Sounded Good at the Time...

Dr. David Horn, bird “expert,” has an article in the latest issue of Wild Bird News®, titled “The impact of wind farms on bird populations.” (Sorry, article does not seem to be available online or I would have linked to it here.) He states, “The presence of wind turbines…can negatively impact bird populations if turbines are not properly placed.”

“What’s a proper location?” you ask. Good question, but complex answer.

Dr. Horn explains it this way:

In order to determine whether proposed wind farms will have an adverse impact on bird populations, it must first be determined whether proposed wind-farm areas contain bird populations that are endangered, threatened, or considered of local importance. Information is needed about where a wind farm would be located relative to migratory flyways and if the area serves as a stopover site for migratory birds.

We’re talking years of Environmental Impact Studies here.

Of course, Dr. Horn isn’t too thrilled with coal as an energy alternative, either:

The use of coal and other nonrenewable resources adversely impacts bird populations by contributing to global warming, promoting acid rain, emitting mercury, and causing the loss of thousands of acres to mining activities.

Definitely, this biology professor is spouting bad science. See the following sampling of articles obtained with simple Google searches (there are plenty more where these came from):

• Global Warming Bombshell
• Global Warming: Charges and Responses
• Wild Species Threatened By Low-Yield Farming, Not Global Warming, Expert Says (Dr. Horn should read this one if he really cares about wild birds.)
• Popper, Hayek and Environmental Regulation
• Victimless Catastrophes
• Senate Barely Squelches Mercury Panic (in the “Junk Science” section)

He also notes “the estimated 1 to 10 fatalities per building per year due to window/bird collisions.”

Maybe the next step is to have windowless buildings – that is, buildings that have no windows in the walls or openings with no panes (“wall-holes”). Gee, maybe we could have bars on the “wall-holes” to keep out the burglars and screens to keep out the bugs (wind, rain, cold, and heat are another matter) – unless, of course, the birds would get harmed flying into either of these. The bars could come in designer styles and colors. Imagine, the Ralph Lauren Polo or Vera Wang line of “wall-hole” bars with matching screens. What we do about the glass and steel office buildings is another dilemma.

Maybe we should all get used to sitting in the dark in our windowless houses without TVs, computers, refrigerators, etc. In other words, like the recent hurricane victims have had to do.

On second thought, let’s put humans back at the top, priority-wise.

Man seems to be increasingly taking a back seat to Nature. The Endangered Species Act and the Environmental Protection Agency are the most adamant about shoving us towards “the back of the bus” (to borrow a civil rights phrase). Houses, offices, stores, schools, churches, roads, etc., cannot be built without an Environmental Impact Study (EIS), holding up construction for months or even years and quite often halting it altogether.

Think I’m exaggerating? Okay, here’s an example:

A couple of years ago, I heard of a man who had purchased land in California with a view of the Pacific. He had recently retired and started planning to build his dream retirement home on his land. He had the house designed, the exact location selected on his land to give him and his wife the perfect “view.” However, the biggest hurdles lay ahead.

You may not know this, but the coastlines of the U.S. are guarded not just be the Coast Guard, but by Coastal Commissions. The California Coastal Commission is particularly vigilant. Unless you have very deep pockets to keep paying the fees they require, you don’t have a hope of building along the coast or even, as the retiree found out, within view from the ocean. Since the planned house would have been visible to boats on the ocean, the commission demanded that the house be moved back. They also didn’t want it to be seen from the road.

Then came the Endangered Species study. Lo and behold, there was an endangered species on this poor retiree’s land. (Big surprise, considering how the list has bloated up since it’s inception.) Some snail or slug was discovered. It had to be preserved no matter what the cost to the retiree who had worked hard all his life, saved his money, purchased this land, and dreamed of a carefree retirement, enjoying that house and the ocean view with his wife. The long driveway to the house had to be redesigned to route around this critter’s habitat. Of course, this increased construction costs by about a third, not to mention the extra surveying and civil design fees.

One after another, roadblocks were put in the retiree’s way to keep him from building on his land. Cost estimates kept rising while he continued to pay fees just to get an approved design. After about a year, the ultimate goal was accomplished. The retiree gave up trying to build on the land and sold it. Let some other poor sucker deal with these tyrants. He had had enough.

This is not just an isolated incident, but one of many examples. I’ll be presenting more in future blogs as time permits.

Let’s face it. There is no way for man, nor any other creature, to exist on this planet without having a negative impact on some other creature (plants included). If we don’t call a halt to such burdensome regulations and restrictions, man will be squeezed, despite higher population numbers, into increasingly smaller areas while the rest of the planet lies fallow, useless, and “protected.”

Now, that’s a “Brave New World.”

If you have a tale similar to the retiree above, please post it here. I'd love to hear about it. Thanks.

Copyright © 2005 A.C. Cargill

WARNING: Lecture on choices starts here.

As someone who is adamant that we are each responsible for ourselves and should, therefore, take the consequences – good or bad – for the choices we make, I see the position of the religious leaders as tantamount to stripping away such responsibility and replacing it with blind obedience. Not even a child should be treated this way, let alone adults.

Children are taught by their parents and teachers about the world around them and how to navigate safely through it. As they grow, they get to make more and more decisions for themselves. If parents and teachers have done a good job and if the children have learned well, the decisions will be good ones with good consequences.

Bad decisions are often made, though, for the most part simply because of human error or not knowing all of the facts. Sometimes bad decisions are made because of bad epistemology or bad premises. As long as the person making those bad decisions accepts the consequences (including responsibility for the impact of those decisions on others), he/she should be free to make them.

Gambling is a choice. Deciding to gamble is not either good or bad. It can be a poor decision or not, but more context is needed to determine that. For example, how much does the gambler earn per year and how much of that does he/she gamble away? Martha Stewart, Donald Trump, Bill Gates, or Sir Richard Branson could gamble millions in a casino, lose it all, and still have enough to meet their basic needs. Someone serving up coffee at Starbucks or bagging your groceries at the local supermarket who lays his/her week’s pay down on a roll of the dice and loses will be in dire straights.

The risk taken on that roll of the dice, a game of cards, a spin of the roulette wheel, a pull of the slot machine arm, or spending every penny you have on lottery tickets has to be carefully weighed. Unless you can really afford to lose the money you’re laying down and not have to impose on others to make up your loss, don’t lay it down.

LECTURE ON CHOICES OVER. Now, back to whether or not Mississippi should allow the gambling industry to rebuild there.

Here’s my two-cents’ worth: Mississippi should not be regulating business. The free market does that all by itself very well. Therefore, the matter should not even be before the state Legislature. However, since it is, let the voters decide. After all, they are the ones that the state Legislature is serving. It’s their state and their livelihood. To them, I say, “Ball’s in your court.” As for the religious leaders, they can have their say (free speech). They should not, however, drown out the voices of the voters. They should make their pitch and step aside to let the voters decide.

Copyright © 2005 A.C. Cargill

Thanks in large part to FEMA, founded in 1979 by Jimmy “I’m a Peanut Farmer” Carter, almost 50% of the U.S. population lives on our coasts, per a report on CNBC Monday 26 September 2005. People can now live in harm’s way because FEMA will be there to

“lead America to prepare for, prevent, respond to and recover from disasters with a vision of ‘A Nation Prepared.’” (from http://www.fema.gov/about/history.shtm)

Of course, you may have noticed, as I have, the key phrase above “lead America.” To me, and maybe to you, too, this means that I still have responsibility for myself, that FEMA is my backup plan, not my only plan. To all those folks who chose to live in a city that sits 12 feet below sea level, or build a million dollar beach house 100-150’ from the water’s edge, or that flock to the shore for whatever reason, I have only this to say:

Pay for your own decisions. FEMA is funded by tax dollars, paid for by you, me, your neighbors, my neighbors, and everyone else in this country who works hard and gets a paycheck. We are all tired of paying for your irresponsibility and poorly-thought-out choices.

In addition, the existence of FEMA seems to be a call for local and state officials to eschew their first-line-of-defense duties. Certainly, Gov. “Blank Stare” Blanco of Louisiana and Mayor “Nuttin’ Head” Nagin heeded that call.

Right now, Michael Brown, former head of FEMA, is facing a Congressional hearing and being asked assinine questions. Clearly, he is the latest scapegoat for a situation caused by the failure of others. Once FEMA was called in is another matter. How well he acted then is a legitimate matter to look into.

Bottom line: FEMA does not replace common sense. You still have to consider carefully where you build your house or business. You have to accept the consequences if that decision ends up being a poor one. We (the taxpayers of America) are tired of being your deep pocket.

Copyright © 2005 A.C. Cargill

So, of course, the folks at CNBC, a supposedly pro-business station, keep saying that more refineries are needed but that everyone says, "Not in My Back Yard!"

The NIMBY crowd has held sway for a long time and have made building any refineries very difficult to get approved, let alone built. This crowd are backed, at least philosophically, by environmental radicals. One of the radicals was on CNBC today, claiming that "We can't back off of the environmental protections that have been put in place." Why not? Will we have a clean environment but no food to eat and no heat in our homes? I, personally, would live next to a refinery if it meant having affordable gasoline to fill up my car's tank.

Katrina and Rita are wake-up calls. They are telling us that if we want to have our Hummers and SUVs, if we want affordable heat in Winter and air conditioning in Summer, if we want to keep more jobs from migrating offshore as businesses try to keep their overhead low, if we want affordable food, then we all have to rethink "NIMBY."

Green is good, but not just when it's grass. Green is also good in our wallets, especially when it buys us the things that keep us civilized.

Maybe NIMBY should be revised to stand for: "Now Income Means Business 'Yes'."

Copyright © 2005 A.C. Cargill

As I wrote in a blog on Townhall.com in “New Hill becomes Poo Hill” (you may have to scroll down to see it), the tiny community of New Hill, about 25 miles southwest of Raleigh, NC, is under threat of having a lot of raw sewage washing over them. The threat doesn’t come from a hurricane. It comes from the nearby towns of Apex, Cary, Holly Springs, and Morrisville. And the sewage wouldn’t be a one-time, with FEMA coming in to clean up. It would be continuous.

Since I posted that blog, the “fab four” towns named above have not relented in their efforts, despite very vocal and strenuous opposition from the residents of New Hill, joined by many residents of the “fab four.” One Apex Town Board member, Bill Jensen, in a letter to the Editor of the Apex Herald, asked a very important question, especially in the dark shadow of the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London, CT:

Thanks, Bill. We all needed that, i.e., an indication that there is a public servant out there that understands what being a “public servant” is and serving ALL of that public, not just some.

Of course, someone will point out that the sewage will come into New Hill via sewage pipes, and will not be washing into the residents’ houses. Small difference when you consider the large, open air vats into which those pipes will dump the sewage. Try being downwind of that, smelling it, even with the windows shut, in your office, your home, your school, your church. You’d feel like the folks in New Hill do – that they’re getting the “royal flush” from the “fab four.”

The fight’s not over. It’s just getting dirtier. Maybe we need to call in FEMA.

Copyright © 2005 A.C. Cargill

The ADA took effect July 26, 1992. Along with that came The Accessibility Guidelines for Buildings and Facilities. Item 4, paragraph 4.6 of these guidelines specifies Parking and Passenger Loading Zones, one result being the requirement of setting aside parking spaces for the disabled. While I can’t find fault with giving disabled drivers and passengers special consideration, I can and do find fault with having to force making these considerations down the throats of business owners.

Maybe my view of human nature is more positive. After all, any store manager worth his/her salt would most likely institute special parking without legislation such as ADA to more fully accommodate his customers. That’s good for business. The ADA requirement is just a short cut for people who want to bully their way through what should be a mutually cooperative situation. It’s also opening a whole can of worms. Harris Teeter, for example, has gone one step further in setting up spaces reserved for people with other special conditions, which my husband and I recently experienced.

As soon as we saw the sign announcing that Harris Teeter was coming soon, we kept an eye on construction progress. (I’m sure the folks at Lowe’s Foods were watching, too.) When the store finally had its grand opening, we went to check it out, picking up a few items and browsing the well-stocked shelves. However, parking was another matter. We had to pass up one empty parking space after another. Each of those spaces had a portable sign in front of it. Some read “For Expectant Mothers.” Others read “For Mothers With Children.”Hmmm… Seems like Harris Teeter is working hard to be considerate of mothers and wants them to have the best parking spots – aside from the ones already reserved for the disabled. (It isn’t happening just here, though. Friends in Arizona emailed me a photo of a sign with a stork on it. The sign says “Expectant Mom’s Parking Only,” at least, I think it does. The sign is covered in graffiti.) As we drove by the Harris Teeter signs, we wondered where the others were. Other signs, you ask? Why, yes. Consider…

The 2000 U.S. Census shows that there are currently over 6 million children in the United States today who are living in “grandparent- or other relative-maintained households.” So signs like “Fathers With Children,” “Grandparents With Children,” “Aunts and Uncles With Children,” and even “Teens With Children” would be appropriate. In fact, we saw a dad with his cute, little daughter walking toward the store – from a parking space twice as far from the store entrance as the one reserved for Mothers With Children. Guess fathers and others don’t count.Perhaps the folks at Harris Teeter can make it easier for any childcaregiver shopping in their store to get to and from the car more easily with children. But why stop there? As long as we have taken one step down this slippery slope, might as well take another. (How to enforce the various restrictions is another article altogether.)

We live in an age when just about any condition, physical or familial, could be considered in need of special parking. Certainly, being an expectant mother qualifies. But don’t forget these: “Parking for People With Tight Shoes,” “Parking for Agoraphobics,” “Parking for Peg-Legged Pirates,” “Parking for Runaway Brides,” and "Parking for Crazy Women Who Like to Camp Out in Crawford, Texas."

Soon, as the categories get expanded further, Harris Teeter will have to resort to setting up satellite parking on the other side of the street by Lowe’s Foods for the rest of us with a shuttle back to their store. Oh, darn, that parking is for “Starbucks Addicts” only. Guess we’ll have to shop at Lowe’s Foods after all.

Copyright © 2005 A.C. Cargill