SOS Forests

Bust a Fistprint For Karl Marx

Gear up fellow proletariat masses, “former” Communist and ousted Obama Administration “Green Czar” Van Jones [here, here, here] is coming to Portland to give a free public lecture Jan. 25 about “Beyond Green Jobs: the Next American Economy” sponsored by the Oregon Humanities Center at the University of Oregon. The lecture starts at 5:45 p.m. at the White Stag Block, 70 N.W. Couch Street.

This latest Pipples Revolutionary Shindig was announced by the taxpayer-supported Climate Justice League. Their motto is: “At the end of the day, it’s not about your carbon footprint. It’s about your carbon-busting fistprint!”

I am not kidding. Go see for yourself [here].

Just another day in the Pipples Democratic Republic of Oregon.

Destroying History With a Vengeance

The US Forest Service has an unfortunate habit of destroying historical structures, on purpose, with glee, even though the structures are on (or qualified for) the National Register of Historical Places.

It happens all the time, mainly in association with “used” wildfires, but also as stand-alone acts of official arson.

Last summer the USFS burned up numerous cabins in the historic Kimberly Mining District of Utah. The weapon used was the Twitchell Canyon Whoofoo Fire [here, here, here, here, here, here], which ignited in July and was Let Burn until it blew up in September. Besides shutting down the Interstate and a key powerline corridor, and eventually costing $18,000,000 to suppress, the Twitchell Canyon Government Arson Project wiped history off the map.

Nothing new about that practice. In 2008 the USFS burned up historic cabins and lodges in Wyoming during the Gunbarrel Let It Burn Monstrosity Fire [here, here, here, here], with typical officious impunity. Good riddance to history said the obsequious functionaries.

It is tough to top the Payette NF, however, when it comes to deliberate arson. They lie, cheat, and sneak around in the middle of the night with drip torches deliberately setting private property on fire. Hard to believe, but absolutely true. Ask any resident of Yellow Pine or Warren, Idaho.

Just recently the Payette NF Gang decided to incinerate yet another cabin, the Bill Timm Cabin in Roosevelt. Yellow Pine resident Scott Amos explains [here]:

According to Krassel District Ranger Anthony Botello, the USFS directives require the Payette National Forest to “reduce our inventory” of historical structures. I.E., BURN BABY BURN!!!! Apparently through any means necessary, and without regard for the Antiquities Act, National Historical Preservation Act, or the will of the American people!

PNF CLAIMS BILL TIMMS BUILT CABIN IN 1969, SIX YEARS AFTER HIS DEATH!

The official USFS archaeological report, required to comply with the National Historical Preservation Act of 1966 (NHPA 1966), states the following:

1) [Falsely] The cabin was built in 1969, therefore is not eligible for entry into the National Register of Historical Places and will be destroyed (by USFS rangers).

2) [Falsely] The man who built it, Bill Timm, who died in 1963, reportedly did not build his cabin until 1969!

3) [Correctly] Shows a picture of Bill Timm (as a VERY old man) posing for a newspaper reporter in front of his cabin that he built, dated 1950!!! According to people who knew Bill Timms, he would have been in his 80s in 1950. If he died in 1963, he would likely have been in his 90s. And, the USFS account that he was able to build the cabin sometime around 1969 is simply OUTRAGEOUS!

The Krassel Ranger District burned up their own Work Center in 2007 during the phenomenally egregious Summer of Holocaust in central Idaho [see photos here, a collection of 30+ posts here].

Once upon a time Payette NF functionaries trekked to a stream below an old mine and poured a bottle of cyanide into the water. Then they “tested” the water, found high levels of cyanide (surprise surprise!) and blamed it on leachate from the mine. Hard to believe, but absolutely true.

Destruction in the name of “preservation” is standard operating procedure for the US Forest Service. And not just in backwaters like Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming. In Southern California the wackos have coddled tick brush, which they call “old-growth chaparral”, forbidding any fuel reduction treatments. Said tick brush frequently explodes into fatal holocausts like the Station Fire [here, here, here, here] and the Cedar Fire (which burned 3,241 homes and killed 16 people).

Now the Gadarene destructionists, led by geriatric Goober “Moonbeam” Brown, want to declare SoCal National Forests as “wilderness” to ensure bigger and more destructive holocausts in the heart of their largest cities.

Hard to believe, but absolutely true.

The list goes on and on. Toxic “environmentalism” is more than a disease, more than a religion — it is a full frontal assault on civilization and humanity fomented by liars, cheats, and thieves.

But you already knew that.

Wind, Solar, Ethanol Net Energy Balance Negative

Note: It takes more BTU’s of natural gas, petroleum and/or coal to manufacture so-called “renewable” energy than the BTU’s produced by windmills, solar cells, or ethanol farms. The equation is negative. It requires more fossil fuel to produce a BTU of “renewable” energy than if the fossil fuel was burned directly in power plants or cars. Renewables do not save oil; they waste oil. Ironic, isn’t it? — Editor

by Gordon Fulks

While it is easy to predict that our electric bills will rapidly double with the current push for large amounts of renewable energy to replace the tried and true power sources we presently use, the real issue is what are we getting for our money?

First of all, how can we be certain that the present course we are on will double our bills? That’s easy. “Renewable” sources have a wholesale cost per kilowatt-hour that is many times that of conventional sources like hydro, coal, natural gas, or nuclear. If only a tiny fraction of our generating capability comes from these “renewable” sources, then the effects on the ratepayer will be the relatively minimal increases so far. But as soon as legislators force power companies to expand from one or two percent to ten or twenty percent coming from extremely costly sources, watch out. Electric bills have to increase greatly or the power companies will go broke. Legislators can hide some of the pain by shifting a fraction of the burden to taxpayers, but the public will quickly figure out that taxpayers and ratepayers are the same individuals - us! In other words, the crazy mandates for extremely expensive power will take a huge toll on our society and destroy our once substantial competitive advantage of cheap power here in the Northwest.

But let’s ask for a moment if we are getting something for all the money we are spending. One of Bill Bradbury’s aides admitted to me that Global Warming might be a hoax, but argued that we are justified in continuing with it because of all the wonderful changes it is forcing in our society. Presumably, windmills, solar cells, and ethanol were high on her list of wonderful accomplishments. But all of these are energy and economic disasters for us.

Here’s why:

All energy takes some energy to produce. Let me call this ‘overhead.’ It takes energy to drill an oil or natural gas well, additional energy to pump or truck what comes out of the ground to a refinery, still more energy to refine the crude into useful products and transport it to market. But the whole process produces a vast amount of net energy, as well as a vast amount of high quality energy. That means we get somewhere with such an undertaking, because our overhead is relatively low.

But as even Al Gore has discovered, we get nowhere with ethanol made from corn. It requires about as much high quality energy to produce as we ever get out of the inferior product. You might as well just burn the natural gas and diesel fuel directly and shutdown the elaborate process that is today converting these into ethanol. That would also help reduce our food prices, which have risen dramatically as a consequence of the diversion of a significant fraction of our corn crop to fuel production. That has had devastating consequences in the Third World which has long depended on our U.S. agricultural surpluses. The UN World Food Program estimates that a billion people now go hungry thanks to our very misguided ethanol “experiment”.

Solar cells are a similar boondoggle, but [perhaps] without the horrendous social consequences. It takes about as much electrical energy to manufacture silicon solar cells as will ever be returned by them over their typical twenty year lifespan. In some applications, the use of high quality energy (electricity) to make more high quality energy is justified, if the solar electricity is extremely valuable. Satellite applications are a good example. But if solar cells merely replace grid power, then they cannot be considered high quality power, because they do not produce electricity when the Sun is not shining. That gets us into the issue of back-up power which is necessary for all intermittent sources. Hydro and natural gas generating plants work well for back-up, if they have excess capacity. But if new natural gas plants need to be built just to back up solar, then it is very difficult to justify the expense. We would be considerably better off building only the natural gas plant and foregoing the solar.

Windmills are perhaps the worst boondoggle of all because they require much more high quality energy to manufacture, install, maintain, and back up than they will ever produce. And in fact the electricity they produce is far inferior to that from a conventional power plant because it is so erratic. With solar, we can at least depend on the Sun shining most days in appropriate locations. The same cannot be said for wind. The erratic nature of wind places a huge strain on the electric grid, if we expect our power to continue 24/7. Continually bringing huge natural gas or nuclear generators up to speed and then shutting them down just to accommodate the wind shortens their life considerably. The same argument can be made for the large generators used in huge windmills. Substantial environmental problems [bird chopping, extreme ugliness, opportunity costs of other land uses foregone] with windmills also suggest that they are a problem not a solution.

I would hope that our State Senators and Representatives would take the time to learn something about the generation of electricity, because they are forcing changes that even by their standards are a disaster. I say “by their standards” because they are claiming carbon dioxide, energy independence, and environmental dividends that simply do not exist.

With high costs and no demonstrable benefits, we need to abandon this bandwagon in favor of real solutions for our energy needs.

Gordon J. Fulks, PhD
Corbett, Oregon USA

Ecobabble Reaches New Heights

Or lows, depending on your point of view

When is fragmentation just a mosaic? That nonsensical question is pertinent to the 2010 Draft Revised Revised Revised Revised Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl, which uses both terms depending on the mood of the authors.

Fragmentation is bad, very bad. Mosaics are good, very good. The fact that neither is defined and thus cannot be measured is handy, because for all intents and purposes they are the same thing.

But not to worry. The USFWS plans to model all that blarney sometime in the unforeseeable future. When they get a round tuit.

When they do, the USFWS modelers might find the following ecobabble useful, if “useful” means achieving total obfuscation without any connection to the real world.

Haydon, D. T. and E. R. Pianka. 1999. Metapopulation theory, landscape models, and species diversity. EcoScience 6: 316-328.

Abstract. We construct a model that describes the interaction of multiple metapopulation processes with measures of landscape patch diversity, fragmentary grain, and patch availability. Landscape models corresponding to Voronoi tessellations formulated around two-dimensional point processes are suggested as alternatives to conventional neutral landscape models. A method for creating the configuration of suitable habitat composed of multiple types of patches in randomized landscapes is suggested that utilizes perimeter polynomials associated with classical percolation theory. The landscape models are used to examine the influence of patch diversity, landscape grain, and total habitat availability on two measures of species performance that can be predicted from conventional metapopulation theory: the expected fraction of patches occupied by a species in the landscape (conditional prevalence), and the probability that a species will be represented in the landscape (representation). Results suggest that even when considering mutually non-interactive multiple metapopulation processes, the influence of landscape structure on species prevalence and representation depends in a complicated way on a combination of both species parameters and landscape parameters. Significantly, effects of changes in landscape structure on the distribution of a species cannot be anticipated from its pre-disturbance distribution. Our theory predicts that regional species diversity is maximized at intermediate levels of patch type diversity and fragmentation.

Keywords: Landscape models, multi-species metapopulations, habitat mosaics, Voronoi tessellations

Voronoi tessellations? From Wiki [here]

Definition

Let S be a set of points in Euclidean space with all limit points contained in S. For almost every point x in the Euclidean space, there is one point of S closest to x. The word “almost” is used to indicate exceptions where a point x may be equally close to two or more points of S.

If S contains only two points, a and b, then the set of all points equidistant from a and b is a hyperplane—an affine subspace of codimension 1. That hyperplane is the boundary between the set of all points closer to a than to b, and the set of all points closer to b than to a. It is the perpendicular bisector of the line segment from a to b.

In general, the set of all points closer to a point c of S than to any other point of S is the interior of a (in some cases unbounded) convex polytope called the Dirichlet domain or Voronoi cell for c. The set of such polytopes tessellates the whole space, and is the Voronoi tessellation corresponding to the set S. If the dimension of the space is only 2, then it is easy to draw pictures of Voronoi tessellations, and in that case they are sometimes called Voronoi diagrams.

Hang that on your Christmas tree.

Thanks and a tip of the hardhat to SOSF stalwart Alphonzo…

The Wind Power Fraud and Ripoff

If you live here, it’s not that much fun watching Oregon (California’s mini-me) commit economic suicide. This state’s “investment” in “green” energy is one more nail in the coffin.

Germany, Spain, and Denmark have conducted studies which show a loss of 2 to 4 jobs in the private sector for every green job created. For instance:

Gabriel Calzada Álvarez, Raquel Merino Jara, Juan Ramón Rallo Julián, José Ignacio García Bielsa (2009) Study of the effects on employment of public aid to renewable energy sources. Universidad Rey Juan Carlos [here].

Selected excerpts:

Europe’s current policy and strategy for supporting the so-called “green jobs” or renewable energy dates back to 1997, and has become one of the principal justifications for U.S. “green jobs” proposals. Yet an examination of Europe’s experience reveals these policies to be terribly economically counterproductive.

This study is important for several reasons. First is that the Spanish experience is considered a leading example to be followed by many policy advocates and politicians. This study marks the very first time a critical analysis of the actual performance and impact has been made. Most important, it demonstrates that the Spanish/EU-style “green jobs” agenda now being promoted in the U.S. in fact destroys jobs, detailing this in terms of jobs destroyed per job created and the net destruction per installed MW. …

Optimistically treating European Commission partially funded data1, we find that for every renewable energy job that the State manages to finance, Spain’s experience cited by President Obama as a model reveals with high confidence, by two different methods, that the U.S. should expect a loss of at least 2.2 jobs on average, or about 9 jobs lost for every 4 created, to which we have to add those jobs that non-subsidized investments with the same resources would have created. …

[W]hile it is not possible to directly translate Spain’s experience with exactitude to claim that the U.S. would lose at least 6.6 million to 11 million jobs, as a direct consequence were it to actually create 3 to 5 million “green jobs” as promised (in addition to the jobs lost due to the opportunity cost of private capital employed in renewable energy), the study clearly reveals the tendency that the U.S. should expect such an outcome. …

Spain’s economic collapse has been mentioned in the Main Stream Media. What has not been fully revealed is that windmills and other “green” energy development are the cause. Oregon is well down the same slippery slope.

more »

Pacific Power Steals Christmas

Pacific Power, in pure Grinch fashion, is planning to raise electricity rates 14.5% on January 1st.

Rates set to jump for Pacific Power, PGE customers in January

By Ted Sickinger, The Oregonian, December 17, 2010 [here]

Come New Year’s, better strip the lights off the house and the Christmas tree ASAP.

Customers of Pacific Power will see their electric rates spike 14.5 percent in January. The increase comes in a one-two punch: an 8.4 percent general rate increase state utility regulators approved Friday, and a 6.1 percent increase for increased power costs they are expected to approve Dec. 28. Both take effect Jan. 1.

Meanwhile, customers of the state’s largest electric utility, Portland General Electric Co., will see a lesser, but still significant, rate increase of about 3.9 percent. A few mandatory cost adjustments in the works will bump that overall increase to 4.2 percent, effective Jan. 1.

The biggest factor driving the increases: renewable power.

Oregon’s public policy choices during the past few years are coming home to roost in rates, a trend that will continue and likely be exacerbated in coming years by environmental edicts dealing with global warming and haze reduction. … [more]

The Global Warming wolves are coming to your door, in fact right into your home. The Greatest Scientific Hoax In History is now a monumental scam. The poorest of the poor will pay, or else huddle in the cold and dark.

This at a time when Oregon’s economy is in a deep pit. We have led the nation in home foreclosures, bankruptcies, unemployment, and hunger for years (note that today in many OR counties over a quarter of the population is on food stamps).

Pacific Power ratepayers are already paying for absurd dam removals, ugly and useless wind farms, over-the-dam water spills, government buy-up of private farms, phony fish “enhancement”, and all manner of crooked, corrupt, and worthless projects that are little more than highway robbery.

I suggest that mass Teach-Ins at the Oregon Public Utility Commission meetings are necessary. See their schedule [here].

The PUC Commissioners need some personal educating, too. They are listed [here] (note that they are all Portland machine Democrats, closely aligned with child-rapist Neil Goldschmidt):

PacificCorp, which “operates” Pacific Power, needs some feedback as well. Their execs are listed [here].

So does their parent company, MidAmerican Energy Holding Co. Their Chairman, David Sokol, is a CAGW alarmist crook ringleader. See [here].

MEHC is a Berkshire Hathaway company [here]. That’s Warren Buffett. I suggest that an ugly, public boycott of all his companies, such as GEICO Insurance, would be appropriate.

And that’s just for starters. The OR Legislature needs to feel the heat, too. And the Bonneville Power Administration.

The Global Warming Hoax has always been about ripping people off. It is founded on junk science and the boundless greed of kleptocrats and other grubby thieves. The time has come to put an end to this despicable charade.

Owl My Regrets

SOS Forests has been quiet for awhile because I have been working on some special projects. One of those is my “comments” on the 2010 Draft Revised Revised Revised Revised Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl [here, here].

I am sad to say that I have not finished with that project, and the time has passed for official comment submitting. It’s not a big deal, since my comments were sure to be ignored anyway, but I regret not having met the Federal Gummit’s deadline.

One problem I encountered is that nearly every sentence in the 181-page DRRRRRP-NSO is replete with offensive, atrocious, egregious eco-babble. I would sit down with the steaming pile, read a paragraph or two, and groan with agony. Then the dog, who is very sensitive, would start barking like the terrorists from the USFWS were at the door. Then my long-suffering wife would get upset at me for upsetting the dog, and threaten to put the offending DRRRRRP-NSO into the woodstove.

I tried but could not control my emotions. The neo-fascist enviros have managed to incinerate millions of acres of America’s priceless heritage forests and shut down Oregon’s economy behind their outrageously junk pseudo-scientific lying crap about the Spotted Owl.

Their 20-year stranglehold has left Oregon in ruins. And the New Plan is worse than the Old Plan!

Somebody needs to call the USFWS on their horrific bullshit. I have volunteered. And I will complete the job. All will be posted here at SOSF.

But not today. I need a break from the agony. ‘Tis the season of goodwill and peace on Earth, and I need to get in the spirit. Later, after Christmas, I will take up the Owl burden again.

Meanwhile, here’s wishing that your next two weeks are cheery and bright, and may you be graciously mindful of the Reason for the Season.

The Scenic Vegetation Mosaic Effect

The Fishlake NF offers a novel reason for their Twitchell Holocaust By Idiots Fire [here, here, here]. In numerous pronouncements the USFS claims their purpose in incinerating 20,000+ acres is:

“to manage the fire for a scenic vegetation mosaic effect”

Yup. It’s for the scenery — the old “Blackened Dead Forests Are Beautiful” campaign cooked up by the Wilderness Society on behalf of the Wildland Fire Leadership Council.

Just in case you don’t know what high severity fire does to the viewshed, here are some pics of other “successful” Let It Burn Because It’s So Lovely Projects inflicted on America courtesy your Helpful Federal Bureaucracy.

The esthetically pleasing aftermath of the 2007 Let It Burn fires in Central Idaho.

More of the same.

The beauteous Zaca Burn (2007, 240,000 acres, Los Padres NF).

Scenic splendor of the B&B Burn (2003, 90,000 acres, Deschutes NF).

More of the same.

Evidently the USFS has adopted the position of Cascadia Summer, a Eugene “environmental” organization affiliated with Earth First! and the Oregon Natural Resource Council (now Cascadia Wild). In their own words [here]:

Last week [one week before the pictured B and B Fire was ignited] Cascadians paid a visit to the Clark Fire which burned 5,000 acres near Fall Creek earlier this summer. The area is still off-limits to the public, but we wanted to get a first-hand account of just how bad it was… so we quietly hiked in after crossing the stream a ways before the road-block.

The forest looked amazingly beautiful… stark contrast to the lush green forests we were used to seeing along Fall Creek, but beautiful nonetheless. Ferns had already begun sprouting back up through the ash. Scorched Doug Firs and cedars sparkled in the sunlight.

Yes, sports fans, the Federal Gummit wants to beautify your neighborhood and your watershed by turning it into a moonscape. It’s a stark contrast, but what the hey. The Scenic Vegetation Mosaic Effect is all the rage among the arsonist set, and it’s now the Official Mission of the USFS. Gaze in awe at your Gummit in action.

Doghair and Elk

Foresters call them doghair thickets. The 9th Circuit Court calls them “elk habitat”.

If you have ever seen a thicket with 3,000 stems per acre, you know why we call it doghair. But our esteemed Federal Judiciary is as stupid as ticks.

9th Circuit blocks Gallatin forest logging project over elk concerns

By the Associated Press, The Missoulian, September 17, 2010 [here]

HELENA - A proposed logging project in the Gallatin National Forest would remove too much vegetation that elk use for cover from predators, a federal appeals court ruled in blocking the project.

The U.S. Forest Service must revise the proposal to thin trees over 810 acres in the Crazy Mountains to ensure it meets the elk hiding cover requirement that is detailed in the plan for the forest, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in its ruling Wednesday.

Two environmental groups and a woman who owns a cabin in the area where the logging was to take place sued the Forest Service over the Smith Creek Project, which was meant to reduce the risk of severe wildfires that could threaten about 30 nearby homes and cabins.

The plan called for removing conifers near aspen trees to promote the growth of aspen groves in some areas, while thinning trees in other areas from densities of up to 3,000 trees per acre to between 300 and 500 trees per acre. …

The lawsuit, filed in 2008, claimed the Forest Service didn’t take into account the effects the work would have on the soil and wildlife habitat.

The plaintiffs appealed, and the 9th Circuit agreed with one of their claims: that the project would remove too much cover that migrating elk use to hide from predators and feel secure. …

Elk are fine out in the open. They do not feed or hide in 3,000 stems per acre lodgepole pine thickets where nothing else can grow. Or move.

The trees to be removed can hardly be called “logs”. They are more like whips. So the removal can hardly be called “logging”. It’s more like “whipping”.

Since when do the enviro-litigious care about elk anyway? Other than as wolf chow?

Some great comments were attached to the article:

… the same lobby that opposes the logging on the grounds that it’s bad for elk probably also supports wolf reintroduction, which is bad for elk. Judges, lawyers, and activists all determine the fates of these animals and their surroundings quite independently of facts.

… one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, Rebecca Smith, is the very same tree-sitter who was convicted of illegally holding up a Forest Service sale in the Bitterroot a few years ago. She was convicted by a jury and part of her sentence was to stay off of any Forest Service lands. Now she is using her law degree for her personal vengeance… all at we the taxpayers’ expense. The MT Bar Assoc. should disbar her.

… This was a thinning project done cooperatively through a Community Firewise Program, and lots of local public comment. I wish the Missoulian had mentioned that. The project prevailed through Molloy’s court too. But heck no… one part-time resident and two conflict-based “non-profits” get to monkey-wrench the whole thing.

… This is ridiculous. This woman with the cabin will be crying later to the FS to save her cabin when a fire in bearing down on it. Besides, a stands with 3000 tpa don’t benefit anything. That’s too thick for anything but a squirrel to squeeze through.

I don’t know how to fix this set of problems: enviro-nut jobs with law degrees, a Judiciary with no common sense, a Federal Government with too much land and money, a Congress that represents the most anti-social elements in society, a citizenry at the mercy of all of them.

If you have any solutions, please send them in. I give up.

The Dimmest Bulbs in America

As we stumble into the Voting Season, it behooves us to remind the American People that your vote is important. You get to select the next gaggle of morons who will drive the country off a cliff.

It is an honor as well as a Big Responsibility. No ordinary morons will suffice, but you already know that. The American Electorate has chosen some incredible morons in the past, and they will again if history is any guide.

One especially stellar achievement of our Congress of Morons is the banning of the incandescent light bulb. It’s “lights out” for America, thanks to the head bangers who inhabit our Capitol Building.

Why did they do it? Why did Congress ban light bulbs but not computers, for instance, or televisions, or electric razors? Out of all the myriad electrical appliances in the culture, what is so special about light bulbs?

Nothing really, but they are symbolic. Light bulbs symbolize intelligence, and if there is anything that Congress lacks, it’s that commodity. By banning the light bulb, Congress is telling America: “We are complete morons without a clue, but we’re in charge and can make you huddle in the cold and dark if we feel like it.”

Pundit Caruba takes a swing:

Turning Off the (Incandescent) Light of Liberty

By Alan Caruba, Warning Signs, September 12, 2010 [here]

What if the government banned air conditioning? What if flat-screen televisions were determined to use too much electricity and were ordered phased out of production? What if the use of all plastic grocery bags were banned? What if the incandescent light bulb, one of the greatest inventions of Thomas Edison in the 1870s was banned? Oh wait, it has been banned!

In a nation where the Medicare “reform” requires Americans to purchase health insurance they may not want and may not be able to afford, was rammed through Congress, what can stop the government from dictating just about any choice you have regarding any purchase you make? The answer? Nothing.

Only it would no longer be a Constitutional government, a nation of laws that reflect anything resembling the truth. The ban on incandescent light bulbs turns off the light of liberty throughout America.

Here are some truths to keep in mind. (1) Carbon dioxide (CO2) along with other “greenhouse gas emissions” does not cause global warming. (2) There is no global warming. (3) The Earth has gone through known warming and cooling cycles for millions of years. (4) The Earth is in a cooling cycle.

(5) Beginning January 1, 2012, government rules will make it impossible to purchase a 100-watt incandescent light bulb. After that, in time, all such light bulbs will be phased out leaving Americans with only dim, over-priced, mercury-filled light bulbs. And (6) they will be made overseas, primarily in China.

By 2012, by order of the government, Americans will no longer be able to purchase any incandescent light bulbs. Why? Because Congress banned them, citing the need to reduce “greenhouse gas emissions” to reduce global warming that isn’t happening.

It’s the same Congress that had already determined how much water your toilet can use to flush. It’s the same Congress that determined “cafe” rules that determine how many miles per gallon your automobile must achieve. It’s the same government that requires ethanol be added to gasoline, thus reducing the mileage a gallon of adulterated gasoline can produce, while also driving up the cost of gasoline as well as of corn, a food product, used to produce ethanol.

It’s the same Congress that has blessed a Renewable Electricity Standard that requires utilities to use electricity produced by wind and solar power even though both sources also require 24/7 backup by traditional coal-fired, natural gas, or nuclear plants because they cannot be relied up to generate electricity in a predictable fashion or during periods of peak capacity.

It’s the same Congress that initiated Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two “government entities” that purchased the sub-prime mortgage loans that banks and mortgage loan firms were required to make to people who clearly could not afford to replay them. The result is the financial crisis that occurred when those “bundled” mortgages turned out to be “toxic”, worthless paper sold to investment firms and banks as assets. … [more]

Yet the redolent Caruba is not telling us anything we don’t already know. Excuse me Alan, but most Americans are quite aware that Congress in general and their own representatives in particular are babbling idiots. Dangerous babbling idiots. Criminally insane babbling idiots. We know that.

But we keep on electing the worst and the dimmest. America seeks out the stuttering nincompoops and most clownish citizens and props them up as our “leaders”. Look at Al Franken for instance — or not, the view is distasteful in the extreme. Or at any of them. The dumbest people in America serve in Congress. Elections here are like reverse IQ tests.

The lights went out in Congress long ago.

Once in awhile some normal citizen, with a normal IQ, will get so excited at the claptrap-icity of Congress that he or she will offer themselves as candidates. It is admirable but also slightly embarrassing. You have to go to these people and tell them thanks but no thanks. You are normal. We only elect the severely brain damaged. You don’t qualify, being of sound mind.

Ban the Bulb. Where did they come up with that? Has there ever been a more deluded group of humans in history than our Congress?

No, there has not been. Our Congress is special. We know it, we like it, and we are going to keep it that way.

Vote Moron. It’s the thing to do.

Spotted Owl Screw Job Redux

The 2010 Draft Revised Revised Revised Revised Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl is now out for your inspection and comments [here].

From: US Fish and Wildlife Disservice

Date: Wednesday, September 08, 2010

Title: Draft Revised Recovery Plan available for Review

Description: The Draft Revised Recovery Plan for the Northern Spotted Owl is available for public review and comment and can be downloaded by clicking the link below. This file is large (6.24 MBs) so it may be slow to open. Emailed comments can be sent to: NSORPComments@fws.gov. Written comments should be submitted to: Field Supervisor, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Oregon Fish and Wildlife Office, 2600 SE 98th Avenue, Ste. 100, Portland, OR 97266. For additional information go to http://www.fws.gov/oregonfwo

The newest edition of this endless bucket of crap, confusion, and destruction is 181 pages long. That’s not much, considering the USFWD has had 20 years to write it. Here’s a partial timeline:

1990 - the spotted owl was listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as threatened.

1994 - The catastrophic failure known as the Northwest Forest Plan is signed by you guessed it, Al Gore. It is to be a substitute for the statutorily mandated recovery plan.

1994 through 2006 - Spotted owl populations crash, old-growth forests are incinerated, rural economies crash, Congress and USFWD sits on their fat asses doing nothing.

2006 - Formation of 12-member multi-agency, multidisciplinary Recovery Team made up of non-experts with extreme political leanings.

2007 - Draft Recovery Plan #1 published. It flops like a fish on the deck.

2008 - Yet another “expert” panel work revises #1, comes up with Draft Recovery Plan #2.

2009 - Obama Admin in the person of Ken “Mr. Tamper” Salazar flushes #2 down the toilet, claiming the Bush Admin “tampered” with it.

Feb 2010 - USFWD begins a new process by gathering more political extremist wackos together. Public shut out, as usual. Climate change is their new mantra.

Sept 1, 2010 - A district court judge orders Salazar to complete a revised recovery plan within nine months or else. The “or else” part is a joke. Everybody has a good laugh.

Sept 8, 2010 - Draft Revised Recovery Plan #3 released for public comment and peer review.

What do you know? They had something or other in the files, waiting for the judge to order them to release it.

The gist of #3 is that after 20 years, the “experts” don’t know how many owls there are, where they live, what they eat, or anything else. Another 30 years of study is required and, oh yes, another $175 million in funding for the USFWD.

Part of that is to pay “bird biologists” to ride around in pickup trucks blasting barred owls with shotguns “like a redneck sport”. Which is already underway. Duck and cover, here comes a “bird biologist” with a loaded shotgun.

Meanwhile 25% of rural Oregon is on food stamps, all the mills are shuttered and most dismantled, the schools and roads are crumbling, the counties are bankrupt, and the people are angry as bees at the gross pusillanimity of the rapacious functionaries working for the USFWD and their radical Marxist buddies.

But what the hey. Here’s another Hoax Plan. They yearn for your comments. Please study it up and send them some. Any comments sent to SOSF will be posted. Thank you for your patience. Have a food stamp while you’re waiting.

OFRI: Numbskulls On Parade

More money down the tubes. The Oregon Forest Resources Institute has issued a new “special” report six years in the making: Federal Forestland in Oregon - Coming To Terms With Active Forest Management of Federal Forestland [here, 3.1 glossy MB].

The report is “special” only in the sense that it is filled with errors, misstatements, and poppycock. Which is about what you’d expect from yet another government bureaucracy.

The Oregon Legislature created the Oregon Forest Resources Institute (OFRI) in 1991 to improve public understanding of the state’s forest resources and to encourage environmentally sound forest management through training and other educational programs for forest landowners. OFRI is funded by a dedicated harvest tax on forest products producers [here].

Tax the victims, shove the knife in deeper, and twist it.

The problem with crappy forest policy is that it is based on crappy forest science. Political solutions crafted by numbskulls, with no conception of what it is they are attempting to regulate, is doomed to failure.

Failure is OFRI’s middle name.

more »

Corridor to Hell

by Scott Amos

Alas, it all makes sense.

Connecting Corridors Wilderness. And us tiny hamlet dwellers, pesky private property “owners” have “foiled” the plans to give bunnies super-highways all over the USA. Therefore it is our government’s “rightful duty” to steal our land, give it to the bunnies via H.R. 5101.

Waste millions and billions or gazillions of taxpayer dollars while the Chinese, Iranians, Russians and other foreign governments, not friendly to our own, sit back and laugh at our stupidity while we free-fall into socialism, communism, Marxism. Or worst of all, environmentally induced chaos!

Barack Obama truly has put the “mental” into “environmentalist.” He’s outdone decades of efforts by the KGB to weaken the USA from within, with the passage of one stupid bill. God save our country now. And I say that as an agnostic!

[Here] is a link to enlighten yourself about the trainwreck just thrust upon our nation, far worse than ANYTHING perpetrated by former president Jimmy Carter.

I can hear Jimmy Carter breathing a sigh of relief, to no longer be the worst president in history. I can hear the Russians breaking open champagne, the Chinese dancing in the streets, Kim Jong Ill preparing a speech about “victory over America” and Iran saying “at least we’re not so stupid we willingly run our own country into the dirt for the benefit of bunnies. Now we don’t need to bomb the infidels with nukes. Their pain under environmentalists is greater than any Allah could bestow upon them.”

Maybe Obama should have at least worked a real job before becoming president. Like working on a farm, before selling America the farm. Give him a basic understanding of how us taxpayers “earn” those dollars he’s throwing around loosely, through something called “sweat, blood and tears.”

On the brighter side of things, two more months until we stand a chance of repealing this law written by demon-bureaucrats suffering from a bad experiment with psychotropic drugs, or unlimited graft, or something. I sincerely hope this issue becomes a voting issue in the next two months.

The USA is flat broke and our representatives are spending untold sums of money borrowed from the Chinese, Russians, soon Iranians, or anyone else with credit better than our own. They are spending this borrowed money to steal our private property, close our only access roads, burn our houses down and bankrupt our rural communities. And people of the USFS are standing in line salivating at the chance to destroy many more rural communities.

All Lands Management, Government-Style

Once again the US Forest Service is blaming everybody but themselves for catastrophic megafires that arise on unkempt, fuel-laden Federal lands and are exacerbated by the USFS’ own Let It Burn policies.

Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack blames all those private homes, including those that haven’t been built yet, within 30 miles of the unmitigated hazards the USFS has created.

The solution: eliminate all homes with 30 miles of Federal lands. In other words, strip the Western U.S. of all residents. Heck, strip the eastern half, too.

The Federal Government can’t prevent illegal immigrants from pouring over the border, but they are all hot to get the bayonets and cattle cars out to drive legal resident humanity off the continent.

When the Station Fire burned down 89 residences, when the Angora Fire burned down 254, when the Cedar Fire burned 3,241 homes and killed 16 people, whose fault was that? Not the folks who mismanage and unmanage the Federal Estate. Nope, it was the victims who were so self-interested and disregarding of the commonweal as to build a home within 30 miles of Federal land.

Vilsack Highlights Report Showing Threats to Private Forested Lands

Forest Service study supports “All Lands” approach outlined by Vilsack last year

USDA Press Release No. 0401.10, August 11, 2010 [here]

Washington, D.C. - Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack today held a national conference call to highlight a USDA Forest Service report entitled Private Forests, Public Benefits [here], showing that privately held forests in the U.S. are under substantial stress from development and fragmentation, and that increased housing density in forests will exacerbate other threats to forests from wildfire, insects, pathogens and pollution. These threats to the important goods and services provided by privately owned forests — which make up 56 percent of all forested lands — emphasize the importance of the collaborative, cross-boundary approach to conserving and restoring our forests as laid out by Secretary Vilsack in a major address last year.

“Americans rely on their forests for a wide range of social, environmental and economic benefits, including clean water, wood products, habitat for wildlife, and outdoor recreation,” said Vilsack. “The Private Forests, Public Benefits report shows that now, more than ever, we need to take an ‘all lands’ approach to managing our nation’s forests, whether they are national forests or under the stewardship of state or private entities.” …

The study touted above is a product of the USFS Open Space Conservation Strategy [here], the brainchild of former USFS Chief Gail Kimbell.

There is no (none, zero, nada) stautory directive from Congress to engage in the Open Space Conservation Stategy. The civil servants thunked it up all by their lonesomes.

Congress did not order it, the Pipple did not order it, it has never been through any democratic process. It’s just another wild and crazy scheme drawn up by overpaid, underworked, government functionaries with too much power and too much time on their hands. With your money.

more »

Fire the Entire BLM

Mr. Tamper just got caught in his lies again. Sec Int Kenny Salazar has tampered with science documents relating to offshore drilling [here], he tampered with the the Western Oregon Plan Revision (WOPR) and the Northern Spotted Owl Recovery Plan (NSORP) [here], and now a document Kenny refused to provide Congress, under subpoena, has been leaked.

Kenny’s secret Treasured Landscapes blueprint for subverting democracy has been outed:

BLM document reveals big change in federal land management

By Sarah Dallof, KSL.com, August 5th, 2010 [here]

SALT LAKE CITY — KSL 5 News has obtained a document that outlines a huge change in how the federal government wants to manage federal land in Utah, and one Utah congressman says it makes him furious.

Congressman Rob Bishop’s office also recently received the document. Bishop said he’s angry because it would put virtually all land management power in the hands of the White House.

“Of the 264 million acres under BLM management, some 130- to 140-million acres are worthy of consideration as treasured lands. These areas [are] roughly equivalent in size to Colorado and Wyoming combined.” - BLM’s Treasured Landscapes paper

A portion of the document was leaked back in February [here] and led to speculation about a federal land grab in Utah. It talked about the creation of a 12 new national monuments.

Now, an outside source provided KSL with the entire document [here], and it does suggest a dramatically new philosophy for managing federal land.

The Bureau of Land Management’s document is stamped with “Internal Draft. Not for release.” Titled “Treasured Landscapes,” it lays out what some consider a sweeping and detailed plan for the next 25 years.

It took Bishop months to get the document, which lays out the context for the snippets released a few months ago. …

Among the key elements in the document:

BLM-managed public lands include rugged mountains, wild deserts and America’s last vesitges of large, untamed landscapes. These landscapes first captured the pioneer spirit and cultivated America’s romantic ideals of the Wild West.

Note the paean to a myth, the American Creation Myth. The use of the words “wild”, “untamed”, “pioneer spirit”, and “romantic ideals” indicate stark denial of previous habitation over thousands of years. Not only were those inhabitants wiped out and/or marched to reservations, the perpetrators of those outrages now deny even the existence of the First Residents.

It’s a a big Wild West according to the unnamed spin-doctor mythologists who wrote this document. Except it isn’t.

The BLM estimates that 35 million acres of its current landholdings, all of which have been identified by the public as worthy of special protection, should be considered for a new and heightened conservation designation. …

Should the legislation process not prove fruitful, or if a nationally significant natural or cultural land resource were to come under the threat of imminent harm, BLM would recommend that the Administration consider using the Antiquities Act to designate new National Monuments by Presidential Proclamation.

Well, it’s Wild, except where it’s cultural. But in any case, screw the established Congressional oversight and just declare 35 million acres of new “wilderness” against the will of our elected representatives.

We don’t need no stinking democracy around here.

Better accounting for the value of public lands left in a condition closer to the land’s natural state — whether measured in the amount of carbon sequestered by a stand of trees or native grasslands …

There’s the Gloooobal Waaarming Card. The BLM is going to sequester that carbon, until they incinerate it in one their Let It Burn holocausts, that is. It’s natural.

…Congress has limited the President’s authority to designate new national monuments in Wyoming and Alaska. … The BLM therefore particularly proposes that the Administration use the BLM’s land-use planning process .. to protect sensitive resources in Wyoming and Alaska.

We don’t need no stinking Congress telling us what to do. We can shut down whole states using our internal “process” and subvert the will of Congress. We’re the BLM; we’re bigger than those stinking elected doowahs. Hahahahahaha!

Maybe the best solution is to fire the entire workforce of the BLM today. They have grown too big for their britches. Maybe a few years in the unemployment line will knock them down a peg or two. Because this country does not belong to the trough sucking functionaries. They are mere servants to the public. The public are the actual owners. We do things democratically, via our elected representatives, in this country. Our democratic system is anathema to the BLM, and unfortunately anti-democracy is an intolerable attitude in our servant class.

Or we could just fire Mr. Tamper, and let that send a message to the suckers in the trough.

It’s really up to Congress. Are they going to put up with a subversive as Sec Int, or are they going to assert democracy?

Smart money says Congress are subversives themselves, and democracy will lose. Again.