Just a Cigar?

What is it about a cigar that can bring one's ship hard about from gloom to bliss? Today, with the capable assistance of Number One Son, we conquered the Early Spring Yard Cleanup, topped off with a beautiful new flagstone landing for the deck stairs. But the euphoria for the day's triumphs truly blossomed with the ignition of a fine Rocky Patel Rosado. What a cigar! A sweet floral smoke, with spice on the palate. The clouds of aromatic smoke were like that of drifting remains of cannonade as Wellington surveyed the Waterloo field at the end of that magnificent day.

Why Do You Fish?

I fish because I love to; because I love the environs where trout are found, which are invariably beautiful, and hate the environs where crowds of people are found, which are invariably ugly; because of the television commercials, cocktail parties and assorted social posturing I thus escape; because, in a world where most men seem to spend their lives doing things they hate, my fishing is at once an endless source of delight and an act of small rebellion; because trout do not lie or cheat but respond only to quietude and humility and endless patience; because I suspect that men are going along this way for the last time, and I for one don't want to waste the trip; because mercifully there are no telephones on trout waters; because only in the woods can I find solitude without loneliness; because bourbon out of an old tin cup tastes better out there; because maybe someday I will catch a mermaid; and, finally, not because I regard fishing as being so terribly important but because I suspect that so many of the other concerns of men are equally unimportant - and not nearly so much fun. - John Voelker

The Voelker Foundation keeps his ideals alive through law school scholarships, writing competitions, and trout habitat restoration activities.

Perfection?

It's becoming harder to tie tippet to leader as the years accumulate and one's eyesight develops limitations. Much time is lost in midstream by fat-fingered tying of surgeon's knots (it always happens during a hatch!). So we will experiment this year with loop-to-loop connections, with lots of 16" tippet segments pre-tied with Perfection Loops. And we also have a tool to thread 6x tippet through the eyes of size 18 dry fly hooks...

Inciting the Mob.

The of chorus of outrage at AIG has a disturbing tone: bulldozing the rule of law in order to satisfy the mob's bloodlust. Holman Jenkins summarized it quite well this morning, He concluded with:

But the biggest lesson here is the old one that the price of freedom is eternal vigilance -- beginning with insistence on the rule of law. Americans clearly cannot trust their elected officials to defend their rights and interests, or care whether justice is served, when the slightest political risk might attach to doing so.

Which brings us back to Mr. Cuomo, whose office has been implicitly threatening to publish names of AIG employees who don't relinquish pay they were contractually entitled to.

Mr. Cuomo is a thug, but at least he reminds us: It can happen here.

And for those of you holding a torch or pitchfork, consider this point of view.

Clean Coal Dreams.

Jim Cramer interviewed Gene Klappa, the CEO of Wisconsin Energy Corporation, which has been aggressively experimenting with CO2 scrubbing of coal plant emissions. The field experiments have been a failure so far, and Klappa estimates that a "clean coal" solution that can be practically fielded is at least ten years off. Meanwhile the Obama Cap and Trade Juggernaut rolls along. It is now estimated that when C&T is implemented electricity costs will increase by 50%. Just in time to strangle a recovery of the U.S. economy.

In ten years, we could build five nuclear plants, displacing 25 coal-fired plants. That's if we chose to "put science ahead of politics". Wisconsin, in a spasm of self-righteousness, has banned construction on any new nuclear plants.

By the way: 300 additional 1GW nuclear plants would displace the electricity generation of all of the 1500 coal-fired plants in the U.S. Do we have the political will and the seriousness to consider at least five nukes in ten years?

Science Sans Politics.

The Administration is touting big savings in health care by adopting universal electronic record-keeping. Two pro-Obama doctors have looked at the performance of such systems and have concluded otherwise.

Perhaps the President should confine policy decisions "based only on scientific merit" for issues with no perceptible moral dimension, such as medical record-keeping. Nat Hentoff reminds us that the President may have political or ideological investments in issues of life and death.

Simplicity.

Our flytying skills are, shall we say, rustic. Accordingly, we'll keep our spring flybox very simple. "Syl" Nemes is the great champion of soft hackle patterns, and his DVD on tying them has encouraged us to have plenty of Partridge & Green, Pheasant Tail Soft Hackles, and Midge Soft Hackles on hand for the last Saturday in April. Borcher's Special, a truly superb pattern for the Au Sable, is also an essential. Henrickson Duns, BWOs, Hare's Ears and Pheasant Tail nymphs, and the odd streamer will round out our Opening Day Flybox.

And a Man's Fancy Turns To...

Enough politics! It so ruins the digestion. We will, for now, put aside our lance and shield and defer battle with the dragon. So we shall turn to fishing. This weekend we attended the Midwest Flyfishing Expo in Warren, Michigan. It was a badly needed tonic for a weekend of rain and gloom. Good exhibitions on casting & tying, and a good turnout . There was a very fine demonstration on the double-haul (we will definitely make this part of our repertoire!); we had a delightful conversation with Au Sable legend Jerry Regan, and an inspirational one with volunteers with Project Healing Waters about the efforts to use the holistic powers of flyfishing for physical and spiritual recovery for wounder warriors. We finally saw a copy of Voelker's "Anatomy of a Fisherman". It includes a superb color photo section of the fishing retreats of the 1950s Upper Peninsula. Definitely required for the library.

Remember, Comrades.

Under capitalism, man exploits man. Under socialism, it's the just the opposite.

Obama's Destruction of Wealth.

Leaving the White House's Rush Limbaugh diversion aside, there is growing opinion that the President's budget and taxation proposals are a very bad thing. Just ask Jim Cramer.

Reaganesque?

Russian President Medvedev, in a completely predictable response, has accepted President Obama's deferral of the deployment of missile defense in Poland, while declining Obama's request that Russia diplomacy be employed to stop Iran's nuclear program. Senator Charles Schumer has called Obama's initiative "Reaganesque". Hmm. Obama's blunder is more reminiscent of Jimmy Carter's whipsawing on the deployment of the "neutron bomb" in Western Europe. Carter's vascillation humiliated then West German leader Helmut Schmidt, and helped to bolster Soviet influence in German politics in the 1980s.

A Thoughtful Alternative.

Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) presents in a WSJ op-ed an economic strategy that makes a lot more sense than zero-sum Obamanomics.

Just Plain Evil.

Robert Mugabe, leader for life of Zimbabwe, celebrated his 85th birthday on the backs of his fellow countrymen, the New York Times reports. The accomplishments of his career are impressive: he squandered international good will and any chance of racial accord by race-baiting and expropriation of land owners, through three decades of corruption and incompetence he has destroyed the country's economy, starvation pervades Zimbabwe, and the level of violence and terror he has employed to prop up his regime would have embarrassed the most ruthless apartheid goon.

Yet the international community does nothing, indeed is nearly silent on the suffering of Zimbabwe. Why? It's baffling that civil and human rights organizations, particularly African-American groups, have assumed such a low profile on this outrage.

Obama's War.

This week President Obama ended his rope-a-dope of the Center-Right and launched an attack against American capitalism. He is: (i) repealing the Bush tax cuts and raising the highest Federal tax rate to 40%, (ii) increasing taxes on the energy industry, (iii) limiting tax relief from mortgage interest, (iv) reinstating the Death Tax, (v) raising capital gains taxes, (vi) raising taxes on successful small businesses*, (vii) increasing federal intervention in the health care industry, (viii) instituting a carbon cap and trade program on American industries, and (viii) dismantling private enterprise student loans. He capped off the week with the destruction of private capital investments in banks.

Wall Street, the source of investment capital needed for recovery, aborted productive uses of finance in favor of "Obama-proof" portfolios: more treasuries, gold, cash, and international stocks poised to benefit from an unfettered Chinese recovery and protected from Obama wealth-redistribution.

The Administration and Congers are fanatically devoted to the notion that The Government will grow us out of this mess, as if they have discovered a perpetual-motion machine.


*Example of such a small business: owner of three convienience stores. A good store will, after expenses, net the owner about $100K per year in profits. Such a store also pays two additional employees $85K in wages and benefits.

Tragedy.

Elie Weisel has been wiped out by Bernard Madoff.

What is the Truth About the Banks?

The fear on bank nationalization is rampant, and threatens to become a self-fueling conflagration. Yet two interesting articles caught our eye that questions whether such a step is necessary at all. First, the staff at Miyanville note that banks are more than capable of writing down - over time- their current large losses against future revenues.Second, the IBD editorial board reminds us that 90% of all banks are sound, and that lending rates are not catastrophic.

Obama Revealed.

President Obama spoke to the Congers last night, and made it very clear that the spending has only just begun. In this first year of his tenure he intends to tackle (universal) health care, expanded federal support for education, and a plunge into "green" energy production. This last objective is of particular concern: the WSJ noted this morning that White House green gurus indicate that the Administration will regulate CO2 as an atmospheric pollutant under the Clean Air Act . In which we reply, in the words of Cromwell: "I beseech you in the bowels of Christ think it possible you may be mistaken". As we have learned with the declarations of vague schemes by the Treasury for the next stanza of financial reconstruction, now is not the time to further paralyze private capital investments in our economy because of fear of brave new regulations. And the President's call to action on energy conspicuously dodged a mention of nuclear power. If we are going to supplant coal-fired electricity generation, we need to find sources that can efficiently produce several hundred thousand megawatts of energy. A wind plan as ambitious as that envisioned by Boone Pickens would produce 200,000 MW. While that's a very respectable number, it's less than a quarter of our current electricity demand. Our fear is that the White House greenies will prevail in ideological purity and America's aversion to nuclear power will continue.

Town Hall Meeting with Congerscritter Schauer.

Last Friday we attended a town hall meeting, in our fair burg, with freshman congerscritter Mark Schauer (D). There were around two dozen constituents in attendance. There was a palpable tension in the coffee shop; many families in our town have their financial fortunes tied to the Big Three. In the past week the mammoth "Stimulus" Bill had been whisked through both houses of Congress and signed by the President. The pre-meeting conversations around the tables expressed frustration of citizens unable to slow or alter the course of the massive spending juggernaut. It was a clear sentiment eager to be expressed to the new representative, and hoped he would listen.

Mr. Schauer's priority, however, was not to listen, but to talk. And talk, and talk, and talk. After nearly forty-five minutes of a nearly uninterrupted monologue, some of the attendees began to shoehorn comments into what seemed to be a soliloquy.After a long lecture into the minutiae of a proposed high-speed rail in Michigan, time had run out, and many left extremely frustrated, including this correspondent.

We hope that Mr. Schauer's deafness toward the people he represents will pass with time and experience.

Why Bipartisanship?

On CNBC this morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid revealed the real reason for the of GOP votes for the "Stimulus" bill: Republicans have "bet on failure". Please, Mr. Reid, don't insult our intelligence. This is not a matter of whether your opponents want the country to live or die, it's about what is the best course of action to save the greatest economic system in the history of the world.

Chris Matthews continued the (MS)NBC attacks against Rick Santelli, calling his attitude that of "Ebenezer Scrooge". Be careful, Comrade Santelli, your attitude has been noticed. You don't wan't to be called a counterrevolutionary; they shoot counterrevolutionaries.

"Scoop" Jackson She Ain't.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has made it clear that when it comes to dealing with the People's Republic of China, business (and bond buying) comes first. There was a time thirty years ago when some thought that such a realistic attitude be adopted in dealing with the Soviet Union. Senator Henry Jackson, God rest his soul, thought otherwise.