Steam Valve

Giving New Meaning to "Wildlife Area"

I hear about the need for more open space and wildlife habitat all the time.  Just the other night we attended the Vermillion River Corridor meeting for our area.  The proposal for funding this project represented one of its goals as: "Identifies and integrates wildlife habitat protection/restoration and outdoor recreation (public access and trail) projects and priorities with water quality improvement activities"

Now wcco.com reports on "ongoing problems" in the Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge in Burnsville, where police are cracking down on males who frequent the wildlife area in order to have sex in public with strangers.  I'm guessing that's not exactly the kind of wildlife that the federal government intended to sponsor in this 14,000-acre refuge.

Although I suppose one could broadly interpret portions of the refuge's 2004 Comprehensive Conservation Plan promoting "native species and natural processes" to somehow support this natural use of the wildlife refuge.  Fortunately, however, local police do not adopt this point of view and instead call it "unacceptable behavior."

We're told that the Burnsville police will continue their enforcement in the area at least until next week.  After that, who knows?

Cross-posted at www.mnpropertyrightswatch.org

Creating Victims

In its never-ending search for victims to write about, the Star Tribune is trying to whip up sympathy for homeowners whose eminent domain award goes to their lender to pay down their mortgage.  It reports: 

In an unusual twist brought about by stressed lenders and highly leveraged real estate, homeowners across the metro who are facing the loss of land due to eminent domain projects are increasingly getting notices from banks claiming rights to the proceeds. In the past, such notices were sent so rarely that county officials never saw a need to keep track of how often it happened.

What "unusual twist?"  Standard mortgage provisions require paying eminent domain proceedings to the lender.  Homeowners benefit by getting their mortgages paid off sooner, with more of their payments going to reduce principal instead of paying interest.

Minnesota law requires that the condemning authority provide notice to lenders, as well as owners, lessees and anybody else with an interest in the property when property is sought to be condemned. 

In an interesting non sequitur, the article first tells us that homeowners are getting notices from their banks claiming rights to the condemnation proceeds.  Then, in the very next sentence, we are told that county officials have never kept track of how often "it happened" that homeowners received such notices. 

How would the county have any record of notices that were sent to homeowners?  Does the Star Tribune expect the government to be the nanny that watches over pitiful homeowners unable to read the documents they sign, and to record every time lenders enforce their contractual rights against these poor, unsuspecting homeowners?  Just exactly how much intrusion into our lives will be necessary to protect us from our own ignorance?

Did this writer even attempt to get to the bottom of this non-story? Or, in her mission to infantilize homeowners and pave the way for more governmental intervention, did she think that was unnecessary?

Birds Thrive in Urban Sprawl

Surprise.  Moderately settled suburban subdivisions, a/k/a "sprawl" was found to increase biodiversity for birds.  And the most birds were not found around tightly clustered homes in the middle of open space or forested land.  Instead, University of Washington Professor John Marzluff explained:

"The diversity peaks in these moderately settled subdivisions, what we think of as sprawl. That was really a surprise. We expected that sprawl would be the worst thing for birds, but in fact it increases diversity."

Marzluff points out openings, some edges, some forest remnants, and urban features are all close together here. He says that variety of habitat in the typical leafy suburb promotes the feathered riches.

The finding jives with what longtime neighborhood resident Milton Dick sees beyond his five acre lot. Dick says it seems like there are more birds around.

Dick: "Lots of birds here, all kinds. A lot of people feed them. A lot of people have bird feeders down here. The birds come back, year after year you see them."

Do the Math First

Hennepin County commissioner Jeff Johnson did the math on the solar panels recently installed on the county’s Public Works building in Medina.  He heard that the panels were a terrific cost savings measure for the county taxpayers because they would save $15,000 per year in energy costs.

And then he asked how much it cost the county to install the solar panels.

They cost $900,000.

Doing the math, Johnson concluded:

Yes, these solar panels will begin to save the taxpayers of Hennepin County $15,000 per year in 2070.  My 5th grade son, Thor, will be 71.  I will be dead.  And I’m willing to wager that the Hennepin County Public Works building in Medina will be long gone.

Why can't public officials do the math before these projects are implemented?

Some Hit Hard by the Economy Have a Home to Return to

startribune.com leads with an article describing how some "Latinos in the prime of their work life are returning home because their dreams have collapsed along with the economy."

And here I thought that the economic hardships besetting us were being felt by a large swath of Americans across the board.  Why are we reading an article that implies that it's only affecting latinos who are being forced to return to Mexico?

The non-latinos adversely affected by the economic downturn don't have a place to return to.  But there's no article about that at startribune.com.

Why is that?

Soap Price Mystery Solved?

I'd been wondering recently why the price of laundry detergent had gone through the roof.  My musings took place mostly in the detergent aisle of the grocery store, and I didn't take it any further than that.  But the sticker shock when confronted with the price hikes left me with the firm and definite conviction that something was going on in the laundry detergent business, and it was more than just the generalized price increases we saw when gasoline was $4/gallon.

Today I read a blog post on the Foundry  that shed a glimmer of light on the question:

When Congress passed its last major energy legislation in 2005, a minor provision was added late in the legislative process that created a $1-per-gallon tax credit for renewable diesel fuel created through thermal depolymerization. The measure was included to benefit a single firm that produced boiler fuel from turkey waste, but in 2007 the Internal Revenue Service ruled that the tax credit also applied to other livestock waste. This led corporate giants ConocoPhillips and Tyson Foods to form a joint venture that turned chicken, cow, and pig fat into diesel fuel.

But just as ethanol mandates drove up the price of food, diverting Tyson’s animal fat into the energy market drove up the costs of manufacturing soap. So the soap lobby fought back and earlier this year Congress cut the thermal depolymerization tax credit in half. This made the Conoco/Tyson venture unprofitable, which they have since discontinued.

Whether this will have any effect on the price of laundry detergent remains to be seen. 

The other night I was looking through an old cookbook I inherited from my mother-in-law.  I started out looking for rhubarb recipes but ended up thumbing through the entire collection.  The cookbook contained recipes contributed by various women in the area south of Mankato.  I found a soap recipe, which the author suggested could be used for laundry soap by grating the final product into your washing machine.

This did not send me rushing out to the store to buy lye, however.  Many years ago, not long after having earned a chemistry degree, I decided to experiment at home with soap making.  I found a couple recipes, gathered together the tin cans I had filled with a variety of different fats (bacon grease poured on top of chicken fat, etc.) and got out a can of draino.  As I recall, I may have used my since forgotten chemistry knowledge to somehow remove the impurities in the fat.  I don't remember how I did that. 

What I do remember is that I never used the resulting product for anything.  It was greasy.  Maybe I didn't use enough lye.  Store-bought soap suddenly seemed to be a miraculous invention when compared with the results of my foray into soap making.  I couldn't summon up any motivation to continue experimenting with soap making.

So I'm a little less than enthusiastic to try this old cookbook recipe.  But maybe if the economy gets bad enough, homemade soap may make a comeback, and we'll be seeing articles in those magazines in the checkout aisle titled, "Tips to Keep your Soap from Getting Too Greasy."

Gotta Love This Guy

Steven Crowder.  He's funny.

Thug Government

When our president, sworn to uphold the constitution, behaves like a common thug, bullying and threatening private parties to a dispute to give up their rights under the law under threat of being destroyed, then I think we have as a country crossed yet another line on the path away from the rule of law.

Attorney Tom Lauria, who represents some of the Chrysler creditors, reported the threats on WJR radio host Frank Beckmann’s radio show in Detroit.  His clients bought bonds that, in exchange for a low rate of return, gave them the security of having first lien rights.  This means that in bankruptcy, they are to be paid 100 percent before any junior creditors receive a penny.  That’s what bankruptcy law provides, and it was with this understanding that they purchased the bonds in the first place.

Lauria told Beckmann that these bondholders had already agreed to accept half of what they’re entitled to under bankruptcy laws even though the have no obligation to do so, but the government offered them a deal that would pay them 29 cents on the dollar, while junior creditors would receive 10 - 20 billion dollars.

Cutting their demands in half wasn’t enough of a concession for President Obama, who equated the bondholders’ belief that the bankruptcy laws should mean what they say with a desire for an "unjustified taxpayer-funded bailout."

Lauria said that one of his clients gave up the fight after being "directly threatened by the White House, and in essence compelled to withdraw its opposition to the deal under threat that the full force of the White House press corps would destroy its reputation if it continued to fight."

Lauria explains why the rest of us should be concerned about use of the vast power of the federal government to coerce concessions in a dispute over contractual rights:

I think everybody in this country should be concerned about the fact that the president of the United States, the executive office is using its power to try to abrogate that contractual right.  If the president will attack that contractual right, what right will it not attack?
. . .
when you make a deal it’s supposed to be honored, and if it’s not honored you’re supposed to be able to get protection in court and what is happening here, through the force of the United States government, and that’s what’s disturbing about this, I mean, private parties have disputes all the time, but for the United States government to step in, the executive office of the United States government, who under the constitution is charged with enforcing the laws, to step in and try to in effect break the laws, I think we should all be concerned about that. That is a constitutional issue.

And that, succinctly, is exactly why the government should not be taking over private enterprise.  Once it does that, it acquires interests directly adverse to private parties.  Apparently, the temptation to abuse its vast powers in pursuit of those interests becomes irresistible.

For the rest of us watching this drama unfold, whether still shell shocked from watching 401(k) balances shrink, or standing on the sidelines wondering whether to invest in this economy in any way,it give us one more reason to be leery.

Cross-posted at Truth v. The Machine

Twin Cities Astroturf

I spent the day at the Environmental Law Institute today.  I learned a lot there.

What stands out most clearly was what I heard in the late afternoon in a breakout session covering environmental reviews under federal and state law. About the time I started wondering whether toothpicks might keep my eyes open, I heard something that jolted me into full alertness, and wrote down the exact words I had just heard.

The speaker, who had previously identified himself as the attorney representing Al Franken's disenfranchised voters in the recent litigation over the senatorial election, was talking about representing clients who want to challenge a proposed project on environmental grounds.

I wrote down the exact words:

You "might want to hire a grassroots advocacy group."

What?

Here's one definition of "grassroots:"

The common people at a local level (as distinguished from the centres of political activity)

I must be naive.  I didn't know "grassroots advocacy groups" were for hire in Minnesota. (Chicago, maybe, but Minnesota?)

Thank goodness for continuing legal education seminars. 

Do these "grassroots advocacy groups" that are available for hire advertise anywhere?  Maybe they advertise in some DFL publication that I don't receive.  Does hiring a "grassroots advocacy group" make you a "community organizer?"

Unintended Consequences in China

When you defy natural laws, you get unintended consequences. 

Governmental officials like to think that they are omnipotent, that they can decree new laws and thereby coerce their subjects to submit to their will.  They may tell you that they think that paying taxes (or otherwise complying with governmental edicts) is "patriotic," but that so-called "patriotism" is enforced with the jack booted thuggery of governmental power, which can toss you into prison or levy your income sources so that you can't feed or shelter your family.

They forget about those inalienable rights that have been given by a higher authority over which government has no power.

In China, the government has enforced a limit on procreation that most likely will backfire because it defies natural law.  Ed Morrissey at Hotair describes how this will likely happen:

What do you get when you combine a Big Brother governmental decree on procreation with a cultural preference for one gender?  A sociological bomb that will eventually destabilize the Big Brother government.  China now has 32 million more men than women, a disparity that will continue to grow, thanks to their draconian one-child policies.

Expect trouble:

    China has 32 million more young men than young women — a gender gap that could lead to increasing crime — because parents facing strict birth limits abort female fetuses to have a son, a study released Friday said.

    The imbalance is expected to steadily worsen among people of childbearing age over the next two decades and could trigger a slew of social problems, including a possible spike in crime by young men unable to find female partners, said an author of the report published in the BMJ, formerly known as the British Medical Journal.

    “If you’ve got highly sexed young men, there is a concern that they will all get together and, with high levels of testosterone, there may be a real risk, that they will go out and commit crimes,” said Therese Hesketh, a lecturer at the Centre for International Health and Development at University College London. She did not specify what kinds of crimes.

    The study said analysis of China’s 2005 census data extrapolated that males under age 20 exceeded their female counterparts by a whopping 32 million.