Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (293595)	9/6/2002 11:43:10 AM
From: Skywatcher	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

The amount of Destruction and Total Corporate Greed is INSANE....Read what this Whacko believes!..... New wildfire plan watchdog has unorthodox views By Faith Bremner Gannett News Service WASHINGTON — The man chosen to head the Bush administration's wildfire prevention program doubts the existence of ecosystems and says it would not be a crisis if the nation's threatened and endangered species became extinct. Allan Fitzsimmons was named yesterday to be in charge of reducing fire danger on lands managed by the Interior Department. But Fitzsimmons' background as a free-market policy analyst and his writings for libertarian and conservative think tanks have alarmed environmental groups across the West. The groups say Fitzsimmons' appointment confirms their fears that the recently announced program the administration calls the Healthy Forests Initiative is a smokescreen for a return to unfettered logging. "How can a man who doesn't understand ecological systems and community values for wildlife run a program that's supposed to protect forests and communities?" asked John McCarthy, spokesman for the Idaho Conservation League. "People won't have confidence in this guy. He'll be divisive, it will all be based on junk science." For the past 10 years, he has operated his consulting firm, Balanced Resource Solutions in Woodbridge, Va. Between 1983 and 1992, he held a series of policy-setting jobs in the Interior and Energy departments. He holds a doctorate in geography. He said his goal in forest policy is not to tilt toward either heavy logging or excessive protections. "The intent is to get that pendulum as close to the center as you can," he told The Oregonian. "It's not devious. It's certainly not a cynical attempt to turn chain saws loose from sea to shining sea with smoke from forest fires as a cover," as some environmentalists charge. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, is expected to introduce legislation next week that would carry out at least some of President Bush's forest-management ideas. Bush wants to have logging companies thin the forests in exchange for the right to harvest larger, commercially valuable trees. His plan would suspend environmental rules and make it harder for the public to sue to stop thinning work from going forward. Environmentalists support thinning forests around homes and communities, but only if loggers keep their saws away from the large trees. In "The Illusion of Ecosystem Management," published in 1999 by the Political Economy Research Center, which says it applies market principles to environmental problems, Fitzsimmons says ecosystems exist only in the human imagination and cannot be delineated. Federal policies, therefore, should not be used to try to manage or restore them, he wrote. In another paper, entitled "Ecological Confusion among the Clergy," Fitzsimmons criticizes religious leaders who encourage their parishioners to worship God by protecting the environment. He singled out Catholic bishops who issued their own paper in 1997 in support of protecting and restoring the Columbia River watershed. The paper was published in 2000 by the Center for Economic Personalism, which advocates limited government and promotes religion and "economic liberty." "By urging the public to make changes in their lives to accommodate nonexistent ecosystem needs, one wonders if the bishops are beginning inadvertently to make an idol out of their own creation, what they call the Columbia Basin ecosystem," he writes. He added that the biodiversity crisis religious leaders often point to is not a crisis at all. There are between 250,000 and 750,000 species in the United States and 1,201 are on the Fish and Wildlife Service's endangered and threatened list. "If each of these species were to become extinct tomorrow, our total biological endowment would decline by less than 1 percent, which would be a disconcerting loss but would not constitute a crisis," Fitzsimmons writes. "Conversely, at least 4,500 non-indigenous species have established free-living populations in the United States over the past few hundred years, so that on balance, this part of the world has seen an increase in biological diversity." Timothy Ingalsbee, executive director of the Western Fire Ecology Center, said many of those non-indigenous species — like cheatgrass — are taking over native landscapes with devastating results. Cheatgrass is highly flammable, has little nutritional value for livestock and chokes out native plants. "Making the argument that non-native species are increasing the biological diversity is pure bunk." Information from The Associated Press is included in this report. CC

To: Patricia Trinchero who wrote (293595)	10/31/2002 3:39:03 AM
From: Patricia Trinchero	Respond to of 769670

Thanks TP....................herein that article lies the where-for-alls and the wonders of international politics and coalition gathering. Bush claims he will lead a coalition into Iraq...........apparently a coalition of prostitutes (their actions are bought and paid for not freely offered). Bush's behavior is not becoming of a man who claims to be a staunch Christian !!!LOL Shame on him !! PT