It looks like the sale of the Century, the sale of our Commons, is not going to go quietly into the night. A quick google finds 248 newspaper articles on the ever sleazy Friday announcement by the BushWackers Bidders of the potential sale of 309,000 acres of our collective children's national inhreitance over the next 5 years.
I am heartened to see Ma, Ca, SC, Mt, NC, Wa, Tx, Co, NM, Oh, Az, Ky, Al, Mo, Ga, WVa, Ut, Nv, Vt, Or, and Mi papers all have articles.
UPDATE! Still searching for that picture of Pombo dripping oily sweat, face all pootie scratched. C'mon, I know it's out there.
Mixed in the google, as an added bonus, are two articles on public lands oil and gas payments, and grazing fees. Much to my shock and surprize (duh, will she never believe these people are EVIL?) grazing fees for the Bu$hCo ranchers will be lowered. Yep. Fatten your calf right here, BillyBobBuddy.
The Federal grazing fee for Western public lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management and the Forest Service will be $1.56 per animal unit month (AUM) in 2006, down from $1.79 in 2005, according to a federal report.
snip..
An Animal Unit Month is the amount of forage needed to sustain one cow and her calf, one horse, or five sheep or goats for a month.
Excuse me, but this is welfare. It costs me about a buck and a half a day to keep my horses without public assistance.
When one uses a 1966 base for calculations though, it all makes sense, in a Bu$hCo sort of way. And consider that production costs have gone up. Poor ReThugRanchers. Can't have real life intruding on profit, can we?
Now here's a real tasty one, from late last month.
WASHINGTON -- Lawmakers in both political parties demanded on Monday that the Bush administration address concerns that energy companies may have been underpaying the government for oil and gas they produce on publicly owned land and in coastal waters.
Well I'll be hornswaggled. Of course we need to sell off the Commons. Much better for them to be in the hands of those that allegedly have been underpaying. Then we won't have to go to all the trouble to investigate our good friends. We'll just sell off some isolated and hard to maintain parcels to make up the dif between what the buds underpayed, and everything will be hunky-dorey.
Now it gets ha-ha funny. Enter Richard Pombo. All about getting to the bottom of this, after reading an article Monday in The New York Times.
The Bush Administration's robbing of Peter to pay Paul has got to stop.
Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, called for a congressional investigation and public hearings. Pombo, a close ally of energy companies on many issues, said he had not made up his mind yet on whether congressional hearings were necessary.
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y, and Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico are both working on getting some information about the wonky book keeping.
Most of the press pieces look pretty positive about fighting this thing. Ignorance of Bu$hco shines through in some spots. What is it about "we are broke, and selling off the Commons won't help" don't these people understand?
. Even with the additional money from the land sales, payments to counties are likely to be cut in half, Mark Rey, an undersecretary in the Department of Agriculture, told reporters in a conference call yesterday.
So for the most part,the People do not seem happy with this selling of our Commons, that's for sure. But let us remember that there were over a million and a half comments submitted in support of the Roadless Rule, overwhelmingly in favor of. It got stomped by rampaging Elephants, in spite of what the people wanted.
It looks like public comment will open toward the end of the month, so get the torches ready to light, and send the pitchforks out to be sharpened if you can't do it yourself.
Meanwhile, you could practice up by going over here, to environmentalist's heartbreaking diary on the selling of the precious Valle Vidal and writing a letter expressing your outrage about that.
On a happy note, from the comment section of the Richmond Times Dispatch, on their sell off story....
I've been silently angry at the administration for a while, but this might actually get me out of my seat to make some noise. In fact it makes me want to scream!!!!
A new activist awakened. Scream loud, DR from RIC, Scream loud.