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Moses would have drilled.

I won’t often quote scripture in this space. But I’m going to this time because the scripture I’m about to quote is illuminating in today’s situation. I’m quoting Deuteronomy, the eighth chapter beginning with the seventh verse. Moses is speaking to the Israelites: For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs that flow out of valleys and hills; a land of...

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Call us the “Do Nothing Generation.”

Something I said on June 11 has been working on me since I first wrote it. In the story I did on the 1,400 mile Big Inch pipeline that was built from Longview, Texas to Linden, N.J. during World War II in only 54 weeks I said, “We Baby Boomers are the children of people who got things done. And we have been living off of those accomplishments ever since (without really having to put...

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Don’t wait ’til 2010! Raise your own taxes now!

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, June 20, 2008. I have some Democrat friends. I know, it doesn’t seem possible. But I do. They’re not extreme left wing-hate America-George Soros-Hollywood whack job Democrats. My Democrat friends are sane Democrats. They’re reasonable, thinking people. But sane as I give them credit for being, a Democrat is still a Democrat and this friend of mine and I...

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Our parents got things done and the Earth is still beautiful.

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, June 13, 2008. I want to propose an ambitious capital project and I want your thoughts on the feasibility. In order to meet a strategic national need, we need to construct a pipeline nearly 1,500 miles from Texas to New York. We’re going to cross 95 counties and traverse all or part of Texas, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio,...

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Let’s have a picnic in the oil patch!

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, June 6, 2008. Please forgive me for again going on about oil prices and the need to change U.S. policy with respect to domestic exploration and production. I know I’ve been on that topic pretty relentlessly of late but I can’t help it. There are two factors dragging heavily on the economy right now. One is credit market turmoil...

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Are shareholders smarter than Congressmen? No contest.

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, May 30, 2008. There is a key similarity and there is key difference between being a shareholder in a publicly traded company and being a member of Congress. The similarity is that if you own shares in a publicly traded company or if you are a member of Congress, you get to vote at the meetings. The difference is...

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W: “You don’t approve of me? I’m outta here.”

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, May 23, 2008. I got an e-mail the other day from my friend Mike Tomlinson containing an imaginary resignation letter from a fed up President Bush. I like the premise but the letter needed a rewrite and I have given it one. Here it is. My fellow Americans, All available data shows that between seven and eight out of...

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How mad would Eddie Chiles be now?

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me, Friday, May 16, 2008 on Newstalk 600 KTBB. (A quick closed circuit to Michael Carter. Your comment on last week’s piece is one of the best we have ever received. Thanks for listening and thanks for the response, Mr. Carter. It’s greatly appreciated. Click here to read Mr. Carter’s comment.) Back in the late 1970s, Eddie Chiles, the CEO of the Western Company of...

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Playing bad poker with the gas money.

“If, after the first twenty minutes, you don’t know who the sucker at the table is, it’s you. ” ~Author Unknown I have played a little bit of poker in my life. I’m not a great card player but I do understand the fundamentals of the game. The game is not about what cards you draw. The game is about how you play your cards against your opponent. Imagine yourself in a high stakes card...

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The more they “do something” the worse it gets.

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, May 5, 2008. It’s costing a fortune to fill up my car. I hate it. I’m sure you hate it. I also hate that we remain, 35 years after the Arab oil embargo, more dependent on oil from foreign sources than we were when we first experienced gasoline lines. I appreciate the urge on the part of the government...

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A Nation at Risk: Our schools 25 years later.

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, April 25, 2008. Let me share with you a quote. “If an unfriendly power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war.” That line came from a report issued 25 years ago this week by the National Commission on Excellence in Education titled,...

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When your health care gets grounded.

Click here to listen to the broadcast of You Tell Me on Newstalk 600 KTBB, Friday, Apr. 18, 2008. I have just returned from the National Association of Broadcasters convention in Las Vegas. When I arrived Saturday afternoon and went to the convention center to get my badge and convention materials, one of the stories on the floor was the fact that exhibitors and exhibit materials that should have arrived days before were late on...