YANKTON, S.D. (KTIV) -- It's happened in places like Louisiana, Arkansas and Kentucky. Hundreds of birds mysteriously found dead.
Folks in Yankton, South Dakota, thought they were being added to the list after hundreds of dead birds were found there on Monday. Turns out the unpleasant feathered discovery has a solid explanation. They were poisoned.
Some had thought 200 Starlings found dead in Yankton's Riverside park had froze to death. But they were actually poisoned on purpose, by the US Department of Agriculture.
Many of the European Starlings discovered by a passerby, were laying on the ground or frozen in trees. Officials first thought the birds were late to migrate and froze to death during the recent cold spell.
But that theory changed after Yankton police received a phone call from a USDA official who said the birds had been poisoned.
"They say that they had poisoned the birds about ten miles south of Yankton and they were surprised they came to Yankton like they did and died in our park," says Yankton Animal Control Officer Lisa Brasel.
The USDA confirms the story, saying the deaths were part of a large killing at a private feed lot in Nebraska.
They say a local farmer had been having troubles with about 5,000 starlings defecating in his feed meal. Department of Ag officials say because of health concerns for the farmer's animals and staff they decided to kill the birds.
They used a bait laced with the poison DRC-1339. The USDA says the birds ate the bait then flew back to Yankton and died.
They say poisoning isn't a common practice.
"We're doing it to address, in this case very defiantly agricultural damage as well as the potential for human health and safety issues," says Carol Bannerman USDA Wildlife Services.
USDA officials say they regret they had to kill the birds. But say there's no toxic concern to people or animals.
In all, officials estimate nearly 2,000 birds ate the poison. However, since the bait has been removed they don't expect any more birds to die. So I am sure the EPA will be on this, right? Naw. Federale against federale is a no no in Obamination. Being a country boy for many years, I have NEVER heard of wild life being poisoned in mass. Never heard of a good reason for it. The guy needs to contain his feed meal. Not kill everything that moves. Does this explain the recent mass death of other wild life recently around the country, the USDA?
#1
Years ago, the federal government had a coyote eradication program, using poisoned bait.
Few Americans have heard of the U.S. Department of Agricultures Wildlife Services (WS) program. Even fewer are aware that their tax dollars subsidize the killing of millions of animals every year under this program; between 2004 and 2007, WS killed 8,378,412 animals (Keefover-Ring 2009). Their crimes? Preying on sheep and cattle, eating fish in commercial aquaculture facilities and seeds in large-scale sunflower plantations, defecating on municipal lawns and golf courses, creating a "nuisance," and flying in the pathway of airplanes and airport runways to name but a few.
While the vast majority of species targeted by WS are birds (more than 4 million in 2008) the agencys predator control program has been the focus of intense public and scientific scrutiny over the last fifty years as increasing scientific research calls into question the efficacy, ethics, and economics of killing tens of thousands of native carnivores at the behest of livestock ranchers and other agriculturalists.
#3
Starlings, like European or House Sparrows, are vile, vicious, murderous beasts. Their relationship to T.rex is very clear. Both species, imported numerous times during the 19th century in a misguided, romantic attempt to set up "Shakespeare gardens" with the birds and plants the playwright mentioned, spread rapidly across the continent, displacing native bird species by out-eating and directly killing them. I have absolutely no problem with the USDA poisoning a flock that had overstayed its welcome.
posted just so I could repeat a comment seen elsewhere: The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize Winner throws State Dinner for the jailer of the 2010 Nobel Peace Prize Winner
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/20/2011 10:35 ||
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#1
or Prize, even. Damn lysdexia
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/20/2011 10:37 Comments ||
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Posted by: Frank G ||
01/20/2011 11:43 Comments ||
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#4
The lead story over at Drudge has a hilarious picture of Hu looking stern and Obama doing "deer in the headlights". Did some big-nose barbarian mention jailed dissidents at a presser?
As Washington returns to normalcy after the pomp and circumstance of Wednesday's state dinner, businessman and perennial "maybe" presidential candidate Donald Trump isn't happy about the night's festivities.
He called in to "Fox & Friends" and unleashed.
"For us to be holding state dinners for people who are just totally manipulating their currency ... is hard to believe," said Trump. "You don't give dinners to the enemy and that's what they're doing."
If it were up to a President Trump? "I would say, 'Get off your plane, come to my office and let's talk.'" (Trump has made China the subject of many criticisms of late).
If that didn't go so well, Trump had a back-up plan: "I would have sent them to McDonalds if we didn't make a deal and say, 'Go home.' The fact is they're laughing at our leadership and we're letting them get away with murder.
One day after the House voted to repeal Obamacare, some lawmakers are turning their attention toward the bureaucracy created by the bill. Reps. Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cliff Stearns, chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, are investigating the new Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO).
On Thursday, Upton and Stearns sent CCIIO director Jay Angoff a letter with questions about the offices structure, authority and recent decision to grant waivers throughout several industries, exempting companies from complying with the bills requirements.
Most troubling is that your office is currently responsible for deciding who does not have to comply with the massive new regulations imposed by the PPACA [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act], said the letter. Currently your office has approved waivers from the PPACAs annual limits requirements for 222 applicants.
Here's the question I put to Sen. Jim DeMint during a brief telephone interview last night:
Chances are pretty good that Illinois, California, and New Jersey, and maybe a dozen or more other states, are going to go broke -- because they cannot meet their pension expenses. All told, the states are about $3 trillion short, and they're going to come looking to Congress for a bailout. Are you going to write that check, or are you going to let them hang and watch the municipal-bond market collapse? Which angry mob do you want to face?
Senator DeMint did not exactly say, "We're going to let the municipal-bond market collapse," but it sure sounded a lot like that. Republicans have a three-part plan for the states' fiscal crises:
First, create a legal process to allow states to renegotiate debts and union contracts in something akin to bankruptcy.
Second, forbid a congressional bailout of the states.
Third, forbid the Fed to buy states' debt as part of a freelance Ben Bernanke bailout.
In other words, prepare a site for crash-landing state finances and then forcibly guide them to it.
That third part is interesting, no? Republicans are looking askew at the Fed's new career as at-large bailout-maker.
The Republicans' plan looks pretty ugly, but I do not see any plausible alternatives. And I see one big opportunity: This is the chance to pry the parasitic government-employee unions off the body politic. They have bankrupted the states, and the resulting crisis gives us the means and the opportunity to put an end to their plunder. When those contracts get renegotiated, Republicans should insist that they address more than pensions. Interesting plan. A lot could go wrong, but we are really sailing into uncharted waters here with lots of states and the feds in bankruptcy territory. Decoupling the public unions from the state would go a long way to keep this debt bomb from happening again.
#1
"The Republicans plan looks pretty ugly, but I do not see any plausible alternatives."
-actually, what I think the states have done to themselves is pretty ugly. The Repubs' plan is sound (& pretty damn generous) considering the malfeasance of the state govt's of mexifornia & ILLinoise.
#3
Only bubbles collapse, and the muni-bond market is part of the credit bubble. It's best to stop bubbles forming by controlling credit volume (i.e high reserves), but if they exist letting them implode is safer than keeping the economically harmful malinvestment caused by excess credit.
#5
What real choice is there? The 15 states already headed for bankruptcy constitute a solid majority of state population. Since (by definition) THEIR population can't pay the bills, bailing them out would amount to the rest of the population - a minority - paying their bills (through the Federal government, with extra overhead fees extracted.) THAT would bankrupt the rest of the states, in the end.
I bet this is how the Mayan and Egyptian empires collapsed - too many well-paid public employees for the population to support.
#6
There is an old American saying, "You don't rob Peter to pay Paul." Everybody in that stae bites the bullet. The liberal eperiment failed (again). You are a man if you can dust yourself off, roll up your sleeves, and start over again.
WASHINGTON -- Sen Jim DeMint, R-S.C., intends to introduce a bill next week that his spokesman says is "identical" to House-passed legislation that repeals the new health care law.
Majority Republicans in the House stood unified for the 245-189 vote Wednesday to turn back the $1 trillion, 10-year package that supporters say is vital to extending insurance coverage to 30 million uninsured Americans. Opponents call the law a stinker that will break the bank while limiting access to doctors and treatment.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., has vowed to prevent a repeal vote in the Senate. And if it ever did make it out of that chamber, the White House has signaled it would veto any attempt to overturn President Obama's signature legislative accomplishment. We expect it to die in the Senate. All the Republicans need to do is bring it to a vote. The law is already vastly unpopular and any dhimocrat that votes to keep it that is already treading on thin ice with his constituents will be in deep doo-doo in 2012.
#1
already treading on thin ice with his constituents will be in deep doo-doo in 2012.
This vote is a chip in the poker game for the next presidential election. More importantly, any party that gets stuck with the blame for persisting high levels of unemployment will not do well in 2012. I think most of those unemployed at this moment will still be unemployed come Election Day 2012.
#2
...and the ever growing inflation rate fueled by the Fed-Tres axis of printing money eating away at Americans income. Saving the banks (the few, the insiders) to cover their mortgage losses by inflating the costs of everything else for the rest (the many, the outsiders) is certainly not going to help either.
#4
hopefully the other 30 will fall in line as well
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/20/2011 14:33 Comments ||
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#5
Actually, just 7 more States would make the magic 2/3rds, or 34 States, that could call a constitutional convention. And though they aren't going to do this, it signals to both the congress and the Supreme Court that the law is intolerable.
Speaking of which, the Republicans plan to introduce a new constitutional amendment in congress that would permit simple resolutions by 2/3rds of the States to overturn any law. And while this, too, would fail in the Senate, after the 2012 elections, it could very well pass.
According to a new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services, 50 to 129 million (19 to 50 percent of) non-elderly Americans have some type of pre-existing health condition. Up to one in five non-elderly Americans with a pre-existing condition -- 25 million individuals -- is uninsured. Under the Affordable Care Act, starting in 2014, these Americans cannot be denied coverage, be charged significantly higher premiums, be subjected to an extended waiting period, or have their benefits curtailed by insurance companies.
As many as 82 million Americans with employer-based coverage have a pre-existing condition, ranging from life-threatening illnesses like cancer to chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, or heart disease. Without the Affordable Care Act, such conditions limit the ability to obtain affordable health insurance if they become self-employed, take a job with a company that does not offer coverage, or experience a change in life circumstance, such as divorce, retirement, or moving to a different state. Older Americans between ages 55 and 64 are at particular risk: 48 to 86 percent of people in that age bracket have some type of pre-existing condition. And 15 to 30 percent of people in perfectly good health today are likely to develop a pre-existing condition over the next eight years, severely limiting their choices without the protections of the Affordable Care Act.
#4
Yesterday, I heard a Dim on the radio blasting the Trunks because if they repealed Obamacare, nobody's kids would have the insurance that Congress' kids do. Then he called the Trunks hypocrites (for wanting better insurance than "The Children"). My irony meter exploded.
Careful how many times you repeat that, Sherlock. Voters may start to look at your health care coverage, cost to you, and the taxes you pay on it, you hypocrite.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/20/2011 6:14 Comments ||
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#5
Whopper of the day: Sebelius says half of America will be denied coverage if 0care repealed
Make more sense when one considers the idea that the Donks don't consider anyone who'd vote against them as being 'American'. Based upon the last election that would be more than half of the available electorate. In turn that would leave a quarter of the total, or one half of the Donk defined Americans, who'd face coverage issues as recipients of the traditional Donk bread and games for votes programs.
#7
Another socialist sob story. And the part about losing coverage if you move to another state, exactly why is that? Does the Secretary care to explain? Anybody?
#9
So recommend that Congress pass a one page act limiting "pre-existing condition" clauses. While you're at it, allow people to buy health care insurance across state lines.
#10
i admit i never understood and probably it is because i come from a former british colony where we have universal health care guaranteed by government
but i never understood the US obsession with thinking govt provided healthcare was so evil
while then thinking at the same time that it is somehow sensible for private sector employers to be forced to pay expensive health insurance for their employees?
makes no sense at all to me
Don't know the ins and outs of obamacare, i'm sure it is pretty silly
but really the NHS works a treat in Britain
just like Medicare used to work in Australia
it is so much more civilised to not be worried that if you have a heart attack they will ask for your insurance number before they treat you
or that if you marry a poor man but your child needs cancer treatment that they will just die
I don't think it is socialist to have government healthcare
but i do think it is socialist to get in the way of private enterprise with too many regulations
or to bail out banks: they should have been allowed to fail. That is the healthy creative destruction phase of capitalism, it weeds out the weak.
i reckon 3 fixes would make the US a paradise on earth
1) universal NHS britain-style
2) Pay for it with funds that previously went to the UN. Pay the UN nothing from now on
3) Gun control laws. Seriously ordinary people don't need to roam the streets with deadly weapons. UK doesn't have it, Australia doesn't have it, we are very happy about that, it's a paradise!
#11
Dear God, not a British-style national health service, anon1! I already have to pay for my most expensive prescription out of pocket -- if we had an NHS I wouldn't be able to get it at all because I'm an adult.
Bottom line, when it works, a national health service is aimed at the greatest good for the greatest number. This means that common diseases and conditions will be budgeted for. But those of us that have things difficult to diagnose, or are rare, or difficult to treat, are cut off, because there is no money or time to deal with us.
At least here in the U.S., if my doctor is willing to spend the time, and my husband is willing to spend our money, we can have tests and treatments that keep me and about 5,000 others diagnosed with the same problem physically and mentally functioning. If I lived in a country served by a national health service, I would have died of lack of physical and mental function seven years ago.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
One day after the House voted to repeal Obamacare, some lawmakers are turning their attention toward the bureaucracy created by the bill. Reps. Fred Upton, chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Cliff Stearns, chairman of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee, are investigating the new Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO).
Here's the question I put to Sen. Jim DeMint during a brief telephone interview last night:
WASHINGTON -- Sen Jim DeMint, R-S.C., intends to introduce a bill next week that his spokesman says is "identical" to House-passed legislation that repeals the new health care law.
According to a new analysis by the Department of Health and Human Services, 50 to 129 million (19 to 50 percent of) non-elderly Americans have some type of pre-existing health condition. Up to one in five non-elderly Americans with a pre-existing condition -- 25 million individuals -- is uninsured. Under the Affordable Care Act, starting in 2014, these Americans cannot be denied coverage, be charged significantly higher premiums, be subjected to an extended waiting period, or have their benefits curtailed by insurance companies. 
