WATERVILLE – The Maine Warden Service Dive Team on Friday (May 16) received a generous gift of underwater camera and surveillance equipment from the family and friends of Thomas W. Kopp, the late dean of admissions at Colby College.

Mr. Kopp drowned on Nov. 10, 2007, when the aluminum skiff that he, his son and three grandsons were in flipped over on Great Pond in Belgrade. Mr. Kopp was located in the pond the next day by his son, Blaine, who used similar underwater camera equipment to assist the Dive Team in its efforts to find his father.

Mr. Blaine Kopp introduced the equipment to divers, and over the last few months a friendship has formed to share ideas on how to use technology to improve search and recovery missions, particularly those that occur in dark, frigid waters where numerous underwater obstacles such as logs and boulders pose hazards.

Nancy Morrione, associate dean of admissions at Colby College, heard of how Blaine located his father by using the underwater camera system and decided to collect funds to purchase the technological gear for the warden service.

“Thank you to the Kopp family and to Mr. Kopp’s friends for your generosity, kindness and support,” said Colonel Joel Wilkinson, who accepted the gift on behalf of the Dive Team. “This heartfelt donation will bring comfort to people who one day too may be forced to endure the drowning death of a loved one. By using this equipment, warden divers will be able to bring a victim home sooner.”

The underwater camera equipment, valued at $3,500, will be an integral part of the Maine Warden Service Dive Team’s operations when it is called to perform search and recovery missions throughout the state. It includes an underwater camera/scope, a recorder, GPS unit and other documentation tools. The camera/scope is capable of surveying underwater landscapes in most situations, including dark waters when visibility by the human eye is limited to inches.

The camera is being named the “T.K. Cam” by the Dive Team in remembrance of Mr. Kopp.

“With this equipment we will be able to assess an underwater situation before we put divers into the water,” said Maine Warden Service Sgt. Terry Hughes, who is assistant dive team coordinator. “There’s not a dive I can think of where this equipment won’t be useful.”

Parker Beverage, dean of admissions and financial aid, presented the equipment to Col. Wilkinson during a gathering of Mr. Kopp’s family, co-workers and friends at Lunder House on the Colby College campus.

“May you use it infrequently, and when you do use it use it efficiently and wisely,” Mr. Beverage said.

Posted by Tom Remington

If you missed the live presentation of Open Air With Tom Remington yesterday, here is your opportunity to listen to that recorded program.

The show was a bit different than others but one I think you’ll enjoy nonetheless. I share with listeners some of the new “gadgets” I have at my disposal to make me even more obnoxious than I already am.

I’ve also included an update on Skinny Moose Media’s plan to do a remote live audio stream from the Kittery Trading Post in Maine for the annual Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife Moose Lottery. It should be a good time. We will go live with our broadcast sometime around 4 p.m. and live drawing will commence at 6 p.m.

Are we getting carried away with blaming everything, good or bad, on global warming?

I thought it important to spend a bit of time explaining about the different kind of visitors I have at my blogs and some of the problems that arise when a visitor lands on one of my articles for the first time, reads it and leaves a comment based solely on the contents of that article. This is not necessarily the readers fault as I explain that it is impossible to link every story to every other article that fully explains my position on certain issues. This is just one of the many challenges of being a blogger. I think the explanation will help listeners and readers to better understand the dynamics of reading blogs all across the Internet.

The last part of the show addresses political issues. The main point I wanted to clarify was why, if I am going to support John McCain in the upcoming presidential election, I am spending time criticizing some of the things he says and does. As most of you know, I am a conservative. John McCain says he is but to me it is more of a pick and choose kind of conservatism. I am not one to simply agree with everything John McCain says just to be a good republican. So listen in and find out why.

Listen to the broadcast now!

Tom Remington

Here’s another photo of a “Whatzit”. Some of you I know will know what it is and others probably have never seen anything like it before in your life. I can tell you that I believe, if this photo was taken where I think it was, my Great-Grandfather sat upon that thing.

Milt Inman took the photo and sends along this hint: “Down South neverbe; Up North usetobe”

Tom Remington

PORTLAND, Maine— Today the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, and a Maine river activist filed suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Division over the agencies’ failure to take action on a petition to protect the dwindling Kennebec River population of Atlantic salmon under the federal Endangered Species Act.

“The Kennebec River salmon are on the verge of extinction, yet the agencies continue to stall,” said Ed Friedman, chair of Friends of Merrymeeting Bay. “The salmon runs on the Kennebec were once the stuff of legend, but today only a few fish make it up the river. Will the government simply wait until even these survivors have disappeared?”

In 2000, responding to pressure from conservation groups, the federal government protected salmon runs on several small rivers in coastal Maine under the Endangered Species Act. However, the government refused protection for salmon inhabiting larger rivers in the more heavily developed regions of the central coast and western Maine.

In May 2005, Friends of Merrymeeting Bay, Maine Toxics Action Coalition, and Douglas Watts submitted a petition to list the Kennebec River salmon population as endangered. Despite an agency finding in 2006 that the petition presents substantial scientific information indicating protection may be warranted, and a subsequent scientific report supporting the concerns of the petitioners, the agencies have failed to act.

“Atlantic salmon are as much a part of the natural and cultural heritage of New England as Pacific coast salmon have been a part of the history and character of the Northwest,” declared Mollie Matteson of the Center for Biological Diversity. “If we lose an iconic species like the salmon, it will be a tragic blow to our unique identity as a people and as a region, not simply an ecological loss.”

Since the eighteenth century, Atlantic salmon populations have declined precipitously throughout most of their range, both from severe water pollution and from dams blocking access to spawning grounds. Conservationists hope protecting the salmon under the Endangered Species Act will allow these and other threats to be addressed in time to save the salmon and other native migratory fish species from extinction.

Douglas Watts, author of the salmon petition, noted: “A decision on listing is nearly three years overdue. The Gulf of Maine fishery is in deep trouble; further delay on a listing decision is biologically and legally inexcusable.”

Posted by Tom Remington

Milt Inman took the picture recently near his home in Maine. As you can see the grass has greened but the leaves have yet to reveal themselves, although I think you can see the red maple buds showing on the trees behind the fox on the rock. That sly fellow believes he is king of the beasts!

Tom Remington

An Earmark + “K Street” Lobbyist = Massive Federal Land Grab

by David A. Ridenour

With his signature on May 8 to S. 2739, the ‘Consolidated Natural Resources Act of 2008,’ George Bush has now signed on to the establishment of de facto federal zoning along a 175-mile corridor running from Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s one of the largest federal land grabs in history.

On April 29, the U.S. House of Representatives passed this massive, pork-laden bill that included a provision creating the Journey Through Hallowed Ground (JTHG) National Heritage Area. Debate was limited to just 40 minutes.

Heritage areas are National Park Service preservation zones in which environmentalists, federal officials and local elitists influence local land-use decisions, frequently in ways that restrict property rights and move property ownership beyond the means of the less well-to-do.

Environmentalists and preservationists love heritage areas, because they can be used to curtail development.

Local elitists like them because they can help keep people they consider to be undesirable out of their communities. Minorities are harmed disproportionately when land-use restrictions cause home prices to soar. (It is perhaps no coincidence that lily-white Waterford, Virginia was at the epicenter of the effort to create the JTHG Heritage Area. Waterford has a rich black history — and history is apparently where the village would like to keep it.)

Politically well-connected developers like heritage areas because they can be used to establish near monopolies on real estate development opportunities. As the Heritage Foundation’s Ron Utt discovered, that’s precisely what the JTHG Heritage Area would do.

And federal bureaucrats love heritage areas because they allow them to get around little inconveniences to their central planning — inconveniences such as local elected officials.

House passage of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Heritage Area was hailed by its chief sponsor, Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA), and by the Journey Through Hallowed Ground foundation, the chief lobby organization behind the effort. Both noted the overwhelming vote in the House, 291-117.

The bill received support across party lines. In the House, supporters included Representatives Alan Mollohan (D-WV), Don Young (R-AK), William Jefferson (D-LA), Rick Renzi (R-AZ), and John Doolittle (R-CA). (Now all these gentlemen can say they have a second thing in common.)

But it is unlikely that support for the land grab was as great as the tally might suggest, as it was buried in an omnibus bill of over 60 other proposals — some enjoying wide support.

As Rep. Rob Bishop (R-UT) noted during the limited debate, “Many of the sections of this bill are unable to stand on their own and have subsequently been bundled into a $300 million brew to avoid individual scrutiny… this omnibus was created with enough prizes that inevitably the bad will be overlooked and everything, the good, the bad and the ugly, will be able to cross the finish line.”

Approval of the JTHG Heritage Area is a case study in what is wrong with American politics.

The JTHG Heritage Area wasn’t approved by Congress due to overwhelming public demand for it. Borrowing from the Beatles, perhaps it got by with a little help from Wolf’s friends — a lot of Ben Franklins, Alexander Hamiltons, Abe Lincolns and George Washingtons.

You see, Congressman Wolf slipped a $1 million dollar earmark in the 2005 federal transportation bill — buried among 6,372 other earmarks — for the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Foundation. This is the very group that has led the lobbying effort for Wolf’s bill. More unusual still is that at the time of the earmark, the foundation had yet to even be incorporated and was operating out of the personal post office box of its executive director, Cate Magennis Wyatt.

It appears as though Congressman Wolf used taxpayer money to fund the lobbying campaign for his own bill. (Read more about his here)

Then there’s the unseemly Wolf-”K Street” lobbyist connection. Wolf’s land grab bill was written by Don Pongrace, who runs the Indian practice (yes, a lobbyist for Indian gaming interests) for Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld, a large law firm with offices in D.C., London, New York and Moscow.

Not only that, but Pongrace apparently was authorized to speak for Congressman Wolf in meetings about the Journey Through Hallowed Ground Heritage Area.

It turns out that Pongrace serves on the board of the Journey Through Hallowed Ground foundation — the group receiving Wolf’s earmark largesse — and Pongrace’s wife has served the group as vice president.

Apparently, the concept of a conflict of interest is lost on the mega law firm of Akin Gump.

Interestingly, at the very time Frank Wolf was collaborating with Akin Gump on his bill, he criticized the firm for working for the Chinese government in its bid to acquire Unocal.

Wolf wrote to Akin Gump, “I question the appropriateness of an American firm… being on the payroll of the Chinese government… I immediately thought, ‘Is there no bright line to separate who lobbyists in Washington will and will not represent?’”

Is there no bright line, indeed.

Congressman Wolf introduces a bill written by a “K Street” lobbyist, arranges a $1 million earmark for the group lobbying for that bill — and employing the lobbyist’s wife — and he asks about bright lines?

Congressman Wolf also received help pushing his bill from National Park Service employees, who acted contrary to the Service’s official position, which calls for the creation of no additional heritage areas until a formal NPS program is created through legislation. Nonetheless, the NPS’s Brenda Barrett and Alma Ripps were dispatched to defend creation of the JTHG Heritage Area.

The full extent of the National Park Service’s assistance with the legislative effort is still unknown, as the Service has so far failed to fully comply with a Freedom of Information Act request. In violation of the FOIA law, it provided only incomplete records and documents that obviously had been altered (helpful hint for NPS employees: if you plan to alter documents, you might want to avoid using ruled paper).

Ethical questions surround the process through which this national heritage area was approved. A presidential veto was warranted.

-David A. Ridenour is vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research.

I got an email this morning from Gary Inman from Maine and he said the winter was so long this year that he might need a jump start for his car, pictured below.

Tom Remington

Remember this photo of a “What is it”?

The photo was taken by Milt Inman at the Andover, Maine Historical Society. Here’s his explanation:

What Is It? The machine was used to safely let a team of horses and a large sled full of logs slowly down from a mountain side to the valley below. The sled, with 4 wheels or pulleys, was taken up to near where the logs were cut and anchored to a large tree. The cable wound around the pulleys in away that it went around each one twice and then back down the mountain to a pulley chained to a tree and then back up to the braking machine. Moving the long levers on the rear of the machine would apply the braking force needed to do its job of snubbing up the load of logs hooked to the cable and going down the mountain. I think it was called a “SNUBBER” or something else. Milt

If you would like, you can return to the original post and read what some of the guesses were.

Posted by Tom Remington

A federal judge this past week told the Department of Interior it had until May 15, 2008 to make a decision on whether to list the polar bear as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act. And the environmentalists went wild!!!

If you follow the link category to the right under “Endangered Species“, you’ll find plenty of articles and links to the ongoing debate about whether the polar bear is in danger, whether the world is in danger and if it’s all caused by anthropogenic (man-made) global warming from carbon dioxide.

I laughed out loud a few days ago, when Al Gore, during an interview on CBS’ 60 Minutes said that those of us who won’t jump on his flim-flam bandwagon, were like the Flat Earth Society people and that we believe the lunar landing was staged on a lot in Hollywood. What was hilarious about it was that the Flat Earth Society was made up of people like Al Gore, who refused to listen to any kind of reasoning whether logical or scientific, that showed the earth wasn’t flat. I know of hundreds of people personally that are not sold on Al Gore’s theory of man-made global warming but are open to listening to debate on both sides of the issue. So who’s a Flat Earther?

Without debate, media, politicians and American citizens are blindly plowing ahead, often times willy-nilly, to save the planet - in this case the polar bear. Yesterday, the Houston Chronicle provided readers with an editorial about the plight of the polar bear. 100% of the piece (and yes I realize it’s an editorial) was presented as fact that ice is melting everywhere in the arctic, that this is caused by man and that the polar bear is dying off. They even repeated projections from recently discovered to be faulty models that said the bears would be extinct by the year 2050. There is just as much scientific evidence, particularly the newest data, to refute everything the Chronicle repeats as climate change facts.

But what I find as the most disturbing part of the editorial is their position on what they deem to be more important to the American people; affordable energy and a healthy economy or swallowing a politician’s theory on global warming.

It’s unlikely that in its final year in office, the administration will reverse its policy of protecting business interests instead of the environment and endangered species. The courts should not have to tell the administration to enforce environmental statutes rather than undermine or ignore them.

Protecting the polar bear under the Endangered Species Act isn’t a simple matter of adding it to a list and then we hope it gets better. There has to be intelligent discourse among sane people in order to realistically determine the all-encompassing affects of making such a move.

I have worked some in my past articles that I hoped would, if nothing else, get readers to ask questions and think more about this issue other than how it is going to affect next Christmas’ Coke commercials. Huge Hewitt of Townhall has also covered more in depth as to what actually can happen to our economy, through the federal permitting process for growth and development. He offers more thoughts on that today.

The short version: If the polar bear is listed, every activity that emits a greenhouse gas of any sort in the lower 48 AND which receives a federal permit or requires federal agency action of any sort –even if that permit or action is unrelated to the emission of the gases– those activities will be subject to new review by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and the approval may not be forthcoming, will certainly at least be delayed, and will almost certainly come with massive new costs attached.

Thus coastal building programs that require federal flood insurance or Army Corps of Engineers permits, highway construction that gets FHA funding, or joint NASA-private industry initiatives that result in launchings, all these and hundreds of thousands of additional federal permits and actions get gathered in under Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act.

Hewitt practiced Endangered Species Act law for two decades and should have a pretty good understanding on how administering the Act works. In several of his articles about the polar bear listing, he refers to Section 7 of the ESA(pdf - scroll down to find Section 7) often. The first part of Section 7 I believe spells out quite clearly, even to those of us without a law degree.

SEC. 7. ø16 U.S.C. 1536¿ (a) FEDERAL AGENCY ACTIONS AND CONSULTATIONS.—(1) The Secretary shall review other programs administered by him and utilize such programs in furtherance of the purposes of this Act. All other Federal agencies shall, in consultation with and with the assistance of the Secretary, utilize their authorities in furtherance of the purposes of this Act by carrying out programs for the conservation of endangered species and threatened species listed pursuant to section 4 of this Act.
(2) Each Federal agency shall, in consultation with and with the assistance of the Secretary, insure that any action authorized,
funded, or carried out by such agency (hereinafter in this section referred to as an ‘‘agency action’’) is not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered species or threatened species or result in the destruction or adverse modification of habitat of such species which is determined by the Secretary, after consultation as appropriate with affected States, to be critical, unless such agency has been granted an exemption for such action by the Committee pursuant to subsection (h) of this section. In fulfilling the requirements of this paragraph each agency shall use the best scientific and commercial data available.
(3) Subject to such guidelines as the Secretary may establish, a Federal agency shall consult with the Secretary on any prospective agency action at the request of, and in cooperation with, the prospective permit or license applicant if the applicant has reason to believe that an endangered species or a threatened species may be present in the area affected by his project and that implementationof such action will likely affect such species.
(4) Each Federal agency shall confer with the Secretary on any agency action which is likely to jeopardize the continued existence
of any species proposed to be listed under section 4 or result in the destruction or adverse modification of critical habitat proposed to be designated for such species. This paragraph does not require a limitation on the commitment of resources as described in subsection (d).

The two biggest remaining questions which may never get answered are; Is the polar bear really threatened and to what degree should we as a society carry out the protection of an animal species while putting our own well being at risk?

I know of nobody who wants to see the polar bear disappear. Many scientists don’t believe it will nor that it is threatened. What the Houston Chronicle failed to reveal, as has many other media sources, is that only two areas of polar bear populations are decreasing somewhat in size. The remainder are holding steady or growing. It is my opinion that we have as yet to scientifically determine whether the bear is in danger.

Remember that should the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decide to list the bear, it will be because they think man-made climate change will destroy the bear down the road somewhere. This has never been done before. Hewitt, from a perspective of having been there and done that, clearly points out that we don’t know what we are in for. The courts can only make rulings that are based on the content of the Endangered Species Act.

Do we really know what we are doing?

Tom Remington

On Thursday I posted a picture for readers to guess what it was. If you haven’t taken the chance to wager a guess, now is the chance to do that. In the process of gathering comments from readers, one of my faithful reminded me that I hadn’t revealed the previous “Whatzit” picture. That picture is below and this link will take you back to the original post so you can read all the comments about it.

So, what is it? As a reminder, this photo was sent to me by Gary Inman in Maine. Gary is a surveyor and needless to say he covers a lot of territory. Gary says the picture was taken in back of an old barn in Newry, Maine and the “thing” was taken from an old barn. He says it is actually the remains of a “six-holer”.

He was also eager to point out that he didn’t investigate closely enough to determine which hole got the most use.

Thank you Gary.

Tom Remington

The following Op-Ed appeared in the Bangor Daily News yesterday, May 1, 2008. It is written by Nathaniel Richie, who is a junior majoring in mechanical engineering at the University of Maine.

One year after Virginia Tech, the recent shootings at Northern Illinois University serve as a reminder that no meaningful progress has been made to increase safety on college campuses. To date, the “solutions” presented by school officials have been nothing but a rehash of the same failed policies that were in place before the shootings.

Police training and presence has been presented as the best way to protect students in the event of a school shooting. While certainly an important measure, there are problems with this line of reasoning. The first is that public safety response time is measured in minutes, not seconds. The critical time between a 911 dispatcher receiving a call for help and the arrival of law enforcement is time during which shooters have free rein. Police response times were five and eight minutes at NIU and Virginia Tech respectively. Both shootings ended before police were able to respond. <<<Read the rest>>>

Posted by Tom Remington

We are rapidly closing in on what many of us hope will be the end of “Bush Derangement Syndrome”. If you’re not familiar with Bush Derangement Syndrome, it is a disease that afflicts millions of Americans and has for nearly eight years now. The major recognizable symptom of BDS is a continuous blame for everything bad in the universe on George W. Bush.

But for those who fear an end to the circus, fear no more. Bush Derangement Syndrome is being replaced with Global Warming Addiction. There really is very little difference between the symptoms of the two afflictions, including those things people insist on blaming on one or both people/things.

Global Warming is being blamed for everything under the sun. If you don’t believe me, have a look at this list of news stories where global warming has been blamed for the outcome.

And it only gets better or worse depending on perspective. The American Thinker shares with readers that what might appear to be “naturally occurring” weather patterns are in fact to be blamed on? You guessed it. Global warming.

Tom Remington