Interesting Items 02/13

Interesting Items 02/13 –

Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –

In this issue:

1. Judiciary
2. Kellogg’s
3. Brena
4. Hat
5. Ads
6. Pause
7. Fukushima
8. Tax
9. Confirmations

1. Judiciary. The Ninth Circus decided that they wanted to rewrite case law and judicial precedent deferring to the President on immigration.  A three-judge panel upheld the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by Seattle federal judge Robart.  Interestingly nothing in the opinion referred to federal law.  They did refer to statements made by candidate Trump during the campaign, before he took the Oath of Office as President.  Thoroughly embarrassed, one of more judges requested an en-banc review of the TRO.  While Trump may not win at the en-banc hearing, the dissenting opinions will be blistering.  There is a problem directly appealing to the SCOTUS on this, as there will be a solid 4 votes in support of upholding the TRO.  While there should be a solid 4 votes against the TRO, Justice Kennedy in recent years has written in support of taking power over immigration back from the President.  Trump has a couple other options.  One would be to withdraw the EO and issue a revised one that does not apply to green card holders.  Another would be to simply change the upper limit on the number of refugees allowed into the US.  O’Bama jacked it up a year ago, and nobody made a peep.  Trump can cut the number to whatever has already shown up in the US this year, essentially shutting down taking refugees for the period he wants to delay their entry.  Final bit comes out of the State Department, which reached out and imported over 100 Syrian refugees the day after the Ninth Circus did their mischief.  There are a lot of little O’Bamas now sitting on the federal bench at all levels, and they will fight Trump every step of the way until Trump and congress steps up to stop them.

2. Kellogg’s. Kellogg’s announced a $53 million fourth quarter loss, closing dozens of distribution centers, and is laying off over 1,100 full time employees.  The CEO refused to discuss blowback against the companies’ decision to pull advertising from Breitbart, calling it a hate site.  Looks like Kellogg’s is about the learn the basic lesson Target is learning:  Never, ever forget why you are in business.  This means ignoring any kneejerk attempt to embrace the Social Justice Warrior worldview.  Unfortunately for Kellogg’s, the virulently leftist Kellogg Foundation continues to exercise significant power on their Board of Directors.  And as always, the marketplace is working as it should.  http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/02/09/kelloggs-ceo-massive-layoffs-time-massive-boycott-coincidence/

3. Brena. Governor Bill Walker’s political bagman Robin Brena was given a sold two hours to testify before the democrat dominated House Resources Committee last week.  Brena is an oil and gas attorney that specializes in lawsuits against the large North Slope oil and gas producers.  He was asked to enlighten the democrats, most of which he funneled campaign donations into the pockets of over the last couple election cycles on the folly of tax credits paid for oil and gas exploration and production.  Using the excuse of the ongoing budget crisis, mostly caused by the Governor’s refusal to lead or participate in budget cutting and the democrats whose elections he helped fund, Brena used a 70-slide PowerPoint deck to make his case for screwing over the companies that fund government in this state.  As Brena purchased Walker’s law firm for an unspecified amount after Walker’s election, when Brena speaks, we are actually hearing what the Governor says and thinks.  One wonders why the Governor was not invited to give his spiel.  Plausible deniability perhaps?  Brena dresses up what the Governor wants in the clothing of a supposedly independent voice.  Unfortunately, nothing Brena said gets more oil in the pipeline.  Nothing Brena talked about makes construction of Walker’s white elephant in-state natural gas pipeline economical to build and operate.  Current break-even is $11 / million btu which will be tough to sell in a world with spot prices below $3.  Nothing Brena said will put the 9,000 who lost jobs in the third quarter last year back to work.  The democrats were told what they wanted to hear and will proceed accordingly.  This is going to be a very tough couple of years.  https://www.adn.com/politics/2017/02/06/its-bizarro-world-in-juneau-as-alaska-lawmakers-kick-off-another-oil-tax-battle/

4. Hat. Dr. Helen Smith, wife of InstaPundit’s Glenn Reynolds had an interesting column last week describing the new feminist pussy hat as a symbol of anti-male hatred by feminists.  They started showing up in the post-inauguration Women’s March the weekend after he was sworn in.  A county judge in Travis County, TX wore her hat in the courtroom.  She was questioned about her lack of objectivity and of course denied it.  All county departments responded that this was perfectly acceptable.  Imagine their reaction should someone else show up with a Confederate battle flag on the back of their pickup.  https://pjmedia.com/drhelen/2017/02/03/the-pussy-hat-a-symbol-of-hate/

5. Ads. One of the awful things about the left is that they destroy everything they touch.  David Burge, former IowaHawk tweeted that they:  1.  Identify a respected institution.  2.  Kill it.  3.  Gut it.  4  Wear its carcass as a skin suit, while demanding respect.  Most recent in those crosshairs has been the NFL, targeted by the screaming lefties at the former worldwide leader ESPN.  For its part, the NFL has played right long, getting itself into a fight with Arizona after MLK day, and look to be picking a fight with Texas over a bathroom bill like North Carolina’s.  They stood idly by while SF third string QB Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem and wondered why their ratings were down.  Commercials at this year’s Super Bowl were not much better, shoving themes of inclusiveness, multiculturalism, and immigration in the collective faces of a half billion uninterested watchers.  Limbaugh believes that this is coming out of young, female ad execs straight out of their college indoctrinations who are given the keys to several million-dollar ad buys.  And those PC commercials are going to hurt their companies.  Badly.  For her part, SB halftime entertainment Lady Gaga did a decent show with no overt PC or sexuality.  Good show on her.  Bad show on some of the companies that ran PC ads, 84 Lumber.  http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/super-bowl-ads-aim-unite-divisive-time-us-45286604

6. Pause. The pause in global temperature rise has long been a sticking point in the argument over the existence of manmade global warming due to CO2 emissions.  For the skeptic side, it is a 19 +yearlong hiatus in global temperature increases.  The glowarmer side has done everything humanly possible to erase that pause, not unlike they have tried to do with the very hot temperatures in the 1930s, the Little Ice Age and earlier warm spells since the last ice age ended.  The latest paper was a NOAA production that was rushed through the system just in time for the most recent Paris climate meeting.  A NOAA whistle blower reported that NOAA broke all the rules of writing scientific papers in the construction of this pile of steaming excrement.  They based the results on unverified data.  They ran that data through an unstable computer program (think model) that spit out different results every time it was run.  The data was never archived and therefore is not available to anybody trying to repeat the results.  They ignored high quality data from ARGO buoys and satellites when that data did not echo the predetermined results.  Final bit of news on this paper is that the data was retained on a single computer which broke, trashing the data.  None of the eight scientists involved in writing the paper had a backup nor did any of the reviewers to celebrated the steaming pile as actual science.  But they were quick to tell both O’Bama and congress that the pause did not exist and they could prove it.  http://joannenova.com.au/2017/02/pause-deniers-finally-get-busted-by-mainstream-media/

7. Fukushima. Last week saw a breathless story about extremely high levels of radiation inside the Fukushima 2 reactor. Even the Washington Post got in on the fun with a headline “Japanese nuclear plant just recorded an astronomical radiation level.  Should we be worried?”  The response is that yes indeed, radiation levels inside the reactor are high.  And yes, they ought to be expected to be high.  To remind the readers what took place, the TEPCO power plant was hit with a 15 m tsunami that shut down all power which in turn shut down all active cooling of the reactors.  Four reactor units lost power to cooling for days.  Internal damage was significant and extensive.  Cleanup is expected to be expensive and take decades.  Part of the cleanup plan is to send robots into damaged areas of the damaged reactors.  Remote inspection of the reactor core showed that control rod position is where they should be in a normally operating plant.  The inspection measured extremely high levels of radiation, which is to be expected as it is in the interior of the reactor core itself.  There was some damage to a grating beneath the core leading some to conclude that there was a partial meltdown of the reactor core and control rods.  This melt is referred to as corium and it is intensely radioactive though both thermally and radioactively cooler than it was shortly after the tsunami six years ago.  The inspection took place some six years after the tsunami and indicates that radioactive cesium escaped from fuel rods in at least one reactor core.  Corium, cesium and radiation are all contained within the reactor containment unit.  An expensive mess?  Absolutely.  Cleanup will take a while?  Yes again.  Immediate danger to life and limb?  Only if you take a stroll inside the reactor core.  Atomic Insights has a good explanation and discussion of what is going on and why.  http://atomicinsights.com/unshielded-radiation-levels-inside-fukushima-unit-2-are-extremely-high/

8. Tax. A pair of former Republican Secretaries of State George Schultz and James Baker visited the WH last week hawking a carbon tax intended to address manmade global warming due to CO2 emissions.  The proposed tax will not actually do anything except make our daily lives more expensive, transferring money from our pockets to the pockets of Washington.  Reportedly, they did not directly meet with Trump himself.  While this sort of thing makes me no small amount of crazy, it does fit in with Trump’s modus operandi, meeting with and listening to everything before making up his mind.  Expect to see a lot more of these presentations during his term(s) in office.  If you are worried that Trump may adopt this sort of foolishness, don’t as stories out of Washington still have EPA employees nearly suicidal as the Trump administration targets their agency and regulations they have hacked up like so many ungodly hairballs over the last few decades.  If a carbon tax is a possibility, they will be doing a Snoopy dance.  And they aren’t.  http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/feb/12/carbon-tax-will-not-help-environment-and-make-amer/

9. Confirmations. Despite their best shot, Education Secretary Betsy DeVoss was confirmed via 51 – 50 vote in the senate last week.  Jeff Sessions’ confirmation was delayed by a day so that he could vote in support of her.  He was confirmed a day or so later.  Votes have been near party line affairs with McConnell holding his majority in place.  The democrats have also voted in unison, even the 10 red state senators who are up for reelection in 2018.  Next target appears to be Andrew Pudzer, Trump’s nominee for the Labor Department.  Pudzer is CEO of Hardee’s and Carl’s Junior, both of which he rescued from oblivion in the fast food marketplace and turned into profitable businesses.  So much winning.  So much winning.  http://thehill.com/regulation/administration/319042-battle-over-trump-nominees-shifts-to-new-target

More later –

– AG