UPDATE: Golf, Not Drought, Brings Obama to California
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Obama: US must rethink water as climate changes
UPDATE: Golf, Not Drought, Brings Obama to California
Girl Scouts Promote Environmental Justice, Climate Change, Green Energy in Its Leadership Program
The
Girl Scouts’ National Leadership Journeys program requires girls to embrace
environmental justice, climate change and green energy in order to earn awards.
The Journey Awards – “aimed at giving them the
benefits of the Girl Scout "Keys to Leadership": Discover, Connect,
Take Action” – are described on the Girls Scouts website as being designed for
girls from kindergarten through high school. The “It’s Your Planet – Love It”
journey page is illustrated with a photograph of a “green
roof” at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco, Calif. “Girls are
being exposed to ideas and discussions on the environment every day and
everywhere,” the description of the various journeys with this
theme states. “Girl Scouts journeys are packed with the latest research and
girl-relevant environmental thinking and offer adults a way to interact with
girls on topics of great importance in their lives. “In this journey series,
girls at each grade level have an opportunity to learn about grade-appropriate
environmental issues such as clean water and air, noise pollution, global
warming, soil contamination, and agricultural processes,” the description
states. The list of programs with the planet theme include ‘Between Earth and
Sky” for kindergartners and first-graders, called Daisies. “On this Journey,
Daisies learn about the natural world around them and how to keep the Earth
healthy,” the description states. One suggested activity is to “put on a play
about protecting the Earth.” The Brownies’ journey, “Wow! Wonders of Water”
(for second and third graders) states that girls will “learn how to protect the
waters of our planet.” Girl Scout Cadettes (grades seventh, eighth and ninth)
go on a “Breathe” journey. “On this Journey, Cadettes learn all about the air
they breathe and how to improve its quality,” the description states. “They may
take a trip to a wind farm to see how sustainable energy is harvested, invite
an environmental scientist to talk about air-quality control, or perform fun
experiments about air. “Then they team up on an air-quality project they care
about,” the description states. “They might create a no-idling zone in their
school parking lot, plant an indoor garden at a community center, or develop an
anti-smoking social media campaign.” The most senior scouting journey –
ambassadors who are in their junior or senior year of high school – will learn
about “environmental justice.”...more
Farm Workers in Undercover Video Charged with Animal Abuse
Four workers from a Wisconsin dairy farm who were seen on an undercover video allegedly abusing cows have been charged with a total of 11 counts of animal cruelty.
Video shot by an undercover investigator for the animal rights group Mercy for Animals late last year showed employees at Wiese Brothers Farm in Greenleaf, Wis. kicking, beating and stabbing cows and dragging the animals with ropes. When NBC News showed the video to DiGiorno Pizzas, which purchased cheese made from Wiese Brothers’ milk, the nation’s largest frozen pizza company said it would no longer accept products made from the farm's milk.
In December, the owners of the farms said they were “shocked and saddened” by what was shown on the tape, and had terminated two employees and removed another from contact with animals. This week, Brown County, Wis., prosecutors charged Abelardo Jaimes, Lucia Martinez and Misael Monge-Minero with three counts of mistreating animals and charged Crescencio Pineda with two counts of the same offense. Each count carries a maximum penalty of nine months in prison and a $10,000 fine. The defendants are scheduled to make their initial appearance in a Green Bay courtroom on March 4...more
Camel escapes, attacks man in Southern California
Persian Proverb
Those Persions knew what they were talking about.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Note
Just a few posts today. Been fighting a mouse problem all night that I can't seem to fix. Will get a new one today...shoulda kept a spare.
Landrieu’s gavel comes with risks
Federal appeals court overturns restrictions on concealed guns in much of California
In a significant victory for gun owners, a divided federal appeals court Thursday struck down California rules that permit counties to restrict as they see fit the right to carry a concealed weapon in public.
The 2-1 ruling by a U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals panel would overturn restrictions on carrying concealed handguns, primarily affecting California's most populated regions, including Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco.
The majority said the restrictions violate the 2nd Amendment's guarantee of the right to bear arms because they deny law-abiding citizens the ability to carry weapons in public unless they show they need the protection for specific reasons.
"We are not holding that the Second Amendment requires the states to permit concealed carry," Judge Diarmuid O'Scannlain, a Reagan appointee, wrote for the panel. "But the Second Amendment does require that the states permit some form of carry for self-defense outside the home."
The decision was hailed by gun rights advocates, who said citizens must have the right to protect themselves in public. Proponents of stricter gun control described the ruling as an aberrant and reckless expansion of law that would lead to more gun violence...more
Area residents face difficulties accessing recreational land
Amarillo, TX - There are 12,000 acres of land available for public recreational use just north of Amarillo, but it is not easy to get to.
The Cross Bar Ranch is used by area residents for hiking, hunting, horseback riding and camping. However, accessing the land is a challenge.
Right now the ranch is landlocked by private owners and the only way in is through a muddy riverbed. "People can get to the Cross Bar Ranch by walking to it," said Bureau of Land Management representative Samuel Burton. "Of course we would prefer to have more easier access for the public to this land. And that's currently what's being discussed in current public meetings."
The only way to gain easier access is if the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) can negotiate an access agreement or a land purchase with a private owner. Burton said private owners have had some issues with the public illegally crossing their land to get to the ranch and vandalizing their property.
The BLM is asking for public support so it can further its efforts to provide easier access...more
Don't have any other facts on this situation, but "further its efforts" to acquire access may mean eminent domain. The only authority BLM has to exercise eminent domain is "if necessary to secure access to public lands, and then only if the lands so acquired are confined to as narrow a corridor as is necessary to serve such purpose." (Sec. 205 of FLPMA)
They could, of course, acquire access by land exchange or by purchasing an easement.
They could, of course, acquire access by land exchange or by purchasing an easement.
WSJ - New Mexico County's Bond Buys Set Off Alarm, Probes
Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1208
Roots Week on Ranch Radio brings you the duet Burnett & Rutherford. Here's the first tune they recorded during their 1926 Atlanta session for Columbia: Lost John. You'll note this is a year before Ralph Peer held the Bristol Sessions for Victor, and Columbia was already recording rural artists in the South. Here's some info on them:
Burnett was born near Monticello, Kentucky. He was known to play the banjo and guitar and was blind in one eye. Burnett allegedly wrote the traditional American folk song, Man of Constant Sorrow, which was later to be covered by Bob Dylan and featured in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou as another version. He recorded with fiddler Leon Rutherford for Columbia Records. Burnett was born near the end of the nineteenth century on October 8, 1883, in the area around the head of Elk Springs, about seven miles north of Monticello. He remembered little of his farming parents. His father died when he was only four and his mother died when he was twelve. Burnett did say that his mother told him how his father would carry him in his arms when he was only four years old and he would help his dad sing. It is notable that Burnett's grandparents were of German and English descent and that particular ancestral influence would be instrumental in forming Burnett's musical career. At seven-years-old, Burnett was playing the dulcimer; at nine he was playing the banjo, and at thirteen he had learned to play the fiddle. Richard Burnett's life took a drastic turn in early adulthood when he was attacked by a robber, shot in the face, and lost his eyesight. He was working in the oil field of central Kentucky, married with a young child, and now faced an uncertain future. Almost prophetically, his boss made the following statement to Burnett: "Well, you can still make it; you can make it with your music." In time, Burnett joined forces with a young fourteen-year-old orphaned boy from Somerset. That young boy, Leonard Rutherford, would become Burnett's student and became one of the "smoothest" fiddle players known to come from Kentucky. Richard Burnett, "blind minstrel of Monticello" and Leonard Rutherford, "one of the smoothest fiddlers ever to take a bow," soon were singing at every opportunity. They appeared on courthouse lawns and on the street playing and singing their music. In order to earn some money, Richard would strap a tin cup to his knee to collect the contributions from a satisfied crowd. They traveled by bus, Model A, and on foot to any place they could and sing. From about 1914 until 1950, the pair became so popular that they found themselves in the company of most all the popular mountain musicians of the time. They were "at home" in the presence of greats like the Carter Family, Charlie Oaks, Arthur Smith, and many others. They appeared at the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, on radio stations in Cincinnati, and finally, they would be some of the first old-time musicians to enter the recording studios. Burnett and Rutherford made their first commercial recording in 1926 for Columbia Records in Atlanta, Georgia. "They gave us sixty dollars a record and paid all our expenses from here to Atlanta and back, hotel bills and everything," Burnett reminisced...I'll just add here that there musical career lasted to the 50s.
http://youtu.be/NZUGx4xqOMo
Burnett was born near Monticello, Kentucky. He was known to play the banjo and guitar and was blind in one eye. Burnett allegedly wrote the traditional American folk song, Man of Constant Sorrow, which was later to be covered by Bob Dylan and featured in the movie O Brother Where Art Thou as another version. He recorded with fiddler Leon Rutherford for Columbia Records. Burnett was born near the end of the nineteenth century on October 8, 1883, in the area around the head of Elk Springs, about seven miles north of Monticello. He remembered little of his farming parents. His father died when he was only four and his mother died when he was twelve. Burnett did say that his mother told him how his father would carry him in his arms when he was only four years old and he would help his dad sing. It is notable that Burnett's grandparents were of German and English descent and that particular ancestral influence would be instrumental in forming Burnett's musical career. At seven-years-old, Burnett was playing the dulcimer; at nine he was playing the banjo, and at thirteen he had learned to play the fiddle. Richard Burnett's life took a drastic turn in early adulthood when he was attacked by a robber, shot in the face, and lost his eyesight. He was working in the oil field of central Kentucky, married with a young child, and now faced an uncertain future. Almost prophetically, his boss made the following statement to Burnett: "Well, you can still make it; you can make it with your music." In time, Burnett joined forces with a young fourteen-year-old orphaned boy from Somerset. That young boy, Leonard Rutherford, would become Burnett's student and became one of the "smoothest" fiddle players known to come from Kentucky. Richard Burnett, "blind minstrel of Monticello" and Leonard Rutherford, "one of the smoothest fiddlers ever to take a bow," soon were singing at every opportunity. They appeared on courthouse lawns and on the street playing and singing their music. In order to earn some money, Richard would strap a tin cup to his knee to collect the contributions from a satisfied crowd. They traveled by bus, Model A, and on foot to any place they could and sing. From about 1914 until 1950, the pair became so popular that they found themselves in the company of most all the popular mountain musicians of the time. They were "at home" in the presence of greats like the Carter Family, Charlie Oaks, Arthur Smith, and many others. They appeared at the Renfro Valley Barn Dance, on radio stations in Cincinnati, and finally, they would be some of the first old-time musicians to enter the recording studios. Burnett and Rutherford made their first commercial recording in 1926 for Columbia Records in Atlanta, Georgia. "They gave us sixty dollars a record and paid all our expenses from here to Atlanta and back, hotel bills and everything," Burnett reminisced...I'll just add here that there musical career lasted to the 50s.
http://youtu.be/NZUGx4xqOMo
Thursday, February 13, 2014
House committee endorses bill targeting environmental group lawsuits
A bill passed out of the U.S. House Judiciary Committee that Rep. Cynthia Lummis hopes will shed light on reimbursements of public funds environmental groups receive when they sue the federal government.
Lummis, R-Wyo., sponsored H.R. 2919, the Open Book on Equal Access to Justice Act, with Reps. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn.; Joe Garcia, D-Fla., and Doug Collins, R-Ga. After Wednesday’s passage in committee, the bill heads to the House floor. The bill was introduced Aug. 1.
The bill would require more transparency for those who use the Equal Access to Justice Act. EAJA was passed by Congress in 1980. Lummis said EAJA was created to reimburse legal fees of the “little guy,” such as a veteran, retiree, small business owner or nonprofit with legal bills when facing the giant federal government in court.
“EAJA was later co-opted by large environmental groups so their litigation shops could get reimbursed for filing expansive litigation on environmental issues,” Lummis said in an interview with the Star-Tribune on Thursday, adding that many of the environmental groups have deep pockets.
The bill would require the nonpartisan Administrative Conference of the United States to report to Congress each year how much has been paid from EAJA, by which federal agencies, and the recipients of those dollars. The Administrative Conference, an independent agency tasked with finding solutions to improve federal agencies’ administrative processes, would also create an online database with the information. Lummis previously identified Santa Fe, N.M.-based WildEarth Guardians
as a group that abused EAJA. Jeremy Nichols , the organization’s
climate and energy program director, said in an email transparency is a
great idea. He doesn’t believe environmental groups are abusing the law.
Environmentalists sue to make sure the nation’s laws are enforced, he
said...more
You can read here about the event in NM I was involved in that led to the introduction of legislation that eventually became the EAJA.
Utah stream access supporters rally for compromise bill
Recreationalists who enjoy Utah’s waters gathered on the steps of the Utah State Capitol Tuesday calling for compromise in a long-fought battle over stream access rights. Rep. Dixon Pitcher, R-Ogden, sponsor of HB37, "The Public Waters Access Act," told crowd members their presence made a difference. He implored them to climb the steps, enter the building and explain their support for the bill personally to their representative.
HB37 is based on a standard for public access to streams and rivers that Idaho has been successfully using for nearly four decades. The threshold is whether a stream is large enough to float a log six feet in length and six inches in diameter. Smaller streams remain off limits for public access. The stream access debate has been going on for decades. But it picked up steam when the Utah Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that the public owns the water in rivers and streams, and had a right to use the waters on stream beds where public access was possible.
A bill passed in 2010 undermined the court decision and, according to the Utah Stream Access Coalition (USAC), prevented the public from utilizing 2,700 miles of rivers and streams...more
The martyrdom of Mark Steyn - Global warming lawsuit
When I first read, many months ago, that the notorious US climate scientist Michael Mann was suing the notorious right-wing bastard Mark Steyn for defamation, I admit that I felt a little piqued.
Obviously a libel trial is not something any sane person would wish to court; and naturally I’m a massive fan of Steyn’s. Nevertheless, after all the work I’ve dedicated over the years to goading Mann, I found it a bit bloody annoying that Steyn — a relative latecomer to the climate change debate — should have been the one who ended up stealing all my courtroom glory.
What made me doubly jealous was that this was a case Steyn was guaranteed to win. In the unlikely event it came to court — which I didn’t think it would, given Mann’s longstanding aversion to any form of public disclosure regarding his academic research — the case would fall down on the fact that defamation is so hard to prove in the US, especially when it involves publicly funded semi-celebrities who are expected to take this sort of thing on the chin.
Since then, though, much has changed. It now looks — go to Steynonline.com for the full story — as if Steyn is going to be up there on his own, fighting and financing his case without the support of his magazine, National Review; that the outcome is not as certain as it seemed at the beginning; and that this hero deserves all the help we can give him.
Why? Well, the fact that I even have to explain this shows what a cowardly, snivelling, career-safe, intellectually feeble, morally compromised age we inhabit. By rights, Mann v Steyn should be the 21st-century equivalent of the Scopes monkey trial, with believers in free speech, proponents of the scientific method and sympathetic millionaires and billionaires all piling in to Steyn’s defence with op eds, learned papers, and lavish funds to buy the hottest of hotshot lawyers.
Instead, what do I read? Crap like, ‘Steyn’s out of order: he shouldn’t have been so rude about the judge who mishandled the initial hearing.’ (OK, maybe he shouldn’t — but what are you supposed to say about judges who mishandle your case? ‘Nice job, ma’am’?) Crap like, ‘And he’s going to take the National Review down with him.’ (No he isn’t. That’s what libel insurance is for.) Crap like, ‘Well, he shouldn’t have used such-and-such a word or written that polemic in quite so inflammatory and offensive a way.’ (Yes that’s right. Polemics should be cautious, dry, legalistic, tame. Otherwise people might read them and have their minds changed.)
So let’s just cut through that crap and remind ourselves briefly what we know about the plaintiff. Michael Mann was an obscure young physicist-turned-climatologist who rose without trace in 1998 with the publication in Nature of his ‘hockey stick’ chart showing dramatic and apparently unprecedented late-20th-century global warming.
There followed almost instant fame, on which Mann has traded ever since — gaining tenure at Penn State University, drawing millions in public funding for research, often called on by the Guardian and the New York Times to sum up the state of climate science. Al Gore used a version of Mann’s hockey stick in his Oscar-winning An Inconvenient Truth. The IPCC used it five times in its Third Assessment Report and promoted Mann to lead author.
But the hockey stick, on which Mann’s reputation largely rests, was and is a nonsense. It obliterates the medieval warm period; it is unduly reliant on proxy data — bristlecone pine samples — which are known to be unreliable; it is dependent on a flawed algorithm which, according to every statistical authority who has ever looked at the subject, creates the same hockey-stick data almost regardless of the information you feed into it.
Surely if you’re going to sue someone for defamation, this must involve an examination of the reputation said to be worth defending. What would this say about Mann, onlie begetter of arguably the most comprehensively discredited artefact in recent climate science history? And if Mann’s scientific reputation really matters to him so much, maybe he ought first to do a bit of reading on how world-class scientists actually behave. He could do worse than read Paul Johnson’s account in Modern Times of how Einstein proposed his general theory of relativity. Einstein insisted that before his claims were taken seriously, they must first be verified by empirical observation, in the form of three specific tests. Of the final one — the red shift — Einstein wrote: ‘If it were proved that this effect does not exist in nature then the whole theory would have to be abandoned.’
Einstein’s rigour and integrity inspired Karl Popper to form his influential theories on falsification: that a scientific theory is only useful if it contains the key to its own destruction. This, critics argue, is the fundamental flaw with anthropogenic global warming theory: it has been couched in such a way as to be unfalsifiable; it is being kept alive not by science and free enquiry, but by the kind of appeals to authority we see exemplified by Mann’s response to Steyn’s criticisms.
Mann may or may not have a case against Steyn on technical grounds; but in terms of the bigger argument about empiricism, free speech and the scientific method, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. Steyn gets this and — as he did in his case against the Ontario Human Rights Committee — is laying his neck on the line not solely because he’s a show-off and an awkward sod but for the greater cause of western civilisation. Now go to his website Steynonline.com and read what you can do to support him.
U.S. Interior Dept. Releases First National Interactive Map Of Onshore Wind Turbines
The U.S. Department of the Interior's (DOI) U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) has released the first publicly available interactive map and geo-dataset showing more than 47,000 onshore wind turbine locations and related information across the entire U.S. According to the DOI, the new tool is consistent with the goals of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell's Order No. 3330, which was released in October 2013 to incorporate a landscape-level approach to development on public lands. “In making this critical information available to the public, the USGS has provided public agencies and private companies with a new tool to help guide smart landscape-level planning decisions that support domestic energy production while minimizing conflicts,” says Jewell. “The data will help improve the siting of future wind energy projects, as well as aid land managers in devising more up-to-date land-use and multiple-use plans.” The wind turbine map, which includes turbines installed as of July 2013, was created by combining publicly available datasets from the Federal Aviation Administration, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, as well as other federal, state and local sources. USGS researchers also identified additional turbines not in those pre-existing databases and added them to the dataset and map. The interactive map is available here.
Lawmakers want to see the ‘black budget’
Ranch Radio Song Of The Day #1207
Ranch Radio's Roots Week continues with Charlie Poole & The North Carolina Ramblers and their 1925 recording of Don't Let Your Deal Go Down Blues. Poole is on vocals and banjo, Poole's brother-in-law Posey Rorer is on fiddle and Norman Woodlief is on guitar. You'll recognize the tune as its become a country and bluegrass standard. This selection is from his first recording session on July 27, 1925 where four songs were recorded. This was two years prior to the Bristol Sessions so they had to travel to New York City to record. There is plenty of info on Poole and his influence on Country Music, but I like these liner notes from the Poole compilation You Ain't Talking To Me:
A millworker and moonshiner, Charlie Poole spent most of his adult years wandering the South, raising hell. He and the band he called the North Carolina Ramblers would leave home for weeks at a time, playing for barn dances and on street corners. Through that piecemeal work, his spry sound spread, influencing countless musicians. It later became a core component of bluegrass. Poole (1892--1931) played the banjo with three fingers. He'd damaged his right hand in a drunken wager (he claimed he could catch a baseball without a glove no matter how hard it was thrown, and lost), and taught himself to play in what was called a "clawhammer" style. His time was flawless: On this anthology of his 78-RPM recordings, Poole taps out a tempo so strong it carries his accomplices (usually a guitarist and a fiddler) right along with it. Poole's nimble group favored brisk tempos that kept people dancing. The band's repertoire included Civil War ballads, woebegone drifter laments ("May I Sleep in Your Barn Tonight Mister" is one of the highlights on this three-disc set), early blues, mountain dances, and vaudeville numbers. Poole's drinking binges and renegade exploits made him a legend in the Piedmont hills of Virginia and North Carolina, where he sold most of his records. He continued to record until 1930, and when Columbia records canceled his contract, Poole went back to millwork, suffering from depression. He died at age thirty-nine, after a thirteen-week bender. His records survived, however: Several famous bluegrass banjo stars, including Don Reno, learned their craft listening to Poole. But it wasn't until Harry Smith's 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music that those outside the Piedmont region appreciated the fiery sounds of country music's first renegade.
http://youtu.be/HgpyFRwEWa4
A millworker and moonshiner, Charlie Poole spent most of his adult years wandering the South, raising hell. He and the band he called the North Carolina Ramblers would leave home for weeks at a time, playing for barn dances and on street corners. Through that piecemeal work, his spry sound spread, influencing countless musicians. It later became a core component of bluegrass. Poole (1892--1931) played the banjo with three fingers. He'd damaged his right hand in a drunken wager (he claimed he could catch a baseball without a glove no matter how hard it was thrown, and lost), and taught himself to play in what was called a "clawhammer" style. His time was flawless: On this anthology of his 78-RPM recordings, Poole taps out a tempo so strong it carries his accomplices (usually a guitarist and a fiddler) right along with it. Poole's nimble group favored brisk tempos that kept people dancing. The band's repertoire included Civil War ballads, woebegone drifter laments ("May I Sleep in Your Barn Tonight Mister" is one of the highlights on this three-disc set), early blues, mountain dances, and vaudeville numbers. Poole's drinking binges and renegade exploits made him a legend in the Piedmont hills of Virginia and North Carolina, where he sold most of his records. He continued to record until 1930, and when Columbia records canceled his contract, Poole went back to millwork, suffering from depression. He died at age thirty-nine, after a thirteen-week bender. His records survived, however: Several famous bluegrass banjo stars, including Don Reno, learned their craft listening to Poole. But it wasn't until Harry Smith's 1952 Anthology of American Folk Music that those outside the Piedmont region appreciated the fiery sounds of country music's first renegade.
http://youtu.be/HgpyFRwEWa4
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Obama: "I Can Do Whatever I Want"
President Obama put it bluntly: “I can do whatever I want.” Yesterday, while visiting with French President François Hollande at Monticello, Obama made the off-hand comment. The remark comes in the wake of other recent statements, including the President’s comment that all he needs is “a pen and a phone” to get things done without Congress. After the original “pen and phone” comment, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters, “He will not limit himself and certainly doesn’t think the American people would want him to limit himself just to what he could do legislatively through Congress.” Obama’s comments — and subsequent actions — have faced criticism. Some say Obama is not respecting the separation of powers in the government. “President Obama has shown no qualms about taking unilateral actions that bypass Congress and ignore important separation of powers principles that are an essential safeguard of our liberty,” said Heritage’s John Malcolm, director of the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies...more
NSA spying undermines separation of powers
by Glenn Harlan Reynolds
Most of the worry about the National Security Agency's bulk interception of telephone calls, e-mail and the like has centered around threats to privacy. And, in fact, the evidence suggests that if you've got a particularly steamy phone- or Skype-sex session going on, it just might wind up being shared by voyeuristic NSA analysts.
Most of the worry about the National Security Agency's bulk interception of telephone calls, e-mail and the like has centered around threats to privacy. And, in fact, the evidence suggests that if you've got a particularly steamy phone- or Skype-sex session going on, it just might wind up being shared by voyeuristic NSA analysts.
But most Americans figure, probably rightly, that the NSA isn't likely to be interested in their stuff. (Anyone who hacks my e-mail is automatically punished, by having to read it.) There is, however, a class of people who can't take that disinterest for granted: members of Congress and the judiciary. What they have to say is likely to be pretty interesting to anyone with a political ax to grind. And the ability of the executive branch to snoop on the phone calls of people in the other branches isn't just a threat to privacy, but a threat to the separation of powers and the Constitution.
As the Framers conceived it, our system of government is divided into three branches -- the executive, legislative and judicial -- each of which is designed to serve as a check on the others. If the president gets out of control, Congress can defund his efforts, or impeach him, and the judiciary can declare his acts unconstitutional. If Congress passes unconstitutional laws, the president can veto them, or refuse to enforce them, and the judiciary, again, can declare them invalid. If the judiciary gets carried away, the president can appoint new judges, and Congress can change the laws, or even impeach.
But if the federal government has broad domestic-spying powers, and if those are controlled by the executive branch without significant oversight, then the president has the power to snoop on political enemies, getting an advantage in countering their plans, and gathering material that can be used to blackmail or destroy them. With such power in the executive, the traditional role of the other branches as checks would be seriously undermined, and our system of government would veer toward what James Madison in The Federalist No. 47 called "the very definition of tyranny," that is, "the accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands."
That such widespread spying power exists, of course, doesn't prove that it has actually been abused. But the temptation to make use of such a power for self-serving political ends is likely to be very great. And, given the secrecy surrounding such programs, outsiders might never know.
Feds propose listing slickspot peppergrass again, putting ball in Otter's court
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has, once again, proposed listing the flowering slickspot peppergrass as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act.
The plant is found only in the sagebrush steppe and only in southwest Idaho.
This proposal is the latest in a legal battle between Western Watersheds Project on one side, which wants the plant listed, and the state of Idaho and Gov. Butch Otter, who don’t want it listed. Western Watersheds sued U.S. Fish and Wildlife for not listing slickspot peppergrass in 2003 and won in 2004. The government had to go back to the drawing board, decided in 2009 to list the plant and Otter sued.
Chief U.S. Magistrate Candy Dale ruled in August 2011 that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s process for listing the plant under the Endangered Species Act was flawed. Dale refused to reconsider her ruling the following year.
So once again, Fish and Wildlife started over...more
Some Crocodile Species can Climb Trees: Research
Man Killed By Cockfighting Rooster
NASA is now accepting applications from companies that want to mine the moon
Chicago School Officials Suspend 11-Year-Old Boy Under ‘Dangerous Weapons’ Policy for Voluntarily Turning in Non-Firing Toy Gun
Criticizing Chicago school officials for being overzealous, misguided and incapable of distinguishing between an impotent toy and a dangerous weapon, The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of an 11-year-old boy who was suspended from school after he voluntarily turned in a non-firing plastic toy gun that had been forgotten in his jacket pocket. Caden Cook, a sixth grader at Fredrick Funston Elementary School, was suspended for allegedly violating the school’s weapons policy against dangerous objects, in addition to being ordered to undergo counseling, and subjected to intimidation tactics, interrogation, and dire threats by school officials—all without his mother being present. Rutherford Institute attorneys have asked that the suspension be rescinded and all references to the incident be removed from Caden’s permanent school record.
“This case speaks volumes about what’s wrong with our public schools and public officials: rather than school officials showing they are capable of exercising good judgment, distinguishing between what is and is not a true threat, and preserving safety while steering clear of a lockdown mindset better suited to a prison environment, they instead opted to exhibit poor judgment, embrace heavy handed tactics, and treat a toy gun like a dangerous weapon,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute...more
Washington Redskins write scathing response to lawmakers who want team name changed
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