Random Nuclear Strikes

We all know how Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH organization works: When the funds run low, they find a company who could use some suing and threaten to use the press to slander said company as “racists” unless they hire more non-caucasians (oddly enough, asians and hispanics never suffice) and give Rainbow/PUSH a nice big donation.

Race Card fueled legalized extortion.

Will they be threatening the voters in Tennessee’s 9th CD next?

A group of black ministers and Democratic Party activists are trying to mobilize support for an independent congressional candidate who is black over the white winner of the Democratic primary.

Shelby County Democratic Party executive committee member William Larsha is upset that state Sen. Steve Cohen could become the first white candidate to win the 9th District seat in three decades.

“The seat is one that decent white people created so African-Americans and whites could send an African-American to Congress,” Larsha said. “The district belongs to an African-American.”

Of course I completely support the voter’s right to pick who they want to represent them, especially since watching the various groups wrangle over this ought to be fun to watch.

Any bets on who calls who a racist first?

Found at Right Thinking

“Hug a logger. You’ll never go back to trees.”

But they just don’t listen.

The battle for Seattle’s trees is beginning

The Emerald City isn’t so green after all.

Since 1972 Seattle has lost nearly 1.7 million trees — more than half of all the trees standing then, according to a new city report.

Homeowners ax them for a better view. Developers cut them to make way for houses and condos. Diseases and pests claim their share, aided by neglect from landowners and city managers alike.

Ivy and blackberry vines choke city parkland. Aging maples nearing the end of their lives make up much of the city’s forests.

“Does something to destroy the myth of a green Seattle, doesn’t it?” said John Healy, spokesman for the city’s Office of Sustainability and Environment.

It also has deprived the city of the benefits of trees, which filter water, soak up pollution and act as heat shields on sunny days. The city estimates the trees lost in the last three decades would have done air cleaning and water storage worth more than $25 million a year.

Now, to help reverse the loss, the city wants to add roughly 650,000 more trees over the next 30 years. That goal and the basic outlines of how to get there are in a draft plan being announced today by Mayor Greg Nickels. The plan lays out a broad strategy for managing Seattle trees on both public and private property.

Nearly 1.2 trees per person in the city is the Mayor’s goal. So of course, I want to know how much the regreening is going to cost.

It would cost $114 million in tree-plantings plus $7 million more a year in maintenance to achieve the 30-year goals spelled out in the plan, according to the city.

Any competent math teacher would ask to see their work on the “air cleaning and water storage” numbers. My guess is that it is what I like to call a “Wild-Ass Guess” at best.

But the scariest part of the whole proposal is the “broad strategy for managing Seattle trees on both public and private property”.

The Heartless Libertarian had an out of the ordinary good experience when he needed to cut down a tree on his property recently, but the city he lives in, while less than 60 miles from Seattle, is a world apart for the mecca of tree-huggerdom.

Having lived and still work deep in the belly of the beast, I can tell you that if other departments in the city are any indicator, I can predict long wait times for the inspection (more likely “inspections”) and a very limited permit for anything going further than a pruning.

It isn’t like the infrastructure of the city isn’t falling apart and it isn’t like they haven’t had to recently close schools and it isn’t like you can be safe in downtown on a Friday night.

But dammit, they’re gonna add trees!