{"id":435,"date":"2019-05-28T09:17:51","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T17:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/?p=435"},"modified":"2019-05-28T09:17:51","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T17:17:51","slug":"interesting-items-05-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/2019\/05\/28\/interesting-items-05-27\/","title":{"rendered":"Interesting Items 05\/27"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information.\u00a0 Enjoy \u2013<\/p>\n<p>In this issue:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Climate<\/li>\n<li>Cellphone<\/li>\n<li>Financial<\/li>\n<li>Mascot<\/li>\n<li>Spy v Spy<\/li>\n<li>Amash<\/li>\n<li>NY Gas<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>Climate. The Anchorage Assembly had itself quite a week last week, passing a couple ordinances that assault the liberty and ultimately the bank accounts of Anchorage residents, and will for years.\u00a0 First up was the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.muni.org\/Departments\/Mayor\/AWARE\/resilientanchorage\/pages\/climateactionplan.aspx\">Climate Action Plan<\/a>.\u00a0 This is a 106-page document put together with the help of a grant from UAA that ends up as the ultimate wet dream for every green in Alaska.\u00a0 Over 140 people participated in its construction.\u00a0 The stated goal is to reduce CO2 emissions in Anchorage by 80% by 2050 (when the Singularity arrives) so that we can keep the State of Alaska from warming up.\u00a0 The notion that a city of just under 300,000 people occupying an urban area of less than 80 square miles can do something about climate in a state that stretches four time zones and over 663,000 square miles is something so ludicrous that almost defies sanity.\u00a0 The document is broken down into various sectors:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Buildings and energy. Where construction codes, smaller residences, urban planning, and renewables feature prominently<\/li>\n<li>Land use and transportation. Where non-motorized transportation is prominently pushed as desirable and non-fossil fueled vehicles are the selected solution.<\/li>\n<li>Consumption and solid waste. Think composting<\/li>\n<li>Health and emergency prep, controlling manmade CO2 emissions is healthy<\/li>\n<li>Food systems. Grow your own stuff.\u00a0 Tough to do in winter, though.<\/li>\n<li>Urban forests and watersheds. No development anywhere.\u00a0 Remove existing buildings and yards and live in a smaller footprint.\u00a0 Better yet, force all residents over time into high rise condos, interesting choice in a region that suffers massive earthquakes.<\/li>\n<li>Outreach and education. The ongoing publicly funded propaganda effort.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The key to all of this is creation of an implementation and monitoring plan.\u00a0 Can\u2019t plant the hobnailed boot on the collective faces of those of us who choose not to play unless we have some sort of metrics, though most of the metrics will attempt to measure average temperature changes that are incapable of being measured\u00a0 as they lie well within the margin of error for the instruments being used.\u00a0 Think a few thousandths of a degree.\u00a0 There are two big problems with trying to do this in Anchorage on the energy generation side.\u00a0 First is that we get over 96% of all energy from either natural gas or hydro, with natural gas generating well over 86% of all electricity.\u00a0 Gonna be real difficult to ratchet down those emissions unless we go nuclear, large hydro (Watana Dam) or coal to liquids.\u00a0 There has been virulent opposition to the first two on that list by all the Usual Suspects among local greens over the years.\u00a0 Renewables, which have demonstrated the ability to make electrical grids less reliable, more unstable, all with the added benefit of raising electrical rates by 11 \u2013 17% are the proposed solution.\u00a0 Electrical vehicles, which lose 40 &#8211; 50% of battery charge in the cold are the proposed transportation solution along with bicycling and walking.\u00a0 Last I checked, it still gets dark and cold in the winter up here.\u00a0 Sidewalks don\u2019t get shoveled all that often either.\u00a0 So far, the plan was passed with no teeth, no enforcement mechanism. \u00a0That is sure to come when we don\u2019t meet our newly adopted goals.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ktva.com\/story\/40521162\/anchorage-assembly-passes-climate-action-plan\">https:\/\/www.ktva.com\/story\/40521162\/anchorage-assembly-passes-climate-action-plan<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol start=\"2\">\n<li>Cellphone. Not being content with mucking around in our lives via the excuse of manmade CO2 emissions causing global warming, the same Assembly at the same meeting passed an ordinance making it illegal to use a handheld cell phone in school zones, getting the Municipality smartly back into the tax farming business.\u00a0 The excuse was safety of The Children from distracted drivers blasting through school zones merrily talking on their cell phones while ignoring the presence and in turn the safety of the little tykes, essentially the same excuse used 24 years ago when Mark Begich pushed the ill-fated photo radar (tax farming) program that voters tossed a couple years later.\u00a0 This time around, the only exception to the ban is a call to 911.\u00a0 Violations are $500 a pop.\u00a0 So, this action was taken to solve a huge public safety problem, right?\u00a0 Not really, at least up here, as there were only 54 tickets written between Jan 2017 and March 2018 for cell phone use while driving.\u00a0 I expect most of these were for texting while driving which is illegal in Alaska.\u00a0 Only four of these were written in school zones, or about one every 4 months.\u00a0 There have been no accidents or injuries in school zones, though numerous reports of unsafe driving and near accidents were cited in the ordinance.\u00a0 No actual data on those either.\u00a0 So, what do we have?\u00a0 Yet another attempt at tax farming, a brand-new law to give the Mayor\u2019s and Assembly\u2019s 550 newly minted shiny new cops to do, and in turn bring in enough revenue to pay for them.\u00a0 We are well on our way to becoming Ferguson, MO, whose riots were a logical reaction to tax farming via law enforcement and code enforcement.\u00a0 Chicago does the same thing with vehicle seizure and impounds, all in the name of public safety after all.\u00a0 It is what the blue cities do.\u00a0 Sadly, Anchorage took another large step in that direction.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/publicdocs.muni.org\/sirepub\/cache\/0\/5wqx1e55znjbmri3dxw5i055\/97986705272019080322228.PDF\">http:\/\/publicdocs.muni.org\/sirepub\/cache\/0\/5wqx1e55znjbmri3dxw5i055\/97986705272019080322228.PDF<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol start=\"3\">\n<li>Financial. President Trump ran across a pair of O\u2019Bama appointed federal judges who upheld House democrat efforts to get his taxes and financial records turned over.\u00a0 One judge was on the DC Circuit and ruled that the House had legitimate right to years of Trump\u2019s tax returns.\u00a0 He cleverly wrote his opinion so that any Trump appeal to the DC Circuit would come after the returns were handed over to the House, rendering any appeal moot.\u00a0 The other judge was in NY and ruled that a pair of banks had to turn over years of financial records to House democrats.\u00a0 The excuse for both rulings was that the House might vote on something that those records would have a bearing on, something like, say an impeachment after the extended fishing expedition.\u00a0 Both judges were O\u2019Bama donors before being appointed to the federal bench.\u00a0 Expect the WH to slow-roll any release and appeal everything.\u00a0 I also expect the WH to get themselves in the position of releasing the same sort of tax records of all democrats, media, and judges who think this is a funny thing to do.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/05\/22\/judge-says-deutsche-bank-can-give-trump-financial-records-to-democrats.html\">https:\/\/www.cnbc.com\/2019\/05\/22\/judge-says-deutsche-bank-can-give-trump-financial-records-to-democrats.html<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Mascot. Maine\u2019s governor signed legislation last week banning the use of Native American symbols as mascots in public schools, colleges and universities.\u00a0 The legislation was proposed by a democrat (obviously) who claimed to be honoring the state\u2019s tribes, protecting them from cultural appropriation, reminding all who bothered to listen that Indians are not mascots.\u00a0 Rather they are people.\u00a0 Apparently, nobody bother to talk to the Vikings, Patriots or Cowboys.\u00a0 Next up to bat (of course), the Washington Redskins.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/05\/17\/us\/maine-bans-native-american-mascots\/index.html\">https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2019\/05\/17\/us\/maine-bans-native-american-mascots\/index.html<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol start=\"5\">\n<li>Spy v Spy. The Mad Magazine cartoon series Spy v Spy was usually good for a laugh half a century ago.\u00a0 Today we are seeing it start to play out for real in public, as three of the Russian Collusion Hoax ringleaders, former DNI James Clapper, CIA Chief John Brennan, and FIB Director James Comey are all starting to point fingers at one another as Attorney General Barr\u2019s investigation into the genesis of the scam proceeds.\u00a0 Last week, President Trump gave Barr another tool, the authority to declassify whatever he decided to declassify to bring the documents all this was based upon out of the classified world to public.\u00a0 And the rats (cockroaches?) are starting to scurry around at a high rate of speed.\u00a0 Over the weekend, Joe DiGenova suggested that the Steele Dossier was part of a coverup itself to justify spying on political opponents done by the O\u2019Bama (In)Justice Department as far back as at least 2012.\u00a0 The vehicle was a corrupt FIB and CIA, working at the beck and call of Eric Holder.\u00a0 Will this reach out and touch, O\u2019Bama?\u00a0 Likely not to the extent that he will go to jail.\u00a0 OTOH, it will reach out and touch everyone connected with him who participated in the festivities.\u00a0 Final tidbit was a report that the NSA has all of Hilly\u2019s 30,000 e-mails archived somewhere.\u00a0 And that they have been reviewed by at least two investigators into the activities of the DNI, CIA and FIB. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.americanthinker.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/joe_digenova_blows_the_lid_off_the_emrealem_scandal_the_russia_hoax_was_a_coverup_effort_for_obamas_political_spying_since_2012.html\">https:\/\/www.americanthinker.com\/blog\/2019\/05\/joe_digenova_blows_the_lid_off_the_emrealem_scandal_the_russia_hoax_was_a_coverup_effort_for_obamas_political_spying_since_2012.html<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol start=\"6\">\n<li>Amash. Justin Amash (R, MI) became the first Republican House member to call for impeachment of President Trump.\u00a0 This was a relatively brief, but loud story for a few days, that is until some research into his background after which it quickly went away.\u00a0 His 2017 financial disclosure forms report an income of $100,000 &#8211; $1,000,000\/year from his ownership stake in Michigan Industrial Tools.\u00a0 It is the parent company manufacturing in China that produces Tekton Tools, his family business.\u00a0 This hasn\u2019t been the first time this has come up as Amash was challenged in 2010 over claims that Tekton Tools were made in America rather than being made in Hangzhou, China.\u00a0 The finished product is shipped to the US and sold by the family business.\u00a0 Amash is a co-owner of Dynamic Source International, a Chinese company that supplied Michigan Industrial Tools.\u00a0 Apparently Amash\u2019s business is being hurt at some level by the Trump tariffs.\u00a0 Perhaps he should tell his business partners to quit jerking the President around.\u00a0 Perhaps he thought nobody would notice.\u00a0 <a href=\"http:\/\/dcwhispers.com\/is-anti-trump-republican-justin-amash-choosing-china-over-america\/\">http:\/\/dcwhispers.com\/is-anti-trump-republican-justin-amash-choosing-china-over-america\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ol start=\"7\">\n<li>NY Gas. A natural gas utility in NY last March announced they would stop all new natural gas hookups in Westchester County north of NYC.\u00a0 No idea on the delay in the story getting mentioned, but I first came across it last week.\u00a0 The moratorium was imposed March 15 based on the abject refusal by the democrat-led state government to approve new pipeline construction in the state.\u00a0 The reason ConEd gave to cancel all new hookups was to ensure stability of natural gas supplies for existing customers.\u00a0 The NY state government has been systematically blocking new natural gas pipelines on what they claim to be environmental grounds as they foolishly pursue energy efficiencies and renewable resources.\u00a0 The refusal to build pipelines has also stopped what would be an excellent shale oil and natural gas industry working in upstate and western NY.\u00a0 But as long as you can make the democrats in NYC feel good about themselves, what do a few jobs for upstate Republicans mean in greater scheme of things?\u00a0 There is tremendous pressure by consumers in the NE for more access to natural gas for home heating, as it is much cheaper and significantly cleaner than fuel oil.\u00a0 A typical winter heating cost with natural gas is $723 while fuel oil is $1,646.\u00a0 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-consolidated-edi-natgas-new-york\/no-new-natural-gas-hookups-in-new-yorks-westchester-county-con-ed-says-idUSKCN1QW2IS\">https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-consolidated-edi-natgas-new-york\/no-new-natural-gas-hookups-in-new-yorks-westchester-county-con-ed-says-idUSKCN1QW2IS<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>More later &#8211;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; AG<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Howdy All, a few Interesting Items for your information.\u00a0 Enjoy \u2013 In this issue: Climate Cellphone Financial Mascot Spy v Spy Amash NY Gas<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":436,"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435\/revisions\/436"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/interestingitems.org\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}