Backwoods Rambles

Hackers and the Prodigal Son

2011-04-25T18:24:00.014-08:00

HACKERS
________

Ok Alaska Joe. I'm back :-) [It was nice to know you missed me!]

My absence had nothing to do with politicians suddenly starting to behave. It was a personal issue. Just about the time of my last post I was rather viciously attacked by a hacker. He had pulled my email out of the ether (or more likely out of his own membership list ... he has several sites on the 'Net and I was, no: I AM, a member. I'll have to drop by one of these days. But by luck of the draw as far as I know, he pulled my email address, hacked the machine and stole the most recent couple months of email. That was critical professional correspondence (that was mixed in with the jokes and the anecdotes people used to send me before I stopped emailing them back). Then a message popped up on my computer telling me I should go here. (Only that time it was a live link to where I'm fairly sure was one of his sites and I think I know which one. He had to grab something there apparently because when we left it was like an antelope on speed. We shot and boomeranged around the 'Net so fast it would ... well, in fact it did, make my head spin! And then we ended back up on his site anyway (I don't think he realized that I realized that I knew where we were even with the dizzying trip to disorient me). We went from the site to what "felt" like an empty field with a very minimal Paypal station at one end and the company that the Hacker used to sell me "verbal books"! Just try to convince someone you didn't receive the product when the Paypal receipt ways "oral ebooks" or whatever! :-D He said he'd sell it to me for $70 and I could go home.

It was worth vastly more than that in many ways, so I said ok. But then instead of getting the product (I didn't really figure this guy was going to read me a book :-) ... I got another bill for $70. We continued this game, he raised it to bigger chunks than $70. When we got to $1,350 I quit. I couldn't possibly afford that ... but there was irreplaceable professional communications in there that I simply HAD to protect. But through a process of scribbling in margins I connected with the "night watchman" who was handling the process for the hacker ... as soon as he realized he asked me if this was one of those ["insert name of hacker here if he ever touches this blog"] deals. I said yes and he made an unremembered comment in disgust. They seemed like an ok outfit if one good person can be extrapolated that far, and he assured me they'd retain all the materials, etc. The next day I found little cracks in Paypal's armor ... it used to be a lot harder to get them to step into the middle of any such disagreement. But I finally got through and they opened an investigation and I got back my money and my emails! And I'd like to think I helped make the Paypal system a little easier to be willing to investigate in a case like that.

Unfortunately. The hacker was furious. And he attacked with major firepower. He is an excellent programmer and if I understand correctly, a "big name" in the hacker world as well. Plus in the little entreprenurial corner of the 'Net he is quite well known ... right on the periphery of the big time players. A guru wannabee. Claims to be an Internet millionaire. And he had some very effective "inventions" that truly may be game changers. Right when I.D. theft and the less enticing parts of Internet shopping are starting to overtake that initial enthusiasm is not when we need a reputation of being full of crooks and hackers. It is the frontier ... that little section of the 'Net ... and I'm a believer in humanity's need for a frontier. Scammers and spammers and Soapy Smith flim-flammers I can handle fine. But this man is a flat out crook. He claims to be a sociopath and accepts "sadistic sociopath" without any suggestion otherwise.

The kind of guy who would build a fire on the back of a turtle and get a huge rush out of watching the turtle bake in his own shell.

He is still here. A year and a half later and he was here virtually any time that I was. And I live on them. He killed off several ... I think we decided 5, but some of them required multiple trips to the shop. I have three hard drives that we had to pull out along the way in case the F.B.I. would like to take them into the clean room and see what all the hacker deleted and destroyed.

He has (despite every possible thing that anyone can think of to do to mine to prevent remote access ... he has it working. My desktop is his desktop. I just sat back last night and watched him move the cursor around and open and close files (and I think delete another batch but I'm not yet certain). Then I found out that he had a group of hackers wandering through all my computers where all of the family's dirty laundry is stored. Then I figured out that they were using my machine(s) for some sort of file sharing ... probably music. Probably the feds will finally show up ... and they'll arrest me for having an illegal music sharing station! :-) But I'm guessing 20 people had access to the depths of my soul (I keep it hidden in my hard drive). And I couldn't service clients with him there. Plus destroyed my time and billing programs. We had and office LAN which he destroyed and replaced with their own which they had the gall to call "Jailbirds R Us". There have been lots of much worse ramifications ... he's gotten his revenge for me messing up his (well -oiled process, I wasn't a unique case! I just have enough mouth to do something about it). Of course that turned out poorly as I lost not 2 months of emails, but 5 YEARS of "can't lose" emails. When he first showed up I tried to back up the system quickly before I had any idea he was "always on" (they have alarms of some sort that alerts them when a victim logs on ... or so I have hypothesized ... and I think I got agreement on that from him). So he wiped out my backup too. Then he destroyed access to the entire company data base (small company, but cranks lots of critical paper) and has probably averaged four of us over that time (not counting staffs). No only were the archive files critical, but all of our current "live" files were destroyed as well (actually I think they are still "there" somewhere. The hacker just destroyed any way to access them.)

So I dropped my blog, I dropped other stuff I was doing on the 'Net. I'm going to have to mend fences with all those friends I used to have but figured they'd never be friends again if the hacker got them ... I was highly contagious!

He ran my out of business. 22 years of a successful professional business and he destroyed it. He cost me nearly TWO (2) YEARS of income. Long story with lots of side paths, but essentially, he wouldn't let me get any work done and would make everything I did do take forever. I can work 4 hours on writing a report ... that he can destroy in 4 seconds. And he did that a lot. I did a lot of my work in the libraries. But he made everything take so long I couldn't charge for it ... I was just hoping that when I finally did get a project finished and to a client that I hadn't ruined a wonderful 20 year relationship because my stuff didn't get to him until three weeks after he absolutely had to have it. It was tough. But I have a small packet that proves much of the stuff I say, and I have lots more (screen shots, etc.) whenever they want it. I had to close it down. I couldn't afford to run it (and it was harder work than ever before because of the hacker).

I've been in touch with the "local" F.B.I. (~120 miles away) and the national folks (the hacker and I are on opposite sides of the country ... local law enforcement won't, probably can't, do anything.) But I hadn't seen much sign of him for awhile (although stuff was done that I was just sure I didn't do!) until last night when he decided to put on a show. My but I hope the federal men were watching! :-)

I do think it is safe now. Or I wouldn't be back here. Besides, I'd be Blogger would be about as good a co-plaintiff as one could have if he really did infect them.

So ... that's why I haven't been on for a year and a half or so. But now, I'm unemployed and broke ... so I can go back to blogging!

PRODIGALS AND SONS AND THINGS
_______________________________
Which brings me to the "other" part of this post. Here we've got two brothers; a good brother who stayed at home to help his mother and father run the modest little farm and never got a chance to "go out and see the world".

But the BAD brother ... the one who took his half of the inheritance and squandered it while traveling and adventuring. He got to see the world! He had the opportunity to do a lot of things that kids that age seem to need to do to get it out of their system. Things that it will be too late to do when one is older. The older brother was ticked off and I was always on his side. Every bit of "fairness" in me screams that the wrong kid got the feast and the calf.

But I got to thinking about it one day. I remember that was Jesus himself who spun that parable. And he was trying pretty hard to convince people that "fair" didn't mean "an eye for an eye". He was trying to bring humanity an entirely new paradigm. In the driest description I can think of ... Jesus was attempting to replace justice with love. It took me a lot of years before I understood why Jesus would sound like an idiot who rewarded bad behavior. It was a dangerous thing to say considering that he was someone who has been looked up to more and used as an example than any other person before or since.

People followed his actions, he set the example that countless people have tried to follow; to "be like Jesus" and to make all decisions the way Jesus would make them. But he probably knew it wasn't really dangerous ... because people wouldn't understand and those few that did wouldn't do anything about it. And those very few that understood and tried to do something about it, would fail miserably.

Upon contemplation, I can see how devoted Christians would have a hard time imagining Jesus being furious with the return of someone very important to him, but that he had expected never to see again. So there must be some other message he is trying to convey.

As I kept getting older (it keeps happening too! :-) I had my own kids and thought about how I would react if my son, the younger of my two kids ...

[All who guessed without even being asked .... you are correct ... the prodigal son that Jesus made famous was the younger son!]

... took his "college savings" out of the bank and disappeared and years had passed and I had no idea whether he was even alive or dead ... and then, as I was knocking on old age's door I see him walking down the road towards home ...

I get it. I understand what Jesus was trying to do. Justice. Equality. Even fairness. Those we think of as the goals. The things to strive toward. The things to do to be a "good person' and even a "good Christian".

And they are wrong.

At least if they purport or wish to "follow Jesus". Nor are they inherently wrong. They might coincidentally be right. But stopped clocks are a couple times a day also. He was much more radical than trying to bring about a fair, just world.

Justice, equality, fairness ... that is what he was trying to get us to understand was not the goal. All those preachers who stand up and talk about how we have to strive for equality, and fairness ... and ultimately this will create "justice" ... which is the "god" of this "missed the boat" Christianity. Plato took Aristotle's hierarchy of good and evil and all the schools in the neighborhood where the Christians were hiding in those days were Platonic schools ... and we ended up with Plato's philosophical world view of simply moving "the Good" to the top of the pyramid and we suddenly have a hierarchical model of good and evil. The Socratic and pre-Platonic Greeks fought this "binding of god into a hierachy (because in Plato's system the hierarchy is what is really God). It was a giant philosophical debate and it set the path of Western history. But the "God is Everywhere" philosophy lost to one where God is a structure that "the Good" is the highest point on the structure. We went from a philosophy that said that a chair that you can sit in is far more perfect than one that exists only in some heaven of ideas. Plato (and picked up by the Christians) thought people were originally defective ... Original Sin. The early Greeks that that was nuts. A new-born infant is absolutely without sin! (Just a good thing they can't throw rocks :-) But Plato won and the Christian kids were taught Platonic philosophy and Christianity caught a couple of great historical breaks and became the dominant Western religion and that is why we are a Platonically based society today still guided primarily by Mosaic law.

Today's Christians pushing democracy and fairness and equality and, ultimately, Justice ... are teaching Mosaic law. The law of symmetry. Of the need for the karmic balance of Yin and Yang. Justice. An eye for an eye.

Jesus came to bring a sword. He was so radical he made the '60s protesters look like Sunday School teachers. He wanted to turn society upside down and shake it like it was a money changers' table in a temple.

We can't dispense justice. Our court systems have proven that even when they really try. Only a perfect, "sinless", person can stone a prostitute ... which was another example of Jesus saying "You will never know all the details and won't even come close to knowing enough of them to know which decision is just ... whatever the decision. If we had only "sinless" people ... we wouldn't have the problem. But we don't and we won't so we do.

"Only your father in heaven can judge people." Come on folks, get this through your heads! I would guess Jesus was often very frustrated :-)

Fairness. Such a positive goal. And it might be. It might be that if you took everything that happened to all the players in a situation starting at least with their birth and understood everything that had happened to each of them since ... then in a dispute between them one might possibly come close on getting "fair" right. Of course the punishment has to exactly match the net wrong that the badder guy did ...

I see why Jesus said that really ... if it needed to be done, only a god could do it.

No. I think what the Barefoot Prophet was trying to tell us was that we have to think beyond the concepts of fairness and justice. They may be important ... or at least nice ... but they may just be totally irrelevant. I'm not advanced enough to understand all he was trying to tell us by any means. In the Stygian darkness with my white tipped cane the best I can do was to think I see that he came to throw out the law of Moses. The Law of Moses was an earth changing event of its own and in its own time. Essentially, the Law of Moses replaced the Law of Might Makes Right. It was a giant evolutionary step from the Law of Power. A step that had guided us for Millenia and had served its purpose wonderfully .... for the incremental step it needed to be.

But my white tipped cane says that Jesus was just trying to get it through our "symmetry rules all" heads that Love trumps Justice. And if he isn't coming back until we are able to understand that ... he's not coming back for awhile.

It trumps fairness too. After thinking a lot about it recently (I have an 18 year old youngest son :-) ... I know!

And this is what I know: my son had done so many bad things and wasted so much of my money and left his brother to do the work of two ... and that I'm getting older and my days are even more precious ...

I know that when I see my son walking down the road to the house after not having even heard of him for years and believing that I would die without ever seeing him again ...

I will run out to greet him joyfully, yelling at anyone handy to kill the fatted calf as I go.

Backwoods Rambles: 'De Bait

2009-06-19T14:28:00.000-08:00

Backwoods Rambles: 'De Bait

Construction Continues

2009-02-13T11:18:00.002-09:00

CONSTRUCTION CONTINUES; Road work on the Information Superhighway.
I think everything is working now; but most articles are not yet linked to the menu [until they are, the index tree at the bottom of the page still works]. Thank you for your patience.

Alaska - Fifty Years on the Flag

2009-02-11T09:38:00.017-09:00

ALASKA - 50 YEARS ON THE FLAG
1959 - 2009

"Alaska is a state of mind."
-- Someone famous

Alaska is also a state of the union.
-- Geography 101

But what it is not, is 50 years old.

(To all those who keep saying that it is ... what was here 51 years ago??? :-)

We are celebrating this year!!!

It is the 50th anniversary of Alaska's statehood ... sort of its marriage to the Union after a long engagement (~92 years give or take ... about the length of time I suggest to my daughter would be appropriate in her life :-)

It is amazing to me that we've been a state for 50 years. If I did my math right ... let's see, add the addendums, subtract the mistatements, carry the burdens, divide the sheep and goats ... yep ... that's almost a half of a century! :-)

I remember it well. Well, I remember it. I guess there is a difference. I was a bit young to be aware of all the issues. But I certainly remember spirited debates as to whether we should join up or not.

But this is an anniversary celebration, not a birthday party as (too) many people have called it. This isn't Alaska's 50th birthday.

The village I grew up in had a sign at the edge of town that said "Founded in 1791". We've been around awhile. Just took us some time to decide to formalize things. We'd been living together since Seward's folly. In any event, it was time to get hitched.

We'll be spending some time this year looking back ... over the last 50 and earlier. It is a great excuse to introduce many of you to Alaska through the eyes of those who live here now ... and as best we can, through the eyes of those who built the State, many of whom are still kickin'!

CONSTRUCTION

2009-01-30T01:11:00.022-09:00

Thank you all for your patience as I rework the format of this blog.

I am (hopefully) changing from a standard two column chronologically indexed format (like about half or more of the blogs you see :-) to a three column blog organized by subject rather than chronology. Breaking news, or broken news and even totally shattered news, will still appear on the main page. But after that, it will be moved to a subject matter directory which seems to make infinitely more sense than a chronological organization, unless the post was a one-time comment on a one-time news issue and then it probably has no point in continued existence.

I still see no reason for tree view.

I started to use drop-down menus and list all posts in each topic under the menu button, but quickly realized that it would be incredibly intrusive even now; and much more so as articles accumulate (I checked out a bunch of these during this process. Only a few had it done elegantly enough that it "worked" and those were with essentially static subheadings.

But ... I think you'll like the new layout as soon as I get it finished. Please keep checking back
(or subscribe). It won't be long now!

Thanks again.

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 7

2008-12-25T16:59:00.011-09:00

December 25, 2008
[Update February 15, 2009]

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters - Part 7
-AKA-
The After Math

There is much much more to the "aftermath" than just the financial aspects. It affects the entire state in so many ways. Even in just the financial realm, the economic "ripple" effect multiplies the damage done to us by the Supreme Court manyfold. We won't even be able to guess at some of the effects; indeed, some probably won't show themselves for years. But we'll cover the primary damages and take a shot at showing some of the ripples.

Doing the (after)math isn't very difficult. The jury awarded the 32,000 Exxon plaintiffs $5 billion in punitive damages to be divided amongst them (the 32,000 plaintiffs) by arcane formulas, but which averaged out to just a little over $150,000 each.

$5 billion / 32,000 = $156,250.

That sounds like a great deal of money, but commercial fishing is a serious, expensive, business. A fully equipped salmon fishing boat can easily cost more than that amount. Gillnets, crab and shrimp pots, long-line gear ... whatever the fishery there is specialized and expensive equipment that must be purchased. So must an ever-increasing amount of electronics (for example, the Fish and Game may open a specific area for fishing ... in order to know for sure that you are in the legal area you used to need a radar and a loran. Those are still used, but now GPS systems are virtual requirements. Then one must have a plethora of communications gear ... often radio systems have special channel crystals so only people within that fishing group can hear the conversation (fishermen often form small groups that work together to find the fish), plus one must have a CB radio since many still talk on those and you need to hear if there is a fish call somewhere, and now, of course, satellite phones are becoming "de rigor" (since much fishing occurs outside the range of cell phones).

Then, in addition to all the "stuff" it takes to actually fish ... one must have a permit to be allowed to do so. The permits in different fisheries vary in price ... and within a fishery vary from year to year as fishing income ebbs and flows. But I have seen fishing permits sell for substantially over 1/2 million dollars. As in $500,000+. Then a captain has to hire a crew ... and buy fuel and ... well, the point is, one must catch a lot of fish just to "break even" and that in the context of the size of the businesses that we are dealing with, $150,000 isn't really much money. I've seen a single herring seine "set" catch well over $150,000 of fish in one "seine-full".

But, on appeal, the 9th Circuit said that was too much and sent it back to Judge Holland who reduced it by a billion and sent it back.

$5 billion - $1 billion = $4 billion.

As someone famously said, "A billion here, a billion there ... pretty soon you're talking real money!" The plaintiff had just had "a billion" taken from them. It was theirs. It wasn't a future possibility of a billion. The jury had awarded it and the Judge had signed the Judgment. That Judgment is a piece of commercial paper much like a promissory note and can be bought and sold. I know of over a dozen sales that plaintiffs made of part of their Judgment (at a discount since the "promissory note" wasn't technically due until the appeals were denied or the 30 day appeal period ran out, and they were desperate for the money that was being withheld from them).

Even that isn't precisely correct; which is always a problem with analogies. The Judgment was due. Generally, to mount an appeal a losing defendant must post a bond or put up cash in the amount of the Judgment which is held in trust for the plaintiffs while the defendant's case is appealed. So the Judgment was due and the money to pay it literally "sitting there". It is just that there was a "hold" placed on the actual payment during the appeal process.

Then after it had been batted about a bit (back to Judge Holland who refused to be part of the scullduggery; back to the appellate court) the 9th Circuit reduced it another $1.5 billion.

$4 billion - $1.5 billion = $2.5 billion.

The incredible shrinking judgment was the wool sweater that was too tight before someone washed it in hot water! And the washing continued.

The U.S. Supreme Court, packed full of Justices who likely make up the lowest total I.Q. of any Supreme Court since we went to nine Justices, blithely ignored the Constitution and common sense (as well as common law), in order to keep the rabble (that's us) from dipping their hands in the king's (that is the giant corporations and insurance companies) treasure chest (a few days worth of Exxon's net income). In a Decision which will eventually be one that is taught heavily in law schools everywhere, they gutted the jury and it's award and knocked the award down nearly another $2 billion!

$2.5 billion -$2 billion = $500 million dollars.

Although it hardly matters, the actual exact number that the Court pulled out of its ... thin air ... was $507.5 million.

Even before the courts slashed the claim like a backstreet hoodlum slicing a throat ... it was too low. What we didn't know in 1989 at the time of the spill ... nor even in 1994 at the time of the trial ... is that 20 years after the spill there are still fisheries in PWS that have not reopened because they haven't recovered from Exxon's destruction of them. As a result, there are fishermen who have not been able to pursue their livelihood for 20 years and, by now, probably never will.

So not only did they lose 20+ years of their livelihood and the culture and lifestyle that went with it (acquired by some just by growing up there; but by others at tremendous personal cost and trauma ... there were midwest farmboys and New York city slickers who had given their all to chase a dream. And that particular dream is a rough one to chase! A dream that turned into a nightmare for all (Exxcept ... the misspelling is intentional ... for Exxon who is loudly gloating at the Christmas present the Supreme's gave them!)

Other aftermaths. Let's see. What did the government do? Alaska has a lot of leverage with Exxon and the oil companies. So, did they lend some muscle to convince Exxon to pay the money the jury told it to pay and not wait until all the claimants were dead? Of course not. They got involved all right. Governments are good at getting involved when they should probably just go away. But they had less ideas on how to clean up an oil spill than New Orleans did about how to deal with a flood! And the feds were totally useless. The State got some cleanup money from Exxon (of course the courts did not take away ... it was only the little guy that the courts decided to kick while they were already down!) Wait! I was talking about the United States of America Federal Court system ... and I used the definition of a bully. Hmm.

Naturally, the cleanup money was largely wasted and, in fact, the entire cleanup was a fiasco (see earlier articles in the series) that almost assuredly did more harm than good (except for P.R. -- both the State and Exxon needed the big cleanup project for P.R. purposes.) But let's be honest. The only thing they were really trying to clean up were their reputations. It was critical to seem to be doing something about it; even if they had no idea what to do. So they washed oiled rocks with scalding hot water, killing off all the microorganisms that had managed to survive the oil itself and which, if they'd been left alone, would have formed the foundation for new growth and recovery. Nature has been at this game a lot longer than man. It has been cleaning up natural oil "spills" and other environmental disasters for a very long time.

But anyway, we got some shiny new taxes (whee) and a whole bunch of "the horse is gone so lets get that barn door closed really good" regulations.

We should finish the math. As mentioned, each fishery and other affected groups of plaintiffs are allocated different percentages of the total recovery and within each group each individual's "claim percentage" differs based on arcane formulas (one of the primary criteria being a person's fishing history compared with others in his or her fishery ... the "highliners" get the biggest percentages. So the "average" that we calculate may well not match anyone's actual check, but we had approximately 32,000 plaintiffs and the Supreme Court determined that the maximum amount of total punitive damages that could be awarded was $507.5 million. (There is a possibility that the plaintiffs will get interest on that ... but Exxon has filed a motion with the 9th Circuit to bar any liability for interest ... despite the fact that it has been ~20 years since the spill and ~15 years since the judgment. And despite the fact that it was Exxon that was the primary cause of the delays. Given, however, that the appelate courts seem willing to do Exxon's bidding no matter how absurd, no one is counting on receiving interest.)

But we're doing math here. The way the Supreme court worded the opinion such that it was arguable that the 9th Circuit had the authority to reduce the award even further. Given that, even if they tried and failed, it would presumably add many more months (at least) to the point where any money actually got distributed. So ... the plaintiff attorneys, already ruined financially and emotionally, settled for 75% of the Supreme Court's imaginary number.

$507.5 million x .75 = $380.625 million

Whee. The 32,000 of us will get over $380 million. But my math is off for some reason. I'm not sure why, but it appears that the settlement number was closer to $383 million. And they now count the plaintiff group at approximately 33,000 people. Given the numbers we're working with, that change is de minimus and not worth tracking down (this from a man who was, briefly, an accountant in an "earlier life" - actually the first year or two after undergraduate school). But see:

$380 million / 32,000 = $11,875.00

$383 million / 33,000 = $11,606.06

For simplicity sake, let's roughly split the difference and figure the average "take" for a plaintiff is $11,740.

"Well," you might think, "it is better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick and at least it averaged over $10,000 per person!"

Virtually none of the plaintiffs would agree. After spending 20 years anticipating that the average would be about a decimal point farther to the right (somewhat oddly, the interest the judgment was accruing kept the total award fairly close to the original $5 billion even as it kept getting reduced ... until the Supremes got their hands on it), $10,000 is ... pathetic. Even if the courts decide to award interest (don't hold your breath) it won't be significant given the 20 years of waiting and clinging to the ledge by fingernails.

Our lawyers did a superb job, it wasn't they that ... oh. Right. Can't forget that part.

Although they may well have been legally entitled to more given the original contingency contracts that were signed with the fishermen a couple decades ago, the lawyers settled for 20% of the award for attorney fees.

Which means that the average plaintiff received (or will receive) ~80% of the $11,740.

$11,740 x .8 = $9,392. By the rules of grammar and sentence construction it is discretionary whether one uses a comma when between $1000 and $9999. If you had suggested to anyone fifteen years ago that the checks to the individual fishermen would not require a comma, it would have been believed to be extremely ignorant and pessimistic.

But we're not done. We have to go back and fix a "mistake" I made.

The $380 / $383 [hereinafter averaged to $381.5] million dollar number is wrong.

Several years ago a secret deal came to light; one that Exxon had cut with the only substantive sized companies in the plaintiff class (it appears that it was only the individuals and very small businesses that Exxon wasn't willing to settle with and vowed to "whup"). They didn't have any problem cutting what was characterized as an "under the table" deal with the fish processors.

There were seven of them and they were based in Seattle so ended up being known as the Seattle Seven. The deal was cut in 1991, long before verdict in the 1994 trial and in such a manner that the processors agreed not to say anything and to remain as nominal plaintiffs in the legal action but to pay Exxon their share of the judgment (or at least the punitive damages part) if any were forthcoming. When this deal was discovered, the plaintiff attorneys screamed loudly and Judge Holland was not happy. Essentially no lawyer or judge had ever run into a situation such as that. A plaintiff who had already settled with the defendant ... with an agreement to pay the defendant whatever the plaintiff was awarded! It was a real head-scratcher. But the courts eventually ruled that it was lawful (essentially they couldn't find anything that said it wasn't because it was so unusual and strange!)

As a result we have the bizarre situation that of the $383 million, Exxon will, in effect, pay itself $54 million of that ... which for our purposes is the same as not paying it.

$381.5 million - $54 million = $327.5 million.

So, we must do our math again. We'll use an average of 32,500 plaintiffs.

$327.5 million /32,500 = $10,077.

Then we still must take care of the attorneys, so

$10,077 x .80 = $8,062.

That's the thing with whittling. It really doesn't matter how big a stick you start with .... what matters is how much of it you whittle off.

And when you stop whittling. "No!" you say. "They couldn't have reduced any farther." Well, they didn't ... exactly. Not in that case.

In an earlier bout of shafting of the populace in Commissioner v. Glenshaw Glass Co., 348 U.S. 426 (1955) [believe it or not there are many Supreme Court decisions with which I agree :-)], the Supreme Court reviewed two cases in the process of determining that punitive damages were indeed taxable.

So ... even though they closed up their special "Exxon claim offices" in Anchorage, the I.R.S. is still going to get every drop of blood it can.

Really rough numbers ... I would take a wild guess (certainly not as wild a guess as the Supreme Court did regarding punitive damages percentages but ... :-) that a "reasonable estimate" is that most fisherfolk probably fall somewhere near the 25% marginal tax bracket [ie: from whatever their income would have been in 2008 absent Exxon payments, the "next dollar" would be taxed at the rate of 25%]. That is where a single person earning between $32,551 and $78,850 would fall.

[Note: Lisa Murkowski, Alaska's "appointed by Dad" U.S. Senator did manage to (barely) wrangle some minor tax relief for us. Essentially, we get to income average the money from Exxon ... no, not over 20 years which might make sense, but over 3 years. The way it is paying out in dribbles it may well end up spread over three years anyway. The bill also contains a provision that allows recipients to put up to $100,000 of it into an IRA. The bill was drafted back when people expected there was going to be real money involved (and was only passed because it was piggy backed onto the emergency financing bailout package at the last minute). The thought that most claims are going to be small enough that they could be put entirely into an IRA was not contemplated at the time the bill was drafted!

However. The three year income averaging won't change my rough cut 25% estimate anyway ... and if any of the claimants are in an economic position where they can just set the funds away for retirement ... aren't the claimants I'm concerned about anyway (and there aren't many of them). It is almost funny if one is truly into gallows humor, that the Congress decided to allow people to put the money into an investment account ... at precisely the time when no one in their right mind would! With the stock market ... and everything else(!) in free fall, it is doubtful that provision will be of substantive value to anyone. Actually, I would guess that the vast majority of recipients will be able to "make" between 12% and 20% on their entire claim almost instantly ... by paying down the credit card balances they've had to let rise while waiting for their money from Exxon!

But thanks anyway Lisa.]

So, our hypothethical average fisherperson with a check from Exxon (as distributed by Keller Rohrback, the appointed Claims Administrators) in 2008 of $8,062 would still, in real life, most likely owe a fourth or so of that to Uncle Sam; meaning that they retain 3/4 of it. More math:

$8,062 x .75 = $6,046.

The small claims court limit in Alaska is $10,000. Anything below that is so little money in a court context that the PTB (powers that be) don't figure it is even worth hiring a lawyer for.

While we are having fun with math, let's take one last gander at something.

$6,046 / 20 = $302.

I know that we aren't quite at 20 years (the spill was in March), but we already have that much "range" into the numbers by now ... they are only rough averages at best. But ... if you take the average net award as we calculated it and spread it out over 20 years ... the big famous "terribly destructive of Big Business and Insurance Companies" punitive damage judgment works out to $302 per year for each plaintiff.

For probably the substantial majority of these folks, they've vastly more than $302 of value (fish not caught, interest payments on the replacement gear they had to buy, whatever) each and every year since the spill that was never recompensed in any way.

20 x 365 = 7,300, so

$6,046 /7300 = $.83.

Using rough numbers again, but just assuming 20 years at 365 days a year ... the net amount pocketed by the average claimant works out to less than .83 per day each day since the spill.

And they have the nerve to call that Justice???

It was headline news everywhere when the 1994 verdict came in and Exxon was docked $5 billion in punitive damages. Very few newspapers outside of Alaska paid it any further attention. And now, 20 years later ... the media has a "who cares/old news" attitude. The spill and the trial and verdict were sexy news stories. They got lots of attention.

Now, an entire generation has been born and graduated from high school since the spill. Many people don't know much about it, if anything. Most people were left with the impression that Exxon got spanked big time and huge amounts of $$ flowed into the desolate little "used to be" fishing villages.

If a newspaper mentioned the decision by the Supremes at all it was usually just a squib along with a bunch of other squibs about decisions handed down by the Supremes this year.

There should be public outrage. There should be marching in the streets. There should be protest signs. There should be long emailed-around-the-country petitions. There should be front page stories in the news magazines of the oiled beaches and birds and animals and fiery editorials calling on the country to be very scared at what precious rights were just flushed.

But none of that happened. It all ended with a whimper, not a bang.

Alaskans, particularly the hardiest of them: the trappers, small operation loggers, miners, and fishermen, are not the kind of people to need or want sympathy. Nor do they seek it out. So they aren't making a lot of noise. They mostly grumble into their beer and carry on. Rudyard Kipling in "If For Boys" described their stoicism well:

"If you can make one heap of all your winnings,
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss;"

Of course I always thought it was a terrible thing to teach kids that it was a good thing to gamble all they own on a roll of the dice ... :-)

There are some people making comments, but not very loudly and they aren't getting much press.

Frank Mullen is both a fisherman and an investment advisor. He hoped to make big bucks both from his claim and from helping other fisherment invest wisely. His reaction:

"Frank Mullen ... said he and other plaintiffs will certainly take the checks. But they won't be happy.

"It's a damn small bone for an old, angry dog is what it is," he said.

While $383 million is a lot of money and will be "a nice infusion for fishermen and communities," it's not much when divided among the 33,000 plaintiffs, he said.

And it won't inflict much pain on one of the world's richest corporations, Mullen said.

"It's a mere aggravation for a corporation as wealthy as they are," he said. "It's not at all likely to deter them from future environmental degradation."

Other Alaskans who care about the environment are in shock also. Interestingly, there are a surprising number of people (including myself) who have specifically noted that they were "ashamed" of the Court; which I take to be a powerfully good thing about our country and its system and its people. But it is stunts like this one that will make people no longer ashamed ... just disgusted with "business as usual". We're getting very close to that point and, once there, our entire system is in serious jeopardy. And when the house of cards that is our remarkable system of governance falls, it will be because of bought and paid for decisions like this one from a Court of which we all should be deeply ashamed.

Cindy Shogan of the Alaska Wilderness League said, "I'm ashamed at the Supreme Court, ashamed at this decision, and I'm just shocked that, once again, the oil industry wins."

Besides the actual earnings that never happened and the occupation itself and the (fascinating and unique) culture, perhaps the most important thing that I've seen people lose is ... their identity.

Folks who used to stride into fishermen meetings and state their opinions in the booming voices of confidence ... don't show up at the meetings any longer. Many are no longer Prince William Sound [PWS] fishermen. Few have starved. Some have gone to work for the oil companies or government. But there aren't many jobs in PWS outside the fishing industry and those who cater to it. Commuting to Anchorage is a pain. It is expensive. But worst is the loss of self-image.

Big, powerful, commercial fishermen who owned their own boats and gear and were their own bosses, lived in the wilds of Alaska and answered to no man ... became broken bitter shells commuting to 9 to 5 jobs to try to keep bread on the table. The bitterness was largely directed (appropriately) at Exxon (who proved exceedingly adept at rubbing salt in the wounds they created), but over time the bitterness spread until they became bitter at the whole world and ... most inappropriately ... at themselves.

"We Swore We'd Win and We Did - Even Better: You Lost".

Exxon has an attitude problem. Or, perhaps more accurately, much of the world has a problem with Exxon's attitude. It is not one of the Big Three ... no, not that Big Three ... the column on that issue will be coming along shortly. The Big Three oil companies doing business with Alaska: Connoco, Phillips and Tesoro ---

If the world hates a poor loser, it hates a bad winner even more. Though I've lost my share of battles in life without descent into the depths of opprobrium, I'm coming close to being a bad loser on this one. That said ... Exxon is such a bad winner that I won't even seem petty by comparison.

Of course when people lose a million dollars or more it generally isn't considered petty anyway. I don't know that my claim was ever worth anywhere close to that much. I did not have the damages that many others did. I do know that some claims were worth more than that however.

This was not a "judicial decision". Sad as it is to say this about our Supreme Court, this huge win by the anti-punitive damage crowd was a totally political ruling. I am not accusing the Justices of unethical behavior. I believe it is probable that they actually believe that punitive damages should be severely limited or abolished. But the Opinion issued by the Court was political in that Justices who believed in tort reform (curbing punitive damages) have been appointed to the courts largely on purely political considerations and the punitive damages issue was a major litmus test that has been employed by the Presidents who do the appointing.

By now, after many years of Republican Presidents appointing federal judges, the Federal Bench is filled with those appointees who no longer followed the law or the Constitution (even though they may believe that they do); and to a very large extent, promotion to higher courts is from within the system. You are much more likely to be appointed to a federal appellate court if you were a federal court trial judge ... and the same pattern generally holds with the Supreme Court.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
February 15, 2009
Update

So much comes under the heading of "aftermath"! The spill had a greater effect on the State than most people have any conception.

I left this post unfinished as I had to move on to other things. But I promised to come back and "wrap up the aftermath"!

The court appointed administrators continue to dribble out pieces of payments. Why not do it all at once? It seems like it would make sense to just get it over with (!) especially since it is so much less money than they were set to disburse. But I suppose it is just as much hassle to write a check for $5 as it is for $500 and the claims are complex and convoluted. They started out that way ... ~33,000 plaintiffs of several different categories all with varying damages and individual situations that had to be accounted for in the distribution formulas.

But then wait 20 years. When Rip Van Exxon awoke he found that he was an old man and that many of his friends were dead and others had simply disappeared. Alaska is a transcient state. Lots of folks sort of float through here. Maybe stay a few years; have a grand adventure by working as a commercial fisherman in the cold and unforgiving waters of Alaska ... then wander on, or, as the responsibilities of real life beckon they pack up the pictures and diaries of their Alaskan adventure and go home to run the family store.

The "right kind" stay though. Alaskans self-select probably more than in any other state. Firstly because so much of its population is comprised of 1st generation immigrants but primarily because Alaska is so different from any other state. I think the only place I've heard the story more often about than Alaska is Hawaii, and at that it is probably about a toss-up ... but so many people come up for a vacation ... and then simply can't bring themselves to leave.

Others have had to sell parts of their claim at a dramatic discount just to survive. The buyers generally only bought the cream as they attempted to minimize risk. I've seen a bunch of such deals. Typically, the buyer only bought a small portion of the anticipated claim amount. If by rough numbers the claimant would have a $300,000 claim, the buyer would, for example, buy the "first $50,000" of it. That way, even if it was gutted far worse than anyone could reasonably believe ... the buyer would still be fine. Interestingly since the final result is so far from anything "reasonable", many claimants will end up with nothing and it will be nip and tuck as to whether the buyers even get their investments back!

Then of course there is the "unintentional" parting of the claims as child support enforcement, student loan programs, the I.R.S. and any other government department that believed the claimant owed money slapped liens on the payout. It is another interesting twist that some of these folks won't be getting paid off either. I don't know the mechanism, but I understand that a bunch of I.R.S. workouts, for example, were premised on the filing of liens on the Exxon payments. Now the I.R.S. is going to have to dig a lot harder to get their money out of people who owe it.

Others have judgments against them for bills they couldn't pay which will be offset against their payments. A lot of people won't get a dime ... people that lost their livelihoods ... and a 20 year fight for justice. And with a final spit in the eye they will actually receive a check made out in their names showing that it is the final Exxon payment ... for $0.00. They actually make the checks out that way. I'm sure there is a reason for it and I presume it is the Administrator's decision not Exxon's. But to me it just looks like an insult: adding insult to injury.

Many, many of the claimants have died. So their Estates must be reopened; which is beyond stupid, but par for this course. This is by far the biggest screwed up boondoggle that most of us will ever run into in our personal lives; even those of us whose lives are long since over. But, naturally, if there is an easy way or a messy blundering way ... we are going to find the most awkward possible way to proceed! Even those folks who were "with it" enough to have the probate assign the rights to the Exxon judgment ... which is a perfectly valid thing to do legally and works with any other sort of judgement, are being forced to reopen the probates. Some of those probates are 20 years old! Even the heirs are dead by now. This is one of those ripple effects. Now, whatever heirs of heirs are remaning alive must hire a lawyer and have the court system dig out 15 year old microfiche if they can find it, to reopen the propate, in order to get Grandpa's $3820.00 net claim amount (which was ~$169,000.00 when he died; happily thinking that he had at least left his wife and family in good shape because of the money that they would soon receive). In many cases it simply won't be worth it and others just won't get around to it or bother to do it. Many people don't even know who should do what if the primary heirs are also deceased. And many fishermen types are not very comfortable walking into a lawyer's office to deal with these sorts of matters.

I was contemplating and this interesting piece of trivia occurred to me: This year is the 20th anniversary of the Exxon spill ... and the 50th anniversary of statehood! It is beyond mind-boggling to me that such a huge portion of our "State's" history has occurred post Exxon spill.

But it emphasizes the point that we have been dealing with the "aftermath" for a very long time. We have talked in detail about what the spill and Exxon's reaction as it vies for the title of "Most Socially Irresponsible Corporation" ["MSIC]. Actually it is leading in several categories. They have been suffiently publicly exhuberant about the win they probably will take the "Rubbing Face In It" and have a real shot at the coveted "I Told You So" plaque. Frankly the adding insult to injury bit should make them a lock for the top 2008/2009 corpocracy awards. Not enough information has come to light yet. It is possible that the Halliburtan Iraq Contract will be in the running. Should be an interesting Awards Banquet in any event.

Insult to injury. That was ... after convincing the majority of the members of the Supreme Court that it should take the food away from the mouths of babies so that a corporate giant doesn't lose 6 days worth of profits ... and having the nerve to still call the remaining crumbs "punitive" damages. I'm sure Exxon really feels punished (which is ths purpose of punitive damage awards). If anyone has read this far without realizing that the previous sentence, before the parenthetical aside is pure unadulterated sarcasm, then I think you're on the wrong blog. Where were we? Oh yes, rubbing salt in the wound because they can ... after one of the greatest "wins" in Supreme Court history such that they got the punitive award knocked down to where they really can pay it out of the petty cash/annual party fund account ... they run back to court to try to convince them that there should be no interest on the award. Now that takes chutzpah! But what they have done to people and how they have used their incredible power and infinite patience to tell a jury to stuff it ... has been pretty well covered.

Aftermath. Yeah. The aftermath. Besides the destruction of the exemplary damages lawsuit ... which destroyed much, there is the "other" critical question. Indeed, if it weren't for our empathy towards fellow humans (and our culturally and personally entangled issues regarding money!) ... the damages done to the Sound are perhaps ultimately more important. What's left regarding the aftermath is perhaps the primary and most important ramification. How sound is the Sound? We've had 20 years. It must be pretty much back to pristine, huh? Not.

While it is true that most of the oil is ... gone (evaporated, sank, dissipated, soaked deeply into the sand and China is busy drilling it now, or other) ... that is far from unversal. One thing most people don't realize is how slowly natural "events occur up here in this land of nine months of ice and snow. A twenty year old spruce tree may look like something impressive in California (if well-watered!) Here it is a scrawny sapling barely large enough to use for a Christmas tree. If a tree falls in the forest does anyone hear it? Maybe. But it will still be lying there in 20 years where in Iowa it would have rotted back to humis/soil long ago. Environmental scars heal slower up here. Primarily that is because virtually no progress is made during the winter months. It is like in your own kitchen. You set the cream on the table. It is warm and comfy ... and curdles in about two days; stinks up the entire house by day 4 ... and is a semi-solid mass of spoiled "cheeze" in a week. Yet if you put the same cream in the refrigerator ... it's probably still "good" after that week. Alaska is the refrigerator. Processes that might have deteriorated and broken down the oil in California either don't work up here, or the work for so short a season each year that it takes an enormous amount of time for the land to recover from harms.

First, realize how large an area we are talking about. There are various estimates, but that is the Kenai Peninsula shown in the map and that's a large peninsula. It is difficult to put things into perspective with just a map, so look at it this way. The Kenai Peninsula is larger that ten (10!) It is larger than West Virginia! It is more than double the size of Maryland! And you could put Rhode Island and Delaware in one of the smaller bays and never notice it.

That, my friends, is the size of this oil spill, which, as you can see, due to uncooperative winds, tides and currents, mostly headed for the beaches rather than wander out to sea. There are various extimates for how much shoreline was oiled. But this is a good "middle of the road" estimate: "The great oil slick eventually drifted 500 miles, contaminating 1500 miles of shoreline covering an area 10,000 square miles. If you were to superimpose the length of the area covered by the spill onto the east coast of the U.S. it would stretch from Massachusetts to North Carolina."

Some of us aren't all that conversant in the areas of Massachusetts and North Carolina :-) So let's take the nation's third largest state (behind Alaska and Texas). It runs approximately 800 miles north to south and, I suppose by following the uneven shores, it has a coastline of approximately 840 miles. Again note the above section where is says that 1500 miles of Alaska's shoreline were contaminated by the spill covering an area of 10,000 miles.

Please pay attention here! :-) This is critical to understanding the magnitude of what we were dealing with. The Exxon-Valdez oil spill contaminated 1500 miles of Alaska's shoreline ... and California has a total shoreline of 840 miles. Look again at the map. That's not quite double the amount of shore that California even has! A bit more perspective ... the spill covered an area of 10,000 miles ... an area larger than six (6!) states! The entire state of Vermont is 9,615 square miles!

It is only because Alaska is so large that Exxon has been able to get away with a wave of the hand and talk of a "small percentage" of Alaska's coastline. Compared to anything except Alaska ... the spill was enormous!

And it was a critical 1500 miles of shoreline. That is a huge part of Alaska's ... uh ... fish basket! :-) Tremendous numbers of salmon, crab, shrimp, halibut and many other species were fished heavily, but sustainably. Now, there are some major eco-systems that may never recover and some fish and other marine life [eg: the sub-species of Killer Whale that roamed Prince William Sound] that will become extinct as a result of the spill. We not only can't fish the "at risk" sea creatures sustainably ... it is all we can do to try to keep them sustained without fishing them!

Nor did the oil go away.

Debate re: long term affects

Wildlife decimation

Cleanup etc.

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 6

2008-12-24T12:22:00.007-09:00

December 21, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters -- Part 6
-AKA-
How The Grinch Stole Christmas

For many years ... nearly 20 actually, the "standard" birthday or Christmas wish was "May Exxon come in this year!"

For the first Christmas in the lifetime of some young adults ... that will not be a Christmas wish this year.

We never knew; we never even seriously considered the possibility. Hardly anyone truly doubted; even those who gruffly claimed "Ah we'll never get nuthin; the courts are part of the "system" and the Exxons of the world run the 'systems'. The courts will never make Exxon pay what they owe us". Even that was essentially just bluster to cover up how deeply they cared.

Other than a handful of the crazy paranoids, we knew better. We knew the judicial system and the justice system were just different names for the same thing. To the utter shame of our country thousands of victims involved now know that was extremely naive. In addition to being bad simply because it was immoral, unethical and illegal; it also fed the rapidly growing disgust by the citizenry with the government, and; (particularly in Alaska the ramifications are especially critical) the mistrust, distrust and beliefs that they are an (illegal) trust with Big Oil. It may well be that Exxon will yet rue the day when they decided as a "matter of principle" to fight their victims with every possible weapon at their disposal; to throw so much money and lawyers at it the plaintiffs would be buried; to call in all chits, favors, lobbying benes and fight this in as dirty a "take no prisoners" and salt the earth battle as can be conducted.

But that day will do none of the current victims any good.

Because now, it, the unthinkable, the unbelievable, the life-shatteringly tragic has happened. [Nope, that is not hyperbole ... for many, many people their Exxon claim was their primary asset. And the only one that would give them a chance at a retirement that didn't solely consist of social security and food stamps].

This Christmas ... the first since 1989 ... we have no magical, mysterious "Exxon claim" keeping the holiday spirit alive. "Do you have a claim?" was a regular question; especially this time of year because we always hoped that someday we'd be able to buy that [fill in the blank] that we really couldn't afford "until Exxon comes in".

I don't know if pride goeth before a fall or not. But it certainly does at times after one. Through no fault of their own ... after a decade, certainly after two decades, people could not maintain the positive self-image that had seen them through so much of the rough, wild, hard ... but ultimately, intensely fulfilling life they led before Exxon dumped oil on them.

All many now lived for, wrapped in their bitterness, was making Exxon pay for destroying their lives and life styles. They believed ... these men who trusted nothing but their own two hands ... somehow had faith in our judicial system.

It is a sad thing to watch faith die.

But die it most certainly did, even among the most pro-court plaintiffs. It may have hit them the hardest because they really believed that the Court was above simple theft and now they know it is not. The Supreme Court stole our money. They "redistributed" it as President-Elect Obama likes to say. But the Supremes took from the poor to give to the rich. Sort of the "anti-Robin Hood". The Court will get away with it because there is no one to stop them. And it will not technically be considered "theft" because the Supremes are the ones who ultimately define all legal terms. But make no mistake, it was stolen.

This is how it happened. This is how the Grinch stole Christmas:

I mentioned how the "pro-court" plaintiffs were taken and shaken by this decision. Sadly, I think the same realization has happened to the plaintiff lawyers who devoted their careers to this. I think they really believed in the system and (essentially all the main players that I met were that rare breed of top notch lawyer who truly believed they were doing good with their "life's work" and who truly -- believed in our justice system and honestly believed that right would prevail and that we would ultimately win (and not because they were being paid on a contingency basis and probably made 5 cents/hour for their time on this case over the 20 years since the spill). They apologized on behalf of the courts (!) to the fishermen for this process taking so long. As "officers of the court" as all attorneys are, they are part of the system.

It may be difficult for those who had no faith in the judicial system anyway (and who probably figured all lawyers to be crooks :) to believe the plaintiff lawyers who were sharp enough and had been practicing long enough that they were intimately familiar with the system truly had faith. Maybe I'm the naive one here, but I'm convinced that Brian O'Neill (and the entire law firm of Faegre & Benson - who were my attorneys) were honestly embarrassed that "their system" (the judicial system of which they are a part) took so long to render unto the victims what was the victims'. They never apologized because they thought the judgment might be in jeopardy. Oh, everyone knew it might get cut a bit ... and even the 50% cut that the 9th Circuit gave us was somehow ... acceptable because the interest the award had accrued by then offset the cut! :-)

But I don't believe that Brian or any of the main plaintiff attorneys believed there was a realistic possibility that the punitives would be hacked to the bone. As difficult as it is for the cynics to believe ... I honestly think that Brian and others believed ... both in the system and that we would get the majority of our jury award (and that those two propositions were necessarily intertwined.)

I haven't talked to Brian since the Supremes did their dirty work, but is fairly well assured that this is no longer true.

The "anti-punitive damage" crowd (primarily, though certainly not entirely, conservative Republicans) has been in control of the strings long enough that their political appointments to the Federal Court Bench were finally wielding the primary power. This is the George Bush "crowd" (and by that I am not pointing fingers solely at either George Bush individually for the totality of the damage; it goes back many years before them and included many people besides them). But it is made up of the people who favor "tort reform" which is just another euphemism for destroying punitive damages. Aside from the rare actually bribed judge or legislator, they believe this because the insurance companies and Big Business have scared the doctors, business people of all kinds and others with their demonstrably false malarkey. They contribute heavily to the campaigns of those who oppose punitive damages and who, when in office, will appoint judges and justices to the Federal Bench who agree with that litmus test. To a large degree federal judges "advance" from within. So, you appoint a pile of District court judges who agree with your litmus test and in a few years a lot of them are sitting on federal Appellate courts and some even make the Supremes. [Seven of the nine current Supreme Court Justices were appointed by Republican presidents (four by the Bushes), the other two by Clinton.]

They do this because they believe that punitive damage awards hurt the giant multi-national corporations (say, for example, companies like Exxon) that contribute so heavily to their campaigns and they hate anything that dips its hand into the pocket of Big Oil because ... well, you get the idea. The fact that the Bushes are, in fact, oilmen themselves didn't help their objectivity any either.

Bizarrely this is largely brought to you by people who decree that they are "strict constructionists" and who want only "strict constructionists" on the bench! They want judges and justices who follow the law, not make it. The inherent absurdity of this position is unclear to these people.

All "common law" is judge made law! That's what it means (although I'd bet well over half of the "strict constructionists" who, of course, believe in the Common Law, don't understand that is just another term for "judge-made law!") We are a "common law" nation (as opposed to many "civil law" countries where the bench has to follow the specifics of the vastly complex codified laws). In our country, Louisiana is the only example of a civil (code-based) legal system, which is a relic of their French heritage.

Our forefathers waged their "lives and sacred fortunes" so that we may have the benefit of a Constitution that enshrines "judge made law" because they knew that was so critical to protecting our liberties. Again, this "judge made law" is the "common law" ... no matter how many times I say it, there is a large contingent who will refuse to understand because they have been fighting to uphold the common law and to stop the judges from making law! Their lives have been devoted to riding a Push-Me Pull-You and they are incapable at this point in understanding what they are doing.

In civil-law countries (most of Europe, for example; indeed, most of the rest of the "civilized" world) the judiciary is generally a rubber stamp rather than a "balance of power" or third branch of government. This balance of power was so crucial to the Founding Fathers ensured that the protections of the common law were specifically provided for in the Constitution. In other words ... a strict constructionist should believe in judge-made law by definition!

Those folks who couldn't say enough bad about the French when France decided not to slaughter their young in exchange for oil for the U.S. ... (unknowingly ... which is a nice way of saying ignorantly) want us to adopt France's legal system(!)

The Founders were very careful and very specific:

U.S. Constitution; 7th Amendment: In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law."
[Emphasis added.]

But that all got tossed. Those who are in the pocket of the insurance companies (whether they know it or not) and are in favor of Tort Reform and getting rid of punitive damages dislike opinions like, for instance, Roe v. Wade because the justices "made up" law [the law of privacy that they found written between the lines in the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution ... but which is specifically provided for in the Alaska Constitution]. But in deciding that punitive damages should equal a certain percentage of the compensatory damage award ... the Supreme Court simply pulled that number out of the thin air without even a pretense of any other justification but that it seemed fair. [This is "strict constructionism"???] The Justices made far more law in the Exxon v. Baker case than they ever did in Roe v. Wade.

Very briefly, the Supreme Court's terrible "made-up law" in this case was to decide that punitive damages can only be within a range of damages tied to percentages of the recoverable compensatory damages.

The Court focused on the fact that the punitive damage award in this case was so large compared to historical standards. If size is a legitimate legal issue/consideration/criteria, then what they should have focused on was how large the companies are compared to historical standards!

The Supreme Court made a gross error that effectively destroyed many lives (except that, as noted previously regarding their infallibility), when it is the Supreme Court they don't make errors. Instead, they make "bad law". Yet legal scholars can certainly debate and determine whether it was a rotten decision even if it can't be an error since they have the power to change the common law and are not bound by stare decisis. (It is, however, Court policy to follow it unless they specifically determine that the earlier decisions were in error ... or that the world has changed so much that they no longer apply). The Court does not typically go around just ignoring the precedents set by earlier Supreme Courts, but gives them the utmost deference possible.

For hundreds of years the common law was generally interpreted to hold that the size of a punitive damage award should be based not on the size of the accompanying compensatory award, but on the size and profitability of the tortfeasor [the one who wrongfully causes the damages]. This Court switched those considerations. Even if I had nothing to do with the Exxon claims I could tell that this was bad law. In essence it is a "Get Out of Punitive Damages Card" that is valid only for giant corporations and insurance companies.

The Supreme Court completely abrogated the existing and ancient concept of punitive damages.

The theory of punitive damages is completely different from that regarding compensatory damages. The amount of compensatory damages is calculated by attempting to determine what the negligent acts of the wrongdoer have cost the victim and then come up with a number that tries to make the victim "whole". It is irrelevant whether the tortfeasor (wrongdoer) is rich or poor. What counts is the value of the damage (s)he caused.

Punitive damages are an entirely different concept. When a wrongdoer's behavior is so bad , so grossly negligent(or even intentional), or so "reckless" [or as often stated "so recklessly indifferent to the lives and property of others"], then our society, through the courts, developed within the "common law" a mechanism to punish these wrongdoers. It is not a criminal action. That differs in too many ways to explain at the moment. Indeed, about the only thing they have in common is their joint goal of punishing the wrongdoers. One reason it developed as part of the civil law goes back to that determination that a corporation is a "person" for legal purposes ... yet one cannot jail a corporation. Another mechanism for punishment was required.

For those reasons and others, the doctrine of punitive damages was created (by the English courts, before the founding of this country). Determining a standard for when they should apply, although responsible for the death of forests from the trees harvested to write books, articles and treatises arguing the point, is fairly straightforward, (although it may not have seemed so clear originally, it has, by now, had a few centuries of honing and clarifying).

If a wrongdoer did something so bad that it was bad enough or reckless enough that it "shocked the conscience" [eg: a classic example: turning the keys to a loaded oil supertanker over to a drunk who couldn't even legally drive a Ford pickup (as previously mentioned he'd lost his driver's license sue to drunk driving) and telling him to take it through one of the world's most pristine and productive waters in the world ... at night] then they would be liable to pay punitive damages as punishment for their recklessness.

The more difficult question lay in determining "how much" once it was determined that a company was indeed liable for punitives. It would make no sense to tie that award to the amount of damages done. Suppose an Exxon officer, while on company time at the annual Christmas party had imbibed a bit too much and wanted to see how big a splatter a balloon filled with crude oil would make when dropped from the 38th floor of Exxon's U.S Headquarters. Suppose further that, although accidental, the balloon landed on someone knocking them over, giving them a slight neck joint problem which resulted in medical bills and slight but permanent nerve damage in the neck (as well as soaking their clothes with oil). Ultimately in our example, suppose these actions resulted in a jury verdict against Exxon (as well as the balloon dropper personally), with the jury determining that the victim was damaged in the reasonable amount of $15,000. Suppose also that the jury decided that since all of the officers and directors were at the party and had all encouraged the balloon dropper, that the company had shown recklessness to a degree that warranted punitive damages.

If those damages were tied to the amount of the compensatory award of $15,000; even assuming that it was a multiple of it: say three times the comps. That $45,000 punitive damage judgment could come out of Exxon's next year's Christmas party fund and the whole thing would remain a big joke. If it had been George's Shoe Store that had rented a room on the 38th floor of a hotel for their annual Christmas party and all five of their employees had shown up, and everything else happened identically, the $45,000 punitive damage award (particularly on top of the $15,000 compensatory damage award) could easily send George's Shoes into bankruptcy.

This is clearly and demonstrably unfair. George's is being punished vastly more severely than Exxon for the identical actions. This breaches several Constitutional guarantees, including such things as equal protection and due process. It is basic hard-wired "even Supreme Courts can't change it" Constitutional law called "substantive due process" (which is much "tougher" than "procedural due process"). In this country ... people [and corporations are legally people] are to be treated generally equally by the court system. George's Shoes should receive approximately the same level of pain and punishment as should Exxon for the identical bad acts.

So instead, after struggling with it for years (which is an advantage that the common law has over statutory law ... the courts can more appropriately refine it) it was determined that for punitive damages, the only fair (and possibly the only constitutional) system was to tie them to the value of, and/or the earnings of, the tortfeasor. If, for instance, the jury thought that the act was bad enough that it should equal 2% of the company's net profit for that year ... George's might have to pay $5,000. Exxon, however, to feel the same amount of pain ... to receive a similar amount of punishment ... might have to pay, say, $800,000.000.

On February 1, 2008 Exxon nka Exxon Mobil, posted the largest annual profit by a U.S. company in the history of the universe. Exxon had a profit [not just gross income] of $40.6 billion dollars! They also had the highest quarterly net income of any U.S. company in history: $11.7 billion dollars of net profit for the last three months of 2007. They ruined the lives of tens of thousands of people, countless fish and wildlife, thousands of miles of pristine shoreline, with continuing and likely permanent damage and had been ordered by judge and jury to pay $5 billion dollars as punishment for their horrendously stupid and reckless actions. That is less than 6 weeks of their NET profit! It is frankly unconscionable that they should be able to be so reckless and do so much damage and receive such a tiny slap on the hand for doing so.

The spill covered 11,000 square miles! They oiled and blackened 1,300 miles of some of Alaska's most beautiful and bountiful shoreline. Pristine waters that teemed with fish and the mammals and birds that fed on them. By comparison, ANWR is a tiny bleak ugly piece of frozen tundra that is virtually incapable of supporting life. People demonstrate by the thousands to "keep ANWR" away from the Oil companies. Where is the public outrage at what Exxon already did which is thousands of times worse than it is even possible to do to ANWR.

Less than 6 weeks worth of their net profit was all the punishment they received for recklessly causing almost unimaginable damage! And the Supreme Court of the United States decided that was much too high and sliced it to approximately $500 million dollars. This is a company that makes $130 million dollars of net profit PER DAY!

The day when punitive damages actually punished the wrongdoer is clearly gone ... for the Big Boys. The giant corporations, the insurance companies, people who are well insured ... there will be no "punitive" remaining in "punitive damages". This is one of the most asinine decisions that the U.S. Supreme court has ever made and it will have horrendous consequences beyond the wreck of the Exxon Valdez! The big corporations are now free to behave as recklessly as they please. They risk less than four days of their net profit for the most egregious intentional or grossly negligent actions. And they managed to delay even that for just a few months shy of 20 years (and are claiming to the courts and will probably win, that they owe no interest on it).

If the idea is to spank the wrongdoer ... 10% if their net profits spanks them substantively but doesn't destroy them. Nor does it let them off with a limp wrist hand swat that they don't notice. That would be a reasonable criteria for punitive damages. But to comply with substantive due process and equal protection guarantees of the U.S. Constitution, punitive damages must be tied to the value and profitability of the company ... not (as the Supreme Court just did) to the amount of compensatory damages.

If the amount of punitives is tied to the amount of compensatories, as it now is following this Decision, then for exactly the same acts, either George's Shoes would be bankrupted, or Exxon wouldn't even notice the "punishment". This is flatly unconstitutional. Clearly a Court that understands the law and the Constitution and has enough I.Q. points to comprehend what today's Court did, will have to change this. This Decision and our Constitution cannot co-exist. But until the day that we have a Court that understands Constitutional Law 101, horrendous damage will be done; the corporations will gain vastly more power and control; the "people" will have lost so many of their rights and protections ... that I'm honestly afraid it might be too late.

By making the Supreme Court a lackey of the corpocracy we may well have just ensured that we will be passing on to our children and grandchildren a destroyed country which has totally reverted to corporate feudalism.

We should be ashamed.

This, then, is how the doctrine evolved such that the relevant standard focused on company size and income since the purpose is "punishment". It was on that basis that punitive damages have been calculated for most of our country's history and it is the instructions that Judge Holland gave the jury.

And it is this doctrine that the U.S. Supreme Court defenestrated [:-)] (threw out the window).

We are now back to that Never-Never land which I just finished describing and explaining why damages could not rationally or fairly be tied to the amount of the compensatory reward. But ... despite the fact that is impossible for it to be fair and that the only fair formulation was just destroyed ... that is exactly what the Supremes did and, because they are the Supremes, that is what is now the law of the land.

It is terrible. It is inexcuseable. It is horribly unfair. And it creates terrible law that will need to be applied to thousands of other situations in the next few years. The punitive damages doctrine was a valuable ... indeed critical ... part of the arsenal of justice. But it was an egg sitting on a wall and the Supreme Court came by and blithley knocked it off.

And all the King's insurance companies and all the King's multinational corporations are dancing hand-in-hand because they know that Humpty Dumpty cannot be put back together again.

In a display of corporate arrogance unmatched in modern times (well, perhaps, other than Enron giving top management huge bonuses just before closing their doors), Exxon vowed that as a matter of principle, and because it thought that people should be grateful to it (for all the work it did cleaning up the spill) instead of suing it, it would make sure the fishermen and other plaintiffs never received anything anywhere close to an award of that magnitude. Tragically, they successfully carried through on their arrogant pronouncement.

And so: your right to trial by jury in civil matters just got tossed because the jury verdict is now irrelevant if it isn't "politically correct". Indeed, it is part of an ongoing trend by the "Conservative Court" to take power away from the juries and trial judges (who are the only ones truly familiar with the case)! You right to trial by jury is eroding much faster than you probably realize.

Even a source as conservatively mainstream as Answers.com says this about it:

"The Court has continued to grant review of state punitive damage awards. In a major onslaught on the jury trial right, in Cooper Industries, Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Group (2001), the Court established that appellate tribunals may review punitive damage awards using a de novo standard because these damages express moral outrage, not the finding of facts; hence traditional deference to the jury does not apply."

We now have law of politics instead of law of justice. Given various historical precedents (which is all a topic I will expand on in a later post), this does not bode well for the future of our country or the people in it.

In a brief break from all the ranting I've been doing here, I'd like to single out three ... "entitles" if you will that performed admirably and deserve out deepest appreciations despite the ultimate outcome. First, believe it or not (! :-), the plaintiff lawyers. They did magnificently without a dime coming into their coffers for the whole 20 years.

Secondly, Judge Holland. Despite the fact that "chain of command" is probably more rigidly enforced in the court system [I will no long be referring to it as the justice system!], Judge Holland "was there" at the trial. Unlike every other judge he heard and saw the evidence. Unlike every other judge ... he watched as the jury stuggled through the difficulties presented in trying to reach a fair accomodation. Unlike every other judge he had the ability to question witnesses (judges can do that if they wish) and rule on the evidence ... including ruling evidence inadmissible so the jury (and appelate courts) didn't get to see it ... but he did. He knew right from wrong. He knew that the 9th Circuit was doing wrong. And he rebuffed them. Masterfully. Twice. It is amazing that they let him retire instead of tossing him from the bench. Because he did what he knew was right despite the orders form the higher muckety-mucks.

The third "heros"; who would get appropriate recognition as such if the case hadn't been trashed. (No one builds statues for the losers!) was ... the jury. At great personal sacrifice (and potential personal danger ... someone, presumably hired by the Oil Boys, threw a dead salmon in an elderly lady's front yard as a "warning"). She was one of those "on the fence" and the Oilees apparently thought they could scare her away from crossing them. They obviously don't know Alaskan women! :-) [It is also a spooky realization that they knew who was on the fence. Jury deliberations are supposed to be private. It appears they had infiltrated the jury ... or possibly the jury room.] In any event ... they are true heros. They did what they knew to be right after agonizing over their decision. They did so knowing that Big Oil knew who they were and bad things sometimes happened to people who "crossed" Big Oil.

Judge Holland and the jurors are people we should be proud to claim as "true Alaskans" in heart and spirit.

It wasn't the judge or jury that shafted the victims. It was one of the the giant multi-national corporations that will soon be (truth be told, already are) running out lives and economies more than we allow ourselves to believe ... and it was the judicial system that has been filled, fairly quietly, with the "approved selections" of the Big Boys and the conservatives such that now they have taken over from inside "without a shot being fired". Although the giant corporations had a huge hand in making it come to pass, they couldn't have done it alone. I blame the "strict constructionist" conservatives who have been in ascendence for the past few decades. They are the brain-washed backers of "tort reform" which is one of the greatest scams ever pulled on the American people. I blame them for their utter ignorance (which is simple to cure - it is ignorance, not stupidity that is our problem and that is morally blameworthy) in not understanding that "strict construction" requires that they believe in judge-made law since that is what the common law is; and the common law is guaranteed to us as surely; truthfully more surely, than the right to bear arms and is right up there with freedom of speech and religion.

I think it is good for citizens to get involved in their government. Civic affairs are important and public service can be exactly what it is called. Thomas Jefferson did what was necessary to serve his country, then went home. He didn't make a profession out of it. I think it is much more difficult to justify being a professional politician. That isn't just civic involvement. Once it becomes your career, your priorities change. You are no longer doing your civic duty to make government better. You are doing it to further your professional career.

I do not believe that it is possible for professional politicians to have the public's interest as "foremost" as a non-professional who is doing his or her civic duty to try to help out the country (or their little part of it ... serving on a county advisory board is morally just as admirable as serving in the state or even U.S. Senate).

But back to "tort reform". If the Legislature passes a constitutional law (questionable if it is even possible), limiting tort punitive damage awards ... that is one thing and the courts should examine that law when/if it properly comes before them with their constitutional maginifying glass. But to have the courts do it on their own as they did in this case ... to abrogate the common law and to "make law" they like better by pulling a concept and a number out of ... this is a G rated blog ... thin air ... these "strict constructionists" made [and made up] more law than the "liberal justices" the conservatives railed about for years.

Ultimately, if this is not soon changed (and I see no possibility of that for very many years), we will have lost the judicial system as a substantive part of our government. Oddly, they are castrating themselves at the behest of those who gave them their power. As far as our country goes, this is a recipe for disaster.

Very briefly, countries appear to have a choice when they evolve out of the "monarchial" or "totalitarian" phases of government and attempt to become what has, by really poor semantical choice, come to be called "democracies". They either make the courts a real functioning third branch of Government with substantial power over the other two (which have substantive, but different, powers over the Supremes in exchange); or ... that power vacuum gets filled by the military which is often forced to step in when the rest of the government gets out of control.

It turns out that governments, unlike storks, cannot long stand on one leg nor, like people, on two. To achieve any sort of long term balance by anything other than the barrel of a gun, a govenment must have three solid legs. If there is not a powerful working court system making up that third leg ... historically (and currently) around the world, the military (often of necessity, sometimes simply out of opportunity) steps in to become that third leg. So we have a simple but stark choice. Do we want the third leg of our government to be the courts or the military. It truly is that simple.

We have already surrendered, due to the insurance companies and Big Boy multinational corporations, the ability for a jury of real people to punish it with punitive damages (which was the only realistic way ordinary people could punish a giant corporation). That's one more of our extraordinarily valuable and rapidly diminishing supply of "protections for the people" that our Founders attempted to claim for us disappearing. Again, without knowing what they do ... the conservative "strict constructionists" who claim to believe in limited government and strong protections for the people, have emasculated the court system which was our only chance to maintain limitations on government and maintain strong protections for the people. They (these self-described "patriots") have already turned us into a corpocracy with many fewer rights and protections. Let's just hope that they have also not taken us too far down the path to a military dictatorship to stop on that slipperiest of slopes.

Many things caused this horrendous and incongrous result. Two stand out:

Exxon was evil. But, not to put too fine a point on it ... court systems are designed to deal with evil and to deal with it appropriately! So, although I think Exxon should have been a better corporate citizen if only for their long-term bottom line, it isn't their job to slap their own hand and tell it to get out of the cookie jar.

The courts were (are) packed with conservative judges and justices who do not believe that punishing giant corporations is a good idea. (How can the money "trickle down" if it is used to pay victims of the cheap greed that acquired it?) Let's face it. As much as I have disagreed with every Supreme Court (! :-) on occasion, at least the U.S. Supreme Court used to be made up of people who were smarter than the MENSA average. That clearly is no longer true.

The Exxon Valdez was a huge event in many ways. It is a much more critical decision than anyone seems to yet realize. For those whose lives it destroyed, that destruction is, of course, the primary effect of the ruling. And this happened because the insurance companies and multinational business interests have slickly (and sucessfully) worked at brainwashing the populace with fear techniques.

They cleverly convinced the constitutional "strict constructionists" that tort reform was required to keep us on track with the Constitution. It is not. Tort reform is just an honorable sounding name for taking away the jury's right to punish a corporation ... or well insured individual ... for actions unacceptable in a civilized society; and the corresponding right of the victims to be awarded the benefit of such punishments because they were unacceptably mistreated [well beyond the "treated negligently" standard which is used for compensatory damages] and because, frankly, the standards for compensation for negligence often don't come close to truly making the victims whole.

They certainly didn't in the Exxon case. Justice was not done. Injustice was purchased by those who have a lot more money than anyone opposing them, and the determination was, in the end, a political decision, instead of one that resulted from the intelligent, trained ponderings of our greatest legal minds.

Lawyers and judges like to say "hard cases make bad law". This refers to a situation where the apparent equities in a case make one want to rule in a way favorable to a sympathetic person or position ... but doing so would create law that if followed in subsequent cases would bring negative results. And we do follow the law as set forth by the Supreme Court. To do otherwise would result in sheer chaos as each court and jurisdiction took off following their own predispositions and "court shopping" would be the name of the game. This doctrine of stare decisis is (a critical) part of the common law guaranteed to us by the Constitution.

But the Supreme Court decision that ended the case of the Exxon-Valdez, and its eventual ramifications, was the most major (although so far generally unrecognized as such) event of all of the events involved in the history of this sad twenty year saga and the court's pathetic final ruling.

We all bear responsibility in allowing the system to get so far out of whack.

And we should all be ashamed of ourselves.

To Be Continued:

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 5

2008-12-21T20:40:00.045-09:00

December 19, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters -- Part 5
-AKA -
"Billions for Defense; Not One Penny to Pay Our Just Debts"

"The day" finally came.

The day we were going to find out if the Supreme Court was going to hammer Exxon and "correct" the 9th Circuit for halving the jury's award of damages or if, somehow, they were going to find a way to ratify that decision. Or ... some folks who had learned pessimism by being a part (the "victim" part) of this 20 year fiasco, actually believed that the Supremes might reduce it further. Our attorneys, the best in the business, however, had assured us that couldn't happen. That there was no legitimate way for the Supreme Court to lower the award further. That was one option we were not to worry about.

We had several days of anticipation as Supreme Court decisions were handed out over a few day period and ours didn't happen on the first day. Or the second. In fact, it didn't happen until the day the Court was ready to leave [get out of Dodge] for the season.

It wasn't until July of 2008 that the Supreme Court handed down its decision. It made its determination and sent it back to the 9th Circuit for implementation.

[To the tune of American Pie, please:] "That was the day that justice died."

The United States Supreme Court ignored everyone the 9th Circuit had ignored ... jurors, a long-term highly respected judge, the Constitution and common law that it provides we are to follow, the State of Alaska, the earth's environment ... and all of the people who live below the waterline. And then it ignored the 9th Circuit also.
In an announcement that left the hardest of hard-bitten attorneys in numbed shock ... the court chopped the remaining $2.5 billion award down to $507.5 million.

There are no words. It is as manifestly unjust as anything I have ever witnessed the court system doing. It was not only legally wrong, but it was morally wrong. Indeed, it was the first time I have truly believed that the Courts have been so politically packed that they are now simply part of the corpocracy. They are not a check and balance. They are not an independent judiciary. They are bought and paid for politicians. And they have committed an act of overt evil.

Then, just because it could, Exxon took the plaintiffs and rubbed their faces in it one last time. They argued to the 9th Circuit that because the Supremes said that $507.5 million was all that could be awarded ... that meant they didn't have to pay the 20 years of interest on it either.

Plaintiffs and their attorneys were so defeated and destroyed that there was no fight left. We filed pro forma motions with the 9th Circuit explaining that, once again, Exxon was simply flatly wrong legally. But no one's heart is in it. And no one even seems to be able to care how the 9th rules. We are arguing over the pennies to place on our closed eyes after having lost fortunes. It really makes no difference.

For the tiny amounts that the Supremes said we could have; we settled with Exxon for 75% of them. I have no clue what leverage Exxon had left to deny paying the entire amount the Supremes said they had to. But they proved that the courts would do pretty much whatever the Big and Powerful asked for and there was no fight left in any of us. When the elephants play, the grass gets trampled. And we were all, ultimately, the grass.

So the checks are starting to arrive. Little tiny checks. People's lives and livelihoods had been ruined by Exxon beyond hope of repair or salvation. All they were left was the knowledge that at least Exxon was going to have to pay ... and pay enough that they could afford to retire (after 20 years of waiting and scraping and scrimping and taking new jobs at middle age for which they weren't trained, some still trying to eke out a living catching what fish they were allowed by Fish and Game as the Department tried to manage PWS to revive the fish stocks). Many people have been clinging with their fingernails so long to keep from the total financial collapse that just letting go and crashing and burning is better than continuing to try to hold on.

And now, the Courts have stolen their retirement also.

I used strong language above. I speak of the courts committing true evil and stealing from people. I believe that to be true. But I wish to make one point extremely clear here. Although I do believe what the courts did was wrong ... horribly, terribly, immorally wrong, and that the Exxons of the world have "bought" our courts and did prove that they can "buy" [what one might still euphemistically refer to as] "justice"... I do not believe that the individual justices were directly bribed nor do I have any suspicions or accusations about any particular justice or justices who personally "sold" their decision. I don't know what all other criteria the individual justices considered; or indeed, the courts in joint session considered. One may not want to know such things. If you wish to enjoy your meal, stay out of the kitchen! But, largely, although I think they were horrendously, clearly, and demonstratively wrong ... I believe it most likely that the justices believed their votes were "right" and that their decisions were made without substantive improper motivations.

I do not wish, with this series of articles, to accuse either the justices of the 9th Circuit or of the U.S. Supreme court of malfeasance or improper abuse of office.

The Supremes do suffer from institutionalized arrogance. Because they have "the last word" ... ie: there is no where to appeal their decisions. They are very proud of the quote that:

"We are not final because we are infallible; we are infallible because we are final".

These checks won't hurt. Some folks may manage to pay down a credit card bill or even buy a truck. But we ended up, after 20 years, with less than $500 million of the $5 billion that the judge and jury had said was legally ours. Justice delayed is justice denied. Especially when after two decades of injustice, the courts put the decimal point in the wrong place and overtly deny it as well.

The plaintiff attorneys are brilliant people who are at the top of their game. They had secured one of the greatest of all time verdicts for one of the most deserving groups of victims. This isn't tobacco legislation where people got sick and died because they decided to smoke. This isn't a McDonalds case where the plaintiff put a cup of scalding hot coffee between her legs and then squeezed.

The fishermen and other plaintiffs had done absolutely nothing wrong.

In this situation we had totally innocent plaintiffs, unlike almost all mega-award cases (which somehow seemed to survive this appeal process ... the tobacco companies for example virtually all decided to settle; they didn't have Exxon's "make war not peace; win at all costs and hurt the other side as much as is humanly or, more precisely, corporately possible" mentality).

The plaintiff attorneys had put their political lives and careers (as well as their reputations and financial futures) into this case and had defended it through the most violent of legal storms that could be unleashed by a behemoth that had vastly more money to throw at this than almost anyone in the world. If one could buy "justice", Exxon was going to do it.

In a con job worthy of anything Alice believed before breakfast Exxon tried to convince the world that they had done nothing wrong either! Although many (most?) news outlets were not easily flim-flammed, Exxon clearly has the power and influence even with the media to get its story out.

Exxon argued (argues) that Hazelwood, Captain; or God, An Act of; were the only reckless culpable parties. In English ... the only ones who did anything wrong. So that, therefore, only Hazelwood and God deserved any blame. And if Exxon didn't deserve any blame, they certainly didn't deserve any punishment.

It is important to understand that for legal purposes a corporation is an entity that is legally construed (for essentially all purposes) as a "person". I personally am not convinced of the wisdom of such exalted treatment to an entity that one can create on a piece of paper and the stamp of the appropriate state office in a few minutes, but it is a concept with much history and is well-settled law.

So Exxon, although a corporation, is legally capable of wrongdoing and being punished for such wrongdoing. To carry an analogy much farther than it should go, the Board of Directors, officers and executives are the "brain" of the corporation which sometimes cause it to do things that it shouldn't; much like our brains do with us. So it is the corporation itself, not its officers nor directors, that was found liable for causing damages by its negligent behavior and was assessed punitive damages for its reckless behavior. [Captain Hazelwood was also found liable of these things, but a judgment against him is not worth the paper it is printed on as he has nowhere near sufficient assets to satisfy such a judgment. But Hazelwood and Exxon were found jointly and severably liable which means that each is liable for the entirety of the damages awarded by the jury.]

And it is the corporation which [who? :-)] was trying to make the case to the public (and hiring marketing firms to do so), that the entities at fault were simply God and Hazelwood; not the corporation. But if the corporation was negligent (!), it was not reckless (which is the critical issue regarding punitive damages and such a determination was necessary in order for punitive damages to attach).

Let me be crystal clear here. This is a critical point. We can debate whether we think Exxon was reckless for putting a known drunk at the wheel of an oil tanker. But our decisions are (and should be) irrelevant, because the jury; those whose duty it was to decide and who were in the best position to decide, did decide. Exxon, itself, was reckless. This is no longer solely an opinion, it is a determined matter of law that even the Supreme Court has no legal ability to change.

It was reckless for an additive plethora of reasons, the primary one of which was that they knowingly placed a fully loaded ~1000 foot, 212 ton, tanker filled with 56 million gallons of the worlds ugliest (tarry, high sulphur content, etc.) crude oil under the control of Captain Hazelwood while it traversed some of the most pristine environmentally sensitive areas of the world; at night (it was almost exactly midnight when they missed the gap and hit the reef) ... knowing that he had a substantial drinking problem and a history of incredibly poor judgment. Exxon had paid for Hazelwood's alcohol rehab treatment in 1985, but made no follow-ups of any sort: no post-treatment evaluations or counseling, no monitoring of any sort.

Instead Exxon immediately put him back in command knowing as they admitted at trial that "a captain with a substance abuse problem was a recipe for disaster".

Hazelwood's driver's license (for automobiles, not supertankers ... although one would think if he wasn't considered capable of entrusting an automobile to, it is difficult to imagine that handing him the keys to a crude oil carrying supertanker would be fine) had been revoked or suspended three times between 1984 and 1989 by the State of New York for alcohol violations. In fact, at the time of the spill, his driving license was in suspension because of an arrest in New York for driving under the influence in September of 1988. This information is routinely reported to employers and is generally a requirement that it also be reported to the employer by the drunken driver himself. It is virtually inconceivable that Exxon did not know that at the time they told him to drive one of the largest and potentially most destructive vehicles in the world ... he could not legally drive to the docks to board the vessel.

Exxon senior management was proven to have received multiple and continuing reports between 1985 and 1989 that Hazelwood was continuing to drink to excess openly; indeed publicly. Exxon took no actions of any sort in response to these reports, except that his superiors would drink with him!.

In 1989 (five years before the trial and before Exxon's lawyers and P.R. people got everyone in the company's management "under control", the Chairman of Exxon specifically said that putting Hazelwood in charge of a supertanker was a "gross error"). Not just a negligent mistake, mind you, but he specifically admitted that Exxon had made a "gross error". There are many ways of saying "reckless" for purpose of punitive damages and other legal issues. "Gross error" is one of those equivalent terms. An "error" equates to "reckless" which might make them liable for compensatory damages, but does not make them liable for punitive damages. But "gross error" is the same as "gross negligence" which is the equivalent of "reckless". Therefore, by the admission of Exxon's own chairman ... Exxon fit the criteria for punitive damage liability.

Further, at trial five years later, after having been heavily coached, an Exxon manager testified that Exxon's policies, despite their knowledge of the risk to the public of the "catastrophic" results of a supertanker accident, allowed a relapsed alcoholic to command an oil tanker which left him (the manager), given "Exxon's attitude towards alcohol", with "no policy to protect the safety of the public".

There was other testimony regarding that and other aspects of Exxon's general recklessness in shipping out of PWS (breaking federal fatigue laws, departing into heavy ice conditions at night to save money, etc.).

But I don't need to try to prove that Exxon was reckless. I noted at the beginning of his section that it was reckless as a matter of law that not even the Supreme Court has the power to change. That is because the jury so determined. And once a jury makes a factual determination (which this is construed to be), that issue is not appealable.

The way our system works is often misunderstood. But since the right to trial by jury is paramount, only the jury is allowed to determine facts. [Which makes practical sense as well ... it is only to a jury that factual disputes are presented. Only the jury (and trial judge) hear the testimony and watch the body language of those speaking and are privy to so many things that can't be captured in an electronic record, that it would make no sense to have an appellate court attempt to redetermine the facts of the case.] Additionally, in this case, there was no question but what there were highly competent lawyers and experts on both sides making sure the evidence was properly presented and done so in as favorable a light to their side as possible. And the jury determined that Exxon was reckless.

What is appealable is the "law". That is what the lawyers argue to the judge about and what the judge ultimately includes in his written (and spoken) jury instructions. If the judge was incorrect on the law ... if he made a ruling (regarding an objection to the admission of certain evidence, for instance) that was wrong legally, or if an instruction regarding the law given to the jurors was wrong ... that may be appealed.

But whether Exxon was reckless or not, may not be appealed unless the judge gave incorrect instructions regarding his jury instructions regarding how they are to determine whether conduct qualifies as reckless. No one has seriously argued that the judge got the law wrong on this issue. (I say "seriously" instead of just saying that no one argued it ... because it is possible that Exxon did argue it at some point. But no one took it seriously and no appellate court ever suggested that there was a problem with the formulation of the law.)

Presumably, in fact, that is why the Supreme Court had to leave in the award some amount of punitive damages. They too were bound by the jury's finding of recklessness. (That said, even though they couldn't legally touch the fact that punitive damages were appropriate, in their consideration of "how much?" they effectively did by the back door what they could not by the front.)

The general public, however, was not so bound. Exxon argued vociferously to the media and anyone else outside the courtroom who would listen, that it was not reckless.

There is an old theory that if you can obsfucate an issue sufficiently, then no one really understands what is right and what is wrong and assumes everything is gray and that whatever the courts ultimately decide is probably right. Because we as a nation, perhaps more than any other on earth, respect and honor our judicial system.

Indeed we believe in it in a way that we seldom even think about but that folks from other countries really don't ever seem to understand. Other countries have legislatures to pass laws and an executive branch: presidents or other administrations to carry them out ... but in perhaps no other country is the court system relied upon so strongly, and believed in so fiercely, as the third leg of out government and the one most important for preserving out freedoms and protections from oppression. In the words of the Australian commedian/singer Fred Dagg: "You don't know how lucky you are, mate, you don't know how lucky you are."

Sadly, despite the intellect and apparent nitty-gritty willingness to claw and scratch and give their best fight no matter what the arena, the plaintiff attorneys proved to be idealistic optimists after all. They believed in the system. Even after so many, many years of delay, they too, honestly believed that although the wheels grind slowly, that they grind exceedingly fine and that justice would ultimately prevail. They believed that we were a country of laws and an honorable court system and that raw money and power could not buy justice away from those to whom it belongs if the forces of good gave it their all. I would not be surprised to see the major law firms that have gone so far out on a limb for those below the waterline in this case to be shuttering their offices. Some will stop in the bankruptcy courts that they had practiced in. Others will simply go away.

Because they were wrong.

Exxon proved, gloatingly, to the world, that we no longer live in a country of justice and law. Instead, we live in a corpocracy and the Exxons of the world run it. And they glory in proving that they do.

It is conceivable that a justice was bribed. Exxon certainly had the money and we've seen a lot of outright bribery by oil companies in Alaska. And justices don't make enough money to be above financial temptation. But I have no evidence nor even real suspicions that such happened.

I believe what happened is that the insurance companies finally purchased the judges they want on the bench (judges and justices do not believe in the concept of punitive damages or if they do, they believe they should be severely limited). But they did this ... well ... I am not alleging that they did it in any way that was not legal. There are ways within the system to "purchase judges" without committing a crime.

Continued:

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 4

2008-12-21T11:01:00.016-09:00

December 17, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters -- Part 4
-AKA-
"We Don't Care. We Don't Have To Care. We're Exxon!"

During nearly 20 years of waiting (sometimes somewhat desperately) with several "we're going to be cutting checks in the next few weeks" over-optimisms along the way, the fishermen and other plaintiffs in the oil spill litigation never lost hope. I spoke to a great number of them during this time. Many "refused to think about it" because they didn't want to get their hopes up that they would soon be seeing money. Many thought the appeals process would result in a somewhat smaller award. But even the most hard-bitten and cynical of these independent, largely "have no use for government" weather-worn men and women of the world's most dangerous profession [commercial fishing in Alaska held that distinction for many years although modern safety mandates may now have dropped us below logging] still believed. We all believed that, although the wheels may grind slowly they would grind fairly and we would receive the bulk of our money. Particularly for those who died, and even those who went broke and bankrupt or faced other horrendous problems because of the delay in the interim, the phrase "justice delayed is justice denied" was often used.

But I don't believe in the entire 20 years speaking with hundreds of fishermen, claimants and lawyers, did I ever hear anyone suggest that they thought the jury award would ultimately be thrown out. Battered, bruised, a bit leaner ... yeah, we knew the jury verdict/award was in for a rough trip through the appellate process just from Exxon's arrogant pronouncements after the trial when the essentially flatly announced that it simply wasn't going to happen and they'd do whatever it takes to make sure of that. But for a group of people who you would think would be natural cynics and who would have the least faith in "the system" of any group outside of armed fortresses in Montana, the fishermen were remarkably confident that the system would, eventually, bring them justice (in the form of a substantial check!)

In June of 2008, in the case captioned Exxon Shipping Co. v. Baker, Supreme Court Case Number 07-219, the United States Supreme Court utterly destroyed that faith. They also utterly destroyed the entire concept of punitive damages as they had been understood for hundreds of years; and which were thus protections granted to the citizenry by the common law which protections were specifically enshrined in the U. S. Constitution. Although the award was only a pittance to Exxon [equal to ~three weeks of profit in 2006], it was a fortune to the largely ... "economically challenged" ... plaintiff class. The Court destroyed the fortunes of many in order to hand a pittance to a giant corporation. To do so they had to ignore the Constitution, the concepts of common law and the entire concept of punitive damages as it had always been known.

The money meant nothing in itself to a behemoth the size of Exxon, but the law that the case created succeeded beyond the wildest hopes of corporate boardrooms and insurance companies to behead the "punitive damage monster" which was one of the last protections against the malevolent acts of the corpocracy left to the people.

It is conservative chic now to be against punitive damages awards because the insurance companies have spend untold amounts of money to convince people (especially people in legislatures, government executive branches and those who sit on court benches, but the citizenry as well) that punitive damages caused the horrendous increases in insurance premiums. There is not a scintilla of truth to that and many studies have proven that there is no causal connection (other than by convincing people of it, the companies can get away with raising rates and have something to blame it on), or that punitive damage awards had (or have) any statistically substantive effect on either the percentage or actual amounts of money paid as damages. Even insurance companies don't really care about punitive damages. In fact, I would bet a bundle that they like having them in the states where they remain. Because the most profound connection between insurance companies and punitive damages is not in relation to how much insurance companies pay out in jury awards ... but rather as the "fall guy" for how large a premium they can get away with charging for their policies.

Yes ... I believe in the market. But insurance companies are so big and so collusive, and so tied into government, that they have, to a large extent, removed themselves from the actions of the market. That, again, is such a large topic there isn't room to deal with it adequately here. But conservatives ... Constitutional "strict constructionists" ... should be the last people in the world to want the government to intervene and yank yet one more set of protections that "the people" have and that were guaranteed by the Constitution. Those insurance company patsies are simply being used ... and unwittingly, used against their own core philosophies without being aware of it.

As noted earlier in this series, the jury awarded $5 billion dollars in punitive damages against Exxon to be paid [by mind-numbingly complex formulations] to the members of the plaintiff class ... in 1994. Exxon, true to its promise (hmm ... that is almost an oxy-moronic sentence, but it is accurate), appealed the case to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

The trial court had ordered interest on the award at 6.9% until it was paid, so the fishermen and their lawyers weren't too bothered by Exxon's appeal to the 9th Circuit. Of course, that was because they expected to win it.

But that was just the beginning of the whittling and the incredible delays. Well, the delays didn't begin, they "continued". It had already taken five years after the spill to get a verdict in 1994. It took another seven (!) years (although no one seems to understand why) for the 9th Circuit to rule on it; throwing the verdict out as "excessive" in 2001 in the 9th Circuit Appellate decision 490 F.3d 1066.

The 9th Circuit sent it back ("remanded it") to trial court judge Holland for "reevaluation". Holland did a masterful job defending the initial verdict, but presumably to avoid directly contradicting the higher court and hoping that he would be able to end it once and for all, in December of 2002 he reinstated the punitives at four billion. Again ... we were expecting that it would get whittled at a bit. No one was greatly surprise nor greatly distressed. Indeed, we were proud of Judge Holland for sticking to his guns and not knocking it down much more substantially. The checks would soon be in the mail ... not.

Exxon marched it back to the 9th Circuit. The 9th Circuit sent it back to Holland saying, in effect "try again". Holland, to whom the fishermen should build a monument (if they had any money to build with which they don't), was close enough to retirement that he simply refused to be bullied. He knew that it was a fair verdict and that $4 billion was, if anything given Exxon's size, too small of an award! Thus he flatly refused to kow-tow to the judicial overlords and after drafting another masterful decision demonstrating the appropriateness of the existing award, in January of 2004 he reinstated it at $4 billion (plus the $2.25 billion in compensatories plus interest). When it comes time to build statues in Alaska he deserves one. Unfortunately, because his magnificent work was trashed by the appellate courts he won't get one. But he did exactly what the law and judges are supposed to do and he had the nerve to not back down to the power of the Appellate Justices when they "strongly suggested" that he change his mind (so that he would take much of the heat for a judgment that the Justices will, hopefully, be ashamed of for the rest of their lives). He refused to compromise his principles, beliefs or The Law, which the good judges of his generation truly believed to be an honorable thing. He believed in the concept of stare decisis upon which our entire legal foundation rests. He is the sort of judge that should have been promoted to the appellate courts.

He wasn't.

Why it took so long it seems impossible, in retrospect, to understand. But Exxon marched it back to the 9th Circuit and in January of 2006 claimed to the court that the award should be cut to $25 million! The plaintiff counsel and legal experts across the country were aghast, but reassuring. Virtually no one believed that it would get hammered further.

By this point, the IRS had special offices set up in Anchorage to make sure they got their cut of the substantial payments that even the IRS and other branches of the federal government believed would soon be forthcoming. In fact ... those special IRS offices had been set up for years. I don't know when they finally disbanded them. The law firm of Keller-Rohrback that had been appointed to handle the disbursing of the funds had their humongous data base system set up. Percentages for individual claimants had been argued about, fought about, hammered out and finally finalized. The arguments now were that Exxon should not be allowed to continually pointlessly delay the day of reckoning. So many of the original plaintiffs had died that it had become an abuse of process to continue to allow the delays.

But delay was the name of the game. Certainly Exxon in the oily blackness of its heart seemed to believe so. But, unbelievably, the 9th Circuit, after yet another set of mind-numbing procedural morasses, in December of 2006 essentially told the very Honorable Judge Holland (and the jury who devoted months of their lives to the case, the State of Alaska itself, and, most of all, those fishermen and others who had lost their livelihoods, their cultures and their ways of life) ... in the most polite terms descriptively plausible ... to "stuff it". On its own, the 9th Circuit simply bypassed Judge Holland and slashed the punitive damage award from $4 billion to $2.5 billion.

It was a mindlessly vicious thing to do and amounted to no less than outright theft.

Even though it was simple politically motivated theft that the "strict constructionists" of the Constitution have to make illogical exceptions for ... at least it was over. At least the checks would be in the mail soon. Keller-Rohrback did a test run of the plant sending the tiny compensatory damage checks to those who still "had some coming". With a sort of communal resigned sigh, the plaintiff class, litigants and attorneys both, accepted that half a loaf was better than nothing and that for the sake of closure, we needed to just accept it and get on with our lives. Exxon had already proven that justice delayed is justice denied (especially for the substantial percentage of claimants who had died over the intervening 17 years) and ... that Exxon had enough muscle that it could flex it and cause this delay and by doing so thereby making their point and proving it.

And then, in a move that shocked even the battle hardened veterans of this war; the attorneys who had fought and battled this fight for most of their careers and whose (substantial) law firms would barely break even if that after all they had gone through (and the public has a low opinion of lawyers? Well, now that I mention it I'm not very fond of the Exxon 3-piece suit goons, but the plaintiff lawyers went above and beyond) ... Exxon appealed the award to the U.S. Supreme Court. The reaction was mostly that everyone was infuriated. Plaintiffs' lead attorney, the awesome Brian O'Neill was literally "shocked". We all knew beyond any doubt that the United States of America's Supreme Court ... was not going to hear a drunk driving case.

It was just yet another delay tactic. But ... we reminded ourselves that we were at least getting 6.9% interest which at that time wasn't bad at all, and resigned to wait a few more months until the Supremes turned down the case. [Unlike many appeals, there is no appeal of right to the U.S. Supreme Court. They have absolute discretion on what cases to hear.]

Then there was a sound, a rustle in the wind, and oven doors opened wide and flames of the underworld leaped out. The Grinch stole Christmas once again. The Supremes actually decided to hear the case! It was absurd. It was beyond absurd. And every legal professor and scholar of note agreed. There was obviously no way that they were going to reduce the award further. Ahh. Perhaps this was a backhanded way of scolding the 9th Circuit for cheating the poor, the fisherfolk, the Native cultures, those who lived below the waterline [when the Titanic sank, the people in the expensive berths above the waterline almost all survived; those in the cheap berths below the waterline largely perished]. The 9th Circuit had wrongly ignored the jury, the judge and the law and had tossed those who lived below the waterline into the oiled ocean at the behest of one of the richest, most powerful corporations. Maybe we had it wrong. Maybe the Supremes were going to slap down the Grinch and we'd have Christmas after all.

We could wait another year. We'd waited this long.

Continued:

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 3

2008-12-17T10:53:00.034-09:00

December 15, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters -- Part 3
-AKA-
Being Exxon Means You Never Have To Say You're Sorry

Oil ... $$$$$$$ ... Black Gold!

The centerpiece of international politics, wars and economics. A sizable portion of the world's population believes we are at war in Iraq because of it. A song that I quite enjoyed when there was a small handful of us loudly proclaiming that we would be nuts to go to war with Iraq; one that I copied and passed out freely before George W's "shock and awe", was entitled "How Did Our Oil Get Under Their Sand?".

We have it (oil ... we're a little light on the sand). Indeed, we have so much of it we can apparently afford to dump it in the ocean.

In the minds of most people when they think of oil, they envision the stuff they pour into their car engines. And, of course they are correct. That is refined motor oil. But crude oil, the unrefined hydrocarbon gunk that is pumped out of the ground and, at one time was attributed to decayed dinosaurs, is not something you'd want in your car. Nor in your boat. Nor in your fishing pots or nets. And most certainly not in the seafood meal at the fancy restaurant.

Nor is all oil the same; not even all crude oil. The oil that Captain Hazelwood and Exxon decided to return to nature had made a remarkable journey even before it so abruptly ended.

The oil had arrived in the port of Valdez after being pumped from deep, deep wells nearly a thousand miles to the north in Alaska's North Slope Prudhoe Bay fields and travelling completely across the state (which is the most difficult, by far, of all states to travel across) via one of the world's engineering and construction marvels: the Alaska pipeline. The Port of Valdez is a deep water port, ice free (by Alaskan terms) year round, and able to handle the giant oil tankers that transported the Black Gold to the energy starved world.

Alaskan oil [somehow appropriately] is heavy, tarry stuff that requires [like many Alaskans :-)] a lot more "refining" than most. It is not the clean "sweet" oil found in backyard wells in Texas. Nor is it the stuff that Jed Clampett could find bubbling up in his backyard woodlot. Our oil is thousands of feet below the surface and for whatever reason, largely decided to locate itself in some of the most inhospitable places on earth.

Alaska's North Slope holds vast reserves of oil. As anyone who has followed the news at any time in the last few decades knows, there is a terrific and ongoing battle regarding extraction from the ANWR portion of the North Slope between the Luddites who hide behind the much cooler sounding title "environmentalists" on one side and Sarah's "drill, baby, drill" contingent on the other. This topic deserves vastly more in-depth treatment than I can give it here, but may well be a follow-on column since oil is such a "hot" topic these days in any event.

I personally am in no hurry. Even if alternative energy forms were found and oil was essentially replaced as a fuel, it has sufficient other uses that it will always remain of high value. I'd just as soon leave it in the ground as a bank account for my grandchildren. My objections however have nothing to do with environmental concerns. There are none remaining of note. That is simply a phony excuse by the Luddites. The existing oil operations in the North Slope have had no negative environmental impact. The caribou and other wildlife seems quite attracted to the spectacle (face it ... they are bored with thousands of miles of featureless tundra as their lifetime view) and it has not had any negative effects on the environment whatsoever.

No ... the only time our Alaskan crude oil has harmed the environment was when a drunk sea captain decided to see if his boat was tougher than the rocks of Bligh Reef [it wasn't].

And that harm to the environment was real. It wasn't the "pretend harm" that the greenies use to scare people into opposing drilling. This was real harm. And it not only harmed the environment dramatically (twenty years later and it still hasn't recovered ... biological processes operate much more slowly in this cold climate), but it harmed, even more dramatically, the people who made their living off that environment. And those who made their living off the people who made their living off of the environment.

For those of you just joining us, the brief synopsis is that a drunken Captain (who Exxon had put through alcoholic rehab previously and absolutely knew that he had relapsed badly; indeed he couldn't legally drive even a car - his license was suspended for his third DUI since the rehab only a few years before the accident) was given command of a massive oil tanker and, without bothering to tell anyone, apparently tried to slip through a channel where no oil tanker belonged. And then, he and his bottle went down to his stateroom to do "paperwork" while leaving control of the vessel in the hands of a third mate who was not certified to run the tanker in Prince William Sound (PWS), although he was in the open ocean. For reasons that will never be known, it didn't make it. It appears that when they first scraped the reef a drunken Hazelwood staggered into the wheelhouse and screamed "hard right". Unfortunately he was drunk (and perhaps dyslexic?). If he'd yelled "hard left" we may never have heard of the Exxon Valdez.

As it was, it (in the Captain's inimitable slurred radio report) "fetched up" on the reef and was apparently leaking some ... cargo. That "hard right" caused unfathomable destruction of wildlife and pristine habitat. T he spill killed an estimated 350,000 to 390,000 seabirds, in addition to 3,500 to 5,500 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, 22 killer whales and billions of salmon and herring eggs (along with countless other flora and fauna).

It also caused unfathomable loss and damage to those who lived there and were "married" to the land, the sea, and its abundant resources.

This happened in 1989.

No, I didn't mistype. My fingers didn't slip. I didn't get confused. It truly has taken nearly 20 years to pry any money out of them.

Let me give you a move visceral feeling for how long ago Exxon oiled us and then postponed the day of reckoning. In 1989, we had the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. On June 3 of that year, we also had the Tiananmen Square Massacure. Seems we've had several Chinese governments and entire major philosophy changes since then! :-)

The world moves right along unless you are Exxon with your foot on the brake.

Indeed, Alaska has only been a State for 50 years! For 20 of those we've been living with the never-ending saga of the Exxon Valdez.

In 1989, on November 9 ... the Berlin Wall fell. "No", you say, "that couldn't be! That was more like half a century ago." Well, the Exxon spill was 1/5 of a century ago. But yes ... before such major changes in the world ... the Exxon Valdez had already attempted to cut a new channel through Bligh reef.

In 1989, gasoline was $1.29 a gallon. The mimimum wage was $3.35. A dozen eggs were 96 cents; a loaf of bread, 69 cents! Oh and before serious competion with the internet which should have lowered it's price (!), the cost of a first class stamp was $.25!

It seems like it was a different age, a different era. And it was! Exxon managed to delay through the passing of years, decades, a century and a millenium. It is difficult to believe that the Supreme Court of 1989 (or 1994) would have sliced and diced the exemplary damages award so viciously. [Truefully, even though I understand that this Court is the most conservative in a very long time ... I still find it difficult to believe that even they would do ... what they did!]

Exxon is so big and so powerful and so unbelievably arrogant that they were able to "leverage" that power to keep the money out of the hands of the fishermen for all this time ... and Exxon has now succeeded in keeping most of the money out of the hands of the fishermen forever.

"The check's in the mail."

Exxon claimants [as all the prevailing plaintiffs in the Exxon-Valdez lawsuit are called] have been waiting nearly 20 years to hear those words; nearly 15 years since the jury verdict awarding us, in addition to modest compensatory damages, a $5 billion punitive damage award.

But, the checks aren't for anything close to that. Actually, ignoring interest [as Exxon still hopes to be able to do] and many other variables, we are roughly a decimal point off. In other words, if your share, according to the only people legally qualified to know and therefore to decide; the jurors, was say $100,000, then your "check" would be for ~$10,000. If the jury [and convoluted formulas that were subsequently applied] said your claim was worth $10,000, then your check is for ~$1,000.

And for this we waited 20 years?

Actually, the checks aren't in the mail yet. Presumably they will be soon.

The folks that will be receiving money in this first "round" are those claimants who had no issues of any sorts attached to their claims [eg: judgments against them, IRS liens, child support liens, probate issues (since so many of our original claimants have died), assignments (so many people were so broke they were forced to sell part or all of their Exxon claim to speculators for a small percentage of its worth. Of course, they may look like geniuses now ... , or other]; and had gone through all the stacks of paperwork properly and along the way filled out the proper forms to have the Claims Administrator [the law firm of Keller Rohrback] directly deposit the funds to their bank accounts.

But given the history of this situation, that's really close to "the check's are in the mail".

In 1994 a major trial was held in federal court with approximately 32,000 plaintiffs and a jury, who by all accounts took their job very seriously. After four weeks of testimony and argument and four days of significant deliberation and balancing Exxon's claim that they didn't deserve to be punished any further, primarily because of all the money they had already spent cleaning up their mess, against the reality of what happened, the jury concluded that Exxon needed to both finish reimbursing the actual "out of pocket or never in pocket" type losses (compensatory damages) which was never much at issue. It also made the finding of primary importance that Hazelwood AND Exxon were reckless (ie: "grossly negligent"). Although this point seemed unassailable and crystal clear to everyone but Exxon, it was so dear and the attorneys had fought so long and so hard to get to that point that the lead plaintiff attorney actually had tears when the announcement was made. He had done it.

The finding meant that Exxon was liable for punitive damages and, given the size of the company it was expected that they would be "significant" [the relevant standard being focused on company size and income since the purpose is "punishment" and an award of $10,000 might punish a small mom and pop, but wouldn't be noticeable to Exxon]. Generic formulations yielded nearly absurd results because Exxon was SO huge and profitable that in order for it to "feel" the punitive damages award, the number would have to be staggering.

If one wishes to swat a two year old child for doing something he shouldn't have, it doesn't take much to accomplish that goal. If you swat an elephant with the same force and power ... it would notice you no more than it would a mosquito. In fact, it would probably be more bothered by a mosquito.

Exxon was, and Exxon-Mobil is, an elephant compared even to other elephants.

Instead of shooting for an absurd number that would actually be fitting under the circumstances, plaintiff counsel determined to ask for something that, given Exxon's size, was clearly reasonable and, therefore, presumably appeal-proof. They asked for fifteen billion. The jury gave them five. This was far less than the purpose of punitive damages would dictate as it was but a small percentage of Exxon's annual profits and a pittance compared to Exxon's overall value. It may not have been something that Exxon could pay out of the petty cash annual party fund, but neither would it have a substantive negative effect on the company. This discrepancy (between the value of the award and the value and profits of Exxon) has only increased with time.

As Brian O'Neill, the plaintiff lead attorney said shortly after the initial verdict::

"With a company as large as Exxon that thinks it is above the law, you need to take a substantial bite out of their butt before they will change their behavior. We want to change Exxon. We want to make the Exxons of the world aware that they are responsible the same way that you and I are responsible. It is really a great day. It took five years to bring it about, but we got there."

Indeed, all that was true and for the first time in five years in some of the economically devastated towns and villages, it was the first day of sunshine in half a decade. Despite all the suffering, the loss of culture, the loss of livelihood, the psychic pain that could never be healed ... it was a large enough verdict that there was sunshine and some smiles again. Even though the award was fairly small in terms of the size of award compared to size of company that would be required for "punishment", Exxon was so huge that, in absolute terms, this was a tremendous award; it would arguably be the second highest sustained jury award on record.

There was only one little problem. The award was not sustained.

In a display of corporate arrogance unmatched in modern times (well, perhaps, other than Enron giving top management huge bonuses just before closing their doors), Exxon vowed that as a matter of principle, and because it thought that people should be grateful to it (for all the work it did cleaning up the spill) instead of suing it, it would make sure the fishermen and other plaintiffs never received anything anywhere close to an award of that magnitude.

Exxon succeeded beyond its wildest dreams and beyond the wildest nightmares of the plaintiffs and their attorneys. They made certain that the lesson for all to see was NOT that "the Exxons of the world were made aware that they are responsible the same way that you and I are responsible". Instead, Exxon set out to prove, and ultimately did so with resounding success that the Exxons of the world are NOT responsible the same way that you and I are responsible. They boldly and "in your face" demonstrated that O'Neill was absolutely correct in saying that Exxon believed that were above the law ... and they successfully proved that, indeed, they were.

There is an old African proverb that says: "When elephants play, the grass gets trampled." You have to give O'Neill and his firm credit though. They stuck with us the whole time and fought tooth and nail every inch of the way. It is a tragically sad commentary on our system that even with powerful law firms on our side, that we didn't manage to rise much above the level of the grass. The elephants in the world have gotten so big that there is almost nothing able to control them. They've been paying lobbyists for so long (and as we have been discovering in Alaska, the Big Oil boys have been cutting out the middle man when convenient and paying the legislators directly) that they managed, by the back door, to pack the courts as well.

At most ... we got up off the ground by sheer brute force and transformed ourselves from grass to mosquitoes.

We buzzed around them. We even bit them. But ultimately we had about as much effect as one would expect a mosquito to have in dealings with an elephant. We were naive. All of us, including the Federal District Court Judge Holland who maintained his honor by telling the 9th circuit to shove it when they ordered him to knock the punitives down. Our hot-shot lawyers were naive. The fishermen were naive. "Oh, come on ... the United States Supreme Court is not going to take a drunk driving case!" Unless, that is, you have a Court that has been picked as they rose through the system by litmus test on such things as "tort reform", which is phony lingo for "taking away rights guaranteed by the U.S. Consitution but not admitting to it". 20 years of naivete. Even more than the money (and that is saying a fair bit), I think all of us on the side of right, truth and justice are more upset by a 20 year spanking than anything else. We are embarrassed that we actually believed our "judicial system" was in the business of dispensing justice. Even I fell for it and I had a Superior Court judge tell me once to always remember that the courts are in the business of judgments; not justice.

And that there was a huge difference between the two.

Which is something we have all now (even the most stubborn of us) finally learned.

Harken back to Brian O'Neills' statement following the verdict, above. This is what he said after the Supremes gutted it:

"I feel bad for all the claimants, that they're not going to get enough money to put together their lives again. I feel bad for all the claimants because they're not going to get the satisfaction knowing that there was a just punishment administered to Exxon. And I feel bad for all of the claimants because the judicial system has let them down. It just isn't fair."

Part 4 of This Series May be Viewed Here:

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Trouble Waters -- Part 2

2008-12-16T03:03:00.026-09:00

December 13, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters -- Part 2
-AKA-
"The Wreck of the Exxon Valdez"

By: Captain Heavyfoot
[With apologies to Gordon Lightfoot :-)]

The legend lives on from the fishers on down,
Of the Big Sound 'twas made in Prince William.
The ocean, it's said, was their butter and bread,
But oil tar on the sandwich just killed 'em.

Tanks topped with black crude, and with vodka home-brewed,
The famed Exxon-Valdez was quite loaded.
The Captain was too, yet silent his crew,
When they poured both the Captain and cargo aboard her.

Captain Hazelwood had been drinking at two separate bars or more prior to their scheduled departure. There was sworn testimony that he had consumed at least five double-vodkas (enough to knock out anyone who wasn't an alcoholic). He didn't get even a breathalzyer test until 11 hours after the accident, but working backwards from the booze in his blood at that time they calculated that at the time of the accident he was three times the legal limit for driving a car.

Indeed, he wasn't licensed to drive a car ... his license had been suspended for (yet another) DUI. He had completed a rehab program three or four years before the accident and had wracked up three or four DUIs in that period of time! Not only were his superiors aware that he had badly relapsed, but they had actually been drinking with him not long before the accident!

In any event, shortly after the Exxon Valdez pulled away from the dock at 9:12 p.m. and having successfully passed through the Valdez Narrows, the master pilot who was specially hired for such tasks, left the ship. It was a beautiful evening on the water. The seas were calm, visibility was good and the ship had all the latest and most sophisticated of navigation equipment. The official story was that there were icebergs in the normal shipping lanes, so Captain Hazelwood instructed the man at the wheel to take the ship slightly outside the shipping lanes and around the ice. Experts agreed however that such story simply didn't hold together -- they were too far off course with too many ways, both through equipment and visual observation, to not be able to tell.

In fact, it was apparent that they weren't just skirting an iceberg or two, but indeed, whether to avoid icebergs or to make up lost time, or just to shorten the voyage, they almost certainly attempted to follow the old steamship passage and "shoot the gap" between Bligh Reef and Reef Island. This is an incredibly dangerous maneuver for a ship the size of an oil tanker. Authorities at the time likened it to flying under the Golden Gate Bridge. Yes, it can be done. Yes, it has been done before. But it is dangerous and absolutely not recommended nor approved. (There were rumors that for years tankers had snuck through there on occasion but no one had ever actually caught them at it. It was universally agreed, however, that such would be a stupid and dangerous maneuver.) Even so, at that point, Hazelwood then left the bridge in the control of a third mate and was down in his cabin "doing paperwork" through this trickiest part of the passage.

Neither Exxon nor Hazelwood ever admitted that was what they were attempting. The normal shipping lanes out there are extremely wide, deep and forgiving. Anyone could drive a tanker through that part of the journey. But they were over a mile and a half outside the shipping lanes and just barely missed the shortcut gap. Either they were horrendously screwed up (to be a mile and a half off course) which makes no sense, or that is exactly what they were trying.

The poor crewman left at the wheel didn't know what to do. Indeed Third Mate Gregory Cousins was not even certified to operate a ship in PWS and, indeed, it was flatly illegal for him to be at the wheel. (Of course it was also illegal for Hazelwood to be drunk!) It was widely reported at the time although such reports dropped out of sight quickly, that Hazelwood had put the ship on autopilot and instructed Cousins to contact him when they reached a certain point. Despite the fact that this was known as a treacherous area for large vessels; and that they were operating outside the normal shipping lanes, there were no guide boats or tugs and purportedly no one but a rudimentary computer was directing the massive ship. No one who wasn't there knows for sure what actually happened that night. There were also reports that a drunk Hazelwood had made his way back to the bridge and ordered a "hard right" when he should have ordered a "hard left". That isn't the official story either, but the micro-computer in the auto pilot was at least sober and probably would have been the preferred option to the drunk captain. Even so, "computer" is too fancy of a concept for it. The computer you are using to read this article is hundreds of times more intelligent.

If true, one of the largest a 211,500 ton, 988 foot long, fully loaded oil tanker was being controlled by a machine with the approximate I.Q. of a fancy toaster.

And it went crunch.

It shuddered to a halt, engines still running full bore driving it further into the "sandbar" as Exxon likes to call the rocks of the well-charted Bligh Reef that ripped the thin single hull like a sardine can. In the version of the story where he hadn't already made it to the bridge yelling "hard right", Hazelwood stumbled to the bridge, uttered a few choice words, and then tried "rocking" the huge vessel off the rocks by jamming it full throttle forward, full throttle reverse, as you might try to drive you car out of a mudhole. Unlike your car and the mudhole, however, these manuevers acted to rip the holes in the hull much wider and allow much more oil to escape than would have otherwise. Finally, after failing to dislodge it and after the crew inspected things, he slurred into the radio that they had "fetched up" on a reef and were "evidently leaking" some of their cargo.

Truer understatements were seldom more understated.

The "little bit" of "cargo" that leaked was nearly 11 million gallons of tarry black Alaskan crude oil. It fouled 1300 miles of mostly pristine Alaska shoreline and covered 11,000 square feet of ocean.

Although there is a minor error or two, this is an excellent dynamic one-page pictoral "overview" of PWS and the spill.

Part 3 of This Series May be Viewed Here:

Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters

2008-12-14T01:21:00.150-09:00

December 11, 2008
Exxon: Pouring Oil on Troubled Waters
-AKA-
Why Exactly Is It That They Call It "Good" Friday?

Alaskans are a bit leery of Good Friday. First of all, the Christians have never exactly explained what is so good about the day that Jesus was killed and buried. But more particularly in this State, we've come to be distrustful of the date of that occasion! Possibly the two most major disasters in recorded Alaskan history were the "Good Friday earthquake" of 1964 and the "Good Friday grounding of the Exxon Valdez" in 1989.

Which brings us to the "Big News" of the last few days for many folks around these parts. The first "micro-checks" started showing up from that semi-mythical creature known as the "Exxon claims". This is the first money fishermen have seen from the 1994 jury determination to punish Exxon for deciding to let a known-to-the-company drunk command a massive ship full of oil through tight narrows, ship-lane clogging icebergs, reefs, shoals and rocks, at night.

Unfortunately there are two problems with the funds (not actually checks yet) that are finally arriving. Well, three if you count the cause.

Problem 1: They are at least 15 years late in arriving;
Problem 2: They are at least a decimal place too small; and
Problem 3: They demonstrate that our system of justice has been sold to the highest bidder. And the American citizenry didn't win the bid.

The "Wreck of the Exxon Valdez" has been written about enough to begin to wonder if all the trees cut to make paper for the books, newspapers and magazines are adding substantively to the environmental damage caused by the "accident". That said:

"Critics ranked in serried rows,
Fill the enormous plaza full.
But there is only one who knows,
And that's the man who fights the bull."

Not many of the accounts are written by individuals who were [or would have been (!)] commercial fishermen in 1989 who were beached for the summer due to the oil spill.

I, however, am one of those fishermen.

Indeed, I'm fairly well connected with the fishing community. My father was an Alaskan commercial fisherman. My grandfather was an Alaskan commercial fisherman! [I'm one of very few people who has no Native blood that can make that claim; and one of a tiny handful of folks over the age of 50 that can! :-)] I was fishing (captaining) a "cannery boat" before I was of legal age to work most of the jobs in the cannery (and making vastly more money than my high school classmates who were working the brutally exhausting and wretchedly slimy cannery jobs and hating me! :-) My brothers, uncles, cousins ... and every other legal and illegal relationship possible, including my wife ... were (and/or are) commercial fisherfolk. I know a great number of the Exxon claimants. I know many of the lawyers who represented them. I am very well acquainted with the law. I have followed this fascinating debacle for two decades and been intimately involved in parts of it. I believe that I can shed light in places and on issues in ways it hasn't previously been shed. I can't think of anyone more qualified to write about it from my particular unique perspective than myself! :-)

And so I shall.

The Exxon-Valdez, a single-hulled [ie: cheaper] oil tanker, didn't make it that night (actually, slightly after midnight on the morning of) March 24, 1989. The so appropriately named tanker run and owned by Exxon was attempting to leave Valdez, a little town in Prince William Sound ("PWS") which was, the day before, one of the most beautiful, scenic and pristine bays in the world. It was not only an unfortunate place, but also an unfortunate date as it was only shortly before the commercial, sport and "guided sport" fishing seasons started in the Sound in earnest.

Captain "Slam Drunk" Hazelwood wasn't even on the bridge. He was already inebriated before the ship ever left harbor; having ("reasonably" if you are an Exxon lawyer) spent the time while it was being loaded doing the same to himself at two local bars. The report that he had ordered a double shot of "exxon on the rocks" has been widely discredited.

His crew and other Exxon employees finished loading the sloshing oil and the sloshed Captain on board without finding any problems worth reporting regarding either.
Yeah, yeah, they just wanted to keep their jobs and he was the Captain after all. As employees of the ultimate corporate bureaucratic behemoth no one wanted to, shall we say, "rock the boat". Exxon liked to keep problems quiet, follow the "chain of command", demand and reward "loyalty" as defined by the company, and already knew Hazelwood was a drunk. Why risk your job going over the lolling head of your Captain to report that he had to be poured aboard once again?

"Just following orders", the phrase and concept made famous in the Nuremberg trials, is as robust as ever. It seems to me that a "responsible corporate citizen", yet another multiply self-contradictory phrase, indeed in competition for oxymoronic fame, that Alice can add to her pre-breakfast belief menu, would perhaps terminate (aka: "fire") crew persons who failed report that the Captain was drunk, especially given the potential for horrendous damage if the vessel was not intelligently, even wisely, captained through the Sound. But that isn't the way Exxon works. I have little doubt that the "just keep our mouths shut and hope to hold onto the job until retirement" employees were absolutely correct that it was in their personal best interests to "look the other way" (and not listen or smell either) when the Captain was ... loaded, in several meanings of the word.

It destroyed ecosystems and habitat. It played destructive havoc with important renewable commercial fishing and harvesting resources. [In Alaska a huge percentage of our revenue comes from oil and we are not raising and killing any new dinosaurs; it is a critical value of the fishing industries that they are renewable. Properly managed ... and absent massive oil spills, the salmon and herring and other should continue returning and reproducing in vast quantities for the foreseeable future.]

Fisheries were closed as giant sheets of black oil spread like ink across the waters. For nearly three calm and peaceful days Exxon's [and soon the State's and anyone else's that could be found] cleanup crews, equipment and operations put floating booms around the ship to try to contain the oil while they held meetings. There were ideas and suggestions. "Burn it! Just toss a match over board!" ... "Bacteria are the answer. They can be designed and 'trained' to 'eat' oil!" ... "Chemicals are the only answer. Neutralize it, break it down, destroy it." and on and on until the seas stopped taking a holiday. Many "experts" from out-of-state didn't truly understand the wilds of the Alaskan ocean. The wind arose mightily pushing the floating oil through, over and under the booms like they were child's toys. It drove the oil to the sands and rocks of the shore.

"And that it was buried, and the waves rose again on the third day according to the scriptures."

Ok. So maybe the scriptures weren't involved. But it was becoming a disaster of Biblical proportions. Fishermen pulled crab pots full of black oily tar; and crabs that were covered in it. They pulled shrimp pots so tarred that the fishing boats that they carried them back to shore on were condemned ... the boats were too badly oiled to ever carry "foodstuffs" again. The salmon and herring fishermen looked at the waters where they would have, in so much the same way that Jesus's disciples did 2,000 years earlier, cast their nets ... and saw the waters covered with black oozing goo. The fisheries in the Sound were closed costing the communities that had little else in the way of income, their entire year's earnings. It would have been pointless to let them fish. The market for Alaska seafoods had disappeared overnight.

This "market effect" of the news of the spill did substantial economic damage to many fishermen far away from the oiled fishing areas; but they had no apparent "standing" to bring a claim against Exxon even though the effects of Exxon's actions harmed them greatly. Again, many of these folks lost their livelihoods --their businesses -- because of Exxon.

Fishing is always a a gamble; sometimes a great single day can bring substantial revenue (my Mom always claimed that commercial fishing ruined more good men than drink did :-), but mostly the margins are very tight and a single major event (such as the Exxon caused price crash) can "sink" the business. It is of note that Alaska salmon prices have never again approached the prices that they fetched before Exxon took the mystique out of "from Alaska's pristine waters". The state has even tried setting up its own marketing department to attempt to bring back the "image" of the "brand". But now, when people hear "Alaska wild salmon" the picture they conjure is as likely to be of black, oiled waters as it is of pristine nature.] Oh ... I must get in a plug for the fisherfolks' product! Many recent studies have shown that Alaska caught salmon are indeed clean and as toxin-free as any in the world and, overall, perhaps the healthiest fish you can eat (salmon oil is nearly a miracle drug).

It is possible to calculate some of those direct damages and make educated guesses as to how much money the fishermen lost that summer. But it was not, and still is not, possible to accurately determine the long-term effects of the destruction of habitat . Entire eco-systems crashed with unknowable results. One example out of hundreds; perhaps thousands: Murres are noisy, dirty, raucous birds that have never found a market value. There were, at the most optimistic, up to 350,000 in the area of PWS at the time of the spill. 16,600 were reported dead. "Reported dead" means that the bodies were actually recovered. Although the experts certainly all took their shots ... it is anyone's guess what percentage of the birds that died had bodies that were actually recovered. Some say the actual death rate should be calculated to be six times larger than the number of bodies recovered. Others said at least ten times. But no one knows. And no one knows how many died later because their food was killed, destroyed, removed ... or, in the spring when they fed their babies, poisoned.

What is the value of that devastation of the murre population? Exxon's lawyers say that in terms of financial damages ... the number is zero; and that therefore Exxon should not have to pay anything for having caused such widespread destruction.

Exxon did dump money into the (probably more harm than good) "cleanup" and in extremely modest "negotiated fines" from the State (not much in comparison to the damages they did, according to t he jury and essentially everyone who wasn't on the payroll of Exxon or some other multinational cor po r ation ). Even their insurance companies sued them claiming it was just a P.R. ploy! To this day the argument continues as to whether the cleanup did any good (beyond its obvious P.R. value which did Exxon potentially billions of dollars of good). Oiled rocks were laboriously washed by hand ... and then set back down on the beach beneath which .............~~~~~Scrubbing Rocks By Hand Foolishness~~~~~............. lurked huge piles of oil which surfaced randomly over the next couple of decades and is still doing so today. They used harsh chemicals which killed more of the life at the bottom of the food chain [which ultimately killed, and continues to kill, the life at the top of the food chain as well which included the "life of a fisherman in PWS"]. They used scalding hot water which killed corals and shellfish. No one knew what to do, or even who was "in charge", so no one knew who was to tell them what to tell them to do and what not to do ... the answers to which no one seemed to know in any event.
There are now salmon fisheries in the Sound although they can't be described as "recovered". The herring largely disappeared.

There has not been a shrimp season since the spill.

Nor does it seem, imho, that washing the oil back into the Sound with high pressure hoses would do the shrimp (or any other marine populations any good). And washing rocks by hand? Please! We didn't appreciate the insult to our intelligence. There were 1300 miles of oiled coastline! Let's see ... hire 1300 people, hand them a rag and some industrial strength cleaners and tell them to clean a mile of beach each. Well, at least the court case would have been resolved before the beach was cleaned! Oil, as any home mechanic is aware, is tough stuff to clean off! And Alaska crude ... the crudest, tarriest, ugliest of them all is a lot tougher than a spilled can of engine oil.

They may as well have put models in swimsuits out there it was so obviously for P.R. show!

It has never been easy to live the life of a fisherman in a small Alaskan fishing village. The hardships are tremendous. But the rewards of the lifestyle were of such a value that most people would never be able to experience or even understand. It is very difficult for, say, Supreme Court Justices who live in gated, gardened and guarded subdivisions and work in fancy air conditioned offices in the urban East to have any understanding of the value of this lifestyle for the people who (sometimes overcoming tremendous obstacles) have chosen it.

To be an Alaskan fisherman has such magnetic [it attracts men and women made of steel :-)] romance! It is a true dearly held dream of so very many people in the world. To be one of the last "free people" answerable to no one but your God if you have one and dependent upon no one and no thing except Nature, is such a rarity (and like so many dreams, not entirely accurate). But there is something magical about a life spent living off what nature provides; being among the last of the hunter/gatherers. Kids in cities watch the "Perfect Storm" and read about green, untrained deck hands on the boats of crab fishermen who, because they have to risk that sort of thrilling danger (and because the King Crab is such an expensive delicacy) can make $30,000 or more in a college summer vacation ... and look out the window at the soot-stained dirty gray of the city and dream the age-old dream. Few of course succeed at making their dream live. It is a long trip from New York desk jockey to Kodiak fisherman and I'm not referring to miles. Those that make it are the ones to whom its value is incalculable.

Pinned to my wall I have a small yellowed newspaper clipping. I don't know who wrote it. I do remember that the article was about the unique possiblities of the Last Frontier:

"The trapper, the miner, the commercial fishermen -- are free agents -- they dictate their own hours, direct their own labors, and when it suits them, tell people to go to hell."

To be part of that ... probably very close to the last generation for whom such is even possible means the difference between a life lived and an existence endured for many more than achieve it. It is not an easy lifestyle! Besides the backbreaking hard physical work, one must pay a substantial amount of money to get into the business. You must buy a boat or beach-site, fishing gear including nets, skiffs (on the beach, the boats they use to pick fish from are called "dories"), a fisheries permit for the fishery you wish to participate in [some permits for some fisheries sold for nearly $1 million before the spill!]. And on a bad year ... when the fish don't show or the weather was too bad to fish during the very short "height" of the run or the Fish and Game closes the fishery at the wrong time based on poor data or the boat didn't start on the "big day" (sometimes an entire season comes down to a single one-day "period" where you might make half of your income for the entire summer) or you ran it onto a sand bar through stupidity and lack of sleep when leaving the harbor at 3 a.m. or any number of other possible "things that can go wrong"... you don't make any money. It was a major struggle to "make it" in that life before the spill. Afterwards, in many parts of the state, it largely became impossible.

With no income, many fisherfolk who valued their rugged independent lifestyle had to move to the city, to Anchorage, and take desk jobs to survive. Some left the State where they were born and/or planned on living out the remainder of their lives. Some, in a personal shame that will haunt them all their lives and that the beggers of Telegraph Avenue would be incapable of comprehending, accepted handouts. First from churches and charities, later ... foodstamps and welfare. And they broke inside. And their children watch them break inside. Something far more valuable than money was lost that summer.

Yet money was the only thing the courts or anyone else could offer in exchange for what had been so rudely and stupidly taken by the foul recklessness of an oil company that simply didn't care enough to take the most basic precautions; and a captain who found the contents of a pint bottle far more important than 200,000 tons of oil.

It took Exxon nearly 20 years. Two decades of constant effort. But they succeeded at ensuring that not only did they not replace the irreplaceable. But they ensured that they wouldn't have to pay the people whose livelihood ... whose pristine thousands of miles of "front yard" had been destroyed ... any substantive amounts of money as punishment for their actions. Could a giant international globalist corporation that earned net profits of over $5 billion a year [now, 20 years later, closer to $5 billion a month] buy "justice" ... or would America and its wonderful long history of an independent court system that treats the rich and poor alike prevail?

It took 20 years. But at last, we now have the answer.

Part 2 of This Series May be Viewed Here:

Headliner

2008-12-06T11:43:00.006-09:00

December 5, 2008
Headliner

And so she goes. Just when I am convinced that I'm going to stop talking about Sarah Palin for awhile (because there are other very important things happening in the world and my writing time is limited) ... she goes and does something that makes it impossible to ignore her.

I'm not the only one having this problem. The national media, who would probably much prefer that she hole up in an igloo someplace, find that they can't avoid talking about her either. There are at least two reasons for this. One is that she keeps doing newsworthy things that are simply not things that people in the news business can ignore and, secondly, she simply has an uncanny grip on our imagination. This appears to be true even among the pundits who claim they can't stand her.

We start to write about Obama's economic policy is shaping up [2 + 2 = what?!?] and we realize that it is critically important, will have tremendous impact on the country's present and future, affects all of us dramatically ... and is highly boring; both to us and to our readers.

Then along comes Sarah Palin. On her way to meet with the President-elect, she takes a brief side-trip at the behest of a desperate Senator about to lose his seat and a Party desperate to not let the Democrats get a 60 vote majority. She then, spending less than a day on it, personally causes the election of the Senator and saves the Republican party. Having answered their call when they asked her to lend her "star power" and succeeding beyond all reasonable or rational expectations, she then she meets the new President to-be and a bunch of admiring Governors, dusts off her apron and scoots back to continue "fixin' up" a state that is, aside from her, in total political melt-down shambles. And, of course, to fix up another pot of moose stew for her hubby and kids.

And we realize that we have "just one more" Palin column in us demanding to get out. And our fingers start talking about her.

The thing is ... both (reasons) are true. She has that "I can't stay away fromness" that is so rare, and when that sort of charisma is contained in a beautiful woman we're all helpless: male, female, black, white, liberal, conservative, Palin-politics haters and Palin-politics lovers. It makes no difference. It is the Princess Di effect. Back in the day ... even stuffy people who wouldn't stoop to admitting knowing who Princess Di was couldn't help but to surreptitiously read the "entertainment magazines" at the checkout stand if they had her picture on it.

But unlike Princess Di or Paris Hilton or Britney Spears who were famous mostly for being famous, Sarah Palin is also legitimately important and is famous for doing valuable newsworthy things. It is a remarkable combination.

She isn't some "famous for being famous" celebrity out looking for a "cause" so she can actually do something important. Palin got famous by doing things that were important.

Nor is she important because of who she married. Princess Di would never have raised a headline if she hadn't "married well" :-) Frankly, although she has neither the beauty nor the charisma of the "crowd" I'm discussing, to a lot larger extent than supporters would ever want to admit, the same is probably true of Hillary Clinton.

Nor is Palin important because she is a knock-out. That just happens to come with the package. But she would be just as legitimately important if she ... well ... if she wasn't.

But Palin has become such a phenomenon, she tops the charts at search engines and YouTube and anywhere people go, that it has even the mainstream media types scratching their heads and continuing to write, in addition to "newsworthy stuff" she does, about her popularity itself. That "phenomenon" has become a newsworthy event in it own right which is something I cannot recall ever happening to a vice presidential candidate on the losing ticket!

Quickly now ... who was Bob Dole's running mate? That isn't what's happening to Sarah. In 20 years the question about the 2008 election will be: "Now who was the presidential candidate that Palin was running with? It's right on the tip of my tongue ..."!

This is particularly mind-boggling because of the image that the punditocracy attempted to paint of her during what they all seemed to believe was her "15 minutes of fame". Even following the election the media claimed that Sarah had lost votes for McCain!

Um. Uh ... media people? Knock, knock. Excuse me, but if she is so toxic then why did Saxby Chambliss beg her to come save him and why did the Republican National Party beg her to save Chambliss to save them from a 60 seat Democratic majority in the Senate?

And more to the point ... why did she succeed so dramatically?

You don't suppose that it is at all possible that it was the pressosphere who ripped Palin so badly before people had a chance to know otherwise that cost McCain those votes do you?

"I can't overstate the impact she had down here." So says the Senator who was about to be unseated in the run-off election. This election was crucial to the Republican party because it appeared likely that if Martin beat Chambliss ... the Democrats would have a filibuster-proof majority. Similarly, and for the exact same reason, the race was just as important to the Democrats. So all the big guns were unholstered. John McCain went down and campaigned for Chambliss ... but no one noticed. Mike Huckabee went down and stumped for him; as did Governor Romney and Rudy Giulani and essentially everyone who was anyone in the Republican party (and who, btw, are all in contention for being the "party leaders" and starting to jockey for possible 2012 presidential runs; which btw, polls now show Republicans care most that Palin runs in the next presidential election! ) ... but nobody noticed. "I went to see Mitt Romney a week ago and I think there were only about 100 people there." said one somewhat awed audience member interviewed after a huge "many thousands of people" Palin rally for Chambliss.

Al Gore went down and campaigned for Jim Martin. So did Bill Clinton. President-elect Obama taped phone messages and a radio ad and turned over his awesome vote-gathering machinery ("probably 100 or more of the Obama people came down"). Even the rapper Ludacris came down to help Martin. But nobody noticed.

Then, on the last day of the campaign, Palin swung by. She only did four short rallies in one day. And the entire world noticed.

Suddenly, Georgia was on everyone's mind. "When she walks in a room, folks just explode," Chambliss gushed after whomping Martin. "And they really did pack the house everywhere we went. She's a dynamic lady, a great administrator, and I think she's got a great future in the Republican Party."

And he kept gushing. He was grateful to all who helped ... but he made it crystal clear that it was Palin's appearance that "really did allow us to peak and get our base fired up". She has (another) serious fan in the Senate now. And the Republican National Committee isn't likely to ever think of her as a light-weight again.

She has done a better job of changing her "media-created" image (which is a remarkably difficult thing to do ... just ask Dan Quayle how to spell potato) in the few weeks since she has been out from under the thumb of the McCain staff than I can remember ever happening.

You have to hope that McCain had intelligent enough people working for him that they are now realizing what an incredibly dumb thing they did by keeping her under wraps. They bought into the ditz image also and were embarrassed that their boss had done something so foolish, so they tried to hide her as though they were ashamed to have McCain associated with her. If they had turned her loose ... well, we'll never know ... but I've a hunch that if they had ... it may well have been the vice-president elect who was drawing those huge crowds for Chambliss last week.

Biden His Time

2008-12-04T23:33:00.018-09:00

December 2, 2008
Biden His Time

There are some very good, well-meaning people out there who are still fighting the last war.

The election is over. McCain and Palin lost. Obama and Biden won. That isn't going to change. There are many people who are absolutely convinced that Obama is not legally qualified for the office. The primary theory being that he was born in Kenya as his grandmother and other family members claimed. If indeed, he was not ... if he was born in Hawaii ... why not produce the "vault" birth certificate and simply shut everyone up instead of using every imaginable twist and turn to avoid doing so ... even in legal actions where he has been sued to make him produce it or face disqualification. There is a major ongoing petition drive to force him to produce it.

At this point, however, despite the best of intentions, this effort seems worse than useless as can be demonstrated by "editing" the competing bumper sticker contingents:

What people don't seem to realize is that if they actually managed to tilt over the windmill, we would be in at least as bad a position and actually, it would likely be worse. Perhaps significantly so.

The petition in itself may be worth signing. Not because it will do any tangible good but because it is important to keep the heat on and make people realize that not everyone is a kool-aid drinker.

That said … the answer to the question that many of the "still hopefuls" are gleefully asking: "What would happen if Obama was really proven to not qualify for the office?" is quite simple, clear-cut, and … not something to look forward to.

I don’t think it makes any difference whether it happened before or after he was sworn in, although I’m not positive about that. But certainly after January 20 what happens is: Joe “open mouth to change feet” Biden becomes President. Who knows? He may even have signed the petition under a pseudonym. Just Biden his time.

We all know a lot about Joe Biden and his record. It is hard not to since the man has been in the Senate for something like 36 years. There are few such well-known people whose views and philosophies are more antithetical to "truth, right and good" than Biden’s. And he’s not some wishy washy populist. He is dead set in his beliefs and ideologies by now. He is known as, and proud to wear the mantle of “liberal internationalist”. He is … well, in addition to itemizing his well-documented flat-out lies, I could spend an hour describing Biden’s politics, but suffice to say that I don’t think Obama ever flanked him to the left.

Don’t get me wrong. I think Obama is likely to prove to be a disaster for America. But the election is over; the Democrats won and even if we got rid of Obama we don’t get another crack at electing someone else. We get Biden. I fear that Obama may be as bad as Biden would be … although it would be hard to be much worse.

But(!) At least Obama, being younger, is, perhaps, not as set in his ways or as committed to his ideologies as Biden is. With him there is at least a chance that he will be “less terrible” than Biden. (Although I think Obama is really just a puppet anyway, so it probably makes no difference.)

If I sound like I’m defending him or even that I think he might be “ok” … I’m not. I'm an optimist at heart, however. It may be that someone elected on such a liberal platform is the only one who could get away with doing some things that the conservatives and libertarians would like to see done. Like only Nixon could go to China. Perhaps only Obama can actually tackle the Big Boy globalists and kneecap them before they destroy life as we know it. Only time will tell with Obama.

But there is no question with Biden. He is as set in his ways and beliefs as one can be. There is no "roll of the dice and hoping" like we (optimists in spite of all the reasons why we shouldn't be) are (having to do) with Obama.

All I’m saying is that even if we were successful in tossing him … I don’t know that we’d be in any better position than we are now. In fact ... I'd say the chances that things would improve are zip. I for one ... after some contemplation of the matter ... have decided that I should change horses in the middle of the stream since ... I finally realized we aren't in the middle of the stream any longer. We're on the far bank and the Dems won. Biden would be at least as bad as Obama and probably worse.

Ergo ... At this point, I think we are likely to be better served to do what we can to keep Obama in office!

Alaskana

2008-11-30T15:38:00.001-09:00

URBAN ALASKA :-)

Seems as though I ought to make "Alaska" be the "Home" button! I was, after all, born and raised here ... and for a white guy on the gray side of 50 there aren't all that many of us! Included here are a miscellany of Alaskana articles that I have written from time to time. Beyond that, there is no particular theme to tie them together. Alaska is strange and wonderous enough, however, that it is a theme unto itself.

Rolling Heads

2008-11-29T10:00:00.014-09:00

November 27, 2008
Rolling Heads

Having spent so much time yammering generically about the fact that Sarah Palin took on the Big Boys and won, it seems particularly appropriate to use Thanksgiving to give you all a more specific rundown on exactly who the turkeys are whose heads have, or are soon likely, to roll.

It has been awhile since I did my "Sarah Palin cleaned up Alaska" shtick on this blog. But when I'm writing in an online news or (some other) blog comment section regarding an article on Palin I find that I do some version of it fairly regularly. Generally this is when either the initial article or existing comments do the "Sarah Palin is ethically challenged, and dumb besides; even the people of Alaska can't stand her any longer" regurgitation. (It is not difficult finding such allegations; an enormous number of people still believe the media's caricature despite having at least the opportunity to learn a lot more about her now that the election is over. This is not a woman who shies from the media! :-) She has almost certainly given substantively more interviews post-election than she was allowed to do during the campaign!

My standard rap often includes the assertion that Palin "cleaned house" [and Senate :-)] up here and took on the Big Boys and won; that people had been campaigning on reform tickets for years but once elected, either joined the gravy train or were effectively silenced. When it came time to stand up and fight, they backed down and the Big Oil folks just pocketed them.

But, I claim that Palin was utterly fearless. And in her we finally found someone who would stand up to the rampant corruption and not blink. When she was serving as Chair of the Oil and Gas Commission she discovered documented, provable, rampant corruption but she couldn't get anyone to pay attention to her. So she quit and ran for her boss's job [Governor] and whupped him in the primary! A sitting Governor who had served the state for decades as a U.S. Senator and she demolished him in the primary and then tromped a two-term, very popular, prior Governor in the main race.

Then she (and the FBI whom she called in to work on the case) started cleaning up and that because of her probes some "(self) important people", including some who could have bought the entire Alaskan prison system without major financial difficulty are going to spend their retirement looking out from its bars. She showed that many of our legislators were for sale on the open market. (She found them on eBay ... no! Just kidding! :-) I claim that even Senator Stevens wouldn't have been busted if it hadn't been for the probes she started.

I further claim that once the Big Boys found that she couldn't be bought, bribed, blustered or bullied they didn't leave the state in a huff (as had been predicted by many); but just sort of shrugged and said "ok" and that she has been able to develop a good working relationship with them.

But I thought I should put some meat on those sort of amorphous claims and take a closer look at exactly who got caught either purchasing legislators or being a purchased legislator, and dispel, or respond to, however you want to phrase it, the "yeah, who?" challenge.

So, let's see. Who all has Palin "taken out"?

I should begin this by saying that the probes are continuing and that there will undoubtedly be future additions to it. [For example, our recently "reelected in a squeaker" U.S. Representative, Don Young, hasn't been charged or indicted of anything. But, by last April, he had still spent well over a million dollars (!) on attorney fees! I don't know what the tab must be by now!]

We have different "categories" of corrupt players. For starters, we have the Big Boys who a couple years ago were highly respected business leaders and well thought of "involved in the community" type folks and are now convicted felons. In addition to which they are either at or approaching retirement age and are so desperate to not spend any more of it in the Big House than necessary that they turned on their prior "partners in crime" and ratted them out to the FBI or U.S. Attorney's office in exchange for "hoped for" leniency.

The "Biggest Gun" in this group is Bill Allen who is the ex-CEO of the "used to be high flying" oil services company VECO (which is largely an Alaskan company but it also operates in Asia, the Middle Ease, the Caribbean and other parts of the U.S.). He was very involved in community affairs and a highly respected and very well known "friendly face of your friendly neighborhood oil company"! In May of 2007 he pled guilty to extortion, bribery and conspiracy to impede the IRS. Joining him in so pleading was VECO's Vice [yes :-)] President for Community and Government Affairs, Rick Smith. The specific issue that was behind the activities he pled to involved bribing legislators to pass an oil tax law that VECO was pushing. His sentencing awaits, but is anticipated to be between nine and eleven+ years in jail plus a substantial fine. This is not the sort of person who envisioned the type of "retirement community" he will be joining! Where the sentence ultimately is within that range is presumably contingent to some degree on how well he does the job of bringing down everyone else. But he cut his deal to rat on his partners in crime (allegedly) not primarily for a better sentence for himself, but to keep his son and other family members from being charged (which means we'll probably never know what all his son Mark did).

But Allen is an excellent example of how far the mighty have fallen since Sarah put the trip wires out around the candy jar. The Allen family is a family of money. It is a family that has even more money now that they "had" to sell VECO. Even Allen is living the good life at the moment. But he is going to either have a heart attack and die before he gets there (strangely it seems a lot of folks who can't psychologically or emotionally deal with spending significant time in prison die before they get there), or he is going to be spending a huge portion of the remainder of his life in jail. It will be a dramatic change for the man!

Those two, Allen and Smith, are the highest ranking Oil Boys to bite the big one. But it isn't only the oil industry that is involved. Our legislators were so clearly for sale that even a bunch of high muckety mucks in the fisheries industries are being investigated for legislator purchases! Oh, and on the "payer" side of the ledger we also convicted lobbyist William Bobrick who was sentenced to five months in prison.

The list of the "payees" (the folks on the take) that are convicted, indicted, or "allegedly anticipated to be indicted" has some even more powerful names. The biggest, of course, is "Senator for Life" ... not; Ted Stevens. As virtually everyone knows he was convicted ... excuse me, I erred on what the definition of is is! :-) Ted Stevens was found guilty by a jury [he is right ... technically he hasn't been convicted yet - that will be done by the judge at sentencing] of not reporting gifts from Allen and others. Even at that he came within a whisker of being re-elected anyway. [There was some logic to that ... even if he was kicked out of the Senate a week after being elected to the seat, the seat would be filled by a Republican. Instead we have democrat Mark Begich.]

So, Senator Stevens has been found guilty of seven felonies and lost his Senate seat ... and I have a hunch the worst is yet to come. His trial was strange enough, between prosecutorial and juror misconduct. The capper being a juror telling the judge -- after Stevens lost the election due, presumably to his "conviction", that he lied at the prosecution's behest. It makes one wonder how many layers of corruption there are. The Democrats wanted that seat badly ... they are desperate to have 60 seats so they can be "filibuster-proof". Whether or not it was intentional skulduggery (and we may well never know), there was enough bizarre stuff that Stevens may win a new trial on appeal. The process could take years before such a new trial ever came to be and no one has a clue what might happen to Bill Allen or other witness by then. Likely, Stevens is going to get convicted and sentenced ... but the man is 80 years old and stubborn as a mule ... I personally don't expect him to spend any time behind bars. But that doesn't really matter. His life is in tatters. His reputation destroyed. His life's work (and he truly did some excellent stuff) ... will be completely overshadowed by his reputation as "the crooked Senator" now. Probably even worse than all that, his pride and joy, son Ben, who was the president of the Alaska State Senate ... looks to be even deeper into the scandals than Ted. I think Ben probably will serve substantive time in prison. He is accused of taking bribes from the fisheries industry, VECO and others. Bill Allen says he bribed him. I know that is not what Ted's hopes for his handsome, dynamic, powerhouse of a son were.

What other big names? Well ... we have another parent and child combination under severe scrutiny. Ex-Senator; ex-Governor Frank Murkowski (the sitting Governor that Sarah tromped in the primary) looks like he is going under. They haven't indicted him yet, but the Feds can pretty well demonstrate that he got over $20,000 worth of unreported "value" from VECO (a large part of that was apparently polling services) ... and the word is that there will be lots more on the plate when the indictment is actually presented. He had served the state for decades as its "other Senator", but resigned to "come home and take over the Governor's job". Then ... although the law has been changed to try to keep something so embarrassing from happening again, as Governor he had the right to fill vacant U.S. Senate seats; even those that he just vacated! So he appointed his daughter Lisa!!! No nepotism in Alaska! It looks like he may not have done her any favors though as she has allegedly been caught with her hand in the cookie jar as well; for, among other things, diverting taxpayer funds to a road to her home!

So the curtain is apparently falling on two of the biggest political family acts in Alaska: the Ted and Ben show and the Frank and Lisa show.

Let's see ... in the "sure, I'll have some" department I've discussed our U.S. Representative, Don Young (the list of his alleged scandals is lengthy, but also includes VECO bribes), our current U.S. Senators, Stevens and Lisa Murkowski, our prior Governor/Senator Frank Murkowski, the ex-president of the State Senate and son of our Senator for Life, Ben Stevens. Those are the biggest names on the "take" list ... they are also the biggest names in state politics! Or were before the name "Palin" surfaced :-)

Others that have been hammered include Frank Murkowski's Chief of Staff Jim Clark (who also cut a deal with the Feds to narc out more folks). The former Speaker of the (State) House, Pete Kott was sentenced to six years in prison. Former State Representative Victor Kohing got a three and a half year sentence. Former State Representative Tom Anderson got five years.

There are several people who have either been indicted or very publicly named as on the take. That includes former State Representative John Cowdery who has been indicted for taking bribes. Former State Representative Bruce Weyrauch will be going to trial soon - Bill Allen says VECO bribed him as well. Oh, Trevor McCabe; he was hooked up with Senator Ted and was apparently the recipient of "scam" money procured by Ted.

There are ... several others who are almost certainly going to be charged. There are rumors swirling about a few more. And almost certainly there are some that are guilty that simply aren't going to get caught.

So that's the situation to date. One of the main planks on which Sarah Palin ran for Governor was to bring these people to justice [these folks were, bottom line, engaged in a conspiracy to steal Alaska's resource wealth] and one of the reasons she had a 90%+ favorability rate is because ... unlike every other politician who had made that promise ... she did it.

Rock Star Embarrassment?

2008-11-27T12:11:00.030-09:00

November 25, 2008
Rock Star Embarrassment?

Thank you Kelly for sharing that sentiment :-) That is a reference to the note she added to the "Time to Take Campaign Posters Down" article in which she opines that "Sarah Palin is an idiot and an embarrassment to the state of Alaska." Actually, I mean that. I appreciate all opinions here. It would be nice to flesh it out a bit; for instance it might make a lot of difference to some folks to know whether Kelly is an Alaskan or just someone "out there" feeling sorry for us :-) But it certainly represents a fairly widespread opinion and one that begs for a response. So, Kelly, I hope you don't mind, but I'll use your comment as representative of that "mindset". I've been wandering blogs and online news outlets. Clearly there are a lot of folks saying essentially the same thing.

The mainstream online media outlets and the "linked-in sold-out" blogs talk about how Palin's approval ratings in Alaska have "plummeted" giving the implication that now that Alaskans have learned more about her they see her more clearly. This is the equivalent, I believe, of Kelly's comment about how Palin is an embarrassment.

So, I have researched the issue at some length to determine its validity. We are somewhat hamstrung in Alaska because we only have one statewide newspaper, the Anchorage Daily News. ADN is part of the McClatchy chain which means (given the number of times I've known a lot about something that McClatchy reports on, I can safely say) that the paper is inherently untrustworthy and at times it seems that it must be intentionally lying because the only other possibility would be stupidity at a level where they couldn't possibly compose understandable sentences. But, as long as one understands that and can work around it, it is still possible to find the truth in the nooks and crannies of small local papers with an online presence, independent bloggers, going to the cited sources of the ADN articles and finding out what was really said or done, and lots of other ways including just talking to people. So it is with some confidence that I can report that the idea that the people in Alaska are embarrassed by our Governor and that her popularity has "plummeted" due to the enlightenment of the citizenry such that they truly understand her better is total and utter balderdash.

It is true that Palin's approval rating in Alaska did drop. It hovered around 89% to 93% in 2007 (an insanely unsustainable number potentially unmatched by any Governor anywhere ever!) As late as mid-September, 2008, (after the Couric interviews!) it was still the highest of any Governor in the nation at around 85%. By late September, it was down to 68%. This is the "plummet" that folks keep mentioning. It is true that knocked her off top rank. She was, at that point, only the 4th most popular Governor in the U.S. (not quite what I'd call an embarrassment). In fact ... virtually any politician would sell their soul for ratings that high. (Palin is one of those rare politicians whose soul really isn't for sale. The Big Oil boys found that out to their chagrin.) But it does keep the evangelical right (of which I am not a member) happy, and gives her that "God is on my side" power that I personally find distasteful but has a substantive demonstrably positive effect.

But back to her "plummeted rating". I seldom do this, but I'm going to give some significant space here to the folks over at FemiSex.com. They are pro-female but definitely not generically Republican or right-wing. Indeed, most were Hillary supporters (which should give them at least a little more credibility with the Kelly's of the world than I have :-). I won't quote it all here, although it is tempting to do so. If you'd like to, it just takes a click on this link! The article is discussing a posting by a "Palin-hater" about her plummeted rating:

"It is ... wonderful as an exemplar of how the press inflicts fatal blows to female candidates. … Proof Positive that the Media inflicts violence upon women candidates by a sustained pile-on of besmirchment ...

Up until the media told us all over.. and over.. and over.. and over.. again what a dolt, sinner, adulterous, contriving, ambitious, book-burning, vicious Bitch Palin is ... Palin had an 80 % approval rating in Alaska by her constitutes.

LET ME REPEAT THIS: UNTIL THE MEDIA SAVAGED PALIN, SMEARING HER DAILY, SHE HAD A SOLID 80% APPROVAL RATING ...

Then came a poll—a poll taken a mere three weeks after the Lefty Press gang-smeared Palin in a manner befitting their conduct towards Hillary Clinton.

Guess WHAT?????????? Palin’s approval rating fell 12 points. Now does any intelligent person think the manner in which she governed Alaska changed in three weeks? For crying out loud, the woman has been campaigning the entire time!! There is zero chance Palin committed anything policy-wise to make Alaska’s citizens turn against her by 12 percentage points.

And there is ZERO chance that her past efforts and successes and failures changed. (There is a 100% chance the media perpetuated lies about Palin, such as the continued fabrication that the woman tortured rape victims, and afterward put on witch-clothing and burnt books toasty at the public library, while having adulterous sex with an unknown entity, faked a pregnancy, and toasted male testicles on the remnants of her book fire.)

When a woman is in the mix, the press spins things into such ludicrous negativity, invents stories, and ABOVE all fails to outline the many positives ... Hats off MSM, u’ve done it again. First with Clinton, now with Palin. NO woman running for Top Doggie or 2nd Doggie is safe. We hear u loud and clear ...

-Now just try to tell me that Media did not Kill off Hillary. Tell me about how Joe Biden lied about being shot at in Afghanistan. Wait, you haven’t heard about that if you're in middle American and listen to the six o’clock news.

-Now tell me about Hillary’s sniper fire lies. Sure, that u can quote verbatim. Round the clock negative coverage kills female candidates. If I had a nickel for the # of women who’ve said to me: “I really liked Hillary, until I didn’t.” When they didn't occurred during the media hate frenzy towards Clinton.

There is almost no way anyone could hold up against such sustained smearing..."

I honestly don't know that the media is that anti-female. It certainly is possible. But it is quite clear that the press intentionally attempted to destroy her, whether it was because of her gender or, my theory: that the Obamamedia was scared to death when she showed up because her incredible charisma had crowds reacting like she was the world's greatest rock star and they thought that if they didn't destroy her she might be able to drag McCain across the finish line.

If they had treated Obama the same way they'd treated Palin ... McCain would have won in a landslide. I have never before witnessed such vicious lock-step attempts at utter character assassination.

But a funny thing happened on the way to her destruction. People paid [the ever so self-important punditocracy] less attention than they believed they should. Oh, it was enough to elect Obama. But Palin's star is continuing to rise like crazy. I also assume that she will be back up in the 80s statewide in her approval ratings soon if she is not already. (Even when she was "down" at 68% she still kept a 93% favorable rating with Alaska Republicans!) And her star is not just Alaskan any longer.

CNN reports: "Oprah wants her, and so do Letterman and Leno. Fresh from her political defeat, Sarah Palin is juggling offers to write books, appear in films and sit on dozens of interview couches at a rate that would be astonishing for most Hollywood stars, let alone a first-term governor. Sarah Palin continues to attract huge media interest despite her failed bid to become vice president.

[Governor Palin] crunched state budget numbers this week ... Meanwhile, her staff fielded television requests seeking the 44-year-old for late-night banter and Sunday morning Washington policy. Agents, including those from the William Morris Agency, have come knocking. There's even been an offer to host a TV show.

'Tomorrow, Gov. Palin could do an interview with any news media on the planet," said her spokesman, Bill McAllister. "Tomorrow, she could probably sign any one of a dozen book deals. She could start talking to people about a documentary or a movie on her life. That's the level we are at here.'

'Barbara Walters called me. George Stephanopoulos called me,' McAllister said. 'I've had multiple conversations with producers for Oprah, Letterman, Leno and 'The Daily Show.' Palin ...[has]... returned to Alaska with an expanded, if unofficial, title: international celebrity."

And! The lady has coattails! The Republicans are still scraping and scrounging to try to keep the Democrats from getting that 60 seat filibuster blocking majority they want so badly.

As McClatchy reports: There are still two undecided positions in run-off campaigns and those two will determine whether they get their 60 chairs or not. One of those elections is in Georgia. So, in an incredibly close and critical situation in which their degree of national power for at least the next two (potentially incredibly important) years hangs in precarious balance ... what do the Republicans do? They call Sarah!

It is a tight, tight election. So they reached about as far distance wise as one can go in this country to bring in who they call "the closer". Sarah Palin will be in Georgia on Monday campaigning (at least four big rallies are planned so far) for Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss.

So ... sorry, Kelly, but the idea that we are so embarrassed that we have a Governor who is so incredibly popular nationwide with the people (even if clearly not the lockstep media) that they beg her (and pay her way) to come clear to Georgia to win this thing for them just doesn't pass the smell test.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution entitled their article about it: "Ohmigoodness ... the goddess descends."

She is featured at the top of Chambliss's web site to help attract people to the rallies which are expected to be so packed you need to RSVP reservations!!! Chambliss spokeswoman Michelle Grasso said "She has a lot of support, a lot of fans down here. A lot of people are very excited that she's coming ... I think it's absolutely the way you want to end a runoff."

Democratic strategist Donna Brazile is campaigning for the other side [the big guns are out on both sides for this one]. Donna says "Saxby Chambliss is calling out the cavalry because he needs to motivate his base". So now even the top Democrats figure Sarah is the cavalry!

She's not skipping out on Alaska business ... she is going to be in the area anyway. She'll be meeting with Obama and other invited governors in Philadelphia in a big bipartisan attempt to figure out how to deal with the ailing economy.

And of course, she just returned a couple weeks ago from the Republican Governors Association meeting in Miami. Alaska governors often attend these functions, but it was a little different this time. Even McClatchy says: "She dominated media attention at the conference and did an interview with CNN's Wolf Blitzer. 'Poolside paparazzi' photos were even taken of her and circulated on the internet."

I have to agree with one of my commenters that I'm not 100% sure I'm thrilled to have a rock star governor. But are Alaskan's embarrassed by her? I don't think so.

Turkeys

2008-11-23T11:21:00.022-09:00

November 21, 2008
Turkeys

I thought I had done enough about Sarah Palin for awhile. There are other important things to discuss! How the world, especially the Islamic world, is reacting to Obama's election. Another glance at the ridda (apostasy) issue. What Obama's proposed appointments tell about how he will actually govern. What his choice for Secretary of State will mean ...

Instead I'm doing yet another column on our famous/infamous Governor and the media. In fact, I'm afraid this isn't going to end the "theme" either. She is still top-level international news.

It is uncanny. Biden has been around and involved in critical national and international matters for over 36 years. Palin probably made the front page of a newspaper not published in Alaska for the first time less than four months ago. If you Google "Biden" you get 25,000,000 hits. Quite respectable! That's a lot of people talking about you! Google "Palin", however, and you get 95,000,000 hits! Let that number sink in. 95 MILLION hits! The latest estimate of the population of the United States according to the U.S. Census Bureau is 305,726,193. Of course this is comparing apples and oranges ... but there are nearly 1/3 as many "Google available and located" documents mentioning Palin as there are people in this country. For some reason that seems mind-boggling to me.

Nor is it because "Palin" is a more common name. Put the name in quotes and run "Sarah Palin" and you get 48,500,000 hits. "Joe Biden" only gets you 12,000,000. Even "Hillary Clinton" only gets 28,700,000 and she's "been around" in the public consciousness a bit longer than Sarah Palin has also.

Stories about her remain at the top of the national interest meter. Articles about her are cited at the top of nearly every "most popular story" list put out by the major news agencies.

Oh, the media still has a nasty streak that they can't seem to break when they get the opportunity to make fun of her. Like, for instance, the topic of this column: the nonsensical big "top news story" about Palin pardoning a turkey; a minor Thanksgiving ritual done by essentially all governors and presidents. Then she gave a short interview, apparently without realizing what else was in the camera viewfinder. During the video filming of the interview, workers in the background continued with the job at hand at a turkey farm shortly before Thanksgiving [duh]: butchering turkeys.

That is not a huge hook to build a story on ... and yet, it is currently (and has been for several days!) the number one story accessed through Huffington Post (and presumably near the top in interest of current news stories period!) At Huffington the story and video has 673,582 views and 5,416 comments. This blows all the "competition" out of the water. Not only the "real" and "serious" news stories ... but it even makes the silly "Obamas Expected to Have Sex In White House" story seem to be boring [91,912 views, 222 comments]! (The Obama article is actually hilarious ... especially the comments from people who don't understand that it is satire! But it is only 1/7th as popular as a boring interview of Palin at a turkey farm!)

I am beginning to understand that people (and cameras and media types) are addicted to all things Palin. But the video of a turkey pardon? Arianna [Huffington] even mentions it in her little front page editorial squib telling people to make sure not to miss it! And the comments are (largely) insanely obnoxious. Many of them call for Palin to please just go away and shut up. Ya know, if they wouldn't keep a' clicking on any news story about her and adding comments ... presumably she would! There were 49 other state Governors and a sitting U.S. President that (probably) all did the same traditional "turkey pardon". Yet not one, other than Sarah's, made the YouTube best-seller list. If people don't want to hear Sarah Palin then they should [get your crayons out so you can take notes] "stop listening"! Clearly, the turkeys weren't all behind Sarah.

"Help! Save me from myself! Stop showing news stories about Palin because I can't keep myself from watching them!" Even atrociously stupid ones like this.

Headline news: the turkey you eat for Thanksgiving was killed before you cooked it. I know this is a shock! [Well, unless it is a PETA tofu turkey :-) Are there such things? Actually, I'm sure there are given the rampant
idiocy that a rich free society engenders. Don't they have any sympathy for the poor tofus they keep killing? Heartless I tell you. We should start a "SAVE THE TOFU" campaign! We could run some video clips of masked ninja types sneaking up on baby tofus and smashing them with clubs until they die a slow and painful death!]

I just checked. It isn't just a bad joke (the tofu turkeys, not the baby tofu killers - that is a bad joke :-). But they really do make tofu "turkey". [Sigh.] It's called Tofurkey and PETA even has a website full of "oh so yummy" Thanksgiving recipes! Saints preserve us!

Doesn't anyone know that tofu is curdled, coagulated soy beans??? It is a perfectly reasonable thing to eat ... if you are starving and lost in the desert and there is nothing potentially edible for hundreds of miles ... and you've already eaten your belt. Under any other conditions it is pathetic. But I digress :-)

I think it is all ... Reagan's (?) fault. I can't remember if he was Governor of California when they decided to close down all the "establishments for the sanity deprived" [this is California we're talking about after all :-)] and send the crazy people out into the streets. This caused such things as sidewalk congestion on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and PETA.

Granted, Palin isn't as "ewwee" squeamish as this patriarchal society likes its women to be. [Grow up America!] Sorry, I, and probably most Alaskans, have difficulties with such elitist machismo - on the frontier a woman has value, she isn't just considered to be decoration.] Sarah kills and butchers moose and other animals. She commercially fishes and tromps around in boats full of dead and dying salmon.

[By strange coincidence one of the big positives for me about Hillary, (personally, not politically) was that she wasn't the squeamish type either. She worked a "slime line" in Alaska when she was younger ... which consists of butchering salmon, some of which aren't quite dead, as they come past you at the salmon cannery on a conveyor belt.] Hillary noted that, armed with a rain coat, hip boots and a knife, the slime line job "was the best preparation ever for working in Washington"! But that's only because she has never field dressed a moose! :-)

So, sure, maybe some more "girlie" governor would have been grossed out. I suppose Sarah could take pointers and learn. Given that she learned to tear down, clean and reassemble a rifle in only a few minutes I'm sure she could manage this. But if you've butchered a moose, the idea that seeing a turkey "prepared" for the Thanksgiving table is objectionable is just silly. As is the reaction by all those who are grossed out by it (but can't keep themselves from watching it while ranting about it!)

I realize that there are turkeys involved here all right. I just can't decide who all they are.

But ~675,000 views just through Huffington of a turkey pardon? I'd say we probably could find at least a half a million of them in that viewer group.

All that attention. And it was probably the least important thing Sarah did that day! Pu-leese people! Get a life!

Time to Take Campaign Posters Down

2008-11-21T12:51:00.028-09:00

November 19, 2008
Time to Take the Campaign Posters Down

Well, the last state finally reported results. Missouri went to McCain. Just barely, but that’s all it takes. McCain came out 3,632 votes ahead of Obama – out of more than 2.9 million cast! Too little, too late to do McCain much good but it was the first time since 1956 that Missouri didn’t "pick" the winner of the presidential race. It has been a strange election from every perspective!

And ... "Uncle Ted", the U.S. Senator that has represented this State for so long he had gained the title "Senator for life" ... lost. He was ahead in the vote count after the regular ballots were counted even after being found guilty for not noting some oil company "gifts" on his federal disclosure forms the week before the election. But we had a huge number of absentee and "other" ballots that were finally counted over the past few days and a "kid" [a 46 year old kid :-)] by the name of Mark Begich prevailed and today Senator Stevens conceded. Uncle Ted was so well known and so appreciated for all the loot he had brought home from the federal treasury that no one ever believed he would lose an election. But he did ... on his 85th birthday. He was likely the most important politician in Alaska’s history and much of what he did as a Senator (besides bringing home all the pork) shaped the State in many ways. Granted, I disagreed with much of what he did, but that doesn’t lessen the importance of it :-)

[I will, btw, be doing a future column on why the feds actually owe us vastly more than we’ve ever gotten from them. They flatly stole most of our (oil) wealth that they agreed by contract in the Statehood Compact was ours. But that will be a future column.]

So ... the elections are over. And I hate it when I still see campaign signs in people’s yards long after the election has passed, so I’ve taken mine down as well.

Besides, as thrilling as it was to have our Governor as a candidate for such a high office ... and the fact that her mistreatment by the press infuriated me ... she and I do disagree on much ideologically. [Which, however, despite the furor caused by the "stop her at any costs" national media ... she didn’t govern (that is past tense but I really don’t expect it to change) as a member of the flat earth society.] Indeed, her actual governance was not nearly as conservative as the campaign painted her. Frankly, she is a lot more tough minded and practical than she ever got credit for.

Although there are plenty of folks who disagree with me, I do believe ideology is important even if one appears to "transcend" it for practicality when necessary. And Sarah and I have some very basic, very different ideologies. I have spent a lot of time in this blog defending her against the phony attacks and simple lies about her told by the pressography during the election. To the extent that such continues, so shall I. But in areas where we disagree ... you’ll be hearing a lot more about those from me now that the election is over also!

I have not yet heard that Sarah has repudiated the claims that her beliefs include such things as the fact that evolution was divinely guided. I’ve also heard it claimed that she believes the world to be only 6,000 years old but that hardly fits with evolution, guided or not. Besides. Her father was a science teacher. Surely she knows better!

I do think highly of her, however, and this campaign has increased that admiration. I don’t know how anyone can take what she was put through. And her star is still in ascension! She continues to receive non-stop requests from the media, agents, producers ... she delivered a well-received (and well-covered) speech at the Republican Governors Association. She is more in-demand and the national ... indeed international ... spotlight is on her more strongly than it ever was when she was a mere vice presidential candidate! She has become a legitimate "star" in her own right.

The William Morris agency has called multiple times (and they only call stars :-). Barbara Walters wanted to make Palin one of her "10 most fascinating people" (and apparently she is still in contention for Walt ers' #1 Most Fascinating Person)! Interestingly, they have already announced that Tina Fey made the
list ... but poor Tina! After all the great stuff she's done (she is my second favorite female comedienne), she is now known as "Sarah Palin impers onator Tina Fey"! :-) Also see (one of her) fan sites: "Currently, Tina Fey is best known for her portrayal of the Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin".

Sarah has had offers to host talk shows, write books, and do countless interviews. She is finally free to do so ... and so she has been. She has done a tremendous job of turning her reputation as an intellectual lightweight into a solidly respected intelligent and resourceful person.

She is, (in the words of the McClatchy press no less!):

"A national political figure and one of the world’s most famous people."

Despite the desperate hope of many Democrats that she would run back to Alaska with her tail between her legs and disappear into an ice cave ... she is doing no such thing. And the Democrats who hoped so (and the Republicans to whom she is a potential competitor for national office someday) just don’t know this woman (as they clearly demonstrated during the campaign). She doesn’t put her tail between her legs. She is fearless. She took the best (worst) punches the national punditocracy could throw ... and she emerged stronger and vastly more respected than ever before.

They won’t succeed at pigeon-holing her with their caricatures of her in her next national venture. People will know her too well by then. They only got away with the phony portrait they painted because no one knew anything else, so they accepted the pablum the media fed them.

And she still emerged a star! One with a very bright political future. Is she the next Ronald Reagan? It could be. The resemblances are remarkable. The press tried to paint Reagan as a mental midget his first couple runs for national office as well. But it didn’t stick. He was known as the Teflon President because the people simply decided to ignore all the nastiness from the media about him ... even when they were right. They had cried "wolf" too often. They no longer had any credibility.

The same thing appears to be happening with Sarah Palin. As people discover who this woman really is ... they are learning to ignore what the press says about her. In their desperate attempt to ensure Obama's election, the press pulled out all stops in screaming "wolf" ... or, in her case "wolf killer" :-) But ultimately it is (and soon will be even more so) the press that lost credibility, not Sarah Palin.

She and Ronald Reagan both shared that ephemeral unlearnable "something" that people call charisma but which simply excites people and makes folks want to like them and want to please them. Obama has it. And Sarah Palin has it. Presidents Reagan and Kennedy had it. [Unfortunately, probably so did Hitler ... it doesn't inherently translate to "good" ... but it does tend to translate to "powerful".]

But it is a rare and potent gift. [I remember being in a room when Ronald Reagan walked in ... before he was President. The room was instantly and remarkably electrified. It was an amazing sensation and an fascinating thing to watch.] Sarah Palin is something special. And I’m not going to be bashful about recognizing and acknowledging that.

So ... the election signs are down. But we will, among many other topics, continue to follow the exploits of our Governor. And when I disagree with her (and I will!:-) I won’t be bashful about that either!

A "Con"stitutional Question

2008-11-18T09:11:00.012-09:00

November 16, 2008
A "Con" stitutional Question

Ok. We've had our election. The national media gave Obama his Rolls Royce ride to the white house. The people" (represented by a much larger percentage of street people bussed to the polls in the weeks before and during election day than had ever been seen in the past :-) have made him the "President-elect". (Republicans have little ability to counter this new form of electioneering except to work to stop all the early voting and make absentee voting much more difficult. It wouldn't stop the election day busing, but it would put an end to the huge numbers that get dragged to the polls in the weeks preceding an election. This is the Republicans only real solution since there are probably very few street people who would vote Republican unless for a specific quid pro quo and Republicans tend to get squeamish about outright vote buying.)

Being president-elect, however, is not a long term position. It is supposed to come to an end, according to the Constitution, on January 20 of the year following the election. But we have over two months left before the scheduled occasion.

So what happens if Obama is disqualified from holding the office before that date arrives? And, even more interestingly, what if the courts were to so determine after he is sworn in as President? I doubt that it will happen but this election has been so strange that nothing would surprise me. I think most people believe it is too late. All those lawsuits challenging his standing to be the U.S. President are generally thought to have gone "poof" with his election. But they didn't.

Interestingly the lawsuits have not been dismissed as frivolous either, which is the common response to the wing-nut lawsuits that pop up virtually unnoticed at other elections. In fact, despite the best attempts by the media to ignore them, the lawsuits have a pesky way of showing up and are not proving susceptible to being swept under the rug. I don't know if it is true or not since it is just an unverified comment, but at least someone apparently counted and says there are 17 cases in the Federal courts on this issue, two of which are currently before the Supreme Court. I assume there are "a bunch" in state courts as well seeking to stop certifications or whatever in the individual states.

Nor are these all nut-case lawsuits. Everyone has heard of the Phillip Berg lawsuit. It has been fairly well scoffed off the table by the mainstream media suggesting just that ... that it is just another nut-case action. Part of the problem with that argument is that Phillip Berg isn't your typical nut-case. Indeed he is the former Deputy Attorney General for Pennsylvania.

Although that is probably the most famous of the cases, perhaps the most fascinating and compelling case is the case brought in California by, among others, Ambassador Dr. Alan Keyes. Dr. Keyes (a PhD from Harvard is not one to be brushed off easily. He also overcomes the big problem that Phillip Berg has with his case is that the court is questioning his "standing" to bring the action. I think the court is hopelessly wrong on that. Any citizen of the United States has standing to bring a lawsuit alleging that a presidential candidate (or president-elect) does not qualify for the office.

However that is ultimately decided, Dr. Keyes does not face that problem. Perhaps fortuitously, he was on the ballot in California as a candidate for President running as the nominee of the American Independent Party. It would be difficult to imagine who would have standing if a citizen of the country who was competing with Obama for the election as President, does not.

You would think that Obama would stop trying to win all these law suits on procedural grounds and just wipe them out on the merits ... if indeed he is right on the merits. All he has to do is wipe out the "vault birth certificate" (the real one ... the kind you probably have to show to get a driver's license! Not that phony certificate of live birth that the experts are split on but that appears there is a good chance it is a forgery).

I have a hunch that Obama may not even have known where he was born until questions came up about it! It isn't like he remembers it. And things were such a whirlwind he probably didn't even take it all seriously when it started. But the wheels of justice grind slowly ... but they do grind away. But even though it isn't the kind of thing one is likely to remember, ignorance absolutely is no excuse.

I can see it, though. His Mom (who was a bit of a wild card anyway) wanted him to have U.S. citizenship as a "born in the U.S.A. type, not as a "naturalized by moving here so young" type, so claimed he was born in Hawaii and told him that. His Grandmother said he was born in Kenya. She certainly had nothing to gain by saying that. Only the vaulted certificate knows for sure. And by now, probably Obama. Or he would have produced it. He was recently in Hawaii for his Grandmother's funeral [no, I'm not enough of a wing-nut to go there :-)]. But I bet he checked the certificate while there. And instead of producing it as he has been court ordered to do and which would make all the lawsuits go "poof" ... he fights them on procedural grounds and keeps the birth certificate in the vault.

But the "no standing" argument presumably won't work against Dr. Keyes. Nor will the screams of racism by his proxies. The fact that Dr. Keyes is a nationally syndicated columnist and a black man who stands about 6' 7" adds a bit to the drama. He has also held substantive governmental positions, particularly in the Reagan administration. And he was on the ballot for President in California.

The interesting question really is whether the issue gets decided before or after January 20. He can't very well pardon himself if he is not the real president (which he wouldn't be if he was not constitutionally qualified to hold the office). He would be, in the words of the Keyes' suit ... a usurper to the office. I don't know what the punishments are. Is it treason? Would the U.S. be after him just as all the Islamic world will be because he is an apostate?

He is forming an army to answer solely to him ... do you suppose he'll put up resistance if the courts order him to get the *%&#$)% out of the President's chair? :-)

But here's the thing. I don't know if Keyes or Berg has thought through. Clearly, if he is found to be ineligible before being sworn in, he gets booted. The Constitution is clear on that. But what if it doesn't happen until after he is seated? Would Pelosi become VP?! :-) Nah. Even the Forefathers would have thought far enough ahead to save us from that! Presumably it would be the same result.

However ... I'm still not certain that Keyes and Berg and the others have thought this through sufficiently! Obama could take his platform and run comfortably in the Socialist party of most countries of Europe. But behind the rhetoric he has shown some surprisingly conservative thoughts. And there is nothing like "real life" to make one more conservative!

He is an unknown. Usually that is bad. Except this time we know who his replacement would be: Joe "no longer Biden his time". And we do know his record. I'm not so sure but what I'd rather take my chances with the unknown!

Fates Having Fun

2008-11-17T10:07:00.004-09:00

November 13, 2008
The Fates are Having too much Fun!

Barack Hussein Obama. President-elect of the United States of America; a country that is fighting two wars each of which was primarily designed to "take out" an individual. In Afghanistan it was Osama, whose name is a tiny typo away from being the same as that of the president-elect. In Iraq, it was Hussein.

Is there a Barack running an Islamic country anywhere? If so, I'd be real nervous were I him :-)

Could the Fates have played a stranger trick? Not only is the name tie-in to our two wars beyond coincidental comprehension ... but in both wars we are fighting (radical) Muslims ... and the Islamic and Christian nations and religions have not been so close to falling back into the Crusades mentality since ... the Crusades?

It has, in any event, been a long time. Most Americans never thought of Islam in a negative fashion before Osama sent the planes into the buildings. Most Americans never thought of Islam at all. Or if they did, it was along the lines of "Isn't that the religion that the Cat Stevens dude adopted?" [It is. On Muharram, in 1398 by the Islamic calendar. Indeed his name now is Yusuf Islam. What most folks don't know is that he never was "Cat Stevens"; that was just a stage name. He was born Steven Demetre Georgiou.]

In any event, we are at war for all practical purposes, in two different countries and in a third sort of generic "War on Terror", with the radical arm of Islam. And we elect, for the first time in the history of the nation, a presidential candidate who has an extensive Muslim background.

Indeed, his Muslim background is another of those "hazy" areas surrounding the man. He acknowledges being born to a Muslim father and that his stepfather was also Muslim. It appears likely that he was enrolled as a Muslim at a child in the Muslim school he attended in Indonesia. I wrote one column on apostasy and will soon do a follow-up to that now that he is president-elect. But in any event, his "Muslim background" is the greatest of any U.S. President to date ... and likely greater than any serious presidential candidate in the past. And we elect someone with that background ... now?

This is beyond mind-boggling. The Fates have got to be rolling in the aisles ... of wherever it is the Fates hang out.

And yet this man not only stridently proclaims that he is Christian ... but he stained his reputation badly by being a member of such a radical Christian church (and it would have been much worse had not the press been giving him, in Bill Clinton's words, that Rolls Royce ride to the White House as noted in my last post). If the press had tackled Obama the way it did Palin ... you'd know every sermon that the Rev. Jeremiah Wright ever preached that could be taken negatively in any way.

But my point here is not to complain about the disparate press treatment. I've spent plenty of time in this blog doing that.

My point is that he joined the radical arm of his religion. He isn't just someone who grew up in a church and continued on in the religion he was raised in. He actively sought a place for his spiritual side and specifically selected this Church, which was more to him than just a "show up at Sunday, visit with the congregants, hear a bland sermon on doing good and believing, and maybe attend the annual potluck". This Church filled a deep hunger and he took it much more seriously spiritually than socially. "Obama was searching for an identity and a community, and he found both at Trinity. And he found a spiritual guide in Wright."

And Wright was radical! [He still is, but he has now retired.] Obama's continued association with (and pronounced affections for) him long after he reasonably should have rejected Wright and all that he stood for (assuming it was even defensible to have joined the Church in the first place) was faulted by even the most liberal of columnists. This man who Obama claimed was his "spiritual advisor" vehemently preached (to, ultimately, a huge audience) about how 9/11 was America's fault and how the U.S. was intentionally spreading the Aids virus. This man who married Obama and his wife said in one famous speech "God Damn America" at least three times. Yet Obama says it was this man's words that were the inspiration for his book "The Audacity of Hope"!

My point here is not to regurgitate that oft-repeated point that Obama's various "associations" have shown a remarkable lack of judgment. While that is clearly a true statement, my point was really to show that Obama, more than any prior president, is a member of the "radical fringe" of Christianity ... while we are fighting wars against the "radical fringe" of Islam.

It strains credulity that all these are coincidences. And yet, this is all acknowledged mainstream information. Those tending closer to the wing-nut position will tell you many more things too strange to be coincidence (including many apparently strange numerical synchronicities). I'll refrain from giving those print space here at the moment. But it all does make one wonder.

Is there something going on that none of us truly understand?

I am not a mystical nor religious person. But even I am tempted to research what the Bible says about the Anti-Christ! :-)

No. I very much doubt that Barack is the Anti-Christ. And I presume that the Fates are just having fun at our expense. But the more one ponders the impossibilities surrounding this election (imagine if, before you had heard of Barack Hussein Obama that such a person could be elected president at this time in our history). If you look at it in that context ... you will have to concede that the chances of it ever happening would be too silly to even consider.

It makes me more curious than anything. Is this truly God playing a joke on us? Could it be that these coincidences are just coincidences? Perhaps someday I'll manage to satisfy my curiosity about this most curious of elections. But somehow, I doubt it.

Sarah Palin - A Star is ... Created

2008-11-10T00:16:00.013-09:00

November 9, 2008
Sarah Palin - A Star is ... Created

Well, she has legs! No, no ... I'm referring to the continuing stories about Sarah Palin, not the beauty queen herself!

It isn't enough that the press, in Bill Clinton's own words [bottom of 9th paragraph], acted as Obama's "personal chauffeur" on the election trail, but they now seem determined to utterly destroy Sarah Palin and any potential political future she might have on the national stage.

The attacks continue in the pressosphere unabated. I think today Obama finally got more national press coverage than Governor Palin did ... but not by a whole lot.

I have been "consciously aware" of presidential elections since the Goldwater debacle of 1964 [well, semi-conscious for the first couple ... and for some really boring ones since]. But I remember the election of '64 very clearly. Even though age-wise, I was only a short distance into double figures, I was flabbergasted that the media could destroy someone so completely. I knew things about Goldwater that the media didn't know (nor do most people even today!) ... indeed, I knew things about the John Birch Society (which was the primary limb from which the media hung him), that the media didn't know! How could that be?

Obviously now that I'm old and cynical I realize that the media knew everything I did all along and simply lied on the theory that most people really didn't know and even if they did, perhaps they could be made to question their own knowledge. Those were different times and the media and "the people" had a different relationship. There were very few sources of news. Essentially there were three television stations and "local" newspapers. Oh, there were a few national newspapers out, but few "regular people" read them and they tended to be specialized and their readership similarly specialized. For example, although it has been published since 1889, to the best of my recollection I had never seen anyone reading the Wall Street Journal.

The press had inordinate power. As mentioned, there were very few options for obtaining national news back then and, perhaps vastly more critical, "the people" as a whole had not yet realized that the newspapers regularly and intentionally lied to us. We were taught in school that the news in newspapers was just that: news. Boring facts unadulterated by the personal opinions of the reporters or the political positions of the owners. All opinions were on the Editorial Page and were clearly marked as such. Oh, there were small muckraking newspapers whose single editor/owner/typesetter often broke such rules and let his opinions run rampant. But those were not considered "real newspapers" by "real journalists". Indeed, newspapers were held to such a high standard that they hired proofreaders to make absolutely certain that no error or typo or misspelling made it into print. And, indeed, few did.

But after the press had done their job and destroyed Goldwater's reputation and successfully elected Lyndon Johnson by a landslide ... they talked about ... Lyndon Johnson. They didn't talk much about Goldwater and they certainly didn't talk much about [you don't have a clue do you? :-)] his VP candidate, William Miller. I remember Johnson won that election by using the "old" Cold War and the "new" television to scare the public in the first example of true dirty"negative" advertising on national TV (such as the "daisy ad"that convinced people that Goldwater was a militaristic loose cannon and if he were elected we would be annihilated by Atom Bombs)!

Johnson ran as the peace candidate (and of course, immediately upon winning the election cranked up the Vietnam "situation" where we had "peacekeepers" and "advisers" into a full-blown war).

I do remember one somewhat famous mention of Goldwater in regards to the election that included an early "shot" at the media sometime afterwards: "They told me that if I voted for Goldwater, we'd be in war in 6 months. Well, I did, and we are."

But I have never seen anything like the Palin phenomena. It suggests that either the left is remarkably scared of her and desperately want to destroy and bury her or that the right is fascinated and delighted and wants her to play on the national stage without being "held down" by a hopeless candidate (who, perhaps wisely, particularly after the national economic meltdown seemed to be working to lose the election). Or, most likely ... both factors are at work.

It is clear, however, despite the idiocies of the pundits in trying to "kill two birds with one stone", (and McCain's people trying to shift blame as effectively as possible) that McCain's loss was not due to Sarah Palin ... nor was his potentially psychologically throwing the election due to his remorse about putting someone "so unqualified" a heartbeat away from the presidency. (Although it certainly is possible that he didn't want to give any unhinged Palin backers ... and every candidate has them ... a reason to get rid of that heartbeat that was keeping her from the main office.) More plausible is that he realized that because of her, he might actually win! And that scared him more than being shot down by enemy aircraft!

Yet two things are happening that the "Hate(fear) Palin" crowd did not anticipate. First, the simple fact that they are continuing to berate and lampoon her keeps her in the national news and in the public's mind. They would be well served to remember the old saying: "I don't care what you say about me, just spell my name right." There is a sense that if the liberal elites are still this concerned about her ... perhaps there are reasons why they should be.

So there is that sort of "obvious" backlash. If there had been any working brain cells left, the punditocracy would have instantly and immediately ignored Palin as though she had never existed. With no national press coverage she would have quickly "sunk back" into that distant Alaska pond from where she emerged. The pressography did Palin a huge favor ... one that they would not have had they been paying attention in class in Journalism 101 or remedial Psychology.

Yet, there is something else going on as well. Palin has been so viciously castigated by out-and-out lockstep lies ... lies that are patently obvious to those of us who knew a lot about Sarah Palin before most of the nation had ever heard of her. The witch-hunt has been so unrelenting and so intense, that it has spawned an entirely different sort of backlash: the good kind. People are obviously still fascinated with her. Many would like to believe better of her than the media does. And so we now have people who are going to tell the world the truth!

It is much more likely that Obama was born in Kenya than it is that Palin is a pawn of Big Oil, for instance. Yet because the press pooh-poohed the stories about Obama and, indeed, ripped anyone (including Sarah) who suggested that there was anything amiss that perhaps the press should look into, such stories never got traction.

Yet "everyone" seems to "know" that Sarah is a pawn of Big Oil who sold out her own state. This is ludicrous of course for any who know the facts ... but we are few and far between. However, the public's fascination and the media's refusal to let go of a bone that, had it any sense it would have spit out on election night, have led to what I believe may only be the beginning of a Palin resurgence. Presidency in 2012? It is not as crazy an idea as the elitists would have you think. Especially if people start learning the truth (and therefore start learning how badly they've been lied to)!

I haven't read this book yet. But it looks as if this is an example ... a first salvo as it were ... in the beginnings of the public redemption of Sarah Palin ... which will doubtlessly be helped along by the realization of how badly the punditocracy lied about her.

If so ... and considering the issues he faces, the unbelievable lack of experience, and the most socialistic agenda of any candidate in the nation's history ... President Obama may find himself badly beaten by a woman with lipstick and a great wink in 2012.

Rumor Mongering

2008-11-08T15:51:00.010-09:00

November 8, 2008
Rumor Mongering

While we are on the subject of how dishonorable it is to be a "bad winner" and kick someone while they are down, there appear to be more stories in the national media about Sarah Palin ... the losing Vice Presidential candidate, that there are about our President-elect, his running mate, Joe Biden-His-Time, or John McCain! It is virtually all incredibly negative and nasty, but she still elicits more coverage (which equals interest) than the rest of them! The nastiness is inexcuseable, however, and only understandable in the context of extreme fear by the liberal elites that Sarah is indeed the long-awaited return of the Messiah ... oops, sorry, that was Obama. Sarah is apparently feared to be the long-awaited return of a Ronald Reagan. It seems that anyone running for anything in the Republican party has tried to claim that title (including the outgoing President Shrub). Sarah hasn't tried. She hasn't had to. She has excited the Republicans (and a lot of Democrats) beyond anything anyone has seen on the Republican side since ... well ... since Ronald Reagan! Realize the media did its best to paint him as a mental pygmy his first couple of runs at the presidency as well. Now ... he is the most likely 5th face to be carved into Mt. Rushmore! No wonder the liberal elite is scared of her and is desperately trying to make her look stupid and vindictive even after she lost! They desperately need to bury her politically. But they won't.

Even this latest nonsense: an anonymous (way out-of-date) report allegedly by some disgruntled McCain staffer that Sarah didn't know whether Africa was a country or a continent is total bunk. As I understand it, what she really asked(according to unnamed anonymous sources :-) during the debate preparation for her one-on-one with Biden, was something like "Are we talking about the country of South Africa or the continent of Africa?" which, in the context of the conversation at the time was perfectly reasonable. I haven't discovered for sure yet whether a staffer misheard the comment and missed the "South" or if it was just an intentional hatchet job. But I'm working on it.

I am not alone in the realization that the media intentionally painted a caricature of Governor Palin and even nationally well-known Democrats who got to know her well flatly do not believe that Sarah could have been confused as to whether Africa was a country or continent. This story conveys the following (and more): a Democrat reporter, Greta Van Susteren, who interviewed Sarah Palin twice says that she was "enormously impressed at how smart she was". The Democrat who was the former communications director for Citizens for McCain, Elaine Lafferty, traveled with Sarah and got to know her well. She was also incredibly impressed at her intellect ... and that, far from being a diva, the staff absolutely loved her. Assuming that someone on the staff actually did tell Cameron about the alleged Africa confusion and other nastiness about Sarah, it would have to be, according to those who know, "sour grapes from one or two people".
I guess my latent [latent? :-)] cynicism finally emerged in full bloom after watching the press march so diligently to the beat of the exact same drummer; who was (is!) drumming a bizarre concoction of outright lies and half-truths. As noted above, for instance, even if someone associated with the campaign did mishear something that they turned into the utter nonsense that Sarah didn't know whether Africa is a country or continent, it was not a newsworthy event. Biden said dumber things daily. Obama is going to be President of all of the 57 states he had visited. But the media -- you know -- the folks that have been telling you about evey misstep that Sarah took whether it happened or not? The folks who mix the kool-aid? They would never make a mistake that could look dumb like that, could they? [Btw: I'm not a fan of political correctness (obviously :-), but the kool-aid comments started from Barack himself. See bottom line of third main paragraph.]

Let's take a quick glance at just a few of the articles from the pressography that attempt to make her look the fool on that specific issue of Africa's "continentalism":

Fox News started it all in an apparent attempt to boot-lick the winner of the election and to erase any suggestion that it had any conservative leanings, so let's start with them. Here is the headline and the opening sentence:

Fox: "Palin didn't know Africa is a continent"
06-11-08, 04:43 PM

"As Fox News's Carl Cameron reported Wednesday, that Palin thought Africa was a continent -- not a country –"

Now I realize that I am apparently too stupid, in the view of the press, to see how dumb this makes Palin look. Silly me! I thought it made Fox look dumb instead. Last time I checked ... Africa WAS a continent! Now obviously we can't blame the press for one little mistake that ... oops ... that's what they were attempting to skewer Palin for doing! Only they were probably wrong and only "name" some unnamed anonymous source for their allegations. Even though they probably have changed it by now, however, their "stupid mistake" was made in print and in plain view of millions of people. And not only in this country! As we can see from this exact quote (copied and pasted ... no editing by me at all) from the left-wing BN Village in the U.K.:

"So just how woefully unqualified was Sarah Palin? Now that the election's over, aides to John McCain's campaign are starting to dish on the former Republican vice presidential nominee. The Alaska governor who bragged about being able to see Russia from her home state was pretty uninformed on even the most basic details of the world, it appears. As Fox News's Carl Cameron reported Wednesday, Palin allegedly thought Africa was a continent -- not a country ..." [Bold emphasis was in the original, as cut and pasted.]

I obviously have erred in referring to the lock-step Palin bashers as the "national media". Clearly they were mixing kool-aid from the identical recipe "internationally"! Here's another from across the pond (although Newstin reports reports of news stories more than actually reporting news).

"Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, returned to the 49th state and denied reports that ... she thought Africa is a continent, not a country, as Fox News's Carl Cameron reported."
Closer to home, it was Newsweek that was one of the first to jump on the "kick Sarah under the bus" bandwagon:

"She was angry at [reports that she did not know that Africa].... is a continent, not a country, as Fox News's Carl Cameron reported."

I could go on at some length; there were many who used that exact quote. Apparently many "theoretically competent" news outlets and bloggers just ran with what they were given without even bothering to see if it made any sense, let alone to fact check it. And yet these are the people who think we should trust the truth and accuracy of what they tell us? Even Cameron's report was so wishy-washy it shouldn't have even been National Enquirer material. [Actually, perhaps I should apologize to the National Enquirer for that. There standards may be higher!] "Folks told us ..."? "We were told ..." all by unnamed sources weeks ago. This is trash journalism folks. And incompetent trash journalism to boot!

Reflections on Elections

2008-11-05T11:11:00.007-09:00

November 7, 2008
Reflections on Elections

I have had to take a few days and let things "settle in" before I was ready to comment. I have lots of comments already written, actually. But it is sort of like that email that you are wise enough to think about overnight before hitting "send". I have many thoughts and opinions. Some of which are clearly contradictory :-)And I want to take a bit of time before I do my "wrap-up" posts on the election.

Because ... it is now behind us and it is time for this blog to get back to doing more than simply focusing on a presidential race. [We also appear to have elected a Senator who was just convicted of a felony ... there is lots to discuss here ... and we will.]

For now though, I'd like to say ... thank you Governor Palin. I'm proud of you.

Over at the Anchorage Daily News McClatchy Mouthpiece Online Edition they are running a story entitled (at the moment, the title keeps changing: "Palin Speaks:'those guys are jerks'". They are running videos on the site of her impromptu news conference when she walked back into her office with reporters lined up waiting. She spoke of a new time in America. A time of excitement and change under Barack Obama. A time to pull together and look at America's future. And the reporters asked her asinine question after asinine question and came up with titles like "those guys are jerks" which completely distorts the entire context of everything she said. And there are hundreds of comments ... almost all from Outside Palin haters who log on to unquestioningly repeat the lies the media has been telling them like catechisms and to sneer and gloat and say vicious things about her.

I finally couldn't stand it any longer and added a comment:

"My mother taught me that being a bad loser was a dishonorable thing ... but that being a bad winner was *much* worse. Gloating winners demonstrate an incredible lack of class - trying to kick someone while she's down (which doesn't speak well to their upbringing - someone should have a talk with *their* mothers :-)

It is of note that post-election Sarah *still* has a 68%-70% approval rating in Alaska; the highest of any Governor! Alaska thought she was by far the strongest and best part of the ticket. McCain was way down in the primaries and he and Palin got ~62% of the presidential election vote, much lower than her approval rating. Rasmussen's latest says 69% of the Alaska Republicans thought she *helped* McCain. So, folks, just ignore the jeering of children (whatever their age!). And thanks, Governor, for having vastly more class than they do!"

I think I'll leave this at that for now. I don't mind a candidate I back losing an election! I almost never vote for anyone who wins :-)

But the vileness of the jeers and character assassination is utterly disgusting. There were some Alaskans posting also. Not many. A few of them were trying to stem the tide and say positive things about our Governor. But they were drown out. I'm also ashamed to say that there were some who at least claimed to be Alaskans who joined in the jeering orgy. Of them I'm more ashamed than any.

Opening the Troopergate

2008-11-03T16:19:00.059-09:00

November 3, 2008
Opening the Troopergate

Now that it is essentially too late the non-partisan (and procedurally valid) investigation of the nonsense the punditocracy labeled "Troopergate" has been released. The only truly remarkable part of it is that the McClatchy-owned Alaska Daily News titled their article on it: "New Troopergate Report Clears Palin".

Apparently now that it is too late for most of the electorate to learn about it in time to make a difference they decide they can be honest with the title.

As was crystal clear all along to those of us who were paying attention, the new legitimate!) report finds that:

- There is no cause to believe Palin violated the state ethics law in deciding to dismiss Monegan as public safety commissioner.

- There is no cause to believe Palin violated the state ethics law in connection with Wooten.

- There is no cause to believe any other state official violated the ethics act.

- There's no basis to conduct a hearing to "address reputational harm," as requested by Monegan.

As a matter of fact, I read the inital "Troopergate report" and it also exonerated Governor Palin, although not quite as definitively. And I said so! I titled my article "Mediagate aka Troopergate Report" because I thought the real travesty was the fact that the Alaska McClatchy News (aka Alaska Daily News) decided to entitle the article on the initial report "Troopergate report: Palin abused power" even though the primary finding of that first report was that what Palin did was "proper and lawful".

In fact, much of the coverage of this entire election by the jack-booted punditocracy marching in lock-step to destroy Palin's reputation should be a tremendous "Mediagate" scandal.

I would rail at some length about that, but time is too short. The world frankly needs to know about this even though it is probably too late to do any good. So, excuse me while I go attempt to inform them :-)

The Final Lap (was "Construction")

2008-10-25T18:08:00.052-08:00

November 1, 2008
The Final Lap (was "Construction")

I've been doing some work on the site. I hope to have a real menu system working soon. Meantime ... most of the best material regarding Governor Palin and this election is in the September and October archives, so just hit the > on the >9(16) and/or >10(14) above to get a list, or just scroll down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Obviously, I'm not going to have this function fixed before the elections, so it will simply have to wait. I haven't posted much here for the last few days either; although I think I've written as much in the last week as this entire blog contains! I've instead been writing comments in the blogs of others or in news stories. Sometimes Muhammad must go to the mountain. [Oops. That might not be an appropriate phrase to use at this critical juncture of history, religion and politics!:-)]

But 1/3 of the electorate will vote before election day in this brave new experiment we are attempting to enable even more people who have no clue what the issues are to be hauled to the polls. (Sorry, was my cynicism showing? :-) As a result ... we are already effectively on election eve. We must focus our efforts in convincing those who vote the way I Christmas shop (making all my decisions and purchases the day before Christmas :-)! For those that vote that way, we need to get them the word and quickly!

Please remember [see below post as to why this is true] this is not over! The liberal elite knows it isn't also and they are scared. So scared that there are warnings (even to folks in foreign countries) that if Obama loses there will be blood in the streets and civil war. Read this, then let's win this thing and we can all be remorseful that we caused Jane Fonda's back to hurt even worse: Erica Jong Freaks Out.

I accidentally ran into something I must construe as complimentary, btw. If you run the word "ridda" on Google, you will find a summary of an article from this blog published by nowpublic.com with proper attribution and requests for comments and fact checking! On page 1 of Google! I had no idea we'd made nowpublic or that we would be on the first page of Google in any form at this point. [Ed. note: we got bumped from page one to page three on Google; oh well :-)] On the nowpublic site they make an excellent comment that ... if such is true, we need this to go viral essentially immediately. I agree.

At the moment, I seem to be able to reach more people more quickly by commenting elsewhere than blogging here (although I usually do refer folks here for a fuller discussion of a point I've made elsewhere). A result of all my postings elsewhere is that I've drafted enough new material to add greatly to this blog, both in substance and quantity. Unfortunately, by the time I could get it here and edited into shape for this blog, the election would be over! :-)

The apostasy issue is huge and the press has intentionally kept it as hidden as possible. American Muslims that speak out simply are not reported. And the Islamic countries have their own reasons (sometimes different ones for different countries) for not wanting the issue raised. It is also possible that some Islamic countries have been trying to get the word out and our lockstep press has been ignoring them. That issue, and so many others, have simply not reached the public yet. It is critical to get word out as quickly as possible. Chain letter it if necessary. Send the site url and a "teaser" paragraph on a topic that you find important to 10 of your friends and ask them to each send to 1o and so forth. A valid and helpful use of the "pyramid" technique.

The second most important thing we must do is NOT GIVE UP (sorry about the shouting). That is what the Obamanation wants you to do. If McCain/Palin supporters figure it is hopeless they aren't as likely to brave the rainstorm or line up a baby-sitter or do whatever they need to do to get to the polls. Make them understand ... use the article below ... that it is not hopeless and that we desperately need a huge turnout. The democrats will be busing people for days on the "vote early, vote often" theory. Well, let's hope I was joking about the "often" part. But we must do the same.

Despite the above cite where Erica Jong demonstrates the level of panic among the liberal elites, my belief remains that the Obama camp, and likely voters, suffer from overconfidence which is their possible undoing. It is time for us to do all we can to help Senator McCain pull off his Lazarus imitation one more time and win this thing. Thanks folks. Let's do this!

The Fat Lady Ain't Singing

2008-10-25T11:14:00.022-08:00

October 25, 2008
The Fat Lady Ain't Singing

I’m starting to run into a sense of defeatism - or at least tangible pessimism - by the pro-McCain/Palin camp. It runs from hard-core solid McCain supporting bloggers (eg: TexasFred's comment beneath the linked story) to the few pro-McCain journalists that run in the mainstream media (eg: Krauthhammer talking of all the conservative "ship-jumpers" who want to be on the winning side.) Only a few days from the elections and polls are showing Obama having a nearly double digit lead. In fact, some polls are showing Obama has a double digit lead.

McCain supporters are beginning to lose hope and Obama backers are already breaking out the champagne.

This article should help the McCain folks regain some of that hope and should convince the Obama folks not to pop any corks yet.

I certainly wouldn’t want to wager my retirement income [oh wait, that disappeared in the financial meltdown and is already gone ... never mind] on McCain and Palin pulling this off. But I don't think the McCain/Palin supporters should be ready to throw in the towel yet. I’m listening really closely and the fat lady isn’t singing yet.

To some extent it is realistic to believe that McCain never really had a chance because he was playing in a rigged game with marked cards. Or, as Newt Gingrich and I separately said on the same day purely coincidentally [at least I doubt he’s getting his guidance from my blog and I hadn’t seen his comment when I first wrote mine] ... "the fix is in".

Well, the fix has been in from the beginning. There is no way that Obama on his own could have made it to the point of being a presidential contender. He is way too young, fresh, unknown and inexperienced. No ... he didn’t get there on the merits. He was chosen. Ultimately "by whom" is a fascinating question. Who is the real puppeteer? Who pulls the strings? Who are we really electing when (if!) we swear Obama in as President? I don’t know. But he was selected and then handed to the Chicago machine and used as a charming, naive front man. I think Obama probably believes he got where he is on his own merits ("woke up on third and thought he must have hit a triple"). But he’s just a pretty face with the ability to read a teleprompter speech well.

I know I’m beginning to sound like Hilary and her "vast right-wing conspiracy". But whoever is running the Chicago machine (or perhaps is even the puppet master of the Chicago machine as well), has the national pressography in lock-step compliance. Virtually the entire mainstream media (with some possible exceptions ... or perhaps only a few "apparent" exceptions so that it doesn’t look any more obvious than it does) is acting as campaign workers for Obama. "Someone" even managed to "get to" Powell and convince him to turn on his very good and close friend of decades. After much thought ... I cannot believe that Powell truly believes what he said, (although it is true that he has clearly shown extremely bad judgment before). He does not appear to be an easy man to intimidate and I’ve always believed he was too honorable to be bribed. So I don’t know how they did it. But I believe "someone" must have.

In a rigged game ... did McCain ever stand a chance?

Oddly, the answer is yes. And oddly I believe that is largely due to something that is widely perceived as a dangerous character flaw in McCain: he is a gambler. Literally, as in spending time playing the craps tables in Vegas; and figuratively in that he is willing to roll the dice on decisions that drive the RNC and his own staff up the wall (his selection of Governor Palin as running mate is an excellent example). McCain has been playing in rigged games all his life and knows how to beat the house even when the cards are stacked against him.

He had (by all appearances) zero chance prior to his Palin selection. The question was just how badly he was going to be beat. Obama was the anointed one. To suggest that Obama's ego got a little carried away with itself is putting it much too mildly :-) He was so certain that he was selected by "higher powers" to this role he gained a Messiah complex. He is right that he was selected by higher powers. But they are very earthly powers. They deal in back rooms and hide, perhaps in plain view. But whoever they really are, these the Powers that Be ("PTB") possess enormous power and influence.

Vegas wouldn’t have even run a line on McCain at that point. He was "just another Bush"; an ultimate Washington insider who had voted with the President way too often for his own electoral good. Essentially anyone that was on the bandied about list of his "likely choices" would have assured the defeat that looked like a forgone conclusion.

So he did what all experienced gamblers do when they see the cards are marked: he brought out a new deck and shuffled. He chose someone the Obama camp and the PTB had not anticipated nor planned on how to respond. And he caused absolute and total panic among all the Obama supporters, the media, the left-wing blogs ... and Obama himself (who allegedly took up smoking again very shortly after hearing the news).

After the initial panic, the entire "vast left-wing conspiracy" [:-)] went to work bringing their considerable resources to attempt to destroy the public image of Palin and to use her as an example of McCain’s poor judgment. As one who actually knows a fair bit about our Governor (and did long before she was selected - see various posts below), it is mind-boggling to me the lengths to which the media has gone to attempt to discredit her as a credible candidate. She is nothing like the caricature the media has painted of her. No negative rumor, no matter how bizarre and unsubstantiated, is too loony for the punditocracy to print about her. If there is absolutely no substantiation, the press can (and does) go with their standard fall-back position by pointing out that there isn’t much to substantiate the rumor. It is a journalistic trick as old as the profession of muckraking.

"The widely reported story that, yet again, Sarah Palin was found passed out from booze and pills in a hotel bathroom has not been sufficiently documented that we are able to attest to its veracity."

I haven’t actually seen that headline yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I did.

And it has had an enormous effect. The PTB are back in apparent control, Obama is warning against overconfidence, which is excellent evidence that he is overconfident!

But the fat lady ain’t singing yet.

John McCain has been dead and buried, only to rise again, so many times that Lazarus is jealous. Based on that alone I wouldn’t count him out. But there are other reasons not to believe the fight is over or that McCain can’t pull it off.

The first is that a lot of polling is done with the express purpose of attempting to show whoever the pollsters (or whoever hires them) wants to win is doing so. This is because there is a widely held belief (which I don’t know is accurate, but don’t dispute), that, in general, Americans (or perhaps anyone) are sheep that want to be on the winning side and so if the poll shows that Obama has a comfortable lead and the lead is widening ... people will be more inclined to vote for him. I’ve never truly understood that psychology (but as I say, I don’t dispute that it is real), but that may simply be because I’m inherently a contrarian who tends to float upstream and swim against the tide.

Poll results are all manipulated to "adjust" the raw data for such things as the pollster’s belief in the likelihood of whether certain identified groups of respondents are likely to vote, or to make the sample mirror the actual population in things such as gender, party affiliation, race, age, etc. Beyond that, the exact wording of the question is critical and minor changes in what is asked and how it is asked can bring dramatic changes to the final results. Ultimately this means that a poll can be heavily manipulated to produce desired results.

So I take all national polls with a grain of salt. I don’t know what McCain’s own pollsters are discovering. But he isn’t looking discouraged enough for me to believe that they agree with Pew or McClatchy.

There is another, very powerful, reason to not give up hope. People lie.

It is PC now to be an Obama backer and very un-PC to think highly of Palin or to suggest that you might actually vote for the McCain ticket. And, sheep that we are, people don’t want to appear un-PC. So they lie. They lie to their friends, they lie to their co-workers, they lie to reporters ... and they even lie to telephone pollsters (because no one is ever really sure that their responses will be kept confidential).

This is particularly true in this race for several reasons, one of the main ones being that Obama is black. There is a sense that if you oppose Obama, you must be a racist and in this day and age that is the last thing that anyone would want to be accused of. So they tell everyone that, of course, they are going to vote for Obama. But in the privacy of the voting booth, many of those people will pull the lever for McCain.

And then they’ll lie to the pollsters on their way out of the voting place.

This same thing happened four years ago. I predicted then that, even though Kerry was comfortably ahead in the polls, that once inside the booth, a lot of people who said they were Kerry supporters would vote for Bush and would lie about it afterwards. I said that if I was correct, the exit polls would be way off and that the actual vote would be much higher for Bush than the exit polls show.

I was dead on.

When I re-tooled this blog a couple months ago, I brought along some of my old postings. Many of the links didn’t survive the transfer or the linked site is gone now, but they are still sufficient to show, not to put too fine a point on it, that I was absolutely, unarguably, "I told you so" right! :-).

I don’t know whether this phenomenon will be sufficient to put McCain in the winner’s circle. I’m not ready to call the election on his behalf yet. But I do believe that it will have a very real effect and that, once again, the Republican ticket is going to do significantly better at the actual ballot box than they do in the polls.

So it isn’t time for McCain's supporters to give up. That alone can become a self-fulfilling prophecy; whether because of the sheep phenomena by which people want to be on the winning side to just not bothering to vote since it is a "lost cause" anyway. Between McCain’s gambler instincts and his Lazarus imitations ... and my belief that people lie to pollsters, I’m not at all convinced that Obama has this one in the bag yet. And there still could be an "October surprise" which may make a major difference in the election (whether in McCain or Obama’s favor, I have no idea).

But the election isn’t over until it’s over. The fat lady isn’t going to sing until the 4th of next month. No matter what the pollsters and the media tell you.

Smeared Lipstick; the Media's Attempt to Destroy Sarah Palin

2008-10-23T21:54:00.007-08:00

October 22, 2008
Smeared Lipstick; the Media's Attempt to Destroy Sarah Palin

As they say in boxing: the fix is in. [I discovered after writing this that I wasn't the first one to use that phrase to describe the current situation.] The pressography will do anything it can to destroy the public image of Governor Palin.

We are in the midst of two wars and the biggest financial meltdown since the Great Depression. We have major issues regarding how to provide our energy needs and our health care and so many other issues. We are only a few days before the election between candidates with dramatically different ideologies and proposed solutions to those problems and others ... and the main political story of the day in the mainstream media and left-wing blogosphere is the cost of Sarah Palin's wardrobe!

There are only two possibilities: either the game is rigged or the media are chock-full of blithering idiots.

I'm not paranoid by nature, but I'm beginning to believe option one!

This is a total "nonstory" and is completely consistent with the phony caricature image the media has been trying to paint of Sarah. This is just another attempt by the punditocracy to make Palin look as bad as possible. No one's tax money was spent. The RNC has the right to do whatever it wants with money that people have contributed to it. If anyone has a right to gripe it could only be contributors to the RNC. No one else has any legitimate interest or complaint. And people who contribute to the RNC do so giving the RNC full discretion on how to spend those funds. It may or may not have been money well spent. If it helps bring in votes because she looks more "professionally acceptable" to the urban and urbane voters, it absolutely was good judgment, if it doesn't, it wasn't. But contributors to the RNC let the RNC make such judgments. They are pros. They have a better idea of how to allocate funds to maximize the votes they bring in than any of us armchair analysts.

Virtually every Alaskan quoted about her in the national media is opposed to her and has terrible things to say about her, including utter lies about her racism towards the Native people that make absolutely no sense (the reporter for this article apparently didn't realize that her husband was part Yupik when he made up the racist lies. This from a state where she had an absolutely unreal 90%+ approval rating. That should be enough to make any thinking person understand and realize that the national smear campaign is on.

In addition to the serious issues facing the country, there are also critical, significant unanswered questions about Senator Obama. There is a serious question as to whether Obama is an apostate. There are legitimate questions, complete with lawsuits, on whether he is a lawful resident of the U.S. There are major questions regarding his his judgment in his choice of long-term friends, associates and mentors; some of whom are truly scary people including avowed communists, his "hate America" pastor and convicted terrorist felons. These allegations may turn out to be valid or the may turn out to be invalid. But they need to be brought out into the light of day and examined. Can it truly be that the cost of Sarah's shoes is a more important topic than these?

Governor Sarah Palin has, alone among the four candidates, actually run a government. Being in the legislature where you have "opinions" and a vote and then another vote and an "I voted against it before I voted for it" mentality is completely different from being the head administrator of the government. Aren't Sarah's accomplishments as Governor on issues such as free trade (along with the other candidate's "opinions") more important than the cost of her suit jacket? Apparently not according to the punditocracy. The costs of her wardrobe were on the front page of the New York Times!

It is clear that until McCain made the surprising and shockingly brilliant selection of Palin for a running mate, Obama and the puppeteers behind him were certain they had the Presidency locked up. And ... if McCain had chosen almost anyone else, Obama would have been correct. But they had never suspected that Palin was a real option and were not prepared to campaign against her. The absolute and obvious panic of Obama and the left-wing Democrats was fascinating.

There was no way they could beat her on the merits. She is probably better qualified than any of the other three to be President. She was the head of the Oil and Gas Commission in Alaska (a powerful position in this State). She resigned in protest over the rampant corruption; ran for Governor on a "throw out the crooks" platform; won by a landslide ... and did just that. She teamed well and comfortably with the honest Democrats. She fought Big Oil. The bad guys got indicted, she instituted a windfalls profit tax which hurt the oil companies, but was more fair than the deals that they'd received in the past from their bought and paid for Legislature. And then she gave a bunch of that money to every person in the state to help offset the huge rise in fuel and energy costs. Along the way she gained great respect from the Big Oil companies and works well with them. Once they learned that she was uncorruptible; that she couldn't be bullied or bought ... they played the game legit. She has had tremendous executive experience that none of the other three could hope to match. Obama's only chance was to convince the punditocracy to lie and destroy her by a constant barrage of negative, indeed nasty, vicious images of her even if they had to be "made up" or repeat as gospel totally unverifiable (and wrong) rumors. The mainstream press absolutely refuses to give the public any sort of balanced picture about her. I'm sure he and the press feel somewhat secure in doing so because Alaska is far away and little known. Lying about it and people from it is easier than from any other state.

And lie they did. Certainly there are honest reporters and bloggers who simply disagree with her. That's fine. I'm all for competition in the marketplace of ideas. What scares me (and I'm not a man that frightens easily) is that way too much of the pressosphere [the press and the big blogs that, through links and advertising have simply become "part of the system"] is too willing to lie in lockstep. There is more going on here than we are aware. I'm not of the paranoid persuation, but the attempted destruction of Sarah Palin is too widespread and too well coordinated to be legitimate reporting.

The woman I know as Governor of this State does not resemble the image you have of her if you have listened only to the media. Read the articles in this blog. Many of the best background articles on her are in the September archives. Just press the >9(19) button at the top under archives for a list of titles, or just scroll down and see what strikes your fancy. Follow my links. You will discover an entirely different person than you thought she was. And you will, I hope, wonder how this could be. I don't know the answer to that ... yet. But I do know that "when elephants play, the grass gets trampled". There are hidden elephants behind Obama's improbable rise. And you and I are grass.

General Powell; Fatally Flawed

2008-10-19T19:13:00.012-08:00

October 19, 2008
General Powell; Fatally Flawed

I appear to be reacting instead of acting lately! General Powell's endorsement of Obama brought to the surface some very strong feelings of betrayal that had sort of gotten buried a bit by time. But when they hit, they hit hard. I still honestly believe General Powell to be a good man. I used to believe he might even be a great man. But I learned, to my great disappointment, that his "fatal flaw" is that his judgment and recommendations are simply not to be trusted.

At one time I had a great deal of respect for General Powell. That was before he stood before the United Nations and stared us all in the eye and lied about the existence of WMDs in Iraq, claiming personal knowledge that he knew this to be true. I think the war in Iraq is an abomination and horrendously immoral [and said so, loudly, long before "shock & awe" when I was a very lonely voice].

I wasn't blogging then, but see this from "the last time around": four years ago, shortly after that election:

http://alaskanwoulds.blogspot.com/2008/09/monday-november-08-2004-preemptive.html

I wouldn't have been so lonely in opposing the war initially if General Powell had not made the case for the war ... by flat-out lying. Lots of people who didn't trust Bush trusted Powell. And he sold us down the river. We might never have got into that immoral disaster that has ruined our standing in the world and destroyed our economy (and had more additional negative effects than there is room to list) if it hadn't been for Powell.

This is a link to the verbatim transcript of what he said (plus video, plus copies of the slides he showed ... everything). It was a few years ago so you've probably forgotten parts; it is well worth reading again:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030205-1.html

For those who can't be bothered, a few specific quotes ... the exact words of General Powell:

"My colleagues, every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence."

"Saddam Hussein and his regime are not just trying to conceal weapons, they're also trying to hide people."

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts, corroborated by many sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries."

"I believe that Iraq is now in further material breach of its obligations. I believe this conclusion is irrefutable and undeniable."

"Ladies and gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce anthrax and botulinum [sic] toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. And dry agent of this type is the most lethal form for human beings."

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction."

"Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets ... Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein has no compunction about using them again, against his neighbors and against his own people."

"People will continue to debate this issue, but there is no doubt in my mind, these elicit procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to produce fissile material."

"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more."

"The United States will not and cannot run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world."

And to top it all off, he basically asks the world (and us) to trust him (as so many did because we believed we could) by saying:

"I cannot tell you everything that we know."

And that is just a few tiny snippets ... he really lays it on thick. And we know that he wasn't just innocently making a mistake! He ran the State Department and he insisted that "we know". And we now know that he absolutely did not know and in fact a lot of the supposed evidence was forged, fraudulent junk!

So who is starting to look more like the "continuation of George Bush" now? Bush and Powell lied to us and by doing so did us incalculable damage. Now we have Obama, a proven liar, glowing in the endorsement of the most destructive liar we've experienced in a very long time.

Thank goodness Powell didn't endorse McCain! For any thinking person who believes that we shouldn't have attacked Iraq (one of whom Obama claims to be!), an endorsement by the liar that got us there should be considered the kiss of death. [Yeah, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld ... they all lied also ... but most of us didn't trust them! We, myself included I'm ashamed to say, did trust Powell. When he said we should go to war because he knew Iraq had WMDs I was almost physically ill because someone I respected so much said that (and that was without having a clue that he was lying!).

Well, I don't respect him nearly so much now (although I tried to regain some over the years by attempting to convince myself that he was just repeating what he had been told, but that just isn't a good enough justification - nor is it true - nor is it what he said. He said he knew that Saddam had WMDs) ... but once again he has proven his judgment has huge holes in it. Both his assertion that he knew Saddam still had WMDs and that we should take him out because of it ... and his endorsement of Obama are terrible, terrible judgments.

If his endorsement proves critical to Obama winning, Powell will have the singular distinction of being the only non-president who has led this nation into its two worst mistakes of the last few decades.

I might well have voted for Powell for President in 2000 if he would have run. That's one of the things that keeps me aware that even my own judgment can be wrong; a realization that is clearly not shared by many other bloggers or posters :-)

Commander Palin

2008-10-19T15:58:00.007-08:00

October 18, 2008
Commander Palin

I know we were talking about Obama, but I ran into a post elsewhere that irritated me so I'm doing a quick "response" for those who might be confused enough by the blather to believe the idiot (I'm sorry ... but that poster is an idiot, not just uninformed like many).

The post denigrated both Palin and Alaska's National Guard (and her relationship and responsibilities regarding it). So let me get some facts out there for those who are legitimately uninformed (given the news media "misinformed" may be more common), but in either case please be aware of the following:

Alaska's National Guard is the elite Guard force in the country and the elite of the elites of all arctic fighting forces and is universally considered to be so among those who know about such things. The U.S. Marines (as well as the Army) send their troops up to be trained by and to learn from our National Guard.

America's first line of missile interceptor defense (protecting the entire U.S.) is the 49th Missile Defense Battalion of the Alaska National Guard and Sarah Palin, as Governor of Alaska, is the Commander in Chief of that Defense Battalion.

As such, she is (and was long before any veep candidacy was even considered) routinely briefed on highly classified military issues, homeland security, and counter terrorism by the federal "powers that be". It is an entirely different situation from any other state governor because in most states the national guard is a sort of minor afterthought. In Alaska, it is a big thing and a major part of America's defense system.

In fact, Sarah has a higher classified security rating than EITHER Obama or Biden! She is already entrusted with more national security information than either of them are allowed! (In fact, I have wondered a bit at some of her early apparent "airheadedness" in interviews regarding the international situation and national defense ... and I've come to believe that she was really unsure at first what, if anything, she was allowed to say.) I assume that got cleared up as she has since shown she can certainly hold her own in that arena (even with an acknowledged foreign affairs expert like Biden during her debate with him). She has been taught to keep a secret and she does so. If it is one she is sworn to uphold (such as regarding national security or foreign affairs) she, as a matter of character, would rather be viewed as an airhead than to reveal anything that she shouldn't.

As a result, I think she simply clammed up and accepted looking dumb until she was definitively briefed on where that line was. (If you recall, she was the last of the four candidates to be briefed because she was the last announced and had not gone through the formal security briefing that the candidates all receive at the time of those early interviews ... and she already knew stuff that they couldn't and therefore didn't tell Obama or Biden because of her clearance level. So, I think she simply had not had a chance to get a definitive determination on what she could and could not reveal at that point ... she was thrown into this thing in such a surprise whirlwind that there probably just hadn't been a chance for it before the press got their hands on her.) This paragraph is conjecture. The others are not.

This one is not conjecture either: she met with McCain in February (!) ... and no one ever knew about it (except the tiny handful of people involved). This is a lady that can keep a secret! (In fact ... only tangentially related, but remember how long she kept her recent pregnancy a secret!) She can be trusted with our national security secrets. And, indeed, she already is.

I found it interesting that in his interview regarding her, Major General Craig E. Campbell who was the Major General and head of the Alaska National Guard (and therefore reported to Palin), noted that Palin had ordered troops and helicopters to Louisiana to help with the hurricane damage just the week before the interview. She didn't check with any federal agency or ... anyone. She received a request for help from the Governor of Louisiana and she deployed our troops and 'copters to help out. Even from here we probably got there and did more good more quickly than the federal folks! [You really should see the interview ... he says much more, and says it much more eloquently than I ... as he knows a lot more about it than I.]

But the Major General reported to Palin, not to the President or anyone else. Until and unless the Guard is nationalized (which happens on occasion - eg: our troops in Iraq), she is the sole Commander in Chief. And she was (is) an active and involved one ... even visiting our (Alaska's) National Guard troops in Kuwait long before anyone had considered her for the veep seat.

Those people who claim that her assertion that being Commander of the Alaska National Guard aided her foreign policy knowledge and experience is fluffery and that she was a "Commander" in name only; that it didn't mean anything substantive ... are either uninformed, misinformed, or intentionally misinforming.

She still knows things about our national security that Obama (and Biden) do not, and are not allowed to know!

Thank you for letting me clear the air on that. I feel better now :-)

Post-Debate: McCain's Only Chance Now

2008-10-16T01:57:00.007-08:00

October 16, 2008

Post-Debate: McCain's Only Chance Now
He lost the debate ... at least in the mind of the public and they are the ones that ultimately decide these things. He is way behind, depending on which poll you follow. Time is about out. He has, absent an unexpected major event, only one realistic chance, imho. That chance is that the following (well researched, well documented) article is widely read and understood. This issue was raised briefly many months ago then it "disappeared" from the punditocracy. Somewhat to my surprise (I was dubious when I first looked into it) it appears to be accurate and a potentially serious concern. (Also I now have some thoughts and theories on why the Islamic world is keeping mum on it until after the elections).

There aren't many life-rings left to throw to McCain's campaign. If you agree with this please tell everybody to come and read and add what they know in the comments section. I'm sure there is much that can be added to this and your comments will help the spreading of this understanding to gather momentum. If you (intelligently) disagree ... if you can find where I've made mistakes of fact or logic ... please tell me that also! I'm not on a witch hunt. You'll see I've not been totally supportive of McCain if you read some of my other posts. I have an open mind here. Convince me and I'll change it!

This is a critical issue! If this is right, we don't dare elect Obama! And ...

Uurgh. I can tell this blog is getting too "heavy". I know these are critical issues, but sometimes a little humor is necessary to take the edge off. So take a couple minutes and watch this "thoughtful commentary" on electing Barack Hussein Obama! :-)

Back to "heavy". This really is a critical issue. And the campaign season is nearly over. It really may be that if people understand (the post below this), McCain wins; and if they don't, Obama does.