Monday, Sept. 8, 2008 Interesting Items 9/08 - Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy - In this issue: 1. Palin 2. McCain 3. Oil 4. Sunspots 5. Takeover 1. Palin. It is now eleven days since John McCain asked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his running mate, and it has been a wild ride indeed. Palin’s selection has reenergized the conservative base, opening the door not only for a win in November at the presidential level, but a decent chance to retake the House of Representatives and a chance to stem expected losses of Republican seats in the Senate. Additionally, the drive-by media has been completely over the top in their efforts to smear, attack, and drive her off the ticket. In doing so, they guaranteed that more people watched the Republican convention than had ever watched any political convention in history. The viewership for Palin’s speech alone was within a million or so of that which viewed Obama’s acceptance speech. And surprisingly enough, McCain had more people watching his speech the next night than watched either Obama or Palin. Up here in Anchorage , the McClatchy fishwrapper, the Incredibly Shrinking Newspaper (Anchorage Daily News), has trotted out a series of snarky articles on Palin. Each day, they go after her on a different subject. For example, yesterday was a religious attack on her and her beliefs. Previous days have questioned her record as governor, Bristol ’s pregnancy, Troopergate and the ongoing investigation, and Todd Palin’s connection to mining interests in the state. The list goes on and on. The drive-by media has a bunch of people camped out in Wasilla, which is a bit more dangerous than it may seem at first glance, as there are still bears roaming around, moose in rut, and there are people in this state that will meet uninvited media people on their property with firearms. Nothing exciting has happened yet, but we remain ever hopeful. It is also getting cold, with winter on the way. I hope the drive-bys and the democrat opposition researchers brought their warm clothing with them. Local conservative talk radio has been split, with two of the most popular hosts who have been highly critical of Palin in the past remaining critical. Two others have been supportive. Palin’s speech Wednesday night was superb. She even dodged teleprompter failure. She was the first conservative in recent memory who was funny, optimistic, and didn’t back off from responding to the media / democrat assault on her. Optimism, humor and ridicule work well in the political world, as they are the WMD of choice in that world. And she uses them well. Her other asset is that I have never heard her pull the victimhood stunt, asking for deference because she is a woman. I expect this plays very well among the voting public, for who wants to elect a whiner? The goal of the democrat opposition researchers and their drive-by media megaphones was to find sufficient dirt on Palin to drive her off the ticket like Thomas Eagleton in 1972. Barring that, they wanted to make her blink like they did to Dan Quayle in 1988. They did not expect her to stand up to them, laugh at them, and fire back at them. It will be a long 57 days until November 4, but it will not be a boring time. I think Palin and McCain are well on their way to the WH. I hope they are ready. I expect they are. 2. McCain. I am not a McCainiac, and have had much cause to yell at him over the years, especially since 2000. However, I think it is time to tighten up the belt or shoelaces, or whatever sporting apparel suits you and note that we are all reformers now and it is time to enter the game. Reform is going to be McCain’s vehicle to the WH. He is going to run against the corrupt culture inside the Beltway. And given the current level of public disgust with what has gone on there, I expect he will be successful in that run. Now, should he win, what happens? Whatever happens, it will be loud. I look forward with great anticipation to his battles with congress. I think they will be legendary – regardless of which party is in charge. I think he will liberally use recess appointments when democrats in the senate block his executive and judicial appointees. I expect a couple SCOTUS appointees to be blocked, recess appointed, and serve for up to four years without confirmation by the senate. I think their serial obstructionism of presidential appointments will backfire on the senate democrats and eventually turn them out of power. I expect McCain to put Sarah Palin in charge of energy policy, and I expect her to take that ball and run with it. McCain is going to make us crazy at times over the next four years. But I think he is determined to stir things up inside the Beltway a bit. If it solves the problems inside the State Department and the intelligence community via a scorched-e rt hhousecleaning, it will have been worth it. He will be fiscally conservative. He will make us crazy on immigration. He may make us crazy on environmental subjects, but this depends a lot on the Palin influence in the administration. Finally, he will war against congress, which will at worst, be most entertaining. 3. Oil. As of last Tuesday, the per barrel price of oil was down to $106, a full $40 off its high a month or so ago. Nothing like the promise of more domestic production to crater the spot market prices worldwide. Imagine what will happen when we actually start voting to open vast reaches of the continental shelves, federal lands and other areas to oil exploration. This nation can be self-sufficient in energy. The current difficulties are entirely artificial, brought about by a combination of environmental, leftist, and democrat policies that keep our own energy resources in the ground. Hot Air, Tues. 4. Sunspots. August was a historic month for solar observers, with no sunspots observed for the first time in either 50 years or an entire century. This is important in predicting future weather, as quiet solar cycles correlate very nicely with global cooling. The coldest period of the Little Ice Age was centered about the Maunder Minimum, an 82 year long period with no observed sunspots centered in the late 17th Century. The 40-year long Dalton minimum was centered on the end of the 18th Century. We are now entering a period of time when solar activity is very quiet, and the logical prediction would be for cooler weather – especially if it goes on for an extended period of time. Solution? More greenhouse gasses, rather than fewer, to counteract the actions of the sun; more reactors; and more fossil fuels. For if they contribute to global warming and the globe is cooling, why not take the greens at their word and save the world from cooling? Daily Tech, Mon. 5. Takeover. The biggest news over the weekend was the Treasury takeover of mortgage companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Both mortgage companies are examples of how public – private partnerships can’t work, for we the taxpayers are now on the hook for a minimum of $100 billion of a total obligation over $5 trillion. Both companies have been places where democrat insiders are appointed to the Boards and Executive offices as compensation for their time and efforts carrying political water for democrat administrations. Jamie Gorelick, who worked under Hillary and Janet Reno to obstruct the ability of the FBI and the intelligence community to exchange information on terrorist threats, made over $26 million in just a few years at Fannie Mae. Both corporations have been well defended by democrat champions in congress; chiefly by Chris Dodd (D, CN) and Barney Frank (D, MA). Congressional Republicans have not been much help in defusing this ticking financial bomb over the years. Interestingly enough, Republican presidential nominee John McCain (R, AZ) has promised to shut both of them down, downsize them, and privatize both of them. While this may not be a front burner issue during the next two months, I do expect some significant action to be taken over the course of the next year or two should McCain win the election. Lesson to be learned here is that one should never, ever dabble in public private partnerships, for the public takes all the risk, and the private part of the partnership is never exposed to the real pressures and risks of the competitive marketplace. ADN, Sun. 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: MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.com ; District 28 http://www.dist28.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/
The only thing worse than Waco is the ongoing cover-up. http://www.documentarywire.com/waco-the-big-lie/ http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4298137966377572665 http://www.myspace.com/bdsda http://www.movie-forumz.org/showthread.php?t=35645&highlight=waco
