michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
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Post by michelle on Jun 29, 2007 16:33:15 GMT 4
Cheney probed over salmon die offWell, well, well, it seems probes into Cheney's actions are poppin' up all over the place!
After reading the following, I began to ponder. Through a selfish, self-serving interest toward our natural world, we have come to the point where Nature is becoming our most powerful teacher, especially since biospheric systems no longer work the way they used to. A warning to our state and corporate leaders: In times of great system turbulence, social learning can be extraordinarily swift....and this learning will be extremely painful to humans.
Our species has the gift of thought, an ability to recall the past and envision the future. Once we have a vision of the future, every decision becomes a moral decision. Even the decision not to act becomes a moral judgment. Those who understand what is happening to the only home for us and other species are not free to shrink from responsibility to help make the transition to a sustainable society.
Now, do you really believe that the VP is the type of leader who holds this vision? This is the man who came to my state of Pennsylvania and shot and killed 200 plus pheasants in one afternoon, all in the name of sport.
MichelleCheney probed over salmon die offBy David Whitney - Bee Washington Bureau Published 11:46 am PDT Thursday, June 28, 2007 WASHINGTON - The House Natural Resources Committee announced Thursday that it will hold hearings into Vice President Dick Cheney's involvement in Klamath River water management that many think led to the die-off of more than 70,000 salmon four years ago."It certainly appears that this administration will stop at nothing to achieve political gain from natural resources disasters," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall, the West Virginia Democrat who heads the panel.Three dozen House Democrats from Oregon and California asked for the hearing in a letter to Rahall after the Washington Post reported on details of Cheney's intervention. Source: www.sacbee.com/111/story/246694.html
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jan 26, 2008 16:26:15 GMT 4
It's the Friday afternoon environmental bad news dump! The Bush regime does this every Friday afternoon, and the GOP owned & operated media never seem to see the pattern.Plan to allow logging in Alaskan forestBy MATTHEW DALY ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER Last updated January 25, 2008 3:03 p.m. PT WASHINGTON -- More than 3 million acres in Alaska's Tongass National Forest would be open to logging under a federal plan that supporters believe will revive the state's struggling timber industry. Environmentalists, however, fear that the proposal will devastate the forest. The Bush administration released Friday a management plan for the forest, the largest in the country at nearly 17 million acres. The plan would leave about 3.4 million acres open to logging, road building and other development, including about 2.4 million acres that are now remote and roadless. About 663,000 acres are in areas considered most valuable for timber production. Alaska Regional Forester Denny Bschor, who approved the Tongass management plan, said its goals are to sustain the diversity and health of the forest, provide livelihoods and subsistence for Alaska residents and ensure a source of recreation and solitude for forest visitors. At more than 26,000 square miles, the Tongass - often labeled the crown jewel in the national forest system - is larger than 10 states."There may be disappointment that the (allowable timber sales) hasn't increased or diminished, depending on your viewpoint," Bschor said in a statement. "What is significant in the amended plan, however, is our commitment to the state of Alaska to provide an economic timber sale program which will allow the current industry to stabilize, and for an integrated timber industry to become established." Environmentalists said the plan continues a Bush administration policy of catering to the timber industry. "The new plan suffers from the same central problem as old plan. It leaves 2.4 million acres of wild, roadless backcountry areas open to clear cutting and new logging roads," said Tom Waldo, an attorney for the environmental group Earthjustice. "This plan simply ignores economic realities. Logging these pristine areas makes no sense," said Christy Goldfuss with Environment America, another advocacy group. The Alaska Forest Association, an industry group, said the plan fell short of industry's needs. If necessary, the group said, it will challenge the plan in court - a threat also made by environmentalists. "It is critical that the final plan ... allows our industry to survive," said Owen Graham, the timber group's executive director. "Survival means returning to a realistic timber supply level in Southeast Alaska, not a continuation of the starvation level we have been struggling with for the last few years." The plan released Friday stems from a series of lawsuits filed by environmental groups in 2003, which forced the Forest Service to adjust its timber sale program away from roadless areas to land that can be reached by roads that meander for 3,700 miles through the southeast Alaska forest. In 2005, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down a 2003 plan on grounds that the Forest Service had mistakenly doubled the volume of timber needed to supply local sawmills and failed to consider better protections for roadless areas.--- On the Net: Tongass National Forest: www.fs.fed.us/r10/tongassSource:seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1152ap_tongass_logging.html
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Feb 28, 2008 17:44:41 GMT 4
Bush Takes Aim at Wolves in Yellowstone Area - [glow=red,2,300]Act Now! [/glow] The Bush/Cheney administration has just eliminated federal protections for wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies, opening the door to the slaughter of hundreds of America's most beloved wolves. Please sign this petition...you can read my comment added to it below.....MichelleDear Activist,The Bush administration has just eliminated federal protections for hundreds of endangered wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies. Please protest this decision now - it will only take a minute to send your message in support of protecting these wolves! This decision leaves wolves in Greater Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies at the mercy of outrageous state management plans that allow for the killing of as many as 1,200 wolves - 70% of all the region's wild wolves! Idaho officials want to use aerial gunning to kill wolves in their state. Wyoming agencies have left the door open to the use of traps and poison to eliminate wolves. And officials in both states - and Montana - have proposed wolf hunts. That's not responsible wildlife management. It's a recipe for disaster. Please make your voice heard today and demand continued protections for wolves! Sign the petition: www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/806854919Thank you for your urgent action today, Rebecca Young, Care2 and ThePetitionSite Team My comment added to petition:
The return of the wolf to the United States was the largest citizen's response to a federal document [1991 EIS] and it was overwhelmingly in favor of their return. Wolf biologists believe that their work with wolves is about fixing what humans have destroyed in the past, righting a long standing wrong. Now the Bush Administration is poised to destroy that. Could we expect any less from a deeply anti-life administration...they do not represent we the people. Thoreau stated: "In wildness is the preservation of the world." By restoring and protecting the wolves, we restore ourselves.
29,463 5:37 am PST, Feb 28 Michelle L. Zewe Pennsylvania United States
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michelle
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I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Jul 12, 2008 21:31:15 GMT 4
SOB! Check this one out! I have lamented time and time again on what has happened to our public watchdog institutions under the Bush administration, but this one, leaves me speechless. Read on and see just how much they care for human life.....Shame, shame, EPA leaders; how does it feel to permit the institution's once groundbreaking and protective endeavors to be guided into Hell on Earth?.......MichelleUS Environmental Agency Lowers Value of a Human LifeFriday 11 July 2008 by: Elana Schor, The Guardian UKIt sounds like a spot of gallows humour, but the numbers are no joke: the US environmental protection agency (EPA) has lowered the value of a human life by nearly $1m under George Bush's administration. The EPA's estimate of the "value of a statistical life" was $6.9m as of this May - down from $7.8m five years ago - according to an Associated Press study released today. Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences. When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation - such as the tighter restrictions on pollution that the EPA refused to impose today, effectively postponing any action on climate change until after Bush leaves office. Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18bn to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8m per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9m per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted. Some environmentalists accuse the Bush administration of changing the value to avoid tougher rules, a charge the EPA denies. "It appears that they're cooking the books in regards to the value of life," S William Becker, executive director of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies, said. "Those decisions are literally a matter of life and death." Dan Esty, a senior EPA policy official in the administration of the first President Bush and now director of the Yale centre for environmental law and policy, said: " It's hard to imagine that it has other than a political motivation." The devaluation also raised alarms in Congress, where Senate environment committee chairman Barbara Boxer vowed to introduce legislation reversing the EPA's move. "EPA may not think Americans are worth all that much, but the rest of us believe the value of an American life to our families, our communities, our workplaces and our nation is no less than it has ever been," Boxer, a Democrat, said. Agency officials say they were just following what the science told them. The EPA figure is not based on people's earning capacity or their potential contributions to society - some of the factors used in insurance claims and lawsuits. Instead, economists calculate the value based on what people are willing to pay to avoid certain risks, and on how much extra employers pay their workers to take on additional risks. Most of the data is drawn from payroll statistics; some comes from opinion surveys. According to the EPA, people shouldn't think of the number as a price tag on a life. Vanderbilt university economist Kip Viscusi, whose work was used by the EPA in evaluating whether to lower the value of a life, said the cut "doesn't make sense". "As people become more affluent, the value of statistical lives goes up as well. It has to," Viscusi told the Associated Press. He also said no study has shown that Americans are less willing to pay to reduce risks. The EPA traditionally has put the highest value on life of any government agency and still does, despite efforts by past administrations to use the same figure in all US government agencies. Source:www.truthout.org/article/us-environmental-agency-lowers-value-a-human-life
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michelle
Administrator
I have broken any attachments I had to the Ascended Masters and their teachings; drains your chi!
Posts: 2,100
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Post by michelle on Sept 22, 2008 7:23:30 GMT 4
Contact: Kieran Suckling, Center for Biological Diversity, (520) 275-5960Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Wins 2008 Rubber Dodo Award
Palin Has Sought to Remove Endangered Species Act Protection for the Polar Bear, Suppressed and Lied About State Global Warming Studies, and Denied That Global Warming Is Caused by Greenhouse Gas Emissions TUCSON, Ariz.— The Center for Biological Diversity today awarded Alaska Governor Sarah Palin the 2008 Rubber Dodo Award. Last year’s award, which inaugurated the prize, went to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne for setting a new record in refusing to add imperiled plants and animals to the endangered species list. This year’s award goes to Governor Palin for fighting Kempthorne’s designation of the polar bear as a threatened species. “Governor Palin has waged a deceptive, dangerous, and costly battle against the polar bear,” said Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Her position on global warming is so extreme, she makes Dick Cheney look like an Al Gore devotee.” Palin has waged a deceptive public relations campaign, asserting that the polar bear is increasing. But many populations (including Alaska’s southern Beaufort Sea) are in decline and two-thirds (including all Alaska bears) are projected to disappear by 2050 by the U.S. Geological Survey. Palin has repeatedly asserted that Alaska Department of Fish and Game scientists found fatal flaws in the sea ice models used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to determine the polar bear is threatened. When challenged, Palin refused to release the alleged state review. Independent scientists eventually obtained a summary through the federal Freedom of Information Act, revealing that Palin had lied: The state mammalogists concurred with the Fish and Wildlife Service determination that Arctic sea ice is melting at an extraordinary rate and threatens the polar bear with extinction. “All global warming deniers are eventually forced to suppress scientific studies, and Palin is no different,” said Suckling. “To maintain her ludicrous opposition to protecting the polar bear in the face of massive scientific consensus, Palin stepped over the line to lie about and suppress government science.” Palin has since filed a frivolous lawsuit against the Bush administration to have the threatened listing overturned. Meanwhile, the U.S. Geological Survey announced on September 16th that the 2008 summertime Arctic sea-ice melt was the second greatest on record, nearly matching the extraordinary melt of 2007. “Palin’s insistence that Arctic melting is ‘uncertain’ is like someone debating the theory of gravity as they plunge off a cliff,” said Suckling. “It’s hopeless, reckless, and extremely cynical.” Background In 1598, Dutch sailors landing on the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius discovered a flightless, three-foot-tall, extraordinarily friendly bird. Its original scientific name was Didus ineptus. (Contemporary scientists use the less defamatory Raphus cucullatus.) To the rest of the world, it’s the dodo — the most famous extinct species on Earth. It evolved over millions of years with no natural predators and eventually lost the ability to fly, becoming a land-based consumer of fruits, nuts, and berries. Having never known predators, it showed no fear of humans or the menagerie of animals accompanying them to Mauritius. Its trusting nature led to its rapid extinction. By 1681, the dodo was extinct, having been hunted and out-competed by humans, dogs, cats, rats, macaques, and pigs. Humans logged its forest cover and pigs uprooted and ate much of the understory vegetation. The origin of the name dodo is unclear. It likely came from the Dutch word dodoor, meaning “sluggard,” the Portuguese word doudo, meaning “fool” or “crazy,” or the Dutch word dodaars meaning “plump-arse” (that nation’s name for the little grebe). The dodo’s reputation as a foolish, ungainly bird derives in part from its friendly naiveté and the very plump captives that were taken on tour across Europe. The animal’s reputation was cemented with the 1865 publication of Lewis Carroll’s Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Based on skeleton reconstructions and the discovery of early drawings, scientists now believe that the dodo was a much sleeker animal than commonly portrayed. The rotund European exhibitions were accidentally produced by overfeeding captive birds. The Center for Biological Diversity is a nonprofit conservation organization with more than 180,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places. Source: www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2008/palin-09-17-2008.html
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