Interesting Items
Alex Gimarc
<[email protected]>
Monday, December 28, 2009
Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
1. Strategic
2. ObamaCare
3. NWA
4. Games
5. Solar
6. Data Dump
1. Strategic. As congressional democrats march like lemmings to the Holy
Grail of nationalized health care, I worry that we conservatives are missing
something big. Why would a party with such political smarts commit seeming
political suicide by passing, sight unseen a 2,700+ page monstrosity last
week? One answer may be that they are thinking strategically and we are
thinking tactically. I ran across some commentary last week that described a
FNC debate between conservative strategists and democrat strategists. The
conservatives were focusing on the expected electoral carnage to be visited on
the democrats in November. The democrat were extolling the virtues of what
they had just perpetrated on an unwilling and enraged public. It was like they
were in the same room speaking completely different languages. The democrats
really believe in what they are doing. Dennis Prager described it as almost a
religious fervor. And when things
are faith-based, no amount of logic will turn those of the faith. The
leftists have two other things going for them. One is that they still have the
half trillion dollar slush fund left over from TARP and the stimulus to use to
buy votes in November. The other thing they have is a belief that Obama’s
policies are actually turning the economy around. They look at the
artificially inflated stock market (the increase driven almost exclusively via
federal dollars) as proof that the economy is turning around. And if the
economy is better, they won’t get annihilated in November. On the other hand
we conservatives believe that we have the truth on our side. We have an
actual, measurable awful economy to contend with. We have a doubling of the
national debt in just a couple years. We have nationalization of wide swaths
of the formerly free market economy. We have massive taxes on the way this
year with the passage ObamaCare and the
expiration of the Bush tax cuts. We have legislation coming out of the
democrat congress that changes everything; that nobody has read; and that is so
complex and massive that nobody understands either the long term or short term
implications. The big question for conservatives should they take control of
congress this year is what do they do after they take over? How do they turn
around the move toward a European socialist economic governmental model?
Clearly the leftists don’t believe anyone will be able to undo what they have
just done and will be celebrating the passage of this terrible legislation for
the next year at least. One approach would be Jack Wheeler’s Double D strategy
– defund and disobey. A new conservative majority in the House can simply
defund each and every new Board, Commission, Administration, Department, person
that has been set up to administer ObamaCare. They need to defund each and
every federal judge that
refuses to pull the plug on ACORN. They need to disappear the remaining TARP
and stimulus slush funds. They need to shut down and privatize Fannie Mae and
Freddie Mac. Simply defund the left and their entire house of cards will fall
apart. The left doesn’t think it is possible. It is time to prove them wrong.
2. ObamaCare. Harry Reid’s “manager’s amendment” ended up getting passed with
a series of 60-40 cloture votes. The final vote was 60-39. The voting was
straight party line. The legislation inflated to over 2,700 pages by the time
it was passed. And given that the time between the introduction of the
amendment and the first cloture vote was a mere 36 hours, nobody who voted on
it had read the entire thing. I do expect that nobody inside the Beltway
understands it either. Buried in the language was a passage that changed House
and Senate rules, making any motion to change, repeal, defund or otherwise
modify the legislation out of order. It remains to be seen whether this will
stand with future congresses or not. Senator Coburn threw a monkey wrench into
the wheels of progress by objecting to the appointment of senate members to a
conference committee. This means that there will be no conference committee
between the House and
Senate on this, and there will be some yet to be determined number of ping
pong bounces between the two houses of congress until it passes. There is
still the outside chance that Pelosi will be able to ram this thing through the
House and retain the same voting majority for passage. One of her Whips, James
Clyburn (D, SC) started making noises last week about the lack of bribes and
payoffs to house members for their votes. Expect the other house of the
Parliament of Whores to step right up to the trough and gag down their bribes
also. Given all of this, the WH started talking about delaying passage of the
final bill until February. The longer it goes, the better it will be for all
of us. The only drawback on any delay will be a delay in implementation of new
taxation until after the November elections. This is not yet over.
3. NWA. A Nigerian-born Islamist tried to blow up a Northwest flight from
Amsterdam to Detroit Christmas Day. He tried to ignite the same sort of
mixture that Abdul Raheem (Richard Reid) tried to use in 2001. A neighboring
passenger saw smoke and the terrorist fiddling with something under his pants
(which were pulled down). The passenger jumped him, pulled the explosive off
him and subdued him in flight. The terrorist claimed to have training from Al
Qaida in Yemen. Interestingly enough, this bozo had been reported by his
father to both the British and American governments. The Brits refused him a
visa to enter the country. That information never made it to the feds / DHS
who were apparently too busy concocting new rules for harassing law abiding
American passengers and new inflight rules. The new rules prohibit anyone from
getting out of their seats the hour before landing. Perhaps they will supply
piddle packs so people can
take a leak while in their seats. Nobody is allowed to have anything on their
laps during the last hour of flight. And of course, security here in the US
was cranked up another notch as DHS is now patting down little old ladies and
people in wheelchairs. It is long past time to start profiling terrorists.
Perhaps it is also time to start running all Muslims through the wringer and
leave the rest of us alone. Amsterdam does not do the same level of security
as we do here in the US. We also have the continuing example of El Al Airlines
in Israel for hot to do this correctly. DHS is a joke, as are inflight rules
and new screening procedures. Why do we all have to suffer when the feds
aren’t doing their jobs properly?
4. Games. Glen Reynolds in InstaPundit Friday noted that the game
manufacturers are stepping into the breach left by Hollywood’s refusal to make
positive movies about the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Hollywood leftists
left the playing field wide open by making movies hostile to both wars and
incredibly hostile to the people who are volunteering to fight them. The game
manufacturers are not so limited in their imagination, and are producing very
military and mission friendly games. They are selling a bunch of them also.
Congratulations to the game manufacturers.
5. Solar. DiFi (Dianne Feinstein, D, CA) continues the leftist NIMBY
opposition to renewable energy by last week introducing legislation intended to
turn over a million acres of the Mohave desert into a pair of national
monuments. Both parcels of land had been eyed by developers for large solar
and wind electric projects. They had also been adopted by all the usual
suspects in local environmental organizations as the last this, best that, only
some of this other, and must be absolutely protected from development. Given
her opposition to the projects and the opposition of the greens to both
projects, the developers have effectively dropped their plans. All the
opposition green groups were suitably pleased with the success of their
obstruction. NYT, Tues.
6. Data Dump. The British Met Office has been under pressure to release the
original temperature data so that all researchers could have the opportunity to
reproduce their scientific results. On Christmas Eve, they did a data dump,
claiming to successfully meet the Freedom of Information Act requirements. As
the skeptics started sorting through the data, it became quickly apparent that
the data dump was boob bait for bozos, containing no raw data. Everything
appeared to be the product of the Climate Research Unit (CRU) data manipulation
processes. At this time, it looks like the Met is fully in bed with the CRU
scientists and are doing their level best to continue the cover up. Watts Up
With That, Thurs.
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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