August 09, 2006
Are Rodents More Important Than People?
The left is always complaining about inadequate housing for the poor. The left is always complaining about protecting habitats of wildlife. What happens when you have a choice to spend on one or the other? Do you have to guess? After all, this is the left that we're talking about, and it's their efforts that cause these budget choices.
Analysis: Beach mouse habitat will cost $18m - $51m
The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service released a draft version of an economic analysis examining costs associated with designating parts of the Ft. Morgan Peninsula and areas around Gulf Shores as "critical habitat" for the endangered Alabama beach mouse. ...The report concludes that the costs associated with designating the beaches, scrub forests and high dune areas required to keep the mouse from becoming extinct would be somewhere between $18 million and $51 million.
Fifty-one million dollars! Wow! Would that ever impress Dr. Evil. With that money, are they preserving a habitat or buying them beach condos?
To play the game of the left, what would $51,000,000 buy?
▪ It would buy over 500 memberships at exclusive golf clubs.
▪ It would buy 850 Mercedes or BMWs.
▪ It would buy 250 club suites at major league stadiums.
You know, important stuff. Why, it would even come close to buying off the Democrats.
But, consider that $51,000,000 would also go a long way to feeding, sheltering, and educating the poor. But, in the world of the left, man and animal are equal. So, let's spend the money on a bunch of rodents that serve no purpose to my knowledge except to feed the rattlesnakes in the area, which I guess they also want protected.
Couldn't we just take half that money, give it to the mice, and tell them to move to Massachusetts? They can take the fleas that they carry, and maybe the rattlesnakes will follow them, too. Once there, all the rats and snakes will have a friendly habitat and be among their own. See I just saved half of fifty-one million and made Alabama a better place with my solution.
Posted by Woody M. at August 9, 2006 08:00 PM | TrackBackI really have to wonder about this one. Thirty years ago, during the TVA Tellico Dam project, they didn't give a rat's ass about a little fish called the snail darter. The snail darter is now extinct due to the damming of the Little Tennessee River. The Federal government, in the form of TVA, thought taking land for individuals, creating a large lake, and reselling the remaining land to private developers was of greater importance than the snail darter.
Perhaps the U.S. F. & W. should forget the mouse, sell the land to developers, use that money plus the $51 million for education and poverty relief.
Posted by DADvocate at August 9, 2006 07:49 PM
DADavocate, actually they later found that the snail darter was found in other streams and rivers in Tennessee, Alabama, and Georgia. It turned out that this excuse to stop progress was no excuse at all. Those "environmentalists" could have cared less about the fish. Also, I think that the dam was for hydroelectric power.
Here you can view and read all about this valuable fish, which is alive and well: http://www.outdooralabama.com/fishing/freshwater/fish/other/darters/snail/
Posted by Woody at August 10, 2006 05:12 AM
I don't know all the details of this but as I am really a neo-Conservative with a real emphasis on the neo, I generally feel that there is a stewardship issue about 'our' control of the environment. And I have seen enough 'strip-malls' to last me the rest of my lifetime. One less won't hurt.
Sometimes you have to break a few eggs to make the omelette and a hydro-electric project 'may' fall into that category, although I vaguely recall reading that the Egyptian Aswan Dam Projects were a monumental disaster and very ill conceived. But as ever I stand to be corrected.
Frankly I don't care if public money is spent to 'preserve' a valuable area and its unique inhabitants if the alternative use is merely to allow some over-rich, under-classed, Babbitts to build displays of ostentatious consumption on the site. Babbitts are ubiquitous; Unique is unique. Pristine is Prisitine. Sometimes a 'good' is good in itself without reference to a measurable 'economic result'.
Sorry but great minds might differ on this. The 'boobs' can always build somewhere else. It's not like they are 'unique' or anything. There will be another of them around in the next nanosecond or so.
The object od a 'good' society is to develop a 'happy medium' between competing interests, one of which is the 'Public Interest', which is NEVER served by the sole focus on how many BMWs can be purchased for 'x' amount of cash.
▪ It would buy over 500 memberships at exclusive golf clubs.
▪ It would buy 850 Mercedes or BMWs.
▪ It would buy 250 club suites at major league stadiums.
By the by, I am glad you made your case with these examples. It 'really 'sells' it.
Sure convinced me.
Posted by dougf at August 10, 2006 11:23 AM
Woody - I sure didn't care about the fish. I did care about all the people being kicked off their land. Some of them were descendents of the original settlers. I also cared that a beautiful stretch of wild river was being damned up to become like 100 other TVA lakes.
The figure I remember regarding the power was that the Tellico Dam's hydroelectric production for a year at 100% capacity would equal one day's production at 90% capacity of the Kingston Steam plant about 20 miles away. Not much of an increase in power prodction for all the turmoil, etc.
The Federal government, and to an extent state and local governments, have such an array of laws, regulations, etc. that they pick and choose which ones to use, enforce, ignore, etc. to accomplish whatever goal, good or bad, that they wish to at the moment.
Posted by DADvocate at August 10, 2006 08:09 PM
DADvocate, well, in one way we're in agreement. I didn't want TVA putting up that dam because I don't believe that the federal government has any business competing with private electric companies.
As far as people being kicked off of their land, that's an argument that goes back to the Indians who live on the Cherokee Reservation. As in the case of a dam, eminent domain is necessary for public projects. However, public projects need to be justified.
My brother used to live in Maryville, TN and I used to hike the Smokies every summer and water ski in Fontanna Lake. I remember how solitary the area was, and it was rare to meet up with someone on the Appalachain Trail. Not any more.
However, when there was a big fight to block a road through the park (SOS-Save Our Smokies), I thought that it would be a shame that only able bodied people would be allowed to see this land--simply because they could hike into it and others couldn't.
We have a limited amount of money and need to use it for the greatest causes. I consider $51,000,000 for some rats to be a little excessive and cannot justify it when there are plenty of people in the state who need medical care and better schools. Especially, when I'm not so sure that the rodents are as threatened or necessary as people want to claim or that more development would really interfere with them. Mice don't have any problems in the city. Come to think of it, I'd probably spend that money eradicating the disease carriers.
Posted by Woody at August 10, 2006 09:27 PM
Desent it what it is. You come from small rodents.
Posted by G. Warming at August 12, 2006 10:37 AM
Woody -
Interesting how paths cross. My brother still lives in Maryville. I group in south Knox county about 15 miles from Maryville. How to use and share the wilderness is a big question. And, the trails are much too crowded now days. I used to go to the mountains to get away from it all. Now I find more privacy in my backyard.
I agree with you about the rats. Anyone ever heard of bubonic plague?
Posted by DADvocate at August 12, 2006 12:28 PM
As the meteor hit off the coast of the Yucutan peninsula, a castastophic life ending event, most life ceased. Dinosauers perished immediately. A small species of rodent burrowed in and waited. They later emerged to evolve into mammals. Show a little repect.
Posted by G. Warming at August 13, 2006 11:40 AM
