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

1. ObamaCare. Captain Ahab, oops, I mean President Obama and congressional leaders have decided to launch yet another assault on our liberties with another try at the Great White Whale of ObamaCare. Last week, we saw the Kabuki dance around the use of reconciliation. But this discussion was a complete ruse, a head fake, intended to distract and annoy while the real game is afoot in the House. If Pelosi’s democrats in the House pass the senate bill, Obama will sign it and it will become law. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. The only good news is that Pelosi is short of votes – anywhere from a couple to as many as 100. And as we have seen with Ben Nelson in NE, what democrats say is not what they end up doing, for after all, they are democrats. Last week, democrat house leadership leaked results of an ethics investigation against a single-term democrat from who voted against ObamaCare in the House because it wasn’t sufficiently left wing. Massa did the Mark Foley routine, going after his male staffers in sexually suggestive ways. Because he was a no vote, the House leadership is forcing him out. Obama nominated the brother of a Utah democrat House member as a federal judge. No bribery here. Nothing to see. Move along; move along. They are going to continue to clean house, continue to bribe House members until they have enough votes to pass this thing. This is not yet in the bag for the left, but they are closer than they have ever been.

2. EPA. Congressional action on a resolution prohibiting the EPA from issuing regulations against carbon dioxide and other components of the atmosphere as pollutants continued percolating through congress. And this action is completely bipartisan, with congressional Republicans joining up with rust belt and coal state democrats to push back against the EPA. At this point in the discussion, if passed this will at a minimum place a two-year moratorium on any EPA rule making regarding carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act.

3. Wolves. The Alaska Board of Game repealed a no-trapping buffer zone surrounding Denali National Park last week. The buffer zone was supposed to help protect Denali wolves, which are not sufficiently intelligent to stay inside their assigned boundaries. The Board of Game rightfully observed that it was not up to the State of Alaska to manage animals just because the feds choose to manage animals in a particular way. These hearings were particularly caucus, with the head of Connecticut’s Friends of Animals, a long-time opponent of both the Iditarod and our wolf control / predator control programs making the trip to the meeting to put in her two cents worth. Now here’s the fun part: Wildlife managers in Denali have done such a terrible job managing their animals, that predators in the park have killed everything in sight, and are now in the process of eating one another into oblivion. The entire park has only 70 or so wolves left. Park management, which supports the trapping buffer zone, blames the crash in total numbers of wolves on the trappers. Congratulations on the Board of Game. They got this one right.

4. Bunning. Senator Jim Bunning threw a wrench into the democrat wheels of progress last week by objecting to a unanimous consent motion. The way unanimous consent works, is that any single senator can object and then the Majority Leader can schedule a vote on the legislation. The legislation was yet another extension of unemployment benefits, yet another $10 billion that we don’t have in the budget. The congressional leadership and the Obama administration had passed a few weeks ago the Pay-Go legislation. Pay-Go basically means that congress has to pay for new spending by either cutting the budget elsewhere or raising taxes. Bunning was simply holding congressional leadership to the law they passed a couple weeks ago. Democrats went nuts, both on the floor of the senate and in the state controlled media. Rather than immediately scheduling a vote on the legislation – which passed with more than 70 votes later in the week – the senate leadership went into full starving women and killing little children mode. Bunning was excoriated for four sold days and got little public support from his cohorts in crime on the Republican side of the aisle. The deal cut with passage of the legislation simply kicks the can down the road for a few weeks a month or two. We will hope the rest of the Republicans in the senate have a better argument in opposition to this extension when it comes up again.

5. Utah. The last three democrat presidents – Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton and now Barack Obama have stolen or are considering stealing lands from the many states via the 1906 Antiquities Act, turning them into national monuments. Jimmy Carter used the threat of using the act widely in Alaska to force passage of the 1980 ANILCA legislation that transferred over 50 million acres from state control into national parks, wilderness areas and monuments. Bill Clinton stole over 10 million acres, most notably locking up superb coal and natural gas prospects underneath the Grand Staircase – Escalante Monument in Utah. Obama is rumored to be considering a similar action, locking up the trillion-dollar Pebble Prospect and vast portions of the NPR-A here in Alaska. The Utah House last week passed legislation that fights back. The legislation suggests using the state’s power of eminent domain against the feds. The logic here is that the infamous Kelo decision allows states to use their eminent domain powers against the feds. At the very least, this will force land management into the courts, which will make a greater hash out of them than they already have done. Good luck to Utah. May they be incredibly successful in this. LA Times, Weds.

6. Debt. Dr. Jack Wheeler’s To the Point web site is a subscription site that I joined a year or so ago. It claims to be the home of rational conservatives and the conversation and ideas are pretty good. For example, their approach to the out of control federal spending is the Triple D strategy: defund, disobey and default. They suggest defaulting on the foreign debt that is held by China and other nations as a solution to the external debt. While I am not a great fan of default as a solution, I do understand its power to defund the voracious beast. But it got me thinking about the internal debt – the debt we Americans owe ourselves, the National Debt. What do we do about that? What collateral does the federal government, now operating without the consent of the governed have that may be used to defease that debt? The feds have tens of thousands of square miles that they have stolen from the states in the form of wilderness areas, national parks, national monuments, national forests, critical habitats and military reservations. Every single square inch of that property ought to be returned immediately to the many states to pay off that debt. The only property the feds ought to retain would be the military reservations as they sit today. Once the land is transferred, the feds abrogate the debt. This will impact the western states a lot more than the eastern states, as the feds didn’t get into thievery until about a century or so ago. For the coastal states, the feds can give drilling rights to the outer continental shelf to each state. Such a transfer must come along with repeal of federal laws prohibiting use of those transferred lands, for they aren’t going to have any value unless we can actually do something with them.

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.

I am astounded at how wide spread the problem is.  Far away from China’s absolute tyranny, the people of South and East Asia are choosing to mimic this most horrific practice.  The new lady’s Olympic Champion Yu-Na Kim is revered in So. Korea.  She is their highest paid spokesperson, even before winning the Olympic Gold Medal.  How can a country adore this daughter while throwing away so many others?  I really can not comprehend.   But once again the Western Left’s love affair with “multiculturalism” crumbles in the face of cold, harsh reality.

But while selling off Walt’s genius and raking in the big bucks there was one movie Eisner never released.  In fact he buried it so deeply in the vaults it hasn’t seen the light of day in almost 30 years.  The hated and despised and “racist” Song of the South.

Now don’t ask how because I refuse to reveal my sources even under the threat of water-boarding but I have seen Song of the South.  I had to go to a secret rendezvous in the dead of night, password “Freedom of Speech.”  But I’ve seen it and can tell you about its “racism.”   Almost all of the white people in the movie are stupid or evil or cowardly or all three.  Uncle Remus is courageous and wise and helps the poor white child through difficult times.   The film is about as racist as an Obama ad.  Nevertheless a long time ago the PC police deemed it racist and so there is sits in the vault never to be seen.

On the other hand there is Lady and The Tramp which I watched with my son this morning.  There lo and behold two of the most racist characters to ever slink across the silver screen, Si and Am, the stereotypical, devious, cunning and cruel Oriental cats.   Wise old Uncle Remus must be shunted off into hiding, but not the anti-Chinese stereotypes children of all ages have enjoyed for decades. 

Alas now that I have written this future editions of Lady and The Tramp  will edit out  two of Disney’s most entertaining villains.   Instead of seeing this as a call to end the mindless hypocrisy and hysteria of political correctness, I assume the slaves of the PC Police will see this as a call to dispense with two of my favorite Disney cats. 

But don’t I worry that such stereotyping will give my son a negative idea about Asians?  Of course not, because my son isn’t stupid.  The first thing he sees every day when he comes downstairs is a life size poster of Michelle Kwan.  Burkeanson knows that Asians are people like all other people, some are good, some are bad and some are figure skaters.  My son is not stupid enough to imagine a pair of cartoon cats is a true representation of a couple of billion people.  He is also not going to let Uncle Remus’ accent make him think that black people aren’t smart.  Especially since Uncle Remus is the nicest, wisest person in the whole movie. 

 Free Song of the South, and give Si and Am  a big hand.    http://www.songofthesouth.net/home.html

This recession has really brought out the dichotomies: We spend billions of scarce cash on imported food, fuel, and manufactured goods, but have acres of idle farmlands, vast untapped deposits of natural gas and oil, and millions of feet of unused factory space. Bread and circuses seem to be the answer for the angst of the underclass.

As the saying goes read the whole thing. http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/dronism/?print=1

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

1. Fines. The Alaska Public Offices Commission (APOC) levied a $100,000 fine against Bob Gilliam and a group of environmentalist organizations that were behind a clean water initiative aimed directly at blocking mining at the trillion-dollar Pebble prospect. Gilliam is a wealthy lodge owner who has been fighting the mine for year. His lodge sits a few tens of miles from the proposed mine site and he is not interested in new neighbors. Gilliam backed a clean water ballot initiative in 2008 that would have shut down most if not all hard rock mining in the state. He laundered at least $2 million of his own personal money through various environmentalist organizations including the Renewable Resources Coalition. The fine was levied as part of an agreement which Gilliam did not admit guilt, but did promise not to do it again. The loss at the ballot box did not deter Gilliam or the anti-Pebble greens, who have been busily running ads in fly fishing magazines, the Alaska magazine, and in local media. Their ads have even showed up in fly fishing catalogs from manufacturers in the Lower 48. They will not give up.

2. Killer Whale. A trainer lost her life last week at Seaworld in Orland when a killer whale did what killer whales do – kill things. The whale apparently grabbed the trainer from the side of the pool and played with her underwater until she didn’t move any more. This particular whale has been implicated in two other drownings over the last decade or so. Of course, Seaworld (not like the Army with Major Hassan) did not want to place any blame on the animal or rush to any judgment. When they decide to destroy it, we have people up here who know how to kill and dress out whales. I hear that muktuk (whale blubber) is a great delicacy in some places.

3. Fort Jackson. While the Army has not filed any charges against the five Arabic translators under investigation for plotting to poison food at Fort Jackson, four of the young Islamists were mustered out of the Army last week. Interesting reaction, that. These guys are not sufficiently dangerous to investigate, charge or prosecute for plotting mass murder against our active duty military. But they are sufficiently dangerous to be removed from active duty. Sounds like there is far more to this story than the Army is willing to discuss publicly.

4. FDA. John Stossel has started going after the FDA and DEA as needless and hugely damaging impediments to the development of new foods and drugs here in the US. He suggests that the marketplace ought to be the ultimate determination of what is dangerous and what is not dangerous. Ed Morrissey writing in Hot Air Friday suggests a version of the insurance companies’ Underwriter’s Labs ought to be created by the health care insurance industry and provide testing and analysis of new drugs and treatments. The Big Government types rail against Stossel, making all the expected claims that this will simply be a payoff to the pharmaceutical corporations and needlessly kill people. But the FDA by slow-rolling drug approvals, forcing new products through a very long, expensive and uncertain approval process also ends up killing tens of thousands of people every year. Additionally, when the lawyers get involved and the drug gets needlessly pulled from the marketplace, people who actually need the drug and are dealing well with it also are hurt, but sadly they have no recourse. If the corporations are forced to go through this approval process, government approval ought to mean something, perhaps protection from lawsuits afterwards. The marketplace always works. And both Stossel and Morrissey make a good, conservative point. The DEA’s participation in this is putting strict limits on the use of narcotic based drugs in the treatment and management of pain. They default to strict, non-therapeutic limits on narcotics used for pain control because their focus is simply controlling the use of the narcotics. Not content with mucking up the development of new drugs here in the US, the FDA is branching out, and now interested in regulating dietary supplements like vitamins, fish oil, pomegranate juice, etc. Things have gotten so bad, that drug manufacturers are finding it easier to find new uses for existing drugs thank to create and get approval of new drugs at a billion dollars a pop.

5. Taliban. Something is going on in Pakistan, with the announcement of many arrests and capture of Taliban leaders in western Pakistan. As of today, it is not clear whether or not American interrogators have had access to these newly captured Taliban leaders. More interesting is the fact that this has been happening at all, especially given the long-term close working relationship between the Taliban and the Pakistani ISI (CIA equivalent). The ISI has long been infiltrated and controlled by Islamist-friendly officers and has backed the Taliban at some level for decades. The fact that they are now running an offensive against the Taliban is most curious. The best guess out there on the blogs is that the Taliban has splintered into several factions and at least one of those factions has become too independent of the ISI for their own good, and the ISI is now removing them from the gene pool. My dime says that the Taliban will continue to splinter and that the ISI will be no more successful than the US military in removing the threat from their territory. The difference here is that the ISI is not constrained by the same sort of PC garbage as our troops are in Afghanistan. They are also not constrained by collateral damage. Finally, any Taliban removed from “active duty” is a very good thing indeed.

6. Crist. Florida governor Charlie Crist is losing a nomination for US Senate from Florida. He replaced Jeb Bush several years ago and has been a great disappointment to conservatives. His primary opponent is a member of the state senate and pretty good conservative Marco Rubio. Crist has thoroughly embraced his liberal side over the years by doing everything possible to “RINO” out. Florida conservatives are in the process of rejecting him with Rubio now polling 18% ahead of Crist. Crist supporters trotted out the idea that he would drop out of the Republican primary and run as an independent, which is something he may do should he lose the primary. Crist supporters also released confidential financial records last week from the state Republican Party that showed that Rubio had used the party credit card to buy things with the accusation of malfeasance. No word in the early reports whether Rubio had reimbursed the Party after the purchases, which is the normal routine for the use of a corporate credit card. However, this leak has strongly boomeranged against Crist, painting him as simply anther leftist dirty tricks artist to conservative voters in the state. The leak smells like an act of desperation. It will not be the last one.

7. Spamming. The DNC’s Organizing for America is setting up yet another initiative to create pro-Obama / pro-democrat seminar callers to popular talk shows. The group set up a web site with a script, current talking points, and instructions on how to bypass the call screeners and get to the host and get their message out there. I don’t know why this is necessary, as both Limbaugh and Hannity put liberal callers at the top of their list of calls to put on the air. Levin talked about this a bit last week also.

8. Falklands. The Argentinians, fresh off trashing their economy and raiding their central bank decided to make a second run at the Falklands Islands 300 miles east of the country. The last war fought between Great Britain and Argentina in 1982, with Prime Minister Maggie Thatcher choosing to defend their national sovereignty. President Reagan supported her completely, much to the chagrin of UN Ambassador Jeanne Kilpatrick. This time around, President Obama simply voted present and has refused to support Great Britain, setting the stage for the thug-ocracies in Argentina, Venezuela and Brazil to declare war on our closest friend in the world. This is not going to end well for any of the three parties involved – Argentina, Great Britain or the US. The only funny thing out of the whole sorry affair has been the leftist British press wondering why they supported Obama for president. Good question, that.

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.