Free Republic

Narrow Minded ZealotsThe Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is home to some 350,000 people who live and work in the 23 counties that comprise the ecosystem. A very small but vocal and well funded group of this population (the Eco-Tally-Ban) is not happy we are utilizing our area's abundant natural resources to make our living and want us to stop. Ranching, farming, logging, forest recreation, residential construction and tourist facilitation is the target of these green activists that have deemed us trespassers in the land of the animal and tree. Human nature provides a mental mechanism (guilt) that sometimes retroactively provides a...

The Greening of McKinneyBy Lowell PonteFrontPageMagazine.com | September 17, 2002 ONLY DAYS AGO CYNTHIA McKINNEY LOST the Democratic Party nomination for the Georgia congressional Fourth District — once known as the surreally race-gerrymandered “Sherman’s March to the Sea” district — that she was first elected to represent in 1992.But now this defeated demagogue may find political resurrection as the 2004 Presidential candidate of the loony Left Green Party.“The Jews, J-E-W-S,” is who McKinney’s now also-ousted state legislator father Billy blamed for his daughter’s loss to a more moderate African-American woman, Denise Majette.Many Jewish leaders had given support to her opponent...

Environmentalist Wacko Quotes By John Hawkins Environmentalist wackos are anti-progress, anti-capitalism, anti-American, anti-poor, make spectacularly incorrect predictions about the climate, and quite frankly some of these people have MORE FRIGHTENING beliefs than al-Queda (I haven't heard any Al-Queda spokesmen talk longingly about a planet without humans on it). You may think I'm exaggerating, but you won't after you read these quotes... Attack Of The Socialist-Luddites The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state. - Kenneth Boulding, originator of the "Spaceship Earth" concept (as quoted by William Tucker...

Green with anger Marines like to brag that they're the best-trained military force in the world, but many didn't even know how to dig a foxhole when they hit Afghanistan last November. The reason? Rules pushed by enviros in California protecting endangered species prohibit the Marines from digging foxholes at Camp Pendleton near San Diego. "Sometimes," says a miffed Lt. Gen. Edward Hanlon of the greens, "they view our military bases as wildlife parks."

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) - French President Jacques Chirac will urge world leaders to launch talks on a new international tax to fight world poverty, sources with him at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg say. The sources said Chirac rejected the existing "Tobin Tax" proposal to raise levies purely on foreign exchange transactions but would call in a speech to the summit for discussion on a wider tax on wealth generated by globalisation. "It could be a tax on airplane tickets, on carbon dioxide, on health products sold in industrialised countries, and indeed on international financial transactions," one source said. "The idea...

Why did the United Nations (UN) and even UK Prime Minister Tony Blair try to cajole President George Bush into attending the Earth Summit meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa? The answer is the very essence of every United Nations meeting I have attended since 1995: follow the money trail. During the 1992 Earth Summit, Secretary-General Maurice Strong cleverly devised the issue of the environment as a means of soaking the rich countries to pay the poor, while ignoring the graft and corruption of Third World governments that are the main cause of their peoples¹ sufferings. This current meeting is a...

Apple Fire Update: September 03, 2002: Fire Information: (541)496-0235 Size: 13,595 acres Started: August 16, 2002 Containment: 75 percent Expected Containment: September 5 at 6:00 p.m. Line to build: 3 miles Location: 21 miles east of Glide near the area of Dry Creek Resources Assigned: 27 crews, 10 helicopters, 27 engines, 20 watertenders, 7 dozers. Total 912 personnel. Objectives: Keep the fire south of the North Umpqua River, west of Twin Lakes and 4770 Road, east of Panther Ridge, and north of a line between Lake in the Woods and Snowbird Mountain. Ensure firefighter and public safety, make management decisions...

AZUSA, Calif., 7:52 a.m. PDT September 3, 2002 - A wildfire in the San Gabriel Mountains that forced people to flee campgrounds over the Labor Day weekend has grown to 14,429 acres, officials said Tuesday. The blaze, which started Sunday afternoon about 30 miles northeast of Los Angeles, was 5 percent contained, said Linda Steinberg, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Forest Service. It was expected that the wildfire would be fully contained by Sept. 10, Steinberg said.

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa (AP) - While delegates attending the World Summit wrangled over how best to save the planet's rapidly dwindling resources, they gave scant indication of leading by example. The 10-day summit, billed as the largest U.N. conference ever held, is expected to generate between 300 and 400 tons of trash, and so far, just 20 percent of it is being recycled. "We never had any illusions this would be a green summit," Mary Metcalfe, the environment minister of the Gauteng province, which includes Johannesburg, told reporters Friday. "At one stage we were hoping to achieve 90 percent diversion...

 The federal government is great at bothering the American people with a never ending barrage of laws, rules and regulations. Yet, they cannot seem to take responsibility for anything, no matter how much they mess up. This year alone, due to a mishmash of very stupid environmental laws and regulations, the federal government is responsible for allowing over 6.2-million acres (9,688 square miles) of good timber to burn. That's about double the annual average and this is still just August. The federal government took possession, unconstitutionally, of 196 million acres (over 306,000 square miles, total -- for comparison, the State...

New mapping drops Biscuit fire below half-million-acre mark By JEFF BARNARD The Associated Press 8/30/02 12:32 PM GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) -- Based on closer mapping, the size of the massive Biscuit Fire dipped below the half-million-acre mark Friday as firefighters built the last bits of containment lines to securely encircle the blaze. Burning since July 13 when lightning raked the Siskiyou National Forest, the Biscuit Fire stood at 499,780 acres, down from 500,068 acres, and remained 90 percent contained, said U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Miera Crawford. Full containment was projected for Wednesday. The delay in full containment was caused...

<p>There is little more revelatory to us Washington armchair, journo-politico, all-purpose, television/newspaper, expert, pundit/columnists than actually to talk with a fellow out West who works in an industry we just write about. I recently had correspondence with a man who, right up front, called himself "just a fat old logger now working on a farm." Well, as just a fat old lawyer now working on TV and a newspaper, I liked this fellow right off. I feel more comfortable around people who use ab crunchers to keep the refrigerator door open, and who get a six-pack at the liquor store, not a gym.</p>

There's a Joseph Conrad kind of symbolism in the location of the United Nations-sponsored World Summit on Sustainable Development. A collection of central planners has convened in Johannesburg, South Africa, to further centralize control over private property and streamline the distribution of wealth from freer, more prosperous nations to despotic, underdeveloped ones. The intellectual and ethical impetus for this renewed assault on freedom and prosperity is the repugnant Marxist theory of environmentalism. Conservation is the central planners' Trojan Horse for a globally coordinated assault on individual rights. These "watermelons" – green on the outside, red on the inside – adroitly...

Bush expected to promote new forest policy 08/21/02MICHAEL MILSTEIN and JIM BARNETT When he speaks Thursday in Medford, President Bush is expected to push for more intensive thinning of Western forests to reduce fire danger. And he will likely support legislation streamlining environmental rules that have slowed many Western logging projects. It will plainly signal the administration's approach to forest management against the backdrop of epic wildfires burning throughout Oregon and the West.It could also incite a storm of opposition from environmental groups that argue logging only will do more harm to Western forests. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said Tuesday...

Black line protects subdivision from Biscuit Oregon Live/The Oregonian, 08/19/02 WENDY LAWTON and WENDY OWEN Residents in a 25-home subdivision near Agness got some relief Sunday as crews finished a burnout to protect them from the Biscuit fire raging three-quarters of a mile away. A black line, an area devoid of fuel, now protects the Oak Flat subdivision, but the line needs to be tested by the main fire to ensure it's secure. "They've got a good buffer," said Dick Fleishman, fire information officer. However, hot temperatures and high winds can blow embers across the line and spark spot fires,...

Fires burning across Oregon The Associated Press, 8/18/02 11:20 AM Major wildfires were burning on about 540,699 acres in Oregon on Sunday. About 9,801 firefighters were working in the state. The Northwest Interagency Communication Center is tracking six major fires in Oregon. Top priorities for fire officials Sunday were the Biscuit fire, covering 435,654 acres, the 53,900-acre Tiller Complex, and the 1,953-acre East Antelope Fire, east of Ashland. BISCUIT FIRE (formerly called Florence Fire; name changed on 8/11/02) Started: Florence fire started 26 miles west of Grant Pass, 07/13/02; Sour Biscuit started 17 miles southwest of Cave Junction. Size: 435,654...

Bush to Tour Fire Lines 08/16/2002 By AP Staff President Bush will visit areas devastated by the Squires fire in Ruch next Thursday during a visit to Oregon that also will include a fund-raising dinner for Republican Senator Gordon Smith, the White House announced Friday. Bush, who is taking a "working vacation" at his ranch in Waco, Texas, also plans stops in California, according to a schedule released by the president's office. The president will deliver a speech on the importance of thinning forests to curb future wildfires, and has invited governors from Western states to join him during the...

More From The Oregonian Homes south of Agness get orders to evacuate 08/16/02 R. GREGORY NOKES The Curry County sheriff gave evacuation notices to residents of 30 homes three miles south of Agness late Thursday evening as the Biscuit fire continued its rapid spread north. The fire came within three-fourths of a mile of the Oak Flats and Spud Road areas near Agness, a community of 150 along the Rogue River, said Dick Fleishman, a fire information officer. Officials decided to give evacuation notices in the area while it was still light out. They did not include Agness, which remains...

Fires burning across Oregon The Associated Press 8/15/02 1:45 AM Major wildfires are burning on about 479,000 acres in Oregon on Tuesday. About 9,400 firefighters are working in the state. The Northwest Interagency Communication Center is tracking five major fires in Oregon. Top priorities for fire officials Wednesday were the Biscuit fire, covering 390,276 acres, and the 44,880-acre Tiller Complex, and the 136-acre Hemlock fire. BISCUIT FIRE (formerly called Florence Fire; name changed on 8/11/02) Started: Florence fire started 26 miles west of Grant Pass, 07/13/02; Sour Biscuit started 17 miles southwest of Cave Junction. Size: 390,276 acres. Containment: 26...

Coastal air helps slow advance of western flank of Biscuit Fire, giving residents hope By JEFF BARNARD, The Associated Press, 8/14/02 3:44 AM BROOKINGS, Ore. -- Hot weather made life miserable for firefighters on the eastern flanks of the Biscuit fire, but moist marine air on the western side helped a small outback subdivision under an evacuation advisory. "I don't think it will get here," Incident Commander Kim Martin said Tuesday while briefing a dozen residents of the Wilderness Retreat subdivision, located about 12 miles east of Brookings on the Chetco River. They stood in the shade of some fir...