Many of us knew that this compromising sheep-in-sheep’s-clothing wouldn’t do much to reverse Bush-era regulations and anti-environment activities. Who knew it would be so soon!
A proposal issued in the final days of the Bush administration to expand offshore drilling in previously banned areas will move forward under the administration [...]
Under the Montana Legacy Project, the purchased lands will be transferred into a mixture of private, state and federal ownership, allowing sustainable timber harvesting for Plum Creek for up to 15 years.
Conservation easements will restrict subdivision and home development on the vast majority of lands [...]
“Cats have a strong flavor. Dogs taste much better, but if you really want cat meat, I can have it delivered by tomorrow,” said the butcher, who gave only her surname, Huang.
[...]
The protesters’ indignation was whipped up by recent reports in Chinese newspapers about the cat meat industry. [...]
Another day, another idiot move by Obama.
This time it was his selection of anti-gay pastor Rick Warren to deliver an inaugural prayer/swearing-in/whatever.
BUT, here’s what’s interesting… instead of just sitting and accepting, gay rights groups got angry and vocal. And Obama is now backpedaling.
Compare that to the reaction of NRDC and [...]
Today was an ugly day for the environment.
P.S., I am making this simple post to try to figure out HOW lots of pharmaceutical terms are stuffed onto this blog. See examples here… Wordpress hackers are out in force I guess.
[...]In his introduction of Salazar:
Salazar, 53, is a former Colorado attorney general and executive director of the Colorado Department of Natural Resources. Obama said he is “a champion for farmers, ranchers, and rural communities. . . Few are better equipped to meet the energy and natural resource challenges we [...]
The little puppy dog wags its tail at Salazar (meanwhile, real environmentalists are flabbergasted):
Statement of Carl Pope, Sierra Club Executive Director
Senator Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior:“The Sierra Club is very pleased with the nomination of Ken Salazar to head the Interior Department. As a [...]
Given that urban Obama and his East Coast coterie could care less about Interior, etc etc, perhaps the only hope for the environment IS a great depression… or, at the very least, deflation. Oh for the days when oil is cheap, and therefore Salazar-friendly extractive industries could care less about [...]
Let me be clear about this idiot Coloradan dandy (you’ve seen him preening around in his bolo tie and Napoleon-come-lately cowboy hat, right?):
Arizonan Kieran Suckling of the Center for Biological Diversity says: “The Department of the Interior desperately needs a strong, forward looking, reform-minded Secretary. Unfortunately, Ken Salazar is not [...]
I can’t be bothered to write anything. After all, the writing is on the wall. Here I was lobbying about 10 hours per day (really) against Mike Thompson. And what happens? That droning President-elect apparently nominates someone even WORSE! Oh for the heady days of Mike Thompson… wow, I can’t [...]
…as are all oil, mining, and gas interests. Big Win for Big Business. From Bloomberg’s website tonight: “As senator, Salazar has supported oil and gas drilling on federal lands, although he has insisted on higher royalty payments from the companies and on stricter environmental protection in and around lands [...]
Sierra Club… you who have no tax-exempt status and therefore pontificate away for Obama. You who rally hard against Gale Norton. You who whine and whinge… well, where have you been? Now we have Ken Salazar at Interior… he of brotherly potato farming and prairie dog hating and wyoming range [...]
His anti-environment voting record is worse than Mike Thompson’s:
Colorado has demonstrated a profound lack of tolerance for the black-tailed prairie dog. State policies continue to allow and encourage the decimation of this animal. The black-tailed prairie dog is still designated by Colorado’s Department of Agriculture as a “pest” species [...]
After all, Salazar was Norton’s understudy at Colorado’s Attorney General’s office. Both are beholden to big mining and big ranching. Obama, you suck.
[...]Okay, a little digging, and his choice for Interior, Ken Salazar, is not good.
I didn’t support Obama because of his empty suit blather, particularly on the environment. These disastrous picks — a total buffoon for EPA and now an industry idiot for Interior — demonstrate that.
Lifetime 73 rating [...]
Don’t know much about him yet (apart from the fact that he supports guns in national parks). But he will be our next Secretary of Interior.
Well, our next head of EPA is either anti-environment or ineffective, so I am not expecting much when I dig into Salazar’s record. Obama [...]
Question of the day… Has anti-environment Mike Thompson, “Legislator of the Year” and member of Safari Club International… has he ever HIMSELF hunted in Africa for any of the Big 5? (Lion, leopard, cape buffalo, elephant, rhino).
This is an important question for a possible Secretary of the Interior.
[...]Dunno quite what to make of this, but it appears as though Pelosi is offering Grijalva a consolation prize and really going to the mat for her fellow NoCal Rep, anti-environment Mike Thompson:
U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva should tell House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to pound salt.
She just offered him a [...]
Now, parts of Mr. Berry’s resume might draw some concern from the most ardent national park advocates. For starters, he’s tied to the American Recreation Coalition, which is a big proponent of motorized recreation in the parks. Most recently Mr. Berry was appointed to ARC’s [...]
That’s what I am lead to believe by their outrageous press release.
Erica Terence, Scott Harding, and Malena Marvin have done the unthinkable. They have endorsed Mike Thompson, making them the ONLY non-hunting environmental group that I can find who has endorsed this anti-environment conservative hunter.
The environment loses out… big time.
Mike Thompson voted against reducing logging in Alaska’s Tongass rainforest (House 5).
Thompson repeatedly voted against limiting “predator control” which results in 100,000 dead coyotes, black bears, and cougars annually (House 6).
Thompson voted against limiting road building in Alaska’s Tongass Rainforest (House 6).
More on Mike Thompson’s environmental “credentials”:
In 2004, he voted against an amendment to an Interior appropriations bill intended to protect wildlife and old growth trees in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest by stopping taxpayer-subsidized logging road construction. The measure passed by a vote of 222-205, and he was the only [...]
Lots of recent speculation is indicating that the pivotal environmental role of Secretary of Interior is a contest between blue dog Rep Mike Thompson and Rep Raul Grijalva.
Thompson is supported by a variety of hunting groups; Grijalva is supported by a variety of environmental groups.
On paper, both appear to [...]
I went to a recent county foreclosure sale. Most of the parcels were isolated lots of land. One that was interesting was 60 acres in the middle of nowhere.
Before the auction, a soft-spoken man called attention to himself. He said that one of the properties for sale was surrounded by [...]
For whatever reason, I keep getting a large number of hits to the blog entry I wrote on Glaceau Smartwater.
Well, here’s an article about the mad profit-seeking of asshole corporations like Nestle and their bottled water division:
Nestlé Waters has run into a wall of opposition, prompting it to [...]
This year is bad. Very bad. Things are bleak, bleak. Here are the things on the top of my mind that have, are, or likely will happen in terms of the environment and Oregon… I don’t have time to link back, so search Google for specifics on any of them…
That’s my opinion, anyway.
To go with the new casino, the LNG terminals and pipelines… the Columbia river will soon sprout a $90 million dollar resort and hundreds of homes:
The agency charged by Congress with protecting the Columbia River Gorge voted Tuesday to revise its land-use management plan in a [...]
Plans to approve land-use charges needed for a proposed liquefied natural gas plant on the Columbia River won approval this week from Clatsop County commissioners.
Incidentally, that ballot initiative idea that may get on Clatsop ballots probably won’t do much good. It would only prevent pipeline from less than a [...]
Warm Springs and other tribes get hundreds of millions (through higher electricity rates) in exchange for not advocating for dam removals.
Federal agencies approached Oregon officials about joining a similar agreement about 18 month ago. But the talks ended when federal officials would not consider higher spills and other changes [...]
This article in today’s Oregonian expounds on various grumblings about infill in Portland. What’s perhaps noteworthy are the nature of some of the complaints:
Chasse often hears from Powellhurst-Gilbert neighbors upset about developers cutting the towering Douglas firs that grace much of outer Southeast Portland.
And while this particular area may [...]
Remember the Iowa town that had a bounty on feral cats? Looks as though feral cat enthusiasts made short work of that plan:
Luckily for the cats, animal rights activists immediately bared their claws when they learned of Randolph, Iowa’s $5-per-cat program under which stray cats turned in for [...]
What’s the problem with the Humane Society? First, they (jokingly) promote pets “for everyone” — a simply terrible idea that desensitizes people from the fact that most people should not own an animal. Next, they support the totally ineffective trap-neuter-release program for feral cats. And now they favor [...]
What do you expect from Republicans?
With little-noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act.
[...]
The documents show that personnel were barred from using information in agency files [...]
Why did anti-environment David Bragdon speak at an OIA event? OH YEAH, he’s anti-environment!
oregonians in action [...]
LNG terminals and pipelines are a horrible plan for Oregon:
The latest maps of a natural gas line proposed for Oregon show a freeway-wide clear-cut slicing through 73 miles of public forest and the pressurized pipeline crossing about 50 rivers and named streams. [...]
Critics say the [...]
Wow, you have to see this crazy video of an invasive fish taking over the Midwest… in the 2nd video, when they electrify the water, watch how many jump…
fish, invasive species [...]You can get a sense from the comments on the BBC Web site (each of the following from different posters):
Dalai Lama is telling lies.
And…
The problem is not that the Chinese government is too harsh on Tibetans. It is that it has been too soft.
And…
Westerners only interested in Tibet because [...]
Commissioners in Martin County have unanimously passed an ordinance allowing county employees to go onto private property without permission to kill Africanized bees and treat areas where mosquitoes are breeding.
It is cool to see governments asserting their rights to regulate private property for the public good. [...]
Killing of sea lions snacking on endangered salmon has been approved by the federal government.
A federal agency has authorized the “intentional legal taking” of individually identified California sea lions that prey on migrating salmon and steelhead at the base of Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River.
[...]
The sea lions [...]
Man, I was getting ready for the season, but maybe I shouldn’t:
Biologists are stunned by the failing returns to the Sacramento River, typically one of the healthiest and most abundant stocks on the West Coast. The Pacific Fishery Management Council predicts that numbers of Sacramento River fall chinook will [...]
Well, of course, number one is Judy Miller. Number 2 is this idiot. But not far behind is the travel and development porn, often with a “green” angle, that the NY Times peddles:
About building a “green” house on a multi-acre lot in Hood River orchard country.
About building [...]
This is an absolutely crazy video. Elephant seals populations in the US are rebounding sharply. In the next 50 years, I would imagine breeding colonies will establish themselves in Oregon. (Let’s hope they don’t eat salmon!)
Incidentally, I want to take time to recommend this outstanding [...]
What a strange creature.
Apparently there are only four in captivity.
Hugely endangered. Not least because they are often “killed on sight” in Madagascar as they are supposed to bring bad luck.
Incidentally, that reminds me to check on the breeding progress of the Yangtze [...]
What a crappy article. “Don’t mess with damascas”… that’s exactly what these measures will do! The article is biased and assumes that these measures somehow “protect” Damascus. Far from it!
DAMASCUS — Forget Texas — don’t mess with Damascus.
These toothless measures remind of the crap that John Day County passed… [...]
Sigh:
Voters in Damascus on Tuesday approved three government-limiting measures, including a local version of Measure 37, the statewide property rights law that Oregon voters reeled back in December.
[...]
The Damascus property measure requires the city to compensate landowners when city land-use regulations enacted after Jan. 1, 2006, harm property values. [...]
At least they have the right idea:
There’s money to be made in Randolph, which is offering a $5 bounty for each feral feline turned in.
I know that feral cat enthusiasts will now bombard this small town with emails and hate mail demanding that they use the ineffective trap-neuter-release.
Please, small [...]
I hate him through and through. But you gotta admit that Tom Coburn epitomizes the rare type of Republican that is against additional spending… heck, he blocks Mt. Hood Wilderness Bills, but also goes against Alaskan Republicans and their bridges to nowhere.
You gotta respect the guy. He’s not a [...]
We help homebuyers, renters, and real estate agents find houses and apartments in great neighborhoods. Walk Score shows you a map of what’s nearby and calculates a Walk Score for any property. Buying a house in a walkable neighborhood is good for your health and good for the [...]
There’s no talk of “catch-neuter-release” over there!
Thousands of pet cats in Beijing are being abandoned by their owners and sent to die in secretive government pounds as China mounts an aggressive drive to clean up the capital in preparation for the Olympic Games.
[…]
The cull comes in the wake of [...]
Have you seen the various Metro billboards promoting these things?
Look, consistency is important.
Remember after 9/11 when you flew around the country, and some airports required your ID and some didn’t? The result was that there were massive slowdowns in ALL cities. People didn’t know what to do. In cities without [...]
I never get plastic bags when I buy things. Well, maybe very occasionally.
But I always suspected there was something a bit stupid about claims that they do great, great damage.
The central claim of campaigners is that the bags kill more than 100,000 marine mammals and one million seabirds every [...]
That’s my opinion when I read their latest newsletter.
Indeed, you thought that Angie’s List was a progressive place to find contractors? Something like a cool cousin to Craig’s List?
Well, it might be a good place to find contractors, but it is NOT progressive. Anything but!
Good thing we have national monuments and national parks and wilderness areas! Why? Shoot, because without those protections there would be reckless exploitation of those lands… things like oil drilling and the like.
A subsidiary of Occidental Petroleum has notified the Bureau of Land Management that it would like [...]
Some preacher wants to put up a sign on his roof. “Property rights”!
Well, well… the dusty West wasn’t always so dusty. In fact, humans in the past 2 centuries have made it 5 times more dusty than it used to be.
As people spend more time communing with their [...]
Is Brazil getting serious about protecting the Amazon? Doubtful! Still:
Three hundred police and security agents have been deployed to the Amazon in a massive crackdown ordered by the Brazilian government against loggers illegally stripping the forest, officials said Tuesday.
In 2002, Ireland passed a tax on plastic bags; customers who want them must now pay 33 cents per bag at the register. There was an advertising awareness campaign. And then something happened that was bigger than the sum of these parts.
Within weeks, plastic bag use dropped 94 percent. Within [...]
Do you think feral cat enthusiasts would be so, uh, enthusiastic about catch-neuter-release if, say, nature corrected the imbalance and bumped said cats from the apex predator ladder?
Something wild tore a chunk out of Fortune the cat last fall, so when his owner, Diana Cooper, saw a weasel-like animal [...]
When the shearwater protection project began, Misaki thought, “Wow, so many cats! As we cleared away the brush, we found lots of bird bones and realized that the cats had used the trees as staging areas for their attacks.”
Feral cat predation of native fauna is a [...]
Remember when John Day county passed some dumb-ass ballot saying that the United Nations couldn’t enter their county?
Sorry, but I’m not going to be politically correct. The percentage of idiots is far greater in Eastern Oregon than it is in Western Oregon. That’s just a simple fact. Hell, even census [...]
I can’t help it, but I relish reading articles, where there is no loss of life, about houses/condos/motels falling victim to the ravages of a rising river or aggressive surf. Next time the idiot developers might think twice about building on flood plains, wetlands, or tidal zones! And the [...]
I’ve given a few dollars to Seacology in the past… I’ve always thought that they had an innovative approach, particularly their “win-win” strategy. Specifically, they will often ask for a local tribe/village to declare a marine/forest area off-limits to hunting. In return, Seacology will build a school, community center, [...]
The next leg will declare marine reserves for more northerly areas.
When will Oregon get its reserves?
Marine reserves are so, so vital. Not only do they help protect certain areas, but they increase fishing rates pretty quickly. Larger fish (in the protected areas) are more [...]
Yet another victim of the outdoor and feral cat plague… highly endangered sea otters.
They’re cute, furry, and when they’re not chasing each other around kelp forests, they’re floating on their backs like miniature teddy bears. Hunted nearly to extinction for their luxuriant fur–the thickest of any mammal’s–the sea otters [...]
Here:
And Metro, the regional government that manages the zoo, may seek as much as $90 million for a bigger elephant habitat, new veterinary hospital and new zoo education campus.
You are seriously about to ask taxpayers to pay $90 million… for elephants??
“Biofuels”, “biodiesel”, and all of the rest of that junk are bad ideas and rely on bad science. In particular, they are bad for the environment, not only in terms of carbon emissions (they result in more emissions) but in loss of ecosystems and primary forest. Here:
Almost all biofuels [...]
Republican Ted Kulongoski, Oregon’s anti-environment governor, continues to push for Liquefied Natural Gas terminals on Oregon’s coast.
Heck, didn’t even fellow GOP governor Arnold down in California come out against LNG siting in California? Now I know that Kulongoski, without another election to win, is going to push his extremist [...]
This outstanding book, The Oregon Desert, co-written in 1962 by a cowboy and a scientist has some little gems. Peculiar among the passages is the continued focus on how Eastern Oregon could make a man a lot of money.
Here’s one that struck me as particularly… interesting:
Right now, 1962, [...]
Each of these probably deserves its own post, but I simply don’t have time.
Interesting to see that he isn’t using any reference to Lewis and Clark Law School, as he so infamously did in the past.
measure 49 [...]This is weird.
I read this story about the dastardly Council of Conservative Citizens and their support for Mike Huckleberry, or, rather, Huckleberry’s support for them.
Now, on their Statement of Principles, you get the usual claptrap such as:
We also oppose all efforts to mix the races of mankind, to [...]
Instead of killing 30 of them, can’t we do as feral cat mongers do and trap-neuter-release the sea lions that are killing salmon at Bonneville dam?
No we can’t.
There is no historical evidence that California sea lions ever came up this far. Mankind, by eliminating its predators and indirectly reducing [...]
We need some Australian environmentalists in the USA to deal with the ridiculous feral cat problem…
Environmentalists called Wednesday for hundreds of wild horses to be shot dead to prevent a unique Australian national park becoming a “horse paddock,” with little room for native species.
Around 1,700 feral horses — known [...]
Is it just me, or do “stand your ground” laws, like in Texas and many other GOP states, seem totally ridiculous, particularly when they make it totally fine to KILL someone to defend property from being stolen (even IF that property isn’t even yours). Read this case and shudder:
At least when it is this sort:
IT may not surprise you to learn that much of the pork and chicken and beef and milk that you buy at the grocery store comes from huge, industrial-size operations that bear little resemblance to the quaint family farms that adorn [...]
President: Hillary Clinton. You get two presidents for the price of one. Plus, Obama is an empty vessel with not much besides charm. To be honest, I believe that a female president will work far harder than a male president, and won’t get bogged down in various sexual scandals. But, [...]
While in California this holiday, I went to the beach. There were dozens of cats in this small cove. A man came with toys and started to play with them, and I casually asked him some questions.
There are over 60 cats, and he said that they are “constantly growing” and [...]
Per The NYTs: “An 8,000-square-foot home near Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming, where ranches are giving way to subdivisions.”
Who needs an 8000 acre vacation home? This person should be shipped off to live in Cambodia and stripped of all their wealth.
feral cats, wyoming [...]Why not? Because it would destroy Cuba’s pristine ecosystems with American-style consumption and tourism.
Florida is craps-ville. It is overdeveloped… a horrible little place where condos, sugar plantations, and sprawl have wiped out pretty much everything. (Not to mention water diversion projects). Cuba retains some of the same ecosystems that [...]
In Corey v. State of Oregon, the Oregon Court of Appeals rightly held that a decision by the government to modify, remove or
not apply a land use regulation is a protected right that cannot simply be taken away from property owners merely at the whim of the government.There is [...]
“Furious” Dorothy English’s grandson:
“In 1953, she could have built 100 homes or a high-rise hotel if she wanted. All she wanted to do was divide it into eight parcels. We’re not talking greed; we’re not talking mass density.”
In 1953, my relatives could have developed an open-pit cyanide leach mine [...]
Pope Benedict XVI reinforced the Vatican’s growing concern with protecting the environment in the traditional midnight Christmas Mass on Tuesday, bemoaning an “ill-treated world” in a homily given to thousands of pilgrims here in the seat of the world’s billion Roman Catholics.
On the day Christians celebrate the birth of [...]
That’s my rough estimation anyway.
In a somewhat pointless article, The Oregonian declares the Gorge casino more or less dead, for the simple reason that the Dept of Interior refuses to act:
The casino proposal, now in the form of a draft environmental impact statement, lies on Kempthorne’s desk. With his [...]
Isn’t Sting the guy who rallied for the Amazon and who sang forgettable soft rock? If so, how can he justify this level of reckless consumption:
The musician has six children, namely Joseph, 31, and Fuchsia Katherine, 25, from his first marriage to actress Frances Tomelty, and Mickey, 23, Jake, [...]
Some great photos and video here.
Some good photos and videos of the destruction of Marmot Dam, courtesy of PGE. It is amazing to think of the infrastructure that went into such a small output hydro project.
For those that are interested in dam removal, Little Sandy River Dam and the
[...]
Wow, wow, wow!
My brother told me he spotted my house on Google Maps. I said, yeah, the satellite view ain’t that great… you can’t see that much detail. He said, NO, I can see YOU in front of your house from the street view.
WHAT?!
Yep… go to Google Maps. Go [...]
In response to my blog entry (and an email I sent to them), they reply:
Hi there.
These sort of queries surface whenever there is a newspaper article about our work. However if you look a bit deeper I think you will find that we are well regarded as an [...]
The kite costs $725,000… but then again, on good days, the ship will see energy savings of $1,600 per day.
Hmmm…
(Of course the boat is transporting wind foils! Would make less of a good PR photo if it was transporting, say, a cargo of Hummers!)
Update: A wind powered [...]
What is this group?
Are they a front group for industry? Or are they committed to truly sustainable ecosystems?
I tend to suspect the former when I read that Bush has decided that they should review the catastrophic and politically motivated plan to increase logging of old growth forests in [...]
What good is a “college of forestry” that STILL practices clearcutting and, when two landslides wipe out homes and thousands of acres on clearcut land, they reply:
“Mother Nature threw a curveball at us,” he said. “It was a pretty intense storm event, so you’re going to have unexpected things [...]
What’s the relationship between strip clubs and property rights? Profit at any cost to the community.Check it out:
The Anchor has been tangled in controversy in this town of 300 for more than three years after developer Steve Camden won permission from Tillamook County to add a third floor for [...]
So, it seems as though the ubiquitous “smartwater” is waging a war on regular water. Indeed, I got a copy of some crappy magazine called “Movies Rock!” with last weeks The New Yorker. The magazine is stuffed with advertisements, and a few terrible articles about music and movies.
The advertisement on [...]
How long before this amazing animal appears on the dinner plates of Guangzhou diners?
An “extraordinary” desert creature has been caught on camera for what scientists believe is the first time.
The long-eared jerboa, a tiny nocturnal mammal that is dwarfed by its enormous ears, can be found in deserts [...]
As I discussed earlier, there are two known Yangtze giant soft-shell turtles left in the world. One is male. The other is female. This is the last chance for a seminal species.
We must do all we can to help this species survive.
Here’s how:
Gerald Kuchling referred me to you, I [...]
Remember when I wrote about how the Indian Government officially said that God didn’t exist (so that they could clear a “godly” land bridge)?
A judge in India has summoned two Hindu gods, Ram and Hanuman, to help resolve a property dispute.
Judge Sunil Kumar Singh in [...]
1000 Friends just came out with a “blueprint for Oregon’s future“.
There’s a lot of good ideas in it. I haven’t had a chance to go through it in detail yet.
1000 friends, oregon [...]Sometimes (oftentimes) Democrats are no better than Republicans at protecting our public lands:
Tens of thousands of acres of federal lands in the Las Vegas area have been sold under an unusual law pushed through Congress nearly a decade ago by the Nevada delegation. The sales have grossed nearly $3 [...]
