The Barbi Twins are no longer big fans of the Obammessiah. They think he’s turned his back on the horses. No, not the ones at the race track — well, maybe after they retire from the track they’ll fit in this story. No the Barbi twins think Obama has abandoned the horses that had until now been protected by a federal ban from being sent to U.S.-based horse slaughter houses.

Now, I did not choose to write about this story because it features two “hot” blondes with big boobs — though that doesn’t hurt. I’ve actually written about this horse meat issue before. Naturally I came down on the opposite side of the issue that the girls chose.

The two blond bobble heads are upset that Congress is repealing a ban on horse slaughter houses in the U.S. Absurdly, they seem to imagine that all horses in the country are “pets.” This is their theme to rail against the idea of having equine abattoirs operating inside the U.S.A.

Now, to millionaires that are out of touch with normal people, I guess horses might always be thought of as “pets.” But in the real world horses are often draft animals working on farms. And when they get sick or old and infirm or when owners can no longer afford to keep them they are properly — and humanely, I might add — destined for the slaughter house.

Of course, not only sick and infirm horses go to slaughter houses. Some horses that are destined for the trade in horse meat end up there. The twins are disgusted by the trade in horse meat, naturally. But horse meat is eaten all over the world and our ban won’t stop that. So why should we lose the economic benefit of the trade?

The twins and their fans are also upset that Obama came to office claiming that he would make the ban permanent. Now he’s signed the repeal of the ban. Another Obama broken promise, this one for the positive.

To start all this Barbi babbling, liberal idiocy struck a few years ago the feels-goodism causing the nitwits in Congress to intervene in a business that has existed almost since animals were put into service to mankind. And this foolish interference caused exactly the opposite conditions for American horses that animal-lovers thought they were creating.

Unintended consequences brought more misery and pain to horses in this country by the shuttering of the equine abattoirs, not less as animal-lovers thought would happen.

Horse meat trade is going on unabated in Canada and Mexico, so all we are doing is taking away jobs and economic activity by banning the slaughter houses, for one thing. But worse is that many horse owners with less money or less capability to deal with sick, old, or broken down horses are taking the poor animals to remote areas and just letting them go free where they die of starvation or are killed by coyotes and packs of wild dogs. Yeah, that is real humane of you, animal-rights nuts.

I’ll reiterate what I wrote in June: It seems that the end of horse slaughterhouses in America has not ended suffering for our equine citizens. In fact, there has been “unintended consequences” to these laws. Wouldn’t you know it, but the suffering of horses has actually increased instead of being alleviated.

The Government Accountability Office is now reporting that horses are suffering worse than ever due to the end of slaughterhouses here.

“Those horses are traveling farther to meet the same end in foreign slaughtering facilities where U.S. humane slaughtering protections do not apply,” GAO said in unusually blunt language that said that the horses are sometimes shipped in too-small containers for hundreds of miles, and that the inspection regime is too lax to help.

As Nebraska Republican Adrian Smith says, “ending horse processing has had a detrimental effect on both the economy and animal welfare. In light of this information, Congress should re-evaluate this misguided policy to allow responsible horse management which would create jobs, generate revenue and strengthen a struggling horse industry.”

The upshot is that congress killed American jobs, laid waste to an ages old industry, and caused more suffering to the very animals they thought they were helping. Typical. This story is an object lesson in the follies of do gooder government. This story just goes to show that when these lawmakers involving themselves in areas where they simply have neither any expertise nor display any common sense, they end up making matters worse in nearly every case. If this isn’t a perfect example of why our founders were right that that government which is a limited government is the best government.

Well, it looks like Congress finally addressed this issue and a reverse of the ban has come about. This is a good thing. Congress and these do gooder, animal “rights” wackos should be left out to pasture and out of our hair.

11/09/11 8:51PM
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Yes, you can thank the Obama administration for this one

(Heritage) President Obama’s Agriculture Department today announced that it will impose a new 15-cent charge on all fresh Christmas trees—the Christmas Tree Tax—to support a new Federal program to improve the image and marketing of Christmas trees.

OK, it’s not much, and it only applies to those who sell more than 500 Christmas trees…..are we still allowed to say that? Isn’t it now “Holiday Tree”?……., but, why would they do this?

In the Federal Register of November 8, 2011, Acting Administrator of Agricultural Marketing David R. Shipman announced that the Secretary of Agriculture will appoint a Christmas Tree Promotion Board. The purpose of the Board is to run a “program of promotion, research, evaluation, and information designed to strengthen the Christmas tree industry’s position in the marketplace; maintain and expend existing markets for Christmas trees; and to carry out programs, plans, and projects designed to provide maximum benefits to the Christmas tree industry” (7 CFR 1214.46(n)). And the program of “information” is to include efforts to “enhance the image of Christmas trees and the Christmas tree industry in the United States” (7 CFR 1214.10).

Here is government at its best: putting a tax, albeit a tiny one, on something that everyone, including the aliens who plan on destroying humanity over globull warming, knows about. There is absolutely no need for Big Government to help with marketing, research, evaluation, and information that strengthens the Christmas tree industry. Said program will probably cost more than any taxes taken in, just in administration.

(USA Today) From the mighty polar bear to the tiny house sparrow, many of Earth’s species appear to be shrinking in size, a new study reports — and its authors think that’s probably due to global warming.

But other experts say that conclusion goes too far, blaming global warming for what may be natural changes.

Ya think?

The new research was published online Sunday in the journal Nature Climate Change. It’s based on a review of other studies and found that 38 of 85 animal and plant species showed a documented reduction in size over decades, including a type of Scottish sheep that is 5 percent smaller than in 1985. Those studies looked at species over different time periods and in varying numbers.

The shrinking victims, according to the study, include cotton, corn, strawberries, bay scallops, shrimp, crayfish, carp, Atlantic salmon, herring, frogs, toads, iguanas, hooded robins, red-billed gulls, California squirrels, lynx and wood rats. (snip)

“There is a trend in a number of organisms across the board from plants to big vertebrates getting smaller,” said study co-author Jennifer Sheridan, a biology researcher at the University of Alabama. “The theory is as things get warmer they don’t need to grow as large.”

Most of these animals are cold-blooded, so the warmer the weather the faster their metabolism is and the more calories they burn, Sheridan said. There’s a biological law, called Bergmann’s rule, that says that as it gets colder, animals get bigger.

This is the unwritten flip side of it, she said.

Well, that’s good to know. Not sure why. Not sure what the problem is. I suppose it means we’re doomed. Or, it could mean someone wants a bit of grant money. Remember how the dinosaurs got really tiny when it CO2 was above 1000ppm and the temperatures were about 5 degrees centigrade higher than today?

Oh, and because someone took an unnecessary fossil fueled boat ride, bugs are shrinking, too

(Washington Post) But now scientists say that global warming could be shrinking ants, beetles, cicadas and other bugs. Not shrinking the overall population of these bugs, but actually shrinking the bugs themselves.

This is bad why, exactly? Do we want them to get bigger?

Scientists say that over time, the smaller plants and animals could lead to food shortages that could effect the human population as well.

Ah. There we go. The scary part. Darn, if only some species would evolve enough in brain power to figure out how to do incredible things like put a man on the moon and create genetically modified foods.

When is a national park not a national park? When it is “themed” toward one small segment of the population by a government infected with PCism. That is what U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar did when he advocated recently for “Latino” themed national parks and historical landmarks.

One might ask if Salazar is Interior Secretary of the right country with such a suggestion?

To carry through with his penchant for identity politics, Salazar has also pushed the National Parks Service to forget about those evil dead white guys and try to find more places for our historic landmarks that are associated with women and minorities.

Less than 3 percent of all the national landmarks that we have the highest designation you can receive as a historic landmark are designated for women, Latinos, African Americans or other members of minority groups, Salazar said in a meeting with reporters last week. That tells you that the score is not even.

The timing for this story is, of course, suspect. Just when Obama is launching a new campaign for president, here comes his Interior Secretary pandering to Hispanics and minorities.

Imagine that.

So, what is one of the first new minority themed areas Salazar is ballyhooing? A paean to unions with a Cesar Chavez historic landmark.

To continue the left’s efforts to Balkanize the United States, Salazar will preside over the construction of a National Museum of the American Latino. Reports are that the project would cost $600 million. But you know darn well that the final tally will be double that — at least — due to the common waste, cost overruns, union skullduggery, and government failures.

This is just one more example of the left’s desire to separate Americans one from another and to make us hate our collective history and set us against each other.

(The New American) The deaths of 23 Honduran farmers involved in land disputes with UN-approved palm oil plantations are raising an international outcry against alleged “human rights abuses.” EurActiv reports members of the European Parliament (EP) are planning an investigative mission to Honduras this month while others are calling for a ban on carbon credits to the plantations under the EU’s Emissions Trading System (ETS). Additionally, it says the UN Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is weighing its validation process which originally accredited the plantations, a process critics call “only rudimentary, completely unregulated and badly documented.”

Protests erupted in July when six international human rights advocacy groups presented a report to the EP detailing what they called murders and forced evictions of peasants in El Bajo Aguán Valley of northern Honduras. The International Federation of Human Rights (FIDH) report accuses UN-sanctioned palm oil mills of stealing farmland from Honduran natives and killing or wounding them when they attempt to defend their property. It says the companies, acting with government impunity, regularly target members of local land-rights movements who end up murdered in feigned car accidents or hunted down and shot by private security guards.

Let’s boil that down: the Honduran farmers were killed over initiatives meant to stop anthropogenic global warming, and were UN and EU approved. Palm Oil is used to produce bio-fuels (and let’s not forget that the search for new palm oil fields has clear cut huge swaths of land and led to bio-destruction and the intentional hunting of orangutans. All in the name of the climate change hoax).

(From the EurActiv story) “If this is really a direct consequence of Europe’s climate policies then I would like to send my sincere apologies to the people of Honduras,” Bas Eickhout said.

Well, that’s nice. Though, dead people have no need of an apology for being killed.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach. Please sign the drill now petition.

Armed troops acting on behalf of a British carbon trading company backed by the World Bank burned houses to the ground and killed children to evict Ugandans from their homes in the name of seizing land to protect against “global warming,” a shocking illustration of how the climate change con is a barbarian form of neo-colonialism.

The evictions were ordered by New Forests Company, an outfit that seizes land in Africa to grow trees then sells the “carbon credits” on to transnational corporations. The company is backed by the World Bank and HSBC. Its Board of Directors includes HSBC Managing Director Sajjad Sabur, as well as other former Goldman Sachs investment bankers. (snip)

An Oxfam report documents how the British outfit has worked with the Ugandan government to forcibly expel over 20,000 people from their homes using terror and violence as part of a lucrative scramble for arable land that can be used to satisfy the multi-billion dollar carbon trading ponzi scheme, which is worth $1.8 million a year to the company.

I know what you’re saying: can we really trust Prison Planet? They are, after all, associated with the 9/11 Truther movement and other wacky conspiracy theories. Maybe we should ask the NY Times

According to the company’s proposal to join a United Nations clean-air program, the settlers living in this area left in a “peaceful” and “voluntary” manner.

People here remember it quite differently.

“I heard people being beaten, so I ran outside,” said Emmanuel Cyicyima, 33. “The houses were being burnt down.”

Other villagers described gun-toting soldiers and an 8-year-old child burning to death when his home was set ablaze by security officers.

Don’t believe the NY Times? How about the UK Guardian?

Francis Longoli, a small farmer from Kiboga district of central Uganda, is tearful: “I remember my land, three acres of coffee, many trees – mangoes and avocados. I had five acres of bananas, 10 beehives, two beautiful permanent houses. My land gave me everything. People used to call me ‘omataka’ – someone who owns land. Now that is no more. I am one of the poorest now,” he says.

Longoli and his family of six lost everything last year when, with three months notice, the Ugandan government evicted him and thousands of others from the Mubende and Kiboga districts to make way for the UK-based New Forests Company to plant trees, to earn carbon credits and ultimately to sell the timber.

Today, the village school in Kiboga is a New Forests Company headquarters. More than 20,000 people have been made homeless and Longoli rents a small house in Lubaali village. He says he cannot go back for fear of being attacked.

We’ve heard the Warmist talking point about anthropogenic global warming creating “climate refugees” for a couple of years now, and, I guess they are right, because we see 20,000 who were pushed off their land, violently, because of the beliefs in the anthropogenic global warming community. These people were displaced, violently, to grow trees for carbon credits. The Oxfam report also states

….that much foreign investment actually hurts developing economies, taking fertile land out of production, weakening a country’s ability to feed itself, and displacing tens of thousands of citizens with no recourse or compensation.

All in the name of the climate change hoax. This can be laid directly at the feet of people like Al Gore and his unhinged cult.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach. Please sign the drill now petition.

Our country is facing two related but separate crises. The first is the federal government’s debt crisis, the result of decades of fiscal mismanagement by both political parties as well as unsustainable entitlement commitments. The second is the jobs crisis, which has resulted in painful levels of unemployment and underemployment. President Obama is wrong to think that the answer is to increase spending or raise taxes when so many millions of Americans are out of work.

See how Cantor pulls an Obama and only blames Democrats……oh, wait, he realized that the problem was both parties.

In fact, the Obama administration’s anti-business, hyper-regulatory, pro-tax agenda has fueled economic uncertainty and sent the message from the administration that “we want to make it harder to create jobs.” There is no other conclusion for policies such as the new Environmental Protection Agency regulations, including the “Transport Rule,” which could eliminate thousands of jobs, or the ozone regulation that would cost upward of $1 trillion and millions of jobs in the construction industry over the next decade. The administration’s new maximum achievable control technology standards for cement are expected to affect nearly 100 cement plants, setting over-the-top requirements resulting in increased costs and possibly thousands of jobs being offshored. There is the president’s silence as the National Labor Relations Board seeks to prevent Boeing from opening a plant in South Carolina that would create thousands of jobs. Such behavior, coupled with the president’s insistence on raising the top tax rate paid by individuals and small businesses, has resulted in a lag in growth that has added to the debt crisis, contributing to our nation’s credit downgrade.

Come on, Eric, it is simply unreasonable, mean spirited, and probably raaaaacist to boot, to mention specific instances where the Obama administration is going to cause major problems within the private sector.

Unfortunately, we have found President Obama to be an unwilling partner when it comes to getting America’s fiscal house in order. Since taking office, he has added trillions to the debt, ignored the recommendations of his own fiscal commission and put forth a budget that failed to address the drivers of our debt. Then we had to drag him to the table to make even the modest spending cuts that Standard & Poor’s says don’t go far enough.

Hey, don’t you realize that Obama is tired? He works so hard to travel around and give self serving speeches calling for bipartisanship then slamming those he wants to roll over and work with him.

But the politics of division have reared up, fueled by efforts to incite class warfare. For example, though he often talks about millionaires, billionaires and corporate jet owners paying their “fair share,” behind closed doors the president admits to wanting to raise taxes on individuals making $200,000 per year and families and small businesses earning $250,000 per year.

Eric should have challenged Obama to pay higher taxes himself right now. Put his money where his mouth is. The Politico, in their coverage of the op-ed, focuses mostly on the class warfare portion. Cantor continues on in explaining Obama’s class warfare tendencies, as well as mentioning that Obama wants more failed stimulus. Ed Morrissey calls this “The leaks of his rumored plan sound a lot like Porkulus II, a sequel to a flop.” Kinda like following up on the movie Heaven’s Gate with Cutthroat Island, two of the biggest flops ever. But, Cantor and the Republicans have actual, specific, real world ideas

That is why this fall the Republican Party will pursue a legislative agenda that boosts economic growth through reducing the regulatory and tax burden. We will make sure that Washington policies are less restrictive to businesses small and large. Our goals include repealing the “3 percent withholding rule,” which serves as an effective tax increase on those who do business with the government, and overturning the EPA’s proposed regulations that inhibit jobs in areas as varied as cement and farm dust. We plan to prevent the NLRB from inhibiting where a business chooses to create jobs. We well know that the Republican majority was not elected to raise taxes or take more money out of the pockets of hardworking families and business people. We were elected to change the way Washington does business and spends money.

The GOP needs to make sure they push this agenda hard the minute they come back from the August recess, even if there is zero chance of the legislation making it through the Democrat controlled Senate or Obama’s veto pen. Much of politics is optics, and they have to at least be seen as trying to do something that makes sense.

Crossed at Pirate’s Cove. Follow me on Twitter @WilliamTeach.

In a surprise announcement, the Obama administration said it will review the deportation cases of 300,000 illegal immigrants and might allow many of them to stay in the U.S., a decision that angered immigration hard-liners and pleased Hispanic advocacy groups.

Under the plan, federal authorities will review individually all cases of immigrants currently in deportation proceedings. Those who haven’t committed crimes and who aren’t considered a threat to public safety will have a chance to stay in the U.S. and to later apply for a work permit.

The shift could help counter growing discontent among Hispanic voters and immigration advocacy groups about record deportations; audits of businesses that have pushed undocumented workers underground; and the lack of progress toward overhauling the immigration system under President Barack Obama.

The announcement comes as several states seek to pass laws to crack down on illegal immigrants, including millions who flocked to the U.S. before the recession to take blue-collar jobs in construction, agriculture and hospitality.

A senior administration official described the move as an effort to better use limited immigration-enforcement resources and to alleviate pressure on overburdened immigration courts. The idea, this person said, is to “identify low-priority cases…and administratively close the case so they no longer clog the system.” The official added that such cases could be reopened by the government at any time.

While the announcement doesn’t address illegal immigrants who aren’t involved in deportation proceedings, it could benefit them indirectly. “They will be less likely to enter the caseload to begin with, so we can focus on folks in the caseload who are high priority,” said the administration official.

Critics described the decision as a step by the administration toward offering amnesty for illegal immigrants. “The Obama administration should enforce immigration laws, not look for ways to ignore them,” said Rep. Lamar Smith (R., Texas), head of the House Judiciary Committee.

Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which lobbies against legalization, said: “In essence, the administration has declared that U.S. immigration is now virtually unlimited to anyone willing to try to enter—subject only to those who commit violent felonies after arrival.”

Others welcomed the move. Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, a nonpartisan advocacy organization, described it as a “step forward” and a “sound policy decision that uses valuable law-enforcement resources to remove those who once caused harm but keeps contributing members of the immigrant community here.”

The majority of agricultural workers are in the U.S. illegally. “We hope this is a move toward an immigration solution that works for agriculture,” said Jason Resnick, general counsel of Western Growers, a California-based association that represents produce growers. “Even in this time of great unemployment, we are not seeing domestic workers apply for jobs.”

Ordinarily, illegal immigrants can’t get work permits, and most never apply for fear of opening themselves up to deportation. The new plan would enable some to get permits, said the administration official, who didn’t elaborate other than to say decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nevada) outlining the plan, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that an interagency working group would execute a “case-by-case review of all individuals currently in removal proceedings to ensure that they constitute our highest priorities.”

Administration officials said low-priority cases likely to be shelved include individuals brought to the U.S. as children by their parents, undocumented spouses of U.S. military personnel and immigrants who have no criminal record.

“This process will allow additional federal enforcement resources to be focused on border security and the removal of public safety threats,” Ms. Napolitano said in the letter.

Current immigration policy aims to deport illegal immigrants who commit serious crimes, but critics say it is snaring too many immigrants who have committed only minor offenses, like traffic violations, or who have called the police to report a crime. Controversy over a key element of the policy, the Secure Communities program, is threatening the president’s relations with the Hispanic community.

This week, there have been protests in several cities, including Los Angeles, Chicago and Atlanta, prompted by the surge in deportations and administration plans to expand the program.

More than 390,000 people were removed from the U.S. in each of the last two years, surpassing previous years. Immigration courts are so jammed it can often take more than a year for a judge to rule on a deportation case.

U.S. immigration policy has eclipsed the economy and jobs as the top issue for Hispanic voters, according to a national poll released in June. To Hispanic voters, Mr. Obama has touted his support for an immigration overhaul that would put illegal immigrants on the path to legalization, and has bemoaned a lack of support from Republicans.

The immigration issue is a critical one for Mr. Obama as he prepares for reelection. He won 67% of the Hispanic vote in 2008. Republicans are unlikely to significantly increase their share of the Hispanic vote, but Mr. Obama needs Latinos to turn out in large numbers.

An effort to pass the Dream Act, which would allow certain young people brought to the U.S. illegally as children to stay, failed at the end of last year and has little chance in the Republican-controlled House. The prospects for comprehensive immigration legislation, which would provide a path to citizenship for a broader group of illegal immigrants, are even worse.

Hispanic lawmakers have called on the Obama administration to hold off deporting any young people who would qualify for legal residency under the Dream Act. Last month, four House Democrats wrote Mr. Obama arguing that most of those being deported “are not criminals and pose no threat to our country’s security.”

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

Animals across the world are fleeing global warming by heading north much faster than they were less than a decade ago, a new study says.

About 2,000 species examined are moving away from the equator at an average rate of more than 15 feet per day, about a mile per year, according to new research published Thursday in the journal Science which analyzed previous studies. Species are also moving up mountains to escape the heat, but more slowly, averaging about 4 feet a year.

The species – mostly from the Northern Hemisphere and including plants – moved in fits and starts, but over several decades it averages to about 8 inches an hour away from the equator.

“The speed is an important issue,” said study main author Chris Thomas of the University of York. “It is faster than we thought.” …

“It’s already affected the entire planet’s wildlife,” Thomas said in a phone interview. “It’s not a matter that might happen in the lifetime of our children and our grandchildren. If you look in your garden you can see the effects of climate change already.”

SOURCE

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.). For a daily critique of Leftist activities, see DISSECTING LEFTISM. To keep up with attacks on free speech see TONGUE-TIED. Also, don’t forget your daily roundup of pro-environment but anti-Greenie news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH . Email me here

The vampire bat caused its first U.S. fatality, health authorities said Thursday.

A 19-year-old migrant farm worker who had been bitten while in his native Michoacan on July 15, 2011, 10 days before he left for the U.S. to pick sugar cane at a plantation in Louisiana.

“This case represents the first reported human death from a vampire bat rabies virus variant in the United States,” the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said in its weekly Morbidity and Mortality weekly report.

Well, technically, the death was more of a Mexican death than a US one, because he was bitten in Mexico. But, here we go

The CDC warned that though vampire bat populations are currently confined to Latin America, climate change could result in a northward migration of their population, possibly leading to more cases of human infection in the southern United States.

“Research suggests that the range of these bats might be expanding as a result of changes in climate. Expansion of vampire bats into the United States likely would lead to increased bat exposures to both humans and animals (including domestic livestock and wildlife species) and substantially alter rabies virus dynamics and ecology in the southern United States.”

Got that? Because someone drove an SUV, probably Jammie Wearing Fool, vampire bats might spread and kill people. In the United States. Even though the bite occurred in the Michoacan province of Mexico, which is pretty far south in Mexico. Even though the range of vampire bats extends throughout most of South America, up through all of Central America, all of Mexico, and into a sliver of Southwest America. And has for a long, long time. Eh, facts be damned, it’s mankind’s fault. Consensus says so!