Interesting Items by Alex Gimarc Monday Sept. 23, 2013 Interesting Items 9/23 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Navy Shooting 2. Alcohol Tax 3. Anglo American 4. Acidification 5. Time 6. SWAT 1. Navy Shooting. Last week saw yet another mass shooting on a military installation. This one was in Washington DC. The perp was Naval Reserve member working for a subcontractor on the Washington Navy Yard, so he had a pass onto the installation. He held an active secret clearance. He snuck a shotgun onto the installation, shot a guard and lifted his sidearm and proceeded to blow away at least 13 military members and civilians on the base. There were an unknown number of members and civilians wounded. Every single one of initial media reports about the shootings was wrong, as all the usual suspects fell all over themselves trying to blame the shooting on easy purchase of an AR-15, the most hated firearm among the gun grabbing left today. As it turns out, the shooter was mentally ill, having asked local police for help at least once before the attack. Local law enforcement did not cover themselves with glory either, as the DC SWAT Team was called off by higher-ups in the law enforcement food chain and not allowed to stop the murders. As the week wore on, we were treated to all the usual anti-gun claptrap from all the usual suspects. However, congressional democrat leadership looking at what happened in Colorado to a pair of gun-grabbing state senators, decided not to press the issue, at least for the time being. Here’s where it gets tragic. One would ask why a military base would not have military members carrying firearms, allowing a deranged individual like this guy or a Jihadi like Major Hassan, to blow people away with impunity. Why are military installations free fire zones like public schools and colleges? The answer goes back 20 years to 1993, with an Executive Order signed by Bill Clinton that all but prohibited carry of loaded firearms on bases worldwide by anyone other than Military Police. Before Clinton’s EO, a local Commander was able to allow whomever he wanted to carry on base. This essentially disarmed active duty military members, their families, civilians, and veterans – literally, everyone who ever set foot on base. Final bit of information on this is that Republicans for years have wanted to address the mental health piece of this problem. They have been opposed every step of the way by democrats in congress who always want to couple mental health with new gun control measures. Perhaps congressional Republicans ought to write their own legislation and toss it over the transom to Harry Reid and his gang of democrats to deal with rather than wait for the next shooting. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/09/17/this-is-why-most-military-personnel-are-disarmed-on-military-bases-and-its-not-clintons-fault/ 2. Alcohol Tax. 11 years ago, the Alaska legislature doubled the tax on alcohol statewide. Chief among the leaders was Representative Lisa Murkowski. The rationale (excuse) for the tax increase was that alcoholism was hugely damaging, costing the body politic precious tax dollars, and the drinking community with the problem needed to step up and take the lead in paying for the problems they have caused. Of course, this was all crap, and simply an excuse to jack up taxes on a group of people successfully demonized by politicians and the media that was carrying their water. 11 years later, the statistics are in and Alaskans are drinking more than ever, and all the money that was supposed to go into treatment programs for alcoholism has been for the most part diverted into the general fund for state spending. Over the years, spending for alcoholism prevention has rebounded a bit, but there is more alcohol being consumed by more people here in Alaska a decade after the tax than before it was levied. The Road to Hell is still paved with Good Intentions. Time to repeal a tax that is not being used to do anything except hammer drinkers, most of whom are obeying the law and not being a burden to taxpayers at the state or local level. http://www.adn.com/2013/09/15/3077274/alaskans-drank-more-despite-higher.html 3. Anglo American. Anglo American, the US subsidiary partnered with Northern Dynasty decided that they had enough obstruction of the proposed Pebble Mine here in Alaska by locals, rich lodge owners, the EPA and the Senate of the US, and announced they were pulling out of the project. They have spent over $541 million on studies, pre-permitting efforts, exploration and analysis with yet no hole in the ground. The mine is suffering a death of 1000 cuts by the EPA, politicians in the Lakes and Peninsula Borough, the Bristol Bay Native Corporation, nationwide green non-profits which have seized upon the mine as the latest and greatest fundraising scheme. An economic analysis of the mine released last summer notes that it will create on the order of 15,000 new high paying jobs nationwide, bring around $2.5 billion new money into the nationwide GDP yearly for over half a century, and pay hundreds of millions of dollars of taxes into local and state governments here in Alaska. Apparently commercial salmon fishermen, over 40% of which live out of state, get to trump the livelihoods of everyone else in the state. It is time for a legislative pushback on this travesty, and we may very well get to see some in the not so distant future 4. Acidification. The Next Big Thing out of the fraudmeisters that comprise the manmade global warming due to carbon dioxide emissions industry (all taxpayer funded, by the way) is ocean acidification. Their completely unproven theory has excess carbon dioxide dissolving in the ocean, raising its ph as it dissolves and creates carbonic acid. The latest round comes out of an enterprising reporter from the Seattle Times, who produced a massive “study” that ran in many west coast papers in installments last week. The story detailed expected doom and destruction of crab, oyster and coral populations throughout the Pacific Ocean. Cause of all this wanton destruction: mankind. Solution: Near instantaneous stopping of all carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere before the entire oceans die and we follow them to our doom shortly after. The stories (accurate word, as this is fiction at its best) are the current example of yellow journalism, every bit as bad as that practiced by Hearst newspapers over a century ago drumming up support for the Spanish – American War. Take a look at all the species involved in the new round of scaremongering. They are all invertebrates, species that can track their ancestry back over a half a billion years on this planet. And what were the atmospheric carbon dioxide levels back then? At some times, they were over an order of magnitude higher than today. And if the atmospheric levels were that high, so too were the levels of carbon dioxide dissolved in the oceans. If the crab, corals and oysters started out as species back then, don’t you think they would be perfectly suited to high levels of carbon dioxide? I would also. The article did not discuss the oases of life that dot the mid-oceanic ridge lines. These oases are powered by volcanically heated water, high in metals, acids, and temperatures. The worms, crabs, shellfish and shrimp seem to do very, very well miles below the surface of the water in the blackness. Finally, the area biologists working for Alaska Department of Fish and Game look closely at the variable temperatures in the North Pacific. There is a cycle called the Pacific Decadal Oscillation that drives the growth of life and weather in the Pacific Ocean. It is about a 20-year long cycle. Cold phases, the last of which started roughly 2005, favor shellfish growth. Warm phases favor finfish (salmon, for one) growth. And it turns out that the biologists are correct, as the North Pacific cools down here in Alaska, we are having problems with salmon runs of some species. On the other hand, the King and Red Crab seem to be doing very well. Perhaps the Seattle Times needs to do some better research. I will provide the link at the end of this item. When you read the report, consider it as scientifically accurate as anything the H.P. Lovecraft wrote about Cthulhu or Yog Sothoth 90 some years ago. http://apps.seattletimes.com/reports/sea-change/2013/sep/11/pacific-ocean-perilous-turn-overview/ 5. Time. Time Magazine played a little game with its cover story last week, as all the international editions were shipped with a photo of Vladimir Putin and a lead story about how he is now in charge in Syria following Obama’s humiliation. The issue sold in the US had a lead photo of a college football player, with a lead story demanding we start [paying college athletes. The only reason that the Obama administration survives and democrats win anything is that the leftists in the media do everything humanly possible to carry their water, and make sure that nothing negative is ever reported or when it does happen, is buried as soon as humanly possible. The Fourth Estate has signed up with the government and turned themselves into House Propaganda Organs for democrats. This is contributing mightily to the destruction of this nation. http://www.theatlanticwire.com/politics/2013/09/time-magazine-hiding-lot-stuff-lot-countries-apparently/69450/ 6. SWAT. One of the science projects we conservatives are going to have to get involved in over the next couple decades is to demilitarize law enforcement at all levels of government. For decades, the Pentagon has given away outdated or surplus military equipment to state and local law enforcement. This equipment has been put to good use by law enforcement as they have all grown their SWAT teams. The SWAT teams also use a subset of military tactics, which is a growing problem, as the law enforcement mission is completely different from the military mission. Training is also specialized, and as highly specialized training is fungible, it must be used or it will go away. This has led to a proliferation of midnight SWAT raids, no knock raids, and citizens being gunned down in their own homes by black clad military Ninja wanna-bees. The politicians love this stuff as it allows them to have their own little armies. Those armies are and will be used on the citizenry. If we as conservatives shut down the War on Drugs at the national level, the most significant impetus for militarized federal law enforcement will be eliminated. Today there are over 40 federal agencies with armed officers of some sort, and the creeping militarization growing out of the War on Drugs has infected these other agencies. Today there are over 120,000 armed feds that are not part of the military. And when state and local law enforcement sees that, and starts getting the same equipment and training, they want to play also, eventually putting the general public in peril. This mess needs to be shut down. Sooner would be better than later. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/09/14/armed-epa-agents-in-alaska-shed-light-on-70-fed-agencies-with-armed-divisions/ 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. 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