The vote on Judge John Roberts’ nomination to be Chief Justice of the United States is expected before noon today. If you’ve not already done so, please weigh in with your Senators. If they’ve already announced their support, this will shore them up. If they’re some of the minority of the Kowtowing Caucus, voting against, then your message will let them know this is not a free vote.

It’s easy to weigh in. Just click here, send a message — literally — to your Senators. Be part of history.

At the Small and Medium Manufacturers’ meeting yesterday morning, it was clear that energy was on everyone’s mind. The post-Katrina groundswell for new sources is really growing out there, believe it. A few things that came out of the meeting, all of which regular blog readers know well, but which bear repeating:

– France gets over 80% of its energy from nuclear power. For us, it’s more like 25%. There is a growing consensus that we need to be moving in this direction. If the so-called “Greens” of France can accept it there, they need to accept it here as well. As one manufacturer said, we can no longer be held hostage in this country by a small band of environmentalists with no plan, only obstruction.

– The US coal reserves exceed in BTU’s all of the world’s oil reserves.

– We are the only country in the world with such strictly limited access to its natural resources.

– With prices soaring, we need to be finding new sources of energy, including in ANWR, a place the size of South Carolina. Drilling will occur in a place the size of Dulles Airport.

If you want to know what’s on people’s minds outside the Beltway, the folks who are driving the economy, this is it. The three top issues in the “flash” survey of these 40 or so manufacturers: Energy, health care and finding skilled workers.

A busy day at the NAM Board of Directors meeting. Some highlights:

– Senate Majority leader Bill Frist (R-TN) opened the plenary session, hit all the high points, noting that Katrina has made it clearer than ever that we need to find alternate sources of energy, welcome words to this room full of manufacturers. He also talked about judicial nominations, the soaring costs of health care, the need for an asbestos bill, and the importance of passing CAFTA, thanking manufacturers for their role in the latter issue.

– Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Co-Chair of the Senate Manufacturing Caucus, followed. Starting with Iraq, he reminded the crowd that it took the US some eleven years to write a Constitution and urged patience with the Iraqi process. He then turned to domestic issues, calling the energy bill “a good down payment toward ending dependence on Middle East oil.” He noted (more on this later) that France gets some 80% of its energy from nuclear power. He spent a fair amount of time on a pet issue of his, Social Security and urged the manufacturers not to “take a pass on tough issues” like this. He said the Democrats are “AWOL” on the debate and noted that not a single Democrat has come up with a comprehensive plan for saving Social Security, called on them to join the debate aimed at solving the problem. On China, he talked about the importance of intellectual property protection, saying that we need to tell the Chinese simply, “Stop Cheating!”.

Sen. Graham was followed by Commerce Secretary (and former manufacturing executive) Carlos Gutierrez. He began where Graham left off, on intellectual property (IP) protection, noting that IP theft is estimated to cost business some $250 billion a year, and some 750,000 jobs. The World Health Organization estimates that around 10% of all medicines worldwide are counterfeit. He argues that we should treat counterfeit goods the same as we treat counterfeit cash, with harsh penalties and zero tolerance. “Protection of IP”, said Gutierrez, ” is vital to our economic growth.” Finally, on the topic of hurricane clean-up, he said that the biggest engine for growth in the Gulf Coast is the private sector. Business — not government — will revitalize the Gulf. Not like anyone in this room of job creators had to be reminded of that, but it was appreciated.

All in all, a stellar lineup, a good day. Here’s a link to the video of the day’s proceedings.

This week, there’s a little twist on the Wednesday Poster of the Week. You’re seeing a poster you’ve already seen, but here’s the surprise: it’s downloadable so you can use it as a screen saver. We’ll be posting others in the weeks to come. We’ve received so many comments from folks about these vintage posters (“You oughta sell ‘em!” is the common reaction, and we likely will, as posters) that we thought we’d make them available in a format you could use.

Show your support for manufacturing, download this image and make it your screen saver. The message, as always, is timeless: “What’s Good for Industry is Good for Your Family.”

Download a “wallpaper” image for your Windows PC. Click on the resolution link of your choice then right click on the image and select “set as background.”

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Just wanted to give a little shout-out to Barbra Streisand. Just a mention of her on Monday was enough to send our traffic into the ionosphere, hand to God. Thank you Barbra. Thank you, Google. Talk amongst yourselves.

And so, here’s a little excerpt from Linda Richman and Coffee Talk, in tribute to Barbra Joan Streisand, our favorite climatologist:

Linda Richman: Welcome to Coffee Talk I’m your host Linda Richman. On this show we talk about coffee, New York, dawters, dawgs, you know no big whoop just Coffee Talk. The big news is that I Linda Richman, saw Barbra Joan Streisand in concert in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was so beautiful, and her voice was like buttah. But wait, it gets better. She invited me on stage. Hand to God, I was on stage with Barbra Streisand. It was just like when Merv Griffin used to invite Mrs. Miller up from the audience. Now I’m getting a little verklempt. Talk amongst yourselves. I’ll give you a topic: a Thighmaster is neither a thigh nor a master. Discuss! There I feel better. Let’s go the phones. The number is 555-4444. Give us a call we’ll talk, no big whoop. Hello?

As we said, like buttah.

We’ve noted in this space before that Katrina certainly blew the environmentalists off course in that it forced America to come to grips with the supply side of the price of energy. Once supply stopped and demand remained steady, prices shot up. Voilà! An up-close lesson in supply and demand. It made folks scratch their heads a bit and wonder why we can’t do something about the supply. Strike one for the environmentalists.

Then came the faux global warming debate, starting with outrageous statements by Bobby Kennedy, Jr., and continuing right up through songbird Barbra Streisand. The sheer outrage of some of these statements, and the glare of publicity on all of them made every self-respecting journalist (a low bar, we know) scurrying for — gulp! — the facts. When they did, they found people like hurricane expert Max Mayfield, among others, who calmly explained that hurricanes operate in a cycle, plain and simple. This has worked its way now into the lexicon and in the process has begun to more widely debunk the once-fervently held theory of global warming. Strike two.

Finally, opponents of drilling in the outer continental shelf shook the shrunken head of oil spills every time the topic was broached. Fair enough, you say. Well, Katrina packed winds in excess of 150 m.p.h., a full category 5 hurricane. And what happened? Fifty-two platforms were destroyed. Yet there were no oil spills of the scale predicted by the anti-OCS hype. As predicted, the technology has improved after all. So much for hysteria. Strike three.

So when the damage from Katrina and Rita are tallied, somewhere in there, at a cost too high to imagine, is the cost of the destruction of a host of old misconceptions, the cost of the truth laid bare.

Next batter…..

Well, the NAM Board Meeting kicked off tonight with a dinner for our Small and Medium Manufacturers. They are a great bunch, entrepreneurs and innovators all, who remind you just by being in their company of why to be around manufacturing is to be part of something special. These folks drive the economy, no doubt about it. They make car crushers, bricks, electronics, copper, parts for the F-18, plastics. One makes the world’s only lighted rain gauge and another makes the mesh for devices that trap homarus americanus, which most all of us enjoy. They collectively employ millions of people,provide health insurance to millions of employees and their families, pay hundreds of millions in taxes and through those taxes pay for teachers, EMT’s, roads, libraries, parks and everything else. In other words, try to make it without us.

So anyway, they all gather and Washington theory mixes instantly with outside-the-Beltway reality. To the question of “How’s business?”, comes a similar answer from many of them: business is OK, but energy costs are killing them. One manufacturer in North Carolina has had his supply of natural gas interrupted, a needed commodity in the manufacturing process. Might have it back by Wednesday, not sure. Another has seen the price of natural gas (ours is the highest in the world, remember) increase fourfold in the last three years, a pretty typical scenario.

Still, the folks in the room really do soldier on. It’s what manufacturers do. They suck it up, innovate, cut costs and compete. But five minutes with the best manufacturers in the world reveals that we need to address the supply side of natural gas and energy, as demand will only rise.

More reports from the NAM Board meeting tomorrow.

We wouldn’t pass up an opportunity to acknowledge the birthday of one of the best Internet search engines out there, Google, especially since Google has been so kind to us over the last few months. Today, Google celebrates its 7th birthday. Here’s a link to its history.

So, happy birthday, Google! Enjoy your trip around the sun.

Into the storm — no pun intended — that is Katrina and Rita’s wake, comes no less an expert than Barbra Streisand. In an interview with ABC’s Dianne Sawyer to promote her upcoming CD with Barry Gibb, she veered off course and declared a “global warming emergency“. Maybe the waves are getting too close to her seaside estate, not sure. “For the United States not to be part of the Kyoto treaty is unforgivable” said the singer, ignoring for the moment that this was a pretty lopsided (i.e., 95-0) vote in the US Senate, including many recipients of her largess both direct and indirect.

In any event, her global warming claims seem to contradict — among others — the head of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Max Mayfield, who said on Face the Nation yesterday that the hurricanes can be explained “without invoking global warning.” Not to pile on but in Sunday’s New York Times (not generally a Conservative rag), Donald G. McNeil, Jr, in an op-ed in the “Week in Review” section echoes Mayfield’s point, noting that hurricanes happen in “a cycle that oscillates in decades.”

Still, mark our words: Barbra’s weighing in with a totally uninformed comment will of course garner more attention than that of any — dare we say?– informed scientist.

If only those scientists could sing — like butta.

Big week ’round the NAM corral this week. First, it’s our semi-annual Board meeting, here in Washington. Some 140 Directors will gather to discuss a whole range of policy issues and to hear from marquee speakers like Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), Senate Manufacturing Caucus Co-Chair Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and SEC Chairman Chris Cox. The Board will also hear from Education Secretary Margaret Spellings. Remember, we’re the biggest end-user of what our schools are cranking out. As David Kerns used to say when he was at Xerox, we’re the ones doing the recall work for America’s schools.

Also this week we expect the nomination of Judge John Roberts to be taken up by the full Senate. If you’ve not already done so, please drop a note to your Senators by clicking here and urge them to vote to make Judge Roberts the next Chief Justice of the Untied States.

There will be the other usual stuff, the Poster on Wednesday, an open thread on Thursday and of course Friday Follies, always the Follies.

Stay tuned, keep checking this space for developments throughout the week.