REFLECTIONS

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

In this issue:

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 The Endangered Species Act is long since broken, needs to be repealed or repaired, and Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has not covered himself with glory by agreeing to this travesty.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 part 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 Party 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 Party 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 starts believing that one of our political parties regularly cheats, steals, and stuffs ballot boxes, it will not be long before we start 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.

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.

Note: Interesting Items can be found also at the following locations: MatSu Valley News and the home page. Rod Martin’s The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column. Alex Gimarc is a long-time member of the Town Hall Conservative group.