Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc, October 2008

1. Hedge Funds. One of the significant events of this election cycle has been the popping of the housing bubble and the Wall Street crash. While the popping of the bubble is not a surprise, the breadth and depth of the decline in the markets has been a surprise. Limbaugh has hinted around this for a few weeks, so it is time to consider it: What if the Wall Street crash is an artificial event, driven by the hedge fund guys in an attempt to manipulate the markets so that more democrats are elected? Remember that the owner of the democrat p arty, George Soros made his first billion by crashing the British Pound via short sales on speculation. The hedge funds likewise make their money via betting on – or triggering, if possible - market declines. And there are an inordinate number of children of democrat politicians – Biden’s son and Chelsea Clinton, to name a couple – that have worked for hedge funds. I had thought it was odd that the markets crashed just after McCain got his first lead in the national polling, but didn’t do a lot other than watch a little more closely. However, toward the end of last week, when McCain once again pulls even in national polling, the markets Friday once again went nuts. Once is odd. Twice may be coincidence. The third time is enemy action. And that enemy action may take place Friday so that voters will have to pick between a committed socialist in Barack Obama or a cratering stock market and vaporizing 401K accounts. A decade or so ago, House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt noted that for every hundred points loss on Wall Street, one additional democrat would be elected in the House of Representatives. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that some or several of the hedge funds have manipulating the markets for political gain, destroying trillions of dollars in wealth at a few mouse clicks. Granted that one of the first things the Fed did as they stepped up to repair the damage they have done to the markets was to suspend short selling. However, short selling is still possible in the overseas markets, and our stock market responded to the overseas markets last Friday. It will be interesting to see if the markets can be forced down much f arther, as there may not be a lot of room left to fall. If I am correct in my suspicions, and the stock market crash over the last month has been encouraged and / or exacerbated by democrat-friendly hedge fund traders, the thing that ought to worry you a bit would be the following: if they are willing to do this to win in 2008, what then would they be willing to do in 2010, 2012 and 2014? Note that whatever comes in the future will have to be bigger, nastier and scarier than what we have seen the last month. Also note that Soros has been very, very quiet over the course of the last month or so.

2. Laffer. Listened to economist Arthur Laffer on Dennis Prager early last week. They discussed the credit crunch and the housing bailout. Laffer put the blame for the credit crunch entirely on the Federal Reserve, which had been concentrating so much on controlling inflation, which was nonexistent, that it was in danger of triggering deflation. He also called the bailout a mistake that will haunt this nation for decades. In a related article in MoneyNews this morning, Laffer believes that what congress, the Fed and the administration has done regarding this financial crisis will be viewed with as much positive approval and affirmation as what the Fed, the administration and congress did in response to the Crash of 1929. If he is accurate, we are in for a hard ride indeed for over a decade. Laffer is also out with a new book entitled The End of Prosperity describing recent monetary and regulatory mistakes including Sarbanes-Oxley.

3. 401K. Rep. Jim McDermott (D, WA) and George Miller (D, CA) held a committee meeting a few months ago intended to lay the groundwork for eliminating tax deductibility of personal savings accounts like the 401K. The designated academic that testified proposed a plan that would allow individuals to convert their 401Ks into federally held and guaranteed retirement plans held and managed by the Social Security Administration, with a guaranteed return of a whopping 3%. Congressional democrats are st arting to discuss eliminating all tax deductibility for privately held retirement plans and force as many people as possible back onto the public teat, where they can be held hostage and scared to death each and every election from now until doomsday. Argentina has taken this game one step further, recently nationalizing ALL private retirement accounts, stealing over $30 billion from citizens who worked hard, paid their taxes, and planned for their future. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that a new administration led by someone who wants to spread the wealth around to those who are behind, won’t be prepared to move in a similar direction. Privately held savings accounts represent liberty for their owners and the democrats can’t stomach that sort of freedom from need, from want, and especially from government. Expect this congress to do everything humanly possible to remove that freedom and manufacture as many newly dependent people as possible, for dependent people elect democrats.

4. Begich. The local fishwrapper has been carrying daily question and answers from the candidates for US Senate. Friday’s question was about manmade global warming. Democrat mark Begich, who has a long and supportive relationship with the environmental community gave the following response:

What is also clear is that Mr. Begich is absolutely clueless about what greenhouse gases are; what causes changes in global temperature; the impact on solar activity; the impact of the north Pacific Decadal Oscillation; and the actual plot of global temperatures over the last couple decades. Hint: It’s getting colder, Mark. A lot colder.

5. Donations. Yet another fundraising scam out of The One. This one is pretty cute, as it allows anyone to go to his web site and give a campaign donation via credit card. So what’s the big deal about taking credit card payments as campaign donations? Well, the Obama campaign has turned off all the security that matches a credit card number with a name, address and other personal identification. This means that anyone can enter any name – or several names – and make multiple illegal donations. No traceability. No donation limits. Nothing but lots and lots of free money. Several bloggers experimented with small donations via this method. All were processed by the campaign. Obama’s fundraising prowess – p articularly among small money donors - via the internet has been legendary during this election cycle. Perhaps we have discovered the technique.

6. Dean Barnett. Finally, blogger Dean Barnett passed away over the weekend from complications of cystic fibrosis. He was 41. He was a passionate Mitt Romney supporter and we had a few e-mail discussions about Romney during the primary season. He was good people and will be sorely missed. Please keep him and his family in your prayers.

1. Belugas
2. Redistribute
3. Stevens
4. Mahoney
5. 200,000
6. Cabinet
7. Murtha
8. Ice Pack

1. Belugas. The National Marine Fisheries Service listed Cook Inlet Beluga whales as an endangered species Friday. This listing was in response to a series of lawsuits and complaints by local environmental groups – all of which are supporting democrat candidates for US Senate, House of Representatives, and the Alaska State Legislature. There are over 100,000 belugas worldwide, mostly in the Arctic. Cook Inlet has a small population that has decreased from around 1,300 a few decades ago to as low as 276 (estimated) in 2005. They were hunted by local native whalers for many years, which many believe led to their demise. In 2000, hunting was significantly curtailed, and numbers have increased to 375 (estimated) as of this year. The whalers believe that the feds are deliberately undercounting belugas, not unlike what they did with the spotted owl a couple decades ago as an excuse to shut down logging in the Pacific Northwest. Much the same thing is expected up here. We expect the greens to use lawsuits to shut down all development in Cook Inlet; shut down the Port of Anchorage expansion; shut down the Knik Arm bridge; shut down oil and natural gas exploration; and eventually going after both commercial fishing and sport fishing. The Endangered Species Act is long since broken, needs to be repealed or repaired, and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has not covered himself with glory by agreeing to this travesty.

2. Redistribute. Barack Obama let the mask slip a bit last week when he was asked by an Ohio plumber who wanted to purchase a small business he worked for if his taxes would be going up. Obama responded that yes indeed, because it was a good thing to take money from the plumber and give it to those below him (in income level). This is classic Marxism, redistribute income from those who can to those who won’t. The entire exchange was captured in audio and video and has been a prominent p art of the campaign since he told the truth. McCain used the example throughout the last debate to effect. This issue will become the signature issue of the remaining two weeks of the campaign, and should give the Republicans a vehicle to win far more than anyone gives them credit for. As so often happens to Those that Speak Truth to Power, the media, the unions, and the municipal government of Toledo went after the plumber. By weeks’ end his business was shut down, putting the four employees there out of work. His personal history had been investigated – far more than the personal history of Barack Obama himself – and smeared across the front pages of papers nationwide. Obama and the democrats are old fashioned socialists who ought to be kept a long, long way from the levers of power.

3. Stevens. The Ted Stevens corruption trial percolated along last week with the prosecution wrapping up their case and the defense presenting its case. As I see it, it appears that the Veco guys – Bill Allen, et all – used Stevens’ house as free chalet for entertaining themselves while Stevens was out of town. It was so bad that in one instance, Stevens ‘ daughter dropped by to spend a couple days in her parents home but had to sleep on the couch because the bedrooms were full of Veco guys. The prosecution was unable to present any evidence that Stevens had not paid for everything billed. The grill and kitchen appliances appear to be gifts intended to ward off a high dollar lawsuit by Stevens for the Veco guys screwing up the home renovation. Expect the case to go to jury this week with a verdict. Whatever the verdict, it will likely determine whether or not Stevens returns to the Senate for another term. It is high stakes, guts ball, and Stevens believes he is innocent. We will see.

4. Mahoney. One of the real icky stories in the lead up to the 2006 congressional elections was Mark Foley (R, FL) sending suggestive text messages and e-mails to male congressional pages in an attempt to pick them up. This story was used by the democrats to further push their culture of corruption story line. Republicans lost his West Palm Beach seat to a democrat named Tim Mahoney who ran on a family values platform. Well it turns out that Mahoney himself has a long-time zipper problem, having recently paid off a former mistress over $121,000 in hush money. The payoff was known by Rahm Emanuel (D, IL) and Nancy Pelosi (D, SF). The lady, who was fired and then threatened by Mahoney taped a conversation about the firing and payoff and distributed the tapes. Limbaugh played excerpts of one midweek. Mahoney was having an affair two years ago while running as the democrat paragon of family values. The lady fired and paid off was not the only one having an affair with Mahoney at the time for the firing. It also appears that Mahoney steered federal money in the form of grants to his paramours and the companies where they were working. The most ethical congress in history? Not hardly. More like we are back to the Mark Twain “… that there is no distinctly American criminal class except Congress.” Hot Air, Tues.

5. 200,000. Ohio Secretary of State Janet Brunner is sitting on 200,000 “mismatched” voter registration forms. These are forms that are either not filled out correctly, incomplete, or have information contained that does not match. She has refused to provide a list of these ballot registrations to local polling places so that they might compare what is submitted on Election Day with what the state has on record. The Ohio Republican P arty went to court in an attempt to force Brunner to provide a list to the polling places and won an injunction at the Sixth Circuit to force her to do so immediately. The court issued that ruling. Brunner appealed to the SCOTUS, claiming that she didn’t have enough time to comply, even though she has been sitting on these registrations for months. The SCOTUS overturned the injunction on the grounds that Ohio state law did not allow a private organization like the Ohio Republican P arty to bring such a lawsuit. As it sits now, Brunner is supposed to follow state law and do her job. Given that John Kerry lost Ohio by over 170,000 votes in 2004, it appears that her plan is to allow those 200,000 fraudulent registrations to get turned into 200,000 fraudulent votes so that Barack Obama will have a chance to win Ohio in two weeks. Democrats need to be very careful corrupting the voting process, for if the general pubic st arts believing that one of our political p arties regularly cheats, steals, and stuffs ballot boxes, it will not be long before we st art seeing the return of the Vigilance Committees – which is not the best outcome for any of us.

6. Cabinet. The One started leaking the names of potential cabinet secretaries last weekend. For your reading pleasure and / or amusement: John Kerry, Secretary of State (at least it gets him out of the Senate). Chuck Hagel as SECDEF. Larry Summers as Treasury Secretary. Sleep well tonight. PowerLine, Sun.

7. Murtha. It’s going to be difficult to get reelected if you are busily calling your constituents racists, but that’s exactly what Black Jack Murtha (D, PA) did last week when he noted that people in his district were too racist to vote for a black guy like Barack Obama. He recanted a couple days later, but the damage was done. Unfortunately Murtha normally wins his reelections by over 30%, but he has done some real damage to himself the last couple of years by running his mouth against the US Marines in Haditha and last week against his own constituents in PA. Sooner or later this will come back to haunt him.

8. Icepack. I have written before about our cold summer this year. Craig Medred, writing in the Incredibly Shrinking Newspaper, our local fishwraper, the Anchorage Daily News Tuesday wrote about a significant increase in the depth of snow on ice fields statewide. Ever since the end of the Little Ice Age, there has been a net decrease in land coverage by glaciers and ice fields on top of the mountains - which you would expect if the climate warms up a bit. However, when it cools down, the winter snow does not melt off, and expands the total mass and coverage of the glaciers and ice fields. Last summer was so cold that there was snow all the way down to sea level around Prince William Sound in June and the Juneau ice field had as much as twenty extra feet of snow that did not melt off during the summer. The USGS scientist interviewed by Medred noted that they had been researching snow depths since 1946 and had not ever seen the increase in snow depth that he saw this year. The USGS then went on to note that the difference in average temperatures between the depths of the little Ice Age and the height of the warmest period was 3-4 degrees. This last summer in Alaska was about three degrees colder than normal. It doesn’t take much to tip from toasty warm into Little Ice Age. Once again, I don’t think manmade global warming is going to be our long term problem in future years. Think Polar Tech, snow machines and skis.

1. Campaign. First, the bad news: Zogby this morning reported The One up by 4% - with a 48% - 44% lead. No bad for a miserable last couple weeks by the McCain campaign. Real Clear Politics composite poll shows the lead at 7%. In comparison, this time in 2004, John Kerry had a 3-4% lead. In 2000, President Bush held a 2% lead that evaporated quickly following the Maine DUI story. The difference between those elections and this one? We had a better candidate then – one who apparently wanted to win by defeating the other side rather than trying to get along with them. A few random observations:

2. Michigan. This one is a couple weeks old, but the McCain campaign announced they were pulling out of Michigan. VP Nominee Palin volunteered to go into Michigan with her husband (and union member) Todd Palin and st art working the factories. If it were me, I would be putting the Palins in the Rust Belt, working the union towns and trying to turn that p art of the country. This would include the states of Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Illinois. Who knows, they may actually end up being there the last week or so of the campaign.

3. ACORN. ACORN is now being investigated for massive voter fraud in over 10 states – most of them battleground states - this election cycle. ACORN is an interesting outfit, as it exists on the federal handout, yet sits at the center of the subprime mess and has a long history of voter fraud. The big surprise is that these stories are coming out today rather than in January 2009. The fraudulent registrations have been so large in number and so obvious that some observers are wondering if it is intended simply to overwhelm the existing voter registration system and cover something more subtle going on underneath the surface. Minority Leader John Boehner (R, CA) announced his intention to remove all federal funding from ACORN in future years. The Obama campaign knows this is a growing problem, and now has removed all connections between Obama from his web site. Obama himself, who actually worked for ACORN as a lawyer, is now denying all past ties to the organization.

4. Hacker. The son of a Tennessee democrat state legislator was indicted last week for hacking the Yahoo e-mail account belonging to Governor Sarah Palin. The wheels of justice grind slow, but they grind exceedingly fine. I do not think this young man will enjoy his time inside Club Fed or wherever he ends up being sent.

5. Troopergate. The Branchflower investigation into Governor Palin’s firing of Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan was released Friday. It concluded that Palin had abused power by allowing her husband to complain and pressure Monegan to fire their former brother in law. It also concluded that Plain had every right to fire Monegan and did so lawfully. Predictably, all the usual media suspects did all the usual media things, running stories the next day that Palin was guilty, guilty, I say, of abuse of power. Palin released a statement the next day that claimed the report completely exonerated her. This report presents a rather interesting interpretation of the state ethics law. Branchflower believes that the law removes the right of any family member to petition any state employee for redress – which has never been addressed by the legislature or adjudicated at any level by any body in the state. He also creatively applied the ethics laws by suggesting that Todd Palin’s complaints to Monegan personally benefited him. On the other hand, the state tells any citizen who has a problem with any state trooper to make their complaints directly to the Commissioner’s office – which Todd Palin did, making Palin guilty of violating state ethics rules by not controlling her husband in his actions as a private citizen. So the question remains: exactly what rights do you have and what do you lose when a family member is elected or appointed to a state position? The Legislative Council was at a loss Friday to figure out where to go next with all of this stuff. The Palin opponents believe they have their smoking gun. Palin supporters and Palin herself believe this exonerates her completely. From my perspective it is yet another example of how the left in general and democrats in p articular have managed to perfect the art of political warfare by turning political disagreements on policy into criminal investigations. This must not be allowed to stand, as it benefits the left in p articular and destroys the body politic and the political system in general.

1. Bailout. Congress passed a $857 billion financial bailout bill late last week. The senate managed to lard up the legislation out of the House with green giveaways, pork, free bicycles, and a wide array of other goodies. As far as I can tell, the general public still thoroughly opposes the legislation. Interestingly enough, the stock market dropped over 400 points when the Senate passed it Monday and over 300 points when the House passed it Friday. As of this writing this morning, it is down over 400 this morning already. It does not appear that Wall Street likes it a lot either. And now that we have managed to underwrite 5 million underperforming home mortgages the rest of the country is coming to congress, hat in hand for their own personal bailout. California, wants $7 billion. The auto makers are demanding tens of billions. The lesson here is that when we st art bailing out businesses, there will be no end to it, for the bailout becomes a simple vehicle to create dependent people and industries – none of which is good for either the economy or the body politic. There will be some serious political payback for this mess. We will see how bad things get before that payback st arts.

2. Polling. As of the end of the week, national polls were showing a 2-4% lead for Obama. This is down from 5-7% at the beginning of the week. Toward weeks’ end, the drive-by media had st arted pushing the notion that it was all over; Obama was going to win in a landslide; and that all the conservatives need not bother to turn out to vote – a clear attempt at voter suppression. The question is why did Obama open up the lead over the last couple of weeks? The obvious response is the financial problems, Fannie and Freddie meltdown, and congress turning the entire mess into yet another porkfest. The general public did not want the bailout; McCain supported it; and Obama sat by and did nothing, choosing yet again to vote ‘present’. There are those that believe the opening of the polls was also driven by a week long drive-by media push to paint all anti-Obama people as racists, which was an unofficial campaign theme two weeks ago. Yet there are other observers out there that think things are not quite as they seem. For new readers of this column, I have a knee-jerk Pollyanna reflex, and try to find the good in everything, believing the light at the end of the tunnel is not another oncoming train. One of my favorite bloggers is AJ Strata of the Strata Sphere. He is a moderate in the MD / northern VA area who does pretty decent analysis of technical subjects. Strata believes that the polls are not reflecting the true mood out in the country, and suggests that minds are made up and a large number of people on the right are refusing to be polled before the election. He uses as evidence that Obama campaign rallies seem to be working hard to turn out moderate sized crowds while Palin is not working hard at all to turn out huge crowds. He also points to September, where the Republicans finished their best fundraising month in history. If it is all going to Hell, and Obama is a shoe-in, the Republicans would not be raising that kind of money. Almost a month ago, Limbaugh cautioned us all against believing the polls. He said that they would show a small McCain lead after the convention. They did. He said that lead would disappear and Obama would move out to a healthy lead until the final week of the campaign, which it is doing. He said that the polls would st art showing real numbers right before the election, as this was the time where the pollsters would need to defend their credibility and do actual polling rather than attempting to use poll numbers falling out of creatively selected samples to push the election one way or the other. It looks like he was correct, as this is precisely what we are seeing today.

3. Debate. Governor Sarah Palin acquitted herself well in the VP debate Thursday night. Joe Biden (D, DE) showed up with what appeared to be a botoxed forehead and was his wonkish best, attempting to bury Palin in details. Biden managed only a couple gaffes, but wandered into nearly 15 out and out lies including (but not limited to) the notion that the US had chased Hezbollah out of Lebanon. He also denied that Obama promised to meet with Ahmadinejad unconditionally after being elected, even though Obama made that promise at a democrat presidential debate last year with Biden sharing the stage with him. Several observers thought that Biden was barely concealing his absolute rage at Palin directly taking him on, laughing at him, winking and smiling at the crowd during the debate. Finally, there was a lot of interest in the debate, as the Nielson numbers showed that nearly 70 million people tuned in. That number is significant as it is more people than voted for either President Bush or John Kerry (D, MA) in 2004 and is half again as many people watched the first McCain – Obama debate.

4. Editing. It appears that Sarah Palin’s interviews with both Katie Couric and Charlie Gibson were heavily edited to make her into an idiot. The ABC interview was available afterward in its entirety via transcript. Only p artial transcripts were available out of the Couric first interview. The obvious hatchet job done by CBS and Couric during the first interview was the reason that McCain and Palin both insisted on going in front of her the second time – which went much better. Palin did learn her lesson from these interviews, taking control of the debate Thursday night by notifying Gwen Iffil that she was not going to be giving answers in the way the moderator wanted, rather doing them in the way she wanted to give them. Expect Palin to spend a lot of time on the talk shows over the course of the next four weeks.

5. Ohio. Massive voter fraud in Ohio is now underway thanks to a creative use of a voter registration law and requirement for voters to be registered 30 days before an election. The creative interpretation was done by the Ohio Secretary of State, Jennifer Bruner (D) and has opened the door for ACORN and similar leftist groups to scour the homeless shelters for new voters who they are c arting from polling place to polling place to vote again and again and again. The only thing the homeless need to do is to show up with a piece of paper that has an address – any address. They register on the spot and cast their absentee ballot. There is no cross analysis done to ensure they haven’t voted before. This little event has been going on daily with tens of thousands of votes cast so far. It will continue until Election Day. Several things come to mind regarding this story. First, democrats don’t have this election in the bag yet, for if they did, they wouldn’t have to be doing this sort of thing. Second, they need to be very, very careful for if they destroy the integrity of the election system via systemic voter fraud and official collusion with that voter fraud, they st art setting the stage for people so st art settling elections with firearms rather than ballots. They may even trigger the second coming of the Vigilance Committees. Finally, expect this voter fraud to be supported with the army of democrat lawyers – especially in states where it is close.

6. Stevens. Quite a festive couple of days at the trial of Ted Stevens (R, AK) last week. Monday, federal prosecutors sent home to Alaska a witness who was on the witness list without notifying either the court or the defense. The defense immediately demanded a mistrial, accusing the prosecution of not telling them everything about the witness, who was a former Veco employee in charge of the renovation project of Stevens’ home in Girdwood which is at the he art of this case. It appears that the prosecution was afraid that upon cross examination, the witness would contradict their charges against Stevens and got the guy out of town before anyone knew. Such is the problem of trying a case in Washington DC for a crime that took place in Anchorage. The second mistrial demand came Thursday after the FBI admitted they had withheld information from the defense team. If a sitting US Senator (Republican) is supposed to be a paragon of virtue, above all questions of ethics, and pure as the driven snow, is it not also important for the feds who are investigating and prosecuting his supposed crimes to be held to the same standards of conduct? Hiding witnesses and information uncovered during the course of an investigation is hardly the height of legal ethics. For the record, the judge scolded the prosecution for their malfeasance but did not order either a dismissal or a mistrial.

7. Begich. The local fishwrapper ran a story midweek about high energy prices chasing people from the Bush into Anchorage. The response from democrat candidate for the US Senate mark Begich (D) was to get together with the superintendent of the Anchorage School District and co-sign a letter to the state of Alaska asking (or whining) for more money. Mayor Begich is a superb politician who has aligned himself with all the usual leftist supporters such as the unions, greens and anti-development NIMBYs. If you dig a bit deeper and ask why the energy prices are up in the Bush you quickly come to the conclusion that there has been a concerted effort by Begich’s new friends in congress, and his supporters among the greens and the unions that have put them into office, to prohibit the US from exploring, developing and refining its own oil. When we can’t use what we have in the ground, prices go up, doubling over the course of the last two years when democrats have held majorities in both houses of congress. Additionally, Mayor Begich orchestrated a leftist takeover of the Anchorage Assembly last April, turning an 8-3 conservative majority into a 6-5 liberal one. That new majority is busily attempting to kill the Knik Arm Bridge, a proposed bridge across the Knik Arm of Cook Inlet that will open over 70 square miles of undeveloped land west of Anchorage for home, infrastructure and business expansion. If you have a bunch of people moving out of the Bush into Anchorage, they will need a place to live, work and play. The land off the end of the proposed bridge would be a perfect place. If they are limited to only the available land within the Anchorage Bowl, things are going to get very tight and very expensive for us all. Interestingly enough, Begich’s opponent for US Senate is incumbent Ted Stevens (R, AK). Stevens has been pushing for increased oil and gas exploration, development and refining for decades. He also came up with the seed money for the Knik Arm Bridge. Stevens had the foresight to work for problem solutions before the problem became apparent. Begich, the democrat beholden to the greens and the unions can only whine for more money from the state. Interesting contrast between two candidates, that. We will hope it does not go unnoticed next month.

"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