REFLECTIONS

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue:
1. Murkowski 2. Salazar 3. Wolves 4. Grizzlies
5. Coal 6. Mexicans 7. Wikileaks 8. Israelis

1. Murkowski. Senator Murkowski’s attempt to stop the EPA from regulating carbon dioxide failed in the senate by a vote of 47 – 53. Alaska’s Boy Senator, Mark Begich voted against the resolution. It will be up to the next congress to defund the EPA next year to keep this from happening. Also expect the game to move to the state, local and civil levels with massive lawsuits all challenging the rationale behind the EPA’s finding that carbon dioxide is a pollutant. Note that this is all based on the flawed and fraudulent UN IPCC process which can be demonstrated as fraudulent in a court of law. Expect the EPA to get tied up in court for decades on this action.

2. Salazar. Interior Secretary Salazar announced his moratorium on offshore drilling based on the recommendations of a panel of experts. The moratorium was bundled along with several safety recommendations. The only thing is that none of the experts recommended a moratorium in offshore drilling. And unlike government-paid experts, they started speaking up when Salazar and the Obama administration tried to hide behind them. A New Orleans Times-Picayune article from last Weds via Hot Air has the following quote:

“We broadly agree with the detailed recommendations in the report and compliment the Department of Interior for its efforts,” a joint letter from the panelists to various politicians says. “However, we do not agree with the six month blanket moratorium on floating drilling. A moratorium was added after the final review and was never agreed to by the contributors.” …

The panel of experts goes on to point out that the moratorium simply makes things more dangerous. And like all economic activity, shut it down too long, and the drilling and exploration businesses all end up going overseas. When that happens, it will be a very long time before they come back to the Gulf.

3. Wolves. US Federal Judge H. Russel Holland blocked the State of Alaska’s request to kill wolves on Unimak Island last Monday. He ordered the State and the US Fish & Wildlife Service to work out a solution. He said that it was too late in calving season for his order to kill wolves to have any positive effect. He also wondered why the feds weren’t willing to work more closely with the State on this issue. Hint to Judge Holland: The feds don’t work more closely with the State of Alaska because they don’t have to. By Thursday, the local fishwrapper ran a story about False Pass residents being concerned about hungry wolves around town. This is the same town that lost a jogging teacher to a wolf attack in March. Wolves are pretty aggressive these days, regularly coming into town and showing no fear of people. Time to start killing the wolves before they kill more people, caribou and other living things on Umniak.

4. Grizzlies. Anti-development greens in Alberta, Canada finally got their wish when the Province declared grizzly (brown) bears as a threatened species. Current population in the Province is estimated at 700 animals. In contrast, neighboring British Columbia has 16,000; the Lower 48 has 1,500, and Alaska has over 30,000. This listing is an example of the environmentalist game of drawing lines on a map and discovering that plants and animals that don’t know about those lines don’t have sufficient populations within those boundaries. If you draw the boundaries tight enough, literally everything is an endangered species. It is very clear that the grizzly bears like mountainous terrain more than they like flat, as most of BC and Alaska are mountainous. And most American grizzly bears are found in the Rocky Mountain States. This listing is the first of many steps by Canadian environmentalists to stop development and production of petroleum from the Alberta tar sands. It is one of the primary petroleum resources on this continent, and a target for greens worldwide. Watch this one closely.

5. Coal. The latest target for anti-development NIMBYs and greens is a coal mine prospect in the Wishbone Hill area north of Palmer, Alaska. The mining company, Usibelli, has a prospect they believe holds 12-20 years of coal, capable of employing 75-125 people over that time. Their problem is that access to the prospect is leased from the MatSu Borough, which is today controlled by the local Green group, Friends of the MatSu. Usibelli is requesting an extension on the lease so that they can improve the road to the point where they can remove coal and load it onto rail for export. The local tribe had a mine on native land 100 years ago that wasn’t all that friendly to the environment. They believe that there have been no advances in mining or remediation over the course of the last century and trotted out all the expected terms in opposition to the mine: oppression, depression, genocide. The environmentalist-friendly borough Planning Commission recommended against approving the lease extension so that the mining corporation can access their prospect. As the prospect sits on state land, should the borough refuse to approve the lease extension, I would expect the state to get involved in the discussion. There has to be somewhere in this state that we can mine something. And the obstructionism by greens and NIMBYs must stop eventually. This would be a good place to stop it.

6. Mexicans. Things are heating up on the border with Mexico with a couple Mexican deaths due to Border Patrol action over the last few weeks. The first was a guy who had been living on both sides of the border for nearly 30 years, passing back and forth at will. He tried to escape arrest, was tasered, and died on the spot. Note to self: NEVER play with tasers. The second incident happened a week ago, when a 14-year old was apprehended crossing the Rio Grande. He escaped, crossed to the Mexican side of the river and started chucking rocks at the Border Patrol on the American side. As there were many people chucking rocks, and rocks are a deadly weapon, the kid got shot. Note to self: NEVER chuck rocks at people with loaded guns. Of course, Mexican government officials got self-righteous over the events and sent Mexican military and police to the border to protect their people who are breaking American war. They demanded all the normal apologies and restitution. Perhaps the Mexican government ought to be the ones apologizing for launching and encouraging an invasion of this nation with over 20 million of its citizens. Mexico is fast approaching failed state status and may become a military concern before too long.

7. Wikileaks. A couple months ago, WIkileaks presented video of a 2007 helicopter attack on a group of RPG-wielding terrorists in Baghdad. The terrorists had a couple imbedded Reuters journalists. The results of the attack were about what you’d expect, with everyone being dead after the smoke cleared. There was a minor outbreak of “I’m shocked; simply shocked” from the anti-war media at the notion that warfare against the Islamists would actually result in dead people. A hacked outed the guy that leaked the video to Wikileaks. The leaker ended up being an Army Specialist who took the video and tens to hundreds of thousands of classified documents from his duty station. He is now being prosecuted.

8. Israelis. A couple pushback stories out of Israel in the aftermath of the flotilla to Hamas. The first was an Israeli YouTube video about the event entitled “We Con the World.” It had over 3 million views before the Islamists forced YouTube to pull it down. The song was modeled after the “We Are the World” from 1985. The second was a plan by a group of Israeli university students to put together a humanitarian flotilla of aid to launch from Israel and go to Turkey to give aid to the Kurds. Don’t think the Turks will like this a whole lot, but it is funny as all get out to contemplate.

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 previous Town Hall Conservative group.