Boondocks No. 44

Monday, November 12, 2007

Mike Pollan and the Farm Bill. He has an interesting op-ed on the NYT on this topic.

Americans have begun to ask why the farm bill is subsidizing high-fructose corn syrup and hydrogenated oils at a time when rates of diabetes and obesity among children are soaring, or why the farm bill is underwriting factory farming (with subsidized grain) when feedlot wastes are polluting the countryside and, all too often, the meat supply. For the first time, the public health community has raised its voice in support of overturning farm policies that subsidize precisely the wrong kind of calories (added fat and added sugar), helping to make Twinkies cheaper than carrots and Coca-Cola competitive with water. Also for the first time, the international development community has weighed in on the debate, arguing that subsidized American exports are hobbling cotton farmers in Nigeria and corn farmers in Mexico.

Definitely worth a read. P'Link

Supreme Court May Take Up Second Amendment Case. It looks like the Supreme Court may have the ability to take up right to bear firearms in a future case that may come in front of them.

Both sides in a closely watched legal battle over the District of Columbia’s strict gun-control law are urging the Supreme Court to hear the case. If the justices agree — a step they may announce as early as Tuesday — the Roberts court is likely to find itself back on the front lines of the culture wars with an intensity unmatched even by the cases on abortion and race that defined the court’s last term.

The Supreme Court has never answered the Second Amendment question directly, and it has been nearly 70 years since the court even approached it obliquely. A decision in 1939, United States v. Miller, held that a sawed-off shotgun was not one of the “arms” to which the Second Amendment referred in its single, densely written, and oddly punctuated sentence: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

A three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, on which the chief justice formerly sat, ruled in March by a vote of 2 to 1 that “the right in question is individual,” not tied to membership in a state militia. On that basis, the court declared that the 31-year-old statute, one of the country’s strictest, was unconstitutional.

This would be very interesting case to follow, regardless of where you stand on the issue. Should the court take up the matter, it could forever change gun control, and provide new clarity on this important constitutional question.

Nobody seriously thinks that the court would grant an absolute right to firearm ownership. But they could greatly extend that right, except in cases of clear and present danger—curtail excessive federal and state laws on firearm ownership. And that would be very interesting. P'Link

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Fewer Hunters, Less Conservation? In this month's National Geographic Magazine there is an interesting article about decline of hunters across our country and what the impact will be on conservation as a whole.

Some scientists speculate that humans are still programmed for the chase, since our species has been doing that far longer than we have been farming, writing poetry, or marketing stuff by telephone at dinnertime. After emerging on the plains of Africa, our hominin ancestors began hunting more than a million years ago, killing other creatures in order to live.

“We were all hunting until the Neolithic about 10,000 years ago,” said Wade Davis, an anthropologist and explorer-in-residence at the National Geographic Society who has studied traditional hunting cultures from Arctic regions to the Amazon Basin and Oceania. “Every day, you had to kill the thing you loved most, the animals upon which your life was dependent. It was the first mystery—and I would argue the basis of religion, which was an attempt to explain what happens after you die.”

Locally we are seeing this impact—how many local politicians are big hunters of deer, grouse, or other animals? Mayor Corning was an avid hunter, and he understood many of the conservation issues far better then many of today's breed of reform politicians. Without leaders with a sense of conservation, there isn't as much of a discussion about our environment as there should be. P'Link

Hunting in the Preserve? I can't believe that the Albany Pine Bush State Commission has to tell hunters this:

Are there any special considerations for hunting in the Preserve? Yes! The Preserve is an urban/suburban, multi-use natural area. Hunters need to be aware of the location of nearby houses and buildings, and recognize that other visitors may be using Preserve trails during hunting season. It is important that hunters follow all applicable laws, are courteous, and hold themselves to the highest standards of conservation and ethics. Many urban and suburban residents have had little exposure to hunting and hunters. Your appearance and behavior can either decrease fears and concerns or increase them.

Please don’t walk the trails in face paint, a head net, or with an arrow nocked. Carry your bow or gun in a case whenever possible.

If your such a moron to be afraid of hunters, then don't go to the Pine Bush during October-December. How hard can that be? I mean, really. P'Link

The Hell with Oil, Now Milk. Noticed how expensive milk has been lately at the store? Or how farmers are finally getting a few pennies for the milk? Well, according to the New Zealand Harold Tribune In a growing world, milk is the new oil.

Driven by a combination of climate change, trade policies and competition for cattle feed from biofuel producers, global milk prices have doubled over the past two years. In parts of the United States, milk is more expensive than gasoline. There are reports of cows being stolen on Wisconsin dairy farms.

"There's a world shortage of milk," said Philip Goode, manager of international policy at Dairy Australia in Canberra.

But the biggest force driving up milk prices is the same one that has driven up prices for conventional commodities like iron ore and copper: a roaring global economy. Rising incomes, from China and India to Latin America and the Middle East, are lifting millions of people out of poverty and into the middle class.

It turns out that, along with zippy cars and flat-panel TVs, milk is the mark of new money, a significant source of protein that factors into much of any affluent person's diet. Milk goes into infant formulas, chocolates, ice cream and cheese. Most baked goods contain butter, and coffee chains like Starbucks sell more milk than coffee.

So everybody wants the moo-moo juice again, following years when nobody wanted it and nobody really knew what to do with all that milk that the cows were producing. P'Link

Yes: New Hampshire Man Fights for Clothesline Rights. We knew that there had to be places that where so NIMBY that your neighbors wouldn't let you see your underwear:

A New Hampshire activist is going to the ropes for what he calls the "right to dry." That's "dry" outdoors, with a clothesline. Clotheslines are banned in many communities, but with all of the concern over global climate change and energy prices, Alexander Lee is out to make sure that clotheslines will be welcome in every community in New Hampshire, and the rest of the country.

Unbelievable. Now are they going to ban junk cars in the backyard? P'Link

Wednesday, November 14, 2007

Cats Have Feelings? Shooting 'em a Crime? It's kind of hard to believe this case down in Texas of all places, where a man is facing jail time for shooting a feral cat.

The defendant, James M. Stevenson, is the founder of the Galveston Ornithological Society and leads bird-watching tours on this Gulf Coast island 60 miles southeast of Houston. If convicted on animal cruelty charges in the shooting last November, he faces up to two years in jail and a $10,000 fine.

Mr. Stevenson, 54, does not deny using a .22-caliber rifle fitted with a scope to kill the cat, which lived under the San Luis Pass toll bridge, linking Galveston to the mainland. He also admits killing many other cats on his own property, where he operates a bed and breakfast for some of the estimated 500,000 birders who come to the island every year.

Let me get this right. The cat was feral and living under a bridge. It was eating birds, next to a popular wildlife sanctuary. This cat was a menace so it was shot.

What's the crime here? I don't understand.

It's a cat. It was shot. It was not bathed in acid, and dragged down Broadway Street, or otherwise abused. It was killed. This description of the cat's death is extreme:

In her opening statement, Paige L. Santell, a Galveston County assistant district attorney, told the jury of eight women and four men that Mr. Stevenson “shot that animal in cold blood” and that the cat died a slow and painful death “gurgling on its own blood.”

Cats don't think. They don't have feelings. There animals. They are cute animals that we like to keep our laps warm next to the wood stove in the winter, but they aren't much more then bones, tissue, and fir.

After a cat, dog, or livestock dies, you bury them out back, or you leave them for the Coyote's to pick them over. They go back to nature.

I guess the Democratic D.A. of Galveston is just trying to suck up to animal owners and the human society over the rest of American's population's commonsense, the rights of gun owners, and of course those who care about the environment.

The fact that they are considering issues like this is absurd:

Santell said the cat was the pet of toll-bridge worker John Newland, who fed and cared for several strays and even had named the cat "Mama Cat."

Veterinarian Timothy Harkness, a prosecution witness, testified that his autopsy of the cat led him to classify the cat as domesticated because the animal had commercial food in its stomach and a higher degree of muscle and fat than is typically found in feral cats.

Ultimately Stevenson should be treated as a hero:

Defense attorney Tad Nelson told jurors that Stevenson, 54, believed he was killing a cat that was threatening endangered species of birds...

"What really bothers me, this cat was down there killing endangered species of birds and others protected by law," Stevenson said in an April interview with the Houston Chronicle.

Birds are part of nature. Cats are things that man brings to nature, and when they are unwanted and posing a threat to our environment, they should be killed. See Bird Advocates LtE.

See also the Galveston Birders Legal Defense Fund for James Stevenson. Consider donating to bring sanity back to our country. P'Link