Just about two weeks out until Election Day, so the newspapers are beginning their side-by-side comparisons of the candidates. The Cleveland Plain-Dealer examined energy this weekend, a pretty good job, too, “Energy policies of Barack Obama and John McCain overlap; differences are in priorities“:

[The] energy policies espoused by Obama and McCain overlap in many areas. Like Obama, McCain touts the promise of green jobs that could be created through alternative energy. Both candidates boost clean-coal technology. Both want to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil. McCain and Obama both favor offshore oil drilling and oppose drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife refuge.

However, each stresses different priorities on energy while campaigning, says Cleveland Foundation energy expert Richard Stuebi. Obama focuses more on renewable energy and energy efficiency, while McCain emphasizes boosting supplies of fossil fuels and building more nuclear power plants, Stuebi says.

We’ll knock the Plain-Dealer for failing to mention Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Biden’s plain disavowal of clean coal, and the degree to which Senator Obama has made the oil companies a target, although Obama’s support for an investment-discouraging windfall profits tax is mentioned. (What’s the price of oil today, anyway?)

But you do only have so much space, and in the end, the Plain-Dealer gets points for including the most important disclaimer: You shouldn’t necessarily believe what the candidates say. The paper uses someone else to state the case — energy industry spokesman Frank Maisano — and frames it more diplomatically, but that’s the bottom line:

“Reality in policy making and reality in campaigning are two different things,” Maisano continued. “It is hard to tell what they are going to do until next year, when they actually have to do it.”

Elsewhere the London Times writes a piece speculating that the global financial crisis will discourage any administration from undertaking a major new environmental regulatory regime, i.e., cap and trade. The article is, “Environment will wither whoever win US election.” Because the fate of the environment depends entirely on whether the United States adopts more jobs-killing regulations.

At MacNeil Orchards in Rebersburg, Pennsylvania, the production of maple syrup stays traditional: Collect, cook and reduce, filter and bottle. From the sugar bush (the stand of maples) to the Sugar House, where processing is done, the basic manufacture of syrup — sugaring — remains the same as it has for centuries. (The Iraquois collected sap, the largest source of sweetener in their diets.)

Thanks to MacNeal Bros. for the tour of the collection and processing, which results in 150 to 200 gallons a year. Thanks, as well, to the Pennsylvania Cable Network, which produced the documentary from which this Cool Stuff video is made.

This part of the tour of C.F. Martin & Co. factory in Nazareth, Penn., takes us through the assembly to the stringing and tuning stage of the guitar manufacturing.

Want to see more? Martin also provides in-plant tours to the public (scheduled); the 175th anniversary factory tour brochure is available here.

For part I of the video tour, click here.

Thank you, Pennsylvania Cable Network!

On “Cool Stuff Being Made” this week we have Michael Brennan, vice president for sales at Monet Graphics, demonstrating step-by-step the process of taking a design and turning it into a mass-produced label. As always, there are things to learn: “The bigger the gearing, the less chaff.”

The company’s website explains:

Monet Graphics, Inc. is a specialty label manufacturer founded in 1996. Our employees and founders average 25 years experience in the flexographic printing industry. We have a 30,000 square foot state of the art manufacturing facility located in Coatesville, PA about one hour west of Philadelphia. Being a midsized company, we are able to produce high quality products while also being able to offer the lower costs, responsive service and the flexibility of a smaller company.

Eye to detail, again a critical factor in high-quality work.

To the good people at the Pennsylvania Cable Network, thanks for bringing us the original video footage.

And for more NAM videos, check out www.youtube.com/namvideo.

We cheat a little this week with a video from the past, drawn from the really great Prelinger Archives (available at Archive.org).

The video is “Industry on Parade: A Pictorial Review of Events in Business and Industry,” produced weekly by the National Association of Manufacturers.
(0523 PA8202 Industry on Parade: Outgoing Cargo, Workhorses of the Harbor, Refresher Course)

All break-bulk, not a container ship in sight.

Play/Download

(8.4 MB) 64Kb MPEG4
(19 MB) 256Kb MPEG4
(110 MB) MPEG1

Thanks to the Internet Archive for making EVERYTHING available.

So do you know what the chief flavoring ingredient is in most pretzels? No, not the beer your drink while eating them. It’s malt (or as the case may be, malted corn syrup). And it’s a sodium-solution baked on that gives the pretzels that nice brown coloring.

Phil Bernas, technical manager of Herr Foods, guides us through the Nottingham, Pa., plant in this week’s Cool Stuff Being Made, explaining all the twists and turns and extrusion into metal dies of pretzel-making.

Pennsylvania is the land of snack-making, and Herr’s got its start with potato chips in 1946. From the company history:

The Herr Foods story began in 1946 when 21-year-old James Stauffer Herr bought a small potato chip company in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for $1,750. In 1947, the business moved into a vacated tobacco shed on the Herr family farm. As he learned more about the business, Jim Herr developed new and better cooking processes and a delicious snack food became even better. As demand for Herr’s^® Potato Chips grew, so did the company.

Today the family-owned Herr’s employs 1,500 people who manufacture and distribute more than 350 snack products nationwide.

Thanks this week and most weeks to Pennsylvania Cable Network for sending the underlying video

America’s national security combines man and machine, or as in today’s feature, personnel and projectile. In this week’s “Cool Stuff Being Made” video, we get a tour of the Chamberlain Ammunition manufacturing facility, contract operator for the Scranton Army Ammunition Plant. Robert Mitvalsky, Operations Director, walks us through the manufacturing of a 120 millimeter mortar round for the Army — the process goes from smelting to machining to coating to testing.

PCNTV, which provides the video, tells us more about the plant:

During the Vietnam War, this Scranton facility produced almost every 175 millimeter shell used by the Armed forces. Today, the ammunition plant specializes in 155 millimeter and 8-inch projectiles.

The Scranton plant was established in the early 50s by the U.S. Army in the former rail shops of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad. The plant was equipped with steel billet heating furnaces, heavy forging presses, heat treating, machining, and painting equipment. Since its inception, it has been operated under contract with the U.S. Army, by private contractors.

As you plan your next hunting trip to Montana or Mongolia, please remember to start in Adamstown, Pennsylvania, home of Bansner’s Ultimate Rifles — manufacturer of highly accurate, custom-made, big game rifles.

In this week’s video, Mark Bansner highlights some the detail-focused smithing, from finishing the barrel to manufacturing the stock to assembly.

We won’t pretend to know much of anything about precision rifles, but this still strikes as pretty darn impressive — the description of the “Ultimate One” rifle:

Bansner’s Custom S/S Action – Spiral Fluted Bolt Body

Lilja Precision Stainless Steel Barrel Fluted by Bansners, Your Choice of Caliber and Barrel Contour.

Jewell Trigger Tuned to 2 1/2 lbs.

Bansner’s “Slim -Line” Muzzle Brake with Thread Cap

Talley Custom Q.D. Bases and Rings (1″ or 30mm)

ALL Metal Coated with our Durable Polymer ‘Ti’ K-Kote Metal Finish

High Tech Specialties, Inc. – Fiberglass Synthetic Stock, Fully Pillar Bedded, Free Floated for

Unsurpassed Accuracy, Pachmayr Decelerator Pad Installed and Fitted to your Length of Pull, Your

Choice of Custom Textured Paint. Stocks available with or without cheekpiece or “Sheep Hunter” model.

To the fine people at Pennsylvania Cable Network, who supply the videos, we say, “Thanks and good hunting!”

First organized labor argued for the Employee Free Choice Act by claiming union membership is the path to a better life. Card check would simplify the creation of a union. And that was the argument.

Realizing that they were getting hammered by the truth that the Employee Free Choice Act would eliminate secret-ballot elections, labor unions then turned up the rhetorical heat. When someone pointed out that card check would destroy the secret ballot in the workplace, labor responded, “Liar! Liar! You’re a liar!” And claim that card check would allow the unions to still call for an election, even though in any realistic world organizers would never demand a vote they might lose. (This Shopfloor post explains why.)

So when ads started running in Minnesota about the Senate candidate Al Frank’s support for killing secret-ballot elections, the Minnesota DFL (the Democratic-Farm-Labor Party) filed a complaint with the Minnesota Office of Administrative Hearings (Star-Tribune story). The party claimed the ads by the Coalition for a Democratic Workplace — to which the NAM belongs — and the separate Minnesotans for Employee Freedom violated state law against disseminating false campaign material.

But the DFL didn’t even bother trying to argue why the ads were false. They just claimed it.

Administrative Law Judge Barbara L. Nielson has now dismissed the complaints. From her memorandum accompanying the order of dismissal to the complaint against CDW.

For purposes of a prima facie determination, the Complainant must detail the factual basis to support a claim that the violation of law has occurred. Here, the Complainant has not alleged with any specificity why the statements at issue are factually false. The Complaint merely asserts that the statements are false and “contrary to the facts,” without providing any further information.

The dismissal of the complaint against the Minnesotans for Employee Freedom is available here.
CDW’s news release is here.

Labor strategy summarized: Deflect, deceive, bluster, abuse, litigate.

Lose.

(Hat tip: Michael D. Brodkorb)

When a personal interest and home business grows, and grow, and grows…

What does Christmas look like to you? It was the late 1960′s and Joyce Byers, an amateur artist with a degree in fashion design, was disappointed in what she was seeing in the stores: aluminum tinsel trees with garish blue lights. She was looking for holiday decorations with warmth that showed respect for timeless traditions and her own memories of Christmas.

“A scrap of fabric, part of my mother’s old fur coat, some hair from the kids, a coat hanger, some plaster and paint. The first ones were made with simple things that I had around the house,” says Joyce Byers. “I dressed them in plaids and made them cheerfully singing because that reminded me of Christmas.”

And today…

Together, the family now oversees a team of 180 artisans in Pennsylvania who handcraft those same creations that started out on the dining room table many years ago. And although the Carolers are sold in thousands of fine gift stores around the world, the company still holds to its starting roots: producing a quality product, at an affordable price, and dedicated to serving its customers and the community in the spirit of Christmas.

That history comes from the company website of Byer’s Choice of Chalfont, Penn., a manufacturer of handcrafted gifts. In this week’s Cool Stuff Being Made, Bob Byers, Jr., company president, gives us a tour of the production process, manufacturing that helps create limited-run gifts with a lot of personal, handmade touches.

Time to be ordering for the fall!

Thanks, again, to the good people at PCNTV for the underlying video.