Tuesday, May 31, 2011

Four Mayors to Watch

Lioneld Jordan Fayetteville AR
Raymond Baker Fort Smith AR
Mark Stodola Little Rock AR
Patrick Hays North Little Rock AR

These four mayors in Arkansas have signed onto a "Climate Change" agreement. Notice It used to be called "global warming" until it was obvious that there was no warming. So they altered the label so that whatever happens they need more money and control. To do what? Perform a quixotic effort to force the earth's climate to forever remain like it was when they were in college? Even if possible, it's not clear why that represents some sort of ideal that we should lose control of our own property and habits to maintain.

By signing up, these Mayors have pledged to go beyond the discredited Kyoto agreement on carbon emissions in their community. They also pledge to battle "urban sprawl". I guess that means using the government to control the use of people's private property and continuing to tax automobile owners in an effort to force us unto mass transit. A population dependent on government mass transit for mobility is a population that is easy to control.

Monday, May 30, 2011

Tolbert Lives

The Tolbert Report blog is still down and listed as "no longer active", but he has a column in the Morning News dated the 29th. The column relates to the brouhaha surrounding redistricting and standards for state conduct. Like my own feelings on the matter, it strikes a mixed tone. I am more pro-Martin than he (though not necessarily all of his staff). I think it is a matter of proportionality and priorities, but we will soon see.

Still no word on if the blog will be back or he has "crossed over" to the news chain.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Police State Poster Boy Passes Us Patriot Act Talking Points

Proud Proponent of Patriot Act Peepshow.
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I still don't understand what Republican Primary voters saw in Tim Griffin. The more I read the talking points he is handed and passes along as if they were his own thoughts, the more baffled I am. I am willing to cut general election voters a little more slack, as their alternative (Joyce Elliot) was someone who deliberately cultivated an appearance of freakishness (think Grace Jones crossed with Space Alien) and succeeded remarkably well. Especially I can't blame them since she looked like the girl next door compared to her legislative record.

But I am not here to talk about what an abysmal failure our corrupt two-party system is in giving voters good choices- this time. Rather, I want to talk about Rep. Griffin's attempt to rationalize the violation of his oath of office by voting to uphold anti-constitutional provisions of the dishonestly-named "Patriot Act."

First, let's remember what the Constitution, which Rep. Griffin swore to uphold, says about the limits of government searches.....

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."


Let's hold that up against Griffin's claims on the Patriot Act...

Friday, May 27, 2011

Blue Hog Down

The left-leaning Blue Hog Report has been shut down. The blog was a relentless critic of the Secretary of State's office. They were particularly alert for any misuse of government property from that office. The SoS was bombarded with FOI requests.

But he who lives by the sword dies by the sword, and sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. The state Republican party noticed that the ramrod for the blog was a state employee. They made some FOI requests of their own, betting that the employee was engaged in partisan blogging on the taxpayer's dime. Maybe they were right, Matt Campbell, the ramrod in question, abruptly shut down the blog.

Jason Tolbert is a fairly conservative blogger, but he seemed off-put by the GOP action. Political blogging is a sort of a fraturnity. It is hard to say what he really thinks about the matter though, because his blog abruptly shut down too. Is he doing it in sympathy with his leftist fellow bloggers, or is it something more sinister? Did he rely on technical support from Republican insiders to keep his blog up- support that got zotted once it was clear he was not going to agree with the decision to hit back at the lefty bloggers? Jason, call me and tell me what is going on!

The ADG on the other hand, has no love of us upstart political bloggers. They ran an article that seemed supportive of the Republican Party action.

Where I am I? All over the place. This is one of those situations where it is hard to say where the truth lies. I am pro-blogger and believe that there should be an alternative to the establishment media. That ties in with the blogging fraturnity instinct to side with Campbell and company.

On the other hand, this was not a free speech issue. No one is saying the creators of Blue Hog can't sound off. They just can't do it on the taxpayer's dime. Free speech does not mean taxing me so you can do reasearch and write attack articles all day. This is especially so if one's specialty is decrying misuse of public property and money while misusing public property and money. Rush Limbaugh has often said that you can get liberals on hypocrisy everytime. Have the blue hoggers just given more credence to that Rushism?

I am one who has held the position that most of the attacks against Martin were attempts at misdirection while Beebe and McDaniel slip a secretive redistricting process down our throats. I can't vouch for all his staff though. My feeling is that the take down of Blue Hog is blowback for what the Republicans percieve as attack dog misleading work from them. But what will the blowback be from the blowback? Stay tuned.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

TSA Messing With Texas

A Texas State Senator (Patrick) sponsored a bill to prohibit anyone from grouping passengers boarding an airplane without probable cause that person was committing a crime. In other words, he tried to legalize the 4th amendment from TSA (Tyrants Subjugating America) intrusive airport searches.

The bill was overwhelmingly approved by the state house. It hit a snag in the senate when an official from the Obama administration threatened to blockade all public air traffic to or from Texas if the measure was approved. Sen. Patrick pulled the bill when he learned that the threat caused some members of the Texas senate to get cold feet on the bill. Forces within the senate, led by Sen. Dewhurst, are trying to kill the bill.

As word spread that the bill had been stymied, about 100 enraged citizens stormed the Texas capitol complex shouting "treason" at the legislators. Their access was blocked by armed guards.

No one should think that lost liberty will be regained without resistance. Every time a showdown is averted, it is a victory for tyranny. A showdown will have to come or we will live as slaves in a police state. Those are the stark choices left to us. So far, the path to slavery has been chosen, but resistance to that craven path is strengthening.

Reaction To High Gas Prices Shows Why America is Doomed

When a coworker recently expressed the opinion that the government should force the oil companies to reduce the cost of gasoline I asked him, “Has any oil company ever used the threat of imprisonment in order to force you to buy gasoline, or any other product, that you did not wish to purchase?”

“No” he admitted.

“And they did not have any hidden charges on your credit card. You understood what the agreed price was when you exchanged your dollars for their gasoline?”

“Yes” he said.

“And yet you want the government, who routinely and institutionally takes your earnings under threat of imprisonment for things which you never agreed to support, and in many cases actually oppose, to “punish” the oil companies. Again these are companies which have never taken a single penny from you that you did not agree to give them. They provide for you a product that you personally use and want for an amount of money that you voluntarily agree to pay."

“Yes” he said, without elaboration.

“America is doomed.” I said dejectedly.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Martin Misdirection Wars

"Pay No Attention to That Redistricting Plan Going on Behind the Curtain."
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I have written enough on this thread at the Tolbert Report to make an article, so I might as well post a link to it. I was reacting to the self-proclaimed "Republicans" who are joining the mis-information fueled lynch mob forming for Secretary of State Mark Martin. Here is an example of my acerbic witticisms...

"No way in the world I would want to see some of you guys in a foxhole next to me. You’d shoot me in the back based on what the enemy’s propaganda broadcast said about me!"


And indeed a certain element of the carpers are doing exactly what Beebe, McDaniel and company want them to do.....be so distracted over what are mostly non-stories that they completely ignore a hyper-partisan redistricting effort conducted in practical secrecy by Beebe and McDaniel. Tolbert at least is not willing to let that story go uncovered. The state's establishment media? They are the ones most beating the misdirection drums. Don't expect any help from them covering the important stuff, that's what they are trying to distract you from!

Violent Crime Takes a Downturn as Illegals Depart


For some reason, there is a decrease in violent crime where there is a decrease in illegal aliens.
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Many sources are reporting a significant downturn in violent crime across the nation which perplexes the experts. Since I am not an "expert" I don't have to be perplexed. I believe that I know the reason. Young men tend to commit violent crime- especially young men who have already shown a disregard for the law and feel little or no alliegence to the society in which they operate. The decline in the population of young males, in particular young males from the profile which I have described, will correspond with a decline in violent crime.

The economic down turn has resulting in many illegal aliens "self deporting" as jobs are no longer as easy to find. And regardless of what you think of his overall job performance, the Obama administration has cracked down on illegal aliens. Deportations are up 10-25% and examinations of employers for illegal aliens has quadrupled. That further contributes to the loss of economic rewards for illegal immigration which leads to more self-deportations.

Of course our state government is in the pocket of business interests who profit from cheap labor, so our state government has been a pocket of friendly exception for illegals. This is true of both Gov. Beebe's Sargent Shultz approach ("I know nu-think') to former Gov. Huckabee who went so far as to spend emergency funds on a facility for the government of Mexico in Little Rock as he was walking out the door. That center helps Mexican citizens who are in the states, legally or illegally, navigate the landscape. With all that support for illegal aliens in Little Rock it does not surprise me that Little Rock has not participated in the significant drop in violent crime. Violent crime in Little Rock remains at high levels even while it turns down nation-wide.

Even within the NY Times article where the experts were "baffled" by the drop in violent crime, they noted some exceptions. New York City and San Antonio still had higher violent crime rates. I suspect that the illegals that are left in this country are consolidating to areas that are still receptive to them.

Thursday, May 19, 2011

Libertarian Party of Arkansas Makes Ballot

Read their press release here. I understand that competition produces excellence.

Monday, May 16, 2011

What Form Should the Tea Party Take?

A recent USA Today poll showed that the majority of voters, and 52% of Republican voters, felt that it was time for a third party in the United States.

I have long been a proponent of a third party, I was the former state chairman of the Constitution party. It is gratifying to see that the majority of my countrymen have come to the place where I was. But I am no longer in that place. Political parties are a centralization of power, because they are the means of access to the ballot. And power over others is corrupting. Even if it is not, the two DC-based political parties have (as directed by the global big money) set up barriers to participate in the party system as currently structured. Consider the case of the Colorado Constitution Party. They got ballot access, but all it has bought them is that they are legally required to comply with a lot of expensive rules. They wish now that they had never obtained automatic ballot access.

Building a traditional political party is analogous to building a conventional army. There is no way such a force could win against the two dominant parties fighting the same kind of war they are fighting, especially since the state-controlled media will cover for them and attack any start up. If a new party has one nut in it, the media will make them the face of the party for all of you. The forces of corruption will go right to the leadership of the new party, right to the command and control centers, and bribe or disrupt in.

No my friends, we can't beat the established parties fighting their way. We have to fight a decentralized guerrilla war to retain our liberties and restore the Republic. This means starting small political groups that are not political parties, but rather groups of people who recruit candidates to run for local offices and help them get on the ballot as independent candidates. Provide the attack-dog media with too many low-value dispersed targets rather than lump you all in one group or behind one person who is easy to smear.

The groups, I propose the name "Local Liberty Unit", are not truly a political party because they don't control access to the ballot, they simply help worthy people get on the ballot as an independent. One group is not necessarily tied to any of the others, and the candidate can even distance themselves from the group if the media tries to demonize them. With no high value target to hit, the dominant media represents an expensive air force that can't find any one target worth dropping their million dollars bombs on. That nullifies their greatest edge.

At some point, we will have to link up, but we don't have to link up beyond local liberty units to begin deciding who should go to city hall or the state legislature. Ultimately, we will have to push for the common sense reform called "instant runoff voting" to eliminate the spoiler effect and allow people to vote their consciences without fear of "splitting the vote". That process is explained in the video below. In the meantime, many of these local races are decided in the primaries. There is only one candidate in November. In most cases, that should change, as local liberty units help Tea Party favored independents, who owe no allegiance to any political party but rather only to the people who elected them, sweep into office as early as November of 2012.

Political Correctness Destroying Minority Opportunity on Outsourced

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The crew from "Outsourced." It used to be a pretty good little show.
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One of the few sitcoms I watch (because it is on HULU, I don't own a TV) has been "Outsourced." The program is about a young man from the states whose call center management job has been outsourced to India. Much of the show's early humor centered on the culture clash between prudish, hierarchical east Indians and debauched, informal, post-modern America. The show has been somewhat of a hit, but its about to go down the tubes. The reason: Political correctness.

The show has gotten flak for making fun of east Indian culture. Inevitably, the word "racist" has been bandied about. It wasn't true. Like a lot of good humor shows, they made fun of everyone. As a conservative, I actually felt more sympathetic at the portrayal of the east Indian culture and off-put by the amoral view of Western culture.

Unfortunately, the writers of the show seem to have caved to the pressure. The upper-caste assistant manager has been transformed into a sympathetic character. The east Indians are now making inappropriate jokes, just like the Americans. Now that they have toned down this essential element, all they have left are junior-high level dirty jokes. Who is going to suffer the most for this, even more than the audience? It is the careers of the actors of east Indian descent.

I listened to a blog talk radio interview of some of these actors. They were so happy to land a job where east Indian characters had more than just supporting roles. Roles for east Indians were rare, one of the cast was joking that he and another of the cast were always competing for the same roles, but now they both could work at the same time. I am glad for them, but I am afraid it is not going to last. PC destroys art, and hurts the careers of those that it purports to help.


Sunday, May 15, 2011

Does Fracking Contaminate The Water Table? : Deconstructing Penn State Study

The Wild Eyed Liberals at the ArkTimes took a break from bloviating outrage at Secretary of State Mark Martin for things like failing to keep records on a state vehicle that he is not required to keep records on (seriously, they griped about that). They took time out to bloviate outrage at the private businesses that provide them with the electricity they voluntarily use to warm their homes and publish their libels. In this case I am talking about natural gas drilling, specifically with the relatively new technology of horizontal fracturing.

They normally don't need any rational facts to take ahold of, for example their various attacks on Martin, but in this case they had a study from Penn State University to back up their contention that the process is responsible for methane contamination of the water table. Now the Arktimes folks can be discounted a raving lunatics, but Penn State deserves a fair hearing.

I am here to report on the study. The bottom line is that it is fatally flawed because they used sampling methods that were so contradictory to good study design that I am confident many of the 8th graders in my old Earth Science classes could have spotted the flaws. More about that in a bit.

The study found not a trace of fracking chemicals in the water, but it did find natural gas. They went to pains to show that much of it was not surface methane, like swamp gas, but rather came from underground sources. One problem with that is that there is underground gas that is in shallow formations, then there is the deep-formation gas that the drillers in the study area are actually fracking in. That gas is thousands of feet, maybe even 10,000 feet, below the water table, and the wells use triple pipe incasement far below the bottom of the water table.

There are some places in the earth where underground but still shallow deposit natural gas seeps out all by itself into the water table. I believe some areas around Hutting for example, had tapwater you could set on fire even back in the 50s, long before horizontal drilling and fracking were available. The study went to a great deal of trouble to show that the gas found in local water was mostly non-biological (not swamp gas) but did an awful job of discerning whether or not areas that had a lot of such gas in the water table did so because of drilling or simply because they were one of the many areas on earth where methane naturally seeps into the groundwater regardless of what is going on 8,000 feet of rock below that.

(CONTINUED ON THE FLY)

Race Trouble in Lee County


About to make a comeback? Well, I don't want it, but the actions of black jurors in Lee County can only help their cause. I refer to the recent trial in Marianna in which a jury split along racial lines in the trial of violent rapist/murderer Curtis Lee Vance of the rape of a white woman in that county. Vance was recently found guilty of the brutal rape and murder of TV reporter Anne Pressley.

The white jurors in this case voted to convict, the blacks to acquit. This despite overwhelming DNA evidence and the victims belief (though his face was covered during the attack) that Vance was her attacker. As the link above by David Koon reports, it is not the first time in Lee County that a jury split along racial lines resulted in a black man accused of raping a white woman walked free because the blacks on the jury voted to acquit (while the whites on the jury thought the accused was guilty).

I am not going to be PC here. You can go anywhere for that. These results indicate that many if not most blacks in Marianna are not willing to convict a black of a violent crime on a white person if there is any possible way they can talk themselves out of it. These results indicate that whites in Marianna will not have the protection of law because blacks on juries are extremely reluctant to convict people accused of serious violent crimes committed by people of their own race on people of another race.

Perhaps the black community has suffered many injustices at the hands of white authority figures in the community. There is no doubt that their great-great-great grandparents did. That is to say, it is likely that there was some past injustice that has led much of the black population of Marianna to rationalize race over justice. I don't think there is any justification for nullifying based on race, but I won't argue the point with anyone who does. I am just going to tell you what is going to happen if they don't get past it.

If whites in Lee county come to the place where they think they cannot get justice from the legal system, the most talented and productive among them are going to leave. That's what the victim did in this case. She is a very capable person who served well at her job, and now she is serving people elsewhere. A county that cannot afford to lose anymore talent, any more wealth, and anymore productive people will lose a lot more of all that. In the meantime if anyone else chooses to migrate to your communities in their place, it will not be people of the victim's caliber. It will be the Curtis Lee Vance's of this world. Predatory, brutal, both unwilling and unable to offer anything of value to a community.

Don't suppose that it stops there either. Tribalism will not end once the last white person has left the community. For if the community chooses to ignore justice in favor of race, it will also ignore it in favor of clique. No one will be assured of the protection of the law. Perhaps no Crip will convict a Crip of killing a Blood. Maybe it will be the reverse. And certainly no Crip or Blood will convict "one of their own" of killing the black people left in town who don't belong to any clique. The formal system of law will then break down +and vigilante justice will be the only justice to be had. Will the vigilantes be wrong? What if it was your daughter, or sister, or mother?

By that time of course all of the sensible folks of any color who have the talents and abilities to get out of there will have left, leaving the few that remain in ignorance, squalor, and violence. I write of this as if it is all a future event, but I wonder if this process has not already begun, with these cases simply alerting a wider world to what some former residents of any color have already discerned- the local population has cast off some of the fundamental values essential to live in a civilized society, and therefore it is unwise for a civilized person to live among them.

It may play out with a slightly different twist, that nevertheless ends the same. The whites who choose to stay, either because of attachment to the land or perhaps they are less talented, less connected, and have fewer options about other places to go, will simply resurrect the Ku Klux Klan, or some other vigilante organization like it, and began extra-legal executions of the Curtis Vances' among them. This strategy is unlikely to bring any more justice to the region. It may escalate into a general race war, it may provoke massive outside intervention, or the vigilantes may descend into the same amoral brutality possessed by the men they originally formed together to stop.

If that kink works its way into a phase of the cycle, it still does not change the ultimate outcome. Decent people of ability and talent will desert the region even more than they have. Brigands, Klanners, skinheads and trouble makers of every stripe will descend on the region to "get in on the action". The endgame remains one of ignorance, squalor, and violence.

I believe that the residents of Marianna, specifically those who consider race over justice and the law when sitting on a jury, have a spiritual problem. Therefore this requires a spiritual rather than a political solution. These folks, whatever they claim, don't accept what God's word says about truth and about justice or about the Brotherhood of Man. That they don't accept these things means that they do not really have faith in God. If they did, they would believe what He says. The eternal penalty for lack of faith is separation from God in Hell. The earthly penalty for living a lawless life is a foretaste of Hell in the form of misery here on earth. Whatever injustices have been committed on your community in the past, I ask the black population of Lee county to live like they believe in God, before the Judgement falls.