Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Come visit us at our new web site: www.interestingitems.org Leave your thoughts, comments and opinions. We look forward to hearing from you. Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Interesting Items 9 - 10 In this issue: 1. Convention 2. Freezing Out 3. Groceries 4. CAFÉ 5. Police Union 6. Belonging 1. Convention. National democrats held their convention in Charlotte NC last week. The four day affair was reminiscent of the Star Wars bar scene from the 1977 movie. They did manage to once again nominate Barack Hussein Obama as their candidate for November. Democrat-friendly polling in battleground states and nationwide managed to disappear any convention bump Romney received a week prior while oversampling democrats over the weekend to show a 5-7% bump for Obama following his campaign. His acceptance speech was apparently cribbed from previous State of the Union shows, as he called for many identical things with identical words. There were also a few moments of comedic fun. Best was the adoption of the party platform midweek. The WH-approved platform omitted its single instance of a mention of God. It also removed democrat party support for Israel’s capital as Jerusalem, something not unexpected given how aggressively democrats have been sidling up to Muslims here in the US and abroad. The two changes were picked up and pointed out by the talk shows and bloggers. It took the WH less than 24 hours to respond with an order to change the platform to its former language. Problem was that such a vote takes a two-thirds majority of all delegates at the convention. We were left with a prime time spectacle of LA Mayor Villaraigosa holding a voice vote to approve the change. When he called for yeas and nays, there was little difference between the sound levels, meaning he did not have the votes to change it. His teleprompters apparently were pre-programmed with language indicating the change was approved. He was taken aback to the point where he took a voice vote two more times and finally gaveled the change as approved. The delegates knew full well that they had not approved the change and started booing the announcement, leading to the claim that they were booing Israel and God. Comedy gold, indeed. 2. Freezing Out. The other thing that democrats did at their convention was freeze out conservative talk shows, refusing to allow them to interview party officials or elected democrats on the air. Convention organizers would ask whether the host was conservative or not and if they were, the requested party would not be available for interview. Sounds like a group of people proud to be what they are, willing to vigorously defend their positions in public and on the air. Roger Hedgecock, who hosts a talk show out of San Diego, was so disgusted that he packed up and left early. Perhaps the party should consider change its slogan to “shut up, they explained.” 3. Groceries. Most of us expect the taxation, spending and regulatory tsunami to continue should Obama be reelected. Little has been said about what his wife, the Gardner in Chief, the Nutritionist in Chief, the Klingon in Chief is going to be doing with her time. Last week she gave us a hint. Michelle Obama is going to start mucking around with grocery stores, and start using the force of the federal government to determine what they carry and make available for sale. In an interview for Parade magazine, she was quoted as wanting to “… impact the nature of food in grocery stores…” with the goal of controlling sales of sugar, flour and salt. This is the Michael Bloomberg Nanny State writ large. And given the disaster that her and congressionally backed meddling with school lunch program has turned into, it can only get worse. 4. CAFÉ. The Obama administration announced regulations that would force US auto manufacturers to produce vehicles capable of meeting its outrageous 54.4 miles per gallon (mpg) fuel efficiency standard last week. The new regulations are expected to hit the entire industry, and are written so that they also hit light trucks and eliminate other “get out of jail free” non compliant vehicles from the marketplace. For years, consumers have moved to light trucks and SUVs as alternatives to the smaller, lightweight vehicles mandated by past CAFÉ standard mandates. The driving public likes the heavier, larger vehicles. The masterminds in Washington DC do not. We are fast approaching a period of time when American autos are going to look a lot like they currently do in Cuba, only for a different reason. In Cuba, there few vehicles on the roads, with the majority being old 1950s and early 1960s models that have been kept running with bailing wire and duct tape. Only the high party officials have new models. Here in the US, the public response to the outrageous increases in CAFÉ standards, government mandated smaller vehicles, lighter vehicles, and more expensive vehicles has been to hang on to their autos for a longer time. In 1980, the average vehicle costs were around $7,200, people would trade in their cars and trucks for new ones every few years. Today, with average costs have tripled to above $21,000, people are hanging on to their vehicles for up to a decade. As the government mandates kick in, those costs and ownership periods will also increase. And nobody, but nobody wants to pay tens of thousands of dollars on something they don’t want. The Obama administration and the green true believers in it are busily writing rules and regulations to ensure that all our choices in autos will go away. There is a reason that the station wagon of the 1950s and 1960s disappeared. It was regulated out of existence. There is a reason it was replaced by the mini-van in the 1980s. The mini-van was a marketplace response to consumer wants. There is a reason that pickup trucks and SUVs have become popular over the last couple decades. It is because CAFÉ standards over that time have all but legislated larger autos out of existence. And why is the Obama administration doing all of this? It is because they have decided that we need clean, efficient vehicles. Imagine that. A nation awash in coal, oil and natural gas, that is as soon as the feds get out of the way, does not need any fuel efficiency mandates from Washington DC. It needs Washington DC to get its sorry, festering carbuncle covered carcass out of the marketplace. Sooner would be better than later. 5. Police Union. Union thugs are always union thugs regardless of which public employees they represent. Take the example of Costa Mesa, CA, where the local police union has hired private investigators to harass city council members. Last week, a city councilman spoke at a public event. Afterwards he went for a meal and then home. After he got home, he received a knock on his door and found a pair of local cops who wanted to give him a field sobriety test under suspicion of driving under the influence. The councilman agreed to the test and passed it. Come to find out that a private investigator working for a law firm representing the local police union followed him home, took the license plate number and called the cops out on him. The private investigator was a former local policeman who was previously fired. Upon finding this out, the law firm as shocked, simply shocked that their employee had done such a thing and fired the private investigator. The Costa Mesa city government has been in a fight with public employee unions in recent months as they try to fix their fiscal problem. The unions are not taking it well and are turning to private investigators to dig up dirt on elected officials and pressure or extort them to changing their position on budget cuts. Expect more of this. Also expect a growing move to shut down public employee unions as this type of thuggery becomes more prevalent. 6. Belonging. Yet another peek into the worldview of democrats came courtesy of a video aired at their convention. During the video, democrats proudly proclaim that “Government is the only thing we all belong to …” Interesting worldview, that, as government belongs to all of us as citizens of this nation. Appears that democrats have adopted the old feudal view of the world from Europe in the Dark Ages, where all rights devolve from the Sovereign, and the rest of the people in that nation live at the discretion of that Sovereign. Of course democrats self identify as the sovereign, the fount of all rights and power which they are happily exercising to make our lives better. This is not how this nation was organized and it is not the view of the majority of the people in this nation, regardless of the success of the dumbing down effort by the government schools over the last two generations. And we are going to do something about it one of these days. While I personally look forward to tar and feathers, I fear the return of Vigilance Committees. Either will work, though. 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: Our Home Page http://interestingitems.org/ Archives can be found at http://home.gci.net/~agimarcAnchorage Daily Planet http://www.anchoragedailyplanet.com/ MatSu Valley News http://matsuvalleynews.blogspot.com/ Subscriber and supporter Elbert Collins at http://thatselbert.wordpress.com/ Rod Martin's The Vanguard site is also a long-time supporter of this column: http://www.thevanguard.org/ When replying to this message, plz cc: [email protected] to assure prompt reply. It is the duty of the Patriot to protect their country from its government! Thomas Paine Isn’t it ironic that President Obama is so reveled in the nation's Black community, when the Luo tribe from which he came has a history of selling prisoners of rival African tribes to the Muslims who delivered them to the auction blocks in Europe and America? Rich Martin When replying to this message, plz cc: [email protected] to assure prompt reply. Mrs. Richard "Peggy" Martin (1935 - 2012) http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dfw/obituary.aspx?n=margaret-irene-martin-peggy&pid=159081400&fhid=12241#fbLoggedOut http://www.legacy.com/guestbook/dfw/guestbook.aspx?n=margaret-martin&pid=159081400&sort=1 -- To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en
