Trade Associations

When I was in Washington last week, I was really impressed how many associations are there. I mean, if you are going to be lobbying Congress, that's where you need to be--but it is still startling how many thousands of these groups exist. Here's a picture from near our hotel in Alexandria:


Click here to enlarge

I had recent opportunity to chat with the lobbyist for the Idaho Elk Breeders Association. At this point, you may be asking yourself the same question I asked: "There is an association for that?"

Some of you may even be asking, "What's an elk?" We went looking for an elk herd a few weeks back a few miles north of our home. These are elk:


Click here to enlarge

So I decided to research the Idaho Elk Breeders Association, and I found this article about the controversy over a bill regulating the industry introduced by the state senator I am trying to unseat:

Friday's three-hour debate featured bickering elk ranchers who criticized the bill -- even though it had been drafted by members of their own industry association.

"The industry, regardless of what you've been told, 80 percent is totally against licensing," said Charles Warner, an elk rancher from Kellogg in northern Idaho and a board member of the Idaho Elk Breeders Association.

He said other members of the association came up with the licensing plan in secret.

Warner argued licensing was a violation of his property rights, especially when years of disease testing have shown no signs of chronic wasting disease, brucellosis or tuberculosis in domestic herds.

Two Republicans, Reps. Dennis Lake, of Blackfoot, and Jim Patrick, of Twin Falls, voted against the bill because they were against new regulation.

Meanwhile, three Democrats on the panel said the bill was too weak and they believed its failure could add momentum to a possible citizen initiative, like Montana's in 2000 that outlawed so-called "shooter bull" operations, to clamp down on elk ranches.

"(The bill) is a whitewash from industry," said Rep. Branden Durst, D-Boise. "It's a way they can inoculate themselves from a citizen initiative, and I think that's a travesty."

Idaho has 78 elk ranches that harvest elk for meat and antler velvet. Seventeen also allow fenced hunts for trophy bulls, which some hunting groups argue violates fair-chase ethics of wild hunts.

I'm still scratching my head trying to understand all the different players on this, and where I stand on this matter. It is still an astonishing little universe that most Idahoans doubtless don't even realize exists.

Not Hearing This In The Idaho Statesman, Are We?

Not Hearing This In The Idaho Statesman, Are We?

From The Australian, March 22, 2008:

Last Monday - on ABC Radio National, of all places - there was a tipping point of a different kind in the debate on climate change. It was a remarkable interview involving the co-host of Counterpoint, Michael Duffy and Jennifer Marohasy, a biologist and senior fellow of Melbourne-based think tank the Institute of Public Affairs. Anyone in public life who takes a position on the greenhouse gas hypothesis will ignore it at their peril.

Duffy asked Marohasy: "Is the Earth still warming?"

She replied: "No, actually, there has been cooling, if you take 1998 as your point of reference. If you take 2002 as your point of reference, then temperatures have plateaued. This is certainly not what you'd expect if carbon dioxide is driving temperature because carbon dioxide levels have been increasing but temperatures have actually been coming down over the last 10 years."

Duffy: "Is this a matter of any controversy?"

Marohasy: "Actually, no. The head of the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has actually acknowledged it. He talks about the apparent plateau in temperatures so far this century. So he recognises that in this century, over the past eight years, temperatures have plateaued ... This is not what you'd expect, as I said, because if carbon dioxide is driving temperature then you'd expect that, given carbon dioxide levels have been continuing to increase, temperatures should be going up ... So (it's) very unexpected, not something that's being discussed. It should be being discussed, though, because it's very significant."

Duffy: "It's not only that it's not discussed. We never hear it, do we? Whenever there's any sort of weather event that can be linked into the global warming orthodoxy, it's put on the front page. But a fact like that, which is that global warming stopped a decade ago, is virtually never reported, which is extraordinary."

Duffy then turned to the question of how the proponents of the greenhouse gas hypothesis deal with data that doesn't support their case. "People like Kevin Rudd and Ross Garnaut are speaking as though the Earth is still warming at an alarming rate, but what is the argument from the other side? What would people associated with the IPCC say to explain the (temperature) dip?"

Marohasy: "Well, the head of the IPCC has suggested natural factors are compensating for the increasing carbon dioxide levels and I guess, to some extent, that's what sceptics have been saying for some time: that, yes, carbon dioxide will give you some warming but there are a whole lot of other factors that may compensate or that may augment the warming from elevated levels of carbon dioxide.

"There's been a lot of talk about the impact of the sun and that maybe we're going to go through or are entering a period of less intense solar activity and this could be contributing to the current cooling."

Duffy: "Can you tell us about NASA's Aqua satellite, because I understand some of the data we're now getting is quite important in our understanding of how climate works?"

Marohasy: "That's right. The satellite was only launched in 2002 and it enabled the collection of data, not just on temperature but also on cloud formation and water vapour. What all the climate models suggest is that, when you've got warming from additional carbon dioxide, this will result in increased water vapour, so you're going to get a positive feedback. That's what the models have been indicating. What this great data from the NASA Aqua satellite ... (is) actually showing is just the opposite, that with a little bit of warming, weather processes are compensating, so they're actually limiting the greenhouse effect and you're getting a negative rather than a positive feedback."

All We Are Saying, Is Give Spell Checker A Chance

All We Are Saying, Is Give Spell Checker A Chance

Zombietime again attends an antiwar rally in San Francisco, and shows us some astonishing reminders that spelling isn't one of the strong points of the left.



She also points to this amazing sign which brings to mind the famous saying, "This isn't right. It isn't even wrong."



What does Boise have to do with this?

Make sure you read the entire posting. For once, it is a worksafe set of images. The "Breasts Not Bombs" naked partial sex change bunch doesn't seem to have made it to this event.

A Devastating Critique Of Obama

A Devastating Critique Of Obama

Alan K. Henderson has a devastating critique of Obama's speech trying to defend his association with Rev. Wright:

Obama explains that he stays with his church because he knows about Wright a lot more than just a few selected quotes. But aren't those few quotes sufficient to identify serious moral flaws that call into question a man's qualifications as a spiritual leader. Wouldn't Fred Phelps' "God hates fags" sound bite be enough to tell me that investing 20 years at Westboro Baptist Church might not be a good idea?

I would not bemoan someone for associating with seriously flawed individuals like Wright or Phelps or Farrakhan if one refrains from aiding and abetting those flaws - see Romans 12:2. In the case of relations with dubious clergymen, that means not becoming regular members of the organizations through which they spread their iniquity.

Not Every Breakdown Stays Tragic

Not Every Breakdown Stays Tragic

Some times there are little victories. A reader found my blog while looking for a picture of the Moon. His story:

I live in Fife in Scotland.

I was looking for large and interesting desktop wallpaper images with Google and I found your blog by accident.

I'm a psychiatric day patient. I certainly don't carry a 'gun'. But I wanted to describe my last ten or so years:

In 1996 I was in London. I had a newly pregnant girlfriend. It was too much for my poor wee brain to take so I spent the year gradually going down the slippery slope til in early 1997 I was admitted to psychiatric hospital near where my parents live.

I had twenty months in-patient treatment then my first discharge into the local community. I had temporary accommodation for a while and took a local authority (public housing) tenancy in 1999.

To be honest, I really had a hell of a time, not in a good way. I walked out on the whole thing in 2000 and went off to find some peace travelling the country. On my return I made an attempt on my own life. New Year saw me back in the acute admissions ward.

In 2005 my neighbour murdered a young woman in his flat and I felt lucky to avoid losing my sanity.

Since then I've been in recovery. I attend the day hospital in a small town and I've learned how to use the system wisely. I have been in some very, very dark states of mind undoubtedly. Whether the medical folk ever considered 'throwing away the key' I don't know. But I'm now 99% certain that institutional care is no longer necessary for me. I think that the idea of community care is not new but that it takes a LOT of working out both from the staff side and from that of the service user.

There are cases of mad people doing bad things. Tragedies every one. But the freedoms we aspire to (American's above all, surely) are not really possible in a hermetic, clinical environment. Long-stay patients have an easy time of it which is as it should be. But all human beings have the capacity to engage more fully in society although as I've said it's a long journey to reach the destination. And even then it's simply a new beginning.

I have a friend in Cincinnati I met through the Internet site 'schizophrenia.com'. She lost a son. He shot someone and then himself. Terrible. She has another son who she helps care for at home, who is going to a programme of some sort. With the little I've got to know him seems like a nice guy.

As psychiatric patients we suffer a lot of stigma as it is. Centuries-worth of it in fact. Don't let's be hasty to stifle the current drive for increased inclusion and opportunity. Sh*t happens, as I'm sure you will be well aware. Dangerous situations arise that tax the best and worst of us. In my opinion the way forward is forward, not back.

I do wish you well in your political life and I'm glad I found the web stuff. As it happens the image I downloaded for my desktop is a lovely full moon just as there is in the sky this evening. Perfect for lunatics and Republicans alike!

God's blessings. Happy Easter. Life is for living. Together we can do it, that's my belief.

Some people recover after treatment. By his own admission, he's not completely recovered, but he's well enough to live outside a hospital--an admirable aspiration for anyone struggling with schizophrenia. Certainly, if there is a way to make community level treatment work, that's the best possible choice. For some, it works, for others, it does not. His web page is here.

Bearded Legislator Analysis

Perhaps I am going to have to give up the beard. Adam Graham has crunched the numbers on this, and reports:

No State for Bearded Men

Looking at the State Senate, I see that of 29 male members, 3 have beards. In the House, there are 51 men, and 2 have beards. So, of a total of 80 male legislators, only five have beards, equaling 6.25% of the Male Legislators. I’d say that greater that a good 10-12% of men around these parts have beards (though I have no studies to back this up due to the failure of the mainstream media to report on the facial hair of Idaho men, so this is about what it seems like to me based on the people I’ve seen around town.) So, I think we can say that the beard is a detriment.

Mustaches seem to fair better. On the bright side, at least I know why I lost in 2004.

I know that for a lot of people who grew up in the 1930s, a beard was a sign that you were some sort of Communist or other dangerous freethinker. But I doubt that this could still be the reason.

I don't believe that there's anything about LDS theology that prohibits beards, but I've been told that the reason that few Mormon men have beards is that Brigham Young University requires its students to be clean shaven. (Well, the men at least.) And indeed, this document indicates that it is a requirement for missionaries. My guess is that Mormon men stay clean shaven thereafter out of habit. Because Mormons are a significant fraction of the voters in Idaho, being clean shaven may be something of an advantage at election time, not because clean shaven is a secret identifying code, but perhaps at a subconscious level there is an identification of clean shaven men with positive images. How Bill Sali (R-ID) got himself elected with that beard of his really makes me wonder!

Does "Typical Black Person" Sound Bigoted?

Does "Typical Black Person" Sound Bigoted?

Watching Barack Hussein Obama destroy himself isn't pretty:

610 WIP host Angelo Cataldi asked Obama about his Tuesday morning speech on race at the National Constitution Center in which he referenced his own white grandmother and her prejudice. Obama told Cataldi that "The point I was making was not that my grandmother harbors any racial animosity, but that she is a typical white person. If she sees somebody on the street that she doesn't know - there's a reaction in her that's been bred into our experiences that don't go away and sometimes come out in the wrong way and that's just the nature of race in our society. We have to break through it. What makes me optimistic is you see each generation feeling less like that. And that's pretty powerful stuff"

Talk about condescending. I'm not sure why Obama is trying to distance himself from Rev. Wright's Afrocentric racist sermons. It sounds like Obama has absorbed just a bit too much of it. If only Dr. King could see this day--would he be upset.