Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc, May 2006

1. Saudis. AP reported a story about a pair of twenty-something Saudis that hopped a school bus loaded with children in Tampa last weekend. One was wearing a trenchcoat, shorts and sweating profusely (kind of what you’d expect if they were carrying bombs). The driver got worried, stopped the bus, contacted authorities, and the two miscreants were arrested. As of last week, they were both still in custody, having given a variety of stories to authorities questioning precisely why they felt compelled to hop a school bus full of American children. The most coherent story from the two was that they were attending an English-language school in the Tampa – St. Pete area. But we are all struck with the notion of a pair of gibbering young Saudis climbing aboard a Florida school bus, behaving oddly, dressed oddly, speaking Arabic and no English, and with many different and moderately incoherent excuses for being there. Was this yet another practice run for a terrorist event? We would be fools not to consider it. And we would be fools not to question these wannabee terrorists extensively – perhaps even using the waterboard – and then shipping them off to Gitmo for the duration of hostilities. As it stands today, they are still in jail – a surprising choice for the local PC-dominated constabulary and courts. Note that actor James Woods apparently witnessed a dry run of 9-11 by a team of future murderers that included Mohammed Atta onboard a commercial flight in August 2001. We let down our guard at our own peril, and the Islamists are perfectly capable of executing a Beslan right here in the US should they choose to do so. OF course, they would all get sliced up into eel-bait or perhaps pig food as a result, but never doubt that they want to make the attempt.

2. Immigration. The US Senate – described in one online article as the worst Senate in Modern Times – passed out their monstrosity of immigration reform last week. The 600+ page POS (Piece of Manure) included a number of interesting and outrageous provisions. For instance, it included: Prevailing wages to Illegals – read this as Davis-Bacon wages for every single illegal; A limitation that employers can only fire for just cause; a reward for identity theft by giving Social Security benefits to people who committed fraud to get their Social Security numbers – thereby expanding the base of people in the Social Security system by yet another 11-12 million people; giving Earned Income Tax Credit to illegals – free money; and finally in-state tuition for every single illegal attending college nationwide. The legislation includes privacy provisions that prohibit the transfer of information about illegals that break the law between government agencies – thereby prohibiting the free flow of data between agencies on people who break the law. The legislation also contains a provision that requires the US government to “consult” with Mexico before they enforce the border or build any barriers to immigration. The legislation sets the foundation for yet another 22-66 million immigrants into the US over the next 20 years – none of which has been discussed in the media at any level. Limbaugh described this legislation as the product of the old RINO / Country-Club Republican Beltway insiders who despise the takeover of the p arty by conservatives and Evangelicals. They have supported a Bill that is aimed at the he art of the Reaganite coalition, with the singular goal of destroying it. It is the largest expansion of the Welfare State and federal power in our lives since, oh, since the Prescription Drug Bill of Bush’s first term in office. The goal of the RINOS and leftists are to import tens of millions of new dependent people into America so that they can be put in the system, put on welfare, made dependent, and then vote and vote and vote for leftists from now until Doomsday. The entire effort is being led by John McCain ( RINO, AZ), sympathetic liberal Republican senators, and their sycophantic toadies in the Drive-by media. It is up to us to keep the pressure on the House of Representatives to ensure that this monstrosity never sees the light of day.

3. Google. Newsbusters ran a piece last Monday about Google conducting their own bit of ethnic cleansing, dropping conservative news sites and blogs from their search list. The excuse used by the leftists that own Google is that the sites have engaged in hate-speech as they go after Islamists and their supporters with gusto, vigor and panache. It appears that Google News has been reconfiguring itself to exclude sites that are critical of Islam, the self-professed Religion of Peace. Google is in an interesting position playing this game. They are owned by committed leftists living on the Left Coast. They invited algore (former VP who lost the 2000 election, failing to commit voting fraud in Florida sufficiently well to steal the election – which irritates him a lot). Their stock offerings to algore have made him a very, very wealthy man, fully capable of funding his own presidential run out of his own pockets. Imagine how well algore will be doing in 2007 and 2008 if and when Google’s stock prices drop precipitously as the online community decides that they have been diddling search engine results based on their political predilections. Algore may have a lot of stock, but he may no longer be able to fund his own campaign for president out of pocket. Interesting world for the leftists, I think, for they are about to get what they want.

4. House. The US House of Representatives continued to make collective fools out of themselves by choosing to hard-ball their argument with the Justice Dep artment over FBI search of Congressman William Jefferson (D, LA) Congressional office a couple weeks ago. Jefferson was ignoring a lawful subpoena. The House leadership, choosing to defend their turf from the Executive rather than take political advantage of yet another corrupt, soon to be indicted and jailed democrat congressman, dropped the ball and gave the issue back to the democrats. Public reaction to the Republican leadership in the House was less than kind, accusing them of choosing privilege over honor. These guys are very close to screwing the pooch, forgetting that one of the reasons that they were put into office in 1994 was that the democrat House had lost touch with the rest of America. It appears that Our Side is forgetting the same lesson, and they do so at their peril.

5. Alaska Governor. The race for Alaska Governor this summer and fall got a lot more interesting with the announcement of incumbent Frank Murkowski (R) last Thursday to seek reelection. His announcement was followed a few days later by that of former governor “Phony” Tony Knowles (D) who was in office from 1994 through 2002 to seek a third term. Murkowski is the 49th most popular governor in the entire country, second to Governor Taft of Ohio, who is dodging indictments. Murkowski has been under continual assault by local leftists since he was elected in 2002. His greatest mistake in office have been to allow holdover democrat appointees of former governor Knowles to remain in office rather than replace them on day one. Most of these people have been union and greenie sympathizers who have systematically undermined his administration from day one in office. Murkowski also is fairly insular, preferring to operate among a small circle of old friends rather than reaching out to the larger conservative community here in Alaska – which has caused some problems. There is also lingering anger at his appointment of his daughter for his open US Senate seat three years ago. On the other hand, Murkowski has been excellent in reopening development here in the state. He has been excellent in pursuing mining, oil and natural gas production and other non-renewable resource development. He has fought the Good Fight regarding rest arting logging here in the state. And finally, he has been a real champion in infrastructure expansion statewide. It’s a tough call for Republicans to support his reelection and should he make it through the primaries in August, they will likely support him against “Phony” Tony Knowles, who sold out the state to the greens, unions and native separatists. Murkowski’s opponents in the August primaries on the Republican side are former Wasilla Mayor Sarah Palin, a conservative who has turned to the anti-conservative side and worked with anti-conservative moderate “reformers” in recent years. The other opponent is John Binkley, from Fairbanks, a former state senator who is the odds-on favorite to take the nomination in August. Both the other candidates are polling well ahead of Murkowski in polls taken a week or two ago. This is going to be a real interesting next six months, for the winner of the next gubernatorial election controls redistricting in 2010 and construction of the natural gas pipeline. This is a very important election.

1. Nagin. “Schoolbus” Ray Nagin was reelected over the weekend as Mayor of New Orleans. At first glance, this was a victory for stupidity over sanity. Upon further review, the election results may be very good news for conservatives nationwide and Louisiana conservatives in p articular. Over the last decade, the population of Orleans Parish has been slowly decreasing, as people who wanted to do other things than be p art of democrat vote-rigging machine left town in search of a better life. The population shrank from 484,000 in 2000 to 464,000 in 2004. That population, including everyone democrats Nagin and Landrieu were able to bus in to NO to vote this weekend was only able to provide 115,000 total votes for mayor. Nagin won with just under 60,000 of those votes cast. Now Orleans Parish, New Orleans, has been able to provide around 100,000 votes in favor of the selected democrat for decades. But in recent years, that vote total has been tailing off a bit. For example, Mary Landrieu, senior US Senator from LA was first elected by 6,000 votes in 1996 when Orleans Parish provided over 100,000 vote majority to elect her. When she ran for reelection in 2002, she won by 42,000 votes; fueled by a 79,000 vote advantage in Orleans Parish. More recently, idiot Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco was elected by 55,000 votes statewide. This included a 50,000 majority out of Orleans Parish. Note that the manufactured vote from the democrat machine decreased by half over the course of seven years. Now in 2006, Mayor Ray Nagin is scarcely able to get as many votes in total as there were votes created in massive voter fraud in 1996to elect people the democrat machine wanted them to elect. What does this mean? It means that Mary Landrieu is in big, big trouble in 2008. It means Katrina has destroyed one of the most successful democrat voter fraud machines since Mayor Daley’s 1960 election machine in Illinois. It means people have left New Orleans in sufficient numbers so that the machine has been gutted like an overripe salmon. It means Landrieu’s seat is now in play. It means the state of Louisiana is now in play. In Louisiana, the Landrieu family is referred to as Cajun Kennedys – as much for their political acumen as for their personal and professional corruption. It is significant that Mary Landrieu’s brother, the state Lt. Governor, was unable to unseat a known idiot, fool, and man singularly responsible for turning the city into a swimming pool. This election is not bad news at all.

2. PA Primaries. Captain’s Qu arters last Weds reported that PA conservatives rose up and whacked at their state legislature, the RINOs who slammed through an unconstitutional pay raise in the dead of night last year. The pay raise was such a good deal that “Fast Eddie” Rendell (D) signed the bill. Conservatives statewide were outraged and bombarded their legislators with mail, phone and other more unpleasant forms of communication. The legislature was publicly humiliated into repealing the pay raise a few months later. But this is not the end of the story. Pennsylvania held their primaries last Tuesday and outraged conservatives turned out in sufficient numbers to remove 15 House and Senate incumbent RINOs from office and replace them with conservatives. Among the defeated were the two Senate leaders (both RINOs) – who led the pay raise legislative action. CQ reports that 13 House members were also defeated. The way conservatives dealt with self-serving treachery by their entrenched leadership in the PA legislature ought to be a lesson to conservatives nationwide. The time and place to remove RINOs and people who like the power and perks too well from office are during the primaries. The people who vote in primaries tend to be p arty activists, the number of votes needed to win a primary are far lower than the number during a general election, and the dollar amounts necessary to seal the deal tend to be lower than those required during the general election, for you only have to deal with half the registered voters at most. At worst, if your selected conservative loses in a primary, you are left with the same RINO currently in office, and you can spend the next 2-4 years merrily making their lives miserable in print, via personal communications, and in the online community. Who knows, you may even get their attention, if but only for a little while. If your RINO loses in the general election because you stayed home, you end up with a leftist who is much worse. Congratulations to PA conservatives for sending a message to RINOs nationwide.

3. Offshore. AP Friday reported that the House voted 279-141 to continue a decades-old ban on oil exploration offshore. They also voted 217-203 to extend the same ban on natural gas exploration in the same offshore area. This ban exempts nearly 85% of the coastal waters of the US from oil and gas exploration. It essentially continues a ban st arted in 1981 on all oil and natural gas exploration f arther than three miles offshore in the eastern Gulf of Mexico, the Atlantic seaboard, the Pacific seaboard, and around Florida. Over 70 Republicans, led mainly by NIMBYs pandering for votes in Florida, voted to keep your gas and oil prices high and the environment pristine (they think). At the same time, the ChiComs are arranging to st art oil and gas exploration in a p art of the eastern Caribbean within 45 miles from Key West. If we decide not to drill, the communists are going to do so. And I expect they will be significantly less concerned with the environment than the NIMBY Republcans from Florida. If I were living in the Conch Republic ( Key West), I would st art investing in oil dispersant. I think you folks are going to need some in the years to come.

4. Tongass. During the voting on amendments to the same Interior Dep artment appropriation legislation with the ban on offshore oil and gas exploration, the House also voted to prohibit the US Forest Service from building new logging roads in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska. The move was praised by leftists, greens and their cheerleaders in the Drive-by media, with conservative budget hawks in the House celebrating that they had saved the Feds over $40 million yearly building roads in the Tongass. This legislation only applies to Alaska and prompted Alaska’s lone Representative Don Young, (R) to threaten retribution against the budget cutters. This is a nice story, but represents yet another greenie-inspired mess. Twenty years ago, logging in the National Forests paid for itself, with revenues from the logging companies being recycled into infrastructure throughout the Western US. It was a cheap way to build roads where none existed. The more trees that are logged, the more are sold; the more fees that the logging companies pay the US Forest Service; and the more money gets recycled into the budget for road construction, extension, upkeep and improvement. In the late 1980s, this all began to change as the greens st arted infesting the Dep artment of the Interior. Throughout the 1990s the greens inside the federal government conspired with the various green anti-logging lawsuits and leftist judges to shut down logging throughout the western US to the point where logging was no longer a money maker,. Instead, logging turned into a net money loser – yet another expense on the taxpayer. The Clinton Interior Dep artment under Bruce Babbitt allowed the greens to use the junk science-based claim that the spotted owl was an endangered species as their vehicle to essentially turn the National Forests in the Western US into new wilderness areas. They also stopped maintaining existing roads; claming they didn’t have enough money to do so. They went so far as to st art using road maintenance money to st art deconstructing roads during the later 1990s. Solution to all of this? St art logging again. You can also transfer the National Forests back to the many states if the Feds are losing so much money. I’m sure the states can figure out how to manage forests. Trees will grow back. They always have in the past, and we Americans used to be pretty decent at forestry. I’m sure it is still taught and practiced somewhere.

1. Discontent. There is a little game going on regarding polling, the President’s approval numbers, ongoing Drive-by media attacks on the NSA, and anti-war leaks from the intelligence community. If you didn’t know it, you might wonder if we aren’t in the middle of the media workup for the 2006 congressional elections – with the media assault nicely designed to keep conservatives riled up, angry and ultimately mad enough to stay home on Election Day. Limbaugh noted last week that the daily polling on Bush’s approval numbers are coming out at a rate not unlike the daily tracking polls during a presidential election. What other reason would they be taken and reported daily by the Drive-by media, if not to pile on with bad news and help out the democrats? Word of warning for my conservative friends: Don’t take the bait, for we stand on the cusp of repeating some very ugly history. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won the presidency by smashing Jimmy C arter in the polls. He also took the Senate, when every close race swung for the Republican candidate mostly due to the unprecedented turnout of Reagan democrats for Reagan. That changed in 1986, a time of growing disillusionment with his administration among conservatives, the burgeoning Iran-Contra scandal, and after years of relentless leftist and media attacks on everything conservative. During that election, conservatives and Reagan democrats stayed home in sufficient numbers so that all the close races swung to the democrat, giving control of the senate back to the democrats. What happened the next year? Well, there was a Supreme Court retirement and Reagan appointed Robert Bork to fill it. Chairman Joe Biden and his democrat majority on the Senate Judiciary Committee and in the Senate conducted one of the most heinous character assassination on Bork in recent history and defeated his nomination. Disgruntled conservatives handed the senate to the democrats and they ended up defeating a conservative nominee to the SCOTUS in the process. If we do the same thing this November, expect every single conservative judicial nominee to be stopped for the next two years. And should there be a SCOTUS opening – and I believe that there may be one or two more - we would end up with some fool like a David Souter or Anthony Kennedy confirmed by a democrat senate rather than a Bork, Scalia, Thomas or Roberts. Message to conservatives is to get more engaged, not less. Raise Hell. Beat up on your local congresscritter early, often, regularly and with great gusto. Think of it as taking out the trash. Get to know their staff. Help them out. Cheerlead a bit for them. And never, ever back off on your message. P articipate in the election campaigns this summer and get your conservative nominee through the nomination process. At the very least, you will scare the bejeezus out of your RINO and/or get their attention. Then go to the polls in November and increase the number of conservatives in office rather than hand the reins of power back to the leftists. The choice, fellow conservatives is up to us. We dare not shrink from the challenge.

2. Hybrid. A guided hunter in Canada shot a hybrid bear last week. The bear was a fertile hybrid offspring from a polar (white) bear and a grizzly (brown) bear. White and brown bears have been bred before in zoos, but this is the first reported find of such an offspring in nature. This little story presents an interesting problem for the greens and their regulatory structure. Up here in Alaska, we have brown bears coming out of our ears. There are a lot of them. They are everywhere – including here in Anchorage. They breed like flies and do well, p articularly near the salmon streams. On the other hand, the white bears are listed as endangered, primarily because they were such a threat to people on the Arctic Ocean that they were killed whenever they could be killed. One of the definitions of species is the ability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring. Perhaps there isn’t so much difference between brown and white bears as the greens and the feds would have us believe. And if the white bears all went away for some reason, their region would be quickly repopulated by ocean-going brown bears. Maybe it is time to de-list white bears as endangered.

3. Soledad. WND last Thursday reported that a federal judge ordered the Mount Soledad Memorial Cross removed. This sorry ruling will destroy a war memorial that dates back to 1954. According to the WND story, there have been crosses on the site since 1913. The case was brought by a local San Diego atheist in 1989. Two years later, the sitting federal judge (the same guy who ruled last week) ordered the cross removed on separation of church and state grounds. Locals appealed and fought the ruling, which was based on the cross being on public lands. In response, the city sold the memorial to a local non-profit to manage the war memorial in 1998. Atheists and the ACLU took this sale to court, and the 9th Circus ruled the sale illegal. A ballot initiative was floated to transfer the war memorial to the feds. After all, the feds maintain lots of war memorials and cemeteries – most of which have crosses and Stars of David at the gravesites. The city council refused to help, and the citizens proceeded anyway and the ballot initiative passed with over 75% of the vote. Local congresscritters introduced and passed supporting federal egislation to transfer the property from the nonprofit to the feds. Last week, the presiding judge revoked property rights for the City of San Diego, property rights of the non-profit, and property rights for the feds, all in order to cleanse a single white cross from the public square. Expect this outrageous ruling to be appealed all the way to the SCOTUS. If it stands, every single cross at every single federal war memorial is now at risk. Reminder to disgruntled conservatives (see number 1 above): This is precisely the sort of ruling you can expect if you allow the leftists to take over congress this year. Be careful what you ask for.

4. Exit Exam. Late last week a state judge in California tossed out the state exit exam for High School students on the grounds that it was unfair to poor and minority students. According to the LA Times, this last minute ruling will allow around 10% of the graduates, around 47,000 kids, who have failed, to cross the stage with their classmates and get diplomas. The last-minute ruling is a gift to the state Teachers’ Unions, who have managed to underperform for years; a gift to the illegals whose non-English speaking kids are in school at our expense; and a flat-out insult to every single teacher, student and parent that have busted their backsides during 12 years of public education. If there were ever a candidate for impeachment and removal from the state Bench, it is this guy. Lets see if California politicians are up to it.

5. Mahmoud. Much ridicule was rightfully tossed toward Iranian President Mahmoud Amadinejad’s rambling 18-page letter to President Bush last week. A couple blogs noted that the letter was p art of a standard Islamic declaration of war against the Infidel (us). According to this interpretation, the first thing the Muslims do to a group of non-believers is to invite them to join the faith, which was the message this letter was steeped in. If true, we may be closer to mutual declarations of war than many believe and we won’t be the first ones to pull the trigger.

6. NSA Leak. The latest hit piece on the NSA and data mining came out of USA Today, which recycled a months old NYT story saying the same thing. The breathless reportage held that the NSA was sifting through billions of phone records, listening to all of them that they wanted to listen to, in some nefarious plot to spy on honest and honorable Americans. In reality, the hit piece, not so cleverly timed to slice away at CIA nominee General Michael Hayden, who ran the NSA program at issue. The hit piece, which managed to rile up the grandstanding self-congratulators inside the Beltway, was rejected by the public better than 2:1 in post-leak polling. As it turns out, everything done by the NSA is completely legal under existing federal law and Executive warmaking precedent. Perhaps the leftists infesting the democrat p arty and their toadies in the Drive-by media don’t want us to win this war and pine away for their opportunity to live under Sharia.

1. Venezuela. Little Green Footballs (LGF) last Thursday reported that Venezuelan oil production was falling like a stone and that they were having to purchase oil from Russia to meet their contractual obligations through the end of the year. If accurate, this is indeed a very big deal, as Venezuela is the fourth largest supplier of oil to the US. What appears to be happening is that Hugo Chavez – the wanabee Castro of South America (think Castro with actual money) – in well on his way toward killing the golden goose (his oil industry) that keeps him in power. Over the last few years, he has systematically replaced people in positions of power and responsibility who don’t like him or his policies with those that do. Given that his strength has always been in pandering to the poor and uneducated in Venezuela in classic socialist / populist style, his supporters tend to be majority poor and uneducated. It is difficult to replace a cadre of trained, experienced oil field hands, engineers, and production people with new uneducated, inexperienced people and maintain production at existing levels. Production numbers are important here, as Venezuela supplies around 1.3 million bbl per day to the US. To put it in perspective, the Prudhoe Bay oil fields on Alaska’s North Slope is producing under 500 bbl/day. Should ANWR come on line, it is anticipated to add at least that much, perhaps as much a million bbl per day. Chavez, like all socialist demagogues, is hiding what is going on while his financial and industrial foundation crumbles around him. He is redoing production contracts with the major oil companies, increasing tax rates, while turning the screws on the companies in other ways. He has already managed to chase one of the majors out of the country. According to the Marketwatch article referenced by LGF, Venezuela has lost 1.5 million bbl in daily production, with over 10,000 wells newly idle. If true (and I believe there is some level of accuracy to this report), Chavez is losing the financial engine of his revolution inside and outside Venezuela. I believe there is some truth to this story given the increasingly strident anti-American rhetoric by Chavez over the course of the last several months. I have also long thought that the mess he has created in Venezuela has exacerbated the ongoing problem with energy prices, as it is negatively impacting one of our primary international suppliers.

2. Syngas. Lew Williams, writing in the Anchorage Voice of the Times last Thursday discussed Alaska Governor Murkowski’s negotiating trip to Europe last month. The State of Alaska is finalizing negotiations with the major oil producers on contractual terms that will lead to the construction of the natural gas pipeline from the Alaska North Slope. Williams reported a meeting between Murkowski and Royal Dutch Shell that discussed possible syngas project in the Beluga coal fields across Cook Inlet west of Anchorage. This is a big deal in this state, given that over half the state’s population lives in Southcentral Alaska. Energy for this area over the last half century has come primarily from oil and natural gas wells on the Kenai peninsula south of Anchorage and from several platforms in Cook Inlet west and south of Anchorage. Those wells have produced well for many years, but are st arting to tail off significantly, meaning we here in Southcentral are facing an energy crunch in a few years. Syngas is the production of diesel, methane and gasoline from coal. If you thought Alaska has lots of oil, and even more natural gas, you aint seen nothing yet, for we have more coal than you would ever believe. And if we can convert coal into a useable fuel (read – environmentally friendly, and yes, diesel is more environmentally friendly than coal), we here in Alaska are set from an energy standpoint for millennia – or at least to the point when the glaciers return. There are two other companies also looking to set up demonstration plants to convert Alaskan coal into liquid and gas fuels. One of the byproducts from the process is hydrogen, which can also be used as a fuel. Carbon dioxide from the processes can be gathered and reinjected into existing Cook Inlet wells to pressurize wells and maintain production. The Taiwanese government has also expressed interest in the Alaskan syngas discussion, which creates yet another non-American customer for production. Properly done, and using free market, small government principles, the future is bright. Of course, the local papers reported none of this, which is to be expected from the leftist McClatchy newspaper corporation.

3. McCain. John McCain, ( RINO, AZ), went on Don Imus last week and said that he would trade the First Amendment’s promise of free political speech for his notion of clean government. Given the great damage he and Russ Feingold (D, WI) did to the First Amendment via McCain-Feingold (along with the rest of congress, the President and the SCOTUS), this view ought not to be any surprise. According to Captain’s Qu arters last Tuesday, the McCain comments ignited a firestorm among the conservative blogs. Strangely enough, the leftist bloggers didn’t care, though McCain will touch them also. The Drive-by media also covered up the comments, for they believe they have McCain compromised, and they will get to do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it should he be elected president. The best questions to ask this grandstanding fool (McCain) is what defines clean government? How clean does it have to be in order for us to get our Constitution back? Who decides when we get it back (dumb question – obviously McCain himself decides)? CQ goes on to note that the Founding Fathers were correct when they set up the central government with a few, very well defined powers. McCain once again demonstrates that he cannot be trusted with power.

4. Judges. It appears the first step toward regaining conservative / Republican base support by the WH and embattled conservatives in the Senate is to pick a fight over judicial nominations. Given that the Gang of 14 has managed to assist Senate democrats in burying 4-8 qualified strict constructionists in committee, this fight will be a good thing to have. The WH needs to get off the dime with this also and catch up on nominations for open judgeships which number an additional 8-20. First up to bat is Kavanaugh, who is being fought because he worked for Ken Starr. This is a good fight to have, as federal judges nationwide are still handing down idiotic, outrageous and unconstitutional decisions, and will be quite visible between now and November 7.

5. Heckler. SECDEF Donald Rumsfeld faced down a heckler during a televised speech last week. The heckler, a former CIA analyst named McGovern, stood up shortly after Rumsfeld st arted speaking and berated him with the standard Bush lied, People Died anti-war rant. Rumsfeld listened politely and shredded this guy in front of the cameras. He did it in such a way that the guy didn’t realize he had been shredded. Just once I would like to see Rumsfeld (or someone else in the administration) respond in kind to these self-anointed purveyors of Truth by asking their own hard questions. For instance, Rumsfeld could have appointed out that they went forward with the best intelligence available from the CIA, including then CIA Director George Tenant’s observation that the presence of WMD in Iraq was a slam dunk. Well, if the CIA says WMD are a slam dunk and there aren’t any WMD found when the troops occupy Iraq, who is lying? Who is incompetent? Who is a fool? Hint: It’s not the Pentagon, and it’s not Rumsfeld. It is the CIA, and those guys and girls who have been so furiously fighting the Bush administration in the conduct of this war ought to be hanging their heads in shame over their miserable, unprofessional performance, and failure to get the job done. It is the height of cheekiness for a man who worked in the very agency that fell so hard on its backside, failing in the intelligence gathering and analysis workup to this war to blame someone else for acting on the intelli8gence he and his agency supplied. He ought not to be berating Rumsfeld. He ought be on his knees, hat in hand, begging forgiveness from all of us for putting American lives in danger.

1. Pig Fat. Dr. Jack Wheeler pokes around in the unpleasant world of infowar at times in his columns. He wrote about a recent conversation with a black-world type of guy who is proposing to go after the Islamists by messing with their minds a bit. While unlikely and quite improbable, such a game ought to make you sleep well at night. Wheeler is the guy who believes the reason we haven’t been hit by terrorists since 9-11 is because we have threatened to glass Mecca and Medina immediately in response, so you probably ought to take this story with a grain of salt. According to Wheeler, someone in the defense establishment is thinking about bio-diesel, fuel produced from hydrocarbons other than oil or coal. This would be done as p art of an energy independence program, completely under the cover of darkness. Suppose you set up a number of small pilot plants to turn animal fats – specifically pig fat – into kerosene. Kerosene is an interesting fuel, as it ends up as military jet fuel JP-4 or JP-8, and rocket fuel (RP-1). Say you st art adding synthetic kerosene as an additive to all international and military flights for six months or so and mix the molecules derived from pig fat – the unclean molecules – into the atmosphere worldwide. Then you tell the Islamists they have been breathing in pig fat for months, are therefore unclean, and therefore never getting to heaven regardless of the number of Israeli women and children they blow up, regardless of the number of Western innocents they murder, regardless the precision that they live the dictates of the Koran. From the perspective of a committed, sufficiently anally retentive Islamist, this would be a very bad thing indeed and could very well undermine their support for perpetual Jihad against the West. If you are never going to your 72 virgins (or raisins), and are already going to Hell instead, why fight? You wouldn’t even need to do this for real. All you would have to do would be to convince the Wahabbist Imams that we were doing this sort of thing on a worldwide basis. Of course the drawback is that you wouldn’t want to irritate the rest of the Muslims worldwide, so we probably wouldn’t do this. Still, it is always pleasing when people on our side are considering ways to undermine the will and fighting ability of our enemies by messing with their minds, and I like that notion a lot.

2. Csonka. Former Miami Dolphins and Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Larry Csonka was fined $5,000 by the US Forest Service for filming two episodes of his outdoors program “NAPA’s North to Alaska” in national forests without first getting a permit from the feds. The US Forest Service requires a permit from anyone filming shows or movies on their (as opposed to our) land. Federal Judge John Roberts, quoted in the Anchorage Daily News on April 20 with the following sanctimonious pontification: “The Forest Service, (he said) has a responsibility to collect a fair return for use of the land, protect the environment, ensure public safety and manage the public resource.” Alaska is a pretty big place, with not a lot of people around, and it is not uncommon to be confused which entity owns the land you want to use – the state, the feds or Native Corporations. Less than 1% of the land in this state is privately held – which is the subject of another discussion.

3. IBEW. Well the union won the Board election for our electrical co-op, Chugach Electric here in Anchorage. They spent an estimated $250,000, ran a typical union campaign filled with personal attacks, lies, scaremongering, threats, and promises of lower electrical costs. They took two seats on the board and turned a 4-3 anti-union majority into a 4-3 union-friendly board. The union spent around $32 per vote in this win. This election was important, as there are three contracts up for renewal and they wanted to control both sides of the table. They are rumored to be proceeding with a rate increase proposal to the Regulatory Commission of Alaska, so that they can pay for their promises. The bad news is that they won, and will probably jack up electrical rates here locally for a while. The good news is that it was $250,000 that won’t go into the campaign coffers of democrats running statewide in August and November. The other good news is that the union has hung itself out, gone very public, and promised lower electrical rates. Time to hold them and their hired hands on the Chugach Board to that promise. This will be fun.

4. Lethal Injection. Anti-death penalty activists managed to get a case before the SCOTUS last week regarding lethal injection. The claim is that nobody knows how much pain is caused by lethal injection, and that it very well may be incredible pain right up until the point where the lights go out permanently. And if it is painful, then it must be cruel and unusual treatment and unconstitutional under the constitution. Three liberal (and historically illiterate) justices – Ginsburg, Breyer and Souter – appeared to be strongly sympathetic to this foolishness. Mister Justice Scalia noted that hanging wasn’t p articularly pain free and was used extensively at the time of the writing of the constitution (as were firing squads). Let’s assume the antis win this round, what should be the reaction? Well, in the interest of maximizing the contradictions, we have a few options. One option would be the Schiavo technique, and simply starve and dehydrate the perp until they die. After all, according to the pro-death, euthanasia advocates on the left, this is a beautiful, peaceful and painless way to die. We could also use the D&X technique favored by p artial birth aborto-docs, and defended mightly by Planned Parenthood and their sycophants, where they insert a pair of forceps into the back of the neck, insert a tube and then suck the brains out of the convicted. If this is acceptable by the left, the media, Planned Parenthood, the pro-aborts and democrats nationwide for a fully functioning infant who comes into this world completely innocent, I expect it will be perfectly acceptable on a convicted killer. There are other options like simply changing the atmosphere in a room to pure nitrogen and waiting until hypoxia does its stuff – completely painless. We will see what the wannabee Philosopher Kings decide later this year.

5. DMCA. LGF last Monday rant a piece about a 24-page update to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the legislation passed several years ago at the behest of Hollywood studios and music distributors that controls copying and distribution of the product. As usual, the big money is pushing congress toward taking away the right of customers to copy CDs, DVDs and other media for their own personal use. The ability of people to copy music and video for their own use has been a settled right for decades. The new legislation further restricts the ability to copy DVDs & CDs. It also makes illegal writing and distributing any hardware or software that will allow in-home cracking of copyrighted materials – meaning you can no longer copy a protected DVD so that the kids can trash the copy rather than trashing the original. This needs to be stopped, for it is a very bad idea.

6. DOS Attack. Members of the Religion of Peace launched a sophisticated Denial of Service attack from Saudi Arabia late last week against a blog called Aaron CC. They were apparently upset that the site was running some anti-Muslim c artoons. The attack took down the web servers hosting a number of conservative blogs including Hugh Hewitt, Big Lizards, Captain’s Qu arters, Michelle Malkin, Powerline and Instapundit. It took the web server company a couple hours to deflect the attack. Our Islamist enemies are sophisticated and they do good work. We ought not to underestimate them at any point during this war.

"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."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.

Note: Interesting Items can be found at the following locations:
Debate USA, http://www.debateusa.com/ ;
MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com
and the home page: http://home.gci.net/~agimarc
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