by Alex Gimarc                                Mon., February 16, 2009

Interesting Items 2/16 -

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

In this issue:

1. Stevens
2. Critters
3. Caterpillar
4. Census
5. Begich
6. Drilling
7. Cessna

1. Stevens. The presiding judge in the Ted Stevens corruption trial hit all four federal prosecutors and their supervisors for failing to turn over 33 documents to the defense team. One of our local gadflies, a former federal prosecutor noted that in the last 20 years, there were only two federal prosecutors working in the Public Integrity section of the Dep artment of Justice cited for contempt. That number has just tripled. The documents describe in detail claims of prosecutorial misconduct made by an FBI whistleblower. These claims include but are not limited to descriptions of behaviors by the chief witness against Stevens, Bill Allen, doing with the prosecutors what the jury convicted Stevens of doing. This is going to turn out very poorly for the feds, I predict.

2. Critters. Three animal stories for your consideration this week:

• Saltwater Harvest Mouse – is a purported endangered / threatened species living in the San Francisco bay area. Nancy Pelosi (D, SF) managed to stick over $30 million into the Porkulus Bill for wetlands protection for the mouse. Hugh Hewitt took up the issue a few days later and suggested that this was not a bad idea at all, as the money was gong to be used to purchase private property to set up conservation wetlands. Hewitt then went on to suggest that it is a good idea to spread out the cost of protecting endangered species across the budget of the entire nation rather than inflicting it upon a few unlucky local property owners. I can’t argue with that at all. Unfortunately, this was never debated openly in congress so that we as a nation might have come to a consensus as to whether this was a good thing or not.
• American Pika – the Pika is a small mouse like animal that lives in the high mountains throughout the American West. Recent hot summers have st arted chasing the mouse up the mountains, where it thrives in the cold. The greens appear to be ramping up the change in distribution of the Pika as a vehicle to lock up a huge swath of the mountain west as critical habitat for this “important” newly endangered species. The cause as always is manmade global warming.
• Birds. One week after a number of reports about cold weather birds extending their range south into the Lower 48, AP ran a bogus story about the number of warm weather bird species extending their ranges north over the last several years. The cause – once again – manmade global warming. Our local gardening expert, and Anchorage has a robust and superb gardening community, discussed the article and the blame. He is Jeff Loenfels and pointed out that the change of numbers of local birds here in Anchorage may or may not have anything to do with changes in the local temperatures. But he can certainly point out the increase in numbers of one species; the Bohemian Waxwing from a few hundreds to tens of thousands over the last couple decades and it has nothing to do with global warming – manmade or otherwise. Rather it has everything to do with the local popularity of Mountain Ash here in Anchorage. We have planted a lot of the trees over the period and the birds love the berries, feasting on them in January. Manmade? Absolutely. Global warming ? Not hardly.

3. Caterpillar. Obama pushed hard for passage of the stimulus bill last week and made a number of photo stops nationwide to do so. He put a newly elected Illinois congresscritter on the spot at the corporate headqu arters of Caterpillar, by relaying claims that Caterpillar’s CEO said that he would be able to quickly rehire some of the 20,000 recently laid off employees should the legislation pass. The congresscritter held true to both his principles and to the wishes of his constituents, who were hard over in opposition to the legislation, and refused to support it. Once Obama left, reporters asked about the immediate rehire claim. Caterpillar’s CEO said that their analysis of the stimulus showed that there was not a lot of infrastructure left in the final version and that it would be a long time before they were going to be rehiring anybody. Afterwards, the media went after the CEO for undercutting Obama rather than going after Obama for lying about hiring. We are at the point with this administration and congress where the drive-by media is exclusively a cheerleading operation for the powerful. They will attack and destroy anyone who tells the truth or gets in the way of Obama or the fascist congress – which is just what happens in Venezuela and Argentina. It is yet another reason they want to regulate the internet and reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.

4. Census. The Obama administration moved the conduct of the census from the Commerce Dep artment into the WH, where it will likely be put under Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s control. It appears that they will attempt to implement statistical sampling as a method to count inner city residents. Statistical sampling has long been a Holy Grail solution demanded by the Black Caucus, La Raza and similar groups as a way to address charges of deliberate undercounting of people in the inner cities. Statistical sampling also has the great benefit of being much, much easier to “modify” and artificially manipulate the numbers of democrat voters for the creation of newly inflated and properly gerrymandered congressional districts. It is also unconstitutional, but may not remain so with the proper number of Obama judicial appointees deciding on future lawsuits. Obama’s current nominee for Commerce, Judd Gregg (R, NH), apparently took this as a last straw and withdrew his name from consideration, choosing to remain in the senate. Gregg also ended up voting against the stimulus.

5. Begich. Our new Boy Senator, Mark Begich (D, AK) has been getting a flood of phone calls and e-mails regarding his support for the Generational Theft Act, the Stimulus legislation. The vast majority of those calls and e-mails have been in opposition. His staff does not respond to the negative messages or phone calls – and it only took him a mere month to st art ignoring the citizens of Alaska. He did call into a couple of the local talk shows and fielded a number of questions. One caller to a local show last week claimed that he had called Begich’s office in DC and demanded that Begich read the legislation before he voted for it. He was informed by the staffer that Begich had read the changes in the legislation and that he supported it.

6. Drilling. Newly installed Interior Secretary Ken Salazar celebrated his new position by putting 180-day hold on all new federal offshore oil and natural gas leases. He made clucking noises about not wanting to rush into anything that would do irreversible damage to the environment. He also cancelled 77 natural gas exploration leases in Utah, citing environmental concerns. Up here in Alaska, the lease sales will impact oil and natural gas exploration in Cook Inlet, Bristol Bay, the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. It will impact literally tens of thousands of new, high paying jobs here in Alaska. Nationwide, the impact has been estimated at well over a million new jobs. And the price of gasoline is st arting to creep up once again. What does 180 days give you? It allows the greens and their supporting lawsuit writers another six months to prepare their obstructionist claims, lawsuits and charges and submit them to a friendly federal bureaucracy. For his p art, our Boy Senator, Mark Begich (D, AK) is happy because Salazar has promised to hold a series of hearings on the oil and natural gas leases nationwide with one of the hearings up here. Mark is happy to lick the hand of our new Federal masters rather than defend the needs, interests and jobs of the people who put him in office.

7. Cessna. The Cessna Aircraft Corporation st arted fighting back against the class warfare assault on one of its product lines – business jets. The attack is reminiscent of the democrat’s last assault on businessmen – the luxury tax that was enacted in 1990. To recap, the luxury tax was sold to the general public on a straight class warfare argument. It ended up hurting the American yacht manufacturers, support industries, and unionized Northeast US American employees that built the products. It was repealed two years afterwards. The class warfare assault on business aviation and in turn, Cessna, which manufacturers a large number of the jets, mirrors that mistake. This time, the manufacturer is fighting back, first with an article in the WSJ from last Wednesday, and with extensive coverage of the problem by Limbaugh – which is another reason that the democrats want to reinstate the Fairness Doctrine. There is a reason for business aviation. It fills a defensible business need, and the corporate people who decide they need and need to use business aviation are neither beholden nor answerable to the blithering idiots currently in charge of congress. Finally, if commercial aviation were such a great thing, would not congresscritters, administration executives and the President himself use it instead of business aviation? Do as I say. Do not do as I do. Proper response from businessmen to congress and the administration is to tell them to go straight to Hell.

More later –

           - AG

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen."
- Samuel Adams, speech at the Philadelphia State House, August 1, 1776.