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by Alex Gimarc Mon., December 29, 2008 Interesting Items 12/29 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Correction 1. Correction. Got some feedback last week regarding my paragraph on native suicides in Bush Alaska. The correspondent has been studying the issue for decades and points out that high suicide rates among the Eskimo is nothing new. And there is no issue with modernization, as it has been going on for over 40 years. What is going on is the devaluing of the native male via the Nanny State, hiring practices that hire females first, and an increase in anti-white sentiment in the Bush. They are being transformed into wards of the state, not unlike the inner city poor. The correspondent then ends with the observation that the problem in the Bush is the abandonment of classical western cultural values by those that implement and practice the politically correct Nanny State. Thank you for the additional information and correction. It appears I was sucked in by one of the ADN's periodic ‘Everything’s awful in the Bush and it’s all your fault’ articles. 2. Stevens. A senior FBI agent who worked with the FBI and the Justice Dep artment during the Stevens investigation and trial filed a complaint with the federal court overseeing the trial and investigation alleging significant malfeasance among investigators and prosecutors handling the case. Among the complaints were allegations that the investigators had gotten too close to the prosecution’s main witness, Bill Allen, who famously said he would say and do anything to protect his family from prosecution. The whistleblower also accused at least two investigators of intentionally violating standing Justice Dep artment policies during the investigation and trial. The whistleblower said that investigators had received multiple items of value from “sources cooperating in the investigation” – which was essentially what Senator Stevens was convicted of doing and not reporting. The report, which was handed to the presiding Judge Sullivan on December 11, tends to support Stevens defense allegations of investigative and prosecutorial misconduct in the trial. The prosecution tried to keep the report secret, but was overruled by the judge. The Court and the Justice Dep artment will investigate this mess. Stevens’ lawyers are demanding that the feds immediately drop all charges, and that the conviction be thrown out, or at least a mistrial ordered and new trial scheduled. This poses an interesting problem for the feds, as all of their recent successful prosecutions of sitting legislators here in Alaska have relied to some extent on Bill Allen shilling for them. Should their malfeasance in the investigation and prosecution of Ted Stevens be proven, it will put all those other plea bargains and convictions at risk. This is p articularly troubling, as it demonstrates that the Public Integrity Section of the Justice Dep artment is corrupt, and has knowingly prosecuted an innocent man. It also puts newly elected US Senator Mark Begich (D, AK) in something of a difficult position, as his single issue during his campaign was Stevens’ legal troubles, and the single reason he bested Stevens in November was due to the conviction, which taints his victory. There is reportedly at least one state legislator here in Alaska looking into the possibility that if someone is wrongly indicted and convicted and loses an election because of it, the state will order a special election afterwards. I don’t think that will fly very far, but it is pleasant to contemplate and a lot of fun to watch. This makes the democrats look really, really bad up here, having stolen a US Senate seat via wrongful prosecution. And if they can do it to the most powerful sitting Republican in the Senate, they can do it to anyone. ADN, Sun. 3. Global Warming. This week’s global warming story comes out of US Global Warming meeting in Poland. P articipants in this scare were Canadian Native leaders who claimed that caribou numbers were dropping due to the effects of manmade global warming. Perhaps they should have looked westward across the border into Alaska, where caribou numbers have more than tripled over the last three decades on the Alaskan North Slope. The reason for that massive increase in caribou numbers is the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. Apparently there is not enough oil and natural gas exploration on the Canadian North Slope on the traditional native grounds. ADN, Thurs. 4. Silicon Valley. One of the new sources of democrat cash has been the successful entrepreneurs and new billionaires out of Silicon Valley. A WSJ article last Monday describes how new regulations and government reporting requirements are strangling the Golden Goose, making it extremely difficult for new companies to st art up. As usual, government intrusion in the marketplace tends to limit innovation, move effort, money and resources from innovation and competition to satisfy government paperwork, reporting and compliance requirements. In the effort to prevent yet another Enron, congress passed Sarbanes – Oxley, which loaded an enormous batch of reporting, analysis, auditing and other paperwork onto publicly traded businesses. It takes a lot of time and energy to properly complete all those requirements. Result? In 2006, there were only six new Silicon Valley companies going public (IPO, Initial Public Offering). Compare this with 1999 with 269; 1996 with 272; and 1986 with 365. We are not running out of entrepreneurship or innovation. We are burying them in paper. LGF, Tues. 5. Intelligence. Ed Morrissey in Hot Air Friday wrote about an improved intelligence gathering effort in the tribal areas of eastern Afghanistan. It seems the CIA has figured out what to offer tribal chieftains to encourage their support and to improve intelligence gathering activities. The vehicle for this increased support? The little blue pill; Viva Viagra! 6. Holdren. Obama nominated Harvard Professor John Holdren as his science advisor last week. Holdren is an acolyte of Limits to Growth guru Paul Erlich, and has co-authored at least two books with him. Erlich was famous in past decades for running around the nation preaching doom and gloom and blaming it all on the number of human beings trashing the planet and using up all the resources. He lost a number of bets predicting future scarcity and prices of various natural resources with Julian Simon, and was thoroughly discredited. Unfortunately, Holdren is completely on board with Erlich’s views and will bring them into the Executive Branch with him. Additionally, Holdren is one of the leading proponents of politicizing science, something we are sadly seeing with the global warming garbage, where those researchers that are producing results in support of manmade global warming keep getting federal grant money and those that don’t, don’t. Having a guy in charge of the federally funded science apparatus who believes that there are too many people, that economic growth is unsustainable, and that the world is out of resources is one of the best ways I know of to completely destroy that apparatus – which may not be all that bad of an outcome after all. But there will be a lot of wasted money while this thing dies. Hot Air, Weds. 7. Seattle. There are some very real costs to be paid when a government chooses to worship at the altar of the environmental gods (these are lesser gods). The latest example comes out of Seattle, which got slammed with a pretty large snow storm last week. In most northern cities, the municipal response is to plow the roads down to the road surface, and then distribute some combination of salts, sand and gravel in and near intersections so that vehicles in motion don’t do the ballistic routine on the ice and keep on going in a straight line when they are supposed to turn or stop. Seattle has chosen another path, that of only plowing down to the point where the road surface is hard packed snow (white – or not so white ice) so the roads are passable via four wheel drive vehicles or those with chains. Seattle doesn’t get enough snow every year for local drivers to have to switch over to studded snow tires. The reason for this decision is that they didn’t want to befoul the ocean water surrounding Seattle with dirty, salty runoff when the snow melts. Imagine that: the City Fathers would rather have drivers plowing into one another at all speeds on ice streets than discharge dirty salty water into dirty salty water. Your tax dollars at work and your insurance payments on the way up. 8. Lott. Professor John Lott, author of “More Guns, Less Crime” published in 2000 gave some insights into his interactions with Barack Obama last week in an interview on Dennis Prager’s radio show. Lott and Obama were at the University of Chicago as Professors for a while and their paths crossed several times. Lott said that Obama told him that he did not believe that people had the right to own guns of any kind. And Lott observed that Obama tends to greatly dislike anyone who he disagrees with, up to and including refusing to even discuss differences in opinion. Obama simply turned and walked away after Loot offered to discuss their different gun control views. Interesting observations, as it will be difficult for Obama to hide these things for an entire four years while in office. Add to this his complete lack of a sense of humor, and he will be a lot of fun to watch over the years. We have already seen it during his vacation in Hawaii over the last week or so. More later – - AG Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Mon., December 22, 2008 Interesting Items 12/22 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Suicides 1. Suicides. Something very sad is happening in Bush Alaska. The suicide rate, p articularly among young adults is about double that of the national average. The Anchorage Daily News report Friday was prompted by a rash of six suicides among young adults across the Seward Peninsula in far western Alaska since the first of the month. Bush Alaska today has much the same problem as rural America had during the first half of the Twentieth Century – that is: How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen the big city? The twist for Bush Alaska is that it is not all that easy to leave, and there is incredible tribal pressure to stay, learn and practice the old native ways, and keep it going from now to eternity. An appreciable percentage of the young are deciding that this is not what they want to do, that they want something better, something more, something different, and are opting for that something different in some very unfortunate ways. We may be approaching the point in time where old native ways are becoming incompatible with surviving and prevailing in the Twenty First century. We may be approaching the point in time where those in the Bush will have to choose between the old ways and joining the rest of their neighbors in Twenty First century Alaska. Otherwise, they will lose their young. And this is not a choice anyone but those out in the Bush can make. We will pray that they choose wisely. 2. Shell. In another bit of good economic news for Alaska, Shell Oil announced that it had cancelled its exploration program in the Beaufort Sea, north of the Alaskan North Slope for 2009 so that it can fight anti-drilling lawsuits by the greens and NIMBY native subsistence hunters and whalers. The exploration program was going to inject around three billion dollars and employ nearly a thousand Alaskans. The fleet was ready to go last year, when the lawsuits hit the Ninth Circus and the exploration program was halted via court order. Lat month, the Ninth Circus decided that the Minerals Management Service (MMS) did not properly consider exploration impact on whaling, subsistence and local wildlife and sent the entire mess back to the MMS to do again. Shell has appealed to the entire Ninth Circus and awaits their decision. We will hope that they choose to do something other than second guess the paperwork this time around. Note that there is extensive offshore oil production already in place north of Deadhorse and the Prudhoe Bay oil fields. There is an artificial island named Endicott that has been producing for over a decade. There is another artificial island named Northstar that is a bit newer and is producing. The Beaufort Sea is pretty shallow, so the technique has been to truck gravel into the ocean and build artificial islands and causeways to them. This is really nothing new and not a p articularly big deal; and we have been doing it up here for decades. 3. Caroline. Who says that there is no royalty here in America? It appears that the front runner for nomination to the soon-to-be vacated Hillary Clinton senate seat from NY is Caroline Kennedy Schlossberg, who has recently dropped “Schlossberg” from her name (remindful of Hillary’s “Rodham” appearing and disappearing from her name over the years). She is the daughter of JFK and Jacqueline Kennedy and has never run for anything in her life. She doesn’t vote in local or national elections all that often either. She climbed aboard the Obama bandwagon early in the primary season and it appears that he supports her appointment. Local politicians in NY are not p articularly impressed and are letting the governor know of their displeasure. Whatever happens, the appointee will have to run for election in 2010, likely carrying the burden of defending congressional malfeasance during the ongoing recession / depression over the next couple of years. Still, she is probably a better choice than, say, Al Franken. 4. McClatchy. McClatchy is a corporation that owns a number of highly p artisan, highly leftist newspapers nationwide. Up here in Anchorage, they own the Anchorage Daily News, which has chosen sides with the democrats, unions and greens in everything significant over the last decade. McClatchy also tries to identify young, photogenic, conservatives and destroy them before they can be elected to higher office. The marketplace is having a say about McClatchy and other newspapers that have chosen sides in the political wars. Stock price for McClatchy in early 2005 was around $74/share. Stock price this morning was under a dollar, a loss of over $73/share in less than three years. Anyone out there think that they are being rewarded for their sterling journalism? Perhaps they are being rewarded for choosing sides. 5. Salazar. Barack Hussein Obama asked Ken Salazar, the senior US senator from Colorado to be his Secretary of the Interior. Salazar is being presented as a moderate, who will not continue the green effort to lock up all federal lands and protect them from all human activity. Several environmental groups are screaming bloody murder in opposition, while entertaining, is not p articularly convincing. Salazar has been a run of the mill leftist during his short time in congress, and recently opposed oil shale development in Colorado. It is likely that his appointment will be simply a nice, moderate face to put on the sharp leftward turn at Interior over the next few years. Salazar does want to return to Colorado and run for governor, so it does behoove him to behave himself and not do things that are too environmentally onerous while Secretary. Could it be worse? Probably. How much worse? Not much. 6. Otters. The US Fish & Wildlife Service is proposing establishment of nearly 6,000 square miles of protected habitat for sea otters off the western Alaskan coastline. Otter populations have dropped from an estimate of around 100,000 in the 1970s to around 40,000 today. The greens sued to get them listed as endangered three years ago and are on to the next step in the long process, that of locking up the land so that no human activity is possible. This action once again demonstrates the ongoing fallacy of the Endangered Species Act – that of assuming the numbers of all animals are static, and do not respond to changes in weather, changes in patterns of ocean currents or winds. Something happened in the North Pacific over the course of the last decade. Large numbers of aquatic mammals left western Alaska – where there is hardly any human population, and moved east. Most notable was the stellar sea lions, formerly favorite food of killer whales in western Alaska. The thinking is that something in the North Pacific changed, and the food animals the larger mammals depend upon moved east. The remaining killer whales are following the larger mammals east, but they are also hanging around in western Alaska and cleaning out the remaining otters. So what do we do as Americans when the weather changes; when the ocean currents change; when the winds change; and plant, animals and fungus that used to inhabit a location in numbers change? Do we declare an emergency, steal property from our neighbors without any compensation, and lock up tens of thousands of square miles of land and sea from all future development, until things change back? Or should we learn how things are changing, why they are changing and go with the flow? It is the height of hubris to believe that mankind is responsible for all (any?) changes in plant and animal populations, yet this is what we base public policy upon. And we execute t through the courts rather than via the elected branches of government. The Endangered Species Act as currently employed may be the single worst piece of legislation since the Sixteenth Amendment. It needs to be repealed, restructured, and revised to support sound management of the wildlife, property rights and just compensation, rather than a brute force, one size fits all, response to barely understood changes in the natural world. 7. Hottest Year! McClatchy ran yet another breathless article midweek claiming that NASA had described 2008 as the ninth warmest year on record. Tell that to the folks in Montana that last week endured -35 degrees F; those in Minneapolis – St. Paul who have endured below zero temperatures for over a week; those that shoveled snow in Las Vegas; shoveled snow in Houston; and endured the coldest summer on record here in Anchorage Note that all of the current winter weather is coming before things really get cranked up (or down) in January and February, the historical coldest months of the year. The glowarmers are well on their way to become laughing stocks. More later – - AG Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Mon., December 15, 2008 Interesting Items 12/15 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Alaska Standard 1. Alaska Standard. I have recently become involved with a new writing project called the Alaska Standard. This is a project that will attempt to provide an alternative to the local fishwrapper, the Incredibly Shrinking Newspaper locally known as the Anchorage Daily News. The site is Alaska-centric, reporting and commenting on things that don’t usually show up in our McClatchy newspaper. There are over 25 conservatives involved. We have even picked up a fair number of leftist trolls. If you are interested in Alaskan issues and commentary, please bookmark the site, visit it early and often, and thank you for your interest: http://thealaskastandard.com/ 2. Interior. The Dep artment of the Interior announced a series of last minute regulations intended to shield the State of Alaska from predatory lawsuits by environmentalists. The game up here by the greens has been to get arctic species listed as endangered – whether they are or not – under the specious grounds that global warming will destroy their habitat 50 years in the future and kill them all off. Preferably these endangered species live in places where there is oil, natural gas, or minerals to be mined. They successfully got the polar bear listed as endangered. They have filed a series of lawsuits in an attempt to get walrus listed as endangered. In the real world, the actual numbers of both animals are increasing, and have been for years. The next effort by the greens will be to use the listing as a vehicle to obstruct, delay, harass, and shut down all oil, natural gas, coal, and mining on and next to the Alaskan coastline. Interior’s new rules attempt to keep that from happening. Expect them to be quickly rolled back by the new Obama green machine staring January 20. All in all, it was a nice try to make up for the stunningly gutless capitulation to the greens by Kempthorne’s Interior Dep artment in listing the polar bear as endangered based on loss of sea ice in 50 years. 3. Blago. Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich was arrested and indicted on charges of selling the appointment to Barack Obama’s seat in the US Senate. The going rate was apparently around a million dollars. The FBI had been investigating him for some time and had wiretapped his phone(s). The arrests were done before any deal was consummated because the Chicago Tribune refused to sit on the story any longer. Blago’s arrest is yet another reminder of the cesspool of personal and political corruption that the Daley Machine in Chicago runs and that Obama and his hatchet man Rahm Emanuel slithered out of. Obama and Emanuel immediately denied any knowledge of the scheme, though both were known to be working with Blago’s office on a list of acceptable nominees. Emanuel immediately stopped talking to the media, acting like a guy who had been told by his lawyer to say nothing. By weeks’ end, there were reports that Emanuel had been on a substantial number of the Blago wiretaps. I have not yet seen confirmation of that story. The interesting p art of Emanuel getting all wrapped up in this is that he is Obama’s brain, his hatchet man, the guy charged with getting the job done for Obama. If Emanuel goes away – for whatever reason – Obama becomes less capable of carrying out his plans to re-FDR the nation. Democrats have reacted uncharacteristically on this one, as they immediately st arted calling for Blago’s resignation. The chattering classes went old Soviet Union and st arted describing his actions as those of a man who is insane, for an insane man can be removed from office without all the normal legalities like an impeachment, trial and conviction. By weeks’ end, the Illinois legislature st arted talking about impeachment. It appears this indictment was based on information from Tony Rezko, who was engaged in a number of very friendly real estate deals with Obama. There will be another couple of shoes to drop on this one. Stay tuned. 4. Trade Deficit. Ed Morrissey in Hot Air Saturday discussed the increasing trade deficit in October. Surprisingly, the deficit increased by 7%, half of which was oil imports. The surprise was that there was an increase in a time of economic slowdown. The Obamaoids and congressional democrats are planning on an over $1 trillion economic stimulus package early next year. The best economic stimulus package would simply be to increase oil and natural gas exploration and production here in the US. This would increase the number of jobs in the time of economic slowdown; damage the economies of our enemies in Iran, Venezuela, Russia and elsewhere; and increase revenues into the treasury. Can we expect this sort of thing from the Obamaoid green machine? Not hardly likely. But it does provide the Republicans with a real opportunity to fight the impending expansion of environmental rules, federal spending, and the deficit. Will they be sm art enough to take advantage of that opportunity? We will hope so. 5. UN IPCC. The pseudo-scientific foundation of manmade global warming is washing away just when the greens are poised to take control of everything in Washington DC. In a series of events reported mostly by AJ Strata of the Strata Sphere, the UN IPCC, the political body of scientists which has been charging forward with reports and analyses blaming recent warming trends on manmade production of carbon dioxide, has st arted walking away from their past conclusions. In a meeting in Poland last week, they fought a significant split in consensus – meaning they are halting st arting to return to doing actual science rather than doing politics. UN IPCC scientists announced in Washington DC last week that the variation in global temperatures was better tied to a 2-3 decades long variation in Pacific Ocean temperatures called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation which shifted form a warming phase to a cooling phase in 2005. They predict cooler temperatures for the next three decades. Note that all this is done independent of the solar astronomers who are predicting an extended period of quiet solar activity, which will also move global temperatures downward. The global cooling trend is pronounced. It is measurable. It has a number of explanations. And is it fast becoming inarguable – which is why the greens and their toadies in the drive-by media and among democrats have shifted their description from manmade global warming to climate change. Pretty nifty, as the climate always changes. We will hope that things get cold enough, quickly enough so that congress and the Obamaoids cannot do irrevocably stupid on a policy basis. 6. Browner. Michelle Malkin Friday wrote about Obama’s selection of disgraced former Clinton EPA head as his new Energy Czar. Browner was an absolute disaster as the head of the EPA, and left under a cloud of scandal (what Clintonoid didn’t?), as she presided over the destruction of EPA computer files her last few days in office in violation of a court order to retain those files. She claimed she didn’t know about a court injunction issued the same day she ordered an underling to wipe her drives. At the time, Landmark Legal Foundation was pressing the court to order Browner to release all information about contact between her office and environmental groups that may have unduly influenced a wave of last-minute EPA regulatory actions. Browner claimed that her work computer did not have any agency-related materials, but was instead filled with computer games. Browner has worked closely with the environmental community in the past. There is no reason to think she won’t do the same thing in the future as Energy Czar. 7. McDonalds. Ed Morrissey in Hot Air Friday wrote that the AFL-CIO and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) are going after McDonalds because the corporation came out against the Card Check legislation slithering its way through congress. Card Check will remove the ability of people to cast secret ballots on whether or not they choose to join a union. It is p art of the payoff by the democrats for the hundreds of millions of dollars that the unions spent electing democrats over the last election cycle. The vast majority of McDonalds franchise owners are small businessmen that rely on p art time workers, new entries into the workplace, and college students. Union backed increases in the minimum wage, designed to assist the unions in jacking up their next contracts, contributed to a significant increase in teenage unemployment over the last couple years. Card Check will do worse, barring new workers from entering the marketplace. McDonalds is to be commended for their action. Perhaps it is time to buy a Happy Meal. More later – - AG Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Mon., December 8, 2008 Interesting Items 12/08 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Groveling 1. Groveling. The CEOs of the Big Three auto manufacturers went back to Washington DC, hat in hand, groveling for taxpayer dollars last week. They were asking for $38 billion in guaranteed loans and will probably end up getting around $15 billion. The GM CEO drove the distance in a hybrid, just to set the stage nicely. Questions from the preening, pontificating congressional democrats on the various committees were drearily predictable, as were their demands for the auto manufacturers to st art building smaller, more environmentally friendly vehicles. If they get their way – and they probably will - the American-made SUV is on its way out, soon to be replaced by the wheeled rat-trap that will get 45 miles per gallon and disintegrate when you slam the door too hard. The loan guarantee will only get the auto manufacturers through until March, when they will be back begging for more money. There are those of us that believe that this is all about protecting the UAW, who pumped tens (hundreds?) of millions of dollars into campaigns of various democrats this past election cycle from facing bankruptcy of the companies they are killing. Congress has no business berating the auto manufacturers, as can barely mange its own business. They have neither the expertise nor the inclination to run any business for any period of time. They have set the stage for business failures for these companies via perverse energy policy, an endless flow of new safety regulations, CAFÉ standards, environmental rules, and rules for dealing with unions. This is what happens when the government gets involved in business. And we will see lots more of this sort of thing as they continue to intrude in the years to come. Best solution for the Big Three? Chapter 11. Sooner rather than later. 2. Pebble. Northern Dynasty released early estimates of the total value of metals thought to be recoverable from the proposed Pebble mine in the Bristol Bay region of Alaska. Under current prices for metals, they expect to recover nearly $230 billion, which is within an order of magnitude the value of all oil recovered from the Prudhoe Bay oil fields over the last 35 years. Pebble is clearly a very big deal – and a very important deal for Bush Alaska, which is why the NIMBYs, the greens and the commercial fishermen in the area are doing everything possible to kill it. We also have the interesting prospect of our newly elected Boy Senator, Mark Begich (D, AK) who is tied to the hip with the greens and ran around the state wearing a No Pebble campaign button. What will he do regarding bringing this sort of multi-billion dollar industry into operation in one of the poorest p arts of the state? ADN, Fri. 3. Walrus. Another week, yet another environmentalist lawsuit demanding yet another Arctic region mammal to be listed as endangered. The Center for Biological Diversity Thursday announced that they were going to be suing the US Fish & Wildlife Service to list the walrus as endangered because of the loss of sea ice due to global warming. The petition was originally filed in February, noting that the previous couple of years had sea ice minimums. It did not mention that this year had sea ice back to historic levels, undercutting their argument completely. Note that this attempt to list the walrus is based entirely on predicted climatic disaster some 50 years into the future, in a time when we cannot reliably predict the weather a couple days into the future. It completely ignores the fact that there have been interglacial periods over the last couple million of years that were much warmer then today, when the walrus did just fine. I do not expect the greens in the US Fish & Wildlife Service to fight this all that hard, meaning it will be up to the State of Alaska to belly up to the bar and fight it. This listing is targeted in opposition to the recent federal lease sales in the Chukchi Sea for oil and gas exploration. ADN, Thurs. 4. Plaxico. The New York Giants had a wide receiver named Plaxico Burress. He was something of a problem child off the field, and a superb football player on it, which is why he was tolerated for as many years as he was. He brought a handgun into NYC from his home in NJ a couple weeks ago and shot himself in the leg at a bar. He was indicted on two felony possession charges for possession of an unlicensed handgun with no carry permit and is expected to be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Normally, these young millionaires get very good attorneys and fight the predictable fight in the predictable manner. Perhaps Burress will consider another road in his defense, that of overturning NYC’s Sullivan Laws that all but prohibit firearms possession and carry of owned firearms. In light of the Heller decision that overturned Washington DC’s ban on private firearms possession, perhaps the time has come to go after the Sullivan laws in NYC on second amendment grounds. While I don’t expect it to happen in this case, it would certainly be an interesting approach. 5. Paying the Price. Last Sunday, the local fishwrapper, the Anchorage Daily News ran an article Sunday asking if Alaska would pay the price for removing Ted Stevens from office. It was couched in terms of the pork that Stevens brought into the state, and was something that should have been discussed publicly in the front pages of the paper in the months leading up to the election rather than a month afterwards. The article went on to discuss the brave new world under a democrat administration where money for all manner of environmental things would increase. No mention about the flip side of a democrat administration where businesses will be buried under the crushing weight of regulations, environmental restrictions, loss of property rights, forced unionization, and higher taxes. It reminds me of the great old line from the Rainmakers song, Government Cheese: “They’ll turn us all into beggars ‘cause they’re easier to please. They’re feeding out people that Government Cheese.” Politicians in Bush Alaska were quoted in the story. They said that in the Bush, Stevens was a God, given his strong support for things in the Bush for over 40 years, but that people out there are very pragmatic, and wondered how much longer Stevens at age 84 would be around. So they supported Mark Begich, who will end up being an ineffectual, one-term senator simply based on what he will have to vote in favor of over the next couple of years. The greens are coming for this state, and he will not be able or willing to shut them down. They will end up burying him. 6. Bears. I have been writing about the over abundance of bears in SouthCentral Alaska for a number of years, and have warned that if the Alaska Dep artment of Fish & Game (ADF&G) refuses to control the wildlife, the citizens of the state will do it for them. ADF&G believes that there are around 200-300 brown bears on the Kenai Peninsula, which will allow only around 20 to be killed per year. This year, there were over 40 bears killed, causing ADF&G biologists no small amount of concern, as they believe the brown bears – which are thick as flies in SouthCentral Alaska – and have been increasingly in close proximity to humans - are somehow endangered. The fact of the matter is that they are completely clueless about the actual number of bears in Alaska and have decided that their job is actually to manage the people rather than the wildlife. Should they persist in this worldview, there are going to be many, many more dead bears in Alaska. Which is as it should be. ADN, Thurs. More later – - AG Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Mon., December 1, 2008 Interesting Items 12/01 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Economy 1. Economy. Last week, the serial bailouts of failing financial institutions ratcheted up yet another notch, with the total of loan guarantees now over $8 trillion. Folks, there isn’t that much money available to the feds, and should they print it, we are set up for a period of hyperinflation not seen since the end of Jimmy C arter’s infestation of the WH in 1980. To date, there has been nothing done to work the underlying problems associated with the economic crash. The Community Investment Act still exists and is still being used by ACORN to give mortgages to people that cannot pay them back. Sarbanes-Oxley is still in place, complete with the ridiculous mark to market accounting rules that has triggered the serial failures of Wall Street, investment, bank and most recently insurance firms. Capitol gains and corporate income taxes remain high, and are expected to increase in the very near future, hardly the recipe for financial improvement. This problem is government caused. If the government simply got out of the way, it would right itself in short order, which is why the Obamaoids are not talking about any of the above. In the words of Rahm Emanuel, why waste a serious crisis, as it is a vehicle to shove through new policies that the public would otherwise never tolerate. 2. Rock Creek. The Rock Creek mine near Nome suspended its operations last week, putting 150 locals out of work. The mine had been fighting the greens for years, and had unsuccessfully been able to navigate the death of 1,000 cuts imposed by environmental regulators at the state and federal levels. They got precious little help from the local government at Nome. This is yet another example of the costs imposed by environmental rules and regulations and the job killing nature of both. It is getting so that small commercial resource based operations simply do not have the funds available to support the regulatory burden. The mine closing also represents an opportunity for the Palin administration to step up and get the state into the position where it supports environmentally responsible businesses. 3. FOCA. One of the crown jewels of the pro-aborts is the so-called Freedom of Choice Act (Orwell would have been proud of this name), which nationalizes every single anti-abortion rule, regulation and law nationwide. The legislation would eliminate the ability of physicians to opt out of performing abortions based on religious grounds. The Catholic Church operates a number of medical facilities nationwide and is threatening to shut them all down rather than having their doctors perform medical procedures that they are religiously inclined not to perform. Now, I think that this law can be opposed using the very foundation that the pro-aborts have used to construct their little house of cards – that of the right of privacy. For, if the government must respect our rights of privacy as the foundation of gay rights and abortion, that right of privacy must also kick in when we make the choice not to do something. If the courts find one way for the pro-death and gay rights crowd, and another way for the pro-life and traditional marriage people, they undermine all their unconstitutional social engineering. FOCA? Bring it on. 4. Franken. It appears that Al Franken and his democrat election thieves have been unsuccessful in stealing a US Senate seat in Minnesota. With the final vote tallies complete, Franken sits about 282 votes less than Norm Coleman. Franken is expected to st art working his way through rejected absentee ballots, getting court permission to hunt down individuals, bring them before the court, and have them testify about mistakes made in the ballots. He and Harry Reid (D, NV) also have a nuclear option, where they can get Franken seated as the elected representative based on allegations of electoral misconduct by Minnesota election officials. Don’t put it past the new democrat majority in the senate to pull this stunt, as it has been done before by democrats in the House. Of course, if Franken and Reid do this, Franken will not be welcome in Minnesota. 5. Mumbai. Members of the Religion of Perpetual Outrage (Islam) staged yet another one of their little outreach efforts last week in Mumbai, India. At least 10 terrorists, all well trained and armed with light automatic weapons and hand grenades shot up a train station, killed the top cops at the initial engagement, and took control of two luxury hotels that catered to westerners. They spent the next three days torturing and killing over 300 people, with the western and Israeli guests getting the worst of the action. As of this writing, there are thought to be at least five of the little vermin still on the loose. The terrorists posed as Malaysian students and were all nice, young, photogenic Muslim men. After the initial engagement at the station, local cops and military quit shooting back for an extended period. The hotels apparently did not have emergency plans in place nor did they have armed guards. The entire affair was exacerbated by India’s draconian gun control laws, which turns the local citizenry into sitting ducks when these vermin show up. They are thought to have been trained in Pakistan by the ISI, which is p art of the Pakistani government that has been infiltrated and is very friendly to Islamists. As of this writing, passions for a military strike into Pakistan are building in India. We will hope they can keep the lid on. Remember this event over the next few years when the democrats in congress st art proposing new taxes on ammunition, new controls on gun shows, new limits on gun ownership and transportability, or repeal of concealed carry laws between the many states. Expect much more information out as the enormity of this barbaric event becomes widely known. And never, ever forget that this is what we are fighting. If it can happen in Mumbai, it can also happen in any American city or state with strong gun control laws in place. 6. Obama. Now for all you black helicopter fans (note to all: military helicopters are mostly black / dark green, as that is the color of the anti-infrared paint), the latest and greatest on the Obama birth certificate caper. Last summer, several Hillary supporters filed lawsuits demanding Obama produce his birth certificate on the grounds that he was born in Kenya and not a US citizen. Obama fed into this a bit by having his records sealed in Hawaii in October. AJ Strata of the Strata Sphere investigated in September and is convinced that it is all hooey. The lead lawsuit by Phil Berg was dismissed out of hand in Philadelphia. However, last week SCOTUS Justice Souter issued a writ of certiorari ordering Obama to produce the actual birth certificate by December 1. The goal of the Hillary supporters is to get Obama designated as ineligible to be president and remove him before the Electors meet in the various state capitols on Dec 15. I don’t know why Souter stepped in on all of this at this time. Whatever happens, it will be fun to watch, the perceived coverup will be moderately damaging to Obama himself, and it will give the tinfoil hat crowd something to do for the next four years. 7. Cystic Fibrosis. I originally thought this one was yet another California story. Fortunately, it comes out of Carelton University in Ottawa, where the local student association voted to drop a Cystic Fibrosis charity out of the list of recipients of an annual university fundraiser. The grounds for this decision was that in the opinion of the young skulls full of mush the disease primarily hits white men and is therefore not sufficiently inclusive for them to support a charity any more. No word yet on whether they have also dropped the sickle cell anemia or HIV / AIDS charities. Hot Air, Weds. 8. Mormons. The State of California declared religious war against the Mormon Church last week for having the temerity to support traditional marriage. The California Fair Political Practices Commission took up a single complaint by a gay rights group calling itself Californians Against Hate accusing the church of failing to report the value of work it did to support Proposition 8. California is quickly becoming a politically correct Star Chamber not unlike the Canadian Human Rights Tribunals which have become vehicles for hate groups like Muslims and gay rights fascists to shut up all opposition. We will see how far California travels down this slippery slope. We will also see how far the gay rights narcissists go in their attempt to bully, threaten, coerce, and beat up all that oppose their self-serving view of the perfect world. As I have said before, the laws of physics also apply to the political world, and for every action, there will be an equal and opposite reaction. If the gay rights crowd, backed by the full power of the bureaucracy of the State of California and their cheerleaders in the democrat p arty, decide to go after an entire church for a political position, there will be a significant and unpleasant reaction. And it will be most well deserved. The Mormons are not going to take this sitting down and are now ramping up to fight the assault. I ran across one blog site called Sue California for violating the civil rights of Californians that did not support gay marriages. The lawyers are going to make a gosh-awful lot of money off this one. Here’s the URL: http://suecalifornia.blogspot.com/ AP, Mon. More later – - AG "If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
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