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THE OFFICIAL CALIFORNIA PLUS BOOMER 'N WHISKERS THREAD! (pg. 779)
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| Boomer187 |
| quote: | Originally posted by whiskers
not really, it was just the only witty thing that came to mind.
i'm not angry at you at all, you're in your own pit trying to throw pebbles into mine... it's all good... :cool: |
I try....albeit not too hard.
wow, when I get in a intellectual conversation my lexicon upgrades from grade level 5 to college level....wierd. |
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| Photo_bot_2k1 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Boomer187
I try....albeit not too hard.
wow, when I get in a intellectual conversation my lexicon upgrades from grade level 5 to college level....wierd. |
my level is like at kindergarden and never gets past middle school no matter how intellectual it gets
What are you opinions on gun control?
DOO DOO! |
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| getfoul |
| we dont need gun coontrol, we need bullet control. |
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| Boomer187 |
gun...bad....shoot kill..no no.
I am always reminded of a simpsons episode were lisa wishes that all the guns would be taken away and peace on earth....well the aliens then came down adn took over since we had no guns to defend ourselves....
so think abotu that. |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by Photo_bot_2k1
What are you opinions on gun control?
DOO DOO! |
They differ markedly from Dianne Feinstein's notion of melting down every gun in the US.
It's one issue where I mostly agree with Republicans on, except I think it's ed up people can buy a gun without a background check @ gun shows. I guess I’m about where John McCain is on the issue.
I’d personally like to see the environmentalists and outdoorsmen form a coalition, a united front, against these idiots we have running the government now.
This is the worst idea ever:
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U.S. May Expand Access To Endangered Species
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 11, 2003; Page A01
The Bush administration is proposing far-reaching changes to conservation policies that would allow hunters, circuses and the pet industry to kill, capture and import animals on the brink of extinction in other countries.
Giving Americans access to endangered animals, officials said, would feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitat.
This and other proposals that pursue conservation through trade would, for example, open the door for American trophy hunters to kill the endangered straight-horned markhor in Pakistan; license the pet industry to import the blue fronted Amazon parrot from Argentina; permit the capture of endangered Asian elephants for U.S. circuses and zoos; and partially resume the trade in African ivory. No U.S. endangered species would be affected.
Conservationists think it's a bad idea. "It's a very dangerous precedent to decide that wildlife exploitation is in the best interest of wildlife," said Adam Roberts, a senior research associate at the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute, an advocacy group for endangered species.
Killing or capturing even a few animals is hardly the best way to protect endangered species, conservationists say. Many charge that the policies cater to individuals and businesses that profit from animal exploitation.
The latest proposal involves an interpretation of the Endangered Species Act that deviates radically from the course followed by Republican and Democratic administrations since President Richard M. Nixon signed the act in 1973. The law established broad protection for endangered species, most of which are not native to America, and effectively prohibited trade in them.
Kenneth Stansell, assistant director for international affairs at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said there has been a growing realization that the Endangered Species Act provides poor countries no incentive to protect dying species. Allowing American hunters, circuses and the pet industry to pay countries to take fixed numbers of animals from the wild can help protect the remaining animals, he said.
U.S. officials note that such trade is already open to hunters, pet importers and zoos in other Western nations. They say the idea is supported by poor countries that are home to the endangered species and would benefit from the revenue.
Officials at the Department of Interior and Fish and Wildlife, who are spearheading many of the new policies, said the proposals merely implement rarely used provisions in the law.
"This is absolutely consistent with the Endangered Species Act, as written," said David P. Smith, deputy assistant secretary at the Department of Interior for Fish and Wildlife and Parks. "I think the nature of the beast is such that there are critics who are going to claim some kind of ulterior motive."
Animal welfare advocates question the logic of the new approach, saying that foreign countries and groups that stand to profit will be in charge of determining how many animals can be killed or captured. Advocates also warn that opening the door to legal trade will allow poaching to flourish.
"As soon as you place a financial price on the head of wild animals, the incentive is to kill the animal or capture them," Roberts said. "The minute people find out they can have an easier time killing, shipping and profiting from wildlife, they will do so."
The proposals also trigger a visceral response: To many animal lovers, these species have emotional and symbolic value, and should never be captured or killed.
The Endangered Species Act prohibits removing domestic endangered species from the wild. Until now, that protection was extended to foreign species. Explaining the change, Stansell said, "There is a recognition that these sovereign nations have a different way of managing their natural resources."
Indeed, many of the strongest advocates for "sustainable use" programs -- under which some animals are "harvested" to raise money to save the rest -- have been countries that are home to various endangered species. Foreign trade groups and governments have tried for years -- mostly in vain -- to convince the United States that animals are no longer in limited supply, or that capturing or killing fixed numbers would not drive a species to extinction.
That could change after Oct. 17, the end of the public comment period on one proposed change.
The proposal identified several species:
• Morelet's crocodile, an endangered freshwater crocodile found in Mexico, Guatemala and Belize. Its skin is prized by U.S. leather importers.
• The endangered Asian elephant of India and Southeast Asia. The declining population in U.S. breeding programs "has raised a significant demand among the [U.S.] zoo and circus community," the proposal said.
• The Asian bonytongue, a valuable aquarium fish, found in Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia.
• The straight-horned markhor, an endangered wild goat in Pakistan distinguished by corkscrew-shaped horns. According to the proposal, "allowing a limited number of U.S. hunters an opportunity to import trophies from this population could provide a significant increase in funds available for conservation."
John R. Monson, a New Hampshire trophy hunter and former chairman of that state's Fish and Game Commission, said the program would help preserve rare animals. In 1999, Monson applied for a permit to shoot and import a straight-horned markhor. He was turned down.
Monson said the money he has spent hunting trophies -- including a leopard from Namibia and a bontebok antelope from South Africa -- has funded conservation programs.
Monson is president-elect of Safari Club International, a national hunting advocacy group. He agreed to an interview only in his personal capacity.
Safari Club International gave $274,000 to candidates during the 2000 election cycle, 86 percent of it to Republicans. It also spent $5,445 printing bumper stickers for the Bush presidential campaign. Monson has made a variety of contributions himself, including $1,000 to the Bush for President campaign.
Teresa Telecky, former director of the wildlife trade program at the Humane Society, blamed lobbying by Safari Club International and other special interest groups for a "sea change" in conservation policy. "The approach of this administration is it is all right to kill endangered or threatened species or capture them from the wild so long as somebody says there would be some conservation benefit," she said.
Stansell said conservation goals, not lobbying, drove the proposals, which he said evolved through previous administrations.
Still, the application of "sustainable use" has never been so broad. Last November, the United States reversed its long-held position and voted to allow Botswana, Namibia and South Africa to resume trade in their ivory stockpiles. Stansell said the sales, which have not yet begun, will support elephant conservation.
But Susan Lieberman, former chief of the Scientific Authority at the Fish and Wildlife Service and now director of the species program at the World Wildlife Fund, said legal trade in ivory always triggers illegal poaching. "Money doesn't always mean conservation," she added. "To me, the theme is allowing an industry to write the rules, which is a Bush administration pattern."
Smith, the administration official, said permits would be issued only after foreign countries showed they had strong conservation programs. "There is nothing else we have as a country to force other countries to conserve their wildlife, other than being paternalistic and saying 'no, no, no,' " he said.
In another "sustainable use" proposal, the Fish and Wildlife Service announced in August a precedent-setting exemption to the Wild Bird Conservation Act, which was signed into law in 1992 by President George H.W. Bush. The policy would allow importation of the blue fronted Amazon parrot from Argentina. The agency is reviewing public comment.
The prized parrots sell for several hundred dollars apiece. Stansell said Argentina, which approached Fish and Wildlife with the proposal, would allow the capture of about 10 nestling parrots from five nests in every 250 acres of parrot habitat.
With export taxes of $40 to $80 per bird, a 250-acre area would generate $400 to $800 per year to support conservation. Stansell conceded that cutting down forest habitat and selling timber would generate far more money for landowners, but said the Argentine government concluded that owners would prefer sustainable returns from selling the birds.
Conservation biologists said Fish and Wildlife made poor estimates -- or no estimates -- about how many parrots would be left.
"It's an extraordinarily bad idea," said Jamie Gilardi, director of the World Parrot Trust, a conservation group that has filed opposition to the plan in a letter signed by 88 international biologists. "The quotas are based on poor or inadequate science -- and the sustainability issue is simply not addressed at all."
The Fish and Wildlife Service's parrot proposal cited scientific estimates by Enrique Bucher, a top Argentine parrot biologist, in determining how many birds could be safely captured. But in a telephone interview from the University of Cordoba in Argentina, Bucher said his research actually showed the U.S. proposal was poorly conceived and lacked scientific oversight.
"It's a very romantic idea, but in practice I do not know any positive examples," he said, referring to "sustainable use" plans. "The assumption that local communities will have the organization and altruism to put the money into long-term protection of the environment where you have terrible economic forces pushing for deforestation is a little naïve."
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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This Administration sides with corporate interests over people and the environment every time. Speaking of McCain, I can't begin to imagine how much better off our country would have been if he had won instead of Bush. |
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| DaveSZ |
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...ntaintop_mining
| quote: |
Bush Mining Regulatory Change Is Denounced
Tue Mar 30, 7:09 PM ET Add White House - AP to My Yahoo!
By JOHN HEILPRIN, Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON - Tales of floods and flattened peaks and of homes swept away or devalued in central Appalachia were laid out Tuesday by opponents to the Bush administration's plan to ease a buffer-zone regulation protecting streams from coal mining operations.
Testifying at an Interior Department hearing on the proposal, Mary Miller of Sylvester, W.Va., said the value of her home had dropped from $144,000 to below $12,000. Residents in her coalfield town won economic damages last month suing a mining company over coal dust covering their homes, vehicles and other property.
"I'm out here now trying to save my home," said Miller. "I don't have much left anyway. I don't have many years left. But I'm thinking about the water shortage for my children."
The department in January proposed easing a 1983 rule that set limits on coal mining near streams. Current policy says land within 100 feet of a stream cannot be disturbed by mining unless a company can prove it will not affect the water's quality and quantity.
The new rule would require coal operators to minimize only "to the extent possible" any damage to streams, fish and wildlife by "using the best technology currently available."
In a small auditorium at the department's headquarters, nearly all of the more than two dozen speakers opposed the plan. A lawyer for the National Mining Association was the only one to praise it.
"Our preference is that the rule be deleted entirely," said Bradford Frisby, the trade group's associate general counsel. "There are other regulations that protect streams."
His group has described the current buffer zone rule as confusing and going beyond the intent of Congress when it passed a 1977 law on environmental impacts of coal mining.
Citizens, environmentalists, religious leaders and public health advocates turned out to demand that the department drop its proposal and instead more vigorously enforce current law. Four other hearings on the issue were held Tuesday in Charleston, W.Va.; Greentree, Pa.; Hazard, Ky., and Harriman, Tenn.
Some of the testimony reflected the double-edged sword that mining has been in rural communities for years, providing jobs and coal for fuel but also stream pollution, scarred land and erosion-caused floods.
"We're not Luddites. We know coal is important to the economy. But there is a right way and a wrong way to do things," said Melody Flowers, a Harvard University graduate student who recalled growing up in Barboursville, W.Va. She said she was saddened to see new scars on the landscape during trips to visit her brother, Cole, a West Virginia state trooper.
"We're the 'Mountain State' — we're not the 'Reclaimed Strip Mine State Where You Can Build an Air Park or a Mall State,'" she said.
Kristen Hite, a Georgetown University law school student, said she feared losing beloved parks near Kingsport, Tenn., where she grew up and spent every summer of her life.
"My fondest memories are there. If anything were to happen to that, I would be seriously devastated," she said, describing the federal plan as "absolutely unacceptable."
Department officials have said the current policy is impossible to comply with during "mountaintop mining," which involves shearing off the tops of ridges to expose a coal seam. Dirt and rock are pushed below, often in stream beds, a practice known as valley fill.
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| Echo of Silence |
hi hi hi hi CALIFORNIA PLUS BOOMERS 'N WHISKERS!
| quote: | Originally posted by DaveSZ
This is the worst idea ever |
I read it. I admit I've become predisposed to distrust anything your current administration does or says.
:D
"Giving Americans access to endangered animals, officials said, would feed the gigantic U.S. demand for live animals, skins, parts and trophies, and generate profits that would allow poor nations to pay for conservation of the remaining animals and their habitat."
"Conservationists think it's a bad idea. "It's a very dangerous precedent to decide that wildlife exploitation is in the best interest of wildlife," said Adam Roberts, a senior research associate at the nonprofit Animal Welfare Institute, an advocacy group for endangered species."
"Killing or capturing even a few animals is hardly the best way to protect endangered species, conservationists say. Many charge that the policies cater to individuals and businesses that profit from animal exploitation."
"Kenneth Stansell, assistant director for international affairs at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said there has been a growing realization that the Endangered Species Act provides poor countries no incentive to protect dying species. Allowing American hunters, circuses and the pet industry to pay countries to take fixed numbers of animals from the wild can help protect the remaining animals, he said."
"U.S. officials note that such trade is already open to hunters, pet importers and zoos in other Western nations. They say the idea is supported by poor countries that are home to the endangered species and would benefit from the revenue."
In this world, money talks. |
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| Echo of Silence |
| quote: | Originally posted by DaveSZ
This Administration sides with corporate interests over people and the environment every time. |
So true as exemplified in both articles. |
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| Echo of Silence |
| quote: | Originally posted by whiskers
zewad, stop changing your damn flag |
lol I actually pm-ed Zewad when he was using our flag. I was so excited to see there were 6 dk TAs :p |
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| whiskers |
omg waking up huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurts :whip::whip:
on another note, i skipped another class  |
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| DaveSZ |
| quote: | Originally posted by Echo of Silence
hi hi hi hi CALIFORNIA PLUS BOOMERS 'N WHISKERS!
I read it. I admit I've become predisposed to distrust anything your current administration does or says.
:D
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Same here, and in all honestly, that's an excellent approach.
They increase mercury pollution by 500% and call it, "clear skies."
| quote: |
The Mercury Scandal
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Published: April 6, 2004
If you want a single example that captures why so many people no longer believe in the good intentions of the Bush administration, look at the case of mercury pollution.
Mercury can damage the nervous system, especially in fetuses and infants — which is why the Food and Drug Administration warns pregnant women and nursing mothers against consuming types of fish, like albacore tuna, that often contain high mercury levels. About 8 percent of American women have more mercury in their bloodstreams than the Environmental Protection Agency considers safe.
During the 1990's, government regulation greatly reduced mercury emissions from medical and municipal waste incineration, leaving power plants as the main problem. In 2000, the E.P.A. determined that mercury is a hazardous substance as defined by the Clean Air Act, which requires that such substances be strictly controlled. E.P.A. staff estimated that enforcing this requirement would lead to a 90 percent reduction in power-plant mercury emissions by 2008.
A few months ago, however, the Bush administration reversed this determination and proposed a "cap and trade" system for mercury that it claimed would lead to a 70 percent reduction by 2018. Other estimates suggest that the reduction would be smaller, and take longer.
For some pollutants, setting a cap on total emissions, while letting polluters buy and sell emission rights, is a cost-efficient way to reduce pollution. The cap-and-trade system for sulfur dioxide, which causes acid rain, has been a big success. But the science clearly shows that cap-and-trade is inappropriate for mercury.
Sulfur dioxide is light, and travels long distances: power plants in the Midwest can cause acid rain in Maine. So a cap on total national emissions makes sense. Mercury is heavy: much of it precipitates to the ground near the source. As a result, coal-fired power plants in states like Pennsylvania and Michigan create "hot spots" — chemical Chernobyls — where the risks of mercury poisoning are severe. Under a cap-and-trade system, these plants are likely to purchase pollution rights rather than cut emissions. In other words, the administration proposal would perpetuate mercury pollution where it does the most harm. That probably means thousands of children born with preventable neurological problems.
So how did the original plan get replaced with a plan so obviously wrong on the science?
The answer is that the foxes have been put in charge of the henhouse. The head of the E.P.A.'s Office of Air and Radiation, like most key environmental appointees in the Bush administration, previously made his living representing polluting industries (which, in case you haven't guessed, are huge Republican donors). On mercury, the administration didn't just take industry views into account, it literally let the polluters write the regulations: much of the language of the administration's proposal came directly from lobbyists' memos.
E.P.A. experts normally study regulations before they are issued, but they were bypassed. According to The Los Angeles Times: "E.P.A. staffers say they were told not to undertake the normal scientific and economic studies called for under a standing executive order. . . . E.P.A. veterans say they cannot recall another instance where the agency's technical experts were cut out of developing a major regulatory proposal."
Mercury is just a particularly vivid example of what's going on in environmental protection, and public policy in general. As a devastating article in Sunday's New York Times Magazine documented, the administration's rollback of the Clean Air Act has gone beyond the polluters' wildest dreams.
And the corruption of the policy process — in which political appointees come in with a predetermined agenda, and technical experts who might present information their superiors don't want to hear are muzzled — has infected every area I know anything about, from tax cuts to matters of war and peace.
A Yawngate update: CNN called me to insist that despite what it first said, the administration really, truly wasn't responsible for the network's claim that David Letterman's embarrassing video of a Bush speech was a fake. I still don't understand why the network didn't deny White House involvement until it retracted the charge. But the main point of Friday's column was to highlight the way CNN facilitated crude administration smears of Richard Clarke.
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In this world, money talks. |
You and I both know that there are some things more important than greed, but to our great misfortune, that philosophy is not universally shared.
Luv ya Echo, have a good day!  |
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| whiskers |
a perfect example of what the people in my hall have been doing all morning long:
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