earnings report today. The headline pretty much says it all:

Natural Gas Services Group Announces a 31% Increase in Net Income for the Three Months Ended March 31, 2008

Revenue: Total revenue increased from $16.7 million to $18.9 million, or 13%, for the three months ended March 31, 2008, compared to the same period ended March 31, 2007. This increase was primarily the result of a 30% growth in rental revenue.

Operating income: Operating income increased from $4.2 million to $5.5 million, or 30%, for the three months ended March 31, 2008, compared to the same period ended March 31, 2007. Higher compressor sales gross margins were the largest factor contributing to the increase of operating income.

Net income: Net income for the three months ended March 31, 2008, increased 31% to $3.5 million, as compared to net income of $2.7 million for the same period in 2007. Increased operating income, a lower income tax rate, and lower interest expense from our reduced debt balances contributed to the increase in net income.

Now, I'm all for profit, and I am delighted that NGSG is doing extremely well. In fact, I hope they continue their profitable ways.

But, tell me again why this company sought after and received $275,000 of taxpayer money they obviously don't need?

UPDATE: Stewart over at Newsroom Stew, had similar thoughts today.

When I was young I wondered why the majority of Wall Streeters could be Democrats, and the same for so many rich people. I had no money myself and thought that having a bit more would mean a new car or a bigger place to live. Nice travel, things like that and that meant small government, ruling out the Democrats. (Now that rules out the Republicans too.)

Some years ago you couldn't turn on the television without seeing some Hollywood bubblehead in a soup line--handing it out, not taking it, a photo-op for their compassion. They were very pleased to have their charitable impulses known. These are, in general, also people of impeccable liberal credentials, the sort of people who, when hosting an awards show, say "Bush" to get an easy laugh. Well, no doubt that served during the writers' strike. Which had no effect on me whatsoever.

Warren Buffett has raged at the Bush Administration for its tax policies, claiming that the very rich pay income taxes at a lower rate than their secretaries. He has offered a million-dollar reward to any Forbes 400 member who can prove him wrong. As of November at least no one had collected the money. This is not to say that the rich don't pay huge taxes: the top 1% pay 30% of the income taxes, and that is by any standard very progressive, in the worst sense of the word. (Is there a good sense of the word?) But still, in Buffett's thesis, he pays taxes at a lower rate than his secretary or receptionist. And from some computer work that I did in Dallas in the 80s restructuring real-estate deals, I believe it entirely.

So when the rich call for higher taxes, just who is being hurt? Higher taxes are usually accompanied by loopholes. The meltdown in Texas properties in the early 80s was caused by the lower Reagan tax rates because deals structured for tax benefit were no longer viable, and that was a major factor leading to the destruction of the thrifts.

So calling for higher taxes for high-minded social uses does not really hurt them that much, and even if it did, what does it really hurt? If you make $20 million a year and are taxed at an effective rate of 20%, then an increase in your tax rate is not going to keep you from getting that new Aston Martin. But it might keep your secretary from the vacation that she wanted to take.

The very wealthy can afford the best houses and cars and medical advice; it is foolish to think that they cannot afford the best financial advice. And they get it, and the investment in consulting, often in-house, is worth the money saved, and they can afford the people required to run it, while I find myself irritated by managing a few on-line investments. But then I'm small time and perforce my compassion cannot be bought by the hundredweight but must take the form of actually knowing people and their problems.

If the wealthy can afford the best houses, and politicians, they can also afford the best in conspicuous compassion. "See how virtuous I am? I'm wealthy and you can't believe the taxes that I pay and I'm willing to pay more for good causes." But the pain is not all that much. And the reward in conspicuous compassion is. And the reward in power is just as big.

Who are the people who produce the most expensive high-minded programs? The Democrats. Who are the people whose attempt to get everyone somehow dependent on the government gives them power? The Democrats. Who are the people who get the most charge in ordering people around? The Democrats. Who can afford to work the Byzantine system, usually set up by Democrats to their best advantage? The wealthy.

So it makes sense, in a rather sick way, to consider the Democratic party to be the personal shopper for a certain sort of the wealthy for the best buy in their conspicuous compassion.