by Alex Gimarc                                Mon., July 14, 2008

Interesting Items 7/14 -

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy -

In this issue:

1. Yellowcake
2. Iranians
3. Greenpeace
4. Black Hole
5. Chukchi
6. Bison
7. Congress

1. Yellowcake. The US completed removal of over 550 tons of uranium yellowcake from Tuwaitha in Iraq sometime earlier this year. The yellowcake ended up in Canada and the US compensated the Iraqis for their loss. There was sufficient uranium to produce over 100 nuclear weapons. History of this stuff is interesting, as it was all discovered during the first Gulf War and sealed (we think) by the IAEA so Saddam no longer had it available for his use. Loss of the use of this yellowcake by Saddam was the reason he was dealing with Niger in the years between the first and second Gulf Wars, trying to get another source of the materials for his nuclear weapons program. What does this all mean? It means that Saddam had a nuclear weapons program. He had over 550 tons of yellowcake – materials to produce nuclear weapons on hand and in his labs. He lost the use of that material and tried to get some more. It means that President Bush didn’t lie at all about yellowcake or Niger. It means that the Joe Wilson – Valery Plame claims of nothing going on in Niger were completely false. Hot Air, Mon.

2. Iranians. Iran conducted yet another set of war games last week. This one included mass firings of surface to surface missiles from transporters. The exercise was accompanied with all the usual bluster and threats. Charles Johnson caught the Iranians photo shopping a photo of four missiles leaving the launchers simultaneously. One didn’t leave the ground in the original photo. Following the mass launching, Pentagon spokesmen reiterated that there were no plans for immediate hostilities with Iran. However, I expect the plans for removing Iran from the Persian Gulf have already been written and will be executed quickly once the time comes. Iran’s only card in their poker game with the West is a threat to shut off oil traffic through the Straits of Hormuz, into and out of the Persian Gulf. They tried it before, in the late 1980s, when the Navy blew the majority of the Iranian Navy out of the water over the course of a couple months in the Tanker Wars. I am sure the Iranians have learned something over the last couple of decades. But we have also. Should anything exciting happen, I do not think the action will be confined to the water. I expect it will spread out a bit to the coastal towns and naval bases in those towns on the Iranian side of the Gulf. I also expect we will take the Iranian oil platforms in the Gulf and turn off the oil flow to Iran. Tankers will move quite nicely through Hormuz. The Mullahs ought to use some caution poking this p articular Big Dog with a sharp stick. They may end up losing an arm or two.

3. Greenpeace. In 2004, a Greenpeace boat working to shut down logging in the Tongass was cited for not having a spill plan on file. Greenpeace fought the citation and took it to court, claiming that because they were greens, the rules they imposed on everybody else didn’t apply to them. The jury thought otherwise, and convicted the Captain of criminal negligence. In 2005, the trial judge set aside the conviction and the fine. The state appealed that decision and last week a state appeals court reinstated both the conviction and fine. Nice to see the rules fairly and regularly applied to all players.

4. Black Hole. The racial spoils, grievance and victimhood business has taken over even in Dallas. Last week and argument over ticketing paperwork exploded into the blogs when a Dallas County Commissioner decided to be offended when a colleague called a county office that had a real problem with losing paperwork a black hole. Apparently a black hole is now a racially sensitive term rather than a scientific term. The offended p arty immediately demanded an apology and st arted calling the office a white hole, which in physics is the opposite of a black hole – an object that spews mass and energy. Next on the list of things we no longer can say are the following terms: black death (bubonic plague); black sheep; devil’s food cake; blackout; blackberry; blackjack; etc. Thanks for Michelle Malkin in covering this foolishness last Friday.

5. Chukchi. National greens, not content with forcing the price of gasoline above $4 per gallon, continue to use the legal system to obstruct oil exploration and production. The latest set of lawsuits was filed against recent oil exploration leases in the Chukchi Sea to the west of Alaska. The feds announced rules that would allow oil companies to chase off the occasional walrus or polar bear in their search for oil. This is not good enough for the greens, who believe we must be completely transparent in all our dealings with nature. The rules require the oil companies to report all sightings of walrus and polar bears during their work, which is used by Fish & Wildlife Service as a valuable research tool, as they are not manned to watch all the area under their jurisdiction on a continual basis. The areas in question were recently leased by three oil companies for $2.6 billion – which means that they believe there is a lot of oil / natural gas in the offshore areas. ADN, Weds.

6. Bison. Alaska Dep artment of Fish & Game (ADF&G), fresh off their stunningly success management of bears across the state, have sm artly moved on to the next event. Now that there are more bears that we know what to do with and knowing that their numbers will continue to increase dramatically in the future due to refusal to allow citizens of Alaska to hunt them, we are left with the problem of what to feed them. Solution from ADF&G? Why, they have imported over 50 wood bison from Canada and are going to create a number of self-sustaining herds of bison throughout the state. What a wonderful meal for marauding brown bears – herds of 2,000 pound herbivores. The actual excuse for this little experiment in animal management was that wood bison used to be native in the state, though there haven’t been any for nearly a century. What a great thing for the wildlife biologists to muck around with. Not content with their mismanagement of moose populations across the state (there are twice as many in the Anchorage Bowl as the land will support; other p arts of the state have far too few), and mismanagement of bear populations statewide (far too many bears in close contact with humans), they want to introduce new animals to play with. If you can’t or won’t do what you have been hired to do, why bring something else into play? ADN, Weds.

7. Congress. As the per-gallon price of gasoline and diesel continues to climb, congressional approval polling continues to crater. Gasoline here in Anchorage is running around $4.40/gallon. Diesel is just under $5/gallon. Congressional approval numbers a couple weeks ago were at a historic low of 13%. Last week that number sunk to just 9% approval. We have truly reached the time where ‘con’-gress is the opposite of ‘pro’-gress. The Stupid P arty has a real opportunity in front of them with energy. Sadly, senate Republicans announced last week energy legislation that did not include opening ANWR for exploration. Mitch McConnell’s (R, KY) office said that they were going to concentrate on opening the outer continental shelf this time around. We have a lot of conservative candidates out there that ought to be hammering the notion of self-sufficiency of this nation in energy as the most important issue this year. While Americans have long complained about congress, few congressional majorities have ever survived with approval numbers this low in an election year. We have a real opportunity this November to replace the current majority in both houses of congress with a new group of idiots. They have made it very expensive on us all over the last couple of years by standing idly by and allowing fuel and energy costs to double (gasoline and diesel). Time to remove them from the political gene pool.

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