A recent news story caught my eye and I wanted to pass it on.
Beetle-ravaged forests prompt campground closures in Rockies is the title and it starts like this:
Vacationers will have fewer places to pitch their tents this summer in Colorado and Wyoming, and they can place the blame on bugs.
The U.S. Forest Service has closed some popular campgrounds in the two states because of concern that trees killed by the bark beetles that are ravaging forests across the West could topple onto unsuspecting visitors.
I certainly wasn’t surprised to see the Feds passing the buck on this one—again—for it seems that federal officials never take the blame for anything.
In my not-so-humble opinion, we’re blaming the wrong bugs. I don’t find fault with those that gobble up wood. Instead, I’m pointing a finger at that particular species of leech that gobbles up tax dollars and locks the public off our lands—again.
Expect to see additional closures as time goes on.
Excerpt:
“I would think that we would have more in the future just because the trees that have been killed are getting older, and as they get older there’s more of a chance that they will fall down,” said Mary Ann Chambers, a spokeswoman for the Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Region.
Ya think!?
I have a suggestion.
Cut down the dead trees.
Yes, yes, I know… that borders on blasphemy to all the tree-huggers that are currently running our country… but hear me out.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been spending tax dollars to start a new program called Let’s Go Outside. The program is designed “to encourage a new generation to learn the wonders of nature”.
As the policy wonks at USFWS have put it, they want to “combat nature deficit disorder”.
It would seem that USFWS and the Forest Service should be at odds on this particular decision!
So here’s the deal, save some taxpayer money by cutting down trees that are closing our campgrounds, sell the wood to tourists for use in their campfires and pass the money along to USFWS to spend on all those poor folks who aren’t smart enough to figure out, without government assistance, that going outside is good for them.
I think its a perfect plan.
Campgrounds could stay open.
Trees wouldn’t fall on unsuspecting tenters.
Kids could go outside.
And the Feds could continue flushing dollars down the toilet without having to take them out of my pocket first.
But who am I kidding?
That makes entirely too much sense…
I regularly receive news releases from wildlife agencies around the country and I find the information very valuable for following up on critical issues of our time.
The Idaho Department of Fish and Game goes a step further by doing a regular column about hunting and fishing law and how sportsmen can understand that law during typical activities.
This is a common-sense approach that I truly appreciate.
A recent column represents a good example and addresses an excellent question. Ask The Conservation Officer is the title of this regular feature and this particular column starts like this:
Question: A friend and I have argued over an ethical and perhaps legal dilemma. If I kill a big game animal but fail to recover it, does the law require me to “tag-out”? In other words; I am confident my shot was lethal and the animal died but I was not able to find it. Am I required to validate my tag (tag-out)?
The answer provided was a good one and came in two parts. The first deals with the necessity to validate the tag for an animal in possession.
The more important consideration came in part two of their answer.
Excerpt:
The real debate is over that portion of the law that requires a hunter to expend a “reasonable effort” to recover an injured animal.
Read the entire column and give it some thought.
In my not-so-humble opinion, I believe sportsmen have an obligation to conduct ourselves in an honorable, ethical and respectful manner when afield—despite the fact that our society seems to have forgotten the definitions of these words…
Have you ever noticed how elitists expect everyone below their level of aristocracy to do as they say and not as they do?
Well, the anti-hunting elite have once again shown their true colors and, this time, it has resulted in criminal charges!
Anti-Hunting Activist Charged for Feeding Bears is the title of a recent news release I received from the U.S. Sportsmen’s Alliance and it starts like this:
Susan Kehoe, a New Jersey anti-hunting activist, has been charged for deliberately feeding bears.
Kehoe has in the past presented herself as a member and leader of Bear Education and Resource (BEAR), a group that protested New Jersey bear hunts in 2003 and 2005. The group blames humans and their improperly secured garbage for the state’s bear troubles.
Of course, she denies that she fed bears and has distanced herself from the BEAR group.
I find it quite funny, however, that she has been unequivocally proven to be a liar.
Excerpt:
According to the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Kehoe was videotaped providing bags of sunflower seeds to bears in her backyard.
Once again, the Anti-Hunting, Tree-Hugging, Planet-Saving White Knights turn out to be wearing tarnished armor—imagine that!
There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily.—George Washington
I found an interesting editorial this morning that I wanted to share. As is usual, it points out the fact that campaign rhetoric generally amounts to nothing more than hot air.
And to think, these folks rant against “global warming”!
The Democrats and Gun Control is the title of this editorial and it starts like this:
Imagine an election race of Pat Robertson versus James Dobson, each of them appearing at organic grocery stores and Starbucks throughout Massachusetts, with each candidate insisting that he alone deserves the vote of gay-marriage advocates. An equally silly spectacle is taking place these days in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky, as Sens. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama compete for the pro-gun vote.
This piece then goes on to highlight the voting records of these two candidates in regard to firearms and “gun control” legislation.
I’ve never been a single-issue voter and I don’t believe that selecting a representative in that way is appropriate for building or maintaining good government.
However, the stance held by a politician on this important issue certainly speaks volumes about their beliefs regarding our Constitution, the power of the federal government, and our freedom to exercise our God-given rights.
Personally, I’m getting tired of seeing liars and harlots in the White House…
The editorial I wish to pass on today touches on a subject that has been discussed here on numerous occasions.
Nonetheless, this topic needs to be covered again—and again—and again.
The fact of the matter is that the United States is headed down a very dangerous path to our own destruction as a free Republic. Worst of all is the glaring reality that many among us are clamoring for this end.
The unfortunate truth is that sportsmen are taking shape as the spearhead.
ANWR’s Spotted Owl is the title of this piece and it starts like this:
In February 2008, U.S. District Court Judge Susan Bolton decreed that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) could designate 8.6 million acres in Arizona, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico as critical habitat for the “endangered” Spotted Owl, Strix occidentalis (no relation to Occidental Petroleum Co.), thus “protecting” this land from cattle grazing, logging and any other human enterprise that might give the little owl indigestion.
This is the same critter that shut down logging operations in the Pacific Northwest and is one of many wild species now being favored over the much-maligned domestic species, Homo sapiens.
The efficacy of using the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a blunt instrument to pursue radical environmental ends began in 1973, the same year the act became law. No coincidence there.
Lest you think I am sensationalizing the topic by correlating this with our destruction, consider this excerpt:
Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY) rejoined that this would set a precedent, and that the USFWS would henceforth have to establish that every human enterprise would not potentially disturb a threatened species: “Virtually every human activity that involved the release of carbon into the atmosphere would have to be regulated by the federal government.”
If that sounds familiar, it is because I have argued for years that the Gorons’ environmental agenda was really a short cut to centralized government control of the economy—what in common parlance is known as, “Socialism.”
We have been traveling at warp speed down this path since the “New Deal” yet, in today’s fast-paced world, that seems not to be nearly fast enough.
We have apparently forgotten our past and refuse to look to our future…
