"True to our Founding Documents"

The title of this post comes from President Obama's inaugural address. The call to remain faithful to our Constitution is admirable. But I don't know if there has EVER been a time where we ignored our founding document more. This may seem like a shot at the new administration (which it is), but the buck doesn't end there. We, as a nation, are all complicit in remaining ignorant or apathetic to how far we've drifted from our nation's ideological moorings.

The parting shot of our Bill of Rights states:

"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."

Anybody want to take a shot at what powers actually ARE delegated to the Federal Government? A glance at the our Founding Document will tell you that Washington has the Constitutional right:

• To lay and collect taxes
• To borrow money
• To regulate international and interstate trade
• To come up with a method for naturalization
• To regulate bankruptcies
• To coin money and punish counterfeiters
  
• To set standards for weights and measures
• To establish post offices and post roads
• To issue patents
• To create courts lower than the Supreme Court
• To punish pirates
• To declare war and the rules thereof
• To raise an army, a navy, and a militia and govern them
• To govern Washington, D.C.
• And finally, to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States.

That's it. Those are the only things the U.S. Legislature has legal jurisdiction over, at least according to the Supreme Law of the Land. And yet, we sit and accept a vastly different reality every day. Republicans, Democrats, everybody. We are a nation no longer governed by our Constitution.

But we don't have to be.

A Good Week for Speeches

Not only did we commemorate the perhaps the greatest speech ever (the good Reverend's "I Have A Dream"), but we also had a chance to look back at these inaugural gems. See if you can finish them.

"Ask not..." JFK

"The only thing we have to fear..." FDR

"With malice towards none..." Honest Abe **At least the 2nd best speech in America's history.**

"Government is not the solution to the problem..." The Great Orator

And Obama's inaugural address yesterday was pretty darn good too. I almost feel the need to qualify that statement (and have started to several times), but let's just leave it at that. As Ol' Mr. Lincoln said, with the country much more divided than today,

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature."

Ahh... there's nothing like a good speech.

Hobbiton, Part One

Bitter, desperate disappointment welled within me as the realization struck: Hobbiton was closed. Not for the day. Not for the season. It was closed forever.

It was the final day of a week-long trip along the northern California coast, the land of my youth. Over the course of the vacation Star and I had lived in the lap of hostel luxury, held hands with Sasquatch, discovered hundreds of starfish in almost as many tide pools, and of course, wandered among the redwoods themselves. Steinbeck described these ancient giants as “ambassadors from another time… a stunning memory of what the world was like once long ago.” The towering dignity and “cathedral hush” made a walk in those Woods more of a rite than a hike.

Almost as awesome as the redwoods themselves, though, was the main road that runs through them, a winding stretch of highway known as the “Avenue of the Giants.” Part-tourist trap, part-nature museum, the Avenue is a curvy little jaunt through roadside Americana. Necessary stops include such magnificent specimens as a six-foot ear of corn and a sixty-foot Paul Bunyan, who, along with his blue ox sidekick, beckons weary travelers to come and behold the “Trees of Mystery,” an arboreal Believe-It-Or-Not. None of these grandiose spectacles, however, could rival the expectations for the last stop of our trip.

Flipping through guidebooks a few days prior to the flight out to California, I had come across an intriguing passage, little more than a bullet-point. At the very bottom of a list of things to see, came the following line:

“Hobbiton, USA; a kitschy walk-through tribute to Tolkien’s The Hobbit.”

I was enthralled. I wanted—needed—to know more, but even the typically omniscient internet could only tell me that Hobbiton USA was maintained by the San Francisco Guild of Hobbits (an intriguing concept in its own right). One thing I did know, though: I had to see this place. Not only did I like the idea of a kitschy walk-through, but Tolkien’s masterpiece held a special place in my heart: on another road trip long ago, listening to my mom hiss out Gollum’s lines, I learned to love good literature. And so it was decided—Hobbiton USA would be the culmination, the grand finale, of our journey.

Continue to Part Two...

Overheard at Little Caesars

Dude #1: (to me) "That'll be about five minutes."
(to coworker) "Dude, you're still going old school? I use the pitcher."

Dude #2: (while filling up cups of Crazy Sauce) "Uh..."

Dude #3: "We did three tubs in ten minutes with the pitcher. When I worked up at 90th, Richard saw me using the pitcher one time, and told me I had to use the ladle. Two days later I came in and he was using the pitcher."

Dude #1: "I like Richard. He plays WoW."

Dude #3: "Richard has a glass eye."

Dude #1: "Richard has a glass eye?"

(pause)

Dude #1: "How's the battle?"

Dude #3: "The battle?"...

Dude #1: "With sobriety."

Dude #3: "Oh...I haven't smoked in three weeks."

Dude #1: "How do you feel?"

Dude #3: "Accomplished."

(pause)

Me: "Busy this morning?"

Dude #1: "Indeed."

Some Timely Political Guidance

I'm having a kind of "seeing the forest through the trees" moment. Sometimes I get so caught up in candidates and elections and propositions and parties that I forget the measuring stick by which I measure them. You may have similar feelings.

Anyway, I thought I'd go back to what has essentially become my political handbook. And share it you, too. So, before you vote (please vote!), take a few moments to check out these links. I know I've recommended them before, but maybe you're a little more interested this time of year. I'm confident that no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you'll find something worthwhile.

"The Law" by Federic Bastiat- the all-time best treatise on government

"The Proper Role of Government" by Ezra Benson- essentially an American, LDS-colored version of Bastiat; you might be surprised

While neither of these are what I'd call "light reading," they were written in pamphlet form and can be read in one sitting- probably the time equivalent of an average Facebook-surfing session. I'd love to hear what you think.

P.S. I did just post these links in a comment on Bryant's blog, but in case they're buried, I wanted to toss them out there again.

Econ 110: Why Gas is $4 a Gallon

My favorite class in college was Dr. Kearl's Econ 110 class. Hands down. Cliche as it may sound, this was the one class that really changed the way I view the world. The first lesson of the class was that economics is not the study of money, but of choices. (Money is just a handy way of evaluating options on a standard scale.) Soon after that came the supply-demand curve, which looks something like this:

This is really a brilliant piece of work. The x- and y-axes represent quantity and price, respectively. The blue line represents supply, and shows that as the price people will pay for something increases, so does the quantity produced. The red lines represent two different levels of demand for a product (oil for example), which gradually decrease as the price increases. The supply and demand curves intersect at the exact price and quantity which maximize benefit for both parties.

Now I chose this particular graph because it exactly demonstrates why gasoline costs so much right now. Demand for oil is increasing, as represented by the demand curve shifting to the right. You'll notice that the point of intersection between supply and demand is at a higher price and quantity. Voila, there are your gas price increases.

With India and China fast becoming industrial giants, the demand for oil has risen dramatically. I read a statistic last week that the number of drivers in China is set to explode over the next decade, something like 8 times as many as they have currently. Oil being a scarce resource, and barring any practical replacement for the combustion engine (and anyone who invents this is going to be richer than Gates, Buffet, and the Waltons put together), the demand for oil is not going to drop anytime soon.

So we have two options for lowering oil prices: decrease demand through "eco-friendly" technologies that use less oil-- shifting the demand curve back to the left, or increase supply of oil or alternate sources of energy such as coal, wind, solar, or NUCLEAR power (we already have the technology; let's use it for heaven's sake!)-- shifting the supply curve to the right and effectively dropping the price of oil.

Coincidentally, the U.S. went through this same deal back in the 70's, when people could only buy gas on certain days based on the last digit of their license plate, and still waited in line for hours. Double-pane windows were invented then. Just a side note.

Both candidates spoke out on their energy policy Thursday. Obama's main thrust is on lowering demand, with increasing supply as a secondary strategy. McCain's plan primarily calls for increased supply. Here are the links. Inform yourself on what is quickly becoming one of the main planks of this year's election:

McCain's Energy Plan

Obama's Energy Plan