Welcome to Interesting Items
Your Conservative Weekly OnLine Since 1997
by Alex Gimarc Mon., Jan 31, 2005 Interesting Items 1/31 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Iraq 2. Condi. Secretary of State nominee Condi Rice was finally confirmed by the US Senate by a vote of 85-13. The 13 votes against her nomination were the most against any Secretary of State nominee in 150 years. Senators Boxer (D, CA) and Dayton (D, MN) both called her a liar based on the failure to find WMD in Iraq. Boxer supported Clinton's attack on Iraq in 1998 based, in part on WMD. Both Senators conveniently forgot the Declarations of War passed by the Senate in 2001 and 2003 which had WMD as one of many reasons for going to war against Iraq. The MA delegation - Kerry (D, MA) and Kennedy (D, MA) both voted against her. Evan Bayh (D, IN), who is furiously pandering to the democrat leftist base in preparation for his presidential run voted against her. Bayh won't be able to out-left Hillary, who is moving right hard and fast. Dick Durbin (D, IL) voted against Rice. The opposition to Rice managed to get a 9-hour debate on the floor of the Senate and with the vote coming the very next morning. It did not pass notice in the black community that the leftist democrats were beating up on a very qualified, successful black woman nominated for Secretary of State. This may come back to haunt the senate leftists. Republicans were said to be privately incensed with Rice's treatment and the use of the debate to bash the war n Iraq. We will see. If they are incensed, the need to do something about it - something painful to senate democrats, something they will not forget, and cannot stop. Republicans were meeting offsite this weekend to discuss upcoming legislative priorities. The meeting best be a Council of War, for the democrats have declared war on Bush and everything he is going to try to get done this upcoming year or two. Fight's on ! 3. Mexico. Mexico's Foreign Secretary gave an interview this lat week announcing that he was going to go to the International Court to overturn Arizona's Prop. 200, the ballot proposition that required proof of legal residence for public services. The Proposition passed by a huge majority in Arizona. The statewide political and media class also opposed it. If Mexico goes to International Court and gets it to weigh in against Arizona and American sovereignty, the Bush administration will be presented with a grave problem, one that can be exploited by democrats to split the current conservative coalition during future elections. Mexico is a problem, one that Secretary of State Rice will need to handle. If the administration does not handle the problem of immigration, open borders and sovereignty, it will create a space for a new - and this time hopefully sane -Ross Perot type candidate to peel off 5-7% of the conservative majority in 2006 and 2008. That will give democrats, who don't respect either borders or sovereignty political power they don't deserve. Limbaugh, Fri. 4. Reid Staffer. The Hill Weds reported that a staffer for Minority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) was arrested for disorderly conduct during the inaugural on the 20th. The staffer, Nathan Ackerman is a television producer for the Reid's War Room. He and another guy stood up about 20 minutes into Bush's speech holding a big sheet with "No War" painted on it. The crowd didn't like it a lot and some serious trash-talking took place. The two democrats were arrested and removed. Do not expect Reid to fire this guy, who is 36 and ought to know better. The Hill said that Reid set up his War Room to conduct attacks on Republicans via the media in 2004. 5. Indoctrination. Limbaugh Friday reported that the Rainforest Action Network recruited Second Graders, 7-year olds, to protest a bank in NY. The student's teacher turned them over the Rainforest Action Network, a watermelon organization that wants to shut down all industrial development and shut down businesses worldwide. The kiddies got to listen to the propaganda - indoctrination, got to make posters, and got to learn how to protest. All of this was done with the knowledge of the teacher, who is another adoring green, and without the knowledge of the parents of the students involved. The story ran in the Toronto Free Press Jan 4, 2005. It points out once again how the public schools and the leftist infesting them view our children as the recipients of their propaganda and targets for their indoctrination. It also demonstrates how dangerous the greens are and that they are going to start at nothing in their continuing effort to change the hearts and minds of the children before they are old enough to think for themselves. 6. SSAN Reform. Expect Social Security reform to be a central part of the President's State of the Union speech later on this week. The latest proposal will be the creation of Lifetime Savings Accounts, completely tax-free, modeled on the 401K. The money goes into the account, and is taken out of the political world - away from threats of future democrats to take it away. Needless to say, the dems don't like that possibility a lot. Zogby did some polling on the subject that was released late last week: 58% of all workers under age 50 support private accounts; 61% of all workers under 30 support private accounts; 31% of all democrats support private accounts; 44% of all workers do not believe the current Social Security system can pay for everything promised. Hannity believes that the WH is missing an opportunity to market private accounts to minorities, as this would be a way to build wealth for them and their families. This is yet another reason the democrats are loathe to discuss Social Security reform in any reasonable terms. Limbaugh Fri. More later – - AG Interesting Items Interesting Items 1/24 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - 1. NJ Murders 1. NJ Murders. A family of four Coptic Christian immigrants from Egypt was murdered in their home in NJ a week and a half ago. The murders appear to be done in classic Islamist Jihadi fashion, with the family members tied up and their throats slit. The father, who was an outspoken defender of Christianity in the community and on the Internet, received a death threat from someone on a Muslim chat room. It appears that the Islamists have brought the Sharia (Islamic Law) over the Atlantic to these shores and are now practicing murder of non-Muslims inside the US. Their threat is that the Sharia is going to be applied within the US and there is nothing any of us can do about it. I beg to differ. Local law enforcement best spare no effort hunting down the murderous vermin that did the foul deed. They should also not shy away from the very real possibility that they are dealing with radical Islam here in the US. The perpetrators need to be brought to justice – more justice than they afforded their victims. 2. Inaugural Speech. President Bush outlined his vision for the second term last Thursday in a breathtaking call for liberty worldwide. He tied together the current war on terror with our liberty and safety here at home. According to Bush, now that the bad guys can reach out and touch here in the US whenever they want to, we need to change the conditions worldwide that manufacture them. Bush rightfully believes that free people will not turn to the sort of murder and mayhem that the Islamists currently practice, and he has positioned the US as a force for liberty worldwide. This is a big notion, as there is no shortage of despots, tyrants, and evil regimes. However, it must start somewhere, and we have removed two of the worst regimes in Afghanistan and Iraq. Note also that neither country is exporting Islamo-fascism any more, so we have had some demonstrable success. Bush called the nation to the new task, calling it the work of generations. Of course the chattering classes were immediately outraged: The job is too large. It is none of our business. There were too many religious references. Who is going to pay for it ? What is our exit strategy ? It is nice to see an administration with a goal, even a long-term, perhaps unreachable one. 3. Muscular Christianity. The other notion out of the Inaugural was the demonstration of muscular Christianity. I use this term to define the practice of Christianity that is supplicant, meek and retiring only in deference to God and Jesus Christ. When dealing with the real world, they are straightforward, honest, honorable, happy, unapologetic and unwaveringly Christian. The best example of this during the Inaugural was the Benediction given after Bush’s speech. It was uplifting, powerful, and supplicant only in worship of the Lord. 4. Protests. The media spent a lot of time worried about protestors before Thursday. Few of them showed up, and those that did were mostly ANSWER rent-a-mobs. There were only 500 -1000 people, far fewer than the 50,000 expected. Limbaugh, Thurs. 5. Coverage. The media continued their anti-Bush campaign throughout the week. Limbaugh believes that they have collectively decided that if the democrats are unable or unwilling to take Bush down, they must do it for them. ABC News was trolling for military funerals to cover. Their website had a call for anyone who was burying a military member on Inauguration Day to contact ABC so they could send out a camera crew. They wanted to run coverage of the funeral and the inauguration side by side. The website was updated shortly after they were caught by a blogger and the online community notified. Limbaugh got a copy of the original web page. CBS did their part by spending an inordinate amount of time covering the protestors. This included lingering on one who was screaming “F--- Bush !” The new democrat talking point used by the (formerly) mainstream media during the week was the word “hubris.” They used it in an attempt to get the Bush administration to back off their plans for the upcoming congress. Limbaugh related a story early in the week about discussions with democrat operatives. He was asked how they can get back to viability. He told the democrats that they need to cut their ties with the (formerly) mainstream media, as they are drowning because of those ties. They won’t do it, mostly because it is a symbiotic relationship – one that neither side can survive without. 6. Rice. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on the nomination of National Security advisor Condi Rice as the next Secretary of State. Democrat Barbara Boxer (D, CA) was the designated attack dog during the hearings, repeatedly calling Rice a liar for her support of the war in Iraq. Boxer, who just got reelected from CA, is a safe seat for democrats and won’t face another election for six years so she is free to run her foul mouth. Rice did not take the abuse well, firing back complaints about having her veracity impugned. Media coverage on the hearings focused on Boxer’s hysterics and Rice’s response. Little else was covered. The nomination was voted out of committee by a 16-2 margin, with Boxer and John Kerry (D, MA) casting the only votes in opposition. Kerry voted no because he lost the presidency to George Bush. The nomination was supposed to go to the floor of the Senate on Inauguration Day for a vote, which is customary. Custom means little to democrats these days, which used former Kleagle (recruiter for the Klan) Robert Byrd (D, WV) to put a hold on the proceedings so they could “discuss” it some more. Some things never change. Republican Senators are said to be privately seething about the slight. However, if they fail to do something painful to democrats in the Senate, this will simply be a start for the democrats. They were not put into office to roll over and play dead to democrat machinations. They were put into office to stand up for themselves, the people who elected them, and the Constitution. 7. Iran. New Yorker author Seymour Hersh made the round of the talking heads on cable last week with his breathless charge that the Pentagon was sending teams into Iran to conduct ground truth reconnaissance on Iranian nuclear facilities so we can destroy them. The chattering classes were shocked; simply shocked that Rumsfeld would have the simple gall to send people into Iran. He claimed that this was an illegal action, pointing out that the CIA authorization Act requires them to notify Congress of this sort of action. Hersh conveniently forgets that the initial Declaration of War out of Congress, passed Sept 14, 2001 gives the President all the authorization he needs to conduct military actions against practitioners of terrorism and the nations that harbor them. Iran is very clearly a nation that harbors and supports terrorism, which is why Bush included them in the Axis of Evil in 2002. I suspect that the story was a leak out of the Pentagon intended to give the Iranians something to think about, get the media looking at Iran while the Pentagon prepared to go after Syria, or to simply see what the Iranian reaction would be. 8. Greens. Then Anchorage Daily News a couple weeks ago wrote a front-page investigatory piece about the rising natural gas prices here in Cook Inlet. They concentrated on the notion that the existing fields were running out of natural gas and little new was being developed. They completely ignored their complicity in the ongoing environmentalist effort to keep new gas and oil development from happening here in the Inlet. Local and national green organizations have fought every single effort to develop anything in Cook Inlet, the most recent successes being the shutdown of new coal bed methane drilling in the MatSu Valley north of Anchorage, and the fight against new oil and gas leases near Homer, south of Anchorage. A letter to the editor blasting green complicity in creating the impending shortage triggered two uninformed and hysterical responses from local greens and NIMBYs. The fight is on. More later – - AG Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Mon., Jan 17, 2005 Interesting Items 1/17 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - 1. WA Election 1. WA Election. As democrat Christine Gregoire was sworn in as governor last week, details continued to emerge on the scope of voter fraud committed by democrats that installed her in office. For example: There were 3500 more votes were counted in King County than were registered to vote. There were also 24 people who continued their political life after their earthly life ended; in other words, 24 dead people voted in King County. Rossi and the state Republican Party are mulling their options and considering additional legal challenges and use the federal courts to force another election. I do not agree with this approach. They would be better off not to reprise the algore / Jesse Jackson endless election and concentrate on overturning the democrat machine in King County that made this possible. Let Gregoire grasp the poisoned chalice, the results of a fraudulent election, and try to get something done over the course of the next four years. Continue to document the enormity of the democrat election fraud, document the specifics, and the locations and the elected and appointed officials in charge. Use it as a vehicle to focus Republican efforts to turn over the Washington State legislature in upcoming elections. Use it as a vehicle to start breaking up the democrat machine in King County. If you can start turning King County you also have the extra added benefit of defeating democrat US Senator Maria Cantwell in upcoming elections. Finally, you run Rossi, who ran the good fight, got beat via a dirty, rigged election, and beat Gregoire and the democrats in 2008. Don’t become algore. Become a winner. 2. Breyer / Scalia. Justices Scalia and Breyer spoke at an event broadcast by CSPAN last week. We rarely get to see Supreme Court Justices argue among one another in public, and this one was eye-opening. Scalia continued to push his view of interpreting the Constitution as written, allowing the voters and elected officials – the political process – to make momentous decisions about social subjects such as homosexual marriage and abortion. Breyer, who has the very strange notion that we should look at laws in other nations as some sort of guide to interpreting the Constitution of the US, spoke at length about that notion. The more you listen to Breyer, the more you get the impression that he is ruling precisely how he wants to rule and simply looking at international laws as some sort of excuse, some sort of legal cover for his personal views of the world – the Constitution, elected officials and political process be damned. Scalia had a number of good lines during the event. Perhaps the best was when pointed out after Breyer made a series of points that our law must align itself with legal thinking worldwide that only 19 nations – including the US – approve abortions any time and any place. Scalia wondered why abortion was still legal. The answer is obviously that Breyer is simply using foreign law to justify his pre-selected actions. Hannity / Limbaugh, Weds. 3. Lawyer Jokes. Two elderly men standing in a line in Hempstead, NY were arrested Monday for telling lawyer jokes while waiting in line. They were turned in by a lawyer standing a few people in front of them in line, arrested, and charged with disorderly conduct. The arresting officers and court officers involved were pretty nasty with the two old men - talk about the Imperial Presidency. They will be back in court next month. Newsday.com, Tues. 4. Philly Christians. 11 Christians faced up to 47 years in prison if convicted of felony and misdemeanor charges made during a protest at a Philly gay pride event last month. The Christian group protested the event; open to only homosexuals and their supporters, last month. This year, the homosexual organizers were ready for them, rolling out a group of goons and thugs calling themselves the Pink Angels that confronted the Christians this year. There were over 30,000 homosexuals at the event. The local cops, apparently tipped off that the homos were going to confront the protestors, stepped in and arrested the Christians, charging them with incitement to riot, ethnic intimidation, and conspiracy. None of the Pink Angels, who incited the physical confrontations, were arrested or questioned by Philly police. The Philly Judge hearing the case threw out charges against all but 5 Christians, one of which is a minor that will be tried in Juvenile Courts. The democrat government of Philly – including the state and local courts are fully on board with the gay agenda, and will vigorously suppress all dissenting views. Expect these Christians to be convicted in local and state courts, and the case to be appealed to federal courts to overturn the conviction. For a long time, homosexuality was called the love that dare not mention its name. Today in Philly, it has become the love that will dare not tolerate any opposing views. Lars Larson, Tues. 5. Williams. Leftists were in high dudgeon last week when news hit that a company run by conservative commentator Armstrong Williams took nearly $240,000 to push the No Child Left Behind law to fellow blacks and to give the Secretary of Education air time. Williams apologized, yet the leftists took this opening as an excuse to go after yet another conservative black who did something that they have been doing for decades (if not generations). Consider, if you will, the dollar amount paid out by the EPA, Interior Department to various environmental groups over the last several decades. Every single one of these environmental groups were advocating increased regulation, supporting leftist federal policies on the environment, advocating listing endangered species that are not endangered and as a result encouraging federal intervention on private property, discovering cancerous substances that aren’t, etc. The left has long suckled at the federal teat, and in doing so has turned out tons of paper supporting some very onerous and obnoxious federal policies. If they do not support federal policy, they get no more money. They are upset at Williams and the Bush administration because he was doing the very same thing they have done for decades. Tony Snow Fri reported that the FCC was going to investigate Williams’ company. Snow wants to ensure that all violations are investigated – including the leftist ones. He may get his wish, and the leftists may end up biting off more than they can chew. 6. Dean’s Bloggers. News also came out last week that the Howard Dean Presidential campaign paid liberal bloggers to hype the campaign on the Internet. Both bloggers claimed to have notified their readers that they were working for the Dean Campaign, although neither one directly tied payments received from the Dean campaign to what was said in their blogs supporting Dean. According to LittleGreenFootballs.com, one consultant was paid $3000 monthly for 4 months. He said he was a technical consultant for Dean on his blog. 7. Indictment. The Finance Chairman for Hillary Clinton’s NY Senate campaign in 2000 was indicted in 2003 for deliberately understating expenses of a gala Hollywood fundraiser for her in 2000. This is the first indictment of a campaign official tied directly to St. Hilly of Chappaqua, and may be a huge, huge problem for her in 2008. Dick Morris spoke to Sean Hannity Monday about the indictment and believes it may be very dangerous to her presidential aspirations in 2008. It is one thing to indict people close to the Clintons like Jim Guy Tucker, Web Hubbell, Susan MacDougal, all people who have been close to the Clintons forever. It is another thing entirely to indict the hired help (Rosen), who will lose nothing by rolling against the Clintons. The financial trick done by Rosen was to understate costs of the event. This gave the campaign, which was strapped for cas ha at the time around $250,000 in free, unreportable money. $280,000 is enough for a week’s long media buy in NYC, and was a huge dollar amount at that time during the campaign. Hilly may be in big trouble. Then again, she is a Clinton, and she very well may get away with it. 8. Newt on Judiciary. Newt Gingrich made the rounds last week pitching his new book on a new version of the Contract With America. One of the ways he is pushing the book is to coyly hint that he may run for President in 2008, and wants to use the book and its ideas to guide the conservative debate for the 2008 campaign. He bases his new contract on five principles: More later – - AG Interesting Items Interesting Items 1/10 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - 1. Katie John 1. Katie John. The State of Alaska filed a challenge to the US government’s takeover of navigable waterways here in Alaska over the long-running subsistence dispute. The lawsuit was filed in response to federal water use regulations scheduled to go into effect to implement a 1995 Ninth Circus opinion extending subsistence rights for natives in Alaska to state-controlled waters. The Clinton administration, as expected, took the opinion as an excuse to grab control of thousands of square miles of Alaska coastlines, waterways, and lakes. Alaska is the only state in the union which the feds control coastlines, navigable waterways and lakes. The state, which probably didn’t want to file the appeal, was pushed by a statue of limitations on the action that ended all comment on the federal action last weekend. According to the state, the US Supreme Court in the Katie John decision spelled out a strict set of criteria which governed federal takeover of Alaska lands and waterways. None of those criteria were used when the Clinton administration conducted their land-grab following the 1995 decision. Locals believe that the lawsuit may be settled by summary judgment against the feds (or at least they hope so). 2. Provisional Ballots. Washington State Republicans uncovered another bit of voter fraud in November’s elections. King County, which broke 60-40% in favor of Gregiore, the democrat candidate for governor had a problem with provisional ballots during the election. They fed an unknown number of provisional ballots directly into the voting machines on Election Day. This is significant, in that provisional ballots are supposed to be held by election officials until the voter was verified. In King County alone, over 350 provisional ballots were fed directly into the machines without verification. At a 60-40% split in favor of the democrat, these ballots alone are enough to guarantee the election of Gregiore. Republicans have gone to court with a handful of voting irregularities and are demanding another – hopefully more honest and honorable – election. Democrats are fighting the request, claiming that there is no provision in the state constitution that allows a second election if the first is hopelessly flawed and / or rigged. Newsmax, Sat. 3. Gonzalez. Senate hearings on the nomination of Alberto Gonzalez took place Thursday and Friday last week. Democrats, desperately afraid of another conservative (Gonzalez is actually a moderate) Latino in a high appointed position, went after him hammer and tong. The trumped-up issue during these hearings was the notion that discussions of what was legal to do to captured Al Qaida and related terrorists while in custody to extract information. Democrats were in high dudgeon, taking the position that terrorists should be afforded the full array of Constitutional rights that we apply to criminals within the American border. They jumped on a series of memos written by Gonzalez and discussed within the administration as evidence Gonzalez supported torture. They trotted out film clips of Abu Ghraib and started lecturing Gonzalez, claiming that the internal discussion led directly to those activities. Even Lindsey Graham, (R, SC) got into the act, claming that captured terrorists have the full set of constitutional rights, and that we are no better than they. Gonzalez shot back at Graham, noting that we are nothing like our enemy and started naming those who were beheaded on video. Graham backed off a bit. Friday, the democrats brought a panel of three academics in front of the committee. Testimony of all three was intended to slam Gonzalez and make the case for full constitutional rights for captured terrorists. Arlen Specter (R, PA) asked the best question of the entire week: What if you know you have a ticking time bomb that you know will kill hundreds or thousands of people when it goes off, and you have captured someone who set it. Would you use torture to extract the information? All three meekly dodged the question. A similar discussion took place on Special Report with Brit Hume on FNC at weeks’ end. Juan Williams and Mara Liasson both took the position that torture was never an option. Charles Krauthammer blasted away with the ticking bomb question at both of them, finally noting that torture is an option and the real debate should be how much and when. 4. Boxer Rebellion. Leftist democrats in Congress staged a pre-planned kabuki dance when they objected to the election of President Bush in November. Congress certifies the results of the Electoral College. It has been 36 years since the last objection was raised. If a single congresscritter or senator objects to the certification, congress splits and holds two hours of debate in each house. They then vote on certification. The issue for democrats was trumped-up claims of voter fraud and disenfranchisement of minorities in Ohio. The real reason, according to a Newsmax article over the weekend was an attempt to destroy political viability of Ken Blackwell, a black conservative Republican who is Secretary of State in Ohio (Secretary of State runs elections in Ohio). Blackwell is pretty good. He is an up and coming Republican who has his eye on governor and higher office. This action was nothing more than an attempt to trash his name and dust him up a bit politically before he steps out onto the public state running for higher office. 5. Comic Book. The Mexican government has published a 33 page how-to comic book for illegals crossing the American border. The book is intended to help make it safer to make the journey across the border and integrate into American society. It should also be a great help to foreign terrorists making the very same journey. Vicente Fox has been a real disappointment as Presidente of Mexico. Secretary of State nominee Condi Rice will have a real problem locking down those borders. 6. Newdow. Atheist Michael Newdow filed suit in federal court last week in an attempt to prohibit a prayer said during the Inauguration ceremonies next week. Expect a ruling in favor of Newdow from the DC Circuit and expect the Bush inauguration to ignore it. On a related front, a group of California atheists, this time with actual children, have refilled the Newdow lawsuit intended to remove “under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance. 7. Nuke Mecca. WorldNetDaily ran an article last Friday referring to recent articles posted on Dr. Jack Wheeler’s intel site. Wheeler believes that the reason that Bin Laden has been so quiet for the last couple of years and has not directly come after the US inside the US is because the US has made it very clear to him and to his supporters that we will nuke Mecca – reduce it to a smoking, glassed hole – if he does. I have no idea about the background of this notion, but find it fun to contemplate. And it is fun on a couple of levels: First, if the Islamists truly want Jihad, Total War against the Infidel, we can certainly oblige. However, one ought to be careful wishing for things that they may get, because if the 20th century is any guide, the Western world is a whole lot better at killing large numbers of people in a very short period of time than the 13th century Caliphate is capable of doing. Second, it will give the Islamists a taste of their own medicine. I don’t think that anyone at the State Department or higher up in the Bush administration would recommend such a course of action. However, I do believe that the Pentagon and lots and lots of people in the military including no small number of retirees would do it in a heartbeat – and that Bin Laden at some level believes it is a possibility. If this threat reins in the Wahabbis and Islamists a bit, it may be a very good thing indeed. As to the sensitivity crowd, whose hearts may be all aflutter at the notion that we may not treat Islam with the proper measure of honor and respect, I only need to point out what has been done to Bethlehem and Jerusalem over the years, and note that honor and respect bloody well ought to go both directions. Ought to? Strike that: WILL go both directions. I would also remind the tolerance people what the Taliban did to centuries-old statues of Buddha in Afghanistan while they ruled. Most of those statues, which were centuries-old Buddhist religious shrines, were reduced to crushed rock by the Taliban, who were Wahabbist Islamists. 8. Compliment. The Ninth Circus Court of Appeals threw out a defamation lawsuit against ESPN by Evil Kenevil last week. He sued ESPN for running a caption underneath a photo of him, his wife and another woman referring to him as a pimp and by inference, to his wife and the other lady as whores. The Ninth Circus decided that being called a pimp was a compliment – which it might be in California, but nowhere else in the country. Limbaugh, Fri. More later – - AG Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Mon., Jan 3, 2005 Interesting Items 1/03 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - 1. Tsunami 1. Tsunami. A 9.0 Richter earthquake struck off the northern tip of Sumatra just over a week ago. The quake moved a huge chunk of sea floor, creating a tsunami that scoured shorelines throughout the Indian Ocean. Death toll today is approaching 150,000 people, a disaster of almost biblical proportions. We will pray for the lost, the injured and their families. The tsunamis rose over 30 feet above mean sea level in places and scoured everything as far as a mile from the beach. There are some very shallow seas in that part of the world, with lots of people living near the ocean. The land doesn’t rise very far for miles and miles, meaning the people in the danger zone had little to do other than climb trees to save themselves. Video of the incoming seas showed the dynamics of the waves. They weren’t crashing, surfable breakers so popular in the movies. They were the turbulent leading edge of the sea level rising to engulf everything in its path – not unlike the slosh of water in a bathtub. We are rapidly approaching a time on this planet where there are enough video cameras, enough communications, enough cellphones, sufficient satellite photography available to everyone on the planet where we will be able to watch these disasters afterwards, see how they do their damage, and design future buildings appropriately for future survival. 2. UN. The UN responded to the disaster immediately with a breathtaking display of arrogance. They demanded that they head up all relief efforts. Apparently the bureaucrats that no longer profit from the graft and corruption of the UN’s Oil for Food (and Weapons) Program in Iraq need a new source of free money now that Saddam is gone. And the UN bureaucrat in charge of relief efforts hit the airways early in the week demanding that the rich nations pay more to the relief effort, even calling them – and the US in particular – stingy for not agreeing to increase taxes on their citizens in order to increase donations to the UN for relief efforts. President Bush came under some criticism for not immediately running for the nearest camera to emote over the loss. Bush instead did what he always does – which is to assess the situation, take proper action, and start leading the relief effort. An aircraft carrier battle group was on station in the area by weeks end. 3. Washington. Thieving democrats (another redundant term) and another leftist state supreme court conspired to hand a very close election for governor in Washington State to the democrat. The fourth count of votes found the democrat ahead by 10. Democrats went to the state courts and got over 500 ballots from King County (which went for the democrat 60-40%) included. Some of the ballots were tossed for being incomplete; some had too many votes; some were absentee ballots without proper names or addresses. They also “found” another 200 ballots after inspecting King County voting machines. The democrat, who was supposed to win the election easily, ended up winning the fourth count by 120 votes. The state Supreme Court changed the rules during the recount, not unlike what the Florida Supreme Court did during the 2000 recount. We are in a period of time where democrats can no longer easily win elections – not unlike the old communists of the Soviet Union. So they resort to thievery, intimidation, rule changing on the fly during the election and recount, and the actions of rogue states Supreme Courts to win. Enjoy the “victory” while you have it, boys and girls. Washington State, like the Ukraine will eventually have an honest election. And when they do, democrats will have a very, very difficult time winning. 4. Parents. The California Attorney General passed out his Christmas present to parents of school-age children the week before Christmas. He announced that the right of privacy for California children in school – whether they are minors or not – absolutely trumps all parental rights of notification. The schools don’t have to tell parents if their minor children are referred for either abortions or drug treatment. Planned Parenthood and the pro-aborts are using the public schools in California to cover for them. Parents are understandably highly agitated by the pronouncement and have made their displeasure perfectly clear to the local schools. Some of the schools are even talking about notifying angry parents in violation of the Attorney General’s edict. We may be on the verge of seeing a return of parental rights in California as the pro-death crowd saws off the limb they are sitting upon. 5. US Air. US Air suffered through a union-inspired sickout over Christmas. Thousands of bags were lost as stewardii and baggage handlers refused to work over one of the busiest travel weekends of the year. Normally, the story ought to stop at the point where an airline that is already fending off bankruptcy is now at the point of having to fend off internal union work stoppages aimed at nothing more than irritating the maximum number of paying customers over the holiday season - talk about shooting yourself in the foot. Angry passengers who went on holiday without their bags have threatened to sue the airline itself rather than either of the two unions involved. Somehow the logic of the target escapes me: Unions which have negotiated a contract between employees and the airline orchestrate a sickout – a work stoppage – in violation of the contract and some fool lawyer believes it is the airline’s fault? This is yet another example of a need for tort reform. 6. Gas Prices. Natural gas prices took a real jump upwards in the Anchorage bowl at the first of the year. The reason for the price increase is the depletion of Cook Inlet natural gas fields that have supplied Anchorage for decades. Local greens and their lawyers have obstructed new lease sales in the Inlet for decades. They have tried to list Cook Inlet belugas as endangered as a vehicle to shut down existing oil and natural gas platforms and pipelines in the Inlet. They also shut down a promising coal bed methane business north of Anchorage in the MatSu valley. The Trustees for Alaska, the Cook Inlet Keeper, and the Friends of the MatSu have all participated in making sure no new sources of natural gas or oil have been leased or drilled. Now the Anchorage Daily News, which has carried hysterical environmentalist claims of harm to the local environment for years without question or balance are suddenly mystified that we are running out of natural gas. Sometimes you get what you want – and it not at all what you want. 7. Judges. President Bush announced that he was going to re-submit nominations of 20 federal judges obstructed by Tom Daschle and his democrat cronies over the last several years. This means that Bush is serious about his judicial nominations and that the battle has been joined with congressional leftists. 8. Rumsfeld. SECDEF Rumsfeld made a trip to visit the troops in Iraq over the holidays. The trip was unannounced and the troops loved it. Local media was not so impressed, referring to the trip as a token visit to the troops. William Randolph Hurst would be proud – yellow journalism lives. More later – - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
If you would like to join II's mailing list, have comments or suggestions, please contact me at: agimarc@ak.net |