Scouring the press online can be a demoralizing exercise, but information junkies like me do it anyway, the devil you know, and all that. But now and then a flashbulb (remember those) goes off in the lowlight of burnout:

Amazing things happen when people claim responsibility for creating the impossible -- Shaunna Sowell, T.I.'s vice president for worldwide facilities-- from an article by Thomas Friedman, A Green Dream in Texas, today's New York Times (unlinkable unless you subscribe to Times Select.)

Friedman is a a provocative thinker who writing favors precision over flair and he's got a compelling knack for stating and making a case. This article is about Texas Instruments (TI) pulling out the inventive stops to create an energy efficient chip factory to save enough cost to keep the manufacturing and jobs in the U.S. His lead:

When it comes to energy and the American people, George Bush and Dick Cheney are guilty of the soft bigotry of low expectations.

No one has lower expectations for the American people than a vice president who thinks "conservation" is simply a personal virtue, not a national security imperative, and a president who can barely choke out the word.

But Americans are starting to lead themselves. The most impressive project I've seen is by Texas Instruments, which is building a "green" chip factory here in Richardson, near Dallas. T.I. is keeping 1,000 high-tech jobs in Texas by building its newest facility - to make wafers used in semiconductors - in a cost-saving, hyper-efficient green manner.

He then goes on to quote the heroes of this venture, describing the surprisingly simple design expected to cut utility costs by 20 percent and water usage by 35 percent. Those cuts, not wage and pension cuts, not outsourced savings or layoffs are the yankee ingenuity that's going to turn the economic conundrum costing American jobs around.

Outsourcing is here to stay. It produces cheaper commodities, which results more disposable income for consumers. Protectionist trade policies will only exacerbate hits to the American Economy, by making imports more expensive. Here's the horse-sense economics of it:

Saving service and labor costs by outsourcing boosts the bottom line of American companies, althought it costs jobs in the short term, temporarily disabling American cosumers from supporting these and other companies. Workers in developing countries will be able to fill that gap in time. American labor and service costs can't be competitive with rates available in developing countries. HOWEVER, The most successful American product has always been ingenuity, something developing countries, for the most part, can't compete with. Applying innovative systems from the top down will shore up American production which will compensate for and exceed the short term losses that globalization has produced. And this is one good example.

Friedman's tag line:

So hats off to the leaders of T.I. Thanks to their vision, Dallas - not China - has the newest T.I. wafer plant, a new investment in education* and a great example of how a green factory can be efficient and profitable and can create good American jobs in the 21st century.

Energy guzzling is for defeatists. Real Americans - and real Texans - build green.

Ditto: Nice to see better things than Bush come out of Texas.

Amazing things happen when people claim responsibility for creating the impossible. Way to go, Shaunna.

* To entice T.I. to build again in the Dallas area, the University of Texas, the State Legislature and private sources put up $300 million for a 10-year effort to improve science and engineering studies at the University of Texas in Dallas, so T.I. will have plenty of educated workers.

Don't this beat all! Condoleezza Rice recently said regarding Russia's recently raising Ukraine's gas rates sharply:

When you say you want to be a part of the international economy and you want to be a responsible actor in the international economy, then you play by its rules. I think that kind of behavior is going to continue to draw comment about the distance between Russian behavior and something like this and what would be expected of a responsible member of the G-8.

Pravda did not like this, particularly that scolding tone coming from, of all things, a single woman, and retorted:

Condoleezza Rice released a coarse anti-Russian statement. This is because she is a single woman who has no children. She loses her reason because of her late single status. Nature takes it all.

Such women are very rough. They are all workaholics, public workaholics. They can be happy only when they are talked and written about everywhere: "Oh, Condoleezza, what a remarkable woman, what a charming Afro-American lady! How well she can play the piano and speak Russian! What a courageous, tough and strong female she is!

This is the only way to satisfy her needs of a female. She derives pleasure from it. If she has no man by her side at her age, he will never appear. Even if she had a whole selection of men to choose from she would stay single because her soul and heart have hardened. Like Napoleon, Genghis Khan, Tamerlane, or Alexander the Great of Macedon Ms. Rice needs to fight and release tough public statements in global scale. She needs to be on top of the world.

[...snip]

The civilized world needs to think about a decision when single politicians are not allowed to stay in power. This was a common practice in the Soviet political system. The matter of international relations is very subtle and exquisite. One single word or phrase may play an extremely important role in politics. This is not the place, where one can sublimate their personal sexual problems.

Complex-prone women are especially dangerous. They are like malicious mothers-in-law, women that evoke hatred and irritation with everyone. Everybody tries to part with such women as soon as possible. A mother-in-law is better than a single and childless political persona, though.

This is really scary. Ms. Rice's personal complexes affect the entire field of international politics. This is an irritating factor for everyone, especially for the East and the Islamic world. When they look at her, they go mad.

Condoleezza Rice needs a company of soldiers. She needs to be taken to barracks where she would be satisfied. On the other hand, she can hardly be satisfied because of her age. This is a complex. She needs to return to her university and teach students there. She could also deal with psychological analysis.

The true reason of Ms. Rice's attack against Russia is very simple. Condoleezza Rice is a very cruel, offended woman who lacks men's attention. Releasing such stupid remarks gives her the feeling of being fulfilled. This is the only way for her to attract men's attention," Vladimir Zhirinovsky said.

Read the whole thing in Pravda

Wu Yi, Vice Premier of State Council of the People’s Republic of China is also a single woman. It doesn't seem to be a problem for her.

Afterthought: If a male pol makes scathing pronouncements, do they blame it on him being married with children?

Reality check: I see today, of the NY Times "most emailed stories", an article about and a recipe for macaroni and cheese occupy the top two positions on the list. M&C, for those unfamiliar with baseline American nutrition, is a simple, cholesterol-laden, common working-class family one-pan dish, something we refer to as "comfort food." Everyone has their "comfort food" a dish they associate with family, security, warmth, simplicity and home. The event of comfort food topping the NYT email list, I think, says something about year-end burnout. I see in it this gulf of human estrangement and need that apparently touches everyone from the shivering Pakistani earthquake survivor to the snug New York east-sider wondering when the next planeload of horror is going to come crashing into any residual sense of security any American might have. Security these days, is a false pretense, wherever you are.

Between nature and our leaders, oh-five was a train wreck from beginning to end. Nature we can't control, she's quite fond of showing us who's in charge. But we've just got to get hold of our world. There are enough resources for everyone to have food and shelter, clean water and education, were it not for the obstruction of politics and market economics. We as a race are failing to provide for the survival of any but the most powerful and the most desperate and they are dismantling the habitability and simple human comfort of most of the "civilized" planet.

It seems impossible, given the nature of nations, for the world to be at peace right now. Spiritual leaders, if they're honest and well-studied will tell you that the only peace is the peace you can find in your being by whatever methods and icons you have chosen for that purpose. Comfort food for the soul, as it were. Given the nature of most religions, though, the direct route to that reservior of internal peace can be made overcomplicated and inaccessible. Of course. That is the way of power.

Oh-five is over, and it's the day before my birthday. I'm thinking about these things because I want a better year for myself, friends, family, you and our world and you have to feel better before you can do better. So today, I put forth an offering of virtual macaroni and cheese, as a metaphor for whatever food for mind, body and soul required to recharge the engine of personal comfort, citizen initiative and confidence that you and I can make a difference, even if we don't agree on what that difference should be.