Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday June 13, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. Belugas 2. Organics 3. Teflon 4. Seward 5. NRC 6. Delta 1. Belugas. The knife fight between the State of Alaska and the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) over recovery of “endangered” belugas continued last week when the feds kicked a pair of Alaska Department of Fish & Game (ADF&G) biologists off the recovery panel. The rationale for their ejection was ADF&G policy that required all meetings to be open (the feds wanted to disappear behind closed doors) and for the biologists to represent the position of ADF&G on the panel. The feds attacked this requirement as an attack on science by the State of Alaska. Of course in this case, science is completely irrelevant, for the problem with beluga population here in Cook Inlet was caused entirely by mismanagement of subsistence harvest of belugas by the very same feds that are posturing and pontificating about their recovery. In the mid-1990s, the feds allowed subsistence whaling to cut the number of belugas in Cook Inlet in half. Local greens immediately followed with a demand to list them as an endangered species, eventually turning the entirety of upper Cook Inlet into a critical habitat. This series of NMFS meetings is intended to come up with a recovery plan for the whales. ADF&G and the State of Alaska rightfully believe that the answer is simple (essentially the same thing we did with polar bears): quit hunting them and they will repopulate themselves. And so they have, rebounding from around 260 animals early last decade to over 370 today. This is not good enough for either the feds or the greens, who intend to use the listing of Cook Inlet belugas as a vehicle to shut down commercial fishing (whales eat salmon), shut down oil and natural gas exploration (needed to keep southcentral Alaska warm when it is cold), obstruct all manner of construction including an expansion of the Port of Anchorage (largest port in the state) and the Knik Arm bridge connecting Anchorage with the MatSu. Our congressional delegation has not been much help on this, but the state is in court fighting both the listing and the designation of upper Cook Inlet as a critical habitat. The Endangered Species Act is seriously flawed and needs to be fixed at the earliest opportunity. 2. Organics. There is an e-coli outbreak underway in Germany. To date, there are over 30 dead and thousands sickened by the bacteria. It has been traced back to an organic farm in Germany selling sprouts. Organic farmers use manure, which unless properly treated will be thick with bacteria. This is one of the primary difficulties with organic farming. It is also the reason international travelers need to be very careful consuming fresh fruit and vegetables overseas where night soil (human waste) is used in no small number of locales to fertilize the fields. Contrast this tragedy with the ongoing Fukushima hysteria. To date, there are six dead at Fukushima, none from radiation. Everything we do carries some amount of risk, with the sacraments to the green gods tending to carry more risk than most. The amazing thing about this comparison is that nobody is demanding an instant ban on organic produce. Yet the same nation that is dealing with the e-coli outbreak – Germany – is also the one that caved in to green hysteria over Fukushima and is shutting down all their nuclear reactors because they are too dangerous. Go figure. 3. Teflon. The media feeding frenzy last weekend over the Palin e-mail release was something to behold. The e-mails were released under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The State released them in hard copy, charging just under $800 for copying expenses. By the end of the weekend, at least one leftist media (redundant) organization scanned and uploaded the e-mails to the web. I do not have nor am I interested in the URL. To date, they have not found any smoking guns in over 24,000 e-mails. Contrast the feeding frenzy in Juneau over Palin’s e-mails as governor with the complete lack of interest in Obama’s background while at Columbia, while an Illinois State Senator, or his community organizing jobs. The media assault on Palin may very well apply a near-impenetrable coat of Teflon on her, rendering any and all future political attacks futile. They may be well on their way to creating a monster they will never be able to touch, and in doing so, further destroying themselves as players in the political wars of the future. 4. Seward. Greens in Seward sued the city in 2006 over waste water discharge and large vessel repair facility, claiming it did not have proper discharge permits and was dumping contaminated water into Resurrection Bay. They demanded $76 million in civil penalties against Seward. It turns out that no other city of comparable size in the state has or needs such a permit, and there was no evidence of contaminated water being dumped into the bay. The court fined Seward $1. Over the course of the last three years, the greens who brought the lawsuit are trying recover $150,000 in legal fees – which was the real reason for the lawsuit. The game that the public interest organizations play is essentially a protection racket. They file a series of bogus lawsuits, win an occasional lawsuit, and get all their legal fees paid by the target or the closest government entity. The $1 fine against Seward gives this particular group the opening they need to gouge Seward taxpayers for their protection money. Congratulations to the City of Seward for winning the lawsuit. We hope that the courts will support their refusal to pay protection money to the greens who targeted them for destruction. 5. NRC. If anyone else out there wonders about the lack of interest by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) in speeding up their permitting and approval process for new reactors and new reactor designs, I now have an answer. It is because it is headed up by an anti-Nuclear activist, who used to work in the congressional staffs of both anti-energy Edward Markey (D, MA) and Harry Reid (D, NV). The current Chairman Gregory Jaczko was blasted by the NRC Inspector General (IG) for illegal and unprofessional actions in his effort to shut down the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste storage facility in Nevada. According to the IG, Jaczko unilaterally used his position as NRC Chairman to order the termination of the project. As of this writing, nobody involved knows if any of the other commissioners were involved or what their votes on motions to terminate were, as Jaczko has refused to release any of the minutes or transcripts to the public. The courts have weighed in on the decision, finding that because Yucca Mountain was ordered in legislation passed, signed and funded, Jaczko has no authority to terminate the project. But it is important to Harry Reid that it be stopped, so his boy at the NRC was more than happy to do so. The IG report goes on to describe Jaczko’s use of the NRC travel budget as a vehicle to get votes for things he is interested in. A hearing on Yucca Mountain is scheduled late this week. There are myriad small, safe, new reactor designs out there trying to work their way through the NRC licensing / permitting process. Progress so far has been glacially slow. We now have another reason: the NRC has a Chairman who is not interested in new energy; doesn’t much like nuclear power; and is a political tool of Harry Reid. What a great combination of skills to move us into a cleaner energy future. Jaczko was also instrumental in whipping up public hysteria over the Fukushima nuclear plant meltdowns, calling for a 50-mile exclusion zone around the plants. This call was not based in any analysis of threat to Americans in the area, but did serve nicely to bounce the US Navy from the area, instantly halting their relief efforts following the quake and tsunami. 6. Delta. Delta Air Lines distinguished itself last week with a story about bringing the troops home from Afghanistan. Delta is flying as a contract carrier and carries the troops and their gear home. In this story, Delta charged the troops for checking extra bags onto the flight. The airline wouldn’t allow the soldiers or the excess baggage onto the flight until they had money in hand. These clowns keep this up and they will start to make the TSA look reasonable. Once the story hit the net and the bad publicity rolled in, Delta reconsidered their position and allowed extra baggage to be checked through without the baggage fees. 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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