Pravda On The Hudson Travels To The Inaugural

The NY Times provides "coverage" of Obama's latest posturing on global warming:

Speech Gives Climate Goals Center Stage

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and JOHN M. BRODER

WASHINGTON — President Obama made addressing climate change the most prominent policy vow of his second Inaugural Address, setting in motion what Democrats say will be a deliberately paced but aggressive campaign built around the use of his executive powers to sidestep Congressional opposition.

Yeah, yeah. Pravda describes his last bellyflop on this:

After the defeat in 2010 of legislation that would have capped carbon emissions and issued tradable permits for emissions, Mr. Obama turned to regulation and financing for alternative energy.

2010? My goodness, weren't they the halcyon days of Nancy running the House and Harry marhsalling 9 Democratic Senators? Here are the Times editors describing Obama's failure in July 2010:

With A Whimper

On Thursday, the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, abandoned the fight for meaningful energy and climate legislation. The Republicans — surprise — had been fiercely obstructionist. But the Democratic leaders let them get away with it, as did the White House. It has been weeks since President Obama spoke out about the need for a serious climate bill to address the very real danger of global warming and to lessen this country’s dependence on imported oil.

...

The Republicans obviously bear a good part of the responsibility for this failure. With a handful of exceptions, they have denied or played down the problem of global warming for years and did pretty much anything they could to protect industry from necessary regulation. There are, however, as many as a dozen Senate Democrats, mainly from the South, Appalachia and the Midwest, who share the blame.

The politics haven't gotten better for the Democrats. But then the Pravda science writers take over:

Beyond new policies, the administration is seeking to capitalize on the surge of natural gas production over the past few years. As a cheaper and cleaner alternative to coal, natural gas gives it a chance to argue that coal is less economically attractive.

...Despite the lack of comprehensive legislation, emissions have declined roughly 10 percent since he took office, a result both of the economic slowdown and of energy efficiency moves by government and industry.

Who the frack do they think they are kidding? Well, "Frack" is a four letter word at the Times, whose editors will always believe that more study is needed until a quasi-credible effort puts the kibosh on fracking, at which point the science will be settled.

However, this appeared in their pages (or at least, their website) last August:

Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions in the United States from January through March were the lowest of any recorded for the first quarter of the year since 1992, the federal Energy Information Administration reports.

The agency attributed the decline to a combination of three factors: a mild winter, reduced demand for gasoline and, most significant, a drop in coal-fired electricity generation because of historically low natural gas prices.

...

The extraction of large natural gas deposits in the Marcellus Shale has contributed to the rise of inexpensive natural gas, causing prices to decline in the last four years and making it a far cheaper option than burning coal. In 2005, coal accounted for half of all electricity generated in the country. But the embrace of natural gas, which now accounts for about 30 percent of electricity generation, has caused coal’s share to retreat to 34 percent, a 40-year low.

And an important reminder:

Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the means by which much of the shale gas is being acquired, also raises questions about potential environmental effects like groundwater contamination, critics say.

I foresee an Orwellian New Year - Obama will attempt to lead an national conversation on energy policy without ever mentioning fracking, a process to which his big donor base is opposed. And the Times will report in this conversation in code.

And speaking of losing the future, Obama can't even talk about nuclear power because Harry Reid wants endless re-study of Yucca Mountain as a nuclear waste repository. Meanwhile, China is going to find out once and for all whether thorium is the nuclear dream metal.

ERRATA: A victory lap from the Skeptical Environmentalist.

IF I ONLY HAD A BRAIN - STRAWMEN DIVISION:

Classic Obama rhetoric:

For we have always understood that when times change, so must we, that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges, that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias. No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future. Or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores. Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation, and one people.

No single person can make an I-Phone. Or for that matter, a PC (former TIME Thing of the Year, now on the back shelf). "Fracking" was hardly a project pushed by Big Government, although they certainly contributed.

But evidently in ObamaWorld, if I can't do it myself the only other step is a Big Goverment project. Hmm... I have a large, awkward piece of furniture I need to get up the stairs. I had been thinking of calling my neighbor for a hand (and give him a chance to blow out his other knee), but now I see I should be writing to my Congressman. Or to Barack himself!

Well, what should we expect from a guy who can't even call a plumber when the toilets are backed up?

Comments

[narciso]

'Shirley they can't be serious' this was one of the Huntress's first volleys after she resigned, the CRU scandal did amplify that effect.

[narciso]

I had this from last night;

http://hotair.com/archives/2013/01/21/video-obama-promises-to-do-something-about-climate-change/

Cutting through tauntaun innards seem more worthwhile

[narciso]

Under these policies, we and Europe end up relying on overseas gas, from Quatar and over
here;

http://www.csmonitor.com/World/terrorism-security/2013/0122/Algeria-defends-hardline-response-to-hostage-crisis

[narciso]

Policies rarely work out the way the want it to;

http://althouse.blogspot.com/2013/01/politicians-and-their-wives-chez-drudge.html

[narciso]

And Delingpole slaps this idiocy with a hammer;

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100199161/obama-declares-war-on-reality/

[The energy bone connected to the money bone.]

He's just shaking the gourds and pointing the bones that Al Gore unearthed from the museum at Divinity School. Insofar as that is racist, I deplore me. Nature is surer, but slower, than these rascals with silver tongues and daggers.
===========

[Captain Hate]

The rapist doing what he does best (and looking really bad): http://tammybruce.com/2013/01/caption-this-billy-jeff-eyes-kelly-clarkson.html

[Captain Hate]

Chucky Sleaze leering away and Boehner looks like he's in the bag: http://i.imgur.com/6gJOk93.jpg

[hit and run]

TM:
Well, what should we expect from a guy who can't even call a plumber when the toilets are backed up?

A helluvalotta shit.

[centralcal]

Just posted this on the now dead thread, Captain - BJ's "date" didn't quite compare to the female entertainment, maybe?

Ah, glamor!

[narciso]

Well Kelly Clarkson has become a little shrill of late, after a brief curtsy to Ron Paul, she did vote for Obama,

[NK]

Old Soviet saying: "there is no pravda in Pravda, and no izvestia in Izvestia." Today the same can be said for Pravda/Izvestia on the Hudson.

BTW-- love to help out with that furniture TomM, but I tweaked my back at the gym Friday.

[Manuel Transmission]

I can't believe no one took my bait last night about MO's implants. Y'all have to know the trick of guys buying a toupee and shaving their beard at the same time. MO's bangs and the side armor of her helmet wig cover a multitude of incisions as well as creating a distraction.

[Extraneus]

...preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.

And that's probably just how it'll happen, too, when a few million citizens, armed to the teeth, "ultimately" decide to take collective action.

[centralcal]

You are probably right, MT - the need to cover up traces of having "a little work done."

[pat]

When a Democrat has nothing to talk about he turns to climate change. They know one cannot really do anything about it, but it satisfies the ignorant masses and justifies all sorts of painful impositions on political enemies.

[Peter]

I'm guessing our dear blog host is back on the caffeine, as he appears to be "en fuego."

[Danube of Thought iPad]

I find it rather depressing that David Brooks will be talking and writing publicly for as long as I live.

"It was about collectivity. There's no question about that. Four years ago, it was about being trans-partisan, about healing divides. He was sort of above the fray. Now he's in the fray. He's picked a team. And his team is his party, his belief system.
"
And I thought he made the case for a very pragmatic, prudential, incremental, but progressivism, a more forthright case for progressivism than we have heard in some time, even more than Bill Clinton ever made. And so I thought he raised the debate. And it's good to have this debate. I really thought it was one of the best inaugural speeches in the past half-century, because those -- the speeches that work are making an argument for something."

[maryrose]

Climate change just like the gun control debate is an extreme waste of time. The debt and the economy will continue to be the topics that no one wants to talk about or address in any meaningful manner.
I am looking forward to the multitudinous set of lies Hil will provide tomorrow as she attempts to cover her tracks on the Benghazi fiasco. Anyone want to bet on whether any person asks her about her comments wrt the video to a grieving parent?

[maryrose]

DOT:
I am rarely speechless, but Brooks,'s column has left me in that state.

[maryrose]

Collectivity is socialism and Marxism combined. It is not the American way to spread the wealth around.

[moxieman]

Well, what should we expect from a guy who can't even call a plumber when the toilets are backed up?
----------------
The last president to call in plumbers was Nixon.

[Porchlight]

Will Hillary be under oath?

[rse]

There was a comment on the Medici on the other thread. The line died out because they thought they were too good to marry mid-level aristocracy. And the genuine ruling class came to see them as beneath them.

I think there's a political lesson there.

On Jeb, he is pushing the Dem vision on education. The CAP vision. His work says it's education for the 21st century economy. He is working with Gates personnel. I got another one of his reports today that is Gag worthy.

Nobody asks good questions it's just a means of bringing in business for the already connected. But it is and was designed to be lethal for students. And hugely expensive for taxpayers.

[hit and run]

Porchlight:
Will Hillary be under oath?

And/or under the influence?

[sbw]

"a more forthright case for progressivism than we have heard in some time"

Brooksie, more forthright you may think, but still in negative numbers.

[narciso]

THat was me, rse, on my Renaissane kick, specially reflecting on George Eliot's Romola,
I would refer to the Sforzas, but they aren't as ruthless. I've seen how the Ignite/FCAT system doesn't work

[Porchlight]

Under the influence is a given, hit.

How much do you want to bet that giant overcoat yesterday held a sizable flask?

[sbw]

Our editorial today: Audacious and Preposterous

In his second inaugural address, Barack Obama audaciously proposed that individual freedoms are preserved not by liberty, but through more government. He would “protect” individual freedoms, but only in his fashion.

“Through it all,” Obama said, “we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.” Having set up that misdirection, Obama then reveals the plan for his Orwellian new world order, “But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”

Collective action? Obama is right insofar as it would be dangerous to relinquish skepticism of central authority in the face of such doubletalk.

Elsewhere in his speech, Obama listed several governmental entitlements claiming, “those programs “do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.” They free people to take risks? Apple Computer was founded by two people in a garage, not through excessive entitlements the country cannot afford.

Obama says he would free people from risks. Most of us do what we have to do, toiling at the jobs that are available, where those jobs happen to be. Any adventurous risks take place in our free time. In Obama’s beehive, labor from worker bees would support a class of risk-free drones whose business is to serve the queen bee. Obama’s Utopian dreams famously echo Karl Marx, who did not want to be the lawyer his middle class father understood would support him in the workaday world. Instead, Marx wanted to be able to follow his dreams as a writer, living at the expense of others.

Obama twists words in the most preposterous way.

[NK]

For the Obamaniacs and Dems it will be all GUNZ all CLIMATE CHANGE all the time-- what else can they talk about? Jobs? Epic Fail-- Fuel /Food prices? Real High -- fail; Obamacare!-- uh no; Peace in the Middle East?-- well the Jihadis have won, of course there's peace, so no. Of course the REAL issue is NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY, The NATIONAL DEBT BOMB, and OPM having run out. Those are very unhappy topics, soooooo... it's all GUNZ, all CLIMATE CHANGE all the time-- you know, all cotton candy clouds and Unicorn Farts --BarryI loves to talk about those.....

[boatbuilder]

"...preserving our individual liberties ultimately requires collective action."

They are no longer even pretending that they aren't commies.

[hit and run]

Obama:
than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.

Unless the muskets had bayonets. And were wielded by Big Bird riding on a horse with a binder full of women in need of free birth control.

[NK]

"...preserving our individual liberties ultimately requires collective action."

Why isn't this true? Didn't the colonists take 'collective action' against GeorgeV in the form of rebellion in order to restore liberty? Although rebellion against opressive taxation and a centralized tyrant probably isn't the type of 'collective action' BarryI refers to.

[narciso]

No, he means govt, will secure the rights, that prevent the government to doing what it needs to do to us,

[sbw]

Obama is stuck back in 1800 with Hobbes Leviathan.

One would have thought 200 years more of experience would have helped. But, no, if Hobbes was good enough for Marx, he's good enough for O.

[NK]

Narc-- did you even get a chuckle at the old Soviet Union cliche I quoted?

[NK]

Talleyrand would know they type if he were around today to see BarryI in action. Like the Bourbons BarryI "has learned nothing and forgotten nothing."

[narciso]

No he's riffing on Louis XV, although Geithner is no match for Richelieu, much less Mazarin,

[jimmyk]

"Why isn't this true?"

Like much of what Obama says, to the extent it is true, it is vacuous. Either it means what he intended it to mean, which is a huge increase in government's control of economic decision-making, plus redistribution of wealth, in which case it is false to the point of Orwellian; or it could mean anything at all, such as the libertarian endorsement of taxes for national defense and law enforcement, in which case it means nothing. Take your pick.

[Rob Crawford]

You are probably right, MT - the need to cover up traces of having "a little work done."

Perhaps they ground down the neck bolts?

[NK]

Phat Phil (that's a term of endearment for me) 'apologizes' for his tax rant. Meh-- he'll be domiciled in Texas or Fla. before the end of 2013-- book it. http://msn.foxsports.com/golf/story/phil-mickelson-apologizes-for-tax-comments-says-he-should-have-kept-it-private-012213

[Jane on Ipad]

SBW,

Obama also said that people are on Medicaid so they can take risks.

[narciso]

Some people don't go away like blood sucking tics;

http://www.buzzfeed.com/zekejmiller/chuck-hagels-ties-to-another-controversial-nomine

Talleyrand like Fouche, was very clever having served the Ancient Regime, Revolution, and the Bourbon restoration,

[Captain Hate]

The country clubbers all took to the fainting couches after Phil dared to have an opinion and was spoken to sternly by Top Men.

[NK]

Narc@143-- that's like working for the Kennedys, the Clintons and the Obamaniacs-- Zut Alors, la Famille Sulzberger!

[narciso]

He should have just done it, to muse about it, makes him look like Saverin, who comes off as a supreme goof in the 'Social Network.

[jimmyk]

Yahoo is reporting some kind of shooter at a university in Houston.

[jimmyk]

I should say on "a college campus near Houston."

[NK]

Link below to the AP story about the Nebraska thumbs-up to Keystone XL. Right decision for Nebraskans and the nation. Somhow I think HRH Barry will approve the pipeline, but in the fine print, somehow Buffett's choo-choos will get a big piece of business (or tax credits) to offset the loss of hauling tar sands freight. It's what cronies do for each other.

[NK]

here's the link: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/neb-governor-oks-keystone-xl-route-through-state

[narciso]

Great state, there, NK, will they get a clue;

http://onlygunsandmoney.blogspot.com/2013/01/attention-connecticut-gun-owners.html

[Frau Schnapps war ihr letztes Wort]

If I had to touch Bent Willie's hand, I'd have more than a flask to see me through the ordeal.

[Bill Clinton]

It's not my hand that I want you to touch.

[NK]

Narc-- Ct. Mandarins are like Talleyrand's observation about the Bourbons... except, they are quite proud of their ignorance, indeed they revel in it. Looks like TomM and I are forever left with the Field Hockey Stick self-defense...

[Frau Schnapps war ihr letztes Wort]

This illustrates the situation...

[Frau Schnapps war ihr letztes Wort]

BJ was and remains a reprobate and a dirty old man.

[NK]

Barry's Banditos.. any chance we can get some Mexican federales to run them off like in Treasure of Sierra Madre?

[NK]

Well this is very rare- a politician saying what he really means-- Japanese minister says: the elderly should 'hurry up and die'-- doesn't this validate the 2028 "100%" guaranteed mass extinction of current 55yos according to the SSA?http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266533/Japans-finance-minister-Taro-Aso-tells-elderly-hurry-die.html

[hit and run]

Look at all those bullets Obama is wearing . . . on a high-capacity magazine, no less.

[sbw]

Dee-lightful juxtaposition, hit.

[narciso]

Ace is on his fainting couch again;

http://minx.cc/?post=336787

[NK]

When the Left is self-selecting itself out of existence with elective abortion-- why stop them?

[pagar]

"to offset the loss of hauling tar sands freight."

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-01-21/little-train-couldnt-anymore

"it appears the little train that could for the last four years has finally decided it can't anymore. "

Has quit chugging!

[jimmyk]

Since this is being debated at Ace's site, I'll chime in here and say that just because the polls for something fairly objective (and testable by the actual outcome) like presidential voting proved to be fairly accurate, does not mean that squishy polls like this should be accepted at face value. We've already seen how slanted the NYT poll's questions on gun control were. We can also accept the poll but question the reporting. For example, here's how one could accurately report the poll results:

Only 39% approve of Roe v Wade. 67% are opposed to abortion on demand.

Compare that to the lede in this article, which seems like a gross distortion.

http://firstread.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/01/21/16626932-nbcwsj-poll-majority-for-first-time-want-abortion-to-be-legal?lite

[maryrose]

jimmyk:
Abortion already is legal so this is a phony poll with a phony question. Do they appove of 3rd trimester abortion or killing the baby if it survives? That is the question. I would assume a much different result. If neo-natal units can keep premies alive and eventually help them thrive, why would you kill a fetus at any stage?

[NK]

Pagar-- I like ZeroHedge as much as the next guy, but, it is hard for something to be 'cyclical' and 'unprecedented' at THE SAME TIME.

[maryrose]

Either Obama will approve Keystone with bennies foe environmemtalists, some sop to them or he will stonewall it,
If he approves, media will see him as the second coming,or he will oppose because he can despite the jobs it would create.

[narciso]

That's the steepest drop since December 2010, that's a little disconcerting,

[narciso]

'Is this your card'

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/01/22/us-house-to-vote-wednesday-on-raising-debt-limit/

[NK]

NO NEW DEBT-- I've shouted that for months as the way out of the wilderness for conservatives. I have no problem with this House vote -- this shows Cantor is gaining influence with those who are revolted by Boehner's lame political tactics. this is pretty clever-- let the Dems start a lawsuit to get paid without a budget-- that I'd like to see litigated.

[NK]

Freight volume drop?-- yes it is disconcerting, and probably a sign of a terrible recession in 2013. But it is a cyclical drop.. that was my criticism of ZeroHedge in calling it "unprecedented".

[narciso]

Well look at the original data

http://railfax.transmatch.com/

[NK]

that chart shows a terrible 1-3rdQtr in 2012, recovered abit since september.

[RichatUF]

That's the steepest drop since December 2010, that's a little disconcerting,

It'd also help if the time series was a bit longer. It's a cylical measure. The winter (here, yeah, except for today, since someone spoke about global warming) has been mild, Christmas shopping season was a disappointment (so probably an inventory dump this next quarter and weak orders going forward), and companies are probably thinking of freeing some wage slaves to celebrate the coronation of Barack the I.

And if I felt old yesterday, I really feel old today. brb.

[Lesley]

Re: The Medicis

They also died out due to inbreeding and a certain number of homosexual male Medicis who didn't much care to mate with the ladies.

I'll be in Florence for the month of February. If any JOMers should be there during that time, I'd love to see you. Hit's got my email addy. My daughter is to be married to an Italian in September and will be spending the rest of her life in Florence. I suspect I, too, shall be spending a lot of time there in the future, especially if any grandchildren should appear (fingers crossed).

My best to all of you at JOM, special love to Porch & Baby Porch, Rick, and Sue, dear dear Sue.

[Frau Schnapps war ihr letztes Wort]

17-86% raises for WH aides. It's good to be Rei di Tutto.
LUN

[Rick Ballard]

Hi, Lesley

I hope you enjoy the visit to Firenze. It can be a bit dismal in February but there are always trains available to locations where the sun is shining.

I'd like to visit the Medici Chapels and Laurentian Library again - good reminders that even very strong oligarchies come to an end.

[narciso]

Wonderful news, Lesley, I chose the Medicis, asa a metaphor for the Bush clan, because they too were a merchant class that amassed considerable power, now the Kennedys, more properly fit that clan from that other corner of the Med,

The rail traffic info, doesn't look so apocalyptically bad, when you spread it out over the four year pattern, but like inverted yield curves, that usually indicates trouble.

[Kat]

After Medicis Savonarola… Just saying.

[narciso]

True, kat, and Romola covers that period when the French army were invited into Florence, as the lesser evil.

[Lesley]

Hi Rick. Agreed, dismal in February. My daughter is a TA for Syracuse's Florence Art History Program and one of her favorite lectures to give (& site visits to) is on Michaelangelo's four times of day in the Sagrestia Nuova for the undergrad Masterpiece's class. She's also assisting with a later Medicis survey course. The Laurentian Library is magnificent but the main Medici chapel I find vaguely creepy as I do the street level rooms of the Pitti. I will tail her on her site visits but I expect the rest of my stay will be all wedding, all the time. We've found a nice place up in Fiesole (Villa Monte Fiano) for the wedding/reception and have lined up the Episcopal priest from St. James to preside. Her future in-laws have a lovely apartment in the Castello di Torregalli where Sargent painted five paintings. The prenuptial dinner will be held there. Its very cool to stand in exactly the same spot Sargent stood while he was painting. I will think of you while we're chasing Medicis.

Thank you, Narciso. I thought your Medici metaphor fascinating. Lord, the way your brain works. Its always thing of wonder to follow the way you make connections to events/people, past/present. My compliments.

[daddy]

Her future in-laws have a lovely apartment in the Castello di Torregalli where Sargent painted five paintings.

Lesley,

You can't just leave us hanging there like that without pics!

The Castello di Torregalli

John Singer Sargent: Florence: Torre Galli

At Torre Galli: Ladies in a Garden

Wonderfully cool!

[Neo]

Over at Slate, they begin up Climate Change with this quote from President Barack Obama's inaugural address ...

"That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That's what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared."

Obama falls into the trap. Captain James T Kirk frames the question right in "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" (1989), ... "What does God need with a starship?"

Why does God need us to do anything ? God is God, the omnipotent.

Every time I head something like that uttered by Obama, I think of the Crusaders and the Jihadists, the holy warriors, who tell us they are going it for God. No, they are not. They are doing it for themselves. An omnipotent God just doesn't work that way.

[Jack is Back]

Lesley,

Lucky lady.

Mrs. JiB studied Italian in Firenze after graduating from Atlantic College (high school) before going on to the Academy in Antwerp. Her school was on one side of the Ponte Vecchio and her living quarters on the other. The reason she became so fluent is not because she is Antwerpian (known for being linguists due to the port) but because after classes she would walk back home over the bridge practicing what she had learned that day. Then be curteously corrected by the various venditori. Study more at night and in the morning when she walked back she could converse in a more exacting Firenze dialect.

She'd go back in a New York second but I don't think I could stand the aroma's and flavors of the Tratattorias without succumbing to a huge weight gain:)

[Lesley]

Since this is the end of the thread...

Daddy, yup, that's the place and those are some of the paintings. Sweet of you to be interested enough to look them all up. Very sweet.

JiB, I think your lovely wife must be quite a talented linguist. My daughter has lived in Florence for quite some time and still despairs at her ability with the language. Early on in her relationship with her fiance they went to a large party some of his friends were having (all Italians) and she said she felt like a Filipino mail order bride who could only respond, "yes" "no" "hello", nodding her head and smiling, having absolutely no idea what was being said to her.

I thank God for Skype and FaceTime, otherwise I would miss my daughter terribly. Visiting in Florence and living in Florence are two different things. Those of you who have lived in Europe know what I mean. One day I was Skyping with her, and she declared, "Mom, Italy is a third world country!!!" This particular lament concerned laundry, or rather the lack of dryers. Most Italians don't have dryers because (a) they think dryers ruin your clothes (b) electricity is so expensive. She does not have a car and must walk half a mile each way to go to the laundromat unless her fiance is available to drive her. We Americans are so blessed with our (relatively) cheap & abundant energy.

In order to get a driver's license in Italy, you must test on a car with a shift. They don't allow you to get a driver's license with an automatic car. I had been investigating shipping household goods and a car to her (ask me anything about shipping containers!). We could ship a Jeep to her and they could pick it up in Genoa. She said, "Mom, thanks but no thanks. I can't afford an SUV because of petrol prices over here."

Her fiance is a Roman Catholic Atheist (heh) and my daughter did not want to get married in the Roman Catholic Church. Italy recognizes only Roman Catholic weddings as legal. Therefore, they must have a civil ceremony in order for the Italian government to recognize their marriage. The day before their Episcopal wedding they'll probably go to the Palazzo Vecchio and be married in front of judge. Italian women do not take their husband's last name. My daughter will always keep her maiden name.

Land mass-wise, Italy is only about the size of Arizona governed by a Byzantine bureaucracy. Case in point: there was a huge scandal at the Uffizi recently concerning the contracting company which provided the museum guards. It was discovered that the contracting company had given kick-backs to the big wigs at the Uffizi in order to win the job. Of course the contractors were fired and the corrupt Uffizi bureaucrats all kept there jobs.

I could go on and on. Needless to say, I do have concerns about her living there. Life there will be very different for a typical American girl. I'll provide Italy updates while I'm there next month. I've rented an apartment about a block away from Santa Croce and I suspect living on the fourth floor without an elevator will prove more challenging than the language for this old girl.

[sbw]

An omnipotent God just doesn't work that way.

And I thought we were bestowed God-given talents.