Back to Basics

The Obama campaign has been having trouble settling on a slogan for a quite a while, but all this time “Obama 2012: In Lieu of Flowers” was staring them right in the face.

This election could be close — a couple of reception Cuisinarts, a baby shower Diaper Genie and somebody’s $20 birthday check from grandma could make all the difference — and Team Obama is mobilizing to win on that front:

What woman doesn’t want her wedding shower invitation to contain the phrase “the bride is registered at Obamacare, Solyndra & Beyond”?

I think they borrowed this general idea from Dennis Kucinich, whose main fundraising tactic when he ran for president was to go from table to table at wedding receptions and say “You gonna finish that sandwich?”

Coming soon from the Obama campaign: “Don’t forget to update your will to give what’s left of your estate (if anything) to Obama/Biden 2012. Accidents can happen!”

Twitchy has a lot more Obama campaign fundraising suggestions here.

Oh, and speaking of “in lieu of flowers,” two can play that game.

“… gleaming white wind turbines generating carbon-free electricity carpet chaparral-covered ridges and march down into valleys of Joshua trees.” This is “the future” of American energy – not “the oil rigs planted helter-skelter in [nearby] citrus groves,” nor the “smoggy San Joaquin Valley” a few miles away.

The Forbes article’s poetic paean to Aeolian energy nevertheless voiced consternation that a 300-megawatt “green” turbine project might kill some of the magnificent California condors that are just coming back from the edge of extinction – and the project might be cancelled as a result.

Indeed, the US Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) has asked Kern County to “exercise extreme caution” in approving projects in the Tehapachi area, because of potential threats to condors. The “conundrum will force some hard choices about the balance we are willing to strike between obtaining clean energy and preserving wild things,” the article suggested. Hopefully, it concluded, new “avian radar units” will be able to detect condors and automatically shut down turbines when one approaches.

All Americans hope condors will not be sliced and diced by giant Cuisinarts. But most of us are puzzled that so few “environmentalists” and FWS “caretakers” express concern about the countless bald and golden eagles, hawks, falcons, vultures, ducks, geese, bats and other rare, threatened, endangered and common flying creatures imperiled by turbine blades.

And many of us get downright angry at the selective way endangered species and other wildlife laws are applied – leaving wind turbine operators free to exact their carnage, while harassing and punishing oil companies and citizens.

In 2011, following a million-dollar, 45-day helicopter search for dead birds in North Dakota oil fields, US Attorney Timothy Purdon prosecuted seven oil and gas companies for inadvertently killing 28 mallard ducks, flycatchers and other common birds that were found dead in or near uncovered waste pits. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the companies and their executive officers faced fines of up to $15,000 per bird, plus six months in prison. (They eventually agreed to plead guilty and pay $1,000 per bird.)

Also in 2011, a FWS agent charged an 11-year-old Virginia girl with illegally possessing a baby woodpecker that the girl had rescued from a housecat, even though she intended to release the bird after ensuring it was OK. The threatened $535 fine was finally dropped, after the FWS was deservedly ridiculed in the media.

The mere possession of an eagle feather by a non-Indian can result in fines and imprisonment, even if the feather came from a bird butchered by a wind turbine: up to $100,000, a year in prison or both for a first offense. Poisoning or otherwise killing common bats that have nested in one’s attic can cost homeowners thousands of dollars in fines.

Wind turbine companies, officers and employees, however, are immune from prosecution, fines or imprisonment, regardless of how many rare, threatened, endangered or migratory birds and bats they kill. In fact, FWS data show that wind turbines slaughter some 400,000 birds every year. If “helter-skelter” applies to any energy source, it is wind turbines, reflecting their Charles Manson effect on birds.