Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc, June 2008

1. Sea Ice. The latest and greatest scare out of the National Snow and Ice Center at Boulder is that there is a 50% chance that the North Pole will be ice free this summer – a first in recorded history, and more evidence (as if we needed any more) of the looming disaster of manmade global warming. There is so much wrong and demonstrably false about that claim that is difficult to know where to st art. First of, the Arctic Ocean is covered with sea ice to some extent. It is not a solidchunk of ice like a glacier or ice cap. It is a broken covering that tends to increase in coverage when it is cold and decreases in coverage when it is warm. The wind tends to blow it around, opening and closing leads (open water) in the ice. Sailing in the Arctic Ocean is quite exciting, as should the wind change, your boat could get crushed. A US Submarine, the Skate surfaced in the vicinity of the North Pole in March 1959. You can find photos of the event online at some historical Naval web sites. When you do find the photos, note the open water 60 years ago, so open water at the pole is a normal occurrence. As to total ice coverage, 2007 was an interesting year, with prevailing winds pushing the ice pack east toward Greenland, and the coverage this time last year when the global warmists took it up as the latest and greatest Holy Cause, was down a bit. It is a year later, the winds have changed a bit, and we here in Alaska are having one of the cooler summers we’ve had in many a year. The sea ice coverage is up significantly – hardly evidence of melting. You can find tracking and historical data at the University of Illinois Urbana - Champaign – http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/ Cryosphere Today website. The site has historical graphs of both polar sea coverages since 1978 when record keeping first st arted. The coverage graph of the Arctic Ocean is interesting and available. Average variation of ice coverage in the Arctic is around 9.5 million kilometers, normally ranging from 5 – 14 million kilometers depending on the season. The variation in 2007 was from 3 – 13.5 million square kilometers, which gave the greens the excuse to run off and do their sky is falling routine. But a combination of cooler temperatures and shift in the wind patterns brought back the coverage nicely, with a peak of 14 million square kilometers last winter – meaning we picked up a million square kilometers of coverage in a single year. The researcher at Boulder is a liar. He is misrepresenting the facts to pursue a political agenda – probably so he can score more federal research dollars. And he and the media outlets for this story are committing yet another fraud on the general public. ADN / AP, Sat.

2. Exxon. The SCOTUS ruled on the appeal of punitive damages falling out of the Exxon Valdez accident in 1989, limiting them to the value of the fine levied against the company. The court case was originally tried here in Anchorage in the late 1990s, and awarded more than $5 billion to 32,000 commercial fishermen and Alaska Natives who claimed to be damaged as a result of the oil spill. Exxon disagreed with the notion that they should have to pay such an exorbitant amount and appealed. The Ninth Circus cut the amount in half along the way, and both sides appealed to the SCOTUS, which did a surprisingly sensible thing and based their decision on existing maritime law and precedent. The locals were predictably outraged, for their expected windfall has just been reduced by a factor of five, down to just over $15,000 apiece (before lawyers’ fees have been paid). We have seen a number of letters to the editor in the local fishwrapper (Anchorage Daily News) blaming this on Bush, conservatives, and cheerleading for more leftists on the SCOTUS. None of these clowns want to discuss the fact that the accident was one of the single greatest economic boons to this state in history, as Exxon and the feds dropped billions of dollars in the state from Cordova to Kodiak in cleanup and restitution. They rented every boat they could rent, and the commercial fishermen who normally have to fight for everything they get, had one of the most lucrative financial seasons in history. The fishing sucked, but they made very good money renting out their boats as p art of the cleanup fleet. Of course, this wasn’t enough, so the commercial fishermen and the ambulance chasing lawyers went after Exxon for more money, which they won in front of a jury here in Anchorage. During all that time, Exxon has been more than a little prickly to deal with regarding oil and natural gas exploration and production. Perhaps they will be a bit more agreeable in the near future. The oil spill was a big mess. But it was an accident. It was not a criminal act. It was not intentional. Exxon did the right thing and paid to fix what they broke. They also paid to make everyone involved whole. Interestingly enough, some of the oil cleaned up in Prince William Sound ended up being from oil spills out of storage in Valdez that was destroyed in the Good Friday e arthquake of 1964. ADN, Thurs.

3. Obama. It appears that Senator Barack Obama is trying to preempt all substantive discussions about his policies, experience (or lack thereof), friends and acquaintances by hiding behind his race. Here’s Obama from a Florida fundraiser a week ago:

This technique is called transference, accusing the opposition of doing everything that you are already doing. The only political p arty out there that cares one whit about race is the democrat p arty – which Obama is now the putative presidential nominee. You only have to look at the campaign that both the Clintons and Obama ran against one another to demonstrate that point. For additional proof, look at the anti-Rossi ads the Christine Gregoire democrats are running in Washington State, accusing Rossi (who has an Italian name) of having Sopranos- like mob connections. The Republican establishment is scared to death of battling on the racial battlefield, thus ceding it to charlatans and race hustlers like Obama, Sharpton, Farakahn and Jackson. This is a fight they must not shy away from. As I pointed out last week, the best way to fight this tripe is via humor, taking it right to the race baiting leftists and turning them into laughing stocks, ridiculing their every word. Is the Stupid P arty up to it? Probably not. Are the rest of us up to it? You bet. Hang on for the ride.

4. Countrywide. The Countrywide loan scandal and their VIP Loan program for US Senators is st arting to get a little traction in the drive-by media. The NYT went after Senators Dodd (D, CN) and Conrad (D, ND) over their favorable mortgage terms and their involvement in pushing legislation through the senate to provide taxpayer-funded bailouts for Countrywide’s subprime mortgages. The local papers in Connecticut and North Dakota are really going after these two bought and paid for democrats, much more than the national media. Even the Socialist Worker paper got into the act, noting that Dodd received no closing cost mortgages at 4% and 4.25% for property, while pushing the bailout legislation and claiming that he got no special favors from the Countrywide CEO. Sleaze is as sleaze does, especially where democrats are concerned. It is no surprise that these democrats have used their positions to enrich themselves and pass legislation to take care of people who have taken care of them. It is a surprise that the drive-by media is st arting to notice and st arting to talk about it. My question for the 49 Republicans still sitting in the US Senate: Why is this legislation still moving forward? Isn’t it completely tainted, and a corrupt bailout of the committee chairman (Dodd)?

1. McClatchy. Fresh on the heels of their in your face series in defense of the outrageous SCOTUS Boumedine decision, the McClatchy Corporation, owner of our local fishwrapper announced layoffs of 35 people, or about 9% of their workforce here in Anchorage. Nationwide, McClatchy is laying off about 10% of all employees, over 1,400 paid propagandists. McClatchy owns newspapers nationwide and has swung hard left in their reporting and editorials over the last couple of decades. Their stock prices have dropped over 80% in the last few years and they are hemorrhaging money nationwide. McClatchy has long practiced the art of preemptive assassination of political careers here in Alaska, going after young, photogenic conservatives who have dared poke their necks out into the public arena. They have taken very good care of local leftists, democrats, greens, union droids and the like. Their financial difficulties are all self-inflicted and not surprising. When you get confused about which p art of the newspaper the news goes and which p art of the paper the editorials go, it is difficult to put a daily newspaper together. While I am normally sympathetic with people who lose their jobs, I am not p articularly sympathetic with McClatchy’s financial difficulties, for they have chosen sides in the political wars; pretended they have not; and self-righteously hold others up to standards they are not fit to even consider. ADN, Tues.

2. Wildlife Refuges. I ran across a story about oil and natural gas exploration in the national Wildlife Refuge system last week and came up with some interesting numbers. To put this in perspective, we have a National Wildlife Refuge here in Alaska that sits on the coastal plain next to the Beaufort Sea ( Arctic Ocean). It has been the subject of an intense food fight over opening it for oil and natural gas exploration since Jimmy C arter and a lame duck session of congress stole it from the people of Alaska in December 1980. Most recently, Bill Clinton vetoed legislation to open it for exploration, development and production in the mid-1990s, noting that it would take a decade to get anything out of it. Well, it is now 13 years later, and it is now time to drill, drill, drill. One of the arguments against opening ANWR is that you simply can’t do that sort of thing in wildlife refuges. Imagine my surprise when I found that oil and natural gas exploration and development is not all that uncommon in the national wildlife refuge system, has been going on for a long time, and is a nice way to fun them. According to a CNN article from 2001 (interesting how this information gets buried these days), there are over 500 national wildlife refuges nationwide. There is oil and gas production in over two dozen of them. The article goes on to discuss the standard environmentalist claptrap yammering about drilling and production in a pair of refuges in Louisiana, Delta and D’Arbonne. On the other hand, the refuge manager is grateful over the revenue the production brings into his refuges. Given the recent yammering from the Dep artment of the Interior about needing more funding for support of the refuge system, perhaps it would be a good idea to open a bunch of them for drilling and production so that they could also pay their own way. Bottom line here is that oil and gas exploration and production is not incompatible with the national wildlife system, as it has been going on for decades. ANWR? Drill here. Drill now. Drill early. Drill often.

3. Gregoire. Democrat Christine Gregoire, who was elected four years ago as Washington state governor via massive voter fraud in King County is up for reelection this year. As with most democrats who have benefited from voter fraud to get elected, she has been busy in other shady areas as well. The Seattle Post Intelligencer reported last week that she has received over $650,000 in campaign donations from a number of tribes since 2005. And what did she do in 2005? She blocked legislation and an agreement that would have regulated native gaming and taxed casino gambling in Washington State, making it the only state in the union with tribal casinos that was not making any money from them. The legislation would have brought in around $140 million yearly. Appears the natives bought themselves a governor, and have spent their money well doing so. We will hope that Dino Rossi, the Republican candidate for governor in 2008 who lost the election in 2004 makes note of this purchase and campaigns accordingly. Seattle Post Intelligencer, June 14.

4. AP. The Associated Press (AP) decided to defend their sagging business model by going after the bloggers, and attempting to charge them for cross-posting content, linking, and other forms of information transfer. The bloggers responded by declaring war on the AP. Much like the RIAA and MPAA, the AP is attempting to use the force of law to defend a failing business model. And like the recording and motion picture business associations, they are going to be aggravating their customers to the point of encouraging their customers and competitors to actively seek to destroy them in the marketplace for information flow. The AP has long been known as a chop shop – an organization that produces little original content. Rather, they have a long history of lifting significant portions of what goes out over the AP wire from the original writers, none of whom they ever credit for writing the original content. Contrast that with the current rules of engagement for information flow by the bloggers, who lift entire sections, credit the source, and normal offer trackback links. AP claims that anyone who lifts 33-79 words from one of their articles is breaking the copyright laws and has sent letters demanding compensation. According to Allahpundit in Hot Air Weds., the AP wants as much as $2.50 per word from anyone excerpting their stuff. Michelle Malkin found an extensive lift of comments from her blog regarding the Absolut vodka Aztlan ad last April, ran the numbers and announced that the AP owed her over $135,000. Other bloggers have found extensive blog entries lifted by the AP and transmitted without permission or attribution. Apparently AP figures they can do it whenever they want to whomever they want, but nobody can do the same to their stuff. I don’t know who is running the AP’s legal operation, but I think they need to talk with the business people, as they are about to get themselves run out of business by the people they are now going after in court.

5. Danzig. Bill Clinton’s Secretary of the Navy, Richard Danzig, who distinguished himself as one of the worst navy Secretaries in history since James Webb (D, VA) is now advising Barack Obama on national security issues. Danzig was best known during his time as Navy Secretary for giving the feminists free run of the Navy. Last week, Danzig, who is one of Barack Obama’s national security advisors used the children’s books about Winnie the Pooh as the foundation for his discussion of our actions in the Middle East. Surely there are better texts on the Middle East than Pooh. Then again, this may be the change that we can believe in. While it certainly may be change, I really don’t want to believe it.

6. Race Card. Barack Obama, fresh out of airspeed and ideas, tossed out the race card last weekend, warning his supporters of racial smears and attacks from his opponents on the right. Well, that didn’t take very long. We have long expected that he would hide behind his color for the duration of the campaign. Few expected that it would st art so early and so often. The basic message seems to be that if you don’t vote for Obama, you are a racist. If you criticize him or any of his ideas, you are a racist. If you question the radicals he has been hanging around for the last few decades, you are a racist. If you question the motives of his pastor, his wife, or any of his supporters, you are a racist. An aside: This is a pretty good rant. Someone ought to do a version of Jeff Foxworthy’s “You must be a redneck” string of jokes on this. The only way to fight this sort of thing is to laugh at it – and a series of “you must be a racist” jokes would be a hoot and an incredibly powerful way to ridicule Obama’s attempt to shield himself and his cronies from criticism. Of course if the only thing you can do regarding Obama is sing his praises, sing hosannas, and vote for him, things are going to get pretty boring on the campaign trail. I think he st arted this too early. He needed to wait until September to play this card. It is only June and we are going to get really tired of this garbage by say the Fourth of July.

1. SCOTUS. The Supreme Court handed down one of the most outrageous decisions since Roe v Wade last week, granting illegal combatants habeas corpus rights. The 5-4 opinion overturns nearly 240 years of precedent, and puts the SCOTUS in the business of determining how a war is to be prosecuted. This is one of the worst usurpations of Executive and congressional power by the leftist judges in the majority. Basically, the opinion gives illegal enemy combatants rights that American military members, who are subject to military commissions while in the military – access to the federal courts system so that some idiot in black robes can determine if there is enough evidence to hold and try the combatant. Interesting corollary to that last sentence: When was the last time that military members in armed combat followed the official federal rules of evidence gathering for criminal trials? The McClatchy newspapers responded by weeks’ end with a series of articles describing all the human rights abuses suffered by the poor terrorist misfits held in Guantanamo and other military prisons. Interestingly enough, none of the articles recapped the history of military commissions and tribunals run since the Revolutionary War. And none of the McClatchy articles recapped what the captured had been doing when they were captured on the battlefield (hint: do a search on Daniel Pearl). The bottom line in all of this is that illegal enemy combatants – usually people not wearing uniforms – have no rights. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Should they take up arms in support of a government, wear uniforms, and operate at the direction of a government, then they are covered by the Geneva Conventions. But none of the terrorists captured on the battlefield are so covered. They do not wear uniforms. They do not fight at the behest of any sovereign government. They do not adhere to the rules of armed conflict. They hide behind women, children, and use the handicapped as weapons delivery systems. As such, their lives are forfeit. What should be done? While I’d like to see impeachments for the five fools in the majority, I don’t think we will get it. There has been some talk about a constitutional amendment removing completely the ability of the courts to intrude in this area of law. I would be supportive of such an amendment. Unfortunately, how can we get into the business of passing constitutional amendments each time the SCOTUS has a brain f art? A better solution would be for the President to simply ignore the ruling, and lay out in detail rationale for ignoring it. For if the judges become lawbreakers, why pay any attention to them at all.? If they are lawless in their review and opinions, why give them any respect, any weight in future opinions, or pay any attention to them ever again? With this opinion, the SCOTUS has undermined the ability of the Executive to conduct armed conflict. They have undermined congressional prerogative in armed conflict. And they have inserted themselves sm artly into the game – all to the detriment of successful conduct of future wars. There are going to be a lot of dead people as a result of this opinion. I hope the media celebration for the majority was worth the lives and blood on their hands.

2. Weather. One of the old sayings was that you can’t do anything about the weather except complain about it. However in recent years that has been modified a bit. Today, anything that happens weather wise is blamed on manmade global warming – regardless of whether or not the weather event was due to warmer or colder than normal air masses. Take the violent weather in the Midwest last week. It didn’t take the global warmists long to blame a string of tornadoes on warmer than normal temperatures due to manmade global warming. But when you look at the actual temperatures involved, you will note that the warm, wet air moving north from the Gulf of Mexico was not significantly warmer than normal. On the other hand, the cold air moving south out of Canada was significantly cooler than normal. When the two air masses met and combined, there were spectacular thunderstorms and tornadoes. The point in this discussion is the difference in temperature between the two air masses. When there is not a large difference, weather changes turn out relatively mild. When there is a large temperature difference, the associated weather gets pretty dangerous. Wild weather in the Midwest? Look at colder than normal air from Canada. As the sun continues without sun spots, expect colder than normal weather. And expect more violent weather.

3. Faker. The latest election campaign gambit out of the democrats and the Obama campaign is an attack on credibility of bloggers and talk radio. The subject was rumors out of democrat activists including Bob Beckel, best known for pot-stirring during the Florida 2000 recount, and a couple other Hillary supporters about a video tape of Michelle Obama in the pulpit of the Trinity United Church of Christ using the terms “whitey’ and “cracker.” Beckel went on Fox after Obama was selected as the nominee warning that the right wing had the tape and would release it to harm Obama and go after his wife as part of the campaign. The Obama campaign in concert with the release of this rumor stood up a web site called Fight the Smears, ostensibly intended to proactively go after all the false, evil things that the bloggers and talk radio would be going after Obama about during the campaign. It turns out that nobody can find the Michelle Obama tape, and it may very well not exist. At this point it appears that the entire episode was intended to get the blogosphere and talk radio chasing after a false rumor, over extend themselves, and undermine their credibility. The second goal of this was to inoculate Michelle Obama, who has some severe drawbacks as a candidate from any criticism. Like Obama himself, she and the campaign appear to be singularly incapable of responding to criticism by telling the truth. And instead resort to taking issues off the table, shutting up critics, and stopping all discussion. The phrase “shut up, she explained” describes this technique nicely. Expect this campaign to eventually pull the race card, whereby if anyone criticizes Obama or his wife on any subject, or questions anything about them, they will be called racists. Now this is not going to stop me. But the weak sisters at the RNC and inside the McCain campaign seem very susceptible to the threat.

4. Countrywide. Yet another democrat majority in congress; yet another series of unreported financial scandals. And it only took this new majority a mere year and a half to dig this hole. It appears that Countrywide Financial, one of the companies at the center of the subprime mortgage loan meltdown has been buying influence from democrat members of congress via loans at below market rates. Obama’s point man on his Vice Presidential search committee, Jim Johnson, who had connections to the Fannie Mae scandal while CEO of Fannie Mae, accepted over $2 million in loans below market rates from Countrywide. Johnson has since resigned from the VP search committee. Interestingly enough, Obama has been blasting away at Countrywide and the subprime loan mess for months, using it as a tool against both the Hillary campaign and the Bush administration. He had no rationale for one of his closest advisors being up to his neck in the scandal and benefiting personally from loans made while CEO of Fannie Mae except to say that Johnson did not work for him and that he did not vet the vetters. At weeks’ end the list of those getting preferential treatment from Countrywide has expanded to include two sitting democrat US Senators – Chris Dodd (D, CN), and Kent Conrad (D, ND). Both refinanced properties at rates well below prime rates in 2003 – 2004. Both are sitting on or chairing senate committees currently working on legislation to bail out those companies that made too many subprime loans and had them defaulted upon by homeowners that ought to have known better. The list of other Washington insiders bellying up to the trough includes former Clinton HHS Secretary Donna Shalala, former Bush HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson (who resigned abruptly under ethical questions earlier this year), and former Clinton UN Ambassador and Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke. Dodd saved himself $58,000 with the loan and chairs the Senate Banking Committee. Conrad saved himself $10,000. So much for Reid and Pelosi’s most ethical congress in history promise, eh? Hot Air, Sat.

1. USAF. SECDEF Gates demanded and got the resignation of the USAF Chief of Staff and the Secretary of the Air Force last week. The resignations followed release of an investigation into sloppy handling of nuclear weapons by the USAF the last couple of years. In one instance, weapons were loaded onto a B-52 and flown across the country by accident. Following landing, they sat on the ramp, hanging from the wing of the aircraft until someone realized the mistake. In the second instance, nuclear trigger components were shipped to a contractor in Taiwan. The Taiwanese brought the mistake to the attention of DoD which retrieved the triggers. Investigations into both events discovered a lackadaisical approach to the security of nuclear weapons materials which was unacceptable. One of the things that fell out of the USAF reorganization of the early 1990s was the combination of offensive strategic forces, formerly under the control of Strategic Air Command (SAC) with offensive tactical forces under control of the Tactical Air Command (TAC) under the overall structure of TAC. In the 50-year struggle between the fighter guys and the bomber guys, the fighter guys won. Unfortunately they didn’t bring the old time SAC attention to security detail with them and over the years, things apparently got pretty lax. I expect they will not be lax any more. In is always unfortunate when there are firings this high up the food chain. But if this serves to get the attention of everybody involved, SECDEF Gates will have done a very good thing indeed.

2. Issues: Economy. The economy is the second area where conservatives running for election in November have a real advantage over their democrat opponents. Although the media will attempt to tie the stumbling economy firmly around the collective necks of President Bush and Republican candidates, they ought not to be allowed to do so. All we have to do is revise the old Reagan question: Are you better off now than you were tow years ago? During the Bush years from 2001 to 2006, average gasoline prices rose from $1.44 to $2.10. Republican candidates were excoriated by both the media and democrat candidates for that price increase when they were defeated in 2006. Since 2007, the Pelosi – Reid democrat-controlled congress has presided over a price at the pump increase from $2.10 to over $4 per gall on today. That number is expected to increase past $5 per gallon by July 4 th. So are we all better off now? The second p art of this would be the sharp increase in the unemployment rate last month from 5.0 to 5.5%, the largest increase in decades. Why would there be such an increase in unemployment, especially since the statistics didn’t include youngsters out of school yet. My guess would be that the sharp increase in per gallon prices for fuels has driven out money that would have been normally been used to hire new people. So as usual, the poor and undereducated get hurt first. Expect this number to make another jump next month when the schools let out and the effects of the Pelosi – Reid increase in the minimum wage to hit the fan. Finally, the House passed a $3 trillion budget, festooned with pork last week. Under this congress, earmarks have more than doubled, which is pretty impressive even for democrats. They have attempted to levy trillions of dollars of new taxes via the Warner – Lieberman cap and trade legislation. They are allowing the Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will raise taxes on an already sputtering economy by hundreds of millions of dollars. Is this responsible? So how do conservatives fix all of this? We do it by holding the line on taxes and spending. We do it by fighting the cap and trade legislation. We do it by getting the feds out of the way of oil and natural gas exploration. We do it by getting the obstructionist greens out of the courtroom. We do it by decreasing regulations, decreasing spending, and decreasing federal intrusion. All of this is old time conservative economics – spend little, tax less, and keep out of the way of entrepreneurs. Also look for ways to downsize the overall size, power, intrusiveness and scope of the federal government. Pound the message home and ask the following questions: Here is what you were told two years ago by the democrats. Are you better off now than you were then? If not, why not? And if not, why reward them with a larger majority? I don’t think that this election will be the disaster for conservatives we are all hearing. It doesn’t take too many $80 filling station visits to finely focus the mind as well as the wallet. We had better be able to make the case to a bunch of voters that aren’t paying attention very well just yet. Fortunately, things change pretty quickly in the information age. We got into the current mess pretty quickly, as it only took the democrats a couple years to thoroughly muck up the economy. It will turn around just a quickly. And as I have said before, the game this year is at the state and local levels, where we as conservatives need to put just as many conservatives on the ballot in November as humanly possible. Then in November, we need to defeat as many democrats a humanly possible, for they will caucus with Pelosi and Reid once inside the Beltway.

3. Warner Lieberman. The Senate shut down debate on the cap and trade legislation after a mere three days of yammering. During the festivities, Barbara Boxer (D, CA) brought out substitute legislation in the form of a nearly 500-page amendment. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R, KY) forced the senate to read the entire amendment out loud to the senators. This legislation ends up being the vehicle to transfer trillions of dollars out of the pockets of Americans into the federal treasury which will then be transferred to the pockets of those the democrats deem fit to receive the money. In other words, it traffics upon the fraud of manmade global warming, which now has been discredited to the point where its advocates now prattle on about climate change. The goal of this legislation is to cut carbon emissions by 70% by 2050. Why 70% and 2050? Nobody knows. It could just as well be 15% and 2100, but there wouldn’t be the federal mandate to levy crushing taxes upon the economy. The vehicle to enforce the emissions cuts is a series of new taxes on things that emit carbon dioxide. One of the things you learn during the years is that anything the feds tax, they control. Imagine giving those self serving, sanctimonious fools inside the Beltway control over everything that could emit carbon dioxide. For those few of you that think this is a good thing, think again, for carbon dioxide is one of the gasses we humans – and every animal, for that matter – exhale when we breathe. Once you buy into the principle that carbon dioxide is a bad thing, and give the feds the ability to tax and control it, you give them the ability to control everything. Of course, with this sort of massive increase in taxes also comes a corresponding expansion of the federal bureaucracy, which must administer it. And when the bureaucracy expands this greatly, businesses st art carving out exceptions to the new taxes, new rules, and new intrusions into the bureaucracy. Interestingly enough, one of the descriptions of fascism is that property rights are retained, but the government tells you everything you can do with that property. Government also ends up picking winners and losers. This legislation is the single largest expansion of federal taxation and power since Hillary Care of 15 years ago. It will be back next year. Be ready.

4. Haditha. Haditha was the location of an action where eight marines were accused of killing people that shouldn’t have been killed. The Islamist – friendly media made the accusations and the Marine chain of command pressed charges against the eight. Congresscritters jumped on board with hair raisin charges of war crimes being made by that embarrassment to the Corps, John Murtha (D, PA). To date, charges against five of the soldiers have been dropped due to lack of evidence. Last week, a sixth was found not guilty in his courts m artial. Two more await their courts m artial. One of the accused has filed a defamation lawsuit against Murtha for accusing him and his comrades at arms of war crimes. And that case is proceeding. I do not expect this verdict will hurt that lawsuit any. Malkin, Thurs.

1. Carbon. A few words in defense of carbon dioxide are in order – and perhaps with them a way to use the old Marxist technique of maximizing the contradictions upon the greens. The newly successful technique of the greens, listing every animal in the Arctic as endangered and then using that listing as a vehicle to shut down development nationwide is now clear. Perhaps we can use that same vehicle against them. The global warming scaremongering is driven exclusively by supposed damage to animal populations, in an attempt to keep the current global temperatures at their current levels – which are much colder than the planetary average over the last half billion years. The problem is that when it gets colder, you decrease habitat and growth opportunities for plant species. Additionally, plants require carbon dioxide for respiration, as photosynthesis converts carbon dioxide, water, heat and light into long carbon-based molecules and oxygen. The more carbon dioxide you have in the atmosphere, the better the plants do. We wouldn’t get quite as clear cut of a case with global temperatures, although in the current geologic era of ice ages, we are running about 10 degrees C below the norm for the last half billion years. I say it is time for a series of lawsuits against regulation and elimination of carbon dioxide as harmful to plant life all over the planet. We ought not to be speciesists – interested in only the health and welfare of only the animal kingdom. Few animals are green. But most plants certainly are. St art filing lawsuits against the feds and the greens. Select areas where cooler temperatures have killed trees, grasses, fruits and vegetables. Maximize their contradictions and tie the entire mess up in the courts for the next century. Once we save the plants, it is on to the molds, algae and fungus.

2. Walrus. Not content with their successful listing of polar bears as threatened species, greens have pushed the feds to list walrus and three species of seals – all polar bear food – as endangered. The excuse being used is that their numbers are decreasing because of the lack of sea ice due to the ravages of global warming. Interestingly enough, given that we have almost tripled the total number of polar bears over the last 50 years, and these animals are essentially polar bear food, wouldn’t it be logical to assume that the larger numbers of polar bears are eating larger numbers of walrus and seals up here? You can’t significantly increase the number of predators without decreasing the numbers of their prey. Once the prey numbers crash – and they will – the predators will st art eating each other or starve until their numbers also crash. It is an endless cycle of boom and bust. We see it up here all the time with lynx and rabbits. When there a lot of rabbits, we get a lot of lynx. When the rabbit population crashes, we lose a lot of lynx. Perhaps the solution to the listing of walrus and seals as threatened is a polar bear hunt. I hear they make great rugs and wall hangings.

3. Soros. Bloggers have discovered a link between George Soros and the Scott McClellan book trashing the Bus administration. A LGF reader traced the editor who works for Public Affairs Books back to its holding company, the Perseus Book Group. Perseus ends up being a wholly owned and operated series of Soros front corporations. With the McClellan book, Soros’ assault on the Bush administration continues. The second Soros-related story comes in response to a long-time question from Limbaugh about Senator Barack Obama. Given that Obama is a political naïf, prone to gaffes, and seemingly completely green and inexperienced. Limbaugh has been asking who is behind his meteoric rise to political prominence. Who benefits when he is elected? Who is pulling his strings? The answer once again seems to be George Soros via Obama’s long-time association with yet another Soros organization, ACORN. I realize this wanders perilously close to black helicopter land, not unlike the left’s assault on Richard Melon Scaife during the Reagan years, but Soros is active. He is out there. He has invested tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in a war on this administration and governance over the last decade. He makes money on chaos, and does a good job sowing it. He was behind McCain-Feingold and was instantly ready to fund the 527s that grew out of that congressional and presidential act of malfeasance. He has a long and active track record that we would be well advised to consider. Is Obama Soros’ sock puppet? Maybe. I think he is someone’s sock puppet, as anyone else would be publicly shredded after making as many mistakes on the campaign trail as he has made over the last six months. It could be Soros. It could be the democrat bosses in congress.

4. Polygamist. Two court rulings out of Texas blew the state Child Protection Services case against the polygamist sect out of the water. The initial court decision over a week ago found that the warrant used to raid the community had insufficient standing. That ruling was upheld by the State Supreme Court Thursday. The case bounced back to the presiding judge in San Angelo who took the opening as an opportunity to levy additional requirements and restrictions upon the parents who had their children illegally removed from their custody by the State of Texas. Expect the children to st art leaving foster homes and returning to the families early this week. This entire case has been a travesty of justice – reprising the hysterical claims of previous state cases against their targets. The McM artin preschool case comes to mind. Something is broken real badly here, and it will be up to the Texas Legislature to fix it and hold the unaccountable bureaucracy accountable for their contemptible action.

5. Richardson. When a conservative does something illegal, immoral or fattening during an election year, we get months of national headlines about their character, or lack thereof. When a leftist does something, you never hear about it. One such example is Representative Laura Richardson (D, CA), who has defaulted on three home loans while managing to give her political campaign over $77,000. She walked away from a $535,000 mortgage on the first home, and failed to pay utility and property tax bills, but was able to take out a $100,000 home equity loan (that will likely never get paid) on the home before she walked. The bank and its investors now hold the note. Richardson was elected in 2007, and was a former staffer for California Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, so she is quite well connected with the leftist Hispanic California political community. Malkin, Tues.

6. Indictments. Democrat candidate for US Senate, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich had Senator John Tester (D, MT) in town late last week for a fundraiser. Tester was narrowly elected in Montana in 2006 following an overly-hyped investigation into his Republican opponent Conrad Burns. Burns was not p articularly conservative, so he did not have the base fired up. But he wasn’t corrupt either – despite what the local leftist media said in Montana during the campaign. Within weeks after his election loss, the investigation was stopped with nothing found. Tester ran as a conservative and pumped up ethics as a campaign issue and as expected, instantly turned into John Kerry once he hit the Beltway. He was up here in support of Begich, in opposition to drilling in ANWR, and instructing his supporters in the fine art of how to steal a seat in the US Senate under allegations of corruption. Interestingly enough, early last week, perhaps in anticipation of Tester’s appearance at the Begich fundraiser the local McClatch fishwrapper in Anchorage, the Anchorage Daily News, also known as the Incredibly Shrinking Newspaper, ran a story headlined: “Could Stevens and Young be Indicted so Close to Elections?” Sounds like the local media, completely in the Begich camp, is calling for indictments against both Stevens and Young in September when it will be too late to replace them on the ballot. Perhaps the Clinton holdovers in the Justice Dep artment will oblige them. It is interesting to note that Begich is running on integrity. Yet what sort of integrity is it to use your supporters in the criminal justice system to take out your opponent?

"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:
The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/
MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuv alleynews.com
District 28 http://www.dist28.com/
subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/
and the home page: http:/ /home.gci.net /~agimarc
Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/

If you would like to join II's mailing list, have comments or suggestions, please contact me at: agimarc@ak.net