Interesting Items Alex Gimarc [email protected] Monday June 20, 2011 Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy – In this issue: 1. EPA 2. Ethanol 3. Light Bulb 4. Fast and Furious 5. Bachmann 6. Righthaven 7. Wisconsin 8. TSA 1. EPA. The EPA’s war on oil, natural gas, coal and the states that produce them continues on unabated. Last week’s announcement of new clean air regulations on mercury are aimed squarely at making the mining and use of coal to produce electricity here in the US (about 50% of all electricity nationwide) too expensive. In response, utilities nationwide are announcing they are going to be shutting down coal fired plants rather than spending half a billion dollars per plant retrofitting them with new emissions control equipment. The EPA claimed the new regulations would lead to over two trillion dollars in benefits and an army of new jobs. An analysis of this claim shows it to be like most EPA claims these days: complete vaporware. The new regulations are going to be very, very expensive and there will be no measurable benefit to the general public. Obama’s push to shut down the coal industry and the electric utilities that use it marches on. Read the Jazz Shaw Hot Air article here: http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/16/shocking-epa-cost-benefit-predictions-based-on-feelings/ 2. Ethanol. The Senate by a majority of 73-27 voted to end the 45 cent per gallon credit for ethanol producers to blend into gasoline. The vote also ended a 54 cent per gallon import tariff on offshore ethanol. What is not clear at this time is whether the vote also ended the EPA’s fuel oxygenation program that has required ethanol / MBTE to be added to gasoline. This vote also puts the senate at odds with the House which voted last month to retain the ethanol subsidy. If the senate is successful, expect your gasoline costs to increase yet another notch that is unless congress repeals the EPA fuels oxygenation program. This is a step in the right direction along a very painful path in unraveling decades of environmental lunacy. 3. Light Bulb. One of the concerns that conservatives had with House Speaker Boehner’s elevation of Fred Upton to Chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee was his fealty to environmental legislation, specifically his authorship of the ban on the incandescent light bulb in 2007. Upton promised to write legislation to repeal the ban in return for his chairmanship. So far, this legislation has gone nowhere and the House is still prattling on about renewables, biofuels, windmills, and other sacrificial offerings to the green gods of Manmade Global Warming. The initial ban goes into effect on December 31, 2011, so time’s wasting. Might be a good time to contact your favorite congress critter and demand they keep their slimy hands out of your light socket, out of your toilet, and out of your gas tank. 4. Fast and Furious. The House Oversight Committee held hearings on the BATF Operation Gunrunner / Fast and Furious last week. The Obama administration describes this operation as a way to trace gun sales across the US border into Mexico. What it really did was illegally allow straw sales of over 1,700 semi to fully automatic weapons to cross the US border and get into the hands of the drug cartels in Mexico. The weapons were used to murder US Border Control officers. The gun community has been talking about this scandal for years; for fear that it was all a setup by the Obama administration to push new gun control legislation. And it turns out that those fears were well founded, for when local dealers reported suspicious purchases to the BATF and BATF local officers expressed their concerns to their superiors, they were told to shut up and approve the sales. A year ago, the Obama administration pushed the false claim that over 90% of the firearms used by Mexican drug gangs were imported from the US. Mexican President Calderon joined into the fun during his trip to the US last year, calling for stricter gun control laws in the US. It turns out that the laws in place were just fine; it was the Obama administration willfully breaking those laws and allowing guns purchased in the US to cross the border. It now remains for the House to figure out how far up the food chain this goes. I suspect it goes at least as high as Eric Holder in (In)Justice; perhaps even well into the WH. This is a Big Deal and should lead to lots of jail time for the vermin involved. 5. Bachmann. The second Republican debate took place last Monday night. It was moderated by CNN’s John King, who made himself the center of action, interrupting the candidates time after time, asking foolish questions, and trying to steer the debate into social issues and as far away from economics as humanly possible. The candidates all did well, with Michelle Bachmann and Mitt Romney doing the best. After the debate, there was a brief flurry of media buzz about Bachmann, leading some of us to wonder if they weren’t simply building her up as the anti-Palin, so they would be able to destroy her at a later date. While this may be intentional, I suspect they will bite off more than they can chew, for if they elevate Bachman, they may create yet another female conservative who like Palin they will not be able to cow, intimidate or control. Message to the media: be careful what you wish for, as you may end up getting it (and in the words of H.L. Menken), get it good and hard. 6. Richthaven. One of the bottom feeders in the media wars against bloggers has been the Righthaven law firm. It specialized in filing expensive lawsuits against bloggers that linked to or carried snippets of content from their media clients. They would bully bloggers into submission, steal their domain names via coercive settlement, and go on to the next target. They made a lot of money over the last several years doing this protection racket. The Democrat Underground fought back and won, and is pressing their advantage in court. Last week, the presiding federal judge found that Righthaven did not have standing to sue, had misled the court, and had two weeks to show the court why they should not be sanctioned. Should they be unable to do so, expect everyone who was targeted by Righthaven and their media clients, forced into consent agreements to come out of the woodwork and extract their pound of flesh from these bottom feeders. Sometimes we get good news from the courts. 7. Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Supreme Court reinstated Wisconsin’s collective bargaining reform legislation last week. The vote was 4-3 with Judge Prosser voting in the majority. It is important to note that every single judge concurred in part, with the non-concurring opinions being whining about taking up the case so quickly. In a sharply worded rebuke to the black-robed union activist Maryann Sumi, the majority invoked a separation of powers argument and blasted her for not having the authority to intervene in the inner workings of other branches of the Wisconsin state government. In short, the legislature makes and enforces its own rules. We will see if this rebuke ends up being grounds for impeachment and removal of Sumi from the bench. Meanwhile, the recall elections for six Republican state senators will take place next month and the unions filed suit in federal court calling the collective bargaining reform legislation unconstitutional, hoping to find an Obama or Clinton appointee to toss it. Unions in Wisconsin are the gift that keeps on giving. They need to be careful, for they run the very real risk of turning Wisconsin into a solidly red state, not unlike the backlash the NLRB is triggering against the feds in South Carolina. 8. TSA. The bullies who infest the TSA spend a lot of time going after people who can’t or won’t fight back, ignoring the Islamists who actually want to kill us. Over the years, they have singled out the handicappers, the cognitively disabled and the elderly for their special attention. In a story from Detroit last week, they focused their special attention on a 29-year old handicapper who functions mentally at the age of two years old. He was selected because he wouldn’t put his feet on the yellow lines on the floor as ordered. Parents attempts to assist were dismissed with the expected ”We know what we are doing.” The guy was selected for the “special” pat down. TSA found padding under his pants. This padding was his adult diapers. They also found a six-inch plastic hammer and a ball that the kid carries as a security blanket. They confiscated the hammer because it could be used as a weapon and discarded it for fear that the handicapper would use it to hijack the airliner. The kid had been carrying his toy hammer for 20 years and is attached to it. The TSA gave the family the choice of leaving the security area and shipping the hammer to their destination, which would have guaranteed they miss their flight. The family declined. Once they were through security, the mother took another plastic hammer out of her bag and gave it to her son. The family complained to the local TSA via letter and was promised that the 800 TSA agents infesting Detroit would be retrained in proper procedures. You can read the entire article from Monday’s Hot Air here: http://hotair.com/archives/2011/06/11/tsa-confiscates-mentally-challenged-mans-toy/ 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. 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 The Alaska Standard http://thealaskastandard.com/ MatSu Valley News http://www.matsuvalleynews.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
