Our World and Everything in It

This is pretty gruesome to watch but I think it’s necessary to see the unethical, unfair sport of aerial hunting that has been promoted throughout Alaska by Sarah Palin. It is from Defenders of Wildlife.

This policy has basically fueled the wolf hunting program in Idaho. Why Idaho?

Check out this list:

Dirk Kempthorne is former governor of Idaho and rushed into his appointment by Bush as Secy. of the Interior.  The Secy. of Interior is over the USFWS.

Matthew J. Hogan, the former chief lobbyist for Safari Club International, is Acting Director of the USFWS.

Safari Club International, according to sourcewatch.com, consistently lobbies against the intent of the Endangered Species Act.

Butch Otter, governor of Idaho, is known for his desire to be the first person to take a shot at a wolf.

Sarah Palin graduated from the University of Idaho in 1987. She is the biggest catalyst in Alaska, along with SCI, for aerial hunting as a method for predator management—wolves. 

What is it with Idaho and their bloodthirst for wolves? Less wolves more hunting for people? What a totally unfair premise. It’s also a stupid act as it goes against a healthy balanced ecosystem. Wolves take care of the ever growing population of coyotes many people continue to mistake for wolves as one in the same. They are not. Coyotes are scavengers. They are usually killed by wolves for intruding on the wolves’ food. If hunting is used to replace the wolves, there will be little to no carcasses left for coyotes. Coyotes will begin to come into people’s yards as their population grows and wolf populations diminish from overkill. I had a lady comment elsewhere that people in Vermont are sympathetic to wolf hunts, and proceeded to tell me about problem coyotes in her yard. See what I mean?

Also, rangers in Yellowstone Park presented a pro-wolf video for Public TV that I watched. They showed all of the new tree, shrub, and grassy areas that were evolving because the wolves were balancing the overabundance of deer and elk that kept eating particular plant species to the ground. Over a course of time, one area went from a predominantly grassy plain to what appeared to be the beginning of a forest.

Obviously, hunting was unable to control the abundant population of deer, elk, and other vegetarian mammals.

Watch the video if you can. I could not. I do not call this hunting, and neither do real hunters. There is a place for legitimate hunting in America. This is not legitimate, nor is the reason for predator control in the extreme like aerial hunting.  Elk and deer populations in Idaho are beyond their limits based on state’s records. And Palin’s pressure to continue excessive hunting of wolves via plane/helicopter in Alaska as a form of predator management to preserve elk and caribou populations, is a complete contradiction to the detrimental outcome of elk and caribou populations within ANWR if drilling is allowed.

As someone with a daily environmental blog, I’m more than interested in Sarah Palin. Environmentalists have known about Palin for quite some time. And it’s those environmental groups that were targeted first for attempting to protest at the RNC. 

There is much footage out there of the emptied EarthJustice bus of protestors left by the side of the road by the Minneapolis police. It appears to be overkill and ridiculous with at least 10 police cars surrounding the bus as if it carried felons escaping prison. What a display of force to stop protestors for the environment. From many accounts, the Republicans had plants inside of these types of groups to report what, when, and how they would be going about protesting at the convention in order to stop them from reaching their destination. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/.

This is frightening for the U.S.A. More news has shown up on video on websites of outright abuse. One article stated that 3 homes where protestors were staying were entered by police SWAT teams. Citizens banned for peacefully assembling in protest, especially before they do so is a direct hit on our constitutional rights and perpetrated by our own federal government. SWAT teams? Just a tad bit of overkill. Obama’s bigger convention didn’t utilize SWAT teams or infiltrators. When I saw a GOP rep head butt, yes, head butt an ABC reporter, well, how juvenile, not to mention mean.

It’s not right. Without protestors, many citizens are being denied, albeit short term, the facts of Palin’s horrible environmental decisions and her ruthless record of predator management, which is the aerial killing of wolves.  Besides that, the state of Alaska under Palin sued the USFWS to keep the polar bear off the endangered list stating that their numbers have increased and they are a stable population.

I’ve already given the definition of endangered in another blog. The meaning should resonate with Palin since she has a BA in journalism and knows well that it means: “exposed to danger.” If anything could be more exposed to danger it would be the wildlife of Alaska under Palin and her buddies (SCI) Safari Club International who believe it’s their right to hunt any animal, endangered or not. SCI still pushes to allow hunting polar bears.

Palin stands strong against lobbyists, maybe, but only the lobbyists of her choice, because on the other hand she sought millions in earmarks for Wasilla, Alaska. Environmentalists have known that she’s bad news for our environmental future with a script right out of the mouths of big oil—drill more.

  http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/01/Palin_making_use_of_hated_earmarks/UPI-34181220275668/.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=6c588f46-da6e-4816-a4be-789a4836b478

As a Democrat, I couldn’t be happier with this pick. I had to laugh when it was said her campaign for governor was run on “ethics.” OMG!

Wait until the large environmental groups disclose her ethics.  For example Rodger Schlickeisen of Defenders of Wildlife issued this statement already about Palin’s destructive environmental policies:

“Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP (formerly British Petroleum), has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska’s coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.”

To be to the right of the Bush/Cheney regime is a scary thought. That’s pretty far out there. Sarah Palin is a scary thought for wildlife. Alaska’s predatory management program is barbaric. I recently blogged about 14 wolf cubs shot in the head on the spot after an illegal stakeout by Alaskan Wildlife Agency employees? Bears have been added to the predatory list now. Funny how wolves and bears have always been a part of the Alaskan landscape, but now they are intolerable. Animals in Alaska do not have a friend at the governor’s house.

I don’t think Sarah likes living things as much as money. That will come out sooner or later. Cruelty is not a nice trait to see in a woman. 

Sad to say, despite door-to-door grass root efforts that got 75,000 voters in Alaska to the polls to vote to permanently stop the aerial assault on wolves, the initiative failed.

Those lovely guys at Safari Club International, who think it’s their right to shoot and kill just about ANYTHING, lobbied for the kill, and talk about a pro-active government/lobbyist relationship in Alaska. Coldhearted Sarah Palin, governor of Alaska paved the way and added $400,000 out of the state’s coffers to keep the kill going. After Ted Steven’s indictment, I think everyone should direct more attention toward Alaska.

The reason the assault on wildlife continues, is that sport hunting is a main industry in Alaska, therefore, Alaska will slaughter predators to preserve that game for humans to hunt for fun and Alaska’s profit. But the predator management system is out of control according to residents of Alaska. http://www.wolfsongnews.org/news/Alaska_current_events_1626.htm

It looks like the taste of blood is irresistible after all. The current predator management in Alaska includes bears too. Are we going to start killing the bears because they eat too many salmon and it interferes with sport fishing?

What I want to know is what are the great white hunters are going to kill when the population of critters is diminished not only by hunting but by loss of habitat from industry and global warming, and the many diseases that are going to crop up in the future as a result?

People are already being hunted. I posted a blog about hunting albino human beings in Tanzania. And the bushmeat trade is near cannibalism in my book.

It’s as if the example we’ve been given over the past decade by the Bush/Cheney group has infiltrated our spirit here in America, and the example continues off of our shores. How are we to tell Canada not to club baby seals, or Japan to quit whaling and butchering dolphins, when we’re slaughtering our own wildlife everywhere? And everyone knows it’s for the MONEY!

This type of cruelty is a growing concern to me. If we have a generation of kids that never enjoy nature by stepping away from the Internet long enough to go outside, it’s not hard to imagine that empathy, sympathy, and responsibility for nature, all the traits that are supposed to put humans a step above the animals, will be gone

If this cruelty continues against innocent wildlife, where a hunter can just walk up to a den of small pups and plug each one in the head with a bullet without flinching, my prediction that seniors will live in gated communities in the future for safety sake is just a generation away.

We must break the growing cycle of cruelty against nature for our own human sake.   

I just did a blog about our becoming accumstomed to violence, killing, and guns. Then I read my e-mail that STATE WILDLIFE AGENCY PERSONNEL in Alaska illegally staked out a breeding den/area for wolves, and aerial shot and killed 14 of them. The wolves were parents to 14 little pups. They shot all the pups in the head at close range.

View this video of 4 week old wolf pups and imagine plugging the cute little things in the head. It takes a heartless person to do this.

http://www.everythingwolf.com/sitewide/videolib/p1020310.wmv  

On the same website as the video, I read about people adopting wolf cubs, and even potty training wolf cubs. This is counter to the image of wolves as blood thirsty, indiscriminate killers.  

http://www.everythingwolf.com/forum/threadview.aspx?thread=1340p1.   

The big execution in Alaska was to boost caribou populations. There are approximately 950,000 caribou in Alaska. How many caribou do we need? What’s the target, a million?

 http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/biggame/caribou.php.

Alaskans are outraged over this aerial killing movement and are moving to “end the Board of Game’s barbaric aerial hunting of wolves through a ballot measure,” according to Defenders of Wildlife. Defenders website has a drive that ends today to help this ballot initiative with new ads. It also said that: “On August 26th voters can pass this ballot measure and band this awful practice before another deadly season begins.”

Defenders of Wildlife is “helping Alaskans for Wildlife, a coalition of local grassroots activists, hunters, and citizens who secured the 55,000 signatures to put this measure on the ballot. Already, they have reached thousands of voters across the state with their hard-hitting mailings.”

Collecting 55,000 signatures is a daunting task in the heart of hunting territory like Alaska, but everyone involved is close to meeting their goal of collecting $80,000 and running ads that will get voters out to vote for this ballot measure. The ads essentially say, “Real hunters don’t shoot wildlife from airplanes.”

I think aerial hunting is gutless. I also think shooting helpless pups is heartless. And I’m starting to think humans need to be kept in check more than animal populations. We’re starting to show our animalistic tendencies far too much, forgetting about empathy and compassion for all living things in our world.

http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/press_releases_folder/2008/07_23_2008 _statement_regarding_illegal_killing_of_14_wolf_pups_in_alaska.php

Alaska’s Ted Stevens, longest serving Republican in the senate, was indicted on seven charges for his connections with VECO, an oil services company, and the renovations done to his home.

Ted is pro-oil, and we see why. VECO CEO Bill Allen pleaded guilty to bribing Alaskan lawmakers. And Ted has been accused of influence peddling. So we have an admitted briber, and a guy who invites it. So now Ted’s been indicted for lying about his dealings with VECO.

Ted has consistently put ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) drilling language in defense bills. Remember the recent Senate hearings with oil execs about high gas prices in relation to excessively high profits? We can thank Ted, the Chairman of that committee, for preventing them from having to speak under oath.

Senator Stevens is best remembered for financing two Alaska bridges to nowhere to a tune of over $220 million. A fiasco that had Ted threatening to quit the senate if congress took money away from those bridges. The money  for them would have been redirected for repairs desperately needed in New Orleans afer Katrina. Stevens got his way, but the bridge money was given to Alaska’s transportation fund instead.

But Ted’s mid 80’s age and this haven’t stopped him. He’s put in his bid to run for senate again. This is not the way to top off a long career.

Democrats want Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, in the race. Begich is the favorite. Alaska could use someone environmentally friendly for a change. If they could just get rid of Governor Palin, Alaska might stand a chance at remaining a pristine wilderness.

After this, maybe Senator Waxman, who is investigating everyone, and doing a fine job of doing his job by the way, should direct more attention to the goings-on in Alaska and why so many are protesting.  

Read more of Stevens bio at: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ted_Stevens

And the race is on. Alternatives or the same ole polluting solutions until we’re extinct. Looks like Washington isn’t waiting around for anyone’s opinion. The oil people are getting their dibs in while they can. We won’t see any of that oil for years but hey why not?

The wealthy are starting to polish their crowns in front of us.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/17/us/17alaska.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&oref=slogin

All eight states surrounding the Great Lakes have signed the Great Lakes Compact, an agreement to protect, preserve, and keep in tact all of our available freshwater today in Saugatuck, MI. Two Canadian provinces, Quebec and Ontario, have passed an almost identical agreement. The compact is off toWashington where there is little doubt it will be approved.

I was also glad to read that MI groundwater will be closely monitored too. If you remember there was lack of agreement on that between the House and Senate when signing MI’s new water bills. What was accomplished:

·     Regulations ensuring that water users do not excessively harm aquatic resources by taking too much water.

·     The adoption of conservation principles to be utilized by large water users.

·     More public input into decisions about large-scale water uses that might impact local ecosystems.

·     Overall, 75% of Michigan’s surface waters will be protected from harmful withdrawals. Use of the remaining waters will be subject to rules ensuring availability to all parties for reasonable use.

But I have still been concerned about the 25% of surface groundwater that goes unprotected. One quarter of our entire surface water falls under ambiguous rules that will be enforced by whom?

Well it looks like the governor also signed bills to manage the use of surface ground water in Michigan via a computer system that will determine when and where business can make withdrawals. This might help with enforcing the rules. Kudos for that!

Read the latest: http://www.charlotte.com/nation/story/706004.html

Earlier this month while working outside, I noticed a prevalence of little reddish ants. I’m not saying fire ants necessarily because they are not supposedly indigenous to Michigan, but little reddish ants seem to be everywhere and they bite. I got bit on my left leg. A trail of horribly itchy red bites took about a week or more to get rid of. I put my usual sting cure on them, a wet aspirin. Aspirin is just salicylic acid, so meat tenderizer, and anything else including special shampoos that have salicylic acid usually work to take the sting away. Not so for those bumps.

I live in the country and have been bitten by chiggers, mosquitoes, spiders, fleas, and am really allergic to apple maggot fly bites that many people call black flies. They are those triangular shaped flies with spotted wings. I guess they don’t bite as much as deposit eggs under the skin. Lovely. But, I know when I’ve been bitten by one of those. I feel the pinch, the skin gets hot, and aspirin  works great. Not so with the trail on my left leg. I put all the over the counter stuff on the bites, and the household stuff like ammonia, alcohol, baking soda, vinegar, you name it. I even took tweezers and pulled at what looked like the spot of entry, then applied Neosporin.

Nothing worked. The dots remained and eventually ran their course. After beating up my skin so bad, I started to worry about scars. I can tell where the bites were but they left little trace considering what I did to them and my skin.  I was soooo happy when they were gone.

Last week it was cool outside and I didn’t do much work out there at all so there was little chance for me to get bit right? I thought nothing of pulling on a pair of jeans and sweatshirt I threw off to the side of my nightstand just the day before. I left the house to run errands on Thursday before Memorial weekend. I thought the itch behind my right leg was persistent as I stood at my pharmacy to pick up my renewed prescription for Allegra. I remember scratching there more than once while I was running around. Something in my jeans felt picky.

When I got home and removed my jeans I had a trail on my inner thigh around the back of my knee and down the outside of my lower leg. I was so disgusted knowing what those bites were and how they would itch, be ugly, and not go away all weekend. If that wasn’t bad enough, when I woke up Friday morning and thought I had hives on my back and neck, I found it was yet another trail of ant bites.

I didn’t try any weird treatments this time. I learned my lesson the bites are much like poison ivy, oak, and sumac, all of which I’ve had my fair share. I had poison ivy four times one summer thanks to my cat. They are miserable but I won’t die. My husband made sure I was planning to wear long pants when we went out to eat so as not to look like I had some sort of plague.

So memorial weekend did create quite a memory for me. Now I know what not to do while working in my yard in Michigan. I have biting ants that I didn’t have before. Call them what you will, but I say they are indeed fire ants, and Michigan is getting more and more of them because of climate change. I watched a little black ant bite me and nothing happened. I saw the color of the ants in question. They are reddish and seem to be everywhere. Like a nightmare they are not centrally located around a large mound like ant experts describe. 

When I started to plant my vegetable garden in a pair of shorts and spotted little reddish ants in the dirt, I quickly went inside and returned with long pants, and knee high socks over the pant legs. I also had on a long sleeved shirt that I tucked in. Real cute.  My mom said to put rubber bands around the sleeves of my shirt also. Yard work will not be fun when temperatures soar above 80 degrees and I have to wear this kind of get up. 

One good thought: I know these ants are in Michigan now. And one good cure for the itch is an ice pack.  But my one bad thought outweighs the good. What else is in store for us insect wise in Michigan? What plague of things we didn’t have to worry about before will global climate change bring? The ants are bad enough. I don’t even want to think about the mosquito populations. 

The polar bears made the list! I can’t believe the Bush administration finally listened to the courts. Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of the Interior, begrudgingly gave in. He made it emphatic that this will in no way affect efforts to drill in the Arctic. He is one of Bush’s handpicked cronies that continuously pits the environment, animals, and their habitat against industry.

Kempthorne’s remark that he wasn’t stalling on adding the bears to the endangered list in lieu of the sales of big oil leases is a crock if you followed the story. Heck, he looked to put the bears on the list way back in 2006. http://www.doi.gov/news/06_News_Releases/061227.html. What ever took so long?

Even though the bears made the list, the problems are not over. Prepare for more slight of hand dealings by the Bush Administation.

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http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2008/2008-05-14-10.asp