Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Interesting Items 8/19 Monday August 19, 2013 Interesting Items 8/19 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Clown 2. Yucca Mountain 3. Prosecutors 4. Incentives 5. Oprah 6. Egypt 1. Clown. Every now and then you get a story that demonstrates everything the left is all about. Latest example comes out of the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia, MO, also home of Whiteman AFB, and the B-2 bomber. The State Fair, like most state fairs has a rodeo. And the rodeo has a number of clowns working to protect the performers from the animals. One of the long time shticks used by rodeo clowns is the scarecrow routine, where a clown pretends to be a scarecrow until the bull approaches, at which point he comes to life, jumps up scared to death, and runs for his life. Typically the scarecrow has some sort of a mask on, and for many decades, at least since the 1970s, it is the mask of a president – former or current. This time around, the scarecrow routine featured an Obama mask. To the race baiting democrats and their enablers in the media, this was unacceptable, and they were shocked, simply shocked. While the crowd had a great time, the democrats in charge of Missouri were not amused. Either were the media or the usual suspects in the race baiting community. All hell broke loose. The civil rights crowd got themselves prominently involved demanding all sorts of retribution for the act. Of course, their charge was racism. There were firings and resignations all around, with a bunch of rodeo owners and administrators getting canned. The clown was banned for life from the Missouri State Fair, though he was invited to perform in Texas as a featured star. This is what the left does. It singles out individuals, makes examples of them, so as to intimidate everyone else. In the eyes of the left, this president must not be mocked, disobeyed, or laughed at. This is an assault on political speech, which apparently only is allowed to those on the left. The WH could have gotten involved, telling the media and the left to back off. They did not, instead enjoying hugely the noise and the public punishment of the clown and his employers. This entire episode does not demonstrate Obama’s strength. Instead it demonstrates quite clearly his weakness and smallness, for a Great President would not need the protection of the civil rights crowd, party officials in a state government, or the media. 2. Yucca Mountain. The proposed nuclear fuel storage site in Yucca Mountain has been a source of controversy for years in Nevada. The project has been paid for since its inception via operating costs of nuclear power reactors nationwide. It was intended to store all spent fuel until such time the US gets back into the fuel reprocessing business suspended by Jimmy Carter in the late 1970s. Since that decision, all spent fuel has been stored on site at each power reactor – just like Fukushima (how well did that work out?). Over the years, the project turned into a cause celeb among Nevada greens and pandering democrats (yeah, I know, redundant) , figuring prominently in Harry Reid’s last couple of reelections. He used his power to shove an anti-nuclear activist from Edward Markey (D, MA) and his own staff onto the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, one Greg Jaczko, who used his position on the NRC and as Chairman to halt all work on Yucca Mountain. The power industry went to court to force the NRC to license the project, which is still required by federal law. Last week, the courts spoke, slapping down both the Obama administration and the NRC hard, noting that they are not allowed to simply ignore a law that they do not like as long as the law is in effect. They were told to license the project and either approve or reject the Department of Energy’s application for operation of the storage facility. This is a very big deal, and sets a precedent, as Obama has picked and chosen which laws he wants to follow over the last five years. Expect the opinion to be appealed and used as a tool to fight back against Obama’s lawlessness. 3. Prosecutors. Another story about prosecutorial misconduct last week, though not the sort of misconduct you would normally expect. A Maine man on his way through the metal detectors at a federal courthouse suffered an attack of explosive diarrhea. He made a trail from the line to a small restroom where things went from bad to worse. After a little bit of personal clean up, he left to clean himself up and regain some small portion of his dignity. The restroom on the other hand, was completely trashed. He was on a cocktail of medicines for a heart condition which apparently triggered the loss of bodily control. Within days – yes, days – federal prosecutors at the courthouse filed vandalism charges against him for the mess he made. He was arrested, tried and convicted, receiving a seven day jail sentence. He appealed his conviction on the grounds that he did not intentionally commit vandalism of the courthouse or the restroom. Last week, a 3-judge appeals court panel upheld the conviction, with a Clinton and Obama appointee leading the way to drop the hammer on this unfortunate. The third judge blasted the two leftists in his dissent, noting that there was nothing intentional about the act. We can take two things out of this story. First is the utter corruption of the current group of federal prosecutors, quickly bringing charges against someone under the influence of powerful medicines has an accident and befouls the hallowed halls of the federal courts. Do these clowns not have anything better to do? Second and much more serious is that it is yet another example that the federal courts and federal prosecutors have abandoned the notion of mens rea – the requirement of a criminal intent – for anyone targeted for federal prosecution. And this is very, very serious, for we are all unintentional criminals under the hundreds of thousands of pages of federal rules and regulations written and published over the last few decades. 4. Incentives. From the Land of Zero Tolerance comes a story of a 20-year old who posted a Tumblr piece about shooting up Georgia Southern. He claimed the piece was “an experimental literary piece and an art project…” Yes, stupid is as stupid does. Law enforcement tracked him down, arrested him and charged him with making terroristic threats. Investigation found that there were no plans to shoot anything and he owned no weapons. Trial begins later this week and if convicted, he stands to spend five years in jail. I don’t want to discuss the monumental stupidity of the Tumblr post. I do want to discuss the negative incentive brought by law enforcement and the prosecutors. If you end up getting the same punishment for mentioning such an act as you would for actually doing it, what is the incentive to refrain? We have lost all sense of proportion here. And we are much less free because of it. 5. Oprah. The Oprah took her act on the road to Switzerland, visiting Zurich to pump her new movie, The Butler, which is the new movie that calls Reagan a racist. Winfrey told a story about visiting a high end boutique and asking about a 35,000 franc crocodile handbag. According to The Oprah, the sales lady refused to show it to her, saying that she could not afford it. Oprah left and went public with the story, implying that the reason she was denied the bag, was because she was black – typical Chicago race based garbage. Of course, the story blew up nicely and the media tracked down both the store and the sales lady. The Swiss government issued a public apology. But when things started descending on the sales lady, it all blew up, as she fought back by denying that any such thing happened, and that Winfrey never asked to see or purchase the bag. She went further, asking if Winfrey was so concerned, why did she not bring it up to her owner who Winfrey would have seen at an event the next evening. The media went into their “rich people are evil” mode, which apparently trumps their “black people are always victims” mode, especially when the self-identified victim is a billionairess. Oprah held a remarkable crawfishing press opportunity where she gave a non-apology apology. Looks like that in Chicago, the black acorn does not fall very far from the race baiting tree, and that The Oprah is just another in a series of blacks profiting off the race business. Her problem is that most of her fans don’t think she does this. When they figure it out, I expect her to be in some trouble in the marketplace. The last time she shot herself in the foot was falling all over herself in support of Obama in 2008, which did not help either her ratings or business. 6. Egypt. The Egyptian Army cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood last week. Simultaneous with that attack, the Brotherhood launched a progrom aimed at Coptic Christian churches in Egypt, burning 40 – 60 of them to the ground so far. Like the manly men the Islamists are, rather than cinching up their belts and going after the military that is sweeping them from the streets, they take out their genocidal anger on those that are unable to defend themselves, those at the very bottom of the political food chain, Egyptian Christians, who comprise 10% of the population of Egypt. As of the weekend, deaths in the Army vs Brotherhood violence number above 1,000. And what has our Brotherhood-loving President and State Department done about this? Nothing. Absolutely nothing, other than leaking thru Pat Leahy (D, VT) that they have turned off all military aid to Egypt, a nation that we have had close military ties with for decades. Not to worry, however, the Saudis and Gulf States have ponied up with billions of dollars of checks to the Egyptian military because they want the Brotherhood stopped before it takes its brutal animal act on the road. What is going on against the Egyptian Christians is genocide and the Muslim Brotherhood friendly State Department and administration does not seem to be interested in the least bit. Let’s hope the military does the right thing and stands up for the poor and the oppressed, which has been strongly backing them throughout all the recent festivities. 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/~agimarc Anchorage 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/ -- -- To join RichsRants, send email to: [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/richsrants?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RichsRants" group. 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