Kinder Crossing July 12-14

I decided to approach the Mogollon Rim the back way by as much dirt road as possible so I took the Apache Trail through Fish Creek Canyon past Roosevelt Dam (and Lake) connected with Highway 188 then Highway 288 which has sections of blacktop and dirt through Young all the way to the top of the rim to Highway 260.

I took the Rim Road all the way from Highway 260 to Highway 87, approximately 50 more mile of dirt. Cell phone service was very spotty so after a quick call to Vicki it was off to Clint’s Wells for some fuel and as it turns out the only place to go to make a cell call.

About 10 miles of highway and 5 miles of Fr95 gets you to the Kinder Crossing turn off. Another mile of dirt and the trail starts. I decided to camp at the trail head since the road ended in a steep canyon.

On the trip back the KLR was loaded like something from the Grapes of Wrath (except for the mattress). Controlled burns caused thick smoke to move in at the whim of the wind sometimes making a road almost undrivable. As soon as I came off of the hill outside of Sunflower the heat from the desert hit me in the face like a frying pan full of grease. I arrived in Fountain Hills at 8:58 am; it was 108. What a contrast from the cool on the rim!

"Never let a serious crisis go to waste."

The vacuum in international leadership could be the best thing that ever happened. With the US stuck in the mud with Big O the rest of the world (those who have a survival instinct) can accomplish what we can’t, bring down North Korea and Iran. Both regimes live on a tightrope, oppressed people surrounded by relative freedom. All it would take is a nudge.

Caroline Glick writes:

“Unfortunately, whereas in the 1980s the leaders of the Free World were committed to winning the Cold War against the Soviet Union by securing the freedom of those who lived under Communism's jackboot, today, led by Obama, the Free World behaves as though the Berlin Wall fell of its own devices. The will of free men and women risking everything to oppose tyranny had nothing to do with it, we are told. If we care about peace, we should appease the likes of Ahmadinejad and Kim, not bring them down.

On Tuesday, an insect wrecked Ahmadinejad's victory speech. As he bragged that Iranian democracy is a role model for the world, a large moth zoomed around him, breaking his train of thought. Ahmadinejad was brought low before his people by a moth he couldn't swat.

If a bug could humiliate Ahmadinejad in what was supposed to be his moment of triumph, surely the willing nations of the world - or even just Israel - together with the brave Iranian people can bring him down. It would certainly be more cost effective than trying to negotiate a deal with a nuclear-armed mullocracy.

And certainly the South Koreans and the Japanese can feed the starving North Koreans and free them from the bondage of their monstrous regime. Doing so would be vastly less expensive than living under the shadow of Pyongyang's nuclear-armed psycho-regime.

Just because the US is currently on vacation from its role as leader of the Free World doesn't mean that other free people cannot do the right thing.”

2nd Quarter, How’s That Stimulus Working?

 

These results reflect the “stimulus”, Government Motors, the House of Representatives passing “cap and trade”, and anticipation by business owners of what lies ahead. Wait till you see what happens when the Senate actually passes cap and trade and the destruction really begins. That and the healthcare debt “fix” should really make those lines jump!

Million Mile Monday

One of the guys that Vicki went to high school with sent her an email the other day about a ride that Harley sponsors. She forwarded it to me because, as most people know, any excuse to ride is a good one. We met at the Shell station by highway 87 and Shea. There were a wide variety of bikes in our little group and, for me, a chance to make new friends. It was an interesting group to ride with; they had various law enforcement backgrounds. Most were retired.

 

We had a chance to get out of the valley heat and enter what always feels like a new dimension, higher altitudes, same state. The rain started just as we pulled in to the Mormon Lake Lodge. After lunch the heavy rain cleared and we headed to Flagstaff to refuel and then took the steep curvy road down Oak Creek canyon.

Dale, Vicki’s classmate(in the orange above), said he would keep me in the loop for other rides. Sounds good, very good!

This Is How The Scam Works – 1970’s Redux

Here’s the full article.

But solar power has few downsides, except for one thing: the cost. The combination of soaring electric prices and state subsidies are giving solar a new jump.

In the wake of the last energy crisis of the 1970s solar energy looked like the next big thing. So big that Jimmy Carter installed solar panels on the White House. But Dan Kammen, an energy expert at the University of California in Berkeley, says the panels weren’t up very long.

Ronald Reagan came in, the price of oil fell and he promptly ripped them off.

And then he eliminated a federal tax credit on solar. The fledgling solar industry went into deep hibernation.

But that could change.

The state incentives and federal incentives cut the cost of the installation in half. And it comes down to there’s less than a ten year payback on a piece of hardware that has at least a 30 year lifespan so it makes a lot of sense.

But even with incentives the costs are still high. An average installation costs about $43,000. Connecticut’s rebate cuts that in half. And eliminates the sales tax. Municipalities don’t charge property tax on the systems. And until the end of the year there’s a federal tax credit of up to $2000. But Lise Dondy says government incentives are critically important.

This technology is not cost competitive and without these incentives we’d go back to nothing because they are still too costly .

Connecticut’s three-year $36 million rebate program is paid for by ratepayers. Lise Dondy says rebate programs like this need reliable funding.

Some states they’ve launched a program with great fanfare, put out a lot of money and had to halt it because they ran out of money. So our program is smaller. We don’t have as much money by any means as a state like California or New Jersey, but so far we have been able to be consistent and to keep the growing installer community busy.

And there you have, ladies and gentlemen, the ‘70s all over again. We have an artificial energy “crisis” followed by a “fix” paid for by you and me, again. If it was too expensive in the ‘70s and it’s still too expensive 30 years later after a period of “deep hibernation” when they could have figured out how to make it cost effective, why didn’t they? What evidence is there that as long as “reliable funding” is available it will ever become self-sustaining?

Here is a modern rah rah article from The Atlantic propping up Silicon Valley pushing for what will turn out to be a replay of '70s.

Who is Barack Hussein Obama?

There is something un-American about Obama. He seems to have no heritage and no history that I can recognize. Even the American blacks used the phrase that he was not “down for the struggle”. He is Marxist (socialist), autocratic, and European;  but at the same time shows no respect for Europe. Anything cultural he sees as a “false choice” and therefore, of no importance. He is out of place in any culturally American setting and seems more aligned with Robert Mugabe than Martin Luther King, Jr. His father, Barack Hussein Obama, Sr., was born in a small Kenyan town, educated at Harvard, employed in Kenya’s post colonial government, was married to three women (two Americans and one Kenyan), yet died a desolate man.

I found an article at the American Thinker that seems to fill in some of the pieces. This author is a naturalized citizen (a true African-American) from Nigeria and a member of the Ibo tribe who thinks she sees enough to connect the dots. It makes some sense to me but I would like a second or third opinion.

How’s Hope and Change (Tax and Spend) Working for You?

According to the big O’s supporter, Warren Buffet, the economy is “in a shambles this year and probably well beyond”, foreclosures are at an all-time high, unemployment is getting there and our geniuses in Congress are poised to pass the largest tax increase in American history known as cap and trade. Buffett repeated his criticism of "cap and trade" as a method to control pollution, saying it would be a huge, regressive tax. Another problem “fixed”.

Once they fix the planet they will be freed up to fix healthcare to the tune of another trillion or so we don’t have. Aint it great!

Iran, Poland, Czechoslovakia, North Korea…

As we watch whatever unfolds in Iran, remember that here in America last year we came within one vote on a Supreme Court decision from erasing our right to own weapons. Consider why “the people” of these other countries put up with what they did and in some cases still do; and ask yourself why those in power always want to disarm “the people”.

The World is Watching

And where is our leadership? I do miss Bush 2 and Reagan. We have Obama standing ready to dialog with this Axis of Evil government in Tehran, moving antimissile ships to Hawaii in anticipation of a launch by North Korea, while simultaneously cancelling our antimissile programs and agreements with our allies in Eastern Europe. This is exactly why he shouldn’t be where he is.

Now he will have something he personally can apologize to the world for.

UPDATE: Ahmadinejad says U.S., Britain 'will not be placed in the circle of friendship' with Iran due to stance on election….

Can it get any worse? I can’t stop laughing. What? We won’t be invited to Mamood’s birthday party? That big nuke deal (North Korea 2) is down the drain!

UPDATE 2:

Those who defend President Obama's evenhandedness in the early days of the Iranian revolution should read this statement from the office of Mir Hossein Mousavi:

From the Office of Mr. Mir Hossein Mousavi

To the President of the USA, Mr. Barack Hussein Obama:

Dear Mr. President,

In the name of the Iranian people, we want you to know that when you recently made the statement "Achmadinejad or Mousavi? Two of a kind," we consider this as a grave and deep insult, not just to Mr. Mousavi but especially against the judgment of the Iranian people, against our moral conviction and intelligence, especially those of the young generation that comprises a population of 31 million.

It is a specially grave insult for those who are now fighting for democracy and freedom, and an unwarranted gift and even praise for Mr. Khamenei, whose security forces are now killing peaceful Iranians in the streets of every major city in the country.

Your statement misled the people of the world. It was no doubt inspired by your hope for dialogue with this regime, but you cannot possibly believe in promises from a regime that lies to its own people and then kills them when they demand the promises be kept.

By such statements, your administration and you discourage the Iranian people, who believe and trust in the values of democracy and freedom. We are pleased to see that you have condemned the regime's murderous violence, and we look forward to stronger support for the rightful struggle of the Iranian people against the actions of a regime that is your enemy as well as ours

UPDATE 3: A note from Christopher Hitchens to President Obama

Want to take a noninterventionist position? All right, then, take a noninterventionist position. This would mean not referring to Khamenei in fawning tones as the supreme leader and not calling Iran itself by the tyrannical title of "the Islamic republic." But be aware that nothing will stop the theocrats from slandering you for interfering anyway. Also try to bear in mind that one day you will have to face the young Iranian democrats who risked their all in the battle and explain to them just what you were doing when they were being beaten and gassed. (Hint: Don't make your sole reference to Iranian dictatorship an allusion to a British-organized coup in 1953; the mullahs think that it proves their main point, and this generation has more immediate enemies to confront.)

There is then the larger question of the Iranian theocracy and its continual, arrogant intervention in our affairs: its export of violence and cruelty and lies to Lebanon and Palestine and Iraq and its unashamed defiance of the United Nations, the European Union, and the International Atomic Energy Agency on the nontrivial matter of nuclear weapons. I am sure that I was as impressed as anybody by our president's decision to quote Martin Luther King—rather late in the week—on the arc of justice and the way in which it eventually bends. It was just that in a time of crisis and urgency he was citing the wrong King text (the right one is to be found in the "Letter From a Birmingham Jail". "I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states. I cannot sit idly by in Atlanta and not be concerned about what happens in Birmingham. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. Never again can we afford to live with the narrow, provincial 'outside agitator' idea."), and it was also as if he were speaking as the president of Iceland or Uruguay rather than as president of these United States. Coexistence with a nuclearized, fascistic theocracy in Iran is impossible even in the short run. The mullahs understand this with perfect clarity. Why can't we?

UPDATE 4: U.S. Takes Back July 4 Invitations to Iranians because no one RSVP’d (Maybe it was the Hebrew National hotdogs on the menu.)

The Iranian Election

I don’t know how to evaluate the results. .

Obama’s Cairo Speech:

A. moved the Iranian people into Ahmadinejad’s corner after “robust  debate”

B. made the election only a landslide instead of a blowout after “robust debate”

C. proved that in a “democracy” of this type the people don’t matter after “robust debate”

D. was just more talk

So I guess we’ll have to wait until the next election to see progress in the Middle East. If there is a Middle East.

Consider what Ronald Reagan said when Poland’s government was crushing their opposition.

What We Need Are More Bikes!!!

There aren’t enough, but we’re working on it.

Howard’s new Honda.

Return from a Sunday morning ride.

The next generation.

If this was a movie I’d turn it off and go for a ride

Unfortunately it’s real life and each scene is worse than the one before. It’s like watching those old I Love Lucy shows where the madcap redhead makes things worse as she stumbles and lies through what should be fairly simple problems. Remember the one where she gets behind on the assembly line and the cakes keep falling off the conveyor belt? That’s what we have running this country.

Obama keeps “fixing” stuff and no one seems to notice that they aren’t fixed or even better than they were. On to the next problem. We have the stimulus that doesn’t stimulate, the Government Motors debacle, run-away global warming that isn’t (but still needs fixing), Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Israel, Syria, Palestine, Guantanamo, a zillion-dollar “good” deficit, and we haven’t even gotten to the Supreme Court, healthcare, social security, Medicaid, and illegal immigration. But don’t worry, Barry and the bunch have it all under control.

God, I miss Carter. At least when you pointed out that it wasn’t working you weren’t a RACIST! too.

This Says All That Needs To Be Said

Boys in the Hood … sort of

The week before Bob Goodwin (in the middle) up and died he had the forethought (well it wasn’t planned I’m sure) to invite us over to play with some of his toys. That WW1 vintage heavy machinegun was quite a collectors piece.

Bob was one of those guys that loved the finer things in life … guns, motorcycles, and his family. Every time I saw him it was like going on a vacation.

Jumping Cactus and more ….

It doesn’t really jump but all one has to do is to barely touch it and it digs in. The barbs at the tip are such that they will work in more deeply with a little movement. I just touched one of the pieces on the ground and it attached to the tip of my boot. It is the method of this plant to reproduce, animals and wind carry away parts of the plant and they root where they stop. One of my dogs got into one of these and it took pliers to get the barbs out. Not a pretty experience.

Plant Ocotillos around your property and it’s like putting up concertina wire. Remember those scenes from Disney’s Snow White with the thistles, this must be the stuff!

We also have our full-grown phallic symbols and our little insipient ones.

Then there was that treacherous mix of trucks towing boats and bicyclists on narrowing roads with blind corners and hills. But wow what a beautiful morning!

The Learning Curve

Well it hasn’t even been the first 100 days and we’ve heard Bama trash the job of generations of American presidents, seen the trampling of property rights, heard plans for the huge expansion of government financed in large part by the demonization (and taxation) of a harmless gas, seen just how much help the Europeans (NATO) will be in Afghanistan (the only just front against terror), watched the UN in action (in all its usefulness), seen the North Koreans threaten our allies in Asia, watched Iran prepare to go nuclear (after the plea for help to our peaceful friends the Rooskies and the “world community”), and looked on helplessly as an American crew was taken hostage by pirates. I sure hope the smartest people in the world can do better than that dull tool, Bush. There isn’t much time for an extended learning curve in the big leagues but it looks like we may be reliving Jimmy Carter and the 70’s.

Actions Should Speak Louder Than Words

President Obama should not be listened to, he should be watched. His words support free enterprise and self-reliance but his actions are socialist to the core. It can’t be viewed in any other way. He has consistently grabbed more government control in every business he has lain his eyes on. In every area, education, energy, finance, health and even automobiles, his words suggest just a little tinkering to “help” but his actions mean government control. Not just temporarily but permanently. No other president has had the “audacity” to fire and hire (as well as threaten) CEOs and board members of companies that took the “help” of the government. And he wants to “help” all of us.

The Grand Canyon by Back Road

 

We took 19th Avenue to the Carefree Highway and then up 7th Street which turns into New River Road. After a short hop on I-17 the Bumble Bee turn off becomes a dirt road all the way to Mayer, nothing but dust and cows. From Mayer on  Highway 69 we finagled our way to 89A up to the ghost town of Jerome and then back to dirt roads most of the way into Williams for a burger and some fuel. The final leg was a two lane blacktop into the national park.

We met up with the girls (our wives) who drove in the regular way. On the way back we stopped by to see Bedrock but the wind was so bad we didn’t stick around.