Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Cops
- Thorium
- Arpaio
- AK Gov
- Harvey
- Suicide
- Cops. A good description of what goes on in the long-term blue cities from my good friend Art Chance. The blue cities are controlled by democrats and the unions that support them, sometimes for years. The people who get elevated into positions of authority on the Police force are all approved by the unions and in turn by the democrats in charge of the locales. They don’t do anything that the democrats don’t want them to do. So, when democrats bus in their paid good squad, the politicians and in turn the police look the other way, or like we’ve seen in Charlottesville, take active steps to make sure the two sides get together and get it on. Think of the police in the blue cities as co-conspirators in the festivities. Cops that think otherwise usually end up not spending a lot of time on the force, quitting completely or taking their skills to places that are friendlier to actual law enforcement. Never forget the incestuous, synergistic work of the unions and the democrats they elect and maintain in office. It’s a great scheme, as they can keep a democrat government in place for decades. It’s how they captured control of the federal bureaucracy. Even communities with a history of changing governments will fall prey to this sort of one-way ratchet should a democrat elect the Mayor and capture control of the local government for just long enough to put their people in place, permanently burying them in the bureaucracy. We are starting to see that take place here in Anchorage, much to our dismay.
- Thorium. I have long been a fan of nuclear energy, and am saddened by its inability to penetrate and expand the energy marketplace. Why is this so? Competition is an obvious answer, especially in recent years due to the fracking revolution. Natural gas is cheap, plentiful, reasonably carbon-friendly (for those of you that like that sort of thing), and fairly safe to deal with. All of us have experience dealing with propane – a natural gas liquid that is produced along with natural gas. What has happened to nuclear energy? I would say it is impaled on the twin horns of overregulation (always a killer), and shoddy science education. The overregulation part is easy, as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) over the years has turned into a speed bump for development to the point that everything new in the field is going on overseas. It has been staffed with enough anti-nuclear staffers beholden to the odious Harry Reid and Edward Markey, the last being its former chairman Greg Jaczko. The agency is infamous for forcing design changes on new plants after construction has begun. Its endlessly changing rules and regulations never serve to keep costs down or improve safety, though safety is always the excuse. Rather, they always jack up budgets and stretch out schedules, all in the name of safety, you know. The education piece of this is just as bad, with the anti-nukes having done a masterful job convincing the general public that any nuclear accident will make you a lot more dead than a deadly accident in other parts of the energy field. Further, the EPA has long pushed the notion that any exposure to ionizing radiation is a deadly affair. The problem is that we humans, along with all life on this planet evolved in a constantly radioactive environment. Some of the radiation comes from the sun. Some comes from cosmic rays whistling in from space. Some comes from radioactive elements in the ground and rock itself (think of the periodic radon scares). The problem human mortality does not reflect this thinking at all, for if it did, those living at high altitudes above the protection of half the atmosphere (Denver, for instance), have no more incidence of cancers than any other Americans do. Indeed, there is an effect called radiation hormesis that demonstrates positive health effects of exposure to low levels of ionizing radiation. We can observe and measure the radioactive decay of a single atom today. Our detectors are that precise. But it is not a single atom that will kill you. It is quadrillions and quadrillions doing the same thing at the same time. There is a level of exposure that radiation becomes a problem. We see a similar effect with vitamins, ingesting a small amount of a poison necessary for life that in large quantities can kill you. Vitamin A is a good example, having killed a number of Arctic explores via ingesting polar bear liver. The Dutch are starting work on a molten salt reactor that will burn thorium. They are not the only ones, as the Indians and ChiComs are also starting work on thorium reactors. There is a lot more thorium in the world than uranium, and a thorium reactor will burn spent nuclear fuel. Perhaps it is time to open our energy future to all players and level the regulatory field for the participants. https://www.engadget.com/2017/08/28/thorium-reactor-experiment/
- Arpaio. A week ago, President Trump issued a Presidential Pardon to longtime supporter and friend former Sherriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, AZ. Que the expected outrage. Arpaio was convicted by a federal judge of refusing his order to refrain from detaining illegals, as detaining illegals is the job of the feds. Problem is that the O’Bama regime decided not to enforce federal law and the SCOTUS upheld that decision. As a result Maricopa and other AZ counties were (and are) overrun with people that are there illegally. Arpaio also was enforcing state law, which was still in effect, as no federal potentate had yet struck it down. So his trial and conviction were in essence a policy dispute between the state and feds. Like all good messengers, Arpaio ended up getting shot. Arpaio was accused by O’Bama’s (In)Justice Department of illegally targeting, profiling Latino illegals, or 99%+ of the influx. Team O’Bama went after Arpaio just two weeks before an election, which he ended up losing by 13%. To be fair, Arpaio was in the process of wearing out his welcome in the country via multiple, very expensive immigration lawsuits, that were funded out of the pockets of his taxpayers. They elected his democrat opponent, who promised to save money. And save money he is, by doing what all good little democrats do, releasing illegals who have committed criminal acts back into the public. It is another example of HL Mencken’s observation that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.” The presiding judge denied Arpaio a jury trial. There are numerous bits of evidence that he made up his mind before the trial that he was going to stop Arpaio no matter what. Neither he nor his wife have denied this. Finally, all the right people are furious at Trump for the pardon, including AZ US Senators Jeff Flake and John McCain. http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2017/08/did-joe-arpaio-receive-a-fair-hearing-from-an-unbiased-judge.php
- AK Gov. Next year’s gubernatorial race here in Alaska is shaping up to be a very interesting affair, that is if you are a fan of Chinese curses. Last week, Governor Walker and LtGov Mallott filed to run as independents. The filing was overseen by their handler, Juneau’s own Bruce Botelho who managed to get himself in the filing photo as a message to statewide democrats that Mallott and Walker might run as independent, but if elected they would continue their lockstep democrat administration. This didn’t sit all that well with a couple of democrats with gubernatorial aspirations, State Senator Bill Weilechowski was the most vocal about his displeasure. The hottest rumor is that former senator Mark Begich whose vote gave us O’BamaCare wants to be governor also and is quietly putting together a campaign team for the run. The other Begich rumor out there is that he and billionaire Tom Steyer are putting together a deal to purchase the now bankrupt Alaska Dispatch News from Chapter 11 (or perhaps Chapter 7). The thinking seems to be that if the Dispatch can elect a governor, which it participated in during Walker’s run in 2014, why not buy the festering carcass and do the same thing next year? On the Republican side, it looks to be a free for all, with a single filer so far, State Senator Mike Dunleavy. The family of another potential candidate, Johne Binkley is currently in negotiation to purchase the Dispatch News, so two can play that game. There are perhaps a dozen additional names considering options. Playing the what-if game, suppose the Republican wins an expensive primary next August, he or she would have to raise sufficient money to put together a run. Walker and Mallott are already raising money, almost exclusively from democrats, unlike 4 years ago when he did have a decent amount of Republican support as a former Republican candidate. His governing exclusively with democrats over the last 4 years put an end to most of that. Should he run, Begich will bring in mostly outside money from large, national democrat donors, swamping the entire field with cash. Winner of this may get to win with less than 40% of the popular vote statewide. The other consideration is that the 10,000+ jobs the state has lost over the last few years mostly come out of the resource development field. These guys and gals were mostly conservative, usually voted, and donated that way also. With that portion of the electorate changing, Alaska may be on its way back to a demographic before the Pipeline was built when it was a democrat, union state. Hang on for this one, as its going to be some ride. http://midnightsunak.com/2017/08/25/begich-running-governor-considering/
- Harvey. Hurricane Harvey broke a 142 month, 4,323 day period without a major hurricane hitting the continental US last week as it came ashore in Corpus Christi as a Category 3 storm. Steering currents were non-existent and it stalled out south of Houston and dumped around four feet of rain on a 20,000-square mile area of south central Texas. That part of the state is very flat, and the 5.6 million residents of Greater Houston dealt with massive flooding, not to mention the additional natural disasters of mosquitoes, fire ants, alligators, and snakes. Over 170,000 homes have been flooded and the rebuilding will take years, perhaps decades. For once, we had state and local governments with their act together who did not use the storm for partisan political gain like New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and LA Governor Kathleen Blanco did with Katrina in 2005, or democrat FL Governor Lawton Chiles did with Andrew in 1992. Elected democrats delayed requests for federal assistance during both storms as a vehicle to harm Bush 43 in 2005 and Bush 41 in 1992. Worked pretty well politically, as the media beat the living tar out of both presidents for their supposed incompetence. This time around nobody is playing games and the system is working the way it ought to work. Nice to have solid elected Republicans with honey badger sensibilities toward the media. Harvey was the first hurricane to hit the US in a long time. By the looks of it, it won’t be the last this season as Irma is inbound toward Florida and currently churning as a Cat 5. https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/susan-jones/major-us-hurricane-drought-ends-after-record-4323-days
- Suicide. Breitbart ran a Brent Bozell piece about slow death by suicide of the national Republican Party. The article mainly touched the failure of congress, primarily the senate, to pass major pieces of legislation of the Trump agenda. We have heard these complaints before, and criticism of the senate is most certainly in order, but I would tend to disagree that nothing is getting done. Congress spent much of the first half of this year rolling back O’Bama rules and regulations. They tossed a bunch of them. The senate also confirmed a SCOTUS replacement for the sadly departed Antonin Scalia in Neil Gosuch. OTOH, the senate is still sitting on hundreds of Trump appointees for lower level positions. They are sitting on tens of judges. They failed to repeal O’BamaCare, something that has been a staple of Republican congressional campaigns since 2010. The House has however grudgingly done the right thing. The senate, not so much, so that is where the problem is. The Republican party is doing well at the state and local level. Our problem is with insufficient conservative US senators. And that is where the emphasis needs to be for next year. Primary those who have gone native and remove them from the political gene pool. Defeat all incumbent democrat senators from states that Trump win in 2016. Turn the senate. Never forget that there is always going to be another election. No vote is the last word. The votes are usually the starting point rather than the end. Keep the pressure on and never, ever let them get comfortable. http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/08/27/exclusive-brent-bozell-the-slow-death-of-the-republican-party/
More later –
– AG