How's The Local Economy Doing

Question: How can we know that the community's economic status has seen better days?

Answer # 1. When a new, near usury, (Rent To Own* store is coming to town) announcement makes headlines in the local paper.

Answer # 2. When Dollar stores outnumber pizza shops.

Answer # 3 When the local elite shop at big box department stores.

Answer #4 When over 50% of students in two school district buildings are on food stamps.

*Here's how it works: For example, you can rent-to-own an LG 42-inch plasma TV for as little as $22.99 a week. You can return the TV any time if you don't want to keep it. But in order to own it, you need to make 78 payments or a total of $1,793. That compares to a retail price of $446 on Amazon.com. http://money.cnn.com/2013/11/07/pf/rent-to-own/

Paul Hunter Wilmington

We Don't Need No Stinking Regulations.

We Don't Need No Stinking Regulations. 

Government regulations often overreach and complicate the lives of the governed but, as long as avarice exists in the human animal, they are necessary.

Just a few:

Dayton Daily News

1. Allegations mount at area charter

   1. Teachers say school tampered with tests, attendance records.

One former student says school officials paid him and a friend $20 each to fill in hundreds of standardized test forms. A parent of another former student says her daughter earned a stellar attendance record when she didn’t go to class for months.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/news/local-education/allegations-mount-at-area-charter/ngnfB/

The Enron scandal, revealed in October 2001, eventually led to the bankruptcy of the Enron Corporation, an American energy company based in Houston, Texas, and the de facto dissolution of Arthur Andersen, which was one of the five largest audit and accountancy partnerships in the world. In addition to being the largest bankruptcy reorganization in American history at that time, Enron was attributed as the biggest audit failure.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron_scandal

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The liquidators of two Bear Stearns hedge funds filed a lawsuit on Monday against the three major U.S. rating agencies, accusing them of fraudulently assigning inflated ratings to securities in the run-up to the financial crisis.

The lawsuit seeks to recover damages from Moody's Investors Service, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings in connection with more than $1 billion in losses sustained by the hedge funds. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/11/11/moodys-sp-fitch-sued-_n_4255152.html

2. Defense Contracting Fraud

   1. Being in the Hampton Roads region (which includes Newport News, Hampton, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Suffolk, York County and Williamsburg), there is significant amount of military in the area and, as a result, government contracts.

   2. Billions of dollars have been recovered as a result of fraud committed against the government involving government defense and construction contracts, including fraud against the Department of Defense (DoD). - See more at: http://antifraudlawgroup.com/defense-contracting-fraud/#sthash.Y6r2bXRD.dpuf

Compiled by Paul Hunter

Who Is In Charge Of Ohio's Legislature?

 

The voters or special interests?

Ohio Becomes First State to Roll Back Renewable Energy Mandate

As the rest of the country is moving forward on energy efficiency and independence, Ohio is moving backwards

What Ohio newspapers don't want you to know!

ALEC Coordinated A Nationwide Attack On Renewable Standards In 2013. In 2013, ALEC attempted to push through at least 37 bills attempting to dismantle or weaken state-wide renewable energy standards across the country. As reported in the Huffington Post:

American Legislative Exchange Council Connects Fossil Fuel Interests To Legislators. The American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, connects corporations to legislators that work together to draft model legislation promoting "limited government, free markets, and federalism at the state level." Their "Private Enterprise Advisory Council" includes fossil energy powerhouses such as Koch Industries, Energy Future Holdings, Peabody Energy [Peabody Energy is the world's largest private-sector coal company], and ExxonMobil. [ALEC.org, accessed 4/7/14;

ALEC's list of advisers includes representatives of a number of energy companies that stand to lose money as renewables gain a bigger share of the market, including Peabody Energy, Koch Industries and Exxon Mobil. [Huffington Post, 11/1/13]

As of January 2012, ALEC members comprised approximately 43 percent of the Ohio legislature. [People for the American Way, accessed 4/7/14

Included: Ohio Legislators with ALEC Ties: Sen. William Seitz, the Cincinnati Republican and chair of the Senate public utilities committee, and an outspoken critic of the 2008 law who is currently on the Board of Directors of the American Legislative Exchange Council, State Senator Troy Balderson, the primary sponsor of the bill is a member ALEC’s Energy, Environment and Agriculture task force, Seitz is currently on the Board of Directors of ALEC of conservative legislators and members of the private sector. The membership list also includes and (our own) Rep. Cliff Rosenberger a member of ALEC . Communications and Technology Task Force

But, it may be political little more than political posturing with no substance.

“AEP keeping it ‘green’

“Green”-energy efforts in Ohio might not be in suspended animation after all. All but one of Ohio’s regulated electricity utilities plan to continue with their green-energy programs despite a new state law that allows the companies to put a two-year freeze on the initiatives”

“Ohio has a huge carbon footprint when it comes to our power plants,” said Scott Miller, director of Ohio University’s Consortium for Energy, Economics and the Environment. “It’s going to be tough for the state of Ohio to comply with these new regulations without at least the threat of plant closures. One way to potentially meet those targets is through – guess what? – renewables and energy efficiency. By taking that off the table you basically make it that much more difficult for the state to comply moving forward.”

Compiled by Paul Hunter

Charter Schools Failures

They turn out not to be the be-all and end-all solution for public education.

Several years ago the Ohio legislature authorized charter schools as a better (cheaper way to defeat teacher unions) way to educate the states children. But poor financial oversight and lack of teacher and administrative quality has led to many scandals. Below are just a few examples.

State turns in four charter school teachers

Department of Education officials reported four former charter-school teachers to law enforcement and children services agencies after hearing sweeping allegations of test cheating, attendance tampering and sexual misconduct.

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2014/07/19/state-turns-in-four-teachers.html

Problems continue to mount for charter schools in Ohio - See more at:

http://www.vindy.com/news/2014/jul/08/problems-continue-to-mount-for-charter-s/

Auditor joins investigation of 19 Ohio charter schools

As the FBI and the U.S. Department of Labor continue to investigate three Ohio charter schools, the Ohio Auditor of State is casting a wider net.

http://www.ohio.com/news/break-news/auditor-joins-investigation-of-19-ohio-charter-schools-1.505473

And on and on!

Paul Hunter paulhunter45177@gmail.com

. Let’s Go To Spain

In early 1964 BJ (before jets) the 160th Air Refueling Group (ARG) of the Ohio Air National Guard (OANG) stationed at Clinton County Air Force Base (CCAFB), Wilmington, Ohio, was nearing combat ready status and was ready to become a part of the new Air Force, “Total Force Concept” using KC-97G air tankers. Under this new policy the Air Guard would perform some active duty air refueling and other missions on a day to day basis without being activated. One requirement was have over water capability, particularly for the navigator and flight engineer. To satisfy this training, two crews were scheduled to conduct flight operations that included legs from CCAFB to Bermuda, refuel and then fly on to the Azores spend the night and continue on to Madrid and reverse course after a couple of days R&R.

I was on the second aircraft which took off a few hours after the first. Our crew consisted of two bankers as pilots, a chemist from Kentucky was the navigator and a self employed fiberglass fabricator from Cincinnati was the boom operator. I was the flight engineer and the only full time Guardsman on the crew.

The first leg was uneventful and refueling was completed after figuring out the pidgin English of the Bermudan ground crew. Just as it was growing dark we noted that our sister ship was returning to the island, having aborted its Azores leg. After they parked we were told that they had experienced a generator failure of a type that could turn into an engine fire if the engine was not shut down. Lost in the mists of time is why the first crew took our bird while we waited for theirs to be repaired for our use.

After watching our original aircraft depart eastward into the darkness we saw to the repairs and after a couple of hours we followed, heading away from a storm front and into the dark night.

The climb out to 15,000 feet and cruise was normal as the crew settled in for a navigational challenge as there were no sextant shots possible because of cloud cover. We droned on for several hours on instruments. Suddenly I was shaken from my routine when I heard a bang and felt number two throttle buck. I throttled back the engine a little and increased fuel mixture in an attempt to keep the backfiring engine on line. The backfires continued and I had no choice but to shut down the engine to preclude catastrophic failure. At this point the pilot asked a very nervous navigator what our position was and had we passed the point of no return or equa time point. After several quick computations the nav answered that we had not passed that point and we should reverse course and return to Bermuda.

In the meantime I brought power up on the remaining three engines to the maximum safe power for long term cruise and noted that in spite of the increased power we were slowly losing altitude. The pilot, a nervous type, said we couldn’t descend because we didn’t have clearance from traffic control. The plane didn’t know about clearances and kept slowly descending. I didn’t dare increase power further as we were looking at a three to three and a half hour flight back to the island and the engines couldn’t take the constant beating. I also knew from my three engine performance charts and from prior experience that we could hold altitude and airspeed at 10,000 feet if I could get rid of some weight. To add to the drama of the situation, we had turned into the teeth of a major storm. Total blackness pierced by bright flashes of lightning combined with gut wrenching up and down wind shears greeted us soon after the turn. The Navigator now wide eyed with a minor panic attack stated that he was lost and that we should request an air/sea rescue aircraft be dispatched from Bermuda to find us.

After computing fuel consumption and fuel remaining I asked for the pilots permission to pump fuel from the two external tanks into the air refueling tanks and dump the 8,000 pounds of fuel out the air refueling boom. The pilot hesitated. No one wants to get rid of precious fuel, especially when you are lost. We had more than enough fuel to make Bermuda plus a reserve and I advised the pilot that we could not hold a decent altitude and save the remaining engines at our current weight. He acquiesced albeit reluctantly and we dumped the fuel, leveled off at 10,000 feet and awaited intercept by the “duck butt” C-130 rescue plane.

After about an hour we made contact with the C-130 crew who gave us headings to Bermuda. Duck butt also informed us that crosswinds at the air base were near the max allowable for a KC-97. The pilot turned to me and asked if we had sufficient fuel to make it to the states and I answered that we could make it but that we would have to ditch in the surf off the Carolinas. The pilot made an excellent landing considering the conditions and we all shouted our relief. The Navigator reluctantly admitted that he had made a half hour error in his computations and we were that far ahead on the Azores side of the equa time point. The only down side was that we would have to spend Easter week in Bermuda with all the cruise ships and fly in tourists because it would take that long to get parts in to fix our bird.

We didn't get to Spain after all.

Paul Hunter paulhunter45177@gmail.com

Law Of Diminishing Returns

More is not always better than less.

It doesn't take a business major or rocket scientist to realize that there is a finite number of potential gambling establishment patrons. When the same number of gamblers are offered an increasing number of venues the revenue pie will be sliced in ever smaller pieces. At some point many establishment will not make enough profit to remain in operation. States that hoped to reap tax revenues form gambling are seeing this phenomenon at work now.

On point:

ATLANTIC CITY — Atlantic City’s crumbling casino market disintegrated even further on Saturday as the owners of the Trump Plaza casino said they expect to shut down in mid-September. Notices warning employees of the expected closing will go out to the casino’s 1,000-plus employees on Monday. If Trump Plaza closes, Atlantic City could lose a third of its casinos and a quarter of its casino work force in less than nine months.Indiana casinos lose millions to Ohio competitors State officials were betting that Indiana gaming revenues would take a major hit when a downtown Cincinnati casino and two racinos opened in Ohio last year. And they were right. But more competition is headed their way from Illinois, Kentucky and Michigan. Competition has changed the game forever.

1. Indiana casinos lose millions to Ohio competitors State officials were betting that Indiana gaming revenues would take a major hit when a downtown Cincinnati casino and two racinos opened in Ohio last year. And they were right. But more competition is headed their way from Illinois, Kentucky and Michigan. Competition has changed the game forever.

CLEVELAND (AP) -- Declining casino revenue has cut into the take for local governments, and now the growth of racetrack slots gambling is diverting some of that money from cities and counties

The industry is taken a hit across the nation as indicated by a Moody’s Investors Service latest report on gambling — downgrading the national gambling business from “stable” to “negative.

Paul Hunter paulhunter45177@gmail.com

GOP Can Beat Back The Tea Party

The Way For The GOP To Win More Black Support 

From the new York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/10/upshot/voting-totals-reveal-crucial-boost-from-blacks-in-cochrans-victory.html?emc=edit_cn_20140709&nl=us&nlid=61216661&_r=0

The precinct level returns in Hinds County [Missippi] bolster the theory that a surge in black, Democratic turnout allowed Senator Thad Cochran to defeat Chris McDaniel, a Tea Party-backed state senator, in last month’s Republican primary runoff in Mississippi.

Mr. Cochran won by 7,667 votes. Nearly half — a net 3,532 votes — came from the most Democratic precincts in Jackson’s Hinds County, where President Obama won a combined 97.8 percent of the vote in 2012, according to figures released Tuesday night by the Mississippi secretary of state.

The surge in turnout was clearest in overwhelmingly black precincts; turnout sometimes increased by more than 3,000 percent over the initial Republican primary.................

Posted by Paul Hunter

The Cold War

In 1957 I was a young Air Force staff sergeant, flight engineer, flying the propeller-driven KC-97G air-refueling tanker out of Lockbourne (now Rickenbacker) Air Force Base.

The USAF began operating the KC-97 in 1950. It purchased a total of 816 tankers from Boeing.The KC-97 used piston engines, fueled by aviation gasoline, but it carried jet fuel for its refueling mission. It therefore used independent (transfer valves) systems for both types of fuel, and was able to transfer its avgas 145 to off-load to the receiver in an emergency. (known as a SAVE) These tankers were vitally important to the world-wide B-47 Stratojet strategic operations. An example was the support of Arctic reconnaissance flights from Thule Air Base.

The Really Cold, Cold War

I had had been playing inter-service, inter-base football that fall in addition to with my flying duties. In November my squadron was tasked by the Strategic Air Command to deploy to Greenland to provide air-refueling support for the air reconnaissance mission, keeping an eye on Russia’s Arctic activities.

Thule Air Force Base Greenland as described by a former veteran of the base: “March was our windiest month. However, we had to be cautious all year long because the wind could come down off of the ice cap at anytime and in minutes be blowing dangerously hard. I only saw it blowing up to 100 mph once during the year I was there. That only lasted a few hours, but the wind-chill factor was -110 Fahrenheit. Everyone just stayed wherever they were whenever something like that happened.”

The mission: A reconnaissance pilot’s experience: “Lappo refueled his RB-47E over the vast wastelands of the Arctic, but could not zero in on his primary target once he penetrated Soviet airspace because of thick cloud cover.”

Flying in the Arctic is totally different from operating in more comfortable climes. We had to heat the aircraft and engines for two hours prior to starting the engines for a flight that would last up to eight hours.

On the first mission, I was amazed when the navigator, after about two hours flying time, stated over inter-phone, “Abeam the North Pole.” We, along with the four other ships in our formation, flew on for two more hours before contacting our receivers, two jet-powered reconnaissance aircraft.

After offloading fuel, we turned and headed back to Thule with just enough fuel to make it home. If the runway was closed for any reason, such as a crashed aircraft, the alternate landing field was on the sea ice that in winter could easily support the plane.

One mission stands out in my memory for its moment of terror. To complete the long refueling missions over the Pole, we had to carry aviation fuel in the air-refueling tanks in place of the jet fuel normally carried.

The jet-powered bomber receivers could operate on aviation fuel with a slight loss of range. To use this fuel source, the tanker’s engines had to be isolated from the pressure pumps that normally furnished fuel. The gravity feed from the refueling tanks was a tenuous operation, with flickering fuel-pressure warning lights the norm.

Arctic navigation in those pre-INS/GPS days relied on celestial navigation because magnetic compass systems were near useless that close to true North.

When the crew navigator needed to take a sextant shot, the refueling panel with the fuel valve-control switches had to be swung back. I warned the navigator to be extra careful to not touch the switches, He misunderstood me and said “These switches?” and promptly closed the fuel-source valves.

Dead silence! All four engines quit and the aircraft’s nose tipped down into the perpetually dark winter Arctic night. The boom operator standing behind me shouted, “Get it, Paul, get it!” The pilot tuned wide-eyed in my direction with a question mark over his head, or so it seemed. I tuned the fuel-source switches to the pressure mode, and all four engines backfired and roared back to life.

Perpetual Arctic Winter Sky

The entire event took only a few seconds but at the time it seemed to take minutes. We completed the mission and the only reminder of the event was my twisted and torn seat-cushion cover.

On the ice cap near the base was a reminder of the dangers of the mission. An RB-47 recon plane was scrapped due to being hit several times by Russian MIG cannon fire.

After our hundred-day deployment was completed and our replacement squadron was in place, the unit headed home to the mild Ohio winter.

I was thankful that I had the experience of operating in a harsh environment, but I wouldn’t want to do it on a regular basis.

Note: The KC-97 and me eventually ended up at Clinton County Air Force Base in1962 and we worked for the Ohio Air National Guard until 1974.

Paul Hunter