Copyright © 2009 C R Edmunds
www.onestillfree.blogspot.com
Oh, it hurts to have to admit that for once I agree with the words of Enviros. Fortunately that pain is somewhat mitigated by the fact that even when they try to get it right, the Enviros get it wrong - no doubt on purpose methinks - and so while I agree with the words, I don’t agree with the premises.
“Conservation groups” (they used to be “environmental groups” but that name is getting a deservedly bad flavor) have written to the US Fish & Wildlife Service to stop the agency’s using the image of a Mexican wolf that died in captivity. The female wolf was one of the original 11 released into the wild as part of the Mexican wolf recovery program back in 1998 (she was a captive-bred wolf, not a wild wolf).
“Conservation Groups” (the usual suspects, headed this time by the Center for Biological Diversity, a group known for twisting the facts, see Chilton v Center for Biological Diversity, Inc.) claim it’s important for people to know the “truth” (and isn’t that a joke, coming from them) about the poster wolf: they are upset that it died of stress and overheating after being captured by US FWS in 2005.
These “Conservation Groups” are using the death of an aged wolf more than three years ago to complain about the management of the “wolf predator control program” - a term they have dreamed up that apparently refers to the capture or killing of wolves after three confirmed livestock kills in a year. The Enviros would have us believe the problem is with the pesky ranchers, who keep whining about all the cows that wolves eat (not to mention the horses, dogs, cats, etc.) instead of the elk and deer that the wolves are supposed to be dining on. The Enviros want to stop this silly policy of removing (and relocating) problem wolves.
You know what? (I’m getting shivers just writing these words). I agree. A major flaw with the Mexican wolf program is this business of capturing wolves.
But then, here’s where I disagree (my relief is huge). What Enviros really want is for ranchers and everyone else to just suck it up and let wolves eat what they will, so that the bad, cow-eating wolves will not have to be captured or killed for all that repeated destruction. The implication is that it’s because of this wanton protection of ranchers and resulting removal of wolves that the wolf program isn’t successful.
Not so!
The program isn’t successful because the wolves aren’t wild to begin with. Pay attention here, children - this is a very important point! Real wild wolves wouldn’t be eating dogs, cats, horses and cows because real wild wolves are afraid of humans and don’t come near humans unless they’re desperate. The Mexican wolf program's “tame” wolves (habituated wolves) are so fearless of humans that they’ll hang out near houses, getting their meals from pets and domestic livestock because it’s much easier than chasing all over the forest after elk and deer.
Female Mexican wolf 511, the poster wolf, was born in captivity, where she was routinely handled for veterinary exams and vaccinations. After release “into the wild” (actually near or in the middle of ranching areas), like other wolves in the program 511 was recaptured to replace batteries in her collar, to be revaccinated and be brought to captive facilities for breeding purposes; she additionally was captured and “translocated” (moved to another area where supposedly she’d forget all about being habituated and having a taste for cows) because she was a problem wolf. Wolf 511 was eight years old when she died. Eight is quite old for a wild wolf, and therefore like any old animal, she would have been vulnerable to the effects of stress. I’m guessing she would not have lived that long if she had really been a wild wolf, without all that extra health care from the Mexican wolf program.
And now we have come to my rambling point of disagreement with the Enviros. “Conservation Groups” want the poster wolf to show some other wolf than poster wolf 511, because she died in captivity. The Enviros want the poster wolf to show the “”truth”. Well, wouldn’t it be more the truth to show a wolf with a collar on (to show that it’s been captured, vaccinated, examined and fed by humans), and to also show the wolf’s veterinary charts, pedigrees, the human names given to them like any domestic animal (511’s name was Brunhilda, her parents were Parkeyes and Rio). Wouldn’t it be more the truth to show the wolf snacking on puppies and calves - or lurking near school playgrounds as habituated wolves tend to do? Isn’t it a travesty of the truth to imply that 511 or any Mexican wolf poster wolves are really wild at all?
Fact is, no wild wolf has ever been released by the Mexican wolf program. Every wolf released has been the result of a captive breeding program, and most released wolves have been captured and released over and over again. Where is a wild wolf supposed to come from that can pose for a photo?
Ah, but what’s truth got to do with anything when you’re busy spinning away…
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sunday, November 23, 2008
Global Warming Zombies
Sometime when we all weren’t paying attention, a lot of the folks in this country became zombies. It’s frightening, but true. We are surrounded by people whose minds have been stolen, their powers of observation and judgment replaced. But it isn’t voodoo, folks - what we have here is 1984, just a few years late.
Uh oh - I may have to explain about that 1984 reference for those who are maybe younger than me or who maybe haven’t quite the same reading experience as I’ve had. 1984 is the title of a book written by George Orwell that takes place the year 1984, and is about a civil servant whose work consists of falsifying records and political literature. His job is one small part of the government mechanism for maintaining control of the population. 1984 is where the term “Big Brother” came from.
1984’s mind control comes about through propaganda (spin doctoring in today’s terminology - the twisting of language so that words do not describe truth but sound like the truth), regulation of society through legislation of behavior to undermine the rights of the individual. Invasive surveillance is used to insure compliance.
With just a few substitutions, that could be a description of what’s going on in the United States today.
But back to zombies. A zombie is a creature displaying all the apparent signs of consciousness, but without actual consciousness of its own. Traditionally, zombies are corpses brought back to life, but the term is also used to describe a person whose thought processes are controlled by someone else - traditionally, that would be your evil voodoo guy, or, like in 1984, Big Brother.
How do I know that so many friends and neighbors, from the grocery store clerk to our legislators and everyone in between have become zombies? It’s simple. How many of you believe in global warming - raise your hands. OK, everyone - look around. See all those raised hands? Those will be your zombies. Those will be the people that spew out the Big Brother environmental drivel in spite of what they see and feel for themselves, like how darned cold it was last month. These are people who ignore data like last month’s reports across the world of unseasonable snow and plummeting temperatures and record snowfalls. Here in the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month of October, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
Global warming? Have these people stepped outside lately? Would they consider keeping their own records and paying more attention to them than to talking heads on TV? The highest temperature recorded in Phoenix - 122° - was recorded 18 years ago, not last year. In fact, the hottest recorded temperature on earth was way back in 1922 (136° in Mali). In January 2008, the Boston Globe reported that the winter 2007 was one the coldest ever recorded in South America, with snow in Buenos Aires for the first time in 89 years and hundreds of people dying of cold in Peru. Snow in South Africa! Record breaking cold in Australia! And the Globe even said “For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming”.
Enquiring minds want to know: How do you cure a zombie? How do you get people to think with their own minds, not parrot sound bytes? If Big Brother takes over the country and the planet, what will the people do who invested in shorts and tank tops when they really need mukluks and parkas? And if the zombies all freeze to death, what will Big Brother’s next step be to control the rest of us?
Uh oh - I may have to explain about that 1984 reference for those who are maybe younger than me or who maybe haven’t quite the same reading experience as I’ve had. 1984 is the title of a book written by George Orwell that takes place the year 1984, and is about a civil servant whose work consists of falsifying records and political literature. His job is one small part of the government mechanism for maintaining control of the population. 1984 is where the term “Big Brother” came from.
1984’s mind control comes about through propaganda (spin doctoring in today’s terminology - the twisting of language so that words do not describe truth but sound like the truth), regulation of society through legislation of behavior to undermine the rights of the individual. Invasive surveillance is used to insure compliance.
With just a few substitutions, that could be a description of what’s going on in the United States today.
But back to zombies. A zombie is a creature displaying all the apparent signs of consciousness, but without actual consciousness of its own. Traditionally, zombies are corpses brought back to life, but the term is also used to describe a person whose thought processes are controlled by someone else - traditionally, that would be your evil voodoo guy, or, like in 1984, Big Brother.
How do I know that so many friends and neighbors, from the grocery store clerk to our legislators and everyone in between have become zombies? It’s simple. How many of you believe in global warming - raise your hands. OK, everyone - look around. See all those raised hands? Those will be your zombies. Those will be the people that spew out the Big Brother environmental drivel in spite of what they see and feel for themselves, like how darned cold it was last month. These are people who ignore data like last month’s reports across the world of unseasonable snow and plummeting temperatures and record snowfalls. Here in the US, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration registered 63 local snowfall records and 115 lowest-ever temperatures for the month of October, and ranked it as only the 70th-warmest October in 114 years.
Global warming? Have these people stepped outside lately? Would they consider keeping their own records and paying more attention to them than to talking heads on TV? The highest temperature recorded in Phoenix - 122° - was recorded 18 years ago, not last year. In fact, the hottest recorded temperature on earth was way back in 1922 (136° in Mali). In January 2008, the Boston Globe reported that the winter 2007 was one the coldest ever recorded in South America, with snow in Buenos Aires for the first time in 89 years and hundreds of people dying of cold in Peru. Snow in South Africa! Record breaking cold in Australia! And the Globe even said “For nearly a decade now, there has been no global warming”.
Enquiring minds want to know: How do you cure a zombie? How do you get people to think with their own minds, not parrot sound bytes? If Big Brother takes over the country and the planet, what will the people do who invested in shorts and tank tops when they really need mukluks and parkas? And if the zombies all freeze to death, what will Big Brother’s next step be to control the rest of us?
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Whining - the New National Pastime
I have a confession to make. I’m not a Greenie. Nowadays that makes me the bad guy, because Green has become the new banner and badge of being part of the politically correct crowd.
I’ve been giving some thought lately to the fact that we have a society run by youngsters (this is because as I age, I find so many in office to be younger than I am), yet we have a population the median age of which is growing older and older.
Used to be that people respected age - being an “elder” meant having wisdom that younger people valued. Over the years that has changed; our older folks have not been considered founts of wisdom or valued parts of family and society for a long time. Rather, older folks are stuffed into retirement homes and assisted living facilities soon as they have no money left to support the younger generations that can’t (or won’t) get jobs to support themselves.
Aha, you say - the reason no one pays attention to elder wisdom is because older folks’ minds wander off the topic - but not so! Bear with me a bit longer.
The reason older folks are founts of wisdom, even though some of us are dumber than doorposts, is that we have experienced more. This is so simple concept as to be profound. No matter how smart you are, how educated you are, how technologically facile you are, if you’re young, you cannot have experienced as much as someone who has lived longer. It’s a matter of sheer numbers, quantity of time. You can never really know what can be known at 50, 60 or 70 or older until you’ve lived 50, 60 or 70 or more years. You can never apply the experience of time until you’ve experienced the time. And you cannot possibly begin to comprehend what we old folks know as we view life from the perspective of just having lived longer.
“Bail me out, save me!” is what I’m seeing everywhere nowadays. I see lots of this whining going on, and see few solutions offered that encompass the big picture. I see this as a result of inexperience (i.e., young folks’ reaction) because we’re all here on the same planet and ultimately there is no one to bail us out or save us other than ourselves. That’s something it just takes time to learn.
Let me pick on the Greens as an example. Go to any petition website these days and it’ll be Green. What is a petition? It’s a bunch of names of people who’d rather whine about a problem than roll up their sleeves and do something directly. That’s whining, in my opinion, I don’t care how noble the label.
Or look at proposed (and, more scary, passed) legislation that “fixes” things by imposing more rules and regulations in our lives, legislation which takes away personal responsibility and substitutes government responsibility. Being bailed out ends up with giving up our rights and making us dependant - like children.
Whining happens because the people who are doing it don’t have any real answers. They feel the pressure, the pain of the situation, but they don’t know how to effectively make it go away. Like children, they don’t know how to fix things properly because they just don’t have the tools, the experience and perspective to see the whole picture. In other words, they don’t go to their founts of wisdom for answers: to the old folks, their elders.
We older folks pretty much don’t qualify as real Greenies because we’re not young enough to have tunnel vision any more, we can’t see things as black and white so easily. Life has taught us painful lesson by painful lesson how unrealistic that is. We older folks - at least those of us who have moved beyond the flower power years - have been around long enough to know first hand that everything is connected to everything, and that disenfranchising anyone or disallowing anything isn’t going to solve any problems. Tunnel vision isn’t wrong, it’s just so very limited as to throw everything out of kilter when acted on.
The innocent ignorance of tunnel vision is not going to go away, so it’s up to us old folks to fix things - if only we ourselves would pay attention to our own elders. Answers for today’s problems won’t be Green, won’t even necessarily be in what we know ourselves here at this time today. The big answers for the questions facing humanity and for the planet are going to be found in the wisdom of the ages, of our own elders. I don’t think they will be Green.
I’ve been giving some thought lately to the fact that we have a society run by youngsters (this is because as I age, I find so many in office to be younger than I am), yet we have a population the median age of which is growing older and older.
Used to be that people respected age - being an “elder” meant having wisdom that younger people valued. Over the years that has changed; our older folks have not been considered founts of wisdom or valued parts of family and society for a long time. Rather, older folks are stuffed into retirement homes and assisted living facilities soon as they have no money left to support the younger generations that can’t (or won’t) get jobs to support themselves.
Aha, you say - the reason no one pays attention to elder wisdom is because older folks’ minds wander off the topic - but not so! Bear with me a bit longer.
The reason older folks are founts of wisdom, even though some of us are dumber than doorposts, is that we have experienced more. This is so simple concept as to be profound. No matter how smart you are, how educated you are, how technologically facile you are, if you’re young, you cannot have experienced as much as someone who has lived longer. It’s a matter of sheer numbers, quantity of time. You can never really know what can be known at 50, 60 or 70 or older until you’ve lived 50, 60 or 70 or more years. You can never apply the experience of time until you’ve experienced the time. And you cannot possibly begin to comprehend what we old folks know as we view life from the perspective of just having lived longer.
“Bail me out, save me!” is what I’m seeing everywhere nowadays. I see lots of this whining going on, and see few solutions offered that encompass the big picture. I see this as a result of inexperience (i.e., young folks’ reaction) because we’re all here on the same planet and ultimately there is no one to bail us out or save us other than ourselves. That’s something it just takes time to learn.
Let me pick on the Greens as an example. Go to any petition website these days and it’ll be Green. What is a petition? It’s a bunch of names of people who’d rather whine about a problem than roll up their sleeves and do something directly. That’s whining, in my opinion, I don’t care how noble the label.
Or look at proposed (and, more scary, passed) legislation that “fixes” things by imposing more rules and regulations in our lives, legislation which takes away personal responsibility and substitutes government responsibility. Being bailed out ends up with giving up our rights and making us dependant - like children.
Whining happens because the people who are doing it don’t have any real answers. They feel the pressure, the pain of the situation, but they don’t know how to effectively make it go away. Like children, they don’t know how to fix things properly because they just don’t have the tools, the experience and perspective to see the whole picture. In other words, they don’t go to their founts of wisdom for answers: to the old folks, their elders.
We older folks pretty much don’t qualify as real Greenies because we’re not young enough to have tunnel vision any more, we can’t see things as black and white so easily. Life has taught us painful lesson by painful lesson how unrealistic that is. We older folks - at least those of us who have moved beyond the flower power years - have been around long enough to know first hand that everything is connected to everything, and that disenfranchising anyone or disallowing anything isn’t going to solve any problems. Tunnel vision isn’t wrong, it’s just so very limited as to throw everything out of kilter when acted on.
The innocent ignorance of tunnel vision is not going to go away, so it’s up to us old folks to fix things - if only we ourselves would pay attention to our own elders. Answers for today’s problems won’t be Green, won’t even necessarily be in what we know ourselves here at this time today. The big answers for the questions facing humanity and for the planet are going to be found in the wisdom of the ages, of our own elders. I don’t think they will be Green.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
What's the real crisis?
Today's NY Times Headlines:
As Oil Giants Lose Influence, Supply Drops
By JAD MOUAWAD
It is harder than ever for the major Western oil companies to find new prospects, even though they are awash in profits and eager to expand.
Excuse me? Awash in profits? Am I the only person who is outraged by this?
Yes, we need to come up with energy sources, and I for one want to see it come from renewable resources. That's something that should have been started in earnest 40 years ago when we had another "fuel crisis", but NOOOOO - the US government did not support alternatives to fossil fuels (petroleum) - and from what I heard, research in to fuel alternatives was pretty much squashed.
So here we are again with another crisis - actually, we have two: one energy and one economic.
The economic crisis is looking pretty artificial to me. There may be some sort of slowing of oil production, but the economic problems we are experience are actually caused by opportunistic taking of profits from raised prices based on... fear.
The US government supports this fear by supporting everyone in the oil food chain making massive profits on the the backs of us poor schmucks down here in the real world. And worse, the US government itself is making more and more tax dollars on the price gouging at the oil pump - for every jump in price at the pumps, there is an associated jump in the tax on each gallon.
No one in the chain except we peons at the bottom has any incentive whatsoever to fix anything.
This has all been nicely engineered, don't you think? First weaken the voting population by eroding individual freedom using the fear factor (been to an airport lately?). Then the sucker punch of the "fuel crisis". Throw in some toxic food scares and some global warming threats to keep us all soft. Use environmental litigation to stop any possibility of fixing any of this, even while dangling the hope of alternative (cheap) energy that will never come because there is no incentive to fix anything when everyone but the peons are making so much money. You see where this is going?
It's going to just get worse.
None of this was inevitable. All of this could have been prevented. You want some improvement? Just say NO to politics and start doing what needs to be doing yourself. Find out who's researching alternative energy and support them. Use that technology. Become a locavore (eat locally grown foods). Don't buy into mass media advertising.
And for heaven's sake, pay attention to the real crisis: the gullibility of we peons. The real crisis will end when we stop listening to what people say and start paying attention to what people do.
As Oil Giants Lose Influence, Supply Drops
By JAD MOUAWAD
It is harder than ever for the major Western oil companies to find new prospects, even though they are awash in profits and eager to expand.
Excuse me? Awash in profits? Am I the only person who is outraged by this?
Yes, we need to come up with energy sources, and I for one want to see it come from renewable resources. That's something that should have been started in earnest 40 years ago when we had another "fuel crisis", but NOOOOO - the US government did not support alternatives to fossil fuels (petroleum) - and from what I heard, research in to fuel alternatives was pretty much squashed.
So here we are again with another crisis - actually, we have two: one energy and one economic.
The economic crisis is looking pretty artificial to me. There may be some sort of slowing of oil production, but the economic problems we are experience are actually caused by opportunistic taking of profits from raised prices based on... fear.
The US government supports this fear by supporting everyone in the oil food chain making massive profits on the the backs of us poor schmucks down here in the real world. And worse, the US government itself is making more and more tax dollars on the price gouging at the oil pump - for every jump in price at the pumps, there is an associated jump in the tax on each gallon.
No one in the chain except we peons at the bottom has any incentive whatsoever to fix anything.
This has all been nicely engineered, don't you think? First weaken the voting population by eroding individual freedom using the fear factor (been to an airport lately?). Then the sucker punch of the "fuel crisis". Throw in some toxic food scares and some global warming threats to keep us all soft. Use environmental litigation to stop any possibility of fixing any of this, even while dangling the hope of alternative (cheap) energy that will never come because there is no incentive to fix anything when everyone but the peons are making so much money. You see where this is going?
It's going to just get worse.
None of this was inevitable. All of this could have been prevented. You want some improvement? Just say NO to politics and start doing what needs to be doing yourself. Find out who's researching alternative energy and support them. Use that technology. Become a locavore (eat locally grown foods). Don't buy into mass media advertising.
And for heaven's sake, pay attention to the real crisis: the gullibility of we peons. The real crisis will end when we stop listening to what people say and start paying attention to what people do.
Saturday, July 5, 2008
Fed up with Mexican wolves?
Be sure to attend the "Can't Take It Any More" meeting in Reserve NM on Wednesday July 9, 10 a.m. at the Reserve Community Center. If you can't take it any more, then get together with like-minded folks and stop taking it.
Contact Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager 575 533-6123 or ccmanager@gilanet.com
Contact Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager 575 533-6123 or ccmanager@gilanet.com
Thursday, July 3, 2008
Is there a scientist in the house?
So today another news release is put out by "environmental" (litigation) groups. WildEarth Guardians - that's a new one. These litigation groups keep combining and recombining (like viruses) so they can have more corporate names to file more litigation.
But that's not the point of this post. The point is how long these people think the population is going to remain gullible. I mean, really - the news release says that a recent poll "shows overwhelming support for Mexican gray wolves among Southwest voters". Overwhelming? Really? 500 people who don't even live in or near the area in question? This is relevant... how?
The news release - and much of the propaganda by these litigation groups - strongly implies that the reason Mexican wolves aren't doing well in the project area is because of illegal killings and legal predator control. And the science behind this idea is where?
What studies have been done that show that wolves would otherwise be thriving if it wasn’t for "poaching"? Come on - everywhere else we've got predators that are breeding like crazy. Gray wolves are doing that in Yellowstone. Isn't it just possible that the real reason that Mexican wolves aren't thriving in Arizona and New Mexico is because... they aren't really native to the area, and they just aren't suited to it?
Science, please! For once can't we have facts and truth about Mexican wolves?
PS - be sure to attend the "Can't Take It Any More" meeting in Reserve NM on Wednesday July 9. If you can't take it any more, then get together with like-minded folks and stop taking it. Contact Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager 575 533-6123 or ccmanager@gilanet.com
But that's not the point of this post. The point is how long these people think the population is going to remain gullible. I mean, really - the news release says that a recent poll "shows overwhelming support for Mexican gray wolves among Southwest voters". Overwhelming? Really? 500 people who don't even live in or near the area in question? This is relevant... how?
The news release - and much of the propaganda by these litigation groups - strongly implies that the reason Mexican wolves aren't doing well in the project area is because of illegal killings and legal predator control. And the science behind this idea is where?
What studies have been done that show that wolves would otherwise be thriving if it wasn’t for "poaching"? Come on - everywhere else we've got predators that are breeding like crazy. Gray wolves are doing that in Yellowstone. Isn't it just possible that the real reason that Mexican wolves aren't thriving in Arizona and New Mexico is because... they aren't really native to the area, and they just aren't suited to it?
Science, please! For once can't we have facts and truth about Mexican wolves?
PS - be sure to attend the "Can't Take It Any More" meeting in Reserve NM on Wednesday July 9. If you can't take it any more, then get together with like-minded folks and stop taking it. Contact Bill Aymar, Catron County Manager 575 533-6123 or ccmanager@gilanet.com
Monday, June 2, 2008
Chilling facts on global warming
While it seems everyone knows that the planet is warming, few acknowledge what's really going on. How egocentric and narcissistic humans are, to assume that a few generations of human history tells the story of a planet. Decades and even centuries are not enough to determine anything about global climate change. Look at any records of global (planetary) history and you will see that we are in a natural temperature spike which has occurred before (without human help) and will occur again - approximately every 100-150 thousand years apart.
We are in a naturally occurring peak period of warmth on this planet at this time - but the vacation is about to end. In fact, what we humans are about to experience, and likely sooner than later, is global cooling. And believe me, global cooling is much scarier than global warming.
Over the millennia planetary temperatures are generally much colder than now. Even today, in the peak years of natural global warming, thousands of people on this planet die from the cold each year. You want a crisis? You’ll be seeing one - from cold - possibly in your lifetime. You want to do something about it? Well, humans aren’t going to change what’s to come, but we humans can prepare.
Get the facts about the big view, not the microscopic one of our own short human lifetimes. Consider what it will take for human life and achievement to continue when most of the planet is covered by ice. And you might as well enjoy this warm weather while you’ve got it.
Global chilling (facts and figures about global warming)
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Your DNA - now online
Your DNA will soon be coming to the internet. Your family’s medical information, racial information, and everything else that your DNA reveals about you will now be public information, thanks to a new law that President Bush has signed. Our president has ordered that within no more than six months a "national contingency plan" will be created to take a sample of newborns' DNA, and publish the information on the web. This is supposedly in case of a "public health emergency."
Unless you’ve adopted your children, their DNA is your DNA, it’s your siblings’ DNA, your parents’ DNA. It is who you are in every physical way.
It’s true the government will likely not publish individuals’ data - but how much do you trust that that your personal DNA data won’t somehow be available to a hacker, to insurance companies, to anyone who really wants to see it? Did you give permission for this information to be taken from your child, for this information about you and your family to become public?
And if that’s not bad enough, don’t you think that every terrorist who is working day and night to create bio-weapons is thanking our president for his help in providing a national database for research via the internet?
Unless you’ve adopted your children, their DNA is your DNA, it’s your siblings’ DNA, your parents’ DNA. It is who you are in every physical way.
It’s true the government will likely not publish individuals’ data - but how much do you trust that that your personal DNA data won’t somehow be available to a hacker, to insurance companies, to anyone who really wants to see it? Did you give permission for this information to be taken from your child, for this information about you and your family to become public?
And if that’s not bad enough, don’t you think that every terrorist who is working day and night to create bio-weapons is thanking our president for his help in providing a national database for research via the internet?
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Environmentalists or terrorists?
A bunch more “environmental” (litigation) groups are using the US court system to force the US Fish & Wildlife Service to bend to “environmentalist” agendas - and to heck with science and fact.
The Mexican wolf program is a bogus program, based on false premises. Mexican wolves come from the low desert. They never lived here in the "Mexican wolf recovery area". This area is high-altitude mixed-conifer forest, not low desert. Mogollon wolves lived here, not Mexican wolves. Go ahead - ask US FWS - they’ll tell you that the Mexican wolf recovery area is the extreme fringe of the historical Mexican wolf territory, not where they preferred to live.
So what is going on with these groups that are filing the lawsuits? The truth is that they know the above facts. The truth is that they are not really interested in saving the environment. Some of these groups are open about what they want - they want to get people out of the National Forests (don’t believe me? Check out their websites). They’ll use any means they can to achieve their goals, even if it means lying to not only the public and the US court system, but to their financial supporters - who trust them and who believe in sending money to these groups they are doing a good thing for the environment.
“Environmental” groups such as the ones suing US FWS are elitists who don't care what the cost of achieving their goals is to the public, to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and to the individuals who live here. In forcing the relocation of a non-native species to an area that species historically did not inhabit, “environmentalists” are twisting the purpose of the ESA and using the court system inappropriately to force the government and the public to do what the groups want.
What this amounts to is the use of the judicial and legislative functions of this country to achieve their own private ends. How is this different from subversion and anti-American actions? How does this differ from what any external terrorist group wants to achieve?
I say send the Mexican wolves back to Mexico, where they came from, and expose these anti-US groups for what they are: terrorists masquerading as environmentalists.
The Mexican wolf program is a bogus program, based on false premises. Mexican wolves come from the low desert. They never lived here in the "Mexican wolf recovery area". This area is high-altitude mixed-conifer forest, not low desert. Mogollon wolves lived here, not Mexican wolves. Go ahead - ask US FWS - they’ll tell you that the Mexican wolf recovery area is the extreme fringe of the historical Mexican wolf territory, not where they preferred to live.
So what is going on with these groups that are filing the lawsuits? The truth is that they know the above facts. The truth is that they are not really interested in saving the environment. Some of these groups are open about what they want - they want to get people out of the National Forests (don’t believe me? Check out their websites). They’ll use any means they can to achieve their goals, even if it means lying to not only the public and the US court system, but to their financial supporters - who trust them and who believe in sending money to these groups they are doing a good thing for the environment.
“Environmental” groups such as the ones suing US FWS are elitists who don't care what the cost of achieving their goals is to the public, to the Endangered Species Act (ESA), and to the individuals who live here. In forcing the relocation of a non-native species to an area that species historically did not inhabit, “environmentalists” are twisting the purpose of the ESA and using the court system inappropriately to force the government and the public to do what the groups want.
What this amounts to is the use of the judicial and legislative functions of this country to achieve their own private ends. How is this different from subversion and anti-American actions? How does this differ from what any external terrorist group wants to achieve?
I say send the Mexican wolves back to Mexico, where they came from, and expose these anti-US groups for what they are: terrorists masquerading as environmentalists.
Monday, April 21, 2008
Climate change article by David Archibald
Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States
Archibald, David. 2008. Solar Cycle 24: Implications for the United States. International Conference on Climate Change March, 2008.
Full text [here]
Selected excerpts:
Do we live in a special time in which the laws of physics and nature are suspended? No, we do not. Can we expect relationships between the Sun’s activity and climate, that we can see in data going back several hundred years, to continue for at least another 20 years? With absolute certainty.
In this presentation, I will demonstrate that the Sun drives climate, and use that demonstrated relationship to predict the Earth’s climate to 2030. It is a prediction that differs from most in the public domain. It is a prediction of imminent cooling.
To put the solar – climate relationship in context, we will begin by looking at the recent temperature record, and then go further back in time. Then we will examine the role of the Sun in changing climate, and following that the contribution of anthropogenic warming from carbon dioxide.
I will show that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is not even a little bit bad. It is wholly beneficial. The more carbon dioxide we can put into the atmosphere, the better the planet will be – for humans, and all other living things. …
To reconstruct climate prior to thermometer records, isotope ratios and tree ring widths are used. This graph shows the Medieval Warm Period and Little Ice Age. The peak of the Medieval Warm Period was 2° warmer than today and the Little Ice Age 2° colder at its worst. The total range is 4° centigrade. The warming over the 20th century was 0.6 degrees by comparison. This recent warming has melted ice on some high passes in the Swiss Alps, uncovering artifacts from the Medieval Warm Period and the prior Roman Warm Period. …
It was warmer again not long after the last ice age ended. Sea level was 2 metres than it is today. Since the Holocene Optimum about eight thousand years ago, we been in long term temperature decline at about 0.25 degrees per thousand years.
When I asked at the beginning of this presentation if we lived in a special time, well that is true in relation to the last three million years. The special time we live in is called an interglacial. Normally, and that is 90% of the time, the spot I am standing on is covered by several thousand feet of ice. Relative to the last four interglacials, we may be somewhere near the end of the current interglacial. The end of the Holocene will be a brutal time for humanity. …
The Holocene, the period we are in now, is tracking along with three of the four previous interglacials. Of those three, if the Holocene ends up being like the Eemian, then we may have up to 3,000 years of Little Ice Age-like conditions before we plunge into the next glacial period. If not, then the plunge could start any time now. …The evidence from the Hanover solar cycle length to temperature relationship, and that of the other cities in this presentation, is incontrovertible. There will be a significant cooling very soon.
Our generation has known a warm, giving Sun, but the next generation will suffer a Sun that is less giving, and the Earth will be less fruitful. …
The big consequence of this is that it will shrink the growing season. The 2.2 degree decline I am predicting will take two weeks off the growing season at both ends. Next decade will not be a good time to be a Canadian wheat farmer. For farmers further south, farm production will decline but that production will be worth a considerable amount more.
“The surprising result of these long-range predictions is a rapid decline in solar activity, starting with cycle #24. If this trend continues, we may see the Sun heading towards a “Maunder”type of solar activity minimum -an extensive period of reduced levels of solar activity.” — K.H.Schattenand W.K.Tobiska, 34th Solar Physics Division Meeting, June 2003, American Astronomical Society…
Can global warming from increased atmospheric carbon dioxide save us from a collapse in mid-latitude agricultural production? Not at all. …
In a world of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide, crops will use less water per unit of carbon dioxide uptake, and thus the productivity of semi-arid lands will increase the most.
It’s not all good news. We will need this increase in agricultural productivity to offset the colder weather coming.
AGW Proponents are Exactly Wrong
1.The Earth is getting colder and this will accelerate.
2.Carbon dioxide has a minuscule warming effect.
3.Increased atmospheric carbon dioxide will increase agricultural productivity.
4.The ideal atmospheric carbon dioxide level is a minimum of 1,000 ppm
What I have shown in this presentation is that carbon dioxide is largely irrelevant to the Earth’s climate. The carbon dioxide that Mankind will put into the atmosphere over the next few hundred years will offset a couple of millenia of post-Holocene Optimum cooling before we plunge into the next ice age. There are no deleterious consequences of higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. Higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are wholly beneficial.
Implications for the United States
1.The climate-driven reduction in agricultural production should be planned for.
2.Coal-fired power generation should be increased.
3.Coal to liquid fuels capacity should be installed.
Stopping coal-fired power generation due to carbon dioxide emissions is exactly wrong in science. The more carbon dioxide you put into the atmosphere, the more you are helping all living things on the planet and of course that makes you a better person.
Saturday, February 2, 2008
545 PEOPLE RESPONSIBLE FOR AMERICA’S WOES
BY CHARLEY REESE
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton- picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.
No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a SPEAKER, who stood up and criticized G.W. Bush ALONE for creating deficits.
The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.
I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.
When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in IRAQ, it’s because they want them in IRAQ.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess.
Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered why, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, we have deficits? Have you ever wondered why, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, we have inflation and high taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The president does. You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does. You and I don’t write the tax code. Congress does. You and I don’t set fiscal policy. Congress does. You and I don’t control monetary policy. The Federal Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545 human beings out of the 300 million - are directly, legally, morally and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered but private central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman or a president to do one cotton- picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it.
No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a SPEAKER, who stood up and criticized G.W. Bush ALONE for creating deficits.
The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it. The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.
Who is the speaker of the House? She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow Democrats, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts - of incompetence and irresponsibility.
I can’t think of a single domestic problem, from an unfair tax code to defense overruns, that is not traceable directly to those 545 people.
When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair. If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red. If the Marines are in IRAQ, it’s because they want them in IRAQ.
There are no insoluble government problems. Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exist disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power. They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses - provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees. We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Global warming: Who gains from the scare tactics?
"....we currently live in one of coldest moments in the history of the Earth. With the exception of the Permian Ice Age of 400 million years ago, and our own Ice Age currently 2 million years old, the Earth has always been warmer than now. Life evolved when it was warmer. Life florished when it was warmer. Life diminishes during Ice Ages." (quote from http://westinstenv.org/sosf/2008/01/24/mr-mensa-challenges-mike-on-global-cooling/)
Doesn't the above make you wonder about why global warming is being pushed so hard? As always, the answer to what's going on might well be found by following the money. Who gains from global warming scare tactics?
Doesn't the above make you wonder about why global warming is being pushed so hard? As always, the answer to what's going on might well be found by following the money. Who gains from global warming scare tactics?
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