Just about one year ago, I told you that the DTV conversion and transition was a joke and a lie. I have listened to talk radio hosts rail about how people should just buy the converter box and stop being so cheap. I’ve read commentary about what a great thing this is and also those who didn’t think the taxpayers should be picking up the tab for all those converter boxes, etc., but nobody would tell the truth that soon millions of viewers would be left without television reception.

Here’s the con job. As I said before, I recall watching the Senate Committee hearings when representatives of the broadcast industry met with members of the Senate to discuss who should pay for this conversion. I must say that there is no way the taxpayers should have picked up the $4 billion-plus tab for this ripoff. If the broadcast industry believed they were going to provide a better product, which they haven’t, then they should have made the announcement they were switching to digital broadcasting and as any good private industry would have done, convince the consumers that their new product was worth investing more money in. Problem is, their product is junk and they knew it from the beginning.

The broadcasters convinced Congress that it was the responsibility of the government to pay for this conversion because the government uses the broadcasters for the Emergency Broadcast System. Open mouth and take the entire bait in and swallow real hard. That’s what Congress did, never looking to see what they were swallowing.

I also recall the broadcasters telling the Senate Committee that “nothing would change” for those who can just get a converter box for their non-digital televisions. NOTHING WOULD CHANGE, they claimed. Anyone who can watch analog TV now can simply add a converter box and be able to not only watch TV still but enjoy higher quality pictures, they said. This of course was a lie but your ignorant and lazy Congress never bothered to investigate that claim, they just passed on the $4 billion bill to you.

I could care less whether the television broadcasters go out of business or sell popcorn and peanuts. To me they should be a private business able to make private decisions in running their business however they see fit and let capitalism control their industry. But they chose not to do that. They chose to formulate a bunch of lies and sell them to an inept Congress, one that has not one clue as to what goes on around them nor do they care. They know that next election they can do what all successful politicians do and that’s lie their way into another term in office only to continue ripping off you and me.

As I predicted a year ago, here’s what happened and why I continue to be mad. I had discovered that here at my camp, I couldn’t receive a strong enough signal through my rabbit ears to be able to watch the new digital broadcasts. I was told and did some investigating on my own, that if I put up a roof antenna I would be able to get a strong enough signal. In all honesty I knew from doing some research that I was on the fringe, as would be hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of other Americans.

I coughed up over $100 and climbed up on my camp roof and put up the antenna. It was just two days before the big switch was to be thrown saying goodbye to analog television broadcasting. When I completed the job, I plugged my new cable into the back of my TV, minus the converter box. Wow! I was able to watch three channels that were still broadcasting an analog signal – PBS, NBC and ABC. The local (actually not so local) CBS affiliate was already broadcasting only a digital signal. The pictures I received where actually quite good except for one which was still somewhat ghosty.

To make a bit of a long story shorter, once the switch was thrown, as they called it, I am now down to one channel that sometimes I can watch depending on the weather I guess. If the wind blows, it appears the movement of the trees disrupts the signal and the image freezes, breaks down into small strips and square or rectangle boxes and the sound skips and breaks up as well.

“Nothing will change”, those lying, deceitful and wicked people sold Congress. Your pocketbook was pilfered for a mere $4 billion and now I’m willing to believe that millions of Americans are in the same boat as me. One day before the great switch over, one local television studio was putting out a public service announcement warning people that if they lived in certain areas (the list was long), they would not be able to watch over-the-airwaves broadcast television anymore. One day!!! Why weren’t they telling us this one year before the great switch over?

If the broadcast industry and the United States Congress had made the announcement a year ago that everything was going to switch over to digital and many wouldn’t be able to watch TV anymore, I would have grumbled about not being able to watch TV while at camp. But I was lied to and I was conned out of my share of $4 billion. The broadcast industry got what they wanted, being paid for on the backs of taxpayers and Congress has proven to us once again what a dysfunctional, inept bunch of ignorant slobs they are.

Remember these things next election season. It’s the only way we can change this crap.

Tom Remington

Last year the Bush administration decided to list the polar bear as a species that is threatened – meaning that there is a possibility that if we don’t pay close attention to this animal, certain circumstances could put the bear in danger of going extinct. We don’t want that but was it necessary?

I guess it depends on whose science we opt to use and how much politicking comes into play. It appears that the Bush administration attempted to play politics instead of opting for science and fighting the battle based on that.

After the listing was announced, the Bush people tried to pull a double whammy political back 2 and one half somersault. They crafted an executive order that said lawsuits couldn’t be filed to stop energy production, or any other carbon emitting project, based on perceived global warming threats to polar bears. This of course makes about as much sense as pouring gasoline on a fire. The reason Bush and Kempthorne claimed for listing the polar bear was because of shrinking Arctic ice caused by global warming. Politics as usual.

Now with Obama in office and having recently overturned that sneaky little attempt by Kempthorne to prevent lawsuits, the door has been left wide open, welcoming with open arms any and every lawsuit known to mankind that might have an affect on polar bears. How creative can you get?

Hugh Hewitt seems to think that some in the media are beginning to catch on that environmentalists are very serious when they claim that they will regulate energy and control their standard of environmental issues by using the ESA, along with the polar bear as the ultimate weapon.

Hewitt is a far more glass-half-full kind of guy than I am. I don’t think the media is catching on at all but I completely agree with him and have been yelling about this for some time, that environmentalists have discovered what a useful and powerful tool the ESA has become.

In his article at TownHall yesterday, Hewitt lays some of the blame on industries that are staring down the barrel of environmental restrictions that will force the price of energy through the roof or put them out of business. The industries’ “hear no evil, see no evil”, as he puts it, approach to dealing with this issue, has left control in the hands the environmentalists’ lawyers who will decide how much stifling of economic expansion and energy development will occur.

Instead it has ceded the legal initiative to the very capable lawyers at the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups, and the rollout of the prevent-global-warming-via-the-ESA strategy is beginning. The impact on energy production across the U.S. will be to sharply curtail new exploration and production and to greatly increase the cost of existing production. Every time a federal permit is proposed that will facilitate energy production –or any carbon-releasing activity for that matter– environmental activists will argue that an ESA mandated permitting process is required.

In past dealings with the federal government on ESA issues, it appears that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service does whatever it wishes and then stands back and lets the chips fall where they may. In my opinion, the mistake the Bush administration made in dealing with the polar bear was that it didn’t present its case scientifically and staunchly support that decision with the science they used. They decided to play games. This leaves us with tons of questions. What was the determining factor, politics or science? Does USFWS even know what they are doing? Did they ever really have any intention of protecting the polar bear? Are they deliberately playing into the hands of the environmentalists? Or, perhaps they thought it would be fun to leave the next administration the headache to deal with?

Playing stupid games with the ESA and then ignorantly thinking a little executive order here and there will make everybody happy, just has never made much sense to me. Look at the USFWS’ track record with other ESA issues, like the wolf. They keep trying to convince people they want to remove the wolf from ESA protection but they have employed some real boneheaded maneuvers in that endeavor and still the wolf remains protected and the people suffer.

USFWS seems either unwilling or incapable of defending its positions on ESA with science – at least to a point that any of us feel they have deep convictions about any of it. The feds have had ample opportunities to rabidly present their scientific evidence in the courts – God knows we spend enough money fighting lawsuits – but all we’ve seen of late is a tail-between-the-legs approach. Why should we believe the feds will do much more than declare a species in trouble or recovered and then let the courts sort it all out.

This is one of the problems we face with the ESA. Government intrusion hurts business, the economy, free enterprise all the way down to the individual landowner. Administering the ESA is an intrusion of government to begin with but now, environmentalists pull the strings because they have the money to spend on court cases and those of us taking it on the chin either will not fight it or don’t have the means.

Last week I made this statement in regards to the U.S. Senate’s vote to overturn the Bush administration’s restrictions on lawsuits to stop energy development based on loss of polar bear sea ice caused by global warming.

What essentially has happened is that the polar bear is now the largest, most powerful instrument that has ever existed and it lies at the disposal of the environmental community.

If Hugh Hewitt is correct, then the Center for Biological Diversity now is in near complete control over the Endangered Species Act and the polar bear weapon to effectively have its way with our economy, energy development and economic growth.

The federal government is content to let their policies be decided in court to the highest bidders leaving the people in some sort of economic limbo, quite powerless.

What was once a Congressional act to save a few plants and animals has grown into a powerful instrument being used for just about everything except its original intention. And yet, any suggestion to amend the ESA creates a definitive uproar in opposition. Now it is clear why. Those controlling the ESA have a lot of power and with that power they control you and me. Politics as usual.

Tom Remington

Washington, D.C. – Columnist Tommy Christopher at the AOL News website “Political Machine” reported Wednesday that a spokesman for the Walt Disney Company has denied that Disney CEO Robert Iger said “f— you” to conservative activist Tom Borelli at the company’s March 10 stockholder meeting.

Said Christopher:

“According to… the National Center for Public Policy Research, Disney CEO Robert Iger used an F-word other than Fantasia at this year’s annual shareholders meeting. Conservative columnist Tom Borelli, senior fellow with the organization… claimed that Iger said “F**k you” to him at the meeting…

…Disney spokesman Jonathan Friedland, however, told me that he was ‘sitting right there,’ and that ‘Bob didn’t say anything back to him.’ He also said he was ‘pretty sure Bob shook his hand.’ He described the episode as ‘strange.’”

The following are statements from Tom Borelli, Deneen Borelli (Tom’s wife and fellow of Project 21, who was present), and Steve Milloy (co-director with Tom Borelli of the Free Enterprise Action Fund, which Tom was representing at the stockholder meeting, and also of the National Center for Public Policy Research’s Free Enterprise Project, who was listening to the live audio webcast of the stockholder meeting as it took place):

Tom Borelli:

“Here is what transpired.

On the way to make my statement I stopped and shook Iger’s hand. He was sitting in front of the podium and because of the extra time it took for me to greet him I was late getting to the podium. In the audio recording, you can hear Mr. Pepper calling my name for a second time and asking if I’m going to be making the presentation. My first few words of my statement I mentioned I was late because I shook Iger’s hand.

After I finished my presentation I again walked by Iger and offered my hand once again. He just stared at me and said ‘F— Y–.’ I immediately walked back to the podium where I told the audience what Iger said to me. Passing Iger the second time, a security official was sitting right behind him and shortly after I walked by them Iger left the auditorium. He was not in the theater during the other shareholder proposals.

Finally, the shareholder that responded to my statement about the controversial nature of ‘The Path to 911′ defended Iger for displaying ‘restraint’ because he felt I launched a personal attack and he added – ‘if it were me I would have probably knocked him on his rear end.’

Perhaps the Disney representative witnessed the first handshake and missed the second encounter.”

Deneen Borelli:

“Mr. John Pepper, Chairman of The Walt Disney Company, opened and conducted most of the shareholder meeting. Once he completed several opening remarks, Mr. Pepper introduced Mr. Robert Iger to welcome and address the audience. During this portion of the meeting, Mr. Iger updated shareholders about company business and several sneak previews were aired introducing new Disney movies. At some point during this portion of the meeting, Mr. Iger came down from the stage and took a seat in the audience in front of the podium set up for representatives of the shareholder proposals. Mr. Iger was alone. There were several security personnel seated a few rows behind Mr. Iger.

Following the executive session of the Disney shareholder meeting, Mr. Pepper invited Tom to present his proposal. Before taking his place behind the podium, Tom stopped next to a seated Mr. Iger and shook his hand.

At some point while Tom was presenting his proposal, a woman walked past me towards Mr. Iger and took a seat to the right of Mr. Iger – either immediately next to him or with one seat in between them – where they engaged in brief conversation while listening to Tom.

Before Tom completed his presentation, the woman got up and walked away and Mr. Iger was seated alone.

Tom completed his proposal. While returning to his seat, he extended his hand to Mr. Iger. Mr. Iger did not shake Tom’s hand. Then, Tom had a surprised look on his face and immediately went back to the podium and repeated what Mr. Iger told Tom.”

Steve Milloy:

“I was listening to the live audio webcast. Tom completed his presentation. There was a short pause; then I heard Tom’s voice. It sounded like he was near to the microphone, not at the microphone. He said, ‘He just told me to go f— myself,’ or something like that.

I find it hard to believe they would deny that; there was a whole room full of people.

If you listen to the Disney version of the tape now, there’s a big gap — like Rosemary Woods. They didn’t even have the brains to remove the gap. If they are going to deny it happened, they had better remove the gap.

The guy after Tom complimented Iger on being so restrained; that he would have punched Tom, I guess.”

The two previous National Center for Public Policy Research press releases on this incident can be found at http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-Disney_Iger_Censor031109.html and http://www.nationalcenter.org/PR-Disney_Iger_Shareholder031009.html. As of March 11, Mr. Christopher’s column could be found at http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2009/03/11/disney-denies-ceo-cursed-out-right-wing-columnist-at-shareholder/ and a link to the archived audio webcast of the shareholder meeting supplied by the Walt Disney Company can be found at http://corporate.disney.go.com/investors/presentations.html.

But that is only one aspect of the scam dumped on an ignorant, lazy and inept Congress. The television broadcasting companies weren’t really sure what to do because they wanted to convert to digital broadcasting but knew that just under 50% of Americans who watch TV do so by means other than cable or satellite – in other words by use of the old roof antenna or rabbit ears.

If the broadcast industry were to decide to set a date to make the conversion, that would leave millions of Americans unable to view TV unless they stepped out and bought a new digital set. In short, the broadcast industry didn’t want to financially contribute to helping in the transition or make the move and suffer the consequences of losing a percentage of their market. So what did they do?

They went to Congress and asked them to fund the changeover because the U.S. Government depends on the broadcast industry as part of their Emergency Broadcast System. Congress bought it hook, line and sinker and it appears they never got off their broad backsides and did any research into the claims being told them by the industry.

While listening to the hearing over a year ago, I recall the broadcast industry telling the Congressional committee the cost of providing the millions of households with converter boxes would run around $2.5 billion. They asked Congress to cover that cost so that these millions of Americans wouldn’t be left without access to the Emergency Broadcast Network.

Now, with virtually no means of verification, anyone can apply for up to two converter box coupons valued at $40. These coupons are mailed to the applicant who can then redeem them at certain stores toward the purchase of a converter box, priced in the $50 – $70 range.

Nothing is free as we all know and when the coupons are redeemed by the merchants it is our tax dollars that are paying for the broadcast industry to continue operating uninterrupted, while putting nothing at risk in hopes of improving their businesses by what they claim to be better quality broadcasting. Is it?

Now for some truth. I bought a converter box for my camp here in Maine. To be as transparent as possible, I could subscribe to cable television as it does run up the road in front of my camp. I could also throw up a satellite dish and cut down a lot of trees in order to get it to work, but this is all quite unnecessary and frivolous as I am only here two months out of the year.

Presently, I have a small color set that I am able to watch 4 stations on with rabbit ears. I get one PBS station, NBC, CBS and ABC. The reception isn’t the greatest but I can certainly view the stations and for the most part can read the text that appears on the screen.

I connected the converter box following the directions that came with it. I should point out that I am not illiterate when it comes to dealing with electronics, television, etc. The converter box failed as it appears the signal that I am able to pull in with my “old fashioned” analog set and rabbit ears, isn’t strong enough for the converter box to use and so all I get is a “no signal” message. I was able after many attempts to pull in the signal from one station but all I ended up with is broken up squares of jumbled video and no sound.

The broadcast industry convinced an ignorant Congressional committee that taxpayers should pay for this conversion. Obviously no homework was done and now it appears that at least a certain percent of Americans – and these are taxpayers too – will not be able to watch television where once they could. This is progress? This is improving television reception and quality?

So for me to be able to watch TV when I return to camp next summer, I will have to buy a roof antenna and hope then the signal will be strong enough to use the converter box or opt for cable or satellite, which isn’t going to happen.

Now that we live in a complete socialist country, with little hope that any of this will change by looking at the two candidates for president (I believe Sen. McCain sat on that committee), I should be able to have my government pay for me to be able to watch TV next summer.

This is just another example of a Congress that is wrought with laziness and ignorance. They did not do their jobs and allowed the private enterprise of the broadcast industry to dupe the taxpayers of billions of our dollars in order to take a step backwards.

Will any of this every end?

Tom Remington

I had the misfortune to suffer through two dinners worth of liberal food in a row. No longer content merely with ruining America, now liberals have gotten their morally reprehensible claws into your dinner.

Now wait a minute, you’re thinking—-food is an inanimate object (even barbecue, after you kill it). How can food have a political bent? Just what is liberal food, you ask?

Glad to tell you.

Liberal food combines ingredients that shouldn’t even exist within the same zip code, much less on the same plate. Onions and vanilla do not taste good together, but liberals insist on forcing concoctions like that upon the unsuspecting public. Some vegetables can be enjoyed raw. Take carrots, for instance. These good-for-raw-consumption vegetables, however, do not include asparagus and beets, unless you happen to be a bovine or a hippie.

Nor is chicken meant to be sashimi. Hello central, salmonella calling!

Years ago, at a posh place out in the Hamptons, I was served a chicken breast that was still trying to escape from the plate. The staff had stabbed it through the heart with a hefty stake of rosemary in a vain attempt to get it to lie there quietly and stop bleeding.

That should have been a warning to me.

See, what these leftist chefs and restaurateurs are saying through their “creations” is: Reality and tradition mean nothing to us (not to mention palates).

Coconut in salsa. Raw trout in ice cream. Horse’s hooves stuffed with mustard sorbet and swamp mud. These are just some of the other delicacies that litter the menu of liberal (sometimes also known as “hip” and “cutting edge”) restaurants.

So what they do then is attempt to disguise the food by presenting it in a “different” and “unusual” and “hip” and “cutting edge” manner. Just like every other foo-foo restaurant on the face of the planet.

They do this to disguise the fact that it tastes like crap, much in the same way that liberals attempt to disguise their crappy socialist political message by wrapping it up in pretty entitlement packages and calling it “Something other than the vile disease of socialism.”

That’s pretty much what they do with their food. When you need a paragraph to name a dish, you know you’re in one of Those restaurants.

Then they either stack it so high on the plate it needs clearance from ground control, or they bury things under other things, like hiding your raw asparagus under some squished peyote and a slab of semi-raw chicken.

And then they decorate it with an empty lobster shell.

And expect you to like it.

Not only like it, but approve of it via your wallet and a check that would buy dinner for eight at your local neighborhood pizzeria.

Come to think of it, you’d be much better off at Joe’s Pizza Joint, where they have never heard of mustard sorbet, and the most complicated item on the menu is a green salad. Served flat. On a plate. With the dressing over it. They way God meant it to be.

—The Sword Heart Scrolls, copyright 2k6

Congress was partially responsible for creating this mess in the first place when they passed laws forcing corportations to set up two distinct pension packages (1994 I think) – one for management and one for the workers.

Before you go yelling and screaming at corporate America and me, think for a moment. Is this what you want government doing? Do you trust Congress enough to meddle in this issue?

Evidently, most of America does want Congress sticking their noses into private business practices because they are and more and more people are yelling for government intervention into anything and everything we don’t like – high gas prices, high utility bills, etc., etc.

Don’t get me wrong, I think the practices of these companies that are top heavy when it comes to salaries and pensions, is extremely poor, yet we have done nothing about it for years – until we begin losing or getting a reduction in our benefits including pensions. I say we, meaning you and I and I don’t mean calling on Congress to stop it. You and I are the ones who make the decisions of what products to buy, who to work for, what companies to buy stock in. As consumers, we have the power yet fail to use it. We cry to government for help. A free enterprise system without government interference works when we let it. Human nature fights it – our greed, envy and jealousy.
The bottom line for everyone is always the dollar. Not much has ever been said about over-salaried executives until they decided to cut your benefits, pay, pension or all of the above.

Capitalism can be an ugly thing, particularly if you are a jealous and envious kind of person who gets their dander up when someone makes money. It can also be a great thing when you are the one taking the risks and reaping the benefits.

If allowed to run its course, many of these companies would fold before they got to the state they are in, but there is so much government meddling – that we all insisted on – , these companies know for themselves government would bail them out – afterall, we would demand it of them. We have continuously bailed out the airline industry without putting any demands on their business practices. Would you personally loan money to someone you knew was going to squander it because they don’t know how to manage it?

If stock holders could realize what is being done and invest their money in other, better managed companies, this problem could correct itself. But again, the bottom line is the dollar and as long as investors can make their money, they don’t really care – nor do you and I until it’s too late.

So, what do we do? Do we invite or allow Congress to step in and control this issue like they try to control everything or do we allow these practices to run their course?

We are all blaming globalization for the auto industry laying off so many employees. I’m sure it has its effect but seriously how can you compete with foreign car makers – as we have been trying for many years now – when we continue to pay assembly line workers very high wages and overpay the auto executives? We then get angry because someone else enters the market with a product as good quality or better for less money.
Good ole free enterprise and capitalism will “self-level” if allowed to. In other words, the essence of both practices forces good management from good competition. These days when a company gets in trouble, they run to government for a bail-out and we sit back believing that their problems come from outside, non-controllable forces. Have you ever thought it is just lousy management?

The more America moves toward socialization of its workforce, the sooner we will all be wearing the same gray colored uniforms walking around in a daze.

Tom Remington