Wednesday, March 7, 2007
The Baptists and the Bootleggers
"Rent seeking occurs, in part, because firms can receive concentrated benefits through government action while the costs are dispersed throughout the whole of society."
An excerpt:
Rent seeking in the name of environmental policy is prevalent, in part, because green policies shield otherwise ill-fated policies—paint a proposal green, and it will receive less scrutiny than it would otherwise. Moreover, the ability of economic interest groups to supplement their lobbying efforts with "public interest" allies from the environmentalist community greatly enhances their political clout. Clemson University Professor and former-Federal Trade Commission official Bruce Yandle called such efforts "Bootlegger and Baptist" coalitions. "Both bootleggers and Baptists favor statutes that shut down liquor stores on Sunday," Yandle explains. "The Baptists because of their religious preferences. The bootleggers because it expands their market."
Read the entire article here:
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/reg19n4b.html
Letter to Florida Fish and Wildlife Commission
March 2, 2007
Mr. Ken Haddad
Executive Director
Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission
620 S. Meridian Street
Tallahassee, FL 32399
RE: Panama City Crayfish
Dear Mr. Haddad:
Your agency has prepared a Draft Management Plan for a proposed listing of the Panama City Crayfish as a threatened species. The deadline for filing comments is April 5, 2007.
Since the Draft Management Plan was made available for review last Friday, February 23, 2007, we have been attempting to obtain the GIS data used for the delineation of the range of the Panama City Crayfish to be used as the designated habitat. It is estimated that over 38,000 parcels stand to be affected by this designation. With more than one third of the parcels of all of Bay County containing soils that may be conducive to this species, it is essential that all of the property owners within the affected range be properly notified and allowed an opportunity to comment on the designation. To that end, I intend to send individual letters to each property owner within the habitat area, providing Owners with information they may need to properly assess the impact this designation may have on their property. I do not want to unnecessarily alarm property owners who may not be affected. Consequently it is essential that I have the accurate GIS data that was used for delineation purposes.
I contacted your agency for the information and was directed to the U. S. Fish & Wildlife Service. Attached you will find a copy of the response from this agency. Since it is likely that the information I seek may not be available until after March 9th, I do not believe there will be sufficient time within which to notify all of the affected property owners before the deadline you have set for comments on the Plan.
By notifying all of the property owners within the area of your proposal, I hope to generate sufficient response so that your agency can more accurately assess the social and economic consequences of this designation as required by Florida Statutes. To that end, I would also request that your agency hold a public hearing in Panama City before voting to provide this extraordinary protection to the Panama City Crayfish. It would be an additional burden and
imposition on us to arrange transportation for hundreds of property owners that may wish to personally address the Commission.
I, therefore, respectfully request that you extend the deadline for comments until after a duly noticed public hearing to be held here in Bay County.
Sincerely,
Mary K. Sittman
cc: FWC Commissioners
Senator Don Gaetz
Representative Jimmy Patronis
Representative Marti Coley
Earl Durden
L. Charles Hilton, Esq.
Jack Williams, Esq.
Mayors and Commissioners of Panama City, Lynn Haven, Cedar Grove,
Callaway, Springfield, Parker
Board of County Commissioners, Bay County
Thursday, March 1, 2007
New Crayfish "Plan" Published - Property Rights Skewered
Here are some of the ways in which this monstrosity skewers your property rights and makes a mockery of Panama City, Florida:
- They decided that certain soil types 'might' be favorable for this crayfish. 70% of the land in the greater Panama City area has this soil.
- If you have the soil on your property, to build or add anything, you may be required to allow government biologists to come on your property and look for the crayfish. Their protocol requires them to make a least 3 visits to search for the creature, and each visit should be timed based on the weather conditions before and during the search.
- A "take permit" could be required. The State has the unmitigated gall to call this permit 'free'. What they neglect to tell you is that the City of Panama City had to pay an environmental consultant over $8,000 to get one of these permits for a project they did.
- You may be offered "mitigation", which is basically a payoff demand that will allow you to use your land the way you want to. The 2 for 1 mitigation plan means you'd be asked to buy 2 acres of property elsewhere for every one acre of your own property you want to use.
- Through the mitigation plan you may be transferring your money to St. Joe Company, the richest landholder and developer in the Florida panhandle, to buy their 'crayfish land' from them. You won't be able to use it for yourself. Government workers and their environmentalist leeches will use it, at taxpayer expense, to further study the crayfish and publish pointless studies about it.
- If the crayfish is found on your property, they plan to keep coming back around looking for it. If some day they can't find it any more, they can throw the book at you. Criminal charges could include heavy fines or even jail time.
- You can't tell if you have the crayfish or not! Because there is only one man in the State of Florida who is 'qualified' to identify it. He'll get the lucrative government contracts to find the thing on your property, and you have to sit back and take whatever he tells you. Is it any shock that he's also the person who petitioned the State to upgrade the endangered status of the crayfish? This whole plan should be invalidated just based on the incredible conflict of interest inherent in it.
- The plan recommends that your tax dollars get diverted to public schools in Florida to indoctrinate children. So one night you'll be sitting at your dinner table and receive a lecture from your daughter about why you need to give up your property rights for the common good of the ecosystem.
-The plan calls for 'influencing and motivating' operators of off-road vehicles to stay off this land. Assuming that means public or private land, envision a wildlife officer stopping hunters wherever they travel and telling them to get off the land. Whether they own it or not.
Again, remember, the crayfish LOVES PEOPLE. It has only been found in man-made ditches and swales between man-made tree farm rows. So it's ridiculous to have a plan to make humans grow more of them. In fact, this may be the first time the Endangered Species Act has been used to have our government introduce a species into a developed metropolitan area.
You can still do something to prevent the travesty that will befall Bay County if this law hits the books. Earlier in this blog we posted the contact information for the seven commissioners who will vote this summer to enact the law. You may want to go straight to the Governor. This will become law unless citizens stand up against it. Governor Charlie Crist can be reached at charlie.crist@myflorida.com.
Friday, February 23, 2007
Ugly, Blighted Crayfish Habitat Being Created in the City
A news reporter recently biked past a swampy mess of land and commented about why a bulldozed, back-hoed piece of blight would be called a nature preserve. It brought a snippy response in a Letter to the Editor by a member of the "Bay County Conservancy". The letter writer insinuated that we should all hang our heads in shame for being here on earth, and our penance is to create these blighted swampy areas (at landowners' and taxpayers' expense) to grow the Panama City Crayfish. Here's the letter:
It’s worth the effort to protect wildlife, habitat
Tony Simmons’ Sunday column (“Suggestions to make the new year easier to face,” Jan. 14) pointed out the seeming incongruity of having a sign announcing a nature preserve on land that has been bulldozed and bush hogged. He invites readers to “laugh or cry … but appreciate the irony.” In my 33 years of living in
There actually is some logic behind the vegetation removal on the 10-acre Talkington Family Preserve, which is now owned by the Bay County Conservancy. When the land at
The Bay County Conservancy is a local non-profit organization devoted to preserving pockets of native landscape, and it presently own 10 parcels comprising 170 acres. More information is available at
This 'nature preserve' is simply land taken from a landowner who decided to use his private property to build apartments. Since there is constant hand-wringing in the City about the need for affordable housing, you would think the government would do everything they could to streamline the building of housing units. Instead, they demanded a portion of the land be given over. It was deeded to the conservancy who created the mosquito-breeding blight, in one of the fastest growing areas of Panama City, near churches and schools. By the way, since they have already decided that pesticides could be harmful to the crayfish, forget about mosquito control . What will they say if any cases of West Nile or other harmful mosquito-born diseases are traced to crayfish 'habitiat'? That the children deserved it because they don't understand how important the crayfish is to the world?
Now the State is trying to upgrade the crayfish to a 'threatened status', creating additional bureacracy and costs for any landowner that will want to do anything with their land in this city. Again, this is in direct opposition to the concept of making Panama City an affordable place to live.
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Contact Your Florida FWCC Commissioners
Commissioners@MyFWC.com
Here are their names and home towns. Their bios can be found here:
Mr. Rodney Barreto, Chairman 2006 Miami
Mr. David K. Meehan, Vice Chairman St. Petersburg
Mr. H.A. "Herky" Huffman Enterprise
Ms. Sandra T. Kaupe Palm Beach
Mr. Richard A. Corbett Tampa
Mr. Brian S. Yablonski Tallahassee
Ms. Kathy Barco Jacksonville
Upcoming FL Fish and Wildlife Meetings
2007 Commission Meetings
February 7-8
Sandestin Resort
9300 Emerald Coast ParkwayWest
Destin, FL 32550
Phone: 850-267-8000
April 11-12
Ramada Conference Center
2900 North Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32303
Phone: 850-386-1039
June 13-14
Radisson Suite Hotel Oceanfront
3101 North Highway A1A
Melbourne, FL 32903
Phone: 321-773-9260
Crayfish Endangers Hurricane Evacuation Route
..."However, I think that it is abundantly evident that there is an overwhelming lack of biological and life history data available for this species. "
Hey, but let's go ahead and move it up higher on the endangered list so we can impose additional regulations on everyone!
All: There are many unknown consequences to PCC if the proposed Gulf Coast Parkway is built. There will be habitat loss and direct take of PCC along Star Avenue, Nehi Road, and Tram Road It is unknown whether DOT has a mitigation plan for these losses. Also unknown is whether the mitigation would be enough to recover the PCC population size to pre-construction levels. It was agreed that the proposed road expansion be monitored closely to alleviate negative impacts to PCC.
So, a popular hurricane evacuation route expansion that would improve safety for humans might be slowed down by bureaucracy as they try to maintain the human-made ditches beside this road for crayfish habitat!
A "Development-Free America"
The Endangered Species Act was passed nearly 30 years ago in a show of bipartisan good intentions, to help animals on the brink of extinction. But since that time, environmental groups have hijacked the act, turning it into a bludgeon by which they can enforce their vision of a development-free America. It's rural parts of the country, where small landowners lack deep pockets and political clout, that bear the brunt.
Communism - We're Not Kidding
"The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans." [Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project]
Spot the communist overtones? This guy is with the University of Florida and he is active in mapping out a statewide plan for government control of land that will be paid for by you, the collective human populous, but used only by wildlife. ONLY by wildlife.
A couple more:
"We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects.. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land." [David Foreman, Earth First!]
"While the death of young men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of mountains and wilderness areas by humankind." [David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth and former executive director of the Sierra Club]
More outrageous quotes are here.
Scientists Caught in Fraud
Outright Fraud and Religious Zealousness
Government scientists are not above actually planting evidence to support their anti-human beliefs. In the fall of 2001 the U.S. Forest Service found that seven federal and state wildlife biologists planted false evidence of a rare and threatened Canadian lynx in the Wenatchee and Gifford Pinchot National Forests in the state of Washington. The three U.S. Forest Service, two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and two Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife employees planted lynx fur on rubbing posts. The posts were installed to identify existence of the creatures in the two national forests as part of a lynx habitat study started in 1999. DNA testing of two of the samples matched that of a lynx living inside an animal preserve. The third DNA sample matched that of an escaped pet lynx being held in a federal office until its owner retrieved it.
Had the fraud gone undetected it would have closed roads to vehicles. They would have banned off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, skis and snowshoes, along with livestock grazing and tree thinning. Representatives Richard Pombo (R-California) and John Peterson (R-Pennsylvania), the chair communications chairman, respectively, of the House Western Caucus, were especially critical of the incident in a jointly released statement:
As Americans, we should have been astounded by the recent findings that federal officials intentionally planted hair from the threatened Canadian lynx in our national forests in order to impose sweeping land regulations. But in truth, many of us who come from rural America have grown accustomed to environmental activism prevailing over the rule of law and over the best interests of families and communities.
The guilty employees claimed they were not really trying to manipulate or expand the lynx habitat, but instead were merely testing the lab's ability to identify the cat species through DNA analysis. They did not come forward, however, until after a fellow Forest Service colleague had exposed them. “That would be like bank robbers taking money from a bank and saying they were just testing the security of a bank, they weren't really stealing the money,” said Rob Gordon, executive director of the National Wilderness Institute. Nonetheless, the story given by the seven guilty biologists prevailed, and the guilty parties received no discipline — thereby encouraging more fraud in the future. Representatives Pombo and Peterson were aghast: “This lackadaisical approach to willful, unethical conduct is unacceptable, and we see no credible alternative other than to terminate the parties if there is convincing evidence that they knowingly and willingly planted unauthorized samples.”
Retired Fish and Wildlife Service biologist James M. Beers called the false sampling amazing but not very surprising. “I'm convinced that there is a lot of that going on for so-called higher purposes,” he said. The higher purpose to which Beers referred is known as “conservation biology.” Untested, conservation biology rests on the unproven pantheistic assumption that nature knows best and that all human use and activity should follow natural patterns within relatively homogenous soil-vegetation-hydrology landscapes called ecosystems. Such belief holds that the government should not permit unnatural human development like roads, and activities snowmobiling, livestock grazing and harvesting. Furthermore, ecosystems cross unnatural property lines. Since conservation biology ostensibly calls for holistic management of entire ecosystems to protect its perceived fragile web of life, the rights of nature must be superior to the rights of people, including their property rights.
The religious zealousness driving the ESA has gotten so bad that David Stirling, Vice-president of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal foundation taking cases that have Constitutional merit, notes:
For three decades, environmental purists have actively promoted the pantheistic notion that plant and animal life rank higher on the species hierarchy than people. Their "return-to-the-wild" agenda argues that human life activities are the enemy of plant and animal species, and only through their efforts to halt growth and shut down people’s normal and necessary life endeavors will Mother Earth smile again. From as far away as the paved-over streams and erstwhile species habitat of Manhattan, a recent New York Times editorial called for farmers in the Klamath Basin to turn their land back to nature.
David Graber, Research Biologist with the National Park Service, graphically expresses this radical view:
Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but that isn’t true. Somewhere along the line — at about a million years ago, maybe half of that — we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth…. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. Conservation biology is little more than earth worship, seasoned with a little science.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
The Lee Sullivan Show
This is not the Manatee....
Letters to the Editor
Sunday, August 26, 2001
A critter of a mascot we truly can call our own
The Aug. 18 article, "Mascot sought for city," mentioned that the group organizing this wonderful art/fund-raising project was considering using the dolphin as a mascot. While I love dolphins, I think I have a more appropriate representative of our city.
There is a creature that lives nowhere else in the world but right here. It's our very own animal that no one else has. Could there be a better mascot than something that is ours and ours alone?
It's called the Panama City Crayfish and it is found only in a portion of Bay County. Because of its very limited range, it is listed by the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as a Species of Special Concern.
The truth is, this little critter could really use some publicity to help it out. What little natural habitat is left for this animal is threatened by development, both directly and through improvements to the infrastructure, and current laws don't really do much to help it.
Why should we help it? Because it's ours and we're the only ones who can. Why should we eliminate a species that we have the power to save, especially since progress would not have to be sacrificed, just made more responsible?
Lisa Keppner, Panama City
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Panama City Crayfish Documents
The 2003 petition to delist the crayfish, which was ignored by the State, is here.
Here is the current 'Management Plan' for the Panama City Crayfish, demonstrating a total lack of responsibility for reasonable documentation of issues and or impacts. There's a map so that you can see if you, or a road that you use, will be one the first victims in their target range. It includes a feeble attempt to guess at the economic impact this listing will have on the citizens of Panama City. Priceless: in the "Social Impact" section, they say:
Potentially positive social effects include increased public awareness of
Panama City crayfish and flatwoods habitats in Florida, public recognition and support of
the FWC for taking a comprehensive approach to Panama City crayfish management,...
So they really think the public will look favorably upon the FWC for saddling us with this ridiculous issue? They are really out of touch with the common sense of the average citizen.