Tuesday Open Thread

18 thoughts on “Tuesday Open Thread”

1. Killing Protected Species in the name of Environmental Protection
   

   Power company PacifiCorp will cough up $2.5 million in fines after its Wyoming wind farm was found to have killed 38 golden eagles and 336 other protected birds.

   The Justice Department prosecuted the company’s green energy project, asserting that the company failed to build the windmills in a way that would minimize the threat to endangered birds.

   “PacifiCorp Energy built two of its Wyoming wind projects in a manner it knew would likely result in the deaths of eagles and other protected birds,” said Sam Hirsch, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Environment and Natural Resources Division in a statement in December.

   PacifiCorp pleaded guilty to the charges earlier this month, according to the Associated Press.

   http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/01/20/bird-chopper-wind-farm-fined-by-justice-department-for-killing-golden-eagles/

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   1. You fail to mention the context – 

      In documents presented in court, the government alleged that PacifiCorp Energy failed to make all reasonable efforts to build the projects in a way that would avoid the risk of avian deaths by collision with turbine blades, despite prior guidance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS).  However, the company cooperated with the FWS investigation and has already implemented measures aimed at minimizing avian deaths at the sites.

      There is no way to make a wind turbine that is 100% safe for eagle and other federally protected birds. That said, 38 eagle deaths and 336 lark, sparrow, etc deaths over five years isn't that bad – it's like 6 eagles and 50 smaller birds per year. What the company was found guilty of was neglecting "due diligence" in siting the turbines.  As the quote above indicates, the company has paid fines and implemented corrective measures.

      This is a helluva lot more accountability than your typical oil or gas extraction operation will ever face- these seldom get inspected, can pollute more or less at will, dump what they want where they want, and never are held accountable for harm to people, environment, or wildlife  –  because we are all talk and no action in Colorado when it comes to inspecting and regulating mining operations.  

      I would assume that you would be all about the oil and gas operations in Colorado being held to the same strict standards as the wind turbine operators in California?

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      1. Uh-uh. He caint stanz fer no big gubmint meddlin. Them thar fellers on that thar tee vee netwurk dun tol him that thar big gubmint be bad fer da awl bidness an such. Caint haz nunna dat now, kin we?

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2. Not to make any excuses for any corporation that violates environmental laws, but ACHole, you may consider your concern-trolling to have been acknowledged and summarily dismissed.

   From your Mother

   Or if you prefer your sources to be from the original scientific literature, you can try this 2012 Nature paper The impact of free-ranging domestic cats on wildlife of the United States. (subscription required)

    

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   1. Those cats weren't hardly a problem until you libs started your quixotic quest for "environmental protection."

      Shithead got it right — if you would just let the polluters do their work of getting filthy rich by destroying the planet, making it tougher on all those cats, tweety birds will be just fine!

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   2. And then there's Sovacool 2013 [pdf] who concludes: "The study estimates that wind farms and nuclear power stations are responsible each for between 0.3 and 0.4 [bird] fatalities per gigawatt-hour (GWh) of electricity while fossil fueled power stations are responsible for about 5.2 fatalities per GWh."

      Hmm … ~20,000 deaths per year compared to over 14,000,000 deaths per year … which is the greater travesty? How many avian lives are saved for every ton of coal left in the ground? (The solution for this is left as an exercise for the reader.)

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      1. Wonder what AC has to say about all the fish, birds and other wildlife killed by various toxic spills and leaks connected with fossil fuel production. Wonder how "concerned" the concern troll is about that.

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         1. Still wondering.

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            1. Modus operandi of Dingleberry #1 and #2:

               1. Drop steaming, disgusting pile of Fox News lies, smears, half-truths and gross sins of omission

               2. Evacuate premises immediately

               Zero accountability ever, and never an opportunity to follow up.

               Much like Fox News itself.

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   3. I wonder how many birds are killed by cars every year? Oh wait… da google knows:

       Among well-studied causes of death tied to humans, only cats and collisions with buildings lead to more bird deaths than traffic does, the study says….89 million to 340 million birds suffer fatal injuries from vehicle encounters annually…1,500 barn owls a year died along a 150-mile stretch of interstate highway in Idaho…

      http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2014/05/29/bird-deaths-car-crashes/9623931/

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3. Quick! These must be introduced into the Rightie Borg ASAP. According to Star Trek Next Gen, the best way is through the low priority sleep (regenerative) program.

   Ten True Facts Guaranteed to Short-Circuit Republican Brains
   

   http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/09/04/1127663/-Ten-True-Facts-Guaranteed-to-Short-Circuit-Republican-Brains?detail=email

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4. Paris France to sue fox news   TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE
   Microsoft Office (Access, Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Map Quest, Photo Shop) Lotus notes, SAP,
   Concur, PeopleSoft, SharePoint, and QuickBooks, Lotus 123 Spreadsheet, Staff Database experience

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   1. This link should work http://www.mediaite.com/online/paris-mayor-announces-plans-to-sue-fox-news/

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5. I am a strong supporter of wind and solar energy, but still believe there should be more effort than Pacific Corp. obviously showed to protect birds.  FYI, since my daughter's family moved back in, we now have four cats — and they stay strictly in the house — to protect them from cars as well as to protect our birds.   And we have a bird feeder and waterer. We change water several times a day in cold weather to keep it liquid because experts say more birds die of dehydration than starvation in winter.

    

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   1.  

      Agree but that  doesn't change the fact that it's a very small part of the problem for birds (years ago we had young outdoor/indoor cats who were pretty enthusiastic hunters) and AC is a concern troll hypocrite.

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6. goodbye gop https://www.facebook.com/WorkingAmerica/photos/a.10150179024053118.326871.92021268117/10152659742118118/?type=1&theater 

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7. Democratic President regains popularity after enacting Democratic policies.

   * Obama issued executive order shifting immigration enforcement efforts away from deporting the undocumented parents of United States citizen children. Turns out, splitting up families was kinda unpopular.

   * Obama has called for free community college tuition. Turns out, making an education more affordable is popular!

   * Obama has stood strong against Keystone XL. Turns out, people don't like the despoiling of the environment. And even those who support the pipeline don't really give a shit about it. They just support it because liberals oppose it.

   * Obama announced actions to reform police departments nationwide: helping them purchase body cams while overhauling the program that sends surplus military hardware to local departments. Who knew that wouldn't be the death knell of Obama's presidency?

   * Obama normalized relations with Cuba, which turns out, delighted more people than the few crusty and cranky old-generation Cuban-Americans left in South Florida.

   * Obama announces plan to expand paid sick leave. Turns out, allowing sick people to stay home, rather than 1) working sick, and 2) infecting everyone else around them, is popular.

   But hey, for the sake of argument, let's pretend that Obama's massive approval gains are entirely based on economic gains. That still shows that doing popular, liberal things won't kill a Democrat. Republicans have lost their heads over every single one of the bullet items above, and it doesn't matter. Conservatives may have decided Obama is the devil, but they're on the fringy outside.

   Just imagine if Obama had governed like this from Day One, instead of wasting years of his life trying to make nice with an intractable and hostile Republican Party. The biggest failure of Obama's presidency was believing his campaign bullshit about "bringing the country together." You can only make peace with a foe when they are ready to make peace, and Republicans are on a holy war to destroy everything that is good and noble about government. They have no interest in peace or compromise for the public good, they believe only in scorched-earth war. And worse of all, it's not as if they pretended otherwise. They were very clear from the start: their job was to make Obama a one-term president, and they did everything in their power to destroy him and his legislative efforts.

   So instead of giving away concession after concession to Republicans hoping for support that would never arrive, Democrats should've pulled back all those concessions and governed as real Democrats. And instead of buying into Republican concern trolling and hiding from their accomplishments, they should've been proud of them and trumpeted them to high heaven.

   Because Democrats didn't lose in 2010 and 2014 because America turned against them. They lost because disgusted and disillusioned Democrats stayed home. Remember, there are more of us than there are of them, objectively. It just happens that our core base doesn't vote at the rate that old white Republican fucks do. Until we can turn that around, we're destined for more non-presidential year shellackings.

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   1. Aye…

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