An early morning arson fire that damaged four unoccupied townhouses could be the work of a group of radical environmentalists, the FBI and the city's fire chief said Monday. An anonymous e-mail sent to news organizations said the fire had been started by the Earth Liberation Front, a loosely organized group that has used economic sabotage -- most often arson -- to further its goal of protecting the environment. The FBI, which is assisting the Hagerstown Fire Department, considers the group one of the country's most dangerous domestic terrorist organizations.
The single-alarm fire early Sunday at the Hagers Crossing development of townhouses and single-family houses destroyed one townhouse and damaged three others, Fire Chief Gary R. Hawbaker said. The fire was contained immediately, and no one was hurt, he added.
The e-mail said that the goal of the arson was "to strike at the bottom line" of Ryan Homes, one of the developers of Hagers Crossing. "We warn all developers that the people of the Earth are prepared to defend what remains of the wild and the green," the e-mail continued.
Hawbaker estimated that the fire caused $300,000 of damage. Hagers Crossing is to contain 940 units, said Shelby Daniels, a sales and marketing representative for Ryan Homes. The townhouse prices start at $250,000. Daniels and Hawbaker said there had been nothing particularly controversial about the project, which opened its first homes in 2003.
Assistant Fire Marshal Doug DeHaven, the department's chief investigator, examined the site Monday as construction continued. The destroyed townhouse was reduced to a heap of charred debris and the faint smell of burnt wood. Metal pipes, still intact, poked out of the ground. Neighboring townhouses in the linked set of four -- one wrapped in Tyvek -- appeared undamaged on the outside. Hawbaker said the department had identified no suspect but had gathered physical evidence from the scene. He would not describe the evidence, saying that could slow the investigation. Also, he would not say how the fires, one in each house, were started. As for the e-mail, "We're looking at this as any other lead we might have," Hawbaker said. "It's just a normal investigation."...
Hawbaker said the department learned about the e-mail from a reporter for the Hagerstown Herald-Mail. The e-mail was provided to The Washington Post by Christopher Law, a reporter with the National Security News Service. Law said he had received word from ELF saying the group took responsibility for the arson. Law, who said he was not a spokesman for the group and had no involvement with ELF, said he could not be certain the claim was legitimate. Asked why he had forwarded the e-mail, Law said, "I felt people should know why it happened."...
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OCEAN NOISE MUST BE STOPPED!
The latest shot in the dark for the "See what a caring person I am" brigade
Increasing levels of ocean noise generated by military sonar, shipping, and oil and gas exploration are threatening dolphins and whales that rely on sound for mating, finding food and avoiding predators, according to a new report. The report released Monday by the Natural Resources Defense Council found that the affects of ocean noise on marine life range from long-term behavioral change to hearing loss to death. The report, a follow-up to a 1999 study, included details from necropsies performed on beached whales suspected of being exposed to Navy sonar.
Scientists who examined more than a dozen whales that beached in the Canary Islands in September 2002 found bleeding around the brain and ears and lesions in the animals' livers and kidneys. "It is a set of symptoms that have never before been seen in marine mammals," said Michael Jasny, the report's principal author. "That physical evidence has led scientists to understand that the sonar is injuring the whales in addition to causing them to strand." Researchers believe that whales are suffering the same type of decompression sickness that is known as "the bends" in humans. The leading theory is that sonar either causes whales to panic and surface too quickly or forces them deeper before they can expel nitrogen, leading to nitrogen bubbles in the blood.
A federal probe into the mass stranding of 17 whales in the Bahamas in March 2000 cited the Navy's use of mid-frequency sonar as a contributing factor. The Natural Resources Defense Council sued the Navy last month in federal court in Los Angeles in an attempt to curb its use of mid-frequency sonar, which is the most common method of detecting enemy submarines. The environmental group wants limits on sonar during training exercises, not in war. In the new report, the NRDC urged the National Marine Fisheries Service to better enforce the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act. The service should also require the Navy to obtain permits for its sonar exercises, according to the report. A fisheries service spokeswoman said the agency had not seen the report and could not comment on it.
Jasny said noises from oil and gas exploration have also been linked to lower catch rates of halibut, cod and other species of fish. "It's been shown that some species of fish suffer severe injury to their inner ears, which can seriously compromise their ability to survive," he said.
The NRDC recommended year-round restrictions of excessive ocean noise in critical habitats and seasonal restrictions on migration routes. For example, the group suggested that oil-and-gas companies avoid seismic surveys in the winter off the west coast of Africa when baleen whales are breeding offshore. It also called on the fisheries service to increase oversight of oil and gas surveys, which rely on shooting high-intensity air guns at the ocean's floor. The true impact of ocean noise remains unknown because strandings likely represent just a small portion of marine life effected by excessive noise, Jasny said.
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BLAIR'S LAPDOG CONTINUES HIS BACKFLIP
In slow motion, of course. Pic of the varmint below
The UK is unlikely to meet its 2010 target of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 20%, the government's chief scientific adviser has admitted. Sir David King told the BBC the target was perhaps a "bit optimistic" but said the government had not given up and long-term plans were in place. The "green light" should be given for more nuclear reactors, he added. Environmental groups accused Prime Minister Tony Blair of backtracking on the issue of setting targets.
Sir David told the BBC's Sunday AM programme that the 2010 target on reducing emissions was a "very tough target to hit at the moment". He admitted the UK could miss it but said one reason was that long-term plans took time to pay off. "The longer term targets are actually the critical ones. These things like building a new power station take many, many years to come through. "I think perhaps we were being a bit optimistic, but the government has not given up on its target for 2010."
Sir David said Mr Blair should "give the green light" to a new generation of nuclear reactors. Nuclear power met almost a quarter of Britain's electricity needs in recent years but that will fall to just 4% by 2020 if reactors were not replaced. "All of that is coming from a CO2-free source. I think we need every tool in the bag to tackle this problem," he said.
Mr Blair faces stiff opposition from green groups and some in his Labour Party if he sanctions new reactors. Environment minister Margaret Beckett said there was "nothing extra" nuclear power could do to help meet the Government's target to reduce CO2 by 2010. Speaking on the BBC's Politics Show, she said: "There's just no way you could get new nuclear power stations in time to contribute to that." She denied she was anti-nuclear but said there were "lots of concerns" about its use.
Earlier this month, the prime minister caused fury by suggesting that a "child-of-Kyoto" agreement, with firm targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, could be tricky. "People fear some external force is going to impose some internal target on you which is going to restrict your economic growth," he said. "I think in the world after 2012 we need to find a better, more sensitive set of mechanisms to deal with this problem."
Sir David said he believed Mr Blair's comments on targets had been misunderstood and that Mr Blair had been talking about involving China, India, Brazil, Mexico and South Africa in discussions. "I believe what he was discussing was... how do we extend that to include these five countries? Of course we're also concerned about the United States' position. "The US emits 25% of the world's carbon dioxide [And soaks up more than it emits] . How do we bring them on board?"
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IGNORANT ENVIRONMENTAL TYRANNY HARD TO BEAT
After two long, frustrating years of tripping up on Queensland Government red tape, it's a wonder that Steve Lawrie can still find something to grin about. That's how long it's taken for his family to persuade the Department of Natural Resources and Mines to correct the colour on the all-important vegetation maps covering their Central Queensland properties from green to white. It's a battle which has necessitated countless phone calls, meetings, and even a trawl through the family album in a bid to prove that country on Sebastapol, 50km west of Rockhampton, and on another property near Middlemount, had been previously cleared.
But the beef producer from Powlathanga Station, west of Charters Towers, hasn't lost his sense of the ridiculous. "It's pretty scientific, isn't it" he said. "A colour gets incorrectly slapped on a map and it's gospel - then it's hell to get it changed."
The Lawrie family's woes began when they received the maps more than two years ago, with "a couple of thousand" acres of country which had been cleared nearly 20 years ago marked as untouched. When initial complaints proved fruitless, the Lawries dug up old photos, taken when Steve was only 14 years old and showing distinctive landscape features that proved the so-called "green" country and the pulled timber were one and the same. While the department declined their offer to view the photographs, it took until last Friday for Steve's parents Robert and Jenny to finally receive word the Sebastapol maps would be changed. Meanwhile, the Middlemount property has changed from green to pink, despite the family's arguments that the country is plagued with regrowth, not virgin scrub.
"I really don't know where (the department) gets its information from," Mr Lawrie said this week. "It's not just the initial ruling on map colours, it's also the hassles of pursuing changes. We found we could never speak to the same person twice, the rules kept changing and there's such a huge lag time in following up on requests - it took 15 months for NRM to get us aerial pictures and satellite maps, and when they finally arrived, they were for the wrong country. It took 18 months for the department to send someone out to actually physically inspect the area."
While the Lawries can at last sit down to plan development and maintenance on their properties, two years of toing and froing has cost them dearly. "We couldn't begin to put a price on what we've lost in land productivity production, what it's cost in all the trips to Rockhampton and in not getting work done on the properties because we were tied up with NRM. I don't even want to think what the price has been."
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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else, truth regardless.
Global warming has taken the place of Communism as an absurdity that "liberals" will defend to the death regardless of the evidence showing its folly. Evidence never has mattered to real Leftists
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Jim Hansen and his twin
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