Free Republic

I have an important announcement of interest to long-time FReepers: FReeper GladesGuru, ecologist, and private property advocate, has died from complications due to prostate cancer. He was 75. Jan (pronounced “Yan”) Jacobson was a man of acerbic wit who could cut to the bottom line with a merciless precision. Pity the bureaucrat or academic peddling questionable “facts” under his scrutiny. His passion was wildlife biology and its relation to habitat. For over thirty years, he was Director of the Everglades Institute, a private parcel within the Big Cypress National Preserve, immediately adjacent to Everglades National Park. The parcel is unusual...

The origin of the modern belief that Nature is self-optimizing and alien from people is in the writings of a 1st Century BC poet, Titus Lucretius Carus. It was adopted by the philosophers of the 18th Century Enlightenment as a means to demean religion. This is an examination of the errors in that adoption and the practical consequences of the Nature mythos in modern life.

GLENDALE, Calif. (KABC) -- Proposition 37 is a measure to require mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food. There are two sides to this contentious issue.

HOUSTON — Texas has been messed with, and now it’s sending in the helicopters. Starting today, Texans are taking their ceaseless fight against feral pigs to the skies, thanks to the Texas “Pork Chopper” bill, signed by Gov. Rick Perry. Once limited to killing invasive swine on the ground, licensed hunters can now shoot them from helicopters — for a price. “I’m ready to book a hunt today!” said David Fason, 48, who drove nine hours and paid $350 on a recent weekend to attend a class in Houston — the first of its kind — on how to safely...

Driving a well-used pickup truck with his tree-climbing dog “Cory” in the bed, David Bamberger wheels out of a picturesque field up slippery limestone scrabble. The day is a Hill County idyll, with one tour-jarring revelation. As we climb a small rise, an elevated deer blind comes into view. Bamberger’s displeasure is obvious. Nodding back down the hill toward a winch not more than 100 yards away that will hold a deer feeder when hunting season opens in November, he nearly spits. “You might as well be at a shooting range.” Yet this is where every one of his “high-dollar”...

In light of Lord Monckton’s recent dire warning about how a new treaty on carbon emissions is actually meant to institute a global bureaucratic authority, I thought it would be useful to point out the particulars and provide the background showing that, if anything, he has understated his case. It may take years before it becomes evident, but this IS about global government, with your rights and property signed away to a remote and unaccountable undemocratic bureaucracy at the flick of Barack Obama’s pen, the moment he signs said document. “Sign” did I say? Don’t treaties have to be ratified...

Afterburn: How Oregon’s Winter Fire charred the land and burned tempers. By Judy Blais Flames raced across Dutchman’s Flat and plunged down into the Punch Bowl, a rugged area near the center of Oregon’s Summer Lake Valley. It was clogged with an accumulation of fuel from decades of neglect and the firestorm exploded into a maelstrom of such raw power that even seasoned firefighters were awed. Self-generated winds fanned the frenzy, culminating in a fire tornado that raged crazily up and down forests of pine, juniper and mountain mahogany, demolishing everything in its path. Starved for oxygen, the tornado reared...

This is the first interpretation of the 14th Amendment on record. The following text is from the majority opinion (about 3/4 of the way down the page): http://www2.law.cornell.edu/cgi-bin/foliocgi.exe/historic/query=[group+f_slavery!3A]/doc/{@6621}/hit_headings/words=4 Slaughterhouse Cases, 83 U.S. 36 (1872) (USSC+) Opinions MILLER, J., Opinion of the Court All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. The first observation we have to make on this clause is that it puts at rest both the questions which we stated to have been the subject of differences of...

Monday, July 01, 2002 The problem is structure... ESA Reform By Mark Edward Vande Pol Introduction The history of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) abounds with horror stories recounting clear abuses of power under the color of law. Many who initially supported the ESA have come to question whether it still reflects its original intent. Others argue that the requirements to consider economic and cultural impacts of regulatory measures pursuant to NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) are being ignored. Few will dispute that outright fraud has no place in the protection of the environment. Less understood is that undue caution...

WRITTEN STATEMENT FOR THE RECORD OF DR. THOMAS M. BONNICKSEN PROFESSOR DEPARTMENT OF FOREST SCIENCE TEXAS A&M UNIVERSITY and visiting scholar and board member The forest foundation auburn, california OVERSIGHT HEARING ON Crisis on our National Forests: Reducing the Threat of Catastrophic Wildfire to Central Oregon Communities and the Surrounding Environment BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON RESOURCES UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES Deschutes County Fairgrounds Expo Center 3800 SW Airport Way, Redmond, Oregon Monday August 25, 2003 2:00 PM INTRODUCTION My name is Dr. Thomas M. Bonnicksen. I am a forest ecologist and professor in the Department of Forest Science at...

Interested Parents, Tuesday, October 18th at the Biltmore Hotel & Conference Center – 7:00 – 8:30pm, we are holding a meeting to inform, educate, and rally the public around the egregious abuse of power by the Santa Clara Social Services, Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS) – Child Protective Services (CPS) as they attempt to rip my family, and many others apart. The Biltmore is located just south of Montague Expressway, east of highway 101 at 2151 Laurelwood Rd, Santa. At issue are three key points that will be of interest to you as a parent: Our rights as...

The environment isn't any longer an issue that can be separated into some arcane back corner for weird people with long hair. Regulations are driving food production offshore. More jobs have been exported for regulatory reasons than wage differences, energy costs, and taxes can explain. It is a life and death issue for the liberty of every individual. It determines our economic and military staying power. Your freedom rests upon understanding how and why these issues are slowly taking control of your life.That paragraph is from the following commentary, an analysis of Arnold Schwarzenegger's Environmental Policy, obtained from his website....

A Burning Desire© 1999 by Mark Edward Vande Pol, all rights reserved.If environmentalists were left to their own devices, do they have a better way to manage wild-lands? Criticisms by environmentalists about private enterprise are so ubiquitous it is high time to critically analyze of one of their proposals. How often are their plans submitted for scrutiny, peer review, or an EIR? The sad part is that it is so easy to do. The cited text is reprinted off the Sierra Club web site.Public Lands Fire ManagementSierra Club Policy: Public Lands Fire Management URL:http://www.sierraclub.org/policy/conservation/fire.aspSierra Club Board of Directors March 17-19,...

PINE FLAT, Calif. (AP) - A ferocious wildfire fed by underbrush and weeks of dry weather roared toward a treasured grove of ancient sequoias, setting up potentially devastating scenario if flames reach the trees. The 48,200-acre blaze moved through the valleys of the Giant Sequoia National Monument and came within a few miles of the Freeman Creek Grove and Trail of 100 Giants. "If fire does get in the Trail of 100 Giants, we won't be putting firefighters in there to try to stop it. It will be a climax of 300- or 400-foot flames," said Jim Paxon, spokesman for...

SUNNI: Hi, Mark; how are you today? MARK: Burnt. I've been hacking up trees that we had taken down for power line clearance. It was 102° out there this afternoon. SUNNI: Ouch. Why did the trees need to be hacked? MARK: Annual power line maintenance on a rural property can cost the power company as much as a year's worth of electricity. The whole thing has become something of a scam, because the California Public Utilities Commission allows the power company to add a direct markup to the line maintenance cost. So they just love environmentalist-inspired regulations that favor expensive...

There are few things that keep me up at night, but this is one of them. It may be cynicism, but more likely it’s the long sad experience of watching the courts over the years. So when your side finally wins one that should have you celebrating, and yet you walk away with a knot in your gut, it’s probably warranted. Senior Judge Laurence H. Silberman’s majority opinion in Parker v. District of Columbia was a thing of beauty, affirming armed self-defense as an individual right pre-existing the Constitution. It was almost hard to believe. Maybe that's what’s bugging me....

EISS Grant Fully Implemented in Primary Grades at Loma Lynell Hanck Linda Smith and Christie Sanden wrote the Early Intervention for School Success (EISS) grant last spring. Our school was selected for the implementation of this $16,000 grant on the basis of our high percentage of GATE children as well as the fact that we are somewhat isolated. Loma Prieta has become an EISS site. An EISS site is:"A VEHICLE for delivering appropriate instruction.A THINK TANK for latest research.A SUPPORT SYSTEM for teachers.A CONDUIT for instructional strategies that promote best practice."Specifically, EISS focuses on:"Knowledge of Child Development AssessmentPlanning/Organization/ManagementFamily/School/Community Connectionand Program/Self...

In the practice of Zen Buddhism, a koan is a statement that is intentionally insoluble to the rational mind, a tool by which to master life’s seemingly paradoxical events. Yet the Japanese Zen masters have nothing on us red-blooded Americans, who for over a century have become unconsciously adept at sustaining such conflicts, easily accepting contradictory interpretations of Constitutional Law, between the original scope of the Bill of Rights and that since the Fourteenth Amendment. As Madison elaborated in Federalist 45, the Constitution for the United States of America was sold as a list of strictly limited powers; leaving the...