HEINOUS, MONSTROUS ACCUSATIONS HURLED FROM THE DEMS AND DEM: ALITO TYPIFIED AS “PLACID” AND “MONOCHROMATIC.”

_______________________

I am sorry, but I am sad to report that, because the ultimate stops were pulled out by the DEM and Dems, the confirmation of Judge Samuel Alito is all but over. Mr. Alito will likely remove himself from the confirmation process and further, I predict will step down from the bench and begin selling shoes at Kinneys. His legal career is, for all intents and purposes, now ended.

As well it should be!

My first note: the DEM (Defeatist Elitist Media) calls Mr. Alito “placid” and “monochromatic.” The nerve of him, to retain some clearly conspiratorial amount of composure in front of those who are his betters! Likely he was thinking, whilst daring to quote ridiculously Jurassic “case law” back at his questioners, of the rapidly escalating value of his Halliburton stock, all the while knowing the company was appropriately conducting the rapine and pillaging of defenseless third world nations populated only by persons with a melanin content higher than his own!

In addition, on Wednesday, in response to the softball questions thrown at him by Dems who need to step up and acquire a spine, Alito said: “In interpreting the Constitution, I think we should look to the text of the Constitution, and we should look to the meaning that someone would have taken from the text of the Constitution at the time of its adoption.”

Once again, A-“lie”-to declines to just answer questions directly and refers to our ancient and flawed parchment called the Constitution, refusing to believe that it truly is and should be interpreted as a Living Document, whose meaning and intent should be rapidly changing in order to expand the boundaries of sociologically progressive behavior, to better match our more sophisticated European brethren and sistren. He would have us believe that something scratched out by wrinkled, pathetic, slave-owning white men in the lull between bouts of monetary debauchery and oppression is worthy, some 200+ years later, of reverence and respect.

That is what is to be taken from these hearings!

“You can infer from the areas in which he is willing to talk and not willing to talk,” said Mr. Mark Tushnet, a law professor at Georgetown University, who (rightly!) opposes Judge Alito’s confirmation. “The only inference you can draw is that he doesn’t agree with the abortion decisions.” It is a clear extrapolation, then, that our northern and southern borders will be clogged with the female traffic of poor women seeking abortions who cannot do so in their very own country of origin, once A-“lie”-to places his groomed and elitist posterior on the dyed leather bottom of a Supreme Court chair.

And finally, we must remember that the Republicans and Mr. Alito are much more clever and conspiratorial than even the Dems had conjured, stooping to heretofore shameless depths by daring to bring his wife into the hearings, conspicuously placing her at perfect camera angles and then, on obvious cue, having her leave the hearing room yesterday in a shower of crocodile tears, acquired after likely sticking a concealed pin into her leg as her arm slipped, unseen, to the side of her chair. Unwarranted histrionics carried out in theatrical fashion for the unwashed, NASCAR-watching, easily-duped electorate!

Luckily, it seemed clear that Judge Alito, in contrast to John G. Roberts Jr., will draw few if any Democratic votes in the committee when his nomination goes to the full Senate.

Democratic Senator Schumer hit the nail on the head when he said: “As your testimony in these hearings come to a close, I just have to tell you that I remain very troubled, not by anything in your personal history, so much as by your judicial views. Unfortunately, by refusing to confront our questions directly and by giving us responses that really don’t illuminate how you really think, as opposed to real answers, many of us have no choice but to conclude that you still embrace those views completely or in large part.”

Once again, the Democrats have done all the right things at the right time in order to save the very foundations of our progressive American society! There will be no need for a filibuster; everyone present could see Alito is nothing more than another Bush boot-licking, craven, sniveling jackanape.

I will occasionally frequent left wing blogs, internet publications and institutions because I, well, I can’t say I “enjoy” reading how the other half lives, but at least I consider myself more well informed.

That said, I’ve noticed a number of these blogs tend to believe the H5N1 avian flu is simply an overblown myth perpetuated by right wingers and their concomitant media sycophants in an attempt to announce a falling sky. I have yet to nail down why this appears to be a thread on the left. Literally, on the other hand, the media I value, blogs and all, appear to be taking H5N1 very seriously — as I would recommend you do.

I would recommend we all start paying very close attention.

What started out as merely rumor a year or so ago is now close to paralyzing the country of Turkey. The news on avian bird flu is becoming geometric. Let’s examine some of the more recent stories.

From Van, Turkey, January 10th:

Sumeyya Mamuk considered the chickens in her backyard to be beloved pets. The 8-year-old girl fed them, petted them and took care of them. When they started to get sick and die, she hugged them and tenderly kissed them goodbye. The next morning, her face and eyes were swollen and she had a high fever. Her father took her to a hospital, and five days later she was confirmed to have the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu.

Following a few tense days when her family worried if she would recover, Summeya’s condition has improved due to quick treatment with the antiviral drug Tamiflu, said Dr. Huseyin Avni Sahin, chief physician at the Van 100th Year Hospital.

But at least two other children have died of the same virus in Turkey, and as of Tuesday, 15 people had tested positive for infection in preliminary tests. Many are children.
The disease also appears to be spreading.

From Ankara, Turkey, January 9th:

Turkey’s bird flu crisis deepened on Monday after the health ministry announced that five more people had been infected with the deadliest strain of the virus and the government faced intense criticism of its handling of the worsening outbreak.

Fourteen people have now contracted the H5N1 strain of the virus in Turkey, according to Recep Akdag, the health minister. Three of them – children from the same family – died last week. The children’s six-year-old brother was released from hospital in the eastern city of Van on Monday after apparently not contracting the virus.

The WHO have confirmed on Monday evening that all the 14 cases are H5N1, which scientists believe could cause a global pandemic of bird flu if it can be transmitted from person to person. WHO officials said there was no evidence that such mutation was occurring in the Turkish cases and that infections were most likely to be caused by close contact with infected poultry.

From Greece, January 10th:

Greece on alert for bird flu contamination from Turkey: Greece’s health services were on alert Tuesday to resist possible bird flu contamination from neighbouring Turkey, where two people have died from the H5N1 strain of the virus.

The Greek government stressed that both the relevant health authorities and poultry farmers were fully aware of the situation, the semi-official Athens News Agency (ANA) reported. Officials on the northeastern border with Turkey were spraying incoming vehicles with disinfectant as a precaution, “We’re not particularly worried, just cautious,” Michalis Kougioumtzis, deputy prefect of the local Evros region, told the agency. He added that prefecture officials were also monitoring local poultry units, and inspecting migratory bird samples obtained from hunters.

All samples have proved negative so far, Kougioumtzis said. In Turkey, an official in the western province of Aydin said that the virus had been identified in birds in Kusadasi, a popular resort on the western Aegean coast that faces the Greek island of Samos.”The European Union and Greece, a country that neighbours Turkey, are fully aware and fully informed of the situation prevalent in Turkey,” Greek Foreign Minister Petros Molyviatis told reporters on Tuesday.

“All necessary measures have already been taken, and any additional measures deemed necessary will also be taken,” he said.

On Monday night, Greek Health Minister Nikitas Kaklamanis told parliament that there were plans to supply embassy and consular staff in Turkey with Tamiflu, an inhibitor thought to ease flu symptoms, AFP reports.

From Turkey, January 9th:

DOGUBAYAZIT, Turkey (Reuters) – There are no signs that the bird flu virus spreading in Turkey is being passed among humans, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday. The WHO has confirmed four human bird flu cases in Turkey, including the deaths of two siblings last week from Dogubayazit in the eastern part of the country.

“At the moment there is no element in this village indicating human-to-human transmission. It’s typically similar to what we have seen so far (in Asia),” Guenael Roider, head of the WHO’s Turkey mission, told Reuters Television. He was part of a team investigating the bird flu in the east of Turkey.

Turkish authorities say 14 people have tested positive for the deadly bird flu virus including three siblings from Dogubayazit who have died. The WHO said other cases had not so far been verified by laboratory tests.

Two points I guarantee you’ve not read; first:

Next week, a major vaccine manufacturer plans to start producing a shot that is designed to protect people against bird flu — even though it’s far from clear that a human vaccine developed now will be effective if the virus shifts into a more virulent form.

The disease has so far killed fewer than 80 people worldwide. But if the virus mutates and starts a global pandemic, it will take four to six months to design and start producing a vaccine based on that new virus. So the U.S. government is spending more than $160 million this year to build a small stockpile of vaccine based on the version of the flu virus that’s killing birds today.

People simply don’t know how long flu vaccines last. They are tailor-made for each season, and whatever isn’t used is thrown away. That’s one reason some other nations are not planning to stockpile this bird flu vaccine. Robertson says the other big reason is that the next flu pandemic may have nothing whatsoever to do with the H5N1 bird flu. And even if it does, that virus could change so much between now and a pandemic that a vaccine against today’s virus would be useless. The virus has already started to mutate, so it doesn’t look exactly like the one that’s being used in the vaccine.

Perhaps the overarching question at this point: Is Tamiflu actually a viable combatant against the H5N1 avian flu?

If a flu pandemic strikes the U.S., the government plans to hand out millions of doses of the antiviral drug Tamiflu to reduce the death toll. Scientists say that’s a reasonable approach, since there’s no vaccine for bird flu, and Tamiflu appears to do some good. But the drug is no panacea, says Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In testimony before the House Commitee on International Relations, Fauci said, “I want to caution the committee that we cannot equate stockpiling and availability of Tamiflu with preparedness. We have no hard scientific data of how well this antiviral will perform under the conditions of a pandemic.”

Fauci told the committee that Tamiflu doesn’t cure even everyday flu.

“What this antiviral does is diminish the duration of symptoms by approximately a day and a half,” he said. That’s because Tamiflu doesn’t kill the flu virus. It just slows it down so the body’s immune system can catch up.

WHAT YOU REALLY WON’T READ:

Has there been any documented transmission of H5N1 from human to human?

This article tends to indicate a yes:

MONDAY, Jan. 24, 2005 (HealthDayNews) — In what may be the first documented case that the dangerous avian flu can be transmitted between humans, a new study concludes an 11-year-old girl in Thailand likely transmitted avian flu to her mother and aunt last summer.

These would be the first documented cases of person-to-person transmission of the H5N1 avian flu, which has wreaked havoc across Asia in the past year, according to an article in the Jan. 27 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine . The article was released early to coincide with the University of Michigan Bioterrorism Preparedness Initiative conference.

With this new evidence, an editorial and perspective article in the same issue of the journal call for preventive measures that would avoid a worldwide pandemic of the disease.

The avian flu in Asia has been particularly bad, with more than 120 million poultry dying or destroyed between January and March 2004, stated an editorial in the journal. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), 52 people in Thailand and Vietnam have been infected and 39 have died over the past year.

The girl lived with her aunt in a province of Thailand and slept and played in an area under the elevated house where the family’s chickens often wandered. The flock of free-ranging chickens had been sick, with the last ones dying on the last two days of August 2004. The girl’s aunt buried the last five chickens on August 29 or 30, using plastic bags to protect her hands.

The girl fell ill on Sept. 2 and was admitted to a local hospital on Sept. 7. She was transferred to the provincial hospital the next day, but died three hours after admission.

The girl’s mother traveled four hours from Bangkok on Sept. 7, stopping at the girl’s house only for 10 minutes before heading for the hospital. Both mother and aunt provided unprotected nursing care for the girl.

The mother developed symptoms three days after her daughter died, and it appeared unlikely that her 10-minute stop at the house would be enough to allow bird-to-human transmission. She later died. The aunt fell ill on Sept. 16, 17 days after her last exposure to the chickens. The accepted incubation period is two to 10 days.

_____________________________________

A final word: I have found a local supplier and purchased some large boxes of medical masks, “just in case” and whilst stocks are still available. I have also stocked extra water, energy and food at the house, “just in case.”

If you get my drift.

Perhaps it should be to Mexico?

Ah yes, that would be the country that speaks out the side of its mouth — and other less appealing orifices.

____________

Gayle at My Republican Blog has featured two excellent recent posts regarding the immigration and border issues faced by the United States and I might suggest you start there, then come back to this post. Gayle, be prepared: after having read this post and knowing you currently have a cold, I hope your blood pressure doesn’t rocket to 210/190 as mine is wont to do.

An article from Breitbart.com indicates that, not only should we not reign in our borders to bestill the human tide of illegal immigrants from Mexico and South America (not to mention other countries as well — were you aware?), we should embrace more immigration than we do now. Who says so — no, wait; who demands so?

Why, Mexico does. As does Nicaragua, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Belize and Panama.

Aw heck, I thought the United States embraced and received direction from its Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches. How ignorant of me not to realize it’s truly run by a cartel of efficient, honest, incorruptible Latin America countries, spearheaded by Mexico!

Diplomats from Mexico and Central America on Monday demanded guest worker programs and the legalization of undocumented migrants in the United States, while criticizing a U.S. proposal for tougher border enforcement.

Mexican Foreign Relations Secretary Luis Ernesto Derbez has called the measure (a U.S. bill that would make illegal entry a felony and extend border walls) which passed the U.S. House of Representatives last month but still must go before the Senate — “stupid and underhanded,” but was somewhat more restrained on Monday, saying “it’s not the Mexican government’s position to tell the U.S. Senate what to do.”

The U.S. proposal has caused widespread resentment in Mexico, where some have accused President Vicente Fox’s administration of not being assertive enough in opposing it. Fox has called the bill shameful.

Mexicans working in the United States are a huge source of revenue for Mexico, sending home more than $16 billion in remittances in 2004, Mexico’s second largest source of foreign currency after oil exports according to the country’s central bank.

Oh wait. I think the curtains are indeed parting. Not only should we finance Mexico due to its oil exportation, but we should additionally continue to bankroll the entire country by expanding the amounts of cash made on domestic US soil and returned to sovereign Mexican soil.

Of course! It’s our responsibility to essentially provide Mexico with any funding it desires, whenever it desires! Why didn’t I see this earlier?

Folks, I humbly apologize for my misunderstanding of the issue.

___________________________

Oh, and that thing about Mexico speaking out the side of its mouth with regard to immigration? Well, I “heard” (you know how that goes!) about some clearly prejudiced blog-writing fat white male cruise visitor to Puerto Vallarta who asked a Mexican national about the small, shoeless women with no teeth in bright clothing selling packs of Chicklets on the sidewalk. The Mexican citizen responded: “Forget about them all. They are worthless illegal immigrants from Honduras and El Salvador who refuse to work and drain us dry. Pay them no mind and no money.” Spoken in flawless English so no translation was necessary.

Thank God that story was made up — the nerve of that Ugly American to make such a claim!

[Note: before we begin, I’d like to apologize to those who have frequented my blog the past week, only to discover a brain-glazing paucity of activity. There are two reasons for this: 1. Work has required a lot of attention (this coming week will as well!) and 2. We had some hellacious storms up where I live (on the other hand, some really great thunderstorms — and I’m telling you, there’s nothing more livening, not to mention loud, than a mountain thunderstorm!), rain that came down positively sideways, and so hard that it got to the point where, driving up the hill on Interstate 80 I had to physically stop the car twice because I couldn’t see.

Coming home, I missed getting involved in an accident where one pickup and an SUV collided, crossed both lanes in front of me, and I simply stayed off the brakes and shot the middle, avoiding both vehicles. One vehicle slammed into the concrete K-barrier in the median, and the other rolled up an embankment. This happened directly in front of me and I shot the gap. I think I missed the Nissan Armada by two or three feet. Three persons in the Toyota Tundra, which rolled, were taken to the hospital. They were covered in blood. I directed traffic in the rain until CHP arrived.

Small peripheral rant: If you drive a big SUV or a pickup truck, no, you’re not immortal and you cannot overcome the laws of physics. I’ve been mountain commuting since 1993 and every year I watch stupid people, perched high in their powerful SUVs and trucks, roll, spin, hit each other, collide with thick pines, semis, run off embankments, in the snow, rain, flurries, fog and slush. I chalk it up to the phrase “thinning the herd.”

The bottom line is: I lost phone service at the house and, consequently, internet access. Yes, I know, I’m still in the late Pliocene era when it comes to the internet. I have a dialup line. There are no T1 or DSL lines where I live. I communicate with my neighbor by grabbing a nearby Western Redbacked Squirrel, attaching a note to its collar, and then slapping its butt. My phone service was restored today.]

_______________________________________________________

Where to begin? So much is happening. Ariel Sharon may not survive his massive stroke; he likely has suffered irreversible brain damage. What next for Israel? What of Likud and, of course, what of Sharon’s new opposition party, Kadima? Even more importantly, what of Israel’s potential reaction to Iran?

What of Tom Delay’s official resignation? What of Abramoff and the damage done here? Alito’s hearings are coming up. Will he be confirmed? H5N1 bird flu has killed two teenagers in Turkey this week, New Zealand is considering Draconian measures, and the US government urged people to stock up on vital supplies and expect a societal shutdown should a pandemic strike. My governor gave his State of the State speech and yes, as expected, Arnold has moved centrist. Many persons typified the speech as pointedly underwhelming. What does that mean for Fornicalia?

___________________________________________________________

In The News & What You Aren’t Reading: the Politics of Oil

What you may not be reading about are the continuing Politics of Oil — and I have chosen that subject for this post, prompted by an article in the newest issue of the left-embracing United Kingdom magazine, The Economist.

First, Russian President Vladimir Putin cut off gas supplies to the country of Ukraine earlier last week because of an alleged “price dispute.” After US and Euro complaints, Russia backed down two days later. But another benchmark was made by a country that overtly decided to use oil as a weapon, politically and strategically, and the world trembled correspondingly.

Putin said Russia merely asked Ukraine to pay standard market pricing for its petroleum — as opposed to its former subsidized rate when under the umbrella of the former USSR. But — huh, imagine this: — the now-democratic country of Ukraine was expected to pay quadruple its prior rates — as opposed to the pro-Russian dictatorship of Belarus. Nah. Politics weren’t involved. Putin said so. Right?

At a point more than any other, the world and the United States realize just how precarious and precious our energy sources are. There are many factors that have changed the face of petroleum production globally, and include such items as natural disasters (witness the impacted refinery production in our gulf coast states from Katrina, for example), new dictators presiding over oil sources (the nutjob Hugo Chavez from Venzuela comes to my immediate mind), political determinations (Putin and his Ukraine edict), Middle Eastern conflagrations (constant unrest in these nations), the seemingly capricious and arbitrary right-or-left-turning of the OPEC spigot and now, two new and huge flies in the energy consumption ointment: India and China.

At a time when European and American populations are waning and, with them, power and technological influence, Indian and Chinese national determinations are focusing on expansive (yes!) consumerism and with that, technological explosions and their concomitant requirements for energy.

I am again reminded of the 1975 movie “Three Days of the Condor,” where the following dialogue stayed glued in my Brain Housing Group for decades:

HIGGINS: It’s simple economics, Turner. There’s no argument. Oil now. Ten or fifteen years it’ll be food or plutonium. Maybe sooner than that. What do you think the people will want us to do then?

TURNER: Ask them!

HIGGINS: Now? (shakes head) Huh-uh. Ask them when they’re running out. When it’s cold at home and the engines stop and people who aren’t used to hunger — go hungry. They won’t want us to ask. (quiet savagery) They’ll want us to get it for them.

That scene at the end of the film is as poignant and, more importantly, as true now as then.

No matter what anyone says, no matter their affiliation, political bent, age or mental disease, when convenience stops in America no one will proffer one measly shit as to how we restart the engines — just that we do.

The newest figures I can locate indicate the following percentile of US petroleum imports from these countries:

17.8% from Saudi Arabia
16.5% from Canada
12.8% from Venezuela
12.0% from Mexico
7.5% from Nigeria

Unofficially, I have read that we now import our greatest amount of oil from Canada, then Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, then Nigeria.

Saudi Arabia is still the world’s largest producer of oil. It has seemingly repelled any number of al Qaeda attacks and, under new King Abdullah, appears to be more stable, prosperous and willing to reform.

The newest and largest developing player in the world oil game is now China. More than ever, the US will have to compete with China for its oil imports. “Energy security” is the newest suppressed buzz-phrase but oh-so-relevent in today’s markets. In 2003 China pushed Japan aside to become the second largest consumer of petroleum, behind the US.

China recognizes its emerging power and, with that, its dependence on energy sourcing. It is in the midst of making as many alliances as possible, regardless of political philosophy. If you recall, last year China’s CNOOC attempted to buy Unocal and was fended off by US politicians.

Two-thirds of Middle Eastern oil already flows to Asia. France expects to import 80% of its energy by 2030. The US consumes a quarter of the world’s oil but produces, at this point, only 3%.

And yet American politicians are refusing to allow drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR).

The ANWR site indicates that “most geologists agree that the potential is on the order of billions of barrels of recoverable oil and trillions of cubic feet of recoverable gas and that these resources may rival or exceed the initial reserves at Prudhoe Bay. The validity of these estimates can be proved only by drilling exploratory wells. Authorization for exploration must be given by Congress and the President.”

And that’s this week.

Next week is up for grabs.