INTERESTING ITEMS 4/11 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] Monday April 11, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: In this issue: 1. Lady Aggies 2. Koran 3. Prosser 4. Chicken 5. Legislature 1. Lady Aggies. The best news of the week was a first-ever national championship in NCAA women’s basketball for Texas A&M. The Lady Aggies beat Notre Dame Tuesday night 76 – 70 in one of the tougher defensive games you would hope to watch. This was old fashioned basketball, with bodies on the floor, people getting carried off, and gritty determined defense. Congratulations to the ladies for heck of a job and an enjoyable set of games to watch throughout the tournament. 2. Koran. When Islamist thugs run out of other things to get upset about, they chose up sides and riot over someone who burns the Koran. This is supposed to be a Very Bad Thing because the Koran is their Holy Word. Last week, the Karzai government in Afghanistan got the clerics all spun up over a Koran burning in Florida two weeks ago and the mob attacked a UN compound and murdered eight UN aid workers. For some reason, the mob did not want to go after the American base just down the road. Cowards. When this garbage happens, it is always fascinating to watch the apologists wrap themselves into knots in an attempt to excuse the barbarity of these vermin. This time around, both Harry Reid (D, NV) and Lindsey Graham (RINO, SC) both opined that there ought to be a law against burning the Koran because it was extreme speech that would incite the mob to violence. Of course neither fool went on to explain that this particular mob gets its collective knickers in a wad over literally anything. In calling for federal legislation against Koran burning, Graham demonstrates yet again why he is unfit for office. Perhaps he will see a primary challenge next time he is up for reelection. One of the funny parts of this was the cable show interviews of Islamic clerics who claim that Koran burning is so very much more terrible than burning a Bible because the Koran is the actual Word of Allah. This is in contrast to the Bible which they view as written by men rather than the divine, which is self serving claptrap. It is long past time for these clowns to learn a little tolerance. Interestingly enough, you can go to You Tube and find more than a few videos of burning Korans. This got me to thinking about writing an app for an i-phone or Android that would do the same thing. Perhaps even a Koran burning screen saver for your laptop to keep you warm at night. You can watch it while snacking on pork rinds or bacon. 3. Prosser. Well, the public employee unions, the democrats and the highly motivated left poured over $3.5 million into a very nasty campaign to grab control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court with the election last Tuesday. As of Wednesday morning, it appeared that the green union supporting activist judge managed to win a 204 vote victory. She rushed out immediately and claimed a Great Victory for Unions and greens. On Thursday, the Clerk of Waukesha County announced that around 14,000 votes from one township had not been sent along to the AP in their preliminary reporting. The additional ballots reversed Kloppenburg’s win and gave the incumbent, Prosser a hopefully insurmountable lead of around 7,500 votes. The Clerk was a Republican. Her deputy was the local Chairman of the county Democrat party and verified the mistake in unofficial reporting. Statewide democrats are screaming in pain and claiming election fraud. A real cynic would smile and note that it is long past time that our side started playing that game, but this would be a big mistake, as our job is to clean up elections rather than getting in the gutter with the fraudsters from the democrat party. It will take several weeks for the canvassing to sort it out. Ann Althouse did note a problem with returns Tuesday night, as the totals from Waukesha County did not change as the additional precincts were counted. Outside observers who did not know Wisconsin elections did not pick this up at the time. I think Prosser wins this one and the unions will have $3.5 million less to spend stealing elections next time around. 4. Chicken. Republicans in the House played the latest round of their game of chicken with the democrats in the senate and in the WH last week. They labored mightily and brought forth a mouse. There was agreement on a continuing resolution to fund the government for the rest of the year. Total budget cut was in the vicinity of $36 billion. Unfortunately, we need another trillion to make it through the rest of the year. That money will be printed out of thin air as nobody is buying our treasuries any more. And as that money is printed, inflation will continue to spiral up and out of control as it is currently doing with transportation costs and food, both of which are exacerbated by idiotic energy policies. Limbaugh blasted the deal as an attack on the Tea Party, which explains the over the top rhetoric throughout the weekend about Boehner kicking democrat backside on the deal. The Obama WH really screwed up during the festivities by threatening not to pay active duty military during the impending shutdown. House leadership responded with legislation that would fund DoD through the rest of the Year. Harry Reid’s senate leadership refused to bring that legislation to the floor. Interestingly enough Kay Bailey Hutchison (R, TX) had 80 cosponsors of similar legislation that would have steamrolled Reid’s intransigence. SECDEF Robert Gates even got into the festivities by observing that one ought to consider paying the people with guns first. Previous shutdowns had Presidents Reagan and Clinton signing Executive Orders paying the troops during the shutdown. Boehner also got promises for up or down votes in the senate to kill ObamaCare and completely defund Planned Parenthood. He dropped riders that would have defunded NPR and the EPA carbon regulation schemes. Obama refused to make that deal. Win or lose, this event is not the last, as there will be at least two more opportunities to go after substantial budget reductions this year. Next up to bat will be a vote to raise the debt limit early in May. This is being treated as Armageddon, with failure to approve spending another trillion dollars we don’t have leading to yet another shutdown. If the House leadership is going to get the public blowback that I think they are getting, they will demand substantial budget cuts in return for this vote. For the record, Obama voted against raising the debt ceiling in 2005 while in the senate. It was one of the few times he did not vote present. Finally, we will get yet another opportunity to fight the budget battle late this year as congress considers the 2012 budget. Strap ‘em on, as this is going to be a bruising battle. 5. Legislature. The Alaska Legislature is nearing the end of its 90-day session with a real ugly fight between Senate Republicans who chose to organize with democrats and Republican majority in the House and Governor Parnell. At issue is a rollback of progressive taxation of oil producers passed and signed by Sarah Palin a few years ago that has all but shut down new production of oil on state leases in Prudhoe Bay. Producers pay over 90% taxes on every barrel produced when the per barrel prices get higher than $100, making Alaska nearly the worst place for oil companies to invest in new production. Senate President Gary Stevens (RINO, Kodiak) refused to push or even hold hearings on legislation introduced at the start of the session two months ago. When the House-passed legislation came across, he assigned it to all the relevant committees, ensuring that it would not move through the process. To date, there have been no hearings held on either piece of legislation in the Senate. Governor Parnell is promising to line item veto all capital spending for all Senate projects unless the Senate gets off the dime. Stevens responded to that observation with a long, rambling floor speech yesterday on the floor blasting the Governor for bullying the senate. Whether or not anything happens this year, we are in the midst of redistricting, and the Railbelt stands to pick up a couple senate seats after it is all over. Expect a couple of these intransigent Republican RINO bozos to get redistricted out of the political gene pool. I hope it is not too late. 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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