It has been a busy week for news already. Some of the highlights (or lowlights):
USFS Chief Gail Kimbell proffered an excuse for soaring fire costs and her agency’s failure to do a Congressionally ordered analysis of the nation’s aerial firefighting program following fatal crashes of planes working on wildfires: “We are a nation at war, and we’re a nation with a huge budget deficit.” [here].
Pretty cheesy. We can’t do our job because the nation is at war. It could be the war that Kimbell is talking about is the one the USFS is waging on forests and landowners throughout the West. Her agency did find $54 million to spend on conservation easements to stop homebuilding on private land. It “saved” the taxpayers money by curtailing private property rights and resident stewardship of the land in favor of holocaust megafires.
Weyerhaeuser was busted in another anti-trust case. A Portland jury on Monday ordered Weyerhaeuser to pay almost $28 million for unlawfully monopolizing the market for finished alder lumber [here].
U.S. Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey was in Missoula on Monday to answer questions about controversial secret meetings between the U.S. Forest Service and the Plum Creek Timber Company. Plum Creek is the country’s largest private landowner, with 8 million acres nationwide and 1.2 million acres in Montana [here].
More gravy for the Big Potato. Maybe Mark doesn’t realize that we’re a nation at war.
In wildlife news, a rabies outbreak is plaguing the Southwest. A rabid bobcat attacked two hikers, who had to kill it with a hammer [here]. Lesson: never go hiking without a hammer. For more rabies news see Wolf Crossing [here].
Speaking of disease-carrying animals, twelve “environmental” groups have sued to halt wolf delisting [here]. Nuff said.
On the climate front, the founder of the National Hurricane Center is being forced out for his failure to buy into Algore’s Inconvenient Lie [here]. Naughty, naughty. Here come the PC police.
And finally Friends of the Earth have been blamed for starving millions of poor to death after spreading ugly rumors about American food aid to Africa [here]. Guess that’s one way to deal with the overpopulation problem. Pin a medal on FOE.
Lovely news. Going outside now. Had my fill of it. If there were some way to dig the news into my garden, I’m sure I could grow pumpkins the size of Volkswagens. For big punkins, it’s all about the bull …
April 29, 2008 | 2 Comments | Topic: The 2008 Fire Season, Private land policies, Climate and Weather, Saving Forests, Politics and politicians, Federal forest policy
by Roni Bell Sylvester, Good Neighbor Law [here]
Pope Benedict XVI warns “failure to ensure the right to food is a violation of human dignity.” He wants our planet to grow enough food to assure that no one “goes to sleep on an empty stomach.”
But Pope Benedict faces a strong opponent.
Mr. Al Gore thought he’d won the title of President of the United States of America, but found out later that he hadn’t. Filled with rage, Al rallied his buddies at the UN and the European Union to come up with a plan whereby they could crush America and give Al title to a territory much larger than America. Something like… the world.
They needed to come up with something that would stir millions to march faithfully behind them. They met on a big O yacht and tried to figure out how to make billions of dollars and help Al get title to the world.
They founded a new religion they named the “Church of Global Warming,” and anointed Al Gore Head Preacher. In his first sermon, Preacher Gore asked his people “Weather - or not?” They answered in unison, “Weather!” And thusly they set up a doctrine that portended to stop “climate change” and any other loose change that followed.
How does this tie into Mr. Gore competition with Pope Benedict’s call to feed the poor and hungry? Well, the Church of Global Warming is using a method called Precautionary Principle to crush America.
Read more
April 20, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Climate and Weather, Politics and politicians
Here it is: Global Cooling. How do you like it?
Coldest Winter on record. Just what you wanted. Enjoying the April snow?
Attention Far Left Socialist voters. Governor Dumb Bunny Ted is holding GW Alarmist meetings, trying to orient the entire State government to combating global warming by shutting down all economic activity, tearing down dams, and encouraging megafires. Are you pleased?
The moron you elected twice reached down to OSU and forced out the only academic with the guts to tell the truth about the impending global cooling. Do you like that kind of interference in academic freedom? Are you satisfied now that freedom of thought has been curtailed at your university, and no one but sycophantic twits are left there? Twits that are dead wrong about climate change?
Did you get tire chains for your Priuses?
Don’t worry. Next summer will be the nicest day of the year. You won’t need chains to drive out to your favorite incinerated forest and gaze lovingly at the miles and miles of blackened snags.
You wanted change. Don’t worry. You’ll soon be out on the sidewalk begging for some.
Let’s elect some more extreme leftist bonehead Stalinists. Keep Oregon Charcoal Grey. It’s all about “quality of life” right? Huddle in the dark and cold and tell yourself that the quality of your life is vastly improved.
Vote lefty–freeze the planet. Give up your freedoms; it’s worth it. Abort your babies, euthanize your parents. You’re saving the planet!!
Let’s all sing some Communist anthems. Maybe that’ll keep us warm.
Ban homes; we can all live under the urban bridges. Drink right out of the sewer discharge pipes that pour filth into the estuary in Portland. We’re Dreamers here. Dream on.
Thank There Is No God that the Religious Right doesn’t have a single rep in the Legislature. Make Oregon safe for wolves. Burn Baby Burn. The only good forest is dead, burned, tick brush. Fight Global Warming. We like it cold as ice.
So strap on your jackboots and goosestep down the avenue. You won the battle! Universal death care! Sing the Happy Slave Song. Freeze your brains. Be as Left as you can be. Save the planet from humans such as yourself. If everybody else is jumping off the cliff, might as well join them. Ban the board! And don’t leave any carbon footprints on your way out.
April 19, 2008 | 7 Comments | Topic: Politics and politicians
The Burn It Down contingent at Lake Tahoe are up to their old tricks again. Some authoritarian thugs never learn. The latest eco-nazi eruption at the Sierran lake was featured in the Sac Bee last week [here]:
Lake Tahoe resident could face prison over tree removal
By Todd Milbourn - Sack-a-tomatoes Bee, April 9, 2008
Environmental cops at Lake Tahoe say Patricia Vincent deserves a prison sentence and a huge fine.
Her alleged crime: chopping down three trees on federal land that improved her backyard view of the lake.
The enviro cops in question are functionaries of the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, recently lambasted by the emergency California-Nevada Tahoe Basin Fire Commission [here] for creating the fire hazard that led to the Angora Fire (which incinerated 3,100 acres of public forest and 254 private homes, and caused an estimated $140 million in damages) last June.
Vincent says it was an honest mistake, but now she’s believed to be the first target of criminal charges of illegally cutting Tahoe trees.
It’s the clearest signal yet of how serious coniferous crime has become as regulators fight to preserve the Sierra Nevada jewel Mark Twain once deemed “the finest view the world affords.”
April 14, 2008 | 9 Comments | Topic: 2007 Fire Season, Saving Forests, Politics and politicians
Here are two recent news articles on rural politics in Oregon. Just to let you know how we high rate out here.
Number One:
Rural areas will lose a voice in Salem [here]
MATTHEW PREUSCH, The Oregonian Staff, March 23, 2008
BEND — Among the victims of Oregon’s darkening fiscal picture this year is the state’s only rural policy director.
Not that rural Oregonians are surprised. As they’ll tell you, getting the short end of the stick sort of comes with the territory.
In April 2004 at the Elks Lodge in John Day, Gov. Ted Kulongoski signed an executive order creating the Office of Rural Policy.
“The new Office of Rural Policy will assist the state in better understanding the unique needs and issues of rural Oregon,” Kulongoski said as eastern Oregon leaders looked on. Many hoped it would help bridge the state’s much-maligned urban-rural divide.
But the hope of some of those people who stood beside the governor has turned to bitter disappointment. At the end of this month, the office will disappear and its director and only full-time employee, Jim Azumano, will be out of work.
“From start to finish, it has been one of the most sorry situations I have ever been a party to,” Laura Pryor, a former Gilliam County executive and one of the office’s early supporters, said in a recent e-mail to colleagues.
The office never received regular allocations from the state’s general fund, relying instead on short-term federal grants and other miscellaneous funds.
Last year, the governor’s office asked for $400,000 to support the office, but the 2007 Legislature authorized only enough to keep it running for nine months. Lawmakers also asked Azumano and office supporters to come back with a report justifying its existence.
“I don’t know what they’ve done, other than have on the governor’s masthead a recognition that this administration cares about rural issues,” Sen. Betsy Johnson, D-Scappoose, a Ways and Means committee member, said during a hearing on the office last June.
March 26, 2008 | 5 Comments | Topic: Politics and politicians
This topic came up a couple of years ago when researchers with scientific integrity requested a delay in publishing a politically-motivated piece of second-rate research on salvage logging. Oh boy, did the academic freedom card get played! There were special emergency legislative hearings then, and all those who requested the delay were excoriated in the national press.
Now we have a case where our extreme left-wing pisspoor excuse for a Governor hounded a nationally recognized and respected researcher out of OSU. Didn’t merely request a delay in publishing a paper, but cost a great researcher his job! Is that of any interest to the academic freedom alarmists?
Are there any other academics who the Gov disapproves of? Do you have list, Stinky Ted? Can we see it? Will you be doing all the hiring and firing at OSU from now on? What’s your political litmus test for employment at OSU?
Oh well, the subject is no longer hot, I guess. The constraint of academic freedom at OSU was a false alarm. It’s okay to screw the screws down when the academic in question is not PC. The knife doesn’t cut both ways, evidently. Fire at will, Teddy. OSU is yours to mold in your political image. The hysterics have crawled under their rocks, and the academic community is as silent as the dead.
February 26, 2008 | 2 Comments | Topic: Forestry education, Politics and politicians
Our local paper, the Albany Democrat Herald, saw fit to publish an excruciatingly ridiculous hit piece on Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey last Sunday. Herein we engage in some debunkery and fight fire with fire.
The ADH (editor Hasso Hering) chose NOT to put the article on their website, but it ran all over the country. The Juneau Empire ran the complete story and posted it [here]. That’s where we downloaded it, but it’s word for word what the ADH ran.
It was written by a tweak named Matthew Daly, a stringer for the Associated Press in Seattle and frequent mouthpiece for radical extremists. Here’s the opening:
WASHINGTON - He overhauled federal forest policy to cut more trees - and became a lightning rod for environmentalists who say he is intent on logging every tree in his reach.
Who says that, Matt? It’s a total canard, a perfectly false accusation. Stupid, really. Did someone really say that? Whom? Afraid to name your sources? Or did you just make it up and attribute it to vague, unnamed straw men?
After nearly seven years in office, Agriculture Undersecretary Mark Rey still has a long to-do list. Near the top: Persuade a federal judge to keep him out of jail.
That’s a reference to Federal Judge Donald Molloy and the lawsuit against the use of fire retardant brought by a Eugene-based group called Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics [here, here].
February 25, 2008 | 9 Comments | Topic: Politics and politicians
We previously discussed the language in the new Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, in particular those clauses that eliminate federal forests as a source of biofuels material [here, here]. The protests in that regard by numerous involved citizens has borne fruit.
Last week a bipartisan coalition of representatives introduced H.R. 5236 to correct the language in the Energy Act. The following is taken in its entirety from Greg Walden’s website [here].
Herseth Sandlin - Walden Bill Would Promote Development and Use of Cellulosic Ethanol Derived from Wood Waste on Federal Lands
February 7, 2008 - WASHINGTON, D.C.
Last night, Rep. Herseth Sandlin (D-SD) and Rep. Greg Walden (R-OR) introduced the Renewable Biofuels Facilitation Act (H.R. 5236), legislation that would promote the development and use of cellulosic ethanol derived from woody biomass on federal lands. The bill would significantly broaden the definition of cellulosic ethanol within the Renewable Fuels Standard (RFS) to include more biomass gathered from federal lands.
The Herseth Sandlin – Walden bill addresses a flaw included in The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007, which included an historic 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard (RFS). Unfortunately, the legislation’s definition of renewable biomass prevents almost all federal land biomass, such as trees, wood, brush, thinnings, chips, and slash, from counting toward the mandate if it is used to manufacture biofuels. This provision not only discourages the use of such biomass, but in doing so could result in a decrease in responsible forest management by denying land managers an important outlet for the excessive biomass loads that often accumulate on public lands. The Herseth Sandlin – Walden bill would promote the use of energy from waste products gathered on federal lands, including those that are byproducts of preventive treatments and are removed to reduce hazardous fuels, to reduce or contain disease or insect infestation, or to restore ecosystem health.
The Renewable Biofuels Facilitation Act was co-sponsored by a geographically diverse and bipartisan group including Representatives Peter DeFazio (D-OR), Bart Stupak (D-MI), Mike Ross (D-AR), Chip Pickering (R-MS), Emerson (R-VA), Emerson (R-MO), Goodlatte (R-VA), Bonner (R-AL), J. Peterson (R-PA).
Rep. Greg Walden (R-Ore.):
“The energy bill recently signed into law does a great deal to advance America toward a smarter energy future,” Walden said. “Unfortunately, it woefully underappreciated the role biomass must play in our energy portfolio by excluding biomass produced in federal forest health projects from the country’s new 36 billion gallon renewable fuels standard. Additionally, the energy bill placed onerous restrictions on the use of biomass from private lands.”
Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD):
“Currently, the energy bill provides great incentives for innovative entrepreneurs, often working in conjunction with government and academia, to create new ways to make clean, homegrown renewable biofuels in this country,” Herseth Sandlin said. “Unfortunately, current law prevents biofuels made from biomass that originates on public lands or any biomass from private land that is not ‘planted’ and ‘actively managed’ from being counted toward the RFS. This is unfortunate, unnecessary, and unjustified.”
The Renewable Biomass Facilitation Act would change the definition to clarify that federally sourced biomass is eligible for consideration under the renewable fuels standard and is identical to the language included in the Senate’s version of the Farm Bill which passed 79-14 on December 14, 2007. Additionally, the bill would allow RFS credit for broad categories of biomass from non-federal and tribal lands including agricultural commodities, plants and trees, algae, crop residue, waste material (including wood waste and wood residues), animal waste and byproducts (including fats, oils, greases, and manure), construction waste, and food and yard waste.
February 11, 2008 | 4 Comments | Topic: Politics and politicians, Federal forest policy
By Julie Kay Smithson, Property Rights Research [here]
Most of us are laymen, not experts in the fields of “endangered species,” “critical habitat,” etc. We do, however, have the ability to read and ponder. We can understand when something is not what it seems. If a species is touted as “endangered,” “throughout all or part of its historic range,” we must wonder how the experts know what that species’ historic range was. Sometimes, though not always, “science,” as employed by federal agencies and their partners, can be boiled down to something that more closely resembles justifying one’s paycheck.
For example, how can anyone decide what is — or is not — “possible habitat”? Speaking for myself, because I might want to live somewhere at some time does not justify setting aside that place (reserving it, so to speak) for the time when I might want to live there. How can U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service use such a phrase to remove people from their homes, businesses, custom and culture — thereby stealing their property rights — under such a guise? It was tried here in Ohio ’s Darby area, where the Big and Little Darby creeks flow. So what if we have “possible habitat” for the Indiana bat, a specie that USFWS says is “endangered”? The bat’s name implies that it is an Indiana species.
The Canada goose is a Canadian species. We are overrun with this species and must avoid it on golf courses, farms, restaurant parking lots, airports, etc. Few people that live where these geese have wandered, set up housekeeping and proliferated would buy into any argument that the Canada goose might be “endangered,” so USFWS has carefully steered a path around this species.
However, the polar bear — originally a few wandering brown bears that kept going north from their original territory to satisfy their apparent wanderlust — does not have the benefit of lots of people keeping an eye on its population. Most of us only know about the polar bear from what is fed to us, courtesy of National Geographic specials and newspaper ramblings that seek to convince us of the imminent danger of extinction.
Hogwash and balderdash, folks. A few excellent connections in places like Nunavit (part of northern Canada ) and Alaska — connections that have experience in polar bears and their habitat — say that the polar bear is in no such danger. The only danger, they say with candor, is from the U.S. Congress and its “green” influenced lobbyists that seek more and more money in order to “manage” something that needs no management, to “recover” something that does not need recovery. Expeditions of taxpayer-funded “scientists” are planned to invade the polar bear’s frozen neighborhoods, trek about and invent “threats” where none exist, and funnel megabucks into these “studies.” While it makes for nice “documentaries,” how much is fact and how much is fiction remains for the viewer to discern. The polar icepack is not “melting at an alarming rate.”
Puny timeframes we have for the measuring of temperatures only cover the past century or so. Global weather cyclic patterns take far longer and people’s presence is not making a “terrible threat” to polar bears or virtually every other species. Rain forests, being in the equatorial region of the world, are in the most favorable growing and regrowth area. Anyone visiting Florida for any length of time knows how quickly green things grow. Multiply that by two or more and you get a reasonable picture of vegetation growth in equatorial regions where rainfall is plentiful. “The destruction of the rain forest” is not leaving a path of “devastation.”
Our own “critical habitat” is being invaded by illegals from all parts of the world, coming here, not to become naturalized citizens, but to attach to the host until the host no longer has the ability to feed the parasite. What do “our” elected officials do about this very real and present threat to the “critical habitat” of Americans? Ask them! It’s an election year! … [more]
February 11, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Climate and Weather, Politics and politicians
Inside sources have revealed to SOS Forests that it was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who inserted language into the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 which disqualifies material gathered from National Forests as a source of renewable biofuels material [here].
Pelosi’s spokesperson revealed that she included the language in the energy bill during an informal conference without debate.
Sen. John Thune (R-SD) has introduced a bill, S. 2558, which would amend the Act’s definition of renewable biomass to include, “Materials, pre-commercial thinnings, or removed exotic species that . . . are harvested from National Forest System land or public lands” in accordance with existing Healthy Forests Restoration Act requirements on logging [here].
“To exclude slash piles and other wastes from within our national forests to be counted towards the Renewable Fuels Standard simply makes no sense,” said Thune in a press release. “My legislation will allow national forests like South Dakota’s Black Hills National Forest to be used in a more sustainable manner that will help improve our economy, our environment and our national energy needs.”
John Thune came to the Senate by defeating Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle in 2004.
Thune introduced the bill Jan. 25, which was referred to the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee. It is likely that Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-CA) will NOT hold any hearings or markups on it.
Pelosi opposed the 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act. No record exists of any debate on excluding U.S. National Forests from the energy bill, but all sources, including her own spokesperson, point directly to backroom legislative hijacking by Pelosi.
January 31, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Politics and politicians, Federal forest policy
