Howdy all, a few Interesting Items for your information. Enjoy –
In this issue:
- Ossoff
- Renewables
- Bears
- Slants
- Orca
- Branding
- Rice
- Scalise
- Ossoff. Democrat Jon Ossoff lost the runoff to replace former Republican congress critter Tom Price (HHS) last week by 4 – 5 % over a mostly colorless Karen Handel in Newt Gingrich’s old congressional district in Georgia. This ended up being the most expensive congressional races in history with democrats dumping nearly $30 million into a single congressional race, all in the hope of giving President Trump a black eye. They didn’t. Ossoff was the prototypical democrat, a metrosexual pajama boy who had been living with his girlfriend in her apartment for the last 12 years while she went to medical school. For some reason, he decided to get engaged during the latter stages of the campaign, which didn’t work either. The vast majority of money he raised for the race was out of state, much of it from Hollywood. Ossoff did the predictable routine telling his out of state donors one thing while telling his putative constituents something entirely different. Problem was that he didn’t even live in the district. This is the type of candidate we will see for the next couple election cycles out of the democrats – either a pajama boy or the only liberal military guy in his (or her) unit, as they attempt to pander to a majority of victim groups while artfully hiding their unfitness for office.
- Renewables. Several good stories on renewable energy last week from a variety of sources. First an article out of James Delingpole passes along a Swedish report that battery manufacturing leads to high emissions. For every kilowatt hour of storage capacity, the battery generates emissions of 150 – 200 kg of CO2. The larger the battery, the larger the CO2 emissions. As a comparison, you would have to drive a gasoline or diesel for nearly 3 years to release as much CO2 as a Nissan Leaf during its construction; and over 8 years for a Tesla. Electric cars are hardly environmentally friendly at all. Rather, they do a bait and switch, hiding high emissions during manufacture and power grid electrical generation while claiming to be environmentally friendly. Second comes out of Oz, which is looking at a 15 – 20% price increase in electricity due to its green energy mandates. Many are blaming a “failure of energy policy” for the price increase. The author notes that this is not a failure at all, but a feature, a goal of the green energy policy, to price energy out of reach for the average consumer. And where will the energy consumer get the additional coin to pay their energy bills? Nobody making policy, shuttering coal plants today seems to know or more importantly to care about that quesiton. Finally, out of the Daily Telegraph via WUWT, comes an article entitled “There is no such thing as affordable renewable energy.” It details how the Turnbull government in Oz is systematically and irrevocably jacking up electricity costs to citizens of Oz via renewable goals. The vehicle is entirely regulatory, giving renewable generation sources pre-eminent access to the electric grid. Coal operators have responded by shutting down no longer profitable operations on short notice, leading to government expropriation of their resources via mandates to keep newly unprofitable operations in operation for three, count ‘em, three years after the economic determination is made. https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/17/daily-telegraph-there-is-no-such-thing-as-affordable-renewable-energy/
- Bears. This is going to be a tough year fishing here in Alaska. There have been a significant number of human – bear encounters over the last month, two of them deadly last week. Black bears, one near Anchorage and one in the interior hunted down and killed a pair of people. These were predatory black bears. Bear spray doesn’t work on predatory bears other than as a condiment. Over the weekend there was another pair or bikers on Fort Richardson who came upon a sow and cub. One was mauled and still in the hospital. It is long past time to start significantly and aggressively thinning the herd. Like all animals, bears can be educated. Teach them that getting close to humans equals pain or death, and they will get the message. https://craigmedred.news/2017/06/23/alaska-bear-fears/
- Slants. In yet another blow to O’Bama’s toxic brew of race baiting and political correctness, the SCOTUS found that portions of a 70-year old federal law used by the US Patent and Trademark Office to deny trademarks it considered offensive / racially disparaging was unconstitutional. An Asian American rock band from Oregon with a sense of humor calling themselves the Slants fought an 8-year long battle with the US Patent Office on the denial. The band’s co-founder said his goal was to reclaim a derisive slur and “transform it into a badge of ethnic pride”, not unlike what NWA did with the fantabulous “N”-word. Under the O’Bama regime, the Patent Office was transformed into a vehicle to enforce the regime’s worldview on whom or what can be called. They picked a fight with the Washington Redskins over its name, removed its trademark protection and tried to force the team to change its name. While there are a lot of reasons to dislike the Redskins, especially for Cowboys fans (anyone else remember Diron Talbert?) its name is not one of them. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/06/19/supreme-court-rules-trademark-law-banning-offensive-names-is-unconstitutional.html
- Orca. Here’s a fun story out of Bering Sea commercial fishermen. Pods of killer whales (orca) have figured out that commercial long liners are food sources, and they have started following the boats, lines in the sea, and taking hooked halibut and black cod off the hooks. These boats can harvest 20 – 30,000 pounds of fish daily when the pods are not around and get next to nothing when they are present. The whales seem to be targeting specific boats, with mothers teaching calves how to score a free meal. The problem has increased significantly over recent years, with the orca getting more aggressive. There are an estimated 1,500 orca in Alaskan waters. Now here is the fun part, orca are federally protected. They are smart, and under federal protection, their numbers have increased to the point where they are threatening catches of black cod. This is a problem we are going to have in the future as numbers of federally protected polar bears get large enough to make a real dent in the population of their targeted food groups – various seals in the Arctic. How to stop the whales? Thin them out a bit. Educate them not to play with commercial fishermen. Given the federal protection, I don’t think this will happen. OTOH, it might be time for commercial fishermen to get into the fish farming business for halibut and black cod. I have no idea how to protect them from whales, but when predation is too successful, it is time to remove your operation from the attentions of the predators. https://www.adn.com/alaska-news/2017/06/18/in-a-bering-sea-battle-of-killer-whales-vs-fishermen-the-orcas-are-winning/
- Branding. One of the lessons out of the 2016 elections was the success of persuasion, branding, and confirmation bias. Indeed, the entire election was fought on the battlefield of persuasion, with both sides landing titanic blows. In national elections, democrats normally get to play the field unopposed. This time around, they were up against one of the best persuaders in the world today, Donald Trump, and they didn’t quite know how to respond to someone who was fighting back in kind. Here in Alaska, the persuasion battle has been going on against the Pebble Mine for nearly a decade, always played out with focus-grouped words, phrases, and descriptions. The latest being couched in an op-ed in the local fish wrapper entitled “People of Bristol Bay will never trade fish for gold.” Interesting construct that, as you are supposed to believe that you will never trade a salmon fishery for a gold mine. But that’s not what the phrase says. Rather it says they will never trade fish for gold, which is the opening a persuader can exploit to their own advantage. Bristol Bay supports a large commercial fishery. What do commercial fishermen do? They trade caught fish for money, fish for gold. Same thing goes for any guide or lodge owner in the region, who trade access to fish for payment, gold. So, all you have to do is use their words on them and point out that their entire economy is based on the fish for gold transaction. I pointed this out in the comments section and was called a troll. These guys need to get another phrase in opposition. https://www.adn.com/opinions/2017/06/22/people-of-bristol-bay-will-never-trade-fish-for-gold/
- Rice. The O’Bama regime’s designated liar, Susan Rice was its National Security Advisor. Judicial Watch via FOIA document request and congressional committees have been requesting National Security Council documents relating to her unmasking of Trump presidential campaign transition team for months. Last week, the NSC informed Judicial Watch that the documents were removed from the NSC and transferred to the O’Bama Presidential Library somewhere in Chicago. Under the Presidential Records Act, this closes these records from the public for five years after the administration leaves office. The Special Prosecutor and congress can weigh in to force release of these records. We will see if Mr. Mueller can take a few minutes from hiring Clinton and O’bama donors / lawyers for his investigation to force the release of these documents.
- Scalise. As of this writing, Steve Scalise (R, LA) is still hospitalized following his attempted assassination by yet another armed Bernie Sanders supporter. The shooter wanted to kill as many Republican congress critters as possible, forcing a democrat takeover in the House. Over the last few months, the hate-fest out of the democrats has led directly to threats against over 30 Republican members of congress. Following the shooting, there was a kumbaya moment that lasted all of 15 – 20 seconds before democrats once again started accusing Republicans of wanting to kill Americans via O’BamaCare repeal. Had anyone other than the DC police present at the baseball practice been allowed to carry concealed, this 10-minute event would have ended much quicker. A possible outcome may be legislation forcing reciprocity between states and the District of Columbia. As congress writes all the laws for DC, this most certainly be an appropriate response. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/15/rep-thomas-massie-introducing-bill-recognize-outsi/
More later –
– AG