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by Alex Gimarc Mon., Dec 25, 2006 Interesting Items 12/25 – Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Pebble 1. Pebble. A legal opinion requested from the legislative counsel by Homer Representative Paul Seaton (R) was released last week. The question was what sort of financial responsibility would the state of Alaska have to the mining company, Northern Dynasty, should they take extraordinary measures to halt the construction of the Pebble Mine north of Lake Iliamna. Not unsurprisingly, the lawyer responded that the state may very well be liable for the value of minerals not mined should they game the permitting process, seize land via eminent domain, or play any other environmentalist games in court or via the regulatory approval / permitting process. The amount of money in play is quite large; as Northern Dynasty’s most recent presentations have indicated that total value of minerals on the site they intend extracting is in excess of $92 billion. At long last, we finally are st arting to have a discussion about the actual costs of incessant environmentalist obstruction. The competing businesses in that region are sport fishing for salmon and trout, commercial salmon fishing in Bristol Bay, the lodges that support those businesses, and the future mine. The mining company believes they can co-exist with fishing and hunting. I tend to agree with them. In my opinion, it will enhance both, for it will take the employment pressure off those that depend on commercial fishing for their livelihood. The more people digging holes in the ground for gold and molybdenum and getting paid good money for doing it will mean fewer nets out in the waters of Bristol Bay chasing every last salmon at pennies a pound. The more salmon get upstream, the better Dolly Varden, rainbow, and upstream salmon fishing will get. A major mine in the region will also require development of local oil and natural gas deposits, meaning that the commercial fleet will no longer have to barge in diesel from Seattle to power itself. Finally, the more people that show up living and working in an area, the more predators – mainly bears and wolves – that they will attract. Those bears will be readily dispatched, turned into rugs and wall hangings, no longer decimating local caribou and moose, thus improving local subsistence hunting opportunities. What is the downside? Well, the mine, the tailings dump, and processing areas are going to occupy several tens of square miles of current swampland. As long as the water does not go anywhere downstream, the loss of this area in a region thousands of square miles in extent is a pretty decent economic tradeoff. ADN, Sat. 2. Exxon. The Ninth Circus Court of Appeals announced a cut to the punitive damages imposed by jury trial here in Anchorage following the Exxon Valdez accident from $4.5 billion to $2.5 billion. In my opinion, this represents a step in the right direction. In the opinion of many of my neighbors here in Alaska, this is indeed a very bad thing. As far as I am concerned, the damage by the Exxon Valdez spill was doubly the responsibility of both Exxon and the state: Exxon, for having an inebriated captain onboard while the tanker was maneuvering; the state of Alaska, for refusing to incinerate the spill as p art of their initial response. Had the oil burned, the smoke would have dispersed, the volume of oil hitting the beaches would have been significantly decreased, and the overall damage of the spill significantly decreased. The punitive damages were the result of a trial here in Anchorage last decade. In my opinion, they were exorbitant, in both amount and in the idea that one should criminalize what was an accident. Exxon, which spent over a billion dollars in the cleanup, has been fighting the jury award for over a decade, and will be expected to fight it forever, as lawyers are cheaper to pay than writing the check. I commend the Ninth Circus for its (normally nonexistent) good judgment. We will hope the jury award is set aside completely in the years to come. ADN, Sat. 3. Sharia. From the “No Good Deed Goes Unpunished” list comes a story that Tsunami aid money given to Indonesia to rebuild the Aceh province has been used to set up Sharia vigilantes in the region. Little Green Footballs Monday ran a piece that noted that there were more Sharia police running around the region that real police, and they were all making sure that local women are properly harassed for not submitting to their sick view of Islamic law. 4. Subpoena. The Anchorage Daily News (ADN) Saturday ran an article describing a wide-ranging federal investigation of the commercial fishing industry here in Alaska. Note that the majority of Alaska commercial fishing owners, operators and associations all are headqu artered in Seattle. Currently there have been a large number of grand jury subpoenas for financial records and other supporting documents. They are looking into influence peddling, political favors, and political payback. Targets seem to be commercial fishing associations that have benefited from federal buyouts of fishing quotas pushed through congress by Ted Stevens (R, AK). Ben Stevens, who chose not to run for reelection as State Senator has also been mentioned in the subpoenas. Clearly the feds believe they have uncovered a great deal of free federal money greasing political skids in the commercial fishing world. We will hope they find what is going on, clean it up, and prosecute the guilty. 5. Iran. The Iranians held another of their mock elections last week. Unlike past elections, which the majority sat the election out, turnout in this one was apparently pretty good, with over 50% turnout. It appears that the Mullahs have orchestrated an election that has pulled back on Ahmadinenutjob’s leash a bit. First the mullahs allow a pretty violent student protest at one of his speeches at a university which not only embarrasses him in public but allows them to identify the current group of student activists. Then they hold an election early which Ahmadinenutjob’s candidates go down to defeat in large numbers His attempt to take over the group of Mullahs with his apoplectics was similarly rebuffed. Michael Ledeen has written extensively over the last week that something large is afoot, and whatever it is, doesn’t look real good for the current president. Whether or not it is good for the rest of us remains to be seen. 6. BCRA. John McCain’s ( RINO, AZ) assault on free political speech, McCain - Feingold took its first judicial hit last week with a 2-1 opinion that overturned a portion of its 60-day limit on political ads before elections. This one was brought by Wisconsin Right to Life, which ran some ads within the 60-day window in 2004 urging the two US Senators from WI to take proper action in some legislation. Those ads were pulled as a violation of the 60-day rule and the group sued. The opinion found that the restrictions on grass roots organizations, unions, corporations and other special interest organizations were an unconstitutional limit on free speech. Expect this case to be appealed to the SCOTUS, where the new Roberts Court will have the opportunity to reverse their foolish decision to allow this unconstitutional limit on free political speech to stand. Captain’s Quarters, Thurs. More later – - AG Interesting Items Interesting Items 12/18 – Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Kim 1. Kim. It is wintertime and people are out in the wild during inclement weather and a few are having a hard time of it. One was the family of a CNET editor named James Kim, who went missing for a week in the snowy mountains of Oregon. The story and the way it was played in the media and on CNET demonstrated a real regional difference between Alaska and the lower 48. Up here, it is not uncommon for people to get out in the cold during the winter and not make it back alive. It is a great sadness, but we see it all the time during the winter up here. Down south, the story makes national news for days. The Outdoor Editor of the Anchorage Daily News wrote a commentary about the incident last Sunday describing the mistakes Mr. Kim made after they got stuck in the snow. From an Alaskan perspective, here is what you need to do:
Bottom line is when it gets cold outside, that margin of error we normally all have for mistakes in our out of doors activities, gets really, really small and most of us won’t realize it until it is too late. Medred’s piece ended with the following thought:
2. Johnson. Tim Johnson (D, SD) was hospitalized for bleeding on the brain and operated upon last week. As of this writing, he is still in critical condition. Our prayers go out to him and his family. Politically, his illness is a real wakeup call to the new democrat majority in the senate, for he may or may not return to the majority. Harry Reid (D, NV) and his cronies are making all the right noises about him returning to the senate for the duration of his term in office. Historically, there is precedent for an incapacitated senator to be not present for years while fighting medical difficulties. Republicans are being very quiet, not wanting to appear to be ghoulish, and pressing for political advantage at this opening. The new minority leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) has an opportunity to obstruct the new organizational rules should Johnson not be available for the implementing vote. Now that the democrats have encouraged the use and abuse of the filibuster early and often – painlessly – McConnell can filibuster the organizational rules and try to get Trent Lott’s old power sharing rules reinstated. If the new rules don’t pass in January, the senate will continue to operate under the old rules. If the new rules pass, and Johnson is replaced by a Republican appointed by the SD governor (also a governor), the return to a 50-50 senate does not mean the loss of chairmanships for the democrats, as new rules would most certainly be filibustered by the democrats. We will see how long and how powerfully McConnell can play this little game of chicken with the democrats. After all they have put this country through over the last six years, I hope their time in the majority is very, very painful. 3. Epileptic. One of the great weapons we have against the Islamists, their Wahhabi backers and Saudi sponsors is laughter and ridicule. They simply can’t stand either. Now that our attention has been drawn from our normal lives to the thought of fighting worshipers of Mohammed, there are no small numbers of people st arting to look into Islam, the life of Mohammed and how it all came to be. They are st arting to ask questions – some very hard questions. For example, there is a book available on Amazon entitled “Sword and Seizure” that describes Mohammed as an epileptic in his later years, when he became increasingly violent, increasingly erratic, increasingly taken by religious visions and messages from On High. There are other writers out there saying the same thing. One of the interesting things about the Islamists is that they can’t stand any criticism or questioning, responding with death threats rather than argument. Dr. Jack Wheeler, who normally tries to operate a bit in front of the curve had an article last week describing Mecca as the resting place of Moses, making it by definition a central Christian and the most important Jewish Holy City. He then goes on to ask why the Muslims are able to keep other believers out of their Holy City. These discussions are the first of what may be many directed against the Islamists in the years to come. They won’t be the last. Should the Islamists respond to these probes as they always have done with violence and irrationality, they and their entire religion will be turned into a laughing stock over time. Perhaps this is yet another example of the old Euripides observation “Whom the gods would destroy, the first make mad.” And madness fits our current enemies to a “T” on a couple levels. 4. Seattle. The bureaucrats in charge of the SeaTac airport responded to a request by a local rabbi to include a menorah among their Christmas trees by removing all the Christmas trees from the airport. Not unexpectedly, the airport staff and travelers responded with a great deal of anger leveled at both the airport and the rabbi. After a few days of loudness, the trees were restored to the airport. The story highlights a couple of recent trends. The first of which is the cowardice of local officials against complaints aimed at Christmas displays. The second is Jewish p articipation (some would say leadership) in the War Against Christmas. A number of Jewish bloggers on the right have st arted noting that connection in recent weeks and are urging a halt before the predictable backlash happens. Of course, those fighting Christmas are normally all leftists, so I expect them not to listen. 5. Nifong. Interesting revelations out of the Duke Rape Case DA, Matt Nifong (D) last week: As of last week, he had not yet interviewed the rape victim. And he conspired with the lab that analyzed DNA taken from the young woman (can’t and won’t call her a lady) to withhold the analysis results from the defense. As time goes on, it appears that the Duke Rape Case was simply concocted by Nifong as a vehicle to get himself reelected in a democrat community with a large black population. We will hope that the families have some very good lawyers and make a lot of money from the county when they win their wrongful prosecution / prosecutorial misconduct lawsuits against Nifong in the months to come. More later – - AG Interesting Items Interesting Items 12/11 – Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. ISG 1. ISG. The Iraq Surrender Group issued its report last week. Not unexpectedly, the report called for diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran, cutting off Israel at the knees, setting the stage for our dep arture from Iraq, and a number of other brilliant recommendations. It was precisely the sort of mealy-mouthed document you would expect from a group that spent little time in Iraq, no time outside of the Green Zone in Baghdad, refused to speak with any number of active duty commanders, and numbered Sandra Day O’Connor, James Baker and Lee Hamilton in their membership. The drive-by media hailed it as Great Wisdom from On High. It was instantly rejected by Iraqi government officials, our friends the Israelis, and many adults on both sides of the aisle in congress. Not surprisingly, I do strongly support diplomatic engagement with Syria and Iran – that is, if you define diplomatic engagement as the sort of arrangement that MacArthur had with the Japanese after VJ Day in 1945. I expect Baker was allowed to head this thing up because of the good work he did during the 2000 recount in Florida, when he was one of the leaders of Bush’s team of lawyers. I don’t expect him to be asked to head up many more things. 2. Jihadi. A Nation of Islam (NOI) acolyte was arrested in Chicago for plotting to blow up a shopping mall just in time for Christmas. The plan was to put grenades in trash cans near places that people congregate while shopping and pop them all at once. He was arrested at about the point when he was st arting to procure the hand grenades. This is not the first NOI member busted for terrorist acts, as the plot out of Miami last year were all connected to the NOI. He certainly won’t be the last. Just for clarity here, the NOI also has their first congresscritter in Keith Ellison (D, MN), who was installed in office with an assist from the Minneapolis Star Tribune, which covered up his NOI ties, anti-Semitic remarks, and did an outstanding hatchet job on his Republican opponent. Ellison is quickly making a name for himself by refusing to take his oath of office on a Bible, and conspiring with the Flying Imams by using that incident as a vehicle for passage of anti-profiling legislation against Muslims (sponsored by CAIR). 3. Election. A couple more general comments about what happened during the November election are in order. The first is that overall turnout was down. PowerLine a couple weeks ago did an analysis of simple turnout numbers in MN of all elections and found that ask while the overall turnout number was right in line with turnout in previous off-year elections, it was down as a percentage from previous presidential elections. Basically, off-year elections in MN in 2002 and 1998 were 92-95% of the previous presidential election. 2006 was only 76% of the previous presidential election, which means that the new voters turned out in 2004 simply stayed home. And those that stayed home were probably more conservative than those that turned out, leading to the democrat victory. I have seen enough to suspect that this pattern also held true in other p arts of the country. The other analysis came out of blog by a writer connected to the Cato Institute. He showed a growing libertarian shift away from Republicans over the last eight years in states west of the Mississippi and pointed out MO and MT as two senate seats that would have stayed Republican had libertarians not run candidates. He then went on to use that shift to blast away at the evangelicals and social conservatives for their excesses over the last 12 years – things that I believe he is grossly mistaken about. I don’t think our screw ups over the last several years were on the social side, they were all on the fiscal side – the connective tissue of the conservative movement. Libertarians, economic conservatives, social conservatives and evangelicals held a pretty decent agreement over the last couple of decades as long as the overall direction was appropriate. The thing that changed over the last six years was the fiscal conservative side was undermined by both congressional Republicans and President Bush himself. I would see this election more as the end of big government conservatism than the end of social conservatives. I don’t mind – shoot, I expect – a certain amount of jockeying for power and position following a loss. But should the libertarians believe that electing democrats is more in their interest than electing conservatives, I don’t expect them to last a long time as a viable political movement. If our side tries to govern as big government, porkmeister types, I expect them to be defeated by people on the other side of the aisle who do that a whole lot better and enjoy it more. Small government is a winning issue. Getting government out of people’s lives is a winning position. It is long past time for Our Side to get back to those basics. When they do, that fact coupled with the predictable excesses of leftists in power will get them reinstalled in power. It may take a while, but we can make it happen. 4. Chugach. Last spring, the IBEW spent nearly a qu arter million dollars electing two board members to our local electrical co-op, Chugach Electric. The campaign was profoundly dishonest and rife with personal attacks, lies and distortions, as is to be expected out of the IBEW. Union-friendly board members hold four of seven seats and have negotiated a significant giveaway to the union droids that elected them. Alaska is not a right to work state, and union shenanigans have been increasingly odious – especially at the public utilities and co-ops. Last week, the Chugach Board announced their new contract, which essentially gave away the store to the union. The length of time for the contract was also one year longer than the terms of office for Board members, meaning that should the general public become enraged about this giveaway and overturn the board that did the dirty deed, the new Board would not be able to do anything about the contract, as their terms of office are only three years. Additionally, a sufficiently union friendly Board can simply extend the contract without public input to bypass anti-union action, which they did 3-4 years ago. Of course, when the utility gives away the store to the union, rates do have to go up to cover the giveaway. New rates are approved by the Regulatory Commission of Alaska (RCA). A pro-customer organization, the Chugach Consumers, went to court and got an injunction against the new contract, pending RCA review. I expect the RCA to allow the new contract to go into effect, as they don’t have a good reason to block it. On the other hand, I don’t expect the RCA to be all that supportive in future years approving rate increases to cover promises made in this new contract. It would be fun for the Board and the union to get hung out on a limb with promises made and the inability to pay for them. I also expect the general public to react to increasing electrical bills by putting pressure on the legislature to bring up and pass right to work legislation here in Alaska. Note to the unions: Good work. You won this round. Be careful what you want, for you may get it in ways you don’t expect. 5. Gym. A female member of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage filed a complaint against Fitness USA, a Dearborn, MI gym last week following an altercation with another member. Apparently, the Muslim was down on the floor in front of this lady’s locker, praying and blocking her access to it. Why someone thinks that a gym is the same thing as a Mosque is somewhat confusing to me. Perhaps this p articular sect of Muslims does not have the same level of tolerance and love that their fellow Christians and Jews have for non-believers. She was asked to move and refused, citing religions persecution, profiling, whining, and all the other expected complaints. She was moved by the staff, and went into immediate victimhood status, looking for newspapers, CAIR and other outlets to express her outrage. It appears that this is yet another provocation by radical Muslims here in the US to force our submission to their in-your-face foolishness. We will hope the gym does not back down. We are also proud that the lady with the blocked locker didn’t back down either. LGF, Weds. More later – - AG Interesting Items Interesting Items 12/04 – Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Pebble 1. Pebble. The NIMBY war against the proposed Pebble Mine southwest of Anchorage continued last week as the action moved to the Alaska Board of Fish. They were going to be holding a series of meetings in Dillingham this week to consider a series of poison pill, anti-mine proposals. The latest being a proposal to create a state fish and game refuge in the area of the mine. The Fish Board does not have the authority to create such a refuge, as that authority is limited to the legislature (until the courts usurp it). Most sport fishing groups, local lodge owners, local commercial fishing organizations in Bristol Bay and about half of the local fish and game advisory boards support the refuge proposal and oppose the mine. Most mining associations, all the local governments, and the other half of the advisory boards oppose the refuge and support the mine. Interestingly, the Iliamna area advisory board initially came out in unanimous opposition to the mine. After their announcement, a few phone calls were made, they held another meeting a few days later, reversed their vote and came out in unanimous support for the mine. At this point, the mine, while going to dig a huge hole, doesn’t appear to impact local fishing much. Because it will introduce human activity and infrastructure into the region, it will also tend to attract the local bear population to it where they can be killed and turned into rugs, taking the predator pressure off the local moose and caribou, making more of them available for hunters and local subsistence users. It also has the potential to increase the amount of fish into the local streams. How so, you might ask? Bristol Bay is a commercial fishing location in this p art of the state. The primary money-making industry is fishing, mostly commercial and some sport fishing on a dollar per dollar basis. If people don’t get paid for fishing, they end up living a dirt-poor subsistence existence, making the Bristol Bay region one of the most impoverished portions of the state. Local native groups have successfully fought oil development in the region for years – and there is oil out there. Today they are also fighting the Pebble Mine. If there was something else to do in the region for people to make a living doing other than grabbing as many salmon out of the ocean as humanly possible, the locals and their kids might just have a decent future. Today, you either guide, commercial fish, live a subsistence lifestyle, leave or entertain yourself via non-traditional methods (mostly drugs and alcohol). There is little else to do. If the locals aren’t fighting one another for an increasingly small piece of the fishing pie, more fish will end up making it up the local rivers and streams. The more fish will then be available for sport fishing, the guides and lodges that support that industry. We are now in the twenty-first century. We know how to do mining cleaner and better than we did it a hundred years ago, fifty years ago, and two decades ago. I expect this mine can be done with minimal impact to the local wildlife, and will even increase its availability to hunters and fishermen. Anchorage Daily News, Sun. 2. Oil Leases. The WH is considering lifting a ban on oil leases in the Bristol Bay region. The ban was put in place as an aftermath of the Exxon Valdez accident. Local commercial fishermen, who pay for their diesel to be shipped in via barge from Seattle, worry about oil spills and secondary contamination from drilling and production of oil and natural gas. They forget the possibility of a producer built light diesel plant in place locally and producing diesel on the spot for a significant decrease in fuel costs for the commercial fleet and the local villages. Greens are fighting the lease sale proposal for all the usual reasons, making all the usual claims, and with all the usual tortured, hysterical logic. The federal Minerals Management Service (MMS) estimates that the region holds over 200 million barrels of recoverable crude oil and 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The natural gas is about a qu arter of yearly production in the US today. The MMS estimates over 11,000 new jobs in oil production should the lease sales go through and production begins. And if you make cheap energy available in the Bristol Bay region, you end up with an economic boom throughout the region. We will hope that the WH does the right thing. Interestingly enough, one of the ways that geologists know that there is oil and natural gas in the region is that it is available at the surface in things called seeps. It could be said that oil production and natural gas development is simply cleaning up the environment by removing the natural oil spills. Anchorage Daily News, Sun. 3. Hezbollah. US military officials in Iraq announced early last week that they had evidence that Hezbollah operatives were training members of Al Sadr’s Mahdi Army. CQ reported Tuesday that between 1,000 – 2,000 militia members had received training in Lebanon and that a small number of Hezbollah were in Iraq as advisors. This little factoid represents smoking-gun evidence of Syria and Iran mucking around inside of Iraq. Hezbollah is an Iranian weapon, owned, operated, financed and directed by Iran. And if there have been a couple thousand Mahdi Army people making the trip to and from Lebanon, where do you suppose they have traveled? I’d guess overland via Syria, Iran’s sock puppet. We will see what the new SECDEF and the administration does about this little problem. It may be an opportunity to give both Iran and the Syrian regimes a little shove toward dissolution. If nothing else, it is yet another excuse to turn the Israelis loose to eliminate Hezbollah from the face of the e arth completely. 4. Iran. CQ reported Friday that the Pentagon had smoking-gun evidence that Iran was providing weaponry and support directly to the insurgency. This includes advanced, shaped-charge IEDs, anti-tank munitions, anti-aircraft munitions, and other similar weaponry. The Iranian stuff is making its way directly into the hands of the insurgency and Shia militias rather than via the black market. And it is recent stuff, with 2006 manufacturing dates from Iranian manufacturers. It is interesting that this and the previous story should leak out a couple days before the fabled recommendations of the Iraq Surrender Group hit the fan. This may represent a military response to the so-called realists (or cheese-eating surrender monkeys as I prefer to refer to them) and their report. For if Iran is now actively arming, training and funding those that are doing everything humanly possible to disrupt the new Iraqi government, how can we sit down to the table with them and negotiate anything? This is yet another reason to give the Iranian government an economic push into oblivion. We will hope the administration takes that opportunity. 5. Paper Money. Yet another Clinton Judge, James Robertson, ruled that federal currency – paper money – violated the civil rights of blind Americans because they couldn’t tell which bill was was which. Robertson, who actively undermined the war effort during his time on the FISA Court before he was encouraged to resign from it a year or two ago, took a lawsuit by the American Council of the Blind, and issued an edict to the Treasury to change all currency so that blind people could use it without assistance. Interesting. The same time which the marketplace is moving this nation rapidly toward a cashless monetary system by default, this old fool decides to order a redesign of all currency to accommodate the blind. Clueless is not just the name of a movie about young blondes, it is a word that nicely describes the federal judiciary and the leftist appointees infesting it today. 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."
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