Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc, December 2007

1. Correction. Last week, I stated that Nixon was impeached. This was in error. I should have stated that his decision to rescind congressional spending triggered impeachment actions by the House of Representatives. Thank you to one of my valued correspondents for pointing out the error.

2. McClatchy. One of the most virulent leftist newspaper (redundant term, I know) organizations out there is McClatchy, a holding company that owns newspapers and p arts of newspapers nationwide. Their founding newspaper was the Sacramento Bee. There is a fabled memo out of one of their former publishers that is often referred to up here in Anchorage as the “strangle them in the womb” memo – promising to use the power of the McClatchy newspapers to destroy all new conservative politicians before they get politically popular or powerful. And McClatchy has done just that over the years up here in Anchorage, trying hard to destroy every single young, photogenic, popular conservative politician in Alaska for decades. I expect they’ve done the same thing in other p arts of the country also. Last year, our local fishwrapper, the Anchorage Daily News, a long time McClatchy owned and operated paper, made a sharp turn to the political left, tossing out the Voice of the Times, eliminating a conservative voice in its editorial pages, and pushing leftist advocacy much harder in its news stories. It has become so obvious that local democrats up here have noticed, gleefully pointing out that they now have their own newspaper after all these years. Be careful what you wish for, as the marketplace as always will make the appropriate analysis and take the necessary action. Over the last year, we have been treated to the rapidly shrinking newspaper, as sales have dropped and people have moved elsewhere for their unbiased news. The paper is going to do yet another restructure st arting January 6, making the paper thinner yet again. It is getting so that there is not enough paper in a daily edition to put under a cat box. McClatchy is almost a 50% owner of the Seattle Post Intelligencer, which announced a restructuring with possible cuts in positions last week. If you take a look at McClatchy’s stock, MNI, over the last year, it has suffered a substantial financial hit, dropping from over $72 per share in January 2005 to just over $12 per share today. A Google search on McClatchy stock difficulties finds articles where they are downsizing their newspapers nationwide, changing publishers, and st arting to discuss layoffs. Perhaps the readership is not p articularly impressed with having leftist political ideology shoved down their throats every single minute of every day and are reacting against it. The financial destruction of McClatchy by the marketplace presents a great opportunity for conservatives, and may put the leftists at risk, p articularly in Northern California, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, where McClatchy has most of their holdings. Thanks to a valued correspondent for pointing out the falling stock prices of McClatchy.

3. Wolves. Yet another week and another wolf attack near Eagle River, a suburb of Anchorage. This one took place when three women were out walking their dogs on Fort Richardson. A pack of wolves came out of the woods, surrounded them, and tried to separate one of the women and/ or their dogs for a snack. The ladies used pepper spray on the wolves, which were not impressed. But they did not back off until the women were able to get close enough to their vehicles to escape. The attack was reported to the Alaska Dep artment of Fish & Game, which sent a biologist in front of local television who said they were not going to kill any of the wolves until someone got hurt. Instead they were going to use non-lethal means like rubber bullets and pepper sprays to chase the wolves away. The last time this sort of thing happened up here was 12-13 years ago. Dogs st arted disappearing and people st arted seeing wolves in among the local homes. A few of the locals removed an alpha male and female from the pack and the problem took care of itself for a time. It does not appear that we will have a lot of help from ADF&G this time around, which kind of makes you wonder why they are being paid. The problem on Fort Richardson is exacerbated by military rules prohibiting the carry of firearms on base by non-military personnel. You can’t bring a gun onto base. There are a few wildlife control people on Fort Richardson who are supposed to control the wildlife. This is getting to the point where someone is going to get hurt, at which point when most local wolves will be turned into shoeshine rags. There was a time when wolves were shot on sight statewide. I expect a return to that mindset sooner rather than later.

4. Sioux. This one took place over a week ago. Apparently when it gets cold and dark in the Dakotas, the mind wanders to other things – like independence. Activist Russell Means, now associated with the governance of the Lakota Sioux tribe announced the tribe was unilaterally withdrawing from all 33 treaties with the United States government, announcing its independence and formation as a separate nation. Expect immediate recognition by Venezuela, Iran, North Korea and Russia. The stated rationale for withdrawal and independence was that the US had not lived up their end of the treaties and in Means’ own words from a Dec. 20 CNN article had turned the Sioux into “…facsimiles of white people." Is this all arm waving? Probably not. But it does pose an interesting dilemma for democrats, who have elected a couple US senators in the Dakotas over the years via massive voter fraud on the reservations. It kind of works out like the Ninth Ward in New Orleans which had for years provided sufficient voter fraud to elect democrats in Louisiana. Katrina destroyed the democrat vote manufacturing machine in New Orleans. Russell Means may end up doing the same thing in the Dakotas. If they aren’t citizens, they can’t vote – which may mean goodbye to Tim Johnson (D, SD), who only won by a couple hundred disputed votes on the reservations last time around. This may be an opportunity for the Bush administration to abrogate all treaties and st art treating these folks like our neighbors with all the same rights and responsibilities as the rest of us. Equal rights under the law. What an interesting concept. Perhaps it is time to try it.

5. Bhutto. Former Pakistani Prime Minister Benezir Bhutto was killed while on a campaign stop in Pakistan last week. She was encouraged to return to Pakistan by the US State Dep artment in an effort to set up a coalition government with current Pakistani President Musharraf. The election campaign was underway to fill out the Pakistani parliament. Bhutto, who helped enable the Taliban a decade ago while Prime Minister had turned sharply against the Islamists in recent years, and was one of the more strident voices supporting their destruction in Pakistan. It appears that Al Qaida and their supporters in the Pakistani Intelligence Services took her at her word and made that immediate problem go away. Dr. Jack Kelly blames the attack on an Al Qaida sympathizer who heads up the Pakistani Intelligence Services and points out that should Musharraf be serious about eliminating the threat to himself, his nation and the world posed by these vermin, he will arrest and execute the guy. Otherwise, Al Qaida and their sympathizers will have set the stage for a civil war in a nation of over 100 million people and nuclear weapons. It will be a civil war that they may believe they want, but ought not to want, as those same weapons can be turned against them in the mountains of northwestern Pakistan. This action may also represent the final stand of Al Qaida, as there are recent reports of foreign nationals moving into the tribal regions along the northwestern border of Pakistan – a Battle of the Bulge. All that remains now is to see how long it takes for the locals to get sick and tired of the Islamists and st art working with various Special Forces to forcibly remove them from the gene pool. The other thing the assassination did was to reintroduce the war against radical Islam back into the election campaign. Mike Huckabee did a poor job responding, as did St. Hillary of Chappaqua. Romney, Thompson and Giuliani said all the right things. This is going to be a lot more interesting than the Islamists expect it to be, and the reaction may not go where or how they planned. Everyone has learned something over the last seven years fighting this war, hunting down and killing these vermin. It is going to be a mess for a while, so hang on for an interesting ride.

1. Earmarks. Captain Ed in Captain’s Qu arters wrote Saturday about a possible presidential action against earmarks air dropped into the Omnibus Budget Resolution he just signed into law. The Bill itself represents a substantial victory by the president against the democrat congress, as he won most major battles: unfettered funding for the war; AMT relief without offsetting tax increases; and a mostly level budget without substantial spending increases. He even won his battle against the unwarranted expansion of the SCHIP program, something the leftists wanted to trot out as their vehicle to bash Republicans all next year during the campaigns. The tradeoff was that the legislation was substantially porked up with over 11,000 earmarks. Many of these were dropped in after all congressional action had been done – air dropped - and that loophole may be enough for the president to make a very public statement about congressional largess, lack of spending discipline, and hypocrisy on spending and earmarks. Remember that the democrats and their sycophants in the drive-by media made earmarks a signature element of their successful campaign to unseat Republican majority in both houses of congress last year. They won by making a case that a record of around 3,000 earmarks was a bad thing in 2006. A majority of their voters rightfully agreed with them. Now as a majority, they have managed to insert over 11,000 earmarks – many of them without benefit of formal congressional action on the legislation. Our local fishwrapper up here in Anchorage has been blasting Don Young (R, AK) as a porker on a weekly basis for inserting earmarks for roads in Florida. They are softening him up for the campaign next year. But they have said nary a word about this p articular subject, as earmarks done by the Alaska congressional delegation are bad and those done by anyone else are the normal cost of doing business in DC. President Bush in his year end press conference blasted the congressional majority for porking things up in the budget legislation and promised to do something about it. Apparently they are going to review the legislation and see what was actually written into the Conference Reports as opposed to what was actually voted upon. CQ quotes a budget expert from the Heritage Foundation who believes that the president can simply ignore nearly 90% of all earmarks, as they were never voted upon by either house of congress. It will be an interesting battle with potentially historic consequences. I expect there will be a list of all earmarks prepared by somebody over the next few weeks. That list ought to have a congress critter’s name associated with every single earmark. That list will serve as p art of the campaign foundation for every single fiscal conservative running for office next year – and be especially damaging to the Blue Dog democrats, Rinos and porkers out there running for reelection in 2008. Properly done, this will be a superb vehicle for reining in the graft and corruption machine that congress and the budgetary process has turned into. Bush runs a risk doing this however, for there are those out there that believe that Nixon’s impeachment didn’t really st art moving forward until Nixon st arted budget rescissions in the early 1970s. A budget rescission was the refusal of the Executive to spend appropriated money. The democrat led congress corrected this little problem by impeaching Nixon and passing legislation in 1974 – over Gerald Ford’s veto (if I remember correctly) requiring the appropriated money be spent. This is a high stakes game that will go poorly for the leftists in the public eye, further strengthening the hand of both the president and conservatives running for office next year.

2. Energy Bill. Unfortunately every bit of good news out of the DC sausage factory is balanced by bad news. Steven Milloy of www.junkscience.com and www.foxnews.com wrote an extensive description Wednesday of the Energy Bill passed out of congress and signed by the president last week. There is little good news in it, including: additional money for nuclear energy development; elimination of a mandate for all electric utilities to include a portfolio of congressionally approved renewable generation sources in their offerings to their customers; elimination of the wedge for carbon taxes; and elimination on increased taxes on the oil companies. There is nothing in this legislation that makes it easier for the oil and gas companies to explore, drill, build infrastructure, improve refineries, or anything else that would lessen the national dependence – the artificial national dependence – on foreign oil. There is a lot of bad news in it, including: a 40% increase in federal mileage requirements for all vehicles manufactured here in the US by 2020; doubling of the corn-based ethanol federal mandate; and finally the elimination of the incandescent light bulb st arting in 2012. Milloy runs some numbers analyzing what the changes mean and they are pretty grim. I have taken most of the following numbers and analysis from the Milloy article that can be found on www.junkscience.com First off, the new fuel economy mandates will result in lighter vehicles on the road. We already know that lighter vehicles are substantially less safe in collisions, leading directly to more deaths in auto accidents, as we have measured what happened when the last fuel economy standards were initially mandated by yet another democrat majority in congress in 1975. Current estimates are for an additional 4,000 dead on the highways every year due to collisions in lighter vehicles. Milloy notes that the supporters of this provision believe it will save about 5% of our yearly gasoline consumption, working out to around 100,000 gallons of gasoline per dead driver or passenger. Congress has just determined that your life and my life are worth just over $300,000 at $3/gallon for gasoline. The second onerous provision is doubles the use of ethanol, further distorting the marketplace for food and fuel. Milloy states that “Animal feed costs are already up 20 percent this year, no doubt contributing to the 5 percent rise in consumer grocery prices.” Finally, the same Imperial Congressional mandate that determined toilet water content 15 years ago now is mandating the end to the incandescent light bulb st arting in 2012. This forces the introduction of mercury filled, ChiCom manufactured compact fluorescent bulbs into all of our homes. It also jacks up the per bulb costs from around seventy five cents per bulb to over $5 per bulb. I would certainly think that all this trash ought to be ample fodder for an intelligent campaign for federal office next year or at a minimum some tar and feathers during the next incumbent fundraiser that supported this awful thing. Lets hope that it is.

3. Gun Rules. The Alaska congressional delegation knows they are in trouble with the locals and are returning to some “Old Time Religion” in the run-up to the election campaign next year. One of the popular ways to ensure support in the upcoming election is to st art bashing the feds on land use rules, preferably where firearms are involved. It is a sure winner, as the feds desperately want and deserve all the local bashing they get. Alaska’s US Senators Stevens and Murkowski co-signed a Mike Crapo (R, ID) letter to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne last week asking him to normalize firearms restrictions on federal lands. Today, it is illegal to carry firearms in most national parks and wildlife refuges. The letter asks the Secretary to rescind those restrictions so that park visitors can go into those areas properly armed and protected. This shouldn’t be all that big of a deal to change. It is a wonder that it has gotten this bad without anyone pushing the issue in Alaska in previous years. ADN, Sun.

4. Belugas. The feds are in the midst of process to determine whether or not to list Cook Inlet Belugas as an endangered species. The decision is expected late spring. Greens have used the decline in the numbers of whales to around 300 as a vehicle to attempt a listing and shutdown of all fishing, drilling, oil and natural gas production, and the transportation of goods in Cook Inlet. In order to justify a listing, the feds have to know how many whales there are in the Inlet – tough to do, as the water is grey, cold and incredibly silty. Native whale hunters who have been hunting belugas in Cook Inlet have accused the feds of systematically undercounting whale populations for years. It appears that they may have something to complain about, as the feds announced the results of their 2007 summer count of whales with a total of 375 animals. Going to be difficult to justify listing the animals if the number increases by 25% in a single year, though I expect the greens will be able to get some idiot in black robes on the Ninth Circus to do it for them when and if the feds won’t. ADN, Fri.

1. Pipeline. The Alaska Congressional Delegation weighed in on the five proposals to build a natural gas pipeline from Prudhoe Bay to the Lower 48 states. One of the proposals is by Sinopec, the Chinese state-owned petroleum company. Midweek last, the congressional delegation took exception with the state considering their proposal, promising to block any ChiCom involvement in the project. They were also worried about how badly it would look for the state to st art shipping natural gas out of country when it is badly needed in the US. This concern is wrong on so many levels. Not that I am any fan of the ChiComs or their goals, economic and otherwise, but it occurs to me that if the ChiComs are investing tens of billions of dollars here in the US, that we will know where those dollars are going and what they are doing. We will know that they are not doing mischief elsewhere – either in Russia or in the Middle East – with those tens of billions of dollars. And finally, they will be investing, building and operating a pipeline here in Alaska under our rules. This is not that bad of an outcome. As to the natural gas being needed in the Lower 48 states – that may not be all that accurate, for there are enormous finds of natural gas in the Colorado – Wyoming – Utah region, off the Gulf Coast, and in gas hydrates offshore nationwide. Who knows what the energy needs are going to be ten years from now? Why, we might even end up with a rational energy policy that is well on its way to turning the US into a net exporter of energy. We may get this thing built and operating right about the time when the bottom falls out of the domestic market. Why not have international customers for our natural gas? Additionally, natural gas is an internationally traded commodity, brought in on tankers worldwide. Like petroleum, should we add tens of trillions of cubic feet of natural gas to the global marketplace, it will have some impact on the price of what we import from outside into the US, probably driving it down a bit. Finally, given the historic opposition to development of natural resources here in Alaska from timber to mining, to oil and natural gas by outside environmental organizations, courts, and congress critters not living here in Alaska, my gut reaction is to tell everyone out of state that it is simply none of your damned business what we do up here. Take care of your own house. Leave us alone while we do the same. Of course, you can’t do that, but you can do a version of it, and leverage opposition to ChiCom involvement in building a natural gas pipeline into congressional support for in state development of oil, natural gas, coal, mining and timber. Simply getting out of our way and leaving us alone would be a great help. The Alaska Congressional Delegation’s opposition to ChiCom interest in building a natural gas pipeline here in Alaska is short sighted at best, and ought to be reconsidered. ADN, Weds.

2. Wolves. One of our growing problems here in Alaska is mismanagement of wildlife by the biologists at the Alaska Dep artment of Fish & Game (ADF&G). Over the years, they have become increasingly green and moved from managing the fish and wildlife for maximum sustained yield to managing the people who do things with (or despite) the wildlife. On the fishing side, commercial fishermen, the majority who live out of state, take tens of millions of tons of salmon out of state waters, leaving a percent or two for personal use, subsistence and sport fishermen. On the wildlife side, this mismanagement has allowed the numbers of major predators statewide – wolves, brown bears and black bears – to rise to the levels that it is difficult to find caribou and moose to hunt. Here in the Anchorage Bowl (the area immediately around Anchorage itself), the wolf problem has gotten so bad that local wolf packs are st arting to stalk and kill local dogs. There have been several attacks in recent weeks, some along local bike paths, some in back yards, where dogs have disappeared, been eaten, and pieces found nearby afterwards. Wolves have been spotted along popular cross country ski trails. As we have seen in the Fairbanks area and elsewhere in the state, when the wolf numbers get large enough to st art taking dogs, people – p articularly the very young and the very old – are next up for attack. I suspect that we will see a cross country skier attacked this winter and after that, there will be a lot of people shooting stray dogs, coyotes and wolves until the problem is solved – none of it with any help from the state employees at ADF&G. There is a reason that our ancestors killed all the wolves off. It is because they are powerful, dangerous predators. They are to be respected. But they never belong in close proximity to humans or anything humans are doing. ADN, Weds.

3. Walrus. The McClatchy fishwrapper here in Anchorage, the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) has done their level best pushing the myth of manmade global warming over the last year, usually with a weekly or bi-weekly story about something being destroyed by global warming. This week’s story, which showed up Saturday, was about massive stampedes of walrus in northern Russia being caused by manmade global warming. The short form of the story is that massive herds of walrus numbering over 200,000 animals have been pulling themselves up on the shorelines in the summer to eat, rest and breed. They occasionally get spooked by bears, low flying aircraft and stampede into the water. When they do, some of the young get trampled and killed. The reporters blames the large numbers of animals on manmade global warming, making the argument that if there were not as many walrus, the stampedes would not be as destructive or happen as often. Put this logic in perspective. The weather may be warming up a bit. Walrus in Russia are doing quite well, breeding like crazy, and their numbers are increasing. Why doesn’t this please the animal rights whackos? We are also being told (falsely) that the slightly warmer summers are damaging the numbers of polar bears, because they need the ice to hide upon while they hunt seals. Seals aren’t the only things that polar bears eat, as they also hunt young walrus. The adults are too large to kill. It occurs to me that maybe both animals are fairly stupid – the walrus for being susceptible to a stampede and the polar bears to not hanging out around large herds of walrus during the summer, stampeding them on occasion and feeding on the injured. Are we now responsible for the actions of all stupid animals? Doesn’t that show disrespect for Gaia? And if the animals are truly that dumb, why is it a positive thing that they survive?

4. Hillary. Clinton, Inc. had themselves quite a week last week – little of it positive. Hillary’s poll numbers have crashed over the last few weeks in most primary states, making her coronation into a real fight. They didn’t expect it to be a fight and have not reacted well. So the Clintons did what they always do when things aren’t going well for them. They trotted out the sleaze from the FBI files and the secret police, dropping in well placed leaks and carefully crafted questions. Clinton operatives went back to basics and st arted talking about Obama’s admitted drug use while young. They also st arted dropping concerns about him being raised as a Muslim in an Indonesian Madras for a couple years. Usually this works spectacularly well for them, having done so for nearly three decades of political life. This time, it isn’t, as the drive by media is picking up on the fact that the personal smears are coming out of the Clinton campaign rather than asking the target of the smears about the subject of the smears. The reason this isn’t working is that the drive bys look at Obama as a new liberal, a black, cloaked with the Holy leftist mantle of victimhood. Hillary is establishment and not as liberal, so she loses in the exchange. I don’t think for a minute that Clinton Inc. will not figure out a way out of the current mess. But I am enjoying watching them squirm – finally. Dick Morris thinks that Hillary has run a terrible campaign, essentially a coronation tour, at a time when democrat primary voters want change. Hillary is promising a return back to the 1990s at a time when democrat voters want something new. And she loses that exchange big time. Republicans are prepared to run against Clinton Inc. and may have to retool their campaign should she not be the nominee. Obama will be difficult to beat, as he just looks and sounds good. What he says is pure leftist drivel, but it looks and sounds good. 2008 is shaping up to be a very interesting year indeed.

1. NIE. The State Dep artment / CIA weasels were at work last week with the release of a new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. This one was drafted by three State Dep artment people, two of which were bought over to the intelligence world by Intel Czar John Negroponte, who have an extensive history of opposition to Bush administration policy against radical Islam. The new estimate takes a sharp turn away from the previous version written in 2005 that essentially said the Iranians were doing everything humanly possible to build nuclear weapons and field them as quickly as possible. This one st arted out with the unsupported claim that Iran had stopped its efforts to field nuclear weapons in 2003 and that the program was in hiatus except for processing of uranium into weapons grade metals. The 2003 date is significant; in that it was about the same time we took down Saddam, right across the border from the Mullahs in Iran. They may have been worried that they were to be next and shut things down for a while. Democrats and their lackeys in the drive-by media took the new estimate as the gospel truth, announced the end to all American efforts against Iran, and proceeded to blast the Bush administration for hiding the new NIE from them. Valerie Plame, who worked to actively undermine the war effort for years crawled out from under her rock and held a press conference lauding the new estimate. During that press conference, she also announced that federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald gave transcripts of depositions taken during his investigations of the leak of her name to the media to Henry Waxman (D, CA) at Waxman’s request. Expect some more highly orchestrated, obnoxious investigations to coincide with the election campaign next fall. Plame’s play in this is only significant in its timing, coincident with the release of the new estimate. I wouldn’t trust this new document a lot. Why? Look what was said and who wrote it. First, there is a 180-degree turn between the last two intelligence estimates. Second, the three people involved in writing the estimate are all known opponents of current policy. Third, the recent history of CIA and State Dep artment Weasels who have conducted a treasonous campaign of whispers and leaks against the war versus militant Islam and its governmental supporters in the Middle East. These are all are red flags warning us about this estimate. Intelligence services of Great Britain, France and Australia took exception to the conclusions of the new NIE. Conservatives in the Senate announced that they would be taking a close look at the underlying intelligence and try to see how badly the books were cooked in this one. President Bush apparently knew that this was coming, and took the occasion of its release to push the Iranians harder to comply with international efforts to stop their nuclear programs. The intelligence community is seriously broken, and its opposition to the Bush administration and the war effort over the last seven years borders on active treason. The next president has some serious housecleaning to do. It is a shame that Porter Goss was not allowed to do that housecleaning in 2005.

2. Romney. Mitt Romney was sufficiently pushed by Mike Huckabee’s positioning himself as the only Christian running for the Republican nomination that he felt the need to give a speech on faith. Romney spoke at the G.H.W. Bush Presidential Library on Texas A&M Thursday. He took a page from JFK’s speech 47 years ago on running for president as a Catholic. And he did superbly. The speech was a testament to his faith, faith in America since its founding, and a reminder that there are things out there larger than the daily political trash we deal with. Demagogues on the Christian right, taking the lead from former Arkansas Governor Huckabee have used Romney’s Mormonism as vehicle to undermine his candidacy, referring to it as a cult. Huckabee has been p articularly egregious stoking this wave as a vehicle toward the WH. They need to be careful, for all religions all st arted out small. All were excoriated by people of other faiths at the time of their founding. And most, if not all, were referred to as cults (a term of derision) at the time of their founding. For example, Christianity was referred to as the Jesus Cult in Rome during the first three centuries after Christ died. People have been calling new religions cults for a long time. It’s a term that is not going to go away any time soon. Mormonism is not the first and I am sure it will not be the last. I am not impressed with Huckabee for pushing this p articular button, as it allows the drive-by media to use the issue as a wedge between religious conservatives (or at least try to). I am glad that Romney gave the speech, for it showed him with faith and passion. I am not happy with people on the Christian right who pushed him into the position of having to make the speech. I thought we as a nation were long past that sort of thing – by about half a century.

3. Stem Cell. AJ Strata reported Friday of yet another breakthrough in research into adult stem cells. In this one, researchers managed to coax adult skin cells into stem cells, inject them into a patient, and cure a disease. In this case, the disease was sickle cell anemia. The experiments were conducted in mice and the time from modification to cure was 6-8 months. This is a pretty big deal, as the researchers have managed to do with skin cells what the pro-aborts wanted to do with embryonic stem cells, removing yet another excuse to keep the abortion mills going. On yet another issue involving life and death, President Bush ends up being on the right side of history, the right side of life, the right side of science, and his decision has been borne out by progress in medical research. Strata ends with the following: “What is clear is we don’t need to kill young humans to help ailing humans.”

4. Mortgages. Some disturbing developments in the ongoing – and ending – problem with subprime mortgages took place last week. Both the administration and congress decided to get involved – which ought to scare every single homeowner in America to death. Remember what the subprime mortgage issue is about: We have a number of people who purchased homes they couldn’t afford; took mortgages they couldn’t pay; under adjustable rates they couldn’t meet when they adjusted upwards. The homeowners, banks, and brokers involved are all at fault, and the marketplace is now reminding them upon the error of their ways by forcing a default on their mortgages. While I feel sorry for them in their financial plight, I most emphatically do not want any government entity involved in sorting this out. One commentator said last week: A marketplace that is free from consequences, is no longer free. The Bush administration proposal would freeze the adjustable mortgage rates at the artificially low levels for a period of time, which is bad enough. Congressional proposals, authored most recently by Barney Frank (D, MA), would single handedly destroy the mortgage and lending marketplace for homes nationwide. This is a bump in the economic road. The economy is sorting it out very quickly. It will be a long time before these sorts of irresponsible loans and home sales are made en masse again. Messages to the feds: Please stay out of this.

5. 50 Hours. Barak Hussein Obama’s campaign proposed involuntary servitude for all middle school and high school students under a nationwide community service proposal. The game is to “establish a goal” for each student to do 50 hours community service weekly. The proposal, initially linked by Captain’s Qu arters last Wednesday, will overturn the child labor laws nationwide, as federal goals always become federal requirements. And community service, when defined by the left, become mandated indoctrination out of the home for the youngsters. Captain Ed at CQ went on to note that he had received a nastygram from the Obama campaign saying that the actual proposal was for 50 hours yearly (still involuntary servitude once the “goals” are established) rather then the weekly number he reported. But the Time Magazine article still available on the Time website at this writing said weekly. It is up to you the reader to decide how big of an error this is, and whether it is due to sloppiness or if they are trying to slide something by.

1. Gas Pipeline. The State of Alaska announced Friday bids received proposing to construct a natural gas pipeline from the Alaska North Slope to the Lower 48 and / or Valdez / Southcentral Alaska. Bidders included: TransCanada (Canadian, proposed a route along the Alaska Highway into Alberta), Sinopec ZPEB (Chinese), AEnergia (California), Alaska Gasline Port Authority (North Slope Borough, Valdez and Fairbanks North Star Borough, proposed parallel line to the Alaska Pipeline), and the Alaska Natural Gas Pipeline Development Authority (spur line from the main line to Southcentral). Conoco also submitted a proposal that was described as a non-qualifying proposal to build the entire natural gas pipeline themselves or with p artners and push it into either Alberta or into Chicago for a cost in the $34 billion range). Most he artening was Conoco’s bid, which splits it off from the other two producers on the North Slope. Conoco was interested in constructing the pipeline the last time we discussed this in 2005, but the deal which eventually brought onboard British Petroleum and Exxon fizzled – mostly due to extensive natural gas holdings by both BP and Exxon worldwide. Exxon has also been p articularly difficult to deal with on oil and natural gas issues since the years following the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989. Perhaps if we here in Alaska were not continuing to sue them for billions of dollars in punitive damages following the accident, they would become a reasonable business p artner again. It is hard to be p artners with someone who is dragging you thru the civil courts system demanding billions more than you already paid out. Conoco does not have such extensive holdings of natural gas and is most interested in getting into the natural gas business here in Alaska. If negotiations are successful, we could see a signed contract and the project on its way in as little as three years. Should that take place, Governor Palin will be hailed as a hero locally. Can she do it? Perhaps, as long as they get out of the way of the real businesses that want to construct the pipeline, clear the regulatory hurdles, and keep the project out of court. ADN, Fri.

2. Bobrick. Democrat lobbyist and fundraiser Bill Bobrick was sentenced to five months in prison followed by another five months under home arrest for his p art in the bribery and conspiracy between members of the Alaska legislature (all Republicans convicted so far) and the former Veco Corporation. Bobrick was at the he art of the scheme to bribe lawmakers before he was turned by the FBI and cooperated in a series of sting operations against sitting members of the legislature. He is also tied in very tightly at the very highest levels of the state democrat p arty and various political campaigns over the years. Given that the feds have already gotten a five year sentence against former House member Tom Anderson and are asking 10-12 years against former House member Pete Kott, Bobrick’s sentence appears to be very, very lenient. Granted that elected members of the legislature ought to be held to a higher standard, but to give one of the three guys at the he art of the scheme as it was initially set up what appears to be a “get out of jail free card” smacks of dual standards of justice and indicates that you can do anything you want to do as long as you are fully supportive after you get caught, cooperate and assist the feds in getting bigger fish in their future investigations. Pretty ugly. A pox on all your houses. ADN, Weds.

3. Teddy Bear. The latest and greatest out of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage is the Holy Teddy Bear story out of Sudan. There was a British female schoolteacher in Sudan. By all accounts, she was very good at what she does and her kids love her. She brought a teddy bear into the classroom. The kids asked to name it. They chose the name of one of the kids in the classroom – Muhammad and named the bear. Everyone was happy except for some parents and the religious authorities who pronounced the naming of a teddy bear after a kid who had been named after Muhammad blasphemy against Islam. The religious authorities held a religious trial, pronounced her guilty, and sentenced her to 40 lashes and deportation out of the country afterwards. The typical mob of outrage formed wielding firearms and knives and demanded they be allowed to put her to death for blasphemy. The religious authorities met again and changed the sentence from lashes to 15 days in jail followed by deportation. British Foreign Secretary officials have done or said little in public about this outrage. Tammy Bruce excoriated her cowardly feminist former p artners for saying nothing about the plight of this woman. The feminists, if nothing else, remain consistent. Malkin, Fri.

4. Conoco. Conoco Phillips had themselves a busy week up here last week. They st arted off the week by cancelling clean air upgrades to a North Slope refinery that would remove sulphur from diesel fuel so it would comply with recent changes to clean air regulations by the feds. The cancellation resulted in the loss of over 100 potential new jobs on the Slope. The reason given by Conoco was the recently passed increase in state oil taxes which no longer make this sort of rolling upgrade / modernization project reasonable from a cost / benefit analysis. The newly raised taxes do not allow Conoco to deduct this sort of modernization effort from their yearly tax bills to the state. State officials that had fallen all over themselves raising the taxes instantly brushed off the rationale, essentially calling Conoco a bunch of liars, and saying it wasn‘t their fault. These denials at the state level were followed by editorials in the Anchorage Daily News (ADN) defending the state and not believing Conoco. Those of us who are fans of low, simple, and constant taxation expect that this is simply the first of what will be many cancellations of new projects on the Slope in the not so distant future, as we tax ourselves into oblivion. Old quaint notion: If you want less of something, tax it more. If you want more of it, tax it less. We are well on the way to killing the golden goose.

5. McCain. John McCain, after being written off as dead in the race for the Republican presidential nomination is unfortunately still very much alive. Patrick Ruffini writing in Hugh Hewitt Sunday posted a McCain pro-environmental flyer that has been showing up in New Hampshire mailboxes. One claims that “McCain was a lonely voice in the GOP calling on his colleagues to take climate change seriously.” The other claims that “John McCain is an independent minded reformer who believes that protecting our environment is every American’s patriotic responsibility.” demonstrating yet again that patriotism is indeed the last refuge of a scoundrel. McCain is still alive in New Hampshire. He is still campaigning. He is still willing to say and do anything to win the nomination. He still has little regard for the constitution as written. Support him at your peril.

6. Debate. The Clinton News Network (CNN) orchestrated a Republican debate with You Tubers midweek. As with most CNN episodes, this one attempted to paint conservatives in the worst light possible. The debate was thick with democrats masquerading as undecided Republicans, with the majority of questions caricatures of what conservatives actually believe. They managed to bring in a gay retired one star general that went on a five minute rant about the evils of don’t ask, don’t tell before he was booed into submission and forced to sit down and shut up. The guy was flown in to the debate site. There were at least five other questioners who were union activists and / or registered supporters of various democrat candidates. The gay brigadier was p art of a Hillary Clinton steering committee on gays in the military. The debate itself was a brawl, with Romney and Giuliani slugging it out on immigration. Other than Ron Paul, the candidates acquitted themselves quite well, and demonstrated to those that might care that the only substantive political discussion today comes on the conservative side of the political divide. Even the democrats and their supporters have to come to Republican debates for real answers to real questions as they are unable to get those sorts of answers from their own candidates. CNN got yet another black eye setting up a gotcha debate, seeded with people and questions from the other p art of the political divide. They went to the mattresses afterwards, attacking the critics, and saying they didn’t know. It took bloggers minutes (seconds?) to dig up the political particulars of the You Tube questioners including the gay general.

"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.

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