Top October Posts

Thanks to the government shutdown, Dear President's antics and the rising tide against Obamacare, October was a smoking hot month on Along the Gradyent.  Our cadre of followers continues to grow. Thanks to all. Top posts for the 10th month of the year are as follows.

1. The reception for  Government Shutdown Activities: Colonial Williamsburg was awesome. Colonial Williamsburg remained open free of interference from Dear President's Federales throughout the shutdown. Shutdown or not, Colonial Williamsburg is a must see attraction. It grabs you, involves you and educates you. We visited probably half a dozen times the last several years we were in Virginia.  It's a fantastically managed and produced operation, well worth the price.
2. We asked "Can you imagine George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt putting up traffic cones and crime scene tape to gratuitously impede distant views of a National Monument? Ah, but Barack Obama is progressive, different we said in  Oh Say, You Can't See. We understood that the Mount Rushmore Visitor's Center had to remain closed when a failure of appropriations temporarily cut off staffing. But blocking distant turnouts and roadside parking along an open and operating public highway? That is what we in elite circles call vindictive crap.
3. Only in America. In Obama's NPS Holds Tourists Hostage
   we recounted the plight of tourists marooned in Cooke City, Montana, their eastern exit closed due to early season snow and their western exit blocked by Dear President's armed Park Rangers. Barack Obama and his supporters love so much having the reins of the police state in their hands.   
4. Hey dudes and dudettes, can you believe that September Top Posts made the October top ten? We love it when our readers come looking for more.
5. In Obama Closes Ocean, Changes National Park Service Culture we chided Dear President for closing the ocean (something we hadn't seen attempted since the Cuban Missile Crisis) and transforming the National Park Service culture from one of serving the populous to sticking it to the people. 
6. Dear President surrounded the open air plaza that is the WW II Memorial with Barrycades.  In 

   Obama Administration Spends to Avoid No Spending 

   we asked what the Obama administration did when it ran out of money. The answer is it leased protection. The Barrycade was a RentACade -- dial 888-276-2618.  NPS paid a vendor to supply materials to block off a site where access is costless. That's presidential spite for you. “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington said of the expensive harassment.
7. In The Myth of Financial and Economic Armageddon we shared data showing the tussle the Republican House has put up since being elected in November, 2010, has strengthened the U.S. dollar. When you are $17 trillion in the hole, a little disfunctionality is a very good thing.
8. Our number one September post recommended visiting the privately owned and operated George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate during the government shutdown. When we posted we had no idea Dear President would intervene. We were shocked and irate when he sicced his Park Police on the estate and lawlessly tried to shut Mount Vernon's private parking, as described in Lawless Move: NPS Barrycades Private Mount Vernon. Hail to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association for ultimately prevailing in the test of wills.
9. In the year of Al Gore claiming we need a new Cat 6 to classify the increasing intensity of hurricanes, we had the least active tropical hurricane season in decades. In Tropical Storm Karen we chronicled the National Hurricane Center's last grasp effort at forecasting a hurricane. Over the course of two days Karen dropped from a forecast hurricane, to a forecast tropical storm to having dissipated before making landfall. Welcome all to the science and politics of global warming.
10. We live in a government of the lobbyists, by the lobbyists and for the lobbyists.  In It's That Fella Across the Street we recounted our experiences living in the Washington DC area where the lobbyists were literally guys living across the street, whose firms were the obscure noncontroversial organization known Fannie Mae, and the prime contractor on the problem free, low profile launch of HealthCare.Gov. Slick, smooth and suave, plus connections, those are what drive our country. Good luck to all.