You know what just drives me nuts?

[Weevil]

Okay, so, it's a pretty well known fact that areas of natural wetlands will reduce a storm surge in a coastal region. I've heard numbers indicating that it is as much as half a foot for every two miles of wetland.

So your dumbass, hillbilly, braindead president decides to reverse a policy started by his father promising no net loss of wetlands in Louisiana. Environmentalists raise a hackle and it's dismissed as ridiculous ecobabble.

And then everybody gets worked up about environmental disasters after paying absolutely no attention to preventing them or minimizing their impact. I'm not callous enough to say "Told you so" but, well, we motherfucking told you so.

God damn it.

 

[LukkyKnight]

http://home.tiscali.be/cartoo/Nema4/nuts.jpg

 

[Minkey Boodle]

No. No. No. No. God sent the hurricane to clean up New Orleans because he hates fags.

The destruction had nothing to do with environmental conditions.

 

[Weird Harold]

So your dumbass, hillbilly, braindead president decides to reverse a policy started by his father promising no net loss of wetlands in Louisiana. Environmentalists raise a hackle and it's dismissed as ridiculous ecobabble.

I didn't know Slick Willy's dad was president too.

That promise of no net loss of wetlands was broken as soon as congressmen from the other 49 states saw how much pork would have to be diverted from their constituencies to keep it.

 

[Morwen]

Okay, so, it's a pretty well known fact that areas of natural wetlands will reduce a storm surge in a coastal region. I've heard numbers indicating that it is as much as half a foot for every two miles of wetland.

So your dumbass, hillbilly, braindead president decides to reverse a policy started by his father promising no net loss of wetlands in Louisiana. Environmentalists raise a hackle and it's dismissed as ridiculous ecobabble.

And then everybody gets worked up about environmental disasters after paying absolutely no attention to preventing them or minimizing their impact. I'm not callous enough to say "Told you so" but, well, we motherfucking told you so.

God damn it.

Clinton didn't do anything in this regard either. Blatantly racist aspersions like "hillbilly" sink your entire argument. It's not the hillbillies looting and murdering in New Orleans, you hack. You are a partisan message board non-entity. Like a bunch of Liberal Democrats could have stopped a hurricane. Be real.
Next.

 

[dolf]

Okay, so, it's a pretty well known fact that areas of natural wetlands will reduce a storm surge in a coastal region. I've heard numbers indicating that it is as much as half a foot for every two miles of wetland.

And then everybody gets worked up about environmental disasters after paying absolutely no attention to preventing them or minimizing their impact.

it'd be nice to think that people will learn from this.

yup, it'd be nice...totally unrealistic but nice.

 

[Weevil]

Clinton didn't do anything in this regard either. Blatantly racist aspersions like "hillbilly" sink your entire argument. It's not the hillbillies looting and murdering in New Orleans, you hack. You are a partisan message board non-entity. Like a bunch of Liberal Democrats could have stopped a hurricane. Be real.
Next.

1) Clinton maintained the no net loss of wetland policy
2) Hillbillies aren't a race
3) This isn't about stopping a hurricane but minimizing the damage they do
4) I'm not a democrat.

 

[Gil_Favor]

Isnt it about time for you to start clubbin baby seals?

 

[fgarvb1]

The only thing that would greatly reduce the storm surge of a cat. 4 or cat.5 hurricane would be...like fucking mountains.

If the land is flat you are fucked for quite a ways inland.

And if its swampland...well!

 

[cjh]

The only thing that would greatly reduce the storm surge of a cat. 4 or cat.5 hurricane would be...like fucking mountains.

If the land is flat you are fucked for quite a ways inland.

And if its swampland...well!

Wetlands act as a "speed bump," slowing down storms almost like dry land does, said Kip Patrick, spokesman for America's Wetland. "They take some of the brunt of the force of the hurricane, weakens the storm like any land mass would."

Sidney Coffee, executive assistant to the governor for coastal activities, said about 1,900 square miles of wetlands have disappeared from the area since the 1930s, and the receding continues at a rate of about 24 square miles per year. The erosion has a direct impact on New Orleans' ability to absorb the blow of a storm like Katrina, she said. For every 2.7 miles of wetlands, storm surges are reduced by about one 1 foot, she said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9118570/

 

[luxey313]

No. No. No. No. God sent the hurricane to clean up New Orleans because he hates fags.

The destruction had nothing to do with environmental conditions.

And all those sinners showin' their private parts at Mardi Gras.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Moisturizing the EPA

By Robert J. Smith on 1.13.12 @ 6:05AM

The Supreme Court has a golden opportunity to restore property rights in the Sackett "wetlands" case.

Property rights advocates had reason to be optimistic this week, as the Supreme Court heard arguments in Sackett v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. At stake is landowners' right to challenge bureaucratic control of their lands without redress or any meaningful right to appeal. The Justices seemed receptive to arguments on behalf of the plaintiffs, Mike and Chantell Sackett. A ruling in their favor would help restore some of the property rights protections that have been eroded over the past century.

The Sacketts had purchased a small lot in Priest Lake, Idaho, to build their home. The lot was in a residential area and they obtained all the necessary permits, graded the lot, and dumped gravel for the foundation. Then the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) suddenly declared their lot a federally protected wetland under the Clean Water Act, and told the Sacketts they must restore it to pristine condition or face a fine of $37,500 per day.

They were told they could not appeal until they had exhausted all administrative remedies. Therefore, they must restore the land at considerable cost and then appeal for a permit, a process which could take years and cost tens of thousands of dollars -- and likely result in a denial of their appeal. Only then would they be able to go to court -- by which time they might be facing bankruptcy.
The Sackett case provides the Court an opportunity to revive the orphan child of the Bill of Rights -- the Fifth Amendment, specifically due process and the takings clause. For much of the past century, various advocates of big government have run roughshod over property rights. Green activists have consistently used environmental legislation not to protect the environment but rather to impose land-use control at no cost to the government. For property owners, the costs can be staggering -- complete loss of the use of their property.

From the day the Clean Water Act was passed, giving the federal government the authority to protect navigable waters, the bureaucrats at EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have stretched the definition of navigable water beyond all rational bounds to include almost any surface that is ever wet -- no matter how seldom, for how short a time, or to what degree or depth. As one attorney has put it, the government is now trying to regulate the "moistures of the United States."

Rather than work to reduce fill and pollution in the nation's genuine navigable waters, agency regulators have spent ever-increasing amounts of time harassing small landowners, functionally "taking" their lands by preventing their use, entangling them in costly permit battles that often stretch out over several years, and even imprisoning some of them.

Consider the case of Gaston Roberge, a retiree in Old Orchard Beach, Maine. He owned a commercial lot where he had allowed the town to dump clean fill. Attempting to sell the lot for his retirement, the Army Corps charged him with illegally filling a wetland. After six years and tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees fighting to get a permit, it turned out he didn't need the permit after all, as his lot was finally designated as not a wetland. He then sued for a temporary taking of his property. During the proceedings, a Corps memo was discovered, saying, "Roberge would be a good one to squash and set an example."

That is how the Clean Water Act is being used -- to set an example in order to prevent citizens from using their own land. The EPA may well be trying to set another example at Priest Lake to slow development. Mike Sackett is in the construction business -- who better to make an example of?

At Monday's hearing, the Sacketts' attorney seemed to make a strong argument. Most of the justices seemed somewhat angered by the government's actions, some strongly so. Justice Alito asked: "[D]on't you think most ordinary homeowners would say this kind of thing can't happen in the United States?" Justice Scalia said, "It shows the high-handedness of the agency." Even Justices Sotomayor and Breyer appeared irritated at times.

Rather than wasting taxpayer money to regulate farmers' stock ponds, the federal government should concentrate on the original goals of the Clean Water Act. Those who believe in a free society and a healthy environment can only hope for a wise decision from the Court -- one that will protect landowners' rights to challenge arbitrary agency designations of dry land as navigable waters. Perhaps we are on the verge of seeing a return to the protection of people's inalienable rights, as the Constitution was intended to do.

About the Author

Robert J. Smith is a Distinguished Fellow at the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute.

http://spectator.org/archives/2012/01/13/moisturizing-the-epa

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Additionally, many libertarians within the Republican party have been coming out against Bush. They see his increased spending, his larger government, his faith based initiatives, and his near abuse of executive power and believe that he definitely doesn't stand for their fiscal and social beliefs.

When you look at Bush's policies: the faith based initiatives, the marriage proposal, his environmental policies (hurting wetlands in Florida, allowing more logging in forests, reversing much of the clean air act, not enforcing dumping and pollution problems by corporations); you realize that this president is not the compassionate conservative he claimed to be. He is definitely not the great uniter. That is evident in the incredible political polarization he causes. And he is definitely no moderate.

Everyone says it would be terrible for the Democrats to elect someone who was so far left - but the Republicans elected someone who was so far right. How's that going to turn out for them?

We may get our land back from the likes of these two, Weevil & lavy...

 

[rosco rathbone]

Clinton was a damn sight closer to being a real hill billy than GWB, who was a poseur from an old New England elite family.

 

[4est_4est_Gump]

Clinton was a damn sight closer to being a real hill billy than GWB, who was a poseur from an old New England elite family.

He was thrice removed from Billy Carter, once, by force...