Land And Water U.S.A.




Sunday, September 12, 2010

Dear Mr. Learn,

The propaganda never ceases. Your front page story in today's Oregonian:
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2010/09/global_mining_companies_are_fo.html
rings the usual Global Warming alarm bells without ever acknowledging that there are many, many of us in the scientific community with first rate credentials who say this is FRAUD. Instead you excuse your lack of balance by saying that you could not reach one of the industrial participants. Surely you understand that this issue goes beyond the direct participants in this battle: the coal industry and the Sierra Club. There is good solid science that you and your readers need to consider.
When you say: "To keep temperature increases in the relatively safe zone of 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, climate scientists say, fossil fuel use needs to peak in 2020 and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions need to drop 8 percent by 2030 compared with 2007," you completely fail to acknowledge that many of us think that is absolute rubbish. At the very least you need to say "some climate scientists," and follow your statement with a balancing comment from those of us who strongly disagree.
I know you feel that everyone opposes coal because of its dirty image. But coal is a vital national resource that can (and is) being used responsibly. If real pollutants like sulfur and mercury are properly controlled, coal does far less damage to the environment for useful energy produced than wind, solar, ethanol, and bio-diesel. Coal has a very bright future not only as a source of electricity but as a source for all sorts of hydrocarbons from synthetic fuels to plastics.
And of course, carbon dioxide from burning coal is rapidly recycled into everything from food crops to NW forests. The Carbon Cycle is a vital part of life on this planet. Alarmists will NEVER tell you that an average CO2 molecule has only a five year lifetime in the atmosphere. We know that from isotope studies. Current atmospheric concentrations are near the minimum (not the maximum) to sustain life on this planet.
Isn't it time to move beyond the propaganda and acknowledge some of the science? The future of this country depends on honest science.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD (Physics)
Corbett, Oregon USA

Saturday, August 7, 2010

DYNAMICS AND UNCERTAINTY

Perhaps the most significant contribution of the intensifying climatic research is the accumulation of evidence that climate has never been static. Rather, it has been ever changing at all time scales. The changing character of climate, verified for the past or predicted for the future, has been sometimes described by the term nonstationarity. However, revisiting the notions of stationarity and nonstationarity, which are defined within stochastics, we may understand that the terms are often abused. Literally, claims of nonstationarity cannot stand unless the evolution in time of the statistical characteristics of the process is known in deterministic terms not only for the past, but also for the future in particular. This however can hardly be the case, because, as is known, deterministic predictions are difficult, especially of the future.
Change is not synonymous to nonstationarity, since even an ideal stationary white noise process involves change, which however becomes less and less distinct as the time scale of viewing the process (e.g., time scale of averaging) increases. However, the climatic and all geophysical processes demonstrate more prominent change at large scales in comparison to white noise or even to typical stochastic models such as Markovian. This does not reflect nonstationarity. Rather it warns us to change our perception of natural processes as resembling these simple idealized mathematical processes and to move towards a new type of stochastic dynamics.
The “new” description does not depart from the 60- to 70-year old pioneering works of Hurst on natural processes and of Kolmogorov on turbulence. Essentially, Hurst’s discovery in 1950 of the behaviour named after him and the model that had been proposed by Kolmogorov 10 years earlier recognize the multi-scale fluctuation of natural processes and describe it in stationary terms.
Contrasting stationary with nonstationary descriptions is not just a matter of semantics and of rigorous use of scientific terminology. Rather it has important implications in engineering and management. Because nonstationarity uses deterministic functions of time, it explains part of the variability and thus reduces future uncertainty. This is consistent with reality only if the produced deterministic functions are indeed deterministic, i.e., exact and applicable in future times. As this is hardly the case as far as future applicability is concerned, the uncertainty reduction is a delusion and results in a misleading perception and underestimation of risk.
Apparently, the stationary description with Hurst-Kolmogorov stochastic dynamics results in higher uncertainty in comparison to either nonstationary descriptions or to typical stationary stochastic processes. In particular, the uncertainty under Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics is dramatically increased at large scales, i.e., time scales comparable to those used to define climate, to lifetimes of engineering projects, and to horizons of management strategies. In addition, as far as typical statistical estimation is concerned, the Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics implies dramatically higher intervals in the estimation of location statistical parameters (e.g., mean) and highly negative bias in the estimation of dispersion parameters (e.g., standard deviation). It is important that the Hurst-Kolmogorov framework allows calculating the statistical measures of bias and uncertainty, either of statistical parameters or of future predictions, which are theoretically consistent and also consistent with empirically observed natural behaviours.
The above framework is illustrated using several examples of hydrometeorological time series, which initially show the consistency of the framework with reality and illustrate the implications for uncertainty. A final example demonstrates how this framework was implemented in the planning and strategic management of the water supply system of Athens, Greece, which comprises four reservoirs and several aquifers. After a long persistent drought (7 years) that shocked Athens in the beginning of the 1990s, the strategic water management became a crucial task, with amplified importance in the phase of preparation of the 2004 Olympics. The demonstration of the methodological framework also includes comparison with alternative nonstationarity modelling approaches, including a trend-based approach that yields absurd results, and a climate-model-based approach that substantially underestimates uncertainty and risk. http://www.itia.ntua.gr/en/docinfo/944/
__________________________________________________
Koutsoyiannis, D., Hurst-Kolmogorov dynamics and uncertainty, Workshop on Nonstationarity, Hydrologic Frequency Analysis, and Water Management, Boulder, Colorado, USA, International Center for Integrated Water Resources Management, US Army Corps of Engineers, United States Geological Survey, US Department of the Interior - Bureau of Reclamation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, US Environmental Protection Agency, Colorado State University, 2010.

Friday, August 6, 2010

MEN, WOMEN, & THE CARD UP THE SLEEVE

Ladies march on D.C.
By Jim Beers
I have given numerous talks and written several articles lately about the abuses and growing danger to the nation posed by out-of-control bureaucracies destroying rural America by closing the enormous federal landholdings to sustainable management and use of natural resources and the targeted use of the un-Constitutional power of selective Endangered Species actions from wolves to smelt, suckers, and caddis flies. These latter abuses based on the current Endangered Species Act have emerged as perhaps as great a challenge to American liberties and our way-of-life as the breathtaking expansion of federal power that has occurred in the very dark days of the first 18 months of the Obama Administration.
In the midst of the backlash to the dark days mentioned above, there has emerged a broad and growing political movement to "throw out all the rascals in Washington", repeal the onerous and thousands-of-pages-long-laws passed
recently by lawmakers that couldn't even be bothered to read them, much less
justify or explain them. It is this national environment of reformation as we approach the mid-term elections that gives some hope of reorienting this nation from its descent into tyranny that has been growing for several decades.
Because of this possibility of electing a committed new crop of politicians
I have mentioned the heretofore unlikely chance of repealing the Endangered Species Act or at least amending it. Some such needed changes are:
1. Make Endangered Species Listings contingent on only the worldwide status of a SPECIES (not national status).
2. Eliminate any Listing of Subspecies, Race, or Populations. Only SPECIES could be listed.
3. Reaffirm the 220+ year US Constitutional mandate that the government
MUST PAY JUST COMPENSATION for ANY TAKING of private property made in regards Endangered Species from dogs and irrigation water to any and all property rights as broadly construed.
Additionally, I recommended the very important need to:
1. Repeal the 17th Amendment making US Senators appointed by the
legislature of the State. This makes them true representatives of the State and not the current flaks for national and international agendas and all the national Non-Government Organizations that they work for now. Senators that do not represent their state too often remain in office due to support from national and international organizations. State legislators that appoint or allow such rogue Senators to remain in office, should be subject to the righteous wrath of justifiably irate voters within the state. This is a major factor in the dramatic loss of State's Rights in recent decades.
2. Reform the state and federal land-management and natural resource agencies to staff them with knowledgeable persons committed to the sustainable management and use, in the broadest sense, of the natural resources on government lands.
3. Reform state universities and public schools from the propaganda centers they have become to centers of truth and knowledge so important to a Constitutional Republic like ours.
None of these six recommendations are even remotely possible if the
incumbents currently warming Congressional seats return for another two
(much less six) years. Reform and restoration depend on new faces but the
old faces have stacked the deck and have a card up their sleeve. Take McCain, Feingold, and Reid (please) for instance.
Other than running for "their seat" they also share that ace-in-the-hole of many federal politicians with large and politically powerful Native American enclaves and many (something that amazes me) gamblers interested in "more" or "closer" casinos. Thus that secret exemption in the infamous "McCain/Feingold" election law that prohibits you and me and "our" organizations from "giving" more than such and such OR running political ads after 60 days before the election DOES NOT APPLY TO NATIVE AMERICANS.
Additionally, a recent Washington state election recount for Governor was
decided by votes "discovered" on large Native American reservations where
the tribe runs the polling station, voting rules, and counting. This is but one leg of that octopus rightly called "the power of incumbency" that is continuing the national slide into darkness. Thus are the growing abuss of  The Endangered Species Act and similar travesties more and more made to appear unchangeable.
I am constantly amazed at the number of people I meet that agree with me but are reluctant to say anything or much less vote for or actively support the changes that are so important to our future. Likewise I am heartened by the large number of people working hard to make reforms possible. For instance,
- Kimberley Strassel writes thoughtful and hopeful editorials in the Wall Street Journal.
- Sharron Angle has made state changes thought impossible as a state legislator and now has a firm hold on discrediting and replacing that disgraceful incumbent Reid in Nevada.
- Sarah Palin, just being Palin, carries a firm grasp of natural resources and the US Constitution, two things you can't go wrong with.
- Michelle Bachmann, simultaneously an outsider and incumbent, represents the finest traditions as she speaks out bluntly where needed and gives hope to the disparate Americans desperately trying to reverse
America's drift into tyranny.
- Sharon in Oregon fights daily for rural America and ranchers in particular.
- Mona in Montana is devoting her life to saving American freedoms.
- Sylvia in New York spends much of her time fighting growing government oppression of animal owners.
- Gloria and Cindy in Washington state work to maintain state responsiveness to rural citizen's needs as urban constituencies try to oppress their rural cousins as happens in Illinois, Massachusetts, California, and too many other states.
- Roni and Kimmi in Colorado work ceaselessly to match defensible scientific knowledge with the wild assertions of radicals with hidden agendas from global warming to expanding federal landholdings with the secret collusions of extremist groups and government agencies. Hey, hold it. Would the ladies please leave the room while we men talk?
Thanks.
Guys, how come our "few good men" in this fight (and fight it is) are all women? Too many of us have indeed become what that "California Goldilocks-from-the-gym" once rightly referred to as "girly-men".
If we are going to meet our obligation as fathers and defenders we can't remain in
hiding while these women do our work. Thank God we've got 'em but we have
to help and this upcoming election is (to quote something I have heard all my life but never has it held such awesome importance as it does today) the most important one in my lifetime.
OK ladies you can come back in.
Reform is needed now or it may be too late. Reform is impossible (I give you Barney Frank and Chris Dodd honchoing financial reform or Snowe, Collins, Graham, and Brown that never met a compromise they didn't like) with the current flock of incumbents. Help the challengers and let them know what you want them to do about the things that are important to you.
If you don't or can't, then it (rural living, hunting, fishing, gun rights, ranching, farming, pets, traditions, and way of life, etc) really isn't worth fighting for and we will just continue to rob each other under the guise of "redistributing wealth" to create the illusion of "progress" (to where?).
The incumbents have the Billions in casino "lobbying" money (to authorize casinos and to stop authorizing casinos too close, per their owners, to existing casinos) to draw on surreptitiously and the reluctance of voters to support new faces or oppose recent changes. Those would-be challengers that would change abuses like The Endangered Species Act need all the help they can get and all of us need to help put them in office or what has become unimaginably bad will become and remain ever more intolerable with inevitable consequences too awful to contemplate.
Stopping Minnesota felons from voting and putting away dangerous bums brandishing truncheons outside Philadelphia voting booths aren't the only
worries we have. Repeal and amendment of a whole host of bad laws must be
done and electing honest and committed representatives is the first step.

Thursday, August 5, 2010

DID THE EARTH MOVE FOR YOU?

By  Michael R. Shannon
Last Friday at 5 AM, after a quiet spell of some 13 years, Prince William County, VA had an earthquake. For commuters 5AM is when they're getting ready to head to work. For drunks and night owls it's the time they are arriving home. So thousands of people were out of bed and functioning, more or less, yet only six residents here called 911.
So I'm wondering: if this is a good thing or a bad thing?
The quake was a magnitude of 3.6, which is hardly San Fransiscan in intensity. If you were sleeping, it probably felt like the dog jumped on the bed. But that didn't stop the good residents of Montgomery County, MD from dialing their 911 center. Thousands of residents there called in to report the obvious.
Causing me to wonder if the good liberals in Montgomery thought their government authorities were too obtuse to notice an earthquake, or worse, they wanted them to do something about it?
Some may contend that my criticism is not fair because Montgomery is a larger county and consequently more people would call. True, it's 2.6 times larger than PWC. So multiplying our earthquake calls by a factor of 2.6 gives us a total of 16 callers.
That's not enough people to staff a day-labor center in Montgomery, to say nothing of tie up the phone lines.
On the other hand, it could be that we are too dense to realize that the bed shaking wasn't caused by last night's burrito. A recent study by the Brookings Institution trumpeted the fact that the Washington DC metro area has the best-educated populace in the nation.
Although DC itself remains a sinkhole of bad schools and ignorance; the surrounding counties of Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Howard and Montgomery are tops when measured by the number of bachelor's degrees tacked on office walls. Blue-voting Democrat regions simply love these reports because the findings fuel liberal's immense self-infatuation.
They're smart, they vote for Obama and they think earthquakes are against the law.
You may have noticed my county didn't make the list, but I didn't do something stupid like donate to an NPR pledge drive to compensate. Education does not necessarily equal competence. Four years of gender studies and art history may not be relevant in the real world. A University of Connecticut survey found that the longer students stay in college the less they know about American history, government or the economy. Incoming freshmen know more about all these topics than the outgoing seniors.
Which explains why residents here know earthquakes are not a police matter. We just reach over the TV set to straighten Elvis' portrait, touch our plastic Jesus for luck and head off to work - while in Montgomery the highly-educated are still arguing with the dispatcher.
You'd think now that Leftists are running the country they would be titans of self-esteem and confidence. Yet quite the opposite is true. Their faulty belief system only serves to make the average liberal feel individually powerless, which is why they look to government for relief, protection and a big hug.
Case in point: on the Washington Post front page readers were subject to a 1,100-word whinefest about 'seat hogs.' These porcine Metro riders sit in the aisle seat leaving an empty seat by the window or take up a vacant seat with their briefcase, medical marijuana or copy of Obamacare. Diffident, petulant Leftists stand fuming in the aisle because 'seat hogs' didn't notice their predicament.
Vertical liberals are posting heated complaints on blogs, griping to each other and evidently buttonholing Leftist reporters.
But is this front page news?
Only if you think "somebody" meaning the authorities need to "do something" meaning pass a law, have a hearing, solicit a bid or post a sign.
These interpersonal situations aren't complicated. Even a liberal can stand close to the individual who is taking up more than their government-approved ration of Metro space, say "excuse me, please" in a firm voice and then wait for the person to stand and let you by, slide over themselves or as a last resort you can squeeze past them.
There, that wasn't so hard, was it?
As a matter of fact it probably is, because "elite" journalists are busy infantilizing "elite" readers. Take another Post story on blisters: I read it hoping for some useful breakthrough in blister technology. But no, the thrust of this story was blisters can be painful (!) and don't under any circumstances pop a blister. That's a medical procedure approaching a liver transplant in complexity and you should leave it to the "experts."
And I now have my answer: a total of six earthquake callers is good. It indicates we are self-reliant here. We pop our own blisters and confront our own earthquakes.

INCUMBENTS: meet HORATIO BUNCE

By Henry Lamb
Sounding more like a campaigning candidate than a proud President, Obama said that voters will have to choose whether to go backward to the failed policies of the past, or to go forward to the future with him. Wait a minute: where’s the choice? The failed policies of the past are precisely the same policies that Obama and his Marxist majority have rammed down America’s throat since the last election, which he promises to continue until he has totally “transformed” the United States of America.
Let’s see now, what are the most egregious failed policies of the past? No doubt, the most egregious policies are those that ignore the limitation of power imposed upon government by the U.S. Constitution. Many presidents, and both political parties, have ignored the Constitution at various times throughout our history. The champions of this ignorance, however, are Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Roosevelt, and now the grand champion, Barack Hussein Obama.
None of them ever met Horatio Bunce. If they ever read Davy Crockett’s speech to Congress on charity, they either forgot it, or simply chose to ignore its truth.
Congressman Crockett was with a group of friends in Washington one night when they saw a massive blaze lighting the sky over Georgetown. The men raced to the fire and worked hours helping to put it out. Crockett and his colleagues initiated an effort to appropriate $20,000 for the victims of the fire. He was bitterly disappointed when the bill failed.
A few months later, while campaigning for the next election, he stopped a farmer who was plowing his field to ask for his support. The farmer politely told him that he had voted for Crockett in the last election, but that he would not do so again. Crockett begged the man to tell him why not.
“Did you vote to appropriate $20,000 for the victims of that fire in Georgetown?” the man asked.
Crockett said that he had voted for the appropriation, and that he thought that would be the last vote anyone would find fault with.
The farmer said: "Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity? The Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions.”
The farmer was Horatio Bunce.
Wilson, Roosevelt, and now Obama and his Marxist majority in Congress ignore this question: “…Where do you find in the Constitution any authority to…?” The American people asked this question about the authority to take over privately owned automobile and insurance companies.
The American people asked where do you find in the Constitution any authority to take over the entire health care industry? The American people are asking where do you find in the Constitution any authority to shut down the fossil fuel industry in order to force people to buy exotic alternative energy products that are outrageously and unnecessarily expensive? The American people want to know where do you find in the Constitution any authority to make direct grants to so-called “green” alternative energy companies, or to activist organizations such as ACORN, or to National Public Radio, or to subsidize the media, as is being proposed by Obama cronies.
These are the failed policies that have been imposed in the past with disastrous consequences. These are the same policies that Obama unapologetically declares that he intends to impose in the future. These are not the policies the American people want.
Fortunately, there is another choice.
Since the last national election, a rebellion – no, it is better described as a revival – has swept across this nation. People are sick and tired of seeing their freedoms trampled by a government that ignores the Constitution in order to impose Marxist ideas and socialist policies. People want no more of the quid pro quo shenanigans that pursue political perpetuity rather than the people’s prosperity.
This year, the people have raised a new crop of candidates, most of whom agree with Horatio Bunce: “The Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions.”
This year, voters are looking for candidates who agree with Horatio Bunce. Voters are getting organized and volunteering to help in campaigns, and they are getting informed. They are learning how their elected representatives voted on past issues, and they are painting a target on the backs of incumbents who don’t share Horatio Bunce’s reverence for the Constitution.
This year, voters intend to reject Obama’s plans to “transform the United States of America” into a socialist nation entrapped in a system of international Marxist governance. This year, voters intend to raise the American flag over Washington, and declare anew that by God, this nation will remain a nation under God, and under the Constitution He ordained.

ENQUIRIES INTO CLIMATEGATE ARE SIGNIFICANT

By Monckton of Brenchley

Weather or not, it happens!
THE multiple official enquiries into Climategate are significant because their conclusions are insignificant.
The enquiries very, very carefully avoided looking at the actual science being discussed in the thousand emails released by a whistleblower at the University of East Anglia last November. Instead, they reached for the whitewash-bucket. All of them did this. Not one did its job properly or independently.
Why this failure to investigate even the most blatant incitement to destroy scientific material in emails from "Professor" Jones to fellow-"scientists"? Why the failure to investigate the "trick" by which Jones had sought to conceal the growing discrepancy between rising real-world temperatures as measured by thermometers and the falling temperatures shown by the tree-ring records that he was trying to pretend were reliable enough to tell us there was no medieval warm period?
Why the failure to investigate why various of the Climategate emailers - a poisonous, malevolent crew from the beastly tone of so many of the emails - had spent a year bullying and cajoling editors of learned journals to delay publication of a result they found uncongenial, so that they could cobble together an attempted refutation to be published at the same time as the paper they disagreed with?
Scientific dishonesty on this scale is not routine, even in the corrupted academe of today. But it was not investigated. The people who ran the enquiries knew what was expected of them. Their job was to look the other way. And why? Because almost the entire governing class of the world has foolishly signed up to the climate-extremist results of the UN's climate panel, and governments never, ever admit they are wrong.
The classe politique has all the advantages of position, status, wealth (ours), and access to an increasingly spineless and fawning mainstream news media. And it knows how to grandstand. Every year, there is a major climate conference - last December at Copenhagen (where the stage-management went horribly wrong), and this December at Cancun, where the theater directors will be taking very good care that nothing shall go wrong at all.
The kow-towing media will be there in all their feeble strength. But the people will no longer be fooled.
The draft Treaty of Cancun - world government lite, in the words of one commentator - is already in draft, and has been studied by officials and world leaders at a still-incomplete series of meetings in Bonn, Germany. The Chinese, who rightly have no intention whatsoever of putting their economic growth at risk by making any serious cuts in carbon dioxide emissions, have offered to hold an additional meeting in Tientsin before December's Cancun session, just to make sure that "the process", as the UN's bureaucrats call it, will not be derailed by the lackadaisical lifestyle of Mexico's maƱana republic.
What will Cancun mean? Higher taxes. More regulation. Less freedom. No democracy. The New World Order is upon us, in the name of solving the non-problem of man-made "global warming". Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were fun, while they lasted.
http://scienceandpublicpolicy.org/monthly_report/june_2010_co2_report.html

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Journalists need to stop being THE problem....

By Gordon Fulks, PhD

Hello Everyone,

When I first contacted The Oregonian regarding their coverage of Global Warming years ago, I was told by Managing Editor Therese Bottomly and her star reporter Michael Milstein that their support of climate alarmism was based on the peer-reviewed scientific literature. That made it easy for them to reject consideration of any data that I wanted to show them because it had not been published and tell me that I needed to get in line with the 57,000 member American Geophysical Union's official position on Global Warming. Bottomly had no idea that she was ignorant of how science works and how journalism is supposed to work. Today, Oregonian Editor Peter Bhatia at least pretends to be neutral about Global Warming.
The Oregonian carried an editorial today written by Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times once again hawking their official position on Global Warming:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/opinion/18kristof.html?_r=1&ref=nicholasdkristof
But it made no pretense about "peer-review" and quoted for authority Joe Romm's propaganda web site that promotes itself as a "liberal" or "progressive" view of climate. In other words, it is pure propaganda:
http://climateprogress.org/
The Kristof Op-Ed uses the well-worn glacier argument for Global Warming, quoting hearsay evidence about Himalayan glaciers. He must be unaware of the UN IPCC controversy about such arguments. Then he topped it off with information from Romm that 2010 may be "the warmest on record." That is of course based on James Hansen's group at NASA GISS which is famous for doctored data.
In other words, here we have a columnist with no scientific credentials telling us what to believe about science, based on evidence from a propaganda web site that uses doctored data from the worst source on the planet for Global Temperatures. None of their recent data has been published in the scientific literature and would not be worth much even if it had because we now know that the peer-review process has been thoroughly corrupted. I suppose I should be happy that there was no claim of "peer-review."
Journalists need to stop being THE problem and start telling their readers something approaching the truth. They need to care enough to tell the truth.
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD

Corbett, Oregon USA

Monday, July 19, 2010

WELCOME TO 1873

By Marita NoonThe World Championship of Cowboy Action Shooting is held each year in New Mexico. The event, incorporating a Wild West Jubilee, is a multi-day costume party where participants stay in character while competing in the old west town that has been created in the dust east of Albuquerque. I was there as Cookie Krumm. I even won two awards for my costume and character.

Having had fun there all weekend, it was difficult to go back to the "real world" of problems and politics when it was over. Little did I expect the real world would include visions of miners with picks, pans and mules.
I received an e-mail containing the approval for the "Plan of Operations" for exploration of minerals such as tungsten, copper, silver, lead, and zinc. The Finley Basin Exploration Project is in Montana in the Flint Range Inventoried Roadless Area.
Back in the 70's Union Carbide had drilled 10 exploration holes on the site "which is rated as having moderate to high mineral potential for the majority of the area." Now, an Australian company wants to invest in America, bringing outside dollars in and creating jobs by exploring the Finley Claims.
This should be great news with America's economy in need of jobs and investment-except it really is back to the 1800s.
The Forest Service's approval granted to Finley Mining states that they will "use a team of mules" and that "hand tools will be used to level the drilling pad and clear rocks, debris and any small shrubs." Additionally, "all disturbances would be reclaimed using hand tools." Can you say 1873?
Reading the Decision Memo, one gets the feeling that the Forest Service would rather not approve the mining proposal, but there are no real grounds not to. While explaining the "rationale" for the decision, the memo states that the company has the "legal right to conduct exploration activities" and that "The role of the Forest Service is to ensure that mining activities minimize adverse environmental effects. Congress has not given the Forest Service authority to unreasonably circumscribe or prohibit reasonably necessary activities under the 1872 General Mining Law that are otherwise lawful."
Back in the 70's Union Carbide did the original exploration with bulldozers and other mechanized equipment. But that was before the Roadless Area Conservation Rule was written and implemented in January 2001 by the Clinton administration.
Now to get approval, the plan had to incorporate mules. A Forest Service representative said that using mechanized equipment would have resulted in delays of multiple years as the proposal would have to go through Washington rather than being dealt with on the local level.
Mine operators will "camp" nearby on private property and "pack" into the site each day-walking on foot and using the mules whenever equipment weight requires their assistance. The Decision Memo also mandates that all equipment must be cleaned "prior to entry on the project area" and that they will use "certified weed free hay for the mule stock." Additionally, they must remove all trash ("such as cans, bottles and other debris") daily for "disposal in a state-approved landfill."
How is America supposed to be competitive on a global scale when we are back to the 1800s, mining our natural resources by hand? This is environmentalism carried to an extreme. It doesn't matter whether we are extracting tungsten, gold or uranium-or even oil or gas, current policies tie the hands of those who want to explore and make new discoveries, who want to create new wealth and provide real jobs for America. They've become like the bootleggers-an illicit business that has to be done under the cover of darkness.
If we want to move ahead in America and maintain our status as a world leader with a strong economic foundation we need to change our attitudes and encourage responsible extraction of our resources. Asking that mining be done with a pick and a mule is going beyond "reasonable"-it is punishment.
Modern methods can use equipment and machinery to extract the resource responsibly and then reclaim the land when the mineral is exhausted.
A crusty old miner with his pack mule is part of the charm of the Wild West Jubilee but they are no longer the real world. Today, we need a government that encourages, rather than punishes, those who are willing to take the risk of exploring, those who are willing to bring funds into the American economy and provide real, private sector jobs.
Marita Noon is the Executive Director at CARE (Citizens' Alliance for Responsible Energy), the nonprofit organization advocating for your right to energy. CARE is working to educate the public and influence policy makers regarding energy, its role in freedom and the American way of life. Find out more at www.responsiblenergy.org.

Thursday, June 10, 2010

REINDEER NOT HAVING A BALL WITH GLOBAL WARMING

by  William Briggs
http://wmbriggs.com/blog/?p=2488
See if you have the smarts to follow this: global warming is going to cause “thick ice layers on top of [the] snow” in Norway, which will make “it harder for reindeer to reach the lichen that they feed on beneath.”
More global warming means more ice and less lichen. OK so far? Now, you are an ordinary, compassionate sort of fellow (or fellowette), are you not? You’d hate to see Santa forced to cancel Christmas because his heard of sleigh-pullers crapped out for the lack of lichen, isn’t that so?
What would you do? Well, if you were an intellectually inclined academic, first thing you’d think of is slicing the jingle bells off the males.
See, boy reindeer who retain their apparatii lose their antlers during the winter, while boys who were not quite quick enough to outrun the bite of the lead wolf retain theirs. This inversion of expectation, odd as it is, is the result of chemical interactions. It is a sort of compensation provided by Mother Nature for the poor dears who have suffered that most shocking of accidents.
Point is: this perfect negative correlation between packages and points is a fact which can be exploited in the fierce battle against global warming. If boy reindeer can keep their antlers, they can use them as shovels to dig through the ice and expose their dinners—which they will no doubt altruistically share with their conspecifics.
Eli Risten “Blades” NergĆ„rd of “Sami University College and the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science at the IPY Oslo Science Conference,” and thinker-upper of the above-mentioned plan, tells us that girl reindeer, lacking that which boy reindeer carry with them always, never lose their antlers.
But, he says—is this sexist?—girl reindeer don’t have the upper body strength to muscle through the ice. They must needs rely on the opposite sex to provide their meals. Yet because of rampaging global warming, NergĆ„rd expects there will be too much ice for antlerless boy reindeer to punch through the white to the green beneath.
Providing a mechanism for males to retain their antlers is a necessity, NergĆ„rd says, so that “females and young reindeer can exploit the holes made by castrated males.” Of course, the opposite will no longer be possible, if you understand me.
Anyway, NergĆ„rd would equip Norwegian biologists with scalpels and have them lurk in the folds of the fjords, and hide behind the spruce and majestic goat willow. When a boy reindeer walks by—slick!—it’s one more set of antlers that won’t drop off. I envision a system in which entrepreneurial environmentalists are paid by the number of furry marbles they collect.
No, I’m kidding. They’ll actually use tongs, and put the squeeze on. One can only wonder how they’ll get the reindeer to sit still for it. Perhaps they will patiently explain that the tongs are for their own good. After all, bearded men with PhDs have worked out what is optimal. How can un-degreed animals disagree?
Regardless of how they’ll force cooperation, they figure tongs are easier than the “traditional biting technique” used by the Sami people of northern Norway. Now that is a real man’s way to castrate.
NergĆ„rd has also been experimenting with “vaccines.” Apparently he is unaware that that word is reserved for curative or preventative treatments.
But shoot up reindeer with a syringe full of withering potion when they could use the “traditional biting technique”? Sigh. How far the Norwegians have come from the days of the Vikings.
Biologists insist that the government-program reindeer stand a better chance of survival than the “entire” males who were able to escape care. Further, the betonged reindeer won’t “lose weight and body condition during the rutting season.”
And there, dear reader, you have everything you need to know about why intellectuals are a danger not only to themselves, not only to others, but also to poor, defenseless woodland creatures. For I imagine that the government-program boy reindeer won’t partake of the annual rutting festivities with the same Ć©lan they used to before they were “helped.”
In fact, I don’t imagine that these “fortunates” will show much spirit when asked to dig up the ice, either. The winking of the girl reindeer certainly won’t be as effective as it used to. What we’ll probably end up with is a heard of listless, dour, dispirited animals whose malaise will just allow them to wander down to the nearest government office looking for a handout of free feed corn.
They won’t be playing in any reindeer games, either.
Thanks to reader Willie (Soon) for sending the original link.

HAYSTACK THAT BREAKS THE CAMEL'S BACK

The following response by Dr. Bob Carter  to the article 'France and Japan propose an IPCC for nature' is a terrific short summate re: AGW.

Noting the huge influence, nay stranglehold, that the IPCC has managed to

exert on development, the biologists have been quietly but determinedly
pursuing the set-up of a similar body for several if not many years.
Once again, the mainstream press will fail to investigate the Franco-Japanese proposal (not to mention its implications) in depth, and  if an "IPCC for Nature" should actually come to fruition then the current, already dangerous, situation will be compounded. Remembering that nearly  all western economies are currently being distorted by the AGW-power supply nonsense, another overlay of obstructionism that carries the imprimatur of the UN is likely to be the haystack that breaks the camel's back.

Bob Carter
_____________________________________________________
France and Japan propose an 'IPCC for nature'
Delegates from 97 countries meet in South Korea to hear plans for an international body to monitor destruction of flora and fauna  'Human wellbeing is utterly dependent on the natural world' .
Biodiversity crisis - species loss could cost us the Earth.
World governments are meeting this week to try to set up a new international
body that would put the global destruction of the natural world on an  equal
footing with the threat of climate change.
The proposed new organisation would be modelled on the Intergovernmental
 Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), which was set up 22 years ago. Since then, it has launched global warming and climate change to the top  of  the political and economic agenda.
To read the rest of the article, please go to:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jun/09/france-japan-ipcc-for-natu

OBAMA'S DRILLING ANNOUNCEMENT HURTS MORE THAN IT HELPS

by Marita K. Noon

President Obama’s announcement Thursday ordering the suspension of work on 33 exploratory wells currently being drilled in the Gulf of Mexico was no surprise. The moratorium on new permits for deepwater wells was expected and the cancellation of a lease sale in the western Gulf of Mexico was par-for-the-course. Even the revocation of a proposed lease sale off the coast of Virginia and the halt to planned exploration off the coast of Alaska might have been foreseen.
Surely the Deepwater Horizon’s explosion and the subsequent massive oil leak is a disaster of epic proportions. The lives and livelihoods lost cannot be ignored. They need our prayers. All hands should be “on deck” to help clean up this catastrophic mess and get the population and ecosystems back on their feet.
But Obama’s political posturing hurts more than it helps.
The exploration wells and permits now on hold have been in the pipeline for years. Each represents hundreds of jobs as is evidenced by the 126 people who were on board the Deepwater Horizon on April 20th. And these are just the jobs on site. Each requires multiple-hundreds of support jobs, both on shore and off, and many more to manage the production. The process takes years of preparation and expertise to choreograph the equipment, exploration, and extraction.
While the President’s actions are not a surprise, the combination of the lost time and resource will come as a shock to the pocketbook of every American.
Just as we head into the summer diving season, gas prices—which before the cessation proclamation had been pleasantly low—are predicted to top those of the summer of 2008. The disaster did not adversely impact prices as that well was exploratory. It was not yet a part of the fuel supply.
However, to halt all exploration and potential new resources is like a frost killing an entire crop in one region. We still have lettuce, for example, but what we can get from other sources—both American and foreign, is suddenly more expensive because there is less to go around and it will be months before the damage to the supply chain can be bolstered. We can keep using it, but it will not be replaced. The frost is an act of God. The announcement Thursday is from someone who thinks he’s God.
The refineries have fuel now, but where will it come from next month, or the month after? There will be less to replace it so what we have now will instantly be more expensive.
Couple this with the administration’s push for some kind of global warming legislation. The current bill, Kerry/Lieberman, will hurt our cost-effective supply electricity from coal, will kill jobs in coal producing states and irreparably hit the pocketbooks of millions of Americans who depend heavily on coal-fueled power plants such as West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Wyoming and New Mexico.
Obama’s political posturing may appease his base, giving the sense that he is finally doing something, but it will hurt the lives and livelihoods of far more people and make all of our energy more expensive. What does he think we are going to do in the heat of the summer when people are literally dying of the heat because they can no longer afford to turn on their air conditioner? When the predicted hurricanes hit, how will people escape when gas shortages keep them from being able to fuel their cars? Obama admits that renewables are not there yet and that we’ll need traditional fuels for years to come.
Energy gives Americans life and livelihood. It provides jobs—more than ten million direct jobs in the combined energy industry.
We’ve seen multiple tragedies within the energy industry—many great Americans have died in their efforts to provide us with all-important energy. While the best brains in American are working to increase safety, improve efficiency, and discover additional resources, those workers did not die in vain. They are as important to everything that is America as are our troops fighting overseas. Each time we flip on a light, put gas in our cars, turn on our computers, use our cell phones, or are comforted by the convenience of climate control we should remember and give thanks for these brave Americans.
America needs more domestic energy production, not less.
We have an abundance of resource on shore—but much of that is off limits too!
Making us more dependant on dictators who wish us harm, hurts more than it helps.

Marita Noon is the executive director of the Citizens Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE), a nonprofit organization operating from the platform of "Energy Makes America Great" and supports all domestic energy development. She can be reached at marita@responsiblenergy.org or www.responsiblenergy.org

Monday, June 7, 2010

BORDER TRUTHS - 6/6/10

This is not to scare anyone, just inform... jk
Following are updates on the AZ border - from people who LIVE there!


From Ed Ashurst who manages the Mallet Ranch next to Krentz' ranch.

Dear Friends,

People have been asking me since Rob Krentz's murder about the latest happenings here on the border. Things have been a little quieter here. although we have had several encounters with tired and bedraggled wetbbacks trying to go north. One was crippled and severely dehydrated, and the other was literally crying and begging for help. We fed and cared for them both.
Today I got a report from Kelly Kimbro, Warner Glenn's daughter. The Glenns are prominent ranchers in this area. Their ranch runs along the international boundary for 5 or 6 miles, 15 or so miles east of Douglas. They are also lion hunters of great renown. I helped them track Rob Krentz's murderer into Mexico the day after Rob was killed. They are very much involved in border issues and have a great relationship with law enforcement in the US and have many rancher friends south of the border.
Kelly told me that several days ago 2 border patrol agents encountered 8 heavily armed Federalise, several hundred yards north of the border fence. The Mexicans were armed with AK47 assault rifles and other sidearms. The US Border Patrol agents asked what they were doing and the Mexicans said that they were lost. The Mexicans then walked south into Mexico. The BP agents were told by their superiors that they should or could have arrested them. But wisely they chose to handle it a different way. Being they were out numbered 4 - 1 and heavily out-gunned, they no doubt did the right thing.
Matt McGoffin, another local rancher and full time customs agent, who has been very successful in catching dope smugglers, scouted this area the next day and found where these Mexicans had been prowling around over a larger area north of the border. He also tracked them to a cow camp a little south of the border and talked to the Mexican cowboy and his wife that live and work in this camp. These same eight men had beat the man almost to death. Their purpose was to intimidate and let him know they would be using the area as a base of operations. They were not Federalies, they were drug cartel employees dressed as police. This all happened in the Guadalupe Canyon area in the very corner of SE Arizona and just south of the border, 22 -23 miles south of our house.
Kelly Glenn Kimbro also told me the National Guard personnel being sent to this area will be office personnel assisting the BP in the Douglas office. They will not be deployed to the line to actually assist in apprehending illegals going north.
It is my belief that although footbackers going north looking for work could slow down for awhile (it has always ebbed and flowed being worse sometimes than others) the larger picture is getting increasingly uglier and there is a great deal more violence ahead. If you research and delve into it, there are many instances of the outlaws taking over the border area and causing much terror and harm to good Mexican people while elevating the scum who care nothing for law and order.
So anyway it's business as usual and anyone telling you different is a liar or uninformed! Ed
___________________________________________________
In addition to Ed's report, I heard from a very reliable source that a couple (husband and wife) from Rodeo, NM was sent to weld the fence, in this same area, by the subcontractor that's been hired to repair it. Some Mexican men (probably some of the guys referred to in this update), harassed the, spit on them, threatened them and used foul language (in the presence of the woman) in an effort to stop them from making the repairs. It's getting rough and tumble down here. Keep us in your prayers!!    jk
__________________________________________________
Sent: Sunday, June 06, 2010 6:40 PM

I don't know if you've heard about the Border Patrol agents who caught the Mexican police illegally in the US (the author of this refers to them as "Federalise," he means Federales). This occurred last week, and has not received any media attention yet. He believes that they were not Federales, but drug cartel members dressed in law enforcement uniforms.   Bill

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

DUTY, HONOR AND WHAT?

by Michael Connelly


The motto of the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York is “Duty, Honor, Country” and it has been important to all the members of that august military school who have graduated from it and served our nation though the wars they have fought for many years. Yet, according to the current president of the United States, Barack Hussein Obama, (yes, I am being politically incorrect by citing his full name), that has now been changed to “Duty, Honor, and the New international Order”. In other words, our country is no longer relevant in his eyes.
On May 22nd when the President made his commencement address to the graduating cadets who have made it their job to defend our country, he effectively threw our nation under the bus and he stopped being the President of the United States and became the leader of the world, or at least his vision of that world. Unfortunately for him, the fact that most of the other leaders in the world now view him as a weakling and a joke didn’t faze him. His ego is too immense for that.
So what is this New International Order? Well, according to Obama, "The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times,'" he said. "Countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; preventing conflict and healing its wounds." The response of these graduating cadets and their families was lukewarm at best. In fact, they appeared to be stunned by his remarks.
When you add to this speech the recent remarks the President made in his joint press conference with Mexican President Calderon, when he basically declared that our borders are no longer relevant we get a clear picture of where he plans to take us. This means that that anyone, including International terrorists who cross our borders for the sole purpose of killing Americans, are now free to enter our country.
I am a Constitutional lawyer and I believe in our Constitution so I analyze everything from that perspective. The Constitutional implications of this “New International Order” are immense and very dangerous to our country. There are few countries in our world that provide the protections to their citizens that we provide in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Most other nations do not aggressively protect freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press like we do. They do not protect their citizens from illegal searches and seizures or provide them the right to a speedy trial by a jury of their peers if they are charged with a crime. In addition, they certainly don’t protect the right of their citizens to “keep and bear arms.”
Yet, our President is making moves to side step these rights. He and his Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, have decided to sign the United Nations “Small Arms Treaty,” which they believe will effectively destroy the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution. They believe they have the votes in the U.S. Senate to ratify this treaty and then start eliminating the weapons that many Americans keep in their homes for their personal protection.
However, they have a problem. In 1957 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that International Treaties, even if signed by the President and ratified by the Senate, do not take precedence over the provisions of our Constitution. Obama hopes to avoid this by appointing new members to the Supreme Court that believe that the Constitution is no longer relevant and will support his view that he can do anything he wants through treaties. I don’t believe he has the votes yet in the Supreme Court to accomplish that, but we can take no chances. Sixty seven members of the U.S. Senate must vote to ratify such a treaty so we must inundate our Senators with phone calls, faxes, and emails to let them know they will be hdld accountable if they vote for ratification.
As Americans who cherish our freedom we must understand that this new “International Order” will destroy our legacy as a free people. We will be subjected to the will of a government that has no regard for us a nation, but instead subjects us to the rule of individuals with their own agendas that replace the rule of law on which our nation was founded. I for one am not a subject of the Government of Obama’s vision of the United States or of the United Nations. I am a free American and I live and if necessary will die as such.
I am an American who believes in the provisions of the U.S. Constitution that recognize my rights. These are not rights given to me by our government, but rights that are inherent and cannot be taken away by Congress or by the President. These include my right to freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of the press, and the right to keep and bear arms in defense of my family and my country. I will not allow these rights to be stolen from me by my government or some vague “new international order.
When I took my oath as an officer in the United States Army, I swore specifically as follows:
“I, Michael Connelly, having been appointed a 2nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army under the conditions indicated in this document, do accept such appointment and do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter, so help me God.”
This oath is specific. I took it and pledged to defend my country and its principles as stated in the Constitution. I did not swear to support any individual such as a particular President of the United States or any political party and I certainly did not swear allegiance to a “New International Order.” Yet, while President Obama and members of Congress took a similar oath they are choosing to ignore it and attempt to subject us to the whims of a few individuals who will take us back to the days prior to the American Revolution when Americans were subjects of a European empire and not a free people.
I encourage everyone to read the Constitution and the Bill of Rights and then swear your allegiance to it. Here are two links to these critical documents: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/constitution_transcript.html, http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
Then let every member of Congress that represents you know that you have read these documents and intend to enforce them, and that you expect your elected representatives to abide by the oath of office they took to uphold the Constitution. Let them know that failure to do so will result in your vote against them in upcoming elections.
Duty, Honor, Country still has meaning to me and my fellow veterans, and I hope it has meaning to you too.
http://michaelconnelly.viviti.com/
mrobertc@hotmail.com

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

VOLCANIC ERUPTION IN ICELAND

A great conversation between  John Cribbs and Dr. Gordon Fulks.

All of you out there in Australia and across the globe who have fought so hard to tackle the hideous enemy of our planet, namely carbon emissions, you know ....that bogus god you worship - "Climate Change" or "Global Warming" ....well, I feel it is necessary to inform you of some bad news. It really does hurt me to have to bring you this most disappointing information.
Are you sitting down?
Okay, here's the bombshell. The current volcanic eruption going on in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash this past month or so, has, to this point, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet.
I know, I know.... (group hug)...it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of: driving a Prius hybrid, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, going on vacation to a city park instead of Tasmania, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your $1 light bulbs with $10 light bulbs ...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just the past four days.
The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in the past four days has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon. I'm so sorry. And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the southern half of Australia will start in about four months and those fires will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two years.
But hey, give a tree a hug and have a nice day!
Plagiarised by John Cribbes, 7 Woodford Place, Sale Victoria
________________________________________________________
Dear John,
Mother Nature certainly has a way of teaching her children to show a little respect when they get to feeling too self-important. Global Warming hysteria is built on our modern egos. We think we are so much more important than we really are. The ancient Egyptians correctly understood that the one true climate God was Amon Ra, the God of the Sun. Now four thousand years later, we believe it to be anthropogenic carbon dioxide or Al Gore! Is that progress?
Keep up the good work "down under." In the USA, we are never concerned about the world coming to an end this very day, because it is already tomorrow in Australia!
Gordon J. Fulks, PhD
Corbett, Oregon USA




























All of you out there in Australia and across the globe who have fought so hard to tackle the hideous enemy of our planet, namely carbon emissions, you know ....that bogus god you worship - "Climate Change" or "Global Warming" ....well, I feel it is necessary to inform you of some bad news. It really does hurt me to have to bring you this most disappointing information.



Are you sitting down?



Okay, here's the bombshell. The current volcanic eruption going on in Iceland, since its first spewing of volcanic ash this past month or so, has, to this point, NEGATED EVERY SINGLE EFFORT you have made in the past five years to control CO2 emissions on our planet.



I know, I know.... (group hug)...it's very disheartening to realize that all of the carbon emission savings you have accomplished while suffering the inconvenience and expense of: driving a Prius hybrid, buying fabric grocery bags, sitting up till midnight to finish your kid's "The Green Revolution" science project, throwing out all of your non-green cleaning supplies, using only two squares of toilet paper, putting a brick in your toilet tank reservoir, selling your SUV and speedboat, going on vacation to a city park instead of Tasmania, nearly getting hit every day on your bicycle, replacing all of your $1 light bulbs with $10 light bulbs ...well, all of those things you have done have all gone down the tubes in just the past four days.



The volcanic ash emitted into the Earth's atmosphere in the past four days has totally erased every single effort you have made to reduce the evil beast, carbon.



I'm so sorry. And I do wish I had a silver lining to this volanic ash cloud but the fact of the matter is that the bush fire season across the southern half of Australia will start in about four months and those fires will negate your efforts to reduce carbon in our world for the next two years.





But hey, give a tree a hug and have a nice day!



Plagiarised by John Cribbes, 7 Woodford Place, Sale Victoria 3850 tel (03) 5143 1053

Saturday, May 22, 2010

IF AMERICAN ENTREPRENEURS WERE TURNED LOOSE

http://www.wimp.com/solutionoil/

Roni, that's very interesting (Re: solution oil) but I think the real message is not so much that hay will pick up the oil, but in the fact that if American entrepreneurs were turned loose on the problem, we'd come up with all kinds of solutions. Last I heard, the oil companies are paying about $75 a barrel for that stuff floating around out there. If BP agreed to pay any citizen $55 a barrel -- one dollar a gallon -- for that crude, and let us go out there and harvest it any way we can think of, I'd expect people would come up with hundreds of clever ways to do it.   James Post
___________________________________________________
James,  with so much "bad" hay (grass, mix, etc.) out there (We just sold some for barely the cost involved in growing/baling/moving.) - I'll betcha some smart cookie could collect and ferry  it to the threatened coastel areas, pay the growers their hard costs + maybe $10.00 more for the big - 4 X 4 X 8 bales, at a fraction of the cost of any other means to sop up the oil.
I would like the federal government to re-capture MY MONEY they gave to environmental groups (like the $101 million to TNC in `06), and give it to the coastal states.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

RESTORE OUR BORDER -In honor of ROB KRENTZ

Please go to the web site below and endorse  the Restore Our Border (ROB) plan named for Rob Krentz who was murdered by an illegal alien on his own land. The Arizona Cattle Growers need lots of endorsements.
Thank you for your consideration.
http://www.azcattlemensassoc.org/rob-plan-endorsement-form.html
______________________________________________________
I don't usually forward e-mails to my whole e-mail list, but we need some help here in Southwestern NM and Southeastern Arizona. The Arizona Cattle Growers has come up with a plan to secure the southern border. This plan was developed with the help of local ranchers and property owners living along the border and expanded to include all the states along the border.
Unfortunately our elected officials are not listening to the handful of voters that live along the border. Only the elected representatives and senators whose constituents are being directly impacted by the increasing drug and human smuggling are alarmed. The rest of the House of Representatives and Senate have been convinced by a handful of activists this is a racial issue. It's NOT!! All Arizona is trying to do is get rid of the criminal elements that have immigrated into our border states. Their law mirrors the federal law that is not being enforced!!
If you agree our borders should be secured, please sign on to this plan and forward this to others that agree. Please help us press our elected officials - nation-wide - to SECURE OUR BORDERS!!
Thank you
Judy
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roni,
Sue Krentz is one of my best friends. I was at their ranch when Sheriff Devers came to tell the family how Rob died. Rob was killed about 10:30 in the a.m. He had a radio and tried to call Phil, his brother, but the transmission was broken. Those that heard it said all they could make out was, hurt... illegal... need back up.
I also talked to the ranchers that tracked the killer back to Mexico. The account this guys gives, never happened. Whoever wrote this doesn't have his facts right in alot of stuff. He calls Rob, Bob. Bob was Rob's father.... I used to try to correct some of the misinformation in red, but lost patience... the whole thing is pretty unfactual... not sure why this guy feels he has to write something that is so incorrect.
I do agree gangs are involved in this smuggling of both drugs and people into our area. It's become big business for some of these guys. They've had 8-10 years to come up with a business plan and develop their skills while our elected officials looked the other way. I've had my own encounter with a gang member that showed up at my ranch right before Christmas last year... but to write something like this did isn't going to help. In fact it's going to hurt, when you make up stories like this, people figure you're lying about everything....
We've had meeting after meeting with border patrol, local law enforcement and our elected officials, both in Arizona and New Mexico, to little avail. People along the border feel we're just not a large enough voting block to get the attention in Washington DC. It's just a hair frustrating....
Then it seems the other side is getting the Arizona law trashed with the help of our mainstream media... they want everyone to think it's a racial issue. While all we want is for law enforcement to be able to check an offenders immigration status and deport or lock up all the riff raff that has come into our nation over the last 8-10 years. What would help the most is for our federal government to do their job and SECURE THE BORDER!! Any ideas on how we can do that??
Judy

Tuesday, May 18, 2010

IT'S THE SUN STUPID

INTERVIEW WITH DR. WILLIE SOON
QUESTIONS FOR CLIMATE ALARMISTS

Dr. Soon,
Here is the link to my article, which just went live a few minutes ago on Examiner.com.   Kirk
http://www.examiner.com/x-32936-Seminole-County-Environmental-News-Examiner~y2010m5d11-Harvard-astrophysicist-dismisses-AGW-theory-challenges-peers-to-take-back-climate-science
______________________________________________________
friends,
below please find one silly reaction ...
i notice this phd syndey is in water business and is in your area ...
so be beware ... your water is being cared by such a knowledgeable nonsense ...D.S.
_____________________________________________________
Paul,
Willie Soon gets a lot of attention because he has a PhD and because he sometimes uses unprofessional language in his talks and papers. He is not a climate scientist (see below). He cites a lot of publications, but only two of them are in peer reviewed journals. Almost everything else is from papers given to industry groups or the associations he represents. Nothing peer reviewed published since 2003. Since then, consensus regarding global warming in the scientific community has solidified even more.
Willie Soon is a spokesperson for Western Fuels Association - a group that lobbies for the coal industry - and for the George C. Marshall Institute - a conservative think tank that receives funding from Exxon and American Standard Companies.
Looks to me like this guy is promoting a particular agenda, not for scientific reasons, but for profit.
Best,    Sidney
____________________________________________________
In visiting with the George C. Marshall Institute, Mark Herlong (Program Director) commented (from my brief info) that it sounded as though Ms. Innerebner's info was "outdated," and - that although Dr. Soon had spoken at the Institute and had reviewed some papers for them, he did so in a "volunteer" capacity. He neither asked for or received compensation...ever!
Dr. Soon has likewise "gifted" his time and talents in speaking at 2 Good Neighbor Forums.
We find Dr. Soon grounded in facts and truths, and are contraire to those who stake frivolous claims/lies about him.
Thank you for any light Western Fuels Association can shed on the following comments by Sidney Innerebner.   Roni
________________________________________________
Dear Roni,
After speaking with our President, I have to correct myself: Dr. Soon did receive a stipend from the Marshall Institute when he was Senior Scientist, but not for the Roundtables in which he participated. He resigned as Senior Scientist around 2004.   Regards,    Mark Herlong     Program Director George C. Marshall
____________________
hi roni,
our detective friend and super-engineer and cantelope farmers, - - - - - - - - -
found out that my sydney just copied the info from DeSmog Page---these are sick enviros that are half stupid---which makes them ever more dangerous
http://indigowatergroup.com/About%20Us.htm   see under Willie Soon and Global Warming no sense of contacting western fuel association folks ... so old story that we should not waste time with ... D.S.
_____________________________________________________
Regardless her "copying - or source" she needs to be held accountable...for it ultimately came out of her mouth...pretending she invented it.
Western Fuels should hold her booties to the fire...and rightfully so!  Roni
________________________________________________________
sure bet this sydney learned her lesson ... she needs real serious spanking from mama roni  -it is simply irresponsible to accuse someone like this ...
thanks roni     D.S.
_______________________________________________________
Dear Roni,
Well said. Willie gets a lot of this. He is under attack a lot. The usual tactic is to go after him and not what he says, which is the tactic used on all of us. There are any number of places on the web that attempt to smear him as a stooge of the oil companies by making various superficial connections. And if controversy was a basis for disqualifying people, surely Michael Mann should be out even for Green Dragon supporters.
Regards,  C.E.
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Dear Roni,
Western Fuels was a small coal cooperative (I don't know if it still exists) that was formed during the Carter years to supply public utilities in the upper midwest. Since they had no customers to pass their expenses onto, they were willing to oppose the greenhouse concerns in the early 90's.
Dick
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Not familiar w/ that blog, but not surprised. Consulting engineers often like to see more regs because it creates more biz opportunities whether the regs are really needed or not. If you ever looked at the science in developing water and wastewater regs that can be found at 40CFR, you would be amazed at the ridiculousness of some regs. The basis for lowering the drinking water turbidity level from .5 NTU to .3 NTU was that on average 1 person in 5555 people in America came down w/ Rocky Mtn. quickstep annually over a 16 yr. period. The concern was giardia and cryptosporidium both of which the regs said you generally can't tell whether the diarrhea was caused by g. or c. This rule change resulted in 10's of millions of $ being spent to upgrade plants to meet the new standard. More rules came out in recent yrs., unnecessary in my opinion, forcing more capital expenditures for very little improvement in drinking water quality.
I'm sure you're well aware of who pays for all this.
It's all about control and crushing the middle class.  K.K.
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K.K.  this is interesting. May I do a combo post on a blog?  Roni
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Yes, you can, but beware some of the numbers below are based on approximations and not stated in the regs. For example, 11,000 (reported in the regs) were allegedly affected by giardia and crypto over a 16 yr. period, 1980 to 1996. I estimated the USA population at the time to be 250M people. Doing the math, you will see that 1 person for every 22,727 people came down w/ giardia or crypto over a 16 yr. period. For some reason or other I thought it was 5556, but I just checked my math and it is even worse at 1/22,727. Furthermore, out of the 11,000 reported cases, 8000 cases were due to mass outbreaks in Milwaukee and Penn. One of my peers about a dozen yrs. ago said those 2 outbreaks were due to operator error at water plants. If that is true, then you can see in reality only 3000 alleged cases of giardia and crypto occurred over 16 yrs., further lessening the ratio of outbreaks of g. and c.
I get really perturbed about this control by our govt. Now, Boxer last yr. said we need to look at heavy metal concentrations in sludge for when it is land applied. This has been discussed 30+ yrs. ago. The metals limits, copper, manganese, magnesium, trivalent chromium, etc. are now so far below their threshold toxicity levels, there's no way we're going to poison crops and people. Besides these are important micronutrients for crops. When I was in charge of Toledo's land application program, our sludge contractor had Dr. Terry Logan of OSU do a metals uptake analysis in corn. Guess what? Some of the metals make it into the stems and leaves, but essentially not into the kernel. Don't quote me on this as I can't remember the amount of certain metals concentration in corn kernels, but were far less than 1% of what was applied. Seems to me it may have been a millionth, but once again, I don't remember the exact concentrations. Do we really need to spend millions on research again and develop useless regs which will make it more difficult and expensive for municipalities to dispose of a fairly valuable waste product?
I say it's about control and making us slaves to the system.  K.K.
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QUESTIONS FOR CLIMATE ALARMISTS

by Paul Driessen
Kerry, Lieberman and other congressional climate alarmists have some ‘splaining to do'
The new Kerry-Lieberman climate bill mandates a 17% reduction in US carbon dioxide emissions by 2020. It first targets power plants that provide reliable, affordable electricity for American homes, schools, hospitals, offices and factories. Six years later, it further hobbles the manufacturing sector itself..
http://townhall.com/columnists/PaulDriessen/2010/05/15/a_few_questions_for_climate_alarmists
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Couldn't agree more. I want so badly (is that correct English?) to get  before the senate/house and simply state:
"As nothing more than a homemaker,  I find your ways to extract money from me to be quite disingenous.
Since your end game is to take my land, water, paycheck, freedoms, please simply state so, and quite using the weather as your shield."
Something like that. Roni
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The time has come to begin calling out the actual individuals, cloaked behind the guise of "the company ", the union, the lobbyist, the scientist, the politician, etc., who are pushing Congress to pass the "Cap and Tax Scam." It is time to expose the greedy global titans and the powerful political players who are the real money forces pulling the Climate Gate strings of the dancing US governmental marionettes. The ones that can buy the scientific outcome of their choice.
It is time to name actual Names. Time to expose the real individuals hiding behind the talking heads such as 'ol Al, Obama, Lieberman and their ilk. Time to reveal that these "Emperors Have No Clothes."
Art for the World
http://www.mshollis.com/
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Sunday, May 16, 2010

MOST AMERICANS ARE CLUELESS ABOUT ECONOMICS AND MARKETS

Written by Beverly K. Eakman
Quick: What’s a “derivative”? The difference between a “custodial account” and a “trust”? “Listed” versus “unlisted” markets? “Debentures”? How about “price earning ratios”? “Assets” per se, versus “net asset value”? “Capitalism” versus “capitalization”? Stumped? Well, don’t feel badly. Most of your friends and neighbors are stumped, too, unless they majored in economics and are pursuing finance as a career.
A survey by the Council for Economic Education (CEE)/State Farm Insurance recently found that:
Only 19 states required the testing of student knowledge in Economics, four fewer than in 2007.
The number of states that require students to take an economics course as a high-school graduation requirement increased from 17 in 2007 to 21 in 2009.
The number of states that require students to take a personal finance course (or personal finance included in an economics course) as a high-school graduation requirement increased from seven in 2007 to 13 in 2009.
Thirty-four states now require that personal finance content standards be implemented, up from 28 in 2007.
Five states required entrepreneurship to be included as a component of a high-school course, usually economics, required for graduation in 2009, up from just three in 2007.
Moreover, several studies have determined that a majority of our K-12 student population has never been exposed to economic and financial education. CEE/State Farm surveyors say that “until these subjects are considered mandatory alongside mathematics, English, history, and science, we will be potentially setting them up for failure in the future.”
Reporters note that public schoolers are getting too little in the way of math, English, history, and science as it is, most of their daily routine being spent on sports, sex, social studies (not the same as “history”), “relationships,” and other trivia in no way connected to monetary realities. Even most private schools are woefully inadequate when it comes to economics, and have been so since the 1950s when this author attended.
Consequently, a whole range of news items — Goldman Sachs, government bailouts, deficits and the Gross National Product, subprime lending and mortgages, the excesses of Fannie Mae or Freddy Mac, hidden taxes, and the housing bubble — is lost on much of the populace.
Middle-class employees who do play the stock market do so blindly. We take advantage of whatever money market and IRA opportunities are available from our workplaces, understanding little concerning the difference between the company’s “family” of investment choices. For example, the federal government’s Thrift Savings Plan offers a menagerie of “G” funds, “S” Funds, “C” funds, and so on, which are explained, sort of. But without any background in economics, most workers are ill-equipped to understand the explanations, much less assess the risk and reward of any investment.
Moreover, most workers don’t know a 401K from a hole in the ground; all they do know is that signing up is probably more lucrative than their bank’s savings account. So they take the plunge and sign up. Penalties for early withdrawal become hazy once they actually need to withdraw.
People may be familiar with the term “Federal Reserve,” but other than the names Ben Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and maybe Paul Volker, which they hear on the nightly news, they’re largely clueless. Certainly most folks don’t know the difference in these experts’ economic philosophies, much less the long-term effects of legislation promoted by Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) and Barney Frank (D-Mass.) that contributed to the current financial mess. “Equity,” “stock options,” “yields,” and “junk bonds” are typically a blur to the average worker, and key publications like Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, the Kiplinger Newsletter, and Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose put most people to sleep. Needless to say, these tomes are not assigned in high schools, nor are they required basics even for non-economic majors in college.
This is not to say that certain expressions, such as “junk bonds,” don’t occasionally sound familiar, at least to the college grad. But basics about investment and finance nevertheless are largely absent; K-12 (and even SAT) testing on such topics is virtually nonexistent. Young people don’t know, for example, that the term “capitalism” was coined by communists as a pejorative or sorts to describe a free-market system.
Thus are the risks and rewards of any discretionary capital left to others to figure out, along with taxes, any bonuses, or inheritances. Finance enthusiasts such as day traders, junk-bond dealers, and real-estate investors (who buy run-down properties, glitz them up as cheaply as possible to sell quickly for a handsome profit) are in a little better position for having gotten the investment “bug,” but these individuals are the exception, and even they often overextend for lack of a truly solid economic education.
The average Joe and Jill, however, are at the mercy of financial planners, which sadly includes charlatans and Ponzi schemers, whether the investment in question is cattle futures, gold and silver, electrical equipment, real estate, theme parks or pensions. Folks approaching that magic cut-off salary of $200,000 a year are easily fooled into believing that they fit into the category of “rich,” when such is far from accurate, given today’s expenses, many of which are obscure. For instance, a private school for two children is typically out of reach for $200,000-a-year employees. Every appliance needs major repairs as soon as the warranty runs out, which generally means that it is not worth the cost of repair. One cannot just buy a 50-cent washer for a dripping faucet or replace a simple switch on the clothes dryer. Typically, such repairs require the purchase of what is called a “mother board,” a whole new electronic unit; a washing machine, refrigerator, or dishwasher will require a new motor, clutch, or heating element; the countertop combination microwave/convection oven that needs a 15-cent door latch will conveniently be no longer available for your model — all of which, is to say that, with labor included, the cost is rarely justifiable. Similarly, your computer or cellphone, bought only three years ago, will be deemed “obsolete.” As per the familiar TV commercial, “No one buys a cell phone just to make telephone calls anymore.”
Then there’s your much-vaunted health insurance. It rarely comes even close to paying healthcare needs, with the exception of some prescription plans. In fact, it is hardly worth the paperwork you put into it. One could make a lot more by spending the same time working an extra job!
Of course, some 47 percent of Americans pay no income taxes, yet they continue to get freebies paid for by responsible taxpayers. No wonder many folks “max out” their credit cards and just use the new one which is sent, inexplicably fully approved and with large limits, via snail-mail. Speaking of which, your snail mail costs seem to rise with the weather, even while your pitiful mailbox nearly is collapsing under the weight of unwanted catalogues.
Meanwhile, the truly rich, such as the likes of the entire esteemed Kennedy clan, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and family’s estimated $400 million a year in “earnings”; and a laundry list of congressional representatives, actors, and sports stars who also make hundreds of millions of dollars every year, all are laughing all the way to the bank.
No wonder so many Members of Congress push the kinds of financial “reform” which presume that most working taxpayers are dunces in need of extreme regulation, draconian “safety nets,” and, of course, a “benevolent” Nanny State.
Literature on entrepreneurship, with all its petty rules and regs (e.g., equal opportunity (EEO) paperwork, Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OHSA) rules); news stories on proposed Wall Street makeovers; supposedly idiot-proof schemes to rein in Freddie and Fannie and cap-and-trade legislation to fund questionable climate-change science, that even United Nations spokespersons have referred to as “redistribution-of-wealth,” are way over the heads of most Americans. Little wonder that the so-called “common man” casts a jaundiced eye upon the whole “capitalist system,” which explains why we now are on the brink of socialism.
Self-sufficiency is deemed unattainable (if not downright mean-spirited) and has been replaced by ethics like “interdependency” and “free-market socialism,” the later being an oddball combination of overregulation, high taxes, and stocks. Totalitarian societies like China have been making use of such unlikely concoctions for years, and we are about to join them.
The ignorance surrounding a free world market plays out in ways that would puzzle our great-grandparents, most of whom are now on their death-beds. Some of them, of course, thought to create trust funds for their progeny, but government is finding ways around that, too, the death tax being only the most familiar.
Yet, there are plenty of educational materials on finance out there, just as there exist many sources for accurate history “out there.” It’s just that average people either don’t know about them or are too captivated by Oprah and American Idol to bother. Notice that there is no dearth of sales for Oprah’s magazine, O, or for tabloids publicizing the latest exploits of “the stars.” Such discretionary income, however, would be better spent on economic education, such as PBS’s videos from the Nightly Business Report, “How Wall Street Works” and “Your Financial Future: Kids and Money”; Why Money Was Invented (Silver Burdett Press); Kiplinger’s Smart-Money Kids (Random House); a whole line of publications for young people put out by Stein Roe Mutual Funds; resources for educators and parents offered through the Jumpstart Coalition; and much more, all of which one can find online or at the library. These sources have an angle or philosophy, or course, and consequently there is no substitute for basic courses in economics.
It is incumbent upon every parent, therefore, to make a priority of ensuring that their children’s education includes economics courses, whether the school offers them or not. Every child (regardless of family income), beginning in about the sixth grade, should also be tasked with some form of money-making activity, whether it is mowing lawns, selling lemonade, or even performing simple services like scrubbing lawn furniture for neighbors who can no longer perform these activities without risking injury. If items need to be purchased, if one or more licenses are required, or if certain state and local rules apply, the child should pay these costs out of earnings from still other tasks, such as babysitting. The gain to the child from such chores is three-fold:
They teach what kinds of jobs are available without a diploma or degree;
They keep kids out of trouble — i.e., away from “hanging around” malls and poorly supervised peers; overstimulation from TV and videogames;
They explain how much must be spent simply to start, much less engage in, a business venture.
Moreover, economics and finance cut through all the drivel about race, gender identity, career ladders, and even “attention-deficit “disorder” (kids will have no choice but to “pay attention” if they want their money). If Americans are to escape the coming scourges of socialism and the Nanny State, their offspring must learn the basics of finance beginning in childhood. An allowance alone simply will not do. Aging Baby Boomers are already paying the price for that sort of thinking.
Beverly K. Eakman is a former educator and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies, as well as editor-in-chief of NASA’s newspaper (Johnson Space Center). Today, she is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer and columnist, the author of five books, and a frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent book is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (Midnight Whistler Publishers).

SCHOOLGIRLS "SEXT" THEIR NUDE PHOTOS

Written by Beverly K. Eakman
“Hard questions” are being asked this week in Montgomery County, Maryland, in the wake of the April 15 discovery that middle-school and high-school girls had transmitted lewd photos and video clips of themselves via cellphone and the Internet to their classmates. Many of the recipients, mostly boys, then turned around and either rented or sold the photos to other students.
County police and other investigators were called in to get to the, er, bottom of the matter. They needed to find out whether actual laws had been broken in the selling and renting of nude pictures minor-to-minor, and also to ascertain whether any adults, such as teachers or parents, were involved. Journalists got wind of the matter and interviewed miscellaneous parents, students, teachers, and administrators.
The word “morality,” of course, never came up. But “lack of self-respect” and “self-esteem” did. From the vantage point of the pupils, self-esteem didn’t seem to be an issue. Most of the “sexting” girls were proud to display well-developed breasts, and any other “proof” that they were, um, ahead of the curve. As for self-respect, the girls appeared confused as to what that meant, given the situation.
Lascivious text messages by adolescents to their peers (“sexting”), like exhibitionism in general, have been on the rise for some time. Anyone who uses the Internet knows that spam containing self-taken photographs of private parts and sex acts via “webcams” is legend — usually as a come-on for professional “services.” Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project found that only four percent of students between the ages of 12 and 17 admit to sending out nude photos of themselves, a number not so different from what was considered the “fast crowd” in the 1950s and 60s. But, sexually explicit messages and sexual activity, as opposed to actual photos, no doubt would increase that percentage.
What many find surprising in this instance is that parents of pupils at Pyle Middle School and Whitman High School — touted as two of the best schools in the state — were asking why their girls were doing this. In the course of “serious talks” with their children, many parents seemed genuinely puzzled in media interviews.
Puzzled?
Most television dramas and sitcoms, aimed predominantly at the 14 to 27-year-old demographic, are sex-drenched. Video games, also aimed mainly at youth, are both brutal and sex-filled (the latest, RapeLay, one of many emanating in Japan, allows players to gang-rape women and underage girls; lots of stores, including popular online sites, are selling it: see here). Coeducational health classes are focused on sex, complete with explicit pictures, films and surveys. Billboards, TV, and magazines carry nonstop ads about erectile dysfunction and “feminine products” (a new ad shows a young woman asking a boyfriend to buy her some tampons. When he begs off, she scoffs, “Can you even say ‘tampon’?”). Nearly every TV show and novel incorporates perversion and noncommittal sex into the story line. Routinely included are scenes of young adults stripping down to their underwear and simulated intercourse.
Add to that increasingly graphic sex scandals covered in the news media, to the point that more urgent topics get short shrift. Then there are the less noticeable changes, such as the term “sexual partner” used as a replacement for “spouse,” “husband,” and “wife.” The clothing marketed to adolescents and pre-adolescents is tacky and immodest at best, “hooker-chic” at worst. Victoria’s Secret commercials in prime time mimic the soft-porn served up in teen magazines, many of which are falsely marketed as “fashion publications.” The advice columns alone are enough to make even free-love Boomers retch.
It used to be “normal” for early-developing girls to be a bit embarrassed by the fact, and that was a good thing because it resulted in restraint later on when everybody started dating. Today, there is no “later on.” “Hooking-up,” as it is called, starts at 11 years of age. The flirting and subtle fashion tricks that were endearing in the 1950s and ’60s had, by the 1980s, been replaced by in-your-face, blatant sex-frolics perpetrated by ambitious nobodies trying to get noticed — people like “Madonna,” followed by a string of talent-challenged teen icons: the Beastie Boys, Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and now Miley Cyrus.
The girls at Pyle Middle School and Whitman High are busy mimicking the pranks of under-talented child-stars (usually at the urging of their publicity-seeking managers). They mentally justify their behavior by pointing to the “sexploitive” advertising, story lines, and explicit curriculums described above. Today’s kids do not comprehend the appeal of understated sexuality, that subtle mixture of glamour and innocence employed in an earlier era by a young Lauren Bacall, Grace Kelly, Jane Russell, Doris Day, and Katherine Hepburn.
The post-modern girls who go to Pyle Middle School or Whitman High generally have a TV in their bedroom; they “multi-task” homework, video-games, a favorite show, and the raunchy lyrics or noise that passes for music. With every visit to a hair or nail salon comes dozens of magazines that send the same unequivocal message: Sex is about fun, not commitment or love. The only cautionary note relates to sexually transmitted diseases (or STDs). Girls in some neighborhoods actually compete to get pregnant, and they don’t care much about who fathers their child — until they need money.
So, while parents are having that “serious conversation” with their youngsters, they might consider bringing along a pile of teen magazines, turning on the tube, and grabbing a copy of that school sex survey if they expect to speak to what really goes on in front of their children’s noses every day. Only then might Mom or Dad be in a position to address the value of modesty or committed relationship.
The 30-something adult with children barely remembers when “recreational sex” became the norm and marriage-and-family wasn’t looked upon with some degree of disdain. Their middle-school and high-school-aged offspring are looking to find a niche in some career — with or without the requisite paper credentials. Or, they may just want “to see the world,” backpacking and “roughing it” with their pals through rain forests and mountain trails, with the occasional recreational “fling” to keep themselves entertained. The emotional fallout from such a lifestyle doesn’t occur to them, and “settling down,” as we used to call it, equates to “trapped” in most teenage minds — a view once limited to boys who got their girlfriends pregnant.
So, while a young girl’s hormones may be raging, and while she may be attracted to one person — or “lover,” in adult parlance — from time to time, she has already been brainwashed to accept such feelings as transient: a “significant other” relationship, something destined for extinction at some point, but always with the expectation of physical intimacy.
Thus the necessity to display and post intimate thoughts and body parts. The point is to demonstrate that one is not prudish, moralistic, or narrow-minded — the only real stigmas left in our society.
That’s “why they do this.” That’s why “nice” girls transmit nude pictures of themselves and “sext.” That’s why song lyrics, like teen dating, strike older adults as strange, being more accustomed to something called romance.
For teens and pre-teens, any thoughts as to the ramifications of “sexting” years from now are on the back burner. Like their grandparent Boomers, who famously announced they wouldn’t trust anyone over 30, today’s children still think like children: They believe that they will remain the age they presently are forever, and that they will think as they do right now forever, too.
Of course they won’t — and, unfortunately, today’s adults generally cannot provide the kind of guidance and leadership necessary to impart this fact, much less lay a much-needed, restraining hand on the excesses of their young charges.
Beyond the moral aspect of what happened in Montgomery County, it is impossible to prove that information has been purged from a computerized source, or that there exists no backup copy. When these “sexting” girls are in their 40s and beyond their current obsession with bra sizes; when they are ready to be taken seriously as adults; when they are, in fact, parents themselves: That’s when those explicit pictures and messages they sent last week will come back to haunt them — emotionally, financially, and maybe even physically.
Ironically, the ones asking “why” will, in the end, be the girls in the photographs.
_______________Beverly K. Eakman is a former educator and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies as well as editor-in-chief of NASA’s newspaper (Johnson Space Center). Today, she is a Washington, D.C.-based freelance writer and columnist, the author of five books, and a frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent book is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (Midnight Whistler Publishers).

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