by Alex Gimarc                                Mon., September 7, 2009

Interesting Items 9/07 -

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

In this issue:

1. Honduras
2. Otters
3. Blood for Oil
4. Kiddies
5. Home Invasion
6. Biting

1. Honduras. The Obama administration, fresh from cancelling $30 million in aid to the constitutional republic, is now threatening to not recognize the victor of November’s presidential election in Honduras unless Chavezista wannabee Zelaya is reinstalled as El Presidente. The Obama administration has perfected the art of alienating our friends, nations like Great Britain, Honduras, Israel, Columbia, and the revolution in Iran while sidling up to every dictator in the world; nations like Cuba, Venezuela and the Mullahs in Iran. Honduran President Zelaya was kicked out of Honduras when he brought in ballots printed in Venezuela in an effort to hold an illegal referendum that would have led to a rewrite of the national constitution allowing him to remain in office past the end of his term. That illegal election never happened, though election computers were discovered after Zelaya left the country in a building next to the presidential palace with certified results showing the referendum winning by a large margin. The acting president, who is also a member of Zelaya’s governing p arty offered to step down last week as long as Zelaya did not try to take office upon his return. Zelaya and his handlers refused that offer. The Hondurans are fighting for their freedom, liberty and the continuance of their constitutional government. They are fighting against the tyranny of Hugo Chavez and Chavezista wannabees in other nations of Central and South America. And for the first time in many a year, the United States is not on the side of liberty, freedom or the legal functioning of a constitutional government. Hope and Change is certainly working out well for the Hondurans. I hope they will forgive us in the years to come.

2. Otters. What happens when the protected species are doing so well that they are well on the way to wiping out other local species? Is this even possible? In Southeast Alaska it is, where Otters, which were hunted almost to the point of extinction by Russian fur traders in the 18 th and 19 th centuries are present in sufficient numbers that they are now damaging commercial catches of Dungeness crab, sea cucumbers, sea urchins and geoduck clams. Otters were reintroduced by Alaska Dep artment of Fish & Game (ADF&G) into Southeast Alaskan waters in the 1960s, and as federally protected mammals, they have exploded in numbers over the last 40 years (outside what the Orcas have eaten). A fisheries article in The Incredibly Shrinking Fishwrapper (Anchorage Daily News – ADN) Sunday described a fisheries grant that would allow fisheries biologists in Southeast Alaska to do an actual count of otters in Southeast. This affair, where the endangered species are breeding like flies and st arting to endanger the other species present, is yet another example of the problems posed by the Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act. Species are easily listed as protected, but when their numbers recover o the point that they st art damaging other species, it is nearly impossible to get the feds to allow the locals to reduce numbers of protected species to levels low enough where they are no longer damaging the rest of the environment. This same thing is happening in the west coast of the US where federally protected sea lions travel nearly 150 miles upriver in the Columbia River to feast on salmon pooling below fish ladders at the Bonneville Dam. The feasting seals are one of the many reasons that salmon are becoming endangered species in the Pacific Northwest. Solution to too many otters and seals? Do the Ted Nugent routine on them: Kill them and grill them and use the hides for shoeshine rags.

3. Blood for Oil. It now appears that the reason the British government allowed convicted Lockerbie bomber out of a Scottish jail was in exchange for an oil deal with Libya. It also appears that the Obama administration knew about the deal beforehand and gave tacit approval by not objecting beforehand. The terrorist act took place in 1987, killing 270 people, mostly Americans, when Pan Am flight 103 was blown out of the air over Scotland. The Times of London has been releasing letters between Gordon Brown’s government and Libya dating as far back as two years on this deal. For years, conservatives have been accused by the leftists for fighting in Iraq and Kuwait over oil; with “No blood for oil” being the lefty rallying cry. Now that American blood is traded for Labor government oil, nobody on the left utters a peep. And the Obama administration is complicit in its lack of timely public or private response.

4. Kiddies. Much has been made of the Obama speech to the kiddies Tuesday morning. The good news is that the Ayers acolytes infesting the Dep artment of Education have been forced to back off on their proselytizing lesson and study plan. The bad news is that the right has been put in the position of appearing to overreact to the speech and its implications. Last weekend, the Obama administration released the actual text of the speech, which ends up being an innocuous glob of pap, prompting Neil Bortz and Little Green Footballs to announce that the WH had set up the right, undermining our credibility in future arguments. I don’t think that was the original plan at all. I think this was a way to st art building his cult of personality in the schoolhouse, shoving it down the throats of children who are in those classrooms because they have to be there. I think they got caught; removed the most offending phrases from the suggested lesson plan; and st arted prattling on about over reaction on the right. I think this was an attempt to stat building support for his legislative priorities – health care, cap & trade, immigration reform, card check – among the young as a way around the steadfast opposition of the majority of their parents. It is simply another front in the culture war.

5. Home Invasion. From Big Lizards, Friday, we get a story about a NH girl that was removed from her homeschooling classroom and forced into a government school. The excuse used by the leftist state judge was that the parents religious beliefs were too strong, were being forced upon the girl, and she needed to be away from those sorts of influences. The judge criticized the “rigidity” of the mother’s religious views and “… said that the 10-year old needed to consider other worldviews as she matures …” Don’t know how the mother of this fifth grader came to the attention of the NH social services and education bureaucracy, but the girl now has a court-appointed guardian who is concerned about overtly hostile to her religious views (which the girl is quite happy and comfortable with) and is making every attempt to change those views. This sounds like the latest in a long and nasty war between the home schoolers and the education establishment. It may very well be a place that Jay Sekulow and the American Center for Law and Justice that will get involved. Expect to see more of this case, as it may very well signal the death knell for the government schools in NH.

6. Biting. A 65-year old Tea P arty protestor lost a finger after getting it bitten off by a pro-Obama protestor – Code Pink / Soros’ Move On.org – connected nutjob. The nutjob was not arrested and the finger was not reattached afterwards. This is Hope and Change? First the SEIU goons and now the Mike Tyson debate method?

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.