I know the United States has no diplomatic relations with North Korea.

Thus, there can be no official dialogue between, say Secretary of State John Kerry and whoever in Pyongyang speaks as the NKs’ foreign minister. All that’s left officially is for the White House and/or the State Department to make public statements about the sabre-rattling that’s going on in North Korea.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/291985-white-house-to-north-korea-choose-the-path-of-peace

However, I have to believe there is some back-channel talking going on here. It’s the kind of thing both sides guard carefully from public view. While the North Koreans bluster about using nukes on South Korea or launching missiles at U.S. targets – such as Austin, for crying out loud – the Pentagon is ordering fly-bys of B-2 Stealth bombers and Stealth fighters, deploying guided missile destroyers and putting all U.S. installations along the Pacific Rim on high alert. And let’s forget that the ocean is crawling with U.S. submarines armed with you-know-what.

And I am trying to imagine the tongue-lashing that some CIA operative should be giving someone in North Korea:

“Hello, Mr. Kim? This is your worst nightmare talking to you right now. I’m going to be brief and will get right to the point.

“You fellows keep saying you’re going to do all kinds of harm to us and to our friends in Seoul. You are moving missiles to your eastern coast, right? Well, OK. But know this, sir. If any one of those missiles leaves the launch pad and starts moving toward our western coast, we will shoot it out of the sky immediately and we will consider that act a provocation that must be answered in kind.

“Do you understand? And do you understand what kind of damage the United States can inflict in a very brief amount of time? If you do understand, and I think you do, then you’ll stop this foolishness immediately and just use your military hardware as showpieces in those fancy parades you like to have, the way the Russians used to do it when they were known as the ‘Soviet Union.’

“And one more thing. This is not empty rhetoric. We have the weapons to wipe your country off the face of the planet. We had this policy called Mutually Assured Destruction – aka MAD. It was meant to deter the Russians from using nukes against us. It worked. And we still have those weapons.”

Has this conversation – or something like it – occurred in the past couple of weeks? I hope so.

President Obama’s decision to give back 5 percent of his annual salary apparently is having an effect on other senior government officials and, oh yes, on members of Congress.

Obama earns 400 grand a year. The White House announced the president plans to write a check to the Treasury for $20,000, which covers the amount of money he will return to honor federal employees who are being forced to take furloughs because of the mandated “sequestration” budget cuts that took effect at the beginning of the year.

I noted in an earlier blog post that the 5 percent cut is reasonable and it would bring heat on others to follow suit. The word now is that pressure is building on many fronts.

Senior executive branch officials are being pressured to take the cut. So are members of Congress, many of whom have talked for years about the “frills” and “excesses” of government spending. And just as the president doesn’t need his salary on which to support himself and his family, many members of the House of Representatives and the Senate are comfortable enough to avoid dependence on their government salary.

I don’t know the details of his wealth, but it’s been said for years that U.S. Rep. Mac Thornberry, R-Clarendon, doesn’t lack for financial wherewithal outside of his congressional salary. I’m wondering if Thornberry will follow suit – Obama critic and fiscal conservative that he is.

I heard on National Public Radio this morning a chilling story of theft in New England.

Seems that thieves are tapping into maple trees in Maine and stealing the sap used to make maple syrup. Maine forestry officials are all over this story, looking for leads into who’s depriving our nation’s youngsters of the syrup they use to smother their pancakes and waffles. This is a serious story.

The NPR reporter also noted that the syrup derived from the sap is a bit pricey. Maple tree farmers sell the syrup to grocers for about $50 a gallon, which the reporter said is “roughly 13 times greater than the price of gasoline.”

I’m not yet sure what to make that bit of information. Either we should be thankful we aren’t paying a whole lot more for gas (which is a no-brainer), or we should be wary of the day if and when gas sells for a price approaching that of maple syrup.

We’ll likely be hearing stories about huge spikes in gasoline theft. Indeed, that theft increase will occur long before the price of gas ever hits $50 per gallon.

President Obama has decided to follow the lead of Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. Good for both of them.

The president announced this week he will surrender 5 percent of his $400,000 annual salary in response to the budget cuts and the furloughs being required of federal government employees. Hagel made the same declaration just before the White House confirmed Obama’s decision to give some of his money back to the Treasury.

I know what the critics are saying about this. He should give it all back. One friend of mine said the president simply should park Air Force One in the hangar and quit flying around the country at taxpayers’ considerable expense; that would save a lot more money than Obama’s measly gesture.

Actually, my dear wife has provided the best explanation to date for the president’s 5-percent gesture.

He’s trying to set an example for other senior government officials to follow, she said. Giving back 5 percent is something most senior government officials could do, even if they don’t enjoy the personal wealth that the first family enjoys. Returning all of it, my much better half noted, wouldn’t play well in some officials’ households if they don’t have the financial resources available to the president and first lady.

She’s right. Most presidents – or presidential candidates – don’t seek the job because they need the money. The individuals who’ve run for the office by and have acquired substantial nest eggs.

However, I like the gesture that Barack Obama has made to cope with the mandatory federal budget cuts. Will it make a dent in the enormous debt the government is carrying? Of course not.

Leadership involves more than just barking out orders and bossing other people around. It involves some measure of sacrifice. The Obamas or the Hagels won’t go hungry. But their intent is to set a positive example for others to follow.

There is nothing at all wrong with that.

I truly did not believe Mark Sanford would win the South Carolina Republican runoff on Tuesday.

He had finished first in the special GOP primary, but didn’t get enough votes to be nominated outright. The second-place primary finisher, Curtis Bostic, was in the driver’s seat – or so I thought. He could mine the votes of all those who didn’t vote for Sanford in the primary.

It didn’t happen. Sanford won the runoff and now will run against Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch in a special election to fill the U.S. House seat vacated by Tim Scott, who was appointed senator after Jim DeMint resigned to lead the Heritage Foundation.

http://www.politico.com/story/2013/04/gop-frets-mark-sanford-could-blow-it-89573.html?hp=t2_3

Now it appears Sanford may be damaged goods among Republicans. As the Politico article points out, GOP pols and women don’t like him. The pols’ dislike is a bit murky. Women? They have good reason to loathe the former South Carolina governor.

Four years ago he traipsed off to Argentina to cheat on his wife, Jenny. The bigger issue, as I’ve noted already, is that he lied to the public about where he was. His staff put the word out that the governor was hiking in the woods along the Appalachian Trail. Nope. He was a hemisphere away, out of touch, nowhere to be seen or heard.

Colbert Busch can take the fight right to Sanford. And make no mistake, she’ll have plenty of material for her brother – the hilarious comedian Stephen Colbert – to write for her as she campaigns for Congress.

Sanford has talked about his deception, referring to it as a “mistake.” A mistake is making the wrong entry in your checkbook or forgetting to open the garage door when you back your car out. Sanford committed two egregious sins … simultaneously: violating his sacred marital vows and then lying about it to the public that paid his salary.

A part of me, however, is glad Sanford won the runoff, though. It will give some of us out here in the heartland material at which to laugh.

I am trying to avoid pulling every strand of hair off my head when I read items such as this one.

Most Americans believe global warming is a hoax.

http://thehill.com/blogs/e2-wire/e2-wire/291601-poll-majority-of-republicans-call-global-warming-a-hoax

That’s according to a Public Policy Polling study done on the issue of whether the planet is getting warmer. PPP tends to lean Democratic and is friendly, usually, to environmentalists. The poll says 58 percent of Republicans believe the warming story is a hoax, compared to 11 percent of Democrats.

What the pollsters should ask is whether people believe that human beings are responsible for global warming.

I’ve seen plenty of data that tell a grim story: Polar ice caps are returning in smaller volume every winter; average sea levels are rising around the world; worldwide temperatures in the past year increased by a full degree over the previous record; weather patterns are changing dramatically, resulting in more severe and deadlier storms.

The science that the world is warming is – in my view – beyond dispute.

The debate ought to center exclusively on its cause. Are human beings responsible? Have emissions from industrial plants, coupled with the deforestation that has depleted trees that return oxygen into the atmosphere been to blame? Have the fossil fuel emissions created massive changes in atmospheric conditions?

Or …

Is the warming trend a part of the planet’s epochal cycle? Is this warming trend the same as other such trends that changed Earth’s landscape over the course of thousands, maybe millions, of years?

Science backs both notions. Scientists are debating it at this very moment. So are politicians, each of whom has an axe to grind. They are arguing the cause of global warming, not whether it’s happening.

Me? I fear the warming trend is caused by human beings. But that’s just my opinion … for what it’s worth.

But I’m not going to debate that Planet Earth is getting warmer. It is.

This story caught my eye recently and my first reaction was: If they can do it, why can’t our folks do it here in Amarillo?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/20/synchronized-traffic-lights-la_n_2725857.html

Los Angeles (population nearly 4 million people, but which seems like a zillion) has just announced a traffic-signal synchronization that puts the entire municipal grid on the same traffic timeline. The traffic-light synchro plan is designed to reduce gridlock, drive time, presumably cool tempers and, get this, reduce air pollution caused by motor vehicle exhaust.

City traffic gurus say the installation is virtually complete and that motorists should start seeing an improvement in the traffic flow throughout the City of Angels.

I am blown away by this.

I also know that there is little comparison between that monstrous megalopolis and Amarillo (population nearly 200,000). LA is, well, La La Land and Amarillo is, um, something quite different.

But city traffic engineers in both places have access to technology that enables motor vehicles to move smoothly. I am not certain why Amarillo City Hall hasn’t employed it here.

I recently drove east on Ninth Avenue through downtown Amarillo. Red lights stopped me at every corner until I got to Taylor Street, when I was allowed to turn south and get on the Canyon Expressway. Buchanan Street northbound isn’t bad, however. I often am able to drive all the way to Amarillo Boulevard without being stopped. The same can be said for Washington Street all the way from Farmers Road south of the city into town. I once made that drive through about 14 traffic signals and didn’t get stopped a single time by a red light.

But it’s so spotty here that I cannot help but get annoyed when I have to sit through traffic signals – particularly with no traffic moving through the intersection.

Many of my friends here are fond of poking fun at LA, California or developments that occur on the Left Coast. I’ll admit to doing the same thing on occasion. This time, though, they seem to have done something right.

Texas Democrats keep smiling when they talk about their political future. Good for them. Better to smile than to grimace from all the hair-pulling they’re doing over their inability to win any statewide office.

Brent Budowsky, writing a blog for The Hill, thinks the time is at hand for Lone Star Democrats to make their long-hoped-for breakthrough. I’m not yet so sure about that.

http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/campaign/291161-why-texas-democrats-can-win-

I would love to see the state become a competitive place once again. It was for a time in the 1980s as the state was undergoing a transition from Yellow Dog Democrat to Rock-Ribbed Republican. Then the GOP took command after the 1994 mid-term election. It’s been downhill ever since for Texas Democrats.

Even when presented with inferior Republican candidates to run against statewide, Democrats can’t break the GOP vise grip.

My favorite example of how Republicans take advantage of their brand in Texas was the 2012 election for presiding judge of the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. The Republican incumbent, Sharon “Killer” Keller defeated Democratic challenger Keith Hampton, even though Keller has been under an ethics probe and has been criticized heavily for her ham-handed approach to death-penalty appeals.

The most infamous case involved an appeal by a Death Row inmate that didn’t get to the CCA’s office until after 5 p.m., when the office closed for the day. Sorry about that, Keller’s office said. You gotta get here on time or else you’re toast.

My feeling then was that if Democrats couldn’t win that race, they will be consigned to the wilderness a good while longer.

The rule of thumb in Texas has been if you’re a Republican, you’re in the driver’s seat, no matter your actual credentials. The state is no longer competitive in presidential contests, even with its 38-electoral vote treasure trove. Republicans take the state for granted; Democrats don’t care.

I cannot predict when the state will become competitive once again. The smart money says the state’s changing population and its burgeoning Latino census will start to tilt the scale. But as the 2012 presidential election demonstrated, even with growing Latino numbers and President Obama swamping Mitt Romney among those voters, the president still collected a smaller percentage of the total vote here than he did in 2008.

Keep trying, Democrats. Sooner or later the state will become competitive. Recall that there once was a time when Republicans were singing the same blues notes Democrats are crooning now.

I cannot help but snicker whenever I read about Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s rants at an alleged federal takeover of Texas matters.

He now is saying he’ll oppose Medicaid expansion as part of the Affordable Care Act because he doesn’t want Texas to be held hostage by Washington, D.C.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicaid/291257-perry-doubles-down-against-medicaid-expansion

Oh really, governor?

Maybe he should explain how he and the 2009 and 2011 legislatures – when faced with declining state revenue caused by the recession – had their hands out when the feds handed them stimulus money to help jumpstart the state economy. Perry and his allies in the Legislature haven’t yet acknowledged fully that the stimulus funds played a big part in helping the state balance its budget – which the Texas Constitution requires of them.

We heard little talk then about federal government “hostage taking” when money flowed in for infrastructure improvements. It was that same stimulus dough that helped Amarillo City Hall, for example, pay for the Third and Grand overpass that has helped relieve traffic congestion.

Now the governor is on a tirade against the Medicaid expansion, which the Affordable Care Act allows for the states to use to help pay the medical bills of the poor. Perry and other governors – namely Republicans – want no part of it.

It’s that “socialized medicine” thing that gives them heartburn. Maybe they’ll want to get rid of Medicare, too. Let’s see how far that one flies.

The Austin American-Statesman paid a stirring tribute to veterans of the Vietnam War while commenting recently on the dedication in Austin of the Texas Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The paper’s editorial is linked here:

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/opinion/vietnam-sacrifices-did-mean-something/nW4sR/

It brings to mind the age-old canard that many critics of that war – and other wars as well – toss out without thinking. They keep lamenting that Americans too often “die in vain.” It was said of the 58,000-plus Americans who died during the Vietnam War. Those who said it were wrong then. Those who say such things about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are wrong now.

No one who goes to war in response to his or her country’s call – and then pays the ultimate price – does so “in vain.” They are doing their duty as Americans. Their country calls on them to fight and they respond. Those who have given their last full measure of devotion are heroes and every single one of them deserves our eternal gratitude.

To say they die “in vain” is to cheapen their sacrifice.