The Blogger-in-Chief and his Apprentice were going about the usual Monday when we realized that today is National Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day (yes, we have it circled on our calendars…we’re manufacturers, what do you expect?)

NAM Member, Sealed Air Corporation. is one of the leading suppliers of Bubble Wrap. Check out their Web site devoted to Bubble Wrap Appreciation Day where, among other things, you can:

Thanks to NAM member Ron Reisman for notifying us about this a few weeks ago. We think he has one of the best jobs on earth. Plus, as Ron says, its there’s always a way to relieve a little stress: just pop some bubbles!

Like most manufacturing products: try to go a day without using a product that wasn’t shipped with Bubble Wrap®.

Show your support for Bubble Wrap by clicking on the “send to a friend” feature to send a note to your friends wishing them “Happy Bubble Wrap® Appreciation Day.”

You know, some people say that watching the Doha Round of global trade negotiations is about as exciting as watching grass grow. Others disagree and argue that watching grass grow is much more exciting.

They say this, of course, because progress in the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) global negotiations is so slow, and frequently it looks as though no progress is being made at all. When last we looked at the Doha Round, the world’s trade ministers were in Hong Kong where the WTO Ministerial meeting was being held. They agreed the next important meeting would be in Davos, Switzerland, at the end of January on the fringes of the annual World Economic Forum traditionally held there.

Reading the press, it seems like nothing happened in Hong Kong, and Davos was just more of the same. But that’s not true.

You have to know where to look.

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This is going to be a very busy week, lots going on. First and foremost, the Alito nomination — longer in gestation because of blatant partisanship run amok than just about any other Supreme Court nomination in recent years — will be on the floor of the Senate. Even though he has far more than the 51 out of of the 100 Senate votes he needs to get confirmed, expect mischief.

A few points: First, America really doesn’t understand why 50% + 1 vote doesn’t get you a victory. Probably not a good idea for the Senate to be calling attention to this little rule of theirs. See, to break a filibuster or to invoke cloture, meaning to force something to a vote — you need 60 votes. That’s why a minority of 40 — of either party — can frustrate the will of the majority. Do you have this rule where you work?

Didn’t think so.

Second, it’s clear among the few Democrats who who are pushing the idea of a filibuster and who also appear to be running for President in 2008 (this is probably coincidental) the the idea is dead on arrival and will be summarily unsuccessful. But no matter. Here’s this from a San Jose Merc article on this whole imbroglio:

“The threat of a filibuster emerged late last week after liberal activists accused Democratic senators of failing to vigorously oppose Alito’s ascension to the Supreme Court. After Sen. Kerry began the effort, several liberal groups mounted a campaign by Internet, telephone and fax to persuade other senators to follow suit.”

Welcome to democracy. Judge Alito is going to be confirmed. We will as a result have more certainty on the bench. That will give us less litigation at some point, a trend we desperately need to begin. Legal reform, an issue on the top of the minds of every manfaucturer, begins at the top.

Drop your Senators a note and tell them to confirm Judge Altio.

On Tuesday night, the President will deliver his annual State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress. We hope he will touch on our priorities: energy, legal reform and passing the asbestos bill, trade, and innovation and the need fora skilled workforce.

We will be participating in a sort of blogging marathon that day. We have been invited along with a number of other bloggers to a “blog row” (like we’ve done in the past with you) taking place Tuesday afternoon through the State of the Union and beyond. If we have the intestinal fortitude to make it we will, will keep you posted and invite your questions. A number of Members of Congress are committed to stop by and visit with us, and there will be a talk radio row going on simultaneously, so it’ll be a regular media frenzy. We’ll be blogging live from there, keeping you apprised of the various developments and will be posting a reaction to the President’s speech as well as getting some reaction from the Members of Congress who stop by. We have said many times before in this space that the beauty of blogging is that there’s no filter. You will get what folks are saying, bereft of our own filter or bias. We will ask the questions, will ask your questions that you send in, and will let you know what they say. That’s how we see our role, i.e., bringing democracy closer to you.

Hope you’ll tune in and join us on Tuesday, should begin any time after about 2 p.m. EST.

This week, Frank Vargo, the NAM’s trade VP, will post the first of his promised monthly updates on the Doha round, either today or tomorrow. These will be similar to — and were triggered by — his wildly successful postings from the WTO meeting in Hong Kong. We already welcomed Neil Trautwein, the Dean of the health care beat in Washington, and we’ve added Bill Canis of our Manufacturing Institute and Dave Huether, economist laureate of the NAM. We hope you like this — we welcome any and all feedback. Along the way, not to worry, you’ll still get all the ranting and nattering from the blogger-in-chief.

Thank God for that.

Yesterday, the Blogger’s Apprentice and Blogger-in-Chief (BIC) went on a field trip to check out the 2006 Washington Auto Show. Dubbed “The State of the Auto” this is the 64th time it has traveled to Washington, DC, but never before has it been this early. This year, your nation’s capitol was second only to Detroit in showcasing the hottest cars of 2006.

There are many reasons to check out the auto show: there really is something for everyone. For car enthusiasts, what’s not to love about 700 cars from 37 domestic and international manufacturers spread out over 9 acres and two show floors?

For those that are feeling kinda lucky you can try your hand (literally) at the “Hand’s On” contest where the lucky winner will drive away in a new car-if you are able to grab hold of it for the required 144 hours, that is! There was also the “Flip My Whip” which offers a $10,000 grand prize state-of-the-art custom re-styling of your existing vehicle. The Blogger’s Apprentice thought about entering, thinking about what kind of sound system $10,000 could buy.

For the Hollywood fan, what’s not to like about being able to sit inside the new BMW Z4, the successor to the Z3 which was popularized in James Bond: Golden Eye. And as the BIC would remark, for starting price of $54,000, why not get two of them?

For the environmental steward in all of us, this year had the largest showcase of fuel efficient and hybrid cars. We were even impressed when we saw a hydrogen powered Hummer! As we’ve said many times before, manufacturers are at the forefront of conservation, efficiency and new energy sources.

And for those in the market for a new car, the auto show featured cars in a well-lit spacious environment with little or no sales staff interference; so you could really check out cars without being hassled. Many manufacturers were also offering instant $500 rebate on a purchase of a new vehicle just for showing up!

The Blogger’s Apprentice had to check out the redesigned Saturn VUE, to see what improvements they made on his current SUV and, of course, was in awe at the latest Ford F-150 models.

Safety was big on the dealers this year as well. Virtually all new or redesigned 2006 models, from the mid sized Hyundai Sonata to the very full sized Dodge Ram Mega Cab, offer side curtain airbags as either standard equipment or as an affordable option.

If on the off-chance you weren’t in the market for a car, XM Satellite Radio had a significant presence there to whet your appetite on-complete with discounts on radios and a XM Radio Stage with lots of show personalities and bands.

It really was fun moving about all the great wonders that manufacturing has to hold. From the concept cars to the new models from all those good NAM member companies (GM, Ford, Toyota, Honda, BMW, DaimlerChrysler), it really was great to be there among it all and to feel the manufacturing vibe.

This week, we begin by talking with Under Secretary of State Josette Shiner on trade, immigration and energy security. Then, we “Meet the Press” and talk with Congress Daily energy reporter Darren Goode. Later on, a small manufacturer from Colorado, Ann Brown, talks with us about health care costs. Then, insight and analysis with the NAM’s Neil Trautwein and Bob Shepler on health care and pension reforms. All this along with music from Joe Jackson and The Beatles

Click here to listen

For those of you who saw the front page Washington Post article on the theory of global warming today, here’s a link to an earlier post that provides some more facts and a more balanced treatment of the issue. And here’s a link to our energy section, with lots of posts on this topic and others.

Thought you should see the other prevailing view.

It was just another day over at Skunk Holler, otherwise known as blog HQ, when we noticed that traffic had nearly doubled (ok, we confess we went from 2 to 4, but still a 100% increase, right?)

It seems as the nice people over at Hugh Hewitt’s blog found our occasional rants about Lou Dobbs and linked to us. If you haven’t visited Hugh’s blog you should. He’s listed as a “top 100″ blog according to Technorati. In an entry on January 27th titled, “Enjoy the Artistic Stylings and Segues of Lou Dobbs” writer Mary Katherine Ham says,

“I watched CNN yesterday evening. I hadn’t done that in a while…Lou Dobbs was something else last night.” And proceeds to quote the typical gloom-and-doom Dobbs. Mary Katherine closes with a link to our dobbswatch.com site and remarks, “I think I’ll just check in with [us] from now on; I’ve had enough for a while.”

A few thoughts:

First, becuse we live by the rule that one good shout-out deserves another, we just want to say “thanks guys!” and keep up the great work…we could probably learn a thing or two from your successful blog.

Second a personal note to Mary Katherine and Hugh Hewitt: we’ll let you in on a little secret: we’ve basically stopped writing about Dobbs because its the same show every day; if you’d had enough of Lou Dobbs for awhile, don’t worry, you won’t miss anything by tuning him out; not like his anti-free-trade mantra is really gonna change anytime soon.

So, we were happy with just that, but then traffic continued to climb and, following Mary Katherine’s entry, we were picked up by another great blog, Power Line. In an entry titled “The Unlikely Populist” writer Paul Mirengoff notes, “Such MSM mainstays as Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, and Dana Milbank may have let the infantile left down, but it can still count on Lou Dobbs.”

Yes, you can, Paul. And thanks too for the mention! Good on ya, Mate!

So, looks like two more blogs, with a daily audience larger than Lou Dobbs have discovered who he really is. Reminds us yet again of James Glassman’s timeless comment when he was interviewed by Dobbs, “You should know better Lou, you went to Harvard.”

Twenty years ago today, America experienced a national loss. We mourned the loss of
Michael Smith, Dick Scobee, Judith Resnik, Ronald McNair, Ellison Onizuka, Gregory Jarvis, and Christa McAuliffe.

Brave heroes indeed. Just 73 seconds after lift-off, the space shuttle Challenger exploded, killing all seven astronauts aboard.

What made this tragedy especially heartbreaking was that America had never lost an astronaut in flight. Additionally, there was the matter of Christa McAuliffe, a high school teacher who, according to her biography, completed an 11-page application and was chosen out of a pool of 11,500 applicants.

An ordinary person – to whom ordinary people could relate – doing the extraordinary. She was a Girl Scout leader, a jogger and a swimmer and married with two kids to her high school sweetheart.

When Christa began training in Houston in September of 1985, numerous media stories were written and continued to be written about her 114 hours of training.

Growing up, many of us have moments that until you’re very old and gray you remember as if it was yesterday, you remember where you were, what you ate and who you were talking to. If you were in grade school or high school in 1986, the Challenger disaster was likely one of those moments.

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