Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc
<[email protected]>
Monday, December 14, 2009
Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
1. Bristol Bay
2. EPA
3. TSA
4. Sausage
5. Subsidies
1. Bristol Bay. The Bristol Bay Native Corporation voted Friday to oppose the
development of the Pebble Mine north of Lake Iliamna in southwest Alaska. The
corporation is the regional native corporation in the area and has a large
number of commercial permit holders among its membership. Until last Friday,
the corporation had remained neutral in the controversy surrounding the Pebble
Mine. However, since its membership is heavily involved in commercial fishing,
perhaps it was inevitable that it would end up in opposition to the proposed
mine. It is important to remember that the Bristol Bay region is one of the
poorest areas of the state, with the locals economically tied to the boom and
bust cycle of successful harvest of salmon returning to Bristol Bay every
year. Locals in the region have long fought oil and natural gas exploration,
opting instead to barge diesel in from Seattle. There is a remarkable NIMBY
attitude and no small amount
of “I’ve got mine; the rest of you can go to Hell” attitude locally in regards
to mining and oil and natural gas exploration. The Pebble Partnership, which
has been steadily pushing to create the mine, has as far as I can tell, been
doing everything correctly in the early stages of this project. Given the
trillion dollar value of product thought to be resident at the site of the
proposed mine, I would expect some of that wealth to spill out among the locals
in terms of jobs for them and their offspring for generations. The worst
problem this decision of the Bristol Bay Corporation poses is potential refusal
to allow the mining company permission to transit their land. Here in Alaska,
surface and subsurface property rights are separately held, with the subsurface
property rights being mostly controlled by the State of Alaska in that part of
the state.
2. EPA. Last Monday’s EPA announcement that they would be drafting
regulations to control emissions of carbon dioxide here in the US was intended
to force congress to get off the dime and pass Pelosi’s, Boxer’s and Kerry’s
Cap and Trade legislation. The threat from the Obama administration to
congress was essentially, “you do it, or we will.” Funny thing about the
political world, reactions by one branch of government to heavy handed actions
by another branch of government are hardly ever predicable. In this case,
instead of increasing pressure on congress to pass legislation that will
regulate carbon dioxide, this action by the EPA, timed to coincide with the
start of the UN love fest in Copenhagen appears to take the pressure off
congress to act. One WSJ article last week noted that skeptical senators were
now sitting back and letting the EPA play with the tar baby they just picked
up. Rulemaking under this decision will not
go quickly, as everything they want to do must be written, properly vetted,
and released for public comment. The underlying data, e-mail discussions, and
some of the computer code prove the fraudulent nature of manmade global warming
caused by carbon dioxide emissions. Expect the opposition to have a great time
federal court proving that the EPA based their determination that carbon
dioxide is a pollutant is complete garbage. And once the supporting data from
NASA Goddard, Penn State University, NOAA and the EPA gets uncovered during the
discovery process, there will be more embarrassment among the climate science
community and the environmental community than they will be able to
professionally stand. This is going to be a lot of fun to watch.
3. TSA. The TSA posted a redacted version of its airport screening procedures
manual on the web last week. The manual contains their screening security
protocol: what they look at; what they let pass; special deference given to
CIA and diplomatic travelers; and gives examples of CIA, congressional and law
enforcement credentials that could be easily duplicated by future terrorists.
They essentially released a how-to manual for future terrorist attacks on the
airlines. Interesting thing about electronic redaction in a document: It
doesn’t work, and can (and was) easily removed by computer savvy readers of the
document. At this writing, nobody knows why the TSA dumped the document.
Later in the week, they did acknowledge the release and claimed it was an old,
outdated version of the screening procedures. Security procedures are only as
good as idiots that administer them. Hot Air, Weds.
4. Sausage. The democrat majority in congress continued to give a real life
demonstration of the 1866 Gideon J. Tucker observation that “No man’s life,
liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session.” The senate
continued to grind ObamaCare through the system, with the democrat leadership
desperately trying to come up with something, anything that they can get 60
votes on. By the end of the week, public opposition to this travesty was
pushing 60% of the electorate. The leadership in both Houses of congress
promised to eliminate the public option with the latest vehicle being a massive
expansion of Medicare / Medicaid, pushing the already shaky programs quicker
into financial ruin. The nearly half trillion cut in Medicare funding intended
to pay for putting 37 million new people into the public program will come
directly out of in-home care, care for the elderly and the disabled trading
their lives for 37 new democrat
voters on the public dole. The House passed out a $1.1 trillion omnibus
spending package to fund the government, increase the debt ceiling by another
$1.8 trillion, and other hidden goodies. The senate passed it Monday without
debate on several of the bills bundled in it. At this time, nobody has a clue
what destructive language was buried in the legislation. Finally, we have
Barney Frank’s Banking Regulation legislation, making its way through the
House. This legislation will take the Barney Frank – Chris Dodd Fannie Mae /
Freddie Mac corporate investment model and force it upon the entire nation. It
essentially nationalizes the remaining banking, investment and other financial
institutions – the little guys – that escaped the first round of the federal
takeover early this year. One writer noted that the democrat majority in
congress is writing and passing bad legislation too fast for anyone in the
country to keep up with, much
less oppose in an intelligent manner. This is what fascism is all about.
This is how it is imposed. This is the problem we must solve – one way or the
other.
5. Subsidies. AP ran a story in our local fishwrapper last Monday decrying
the unchecked expansion of timber subsidies over the last 15 years. The
subsidies were originally created as a safety net for Pacific Northwest
counties that lost significant portions of their income due to environmental
logging shutdowns. At the time, the “endangered species” of choice was the
spotted owl, which was not only being intentionally undercounted by greens
working for various NGOs and the feds, but was being pushed out of their normal
territory by a newer, more aggressive owl species. At the time, the Clinton
administration used the spotted owl as a vehicle to stop logging in the
majority of national forests in the Pacific Northwest. The Republican majority
in congress set up the county subsidy program as a safety net to cover lost
revenues due to the tens of thousands of jobs lost as a result of the
endangerment finding. The problem with any flow of
free money from our pockets to Washington DC is that the politicians will
expand it uncontrollably. Today, the subsidy program has expanded to 41 states
and is transferring over $3 billion from one set of pockets to another. The
only requirement to get added seems to be the presence of a tree somewhere in
the county. The AP writer’s heart was all aflutter with the notion that Jeff
Bingaman and Harry Reid both successfully (and proudly) sidled up to the public
trough over the last few years. This is precisely the sort of financial
foolishness that has gotten this nation on the verge of bankruptcy. A far
better solution would be to transfer ownership of all national forests to the
many states and let them do what they would do with them afterwards – which
means that logging, the removal and replacement of a sustainable, green
renewable resource, ought to be returning in the not so distant future. Of
course, given that the listing of the
spotted owl as endangered has been demonstrated to be based on junk science,
it will have to be removed from the endangered species list as it is not and
was not in any way endangered. Expect this out of the current congress? Not
hardly. The next one? Perhaps.
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 at the following locations:
The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/
MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com
District 28 http://www.dist28.com/
subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/
and the home page: http://home.gci.net/~agimarc
Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column:
http://www.thevanguard.org/
To read Alex Gimarc’s columns, go to http://home.gci.net/~agimarc/
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