Gorilla Journal

New blogspot for news of the most censored

2007-03-20T14:08:00.000-06:00

March 20, 2007

Hi Friends,

I've created a new blogspot for news releases from the most censored.

It is at:

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

The most recent posts cover Katrina and Blackwater, the Desert Rock power plant vigil, Yellowstone bison slaughter, indigeous at the UN and news from the Western Shoshone.

http://www.bsnorrell.blogspot.com

Border breaking news

2006-10-09T16:34:00.000-06:00

Please visit the website for the latest on the Zapatistas tour in northern Mexico, beginning Oct. 21, 2006. There's also articles on the Border Summit of the Americas and the hazardous waste dump planned for the O'odham sacred site in Quitovac, Mexico, including the upcoming protests:
http://bsnorrell.tripod.com

Something to say

2006-05-31T21:34:00.000-06:00

Something to say

So, I removed my news articles from my blog. It has been nearly nine months. I have been a good girl. Like most women in America, I have tried to be very nice. When I was told to take down my own stories off my blog, I did because in America we are taught to be nice girls.
I didn't say much about the war in Iraq either. I wrote about other things. But now I have something to say again about Iraq.
President Bush, the blood of those women and children killed in Iraq is on your hands. You led America into an unjustified war. The innocent women, children and elderly who died are yours. The young men who lost thier lives, hopes and dreams are yours. The mothers who lost their sons and daughters are yours. The dead are yours.
Americans are parked in front of the TV and bleating like sheep, before the hatemongers like Lou Dobbs. When Americans couldn't be made to hate Iraqis anymore, they were rallied to hate the people of Mexico and the people walking across, and dieing in the desert.
So the Minutemen build a fence and the Border Guardians burn Mexican flags.
Remember when.
Remember when no one in America believed that Marines in Iraq murdered innocent women and children, shot them in cold blood?
Remember when no one in America believed the government was syping on all of our phone records without warrants?
Remember when we believed that the big newspapers were not censored.
Remember when we believed that the people at Exxon needed to make a living too.
Remember when we believed that the government would not lie to us.
Remember when we believed that the United States did not torture people in prisons.
Remember when.
Whistleblowers remember when, like the whistleblower at AT&T who blew the truth about government spying, not just on a few, but everyone's phone records.
Remember when, we had no locks on our doors, watched fireflies on June nights and dreamed of a better world. Remember when we stalked the invisible deer, looked for the rabbit on the moon and followed the puppy tracks home in the snow.
Remember when.

Today
I ate a whole can of sweetened condensed milk
straight out of the can;
wrote about Western Shoshone arrested at the Nevada Test Site
wrote about women and children murdered in cold blood in Iraq
about migrants beaten, strangled and shot on Arizona's border;
about xenophobia
about a secret asbestos dump for O'odham in Mexico to breathe
I ate a whole can of pork 'n beans today
Right out of the can.

House votes to curb Endangered Species protection

2005-09-30T05:56:00.000-06:00

House Votes for New Limits on Endangered Species Act

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By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: September 30, 2005
WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 - By a vote of 229 to 193, the House of Representatives moved Thursday to undo some of the central provisions of the 32-year-old Endangered Species Act and to require that agencies enforcing the law reimburse property owners if the law's impact reduces the value of their land.

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Forum: Wildlife

Forum: The 109th Congress
Environmental groups expressed dismay at the measure, which, if enacted, would represent one of the most far-reaching reversals of environmental policy in more than a decade. Leading House Democrats also said it created an unlimited financial entitlement for landowners.

The prospects for Senate passage are cloudy at best; even the bill's sponsor, Representative Richard W. Pombo of California, the chairman of the House Resources committee, said he did not expect quick action in the Senate.

The vote, which came after the defeat of a rival measure that reworked the law but required enforceable protections for animals and plants in danger of extinction, was the culmination of a 12-year legislative mission by Mr. Pombo. The Bush administration gave its formal support to the measure a few hours before the vote.

A former rancher and City Council member from Tracy, Calif., Mr. Pombo has made property rights and opposition to the Endangered Species Act the lodestar of his political career. "I'm really happy," he said after Thursday's vote.

Under his bill, the process of putting a species on the federal list of threatened or endangered species would become more difficult, with a new requirement for economic analyses of such decisions.

But its core provision - one that was, in some respects, mimicked in the rival bill - eliminates the current system of designating "critical habitat," territory deemed critical to a species' survival. Such a designation can open the door to significant land-use restrictions. But environmental groups argue that the designation of habitat is a crucial prerequisite to the survival and eventual recovery of an endangered species.

The Pombo measure would create "recovery teams" that prepare "recovery plans" based on "the best available scientific data." The teams could delineate lands that would help a species. But as compared with the current system of critical habitat, federal agencies would have less obligation to take a species' needs into account in making land-use decisions. And such teams would not always be required; the law also allows the political leadership of the Interior Department to undertake this function.

The legislation also has provisions for the reimbursement of property owners whose land values are reduced by the law and financial incentives for those who work for species conservation, which several Democrats derided as federal payments for obeying the law.

Mr. Pombo argued that under current law, federal wildlife management agencies had little incentive to negotiate.

"With this bill, there is a cost," he said in an interview on Thursday. "So the incentive is there not just for the property owner but for the Fish and Wildlife Service to work out a deal."

But Jamie Rappoport Clark, the executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife and the director of the Fish and Wildlife Service in the Clinton administration, said the Pombo measure was "a deadly blow to the protections of the Endangered Species Act."

"This is an irresponsible developer's dream," Ms. Clark said, and she noted that the bill "makes it easier to use deadly pesticides" of the sort that were implicated in the previous declines of the bald eagle and peregrine falcon.

The decline in such species - a focus of Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring," one of the first major tracts of the environmental movement - has long since been reversed.

The debate on the House floor between supporters of the Pombo bill and those backing its rival, a measure sponsored by Representatives Sherwood Boehlert, Republican of New York and chairman of the House Science Committee, and George Miller, Democrat of California, provided competing views of the act's effectiveness.

Those supporting the rival measure, which gave federal agencies more power to manage land use to benefit species than Mr. Pombo's bill did, argued that species like the bald eagle, the manatee, the sea otter and the grizzly bear were saved from extinction by the act. Those in the Pombo camp argued that barely 1 percent of the more than 1,200 listed species had recovered to the extent that they could be removed from the endangered species list.

The 1973 law allows federal wildlife agencies to regulate directly only federal lands, but it also requires these agencies to sign off on federal permits - like Army Corps of Engineers permits for development in wetlands - that govern private property.

The act has been a particular lightning rod in California, where farmers, ranchers, developers and advocates for endangered aquatic species, like the fairy shrimp, are in bitter competition over scarce water resources.

Representative Nick J. Rahall II, a West Virginia Democrat who is the ranking minority member on the House Resources Committee, said in an interview that the $10 million estimate on the cost of the bill's provisions for compensating property owners would prove to be a significant underestimate.

"Who knows how high it will reach?" Mr. Rahall said.

Chuck Cushman, founder and director of the American Land Rights Association, a property rights group in Washington State, said in an interview: "We're excited that they've taken the first step toward updating and modernizing the Endangered Species Act so that for a change it will actually recover species and be less threatening to landowners. It goes a long way to make landowners allies in recovering species."

Next Article in Washington (7 of 14) >

Denver Columbus Day Protest

2005-09-29T08:43:00.000-06:00

Both Denver police and federal agents spied on American Indian organizers of Columbus Day protesters. Along with organizers of Columbus Day protests, Denver police also spied on American Indian leaders, attorneys at the Native American Rights Fund, a non-Indian senator and activist Winona LaDuke. The spy files spanned 30 years.

What will happen in Denver on this Columbus Day?

Transform Columbus Day:
http://transformcolumbusday.org

Don't mess with the Hurricane Maker

2005-09-29T08:10:00.000-06:00

Don't mess with the Hurricane Maker

Bush buddies get Hurricane Katrina contracts

2005-09-29T07:54:00.000-06:00

Bush buddies Halliburton, Shaw get first Hurricane Katrina dollars

Here we go again,

When cronies become crooks:

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Halliburton%2C+Shaw+Bush

Congress Poised to Gut Environmental Laws

2005-09-29T07:51:00.000-06:00

Congress Poised to Gut Environmental Laws
By Chris Baltimore
Reuters

Wednesday 28 September 2005

Washington - House Republicans on Wednesday will launch a
rapid-fire assault against environmental protections on the pretext of
helping the US oil and gas industry recover from hurricane damage,
environmental groups charge.

The House Energy and Commerce Committee and the House Resources
Committee are holding separate meetings to finalize legislation
Wednesday, with the aim of combining them into a single energy bill for
the full House to debate next week.

The resources panel, led by Richard Pombo of California, wants to
lift a ban on Florida offshore drilling, promote oil shale and sell a
dozen national parks for energy development.

"This really has very little to do with the hurricanes or relief
efforts or even refiners. This is deregulation pure and simple," said
John Walke of Natural Resources Defense Council.

Texan Joe Barton's energy committee wants to expand US gasoline
production by loosening federal rules that limit pollution when
refineries or coal-fired power plants are expanded. US gasoline
supplies have tightened since hurricanes Katrina and Rita roared across
the US Gulf Coast, closing up to one-fourth of the nation's refining
capacity.

House Republicans received a thumbs up from President Bush Monday
when he said environmental rules and paperwork are obstacles holding up
US refinery expansions.

Bush specifically criticized the relatively obscure "new source
review" rule administered by the Environmental Protection Agency as
part of the Clean Air Act. It aims to protect public health by ensuring
that refinery expansions do not increase acid rain and smog.

Environmentalists perked up their ears at Bush's remarks, noting
that he rarely mentions the program.

"You know darn well that the president doesn't have a clue what new
source review is," said Frank O'Donnell of Clean Air Watch. "It's clear
that there's a coordinated effort between the White House and Congress
to put key environmental protections on the chopping block."

Barton said his bill would help US refiners gird against another
natural disaster like the recent hurricanes, which highlighted the US
dearth of refining capacity.

In an interview, Barton said new source review "was a tool to
blackmail industry" into deferring plant upgrades.

"We don't want more emissions but we do want to give existing
industrial facilities the ability to retrofit and modernize without
going through a laborious permitting process," Barton said.

A draft copy of Barton's bill would codify an EPA proposal that
allows plants to expand their facilities without triggering
anti-pollution rules, NRDC'S Walke said. That proposal was frozen by a
federal judge in a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer.

"If the new Barton rule were adopted it would set us back 40 or 50
years," said Judith Enck, a Spitzer aide.

It would also adopt a utility-friendly strategy that says the
anti-pollution rules only apply if expansion projects boost hourly
emission rates, not overall plant emissions. Using that test, a federal
appeals court in June ruled that Duke Power did not violate the law by
expanding eight North Carolina plants without adding expensive
anti-pollution devices.

Pombo's separate bill would open the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge to oil drilling as well as letting states opt out of an offshore
oil leasing ban. He also wants to sell 15 national parks for energy or
commercial development, including the Mary McLeod Bethune House in
Washington, D.C.

Gorillas don't know borders

2005-06-23T05:58:00.000-06:00

In the movie, "Gorillas in the Mist," the story of Dian Fossey, there comes a time when she is thrown out of one country in Africa. She starts up another base camp, in another country in Africa. Even though the borders are closed, she says, "Gorillas don't know that, they don't know borders..."