Busterites -

Take a second to head over to Moldy Chum and answer a few questions for a poll on the importance of wild steelhead: www.moldychum.com/surveys.

“We’d like to find out just how important the experience of catching a wild steelhead is to the recreational angler in Washington,” said Rob Masonis, vice president of Western Conservation for Trout Unlimited, the nation’s leading advocacy group for coldwater fisheries conservation. TU has thousands of members in Washington state, and is interested in seeing where its members, and the angling community as a whole, stand on this important issue. “From a conservation standpoint, we worry that hatchery fish are diluting wild stocks and reducing the hearty nature of steelhead in the Northwest. But we recognize the overall importance of steelhead to the recreational angler. I guess it boils down to a simple question: would you rather catch a wild fish or a hatchery fish?” 

The data, non-scientific though it may be, will be provided to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

From the recent invite sent out by the American Museum of Fly Fishing:

Angler’s All Presentation
November 12

Grand Hyatt

Washington, DC

Please join the AMFF on Thursday, November 12, 2009, for our Anglers
All Presentation in Washington, DC. The evening will also include an
address by former Vice President Dick Cheney. Festivities begin at the
Hilton in Washington, DC, at 6 p.m., and will include appetizers,
wine, and dinner.

A seat in the back row will run you $500. Seating within firing range will cost up to $10,000 and require an apology after the fact. That’s not a joke. Well, maybe the apology part.

To make your reservation now, or to let the AMFF know how excited you are (not) about their choice of speaker, go to the American Museum of Fly Fishing website (sorry, we won’t link them).

Douchebags…

June 5th, 1976. Teton county, eastern Idaho. The dam on the Teton River failed, sending a wall of water 15 feet high and 7-8 miles wide, downstream.

11 people were killed.

Thousands of homes and businesses were destroyed.

Estimates of the damage were well over $1 billion (in 1976 $).

During construction, Trout Unlimited teamed up with other concerned groups and filed an injunction to get construction on the dam suspended, citing inadequate environmental analysis. The judge threw the injunction out, and construction continued.

One of the points raised by the coalition was insufficient examination of the porous rock on site. The porous nature of the rock that the dam was built on was noted as a key reason for the dam’s failure.

The dam failed before it had entirely filled. It continues to be the worst failure in the history of the Bureau of Reclamation.

Fast forward to today. The State of Idaho has recently granted $800,000 to research new water containment options in the upper Snake region, including considering rebuilding the Teton Dam.

The Teton River is home to a struggling population of native Yellowstone cutthroat. There are other, safer and less impactful options to address eastern Idaho’s water needs.

“A mining company was given the go-ahead by the Supreme Court on Monday to dump waste from an Alaskan gold mine into a nearby 23-acre lake, although the material will kill all of the lake’s fish.The court said that the federal government acted legally in declaring the waste left after metals are extracted from the ore as “fill material” allowing a federal permit without meeting more stringent requirements from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act.”

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“I look forward to spending the next 100 years trying to fix this legislation,” said California Republican Brian Bilbray.

“This is the biggest job killing bill that’s ever been on the floor of the House of Representatives. Right here, this bill,” said House Minority Leader John Boehner. “And I don’t think that’s what the American people want.”

Donning reading glasses, Boehner then delayed the roll call vote by reading page-by-page through a 300-page managers’ amendment Democrats added at around 3 a.m. on Friday. Boehner seemed to relish the hour-long stunt, picking out the bill’s most obscure language and then pontificating about what it might – or might not – mean. Republicans laughed along with him and roared with applause when he was done.”

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“Well, you might say, who cares? If cap-and-trade succeeds, won’t we all be saved from the catastrophe of global warming? Maybe - but cap-and-trade, as envisioned by Goldman, is really just a carbon tax so that private interests collect the revenues. Instead of simply imposing a fixed government levy on carbon pollution and forcing unclean energy producers to pay for the mess they make, cap-and-trade will allow a small tribe of greedy-as-hell Wall Street swine to turn yet another commodities market into a private tax-collection scheme. This is worse than the bailout: It allows the bank to seize taxpayer money before it’s even collected.”

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“They achieve this using the same playbook over and over again. The formula is relatively simple: Goldman positions itself in the middle of a speculative bubble, selling investments they know are crap. Then they hoover up vast sums from the middle and lower floors of society with the aid of a crippled and corrupt state that allows it to rewrite the rules in exchange for the relative pennies the bank throws at political patronage. Finally, when it all goes bust, leaving millions of ordinary citizens broke and starving, they begin the entire process over again, riding in to rescue us all by lending us back our own money at interest, selling themselves as men above greed, just a bunch of really smart guys keeping the wheels greased. They’ve been pulling this same stunt over and over since the 1920s - and now they’re preparing to do it again, creating what may be the biggest and most audacious bubble yet.If you want to understand how we got into this financial crisis, you have to first understand where all the money went - and in order to understand that, you need to understand what Goldman has already gotten away with. It is a history exactly five bubbles long - including last year’s strange and seemingly inexplicable spike in the price of oil. There were a lot of losers in each of those bubbles, and in the bailout that followed. But Goldman wasn’t one of them. IF AMERICA IS NOW CIRCLING THE DRAIN, GOLDMAN SACHS HAS FOUND A WAY TO BE THAT DRAIN.”
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We are living in a complete farce.

Maybe we should blow the dust off this old tract:

Perhaps the sentiments contained in the following pages, are not YET sufficiently fashionable to procure them general favour; a long habit of not thinking a thing WRONG, gives it a superficial appearance of being RIGHT, and raises at first a formidable outcry in defense of custom. But the tumult soon subsides. Time makes more converts than reason. As a long and violent abuse of power, is generally the Means of calling the right of it in question (and in Matters too which might never have been thought of, had not the Sufferers been aggravated into the inquiry) and as the King of England hath undertaken in his OWN RIGHT, to support the Parliament in what he calls THEIRS, and as the good people of this country are grievously oppressed by the combination, they have an undoubted privilege to inquire into the pretensions of both, and equally to reject the usurpation of either. In the following sheets, the author hath studiously avoided every thing which is personal among ourselves. Compliments as well as censure to individuals make no part thereof. The wise, and the worthy, need not the triumph of a pamphlet; and those whose sentiments are injudicious, or unfriendly, will cease of themselves unless too much pains are bestowed upon their conversion. The cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind. Many circumstances hath, and will arise, which are not local, but universal, and through which the principles of all Lovers of Mankind are affected, and in the Event of which, their Affections are interested. The laying a Country desolate with Fire and Sword, declaring War against the natural rights of all Mankind, and extirpating the Defenders thereof from the Face of the Earth, is the Concern of every Man to whom Nature hath given the Power of feeling; of which Class, regardless of Party Censure, is the AUTHOR.

http://www.ushistory.org/PAINE/commonsense/sense1.htm

Link to a good new article in High Country News exploring why salmon may finally get a favorable day in court:

Salmon Salvation.

 ”Salmon Pinball” by Paul Lachine

After a convoluted history, the Omnibus Public Lands Act passed the House of Representatives today, with a vote of 285-140. The “Big O” has already said he will sign it into law, possibly early next week.

The bundle of 170 separate bills that make up the Omnibus represents protection for over 2 million acres of land in 9 states including increased protections for 270,000 acres of land along 82 newly-designated Wild and Scenic rivers, safeguarding over 1,000 miles of river in total.

A few of the bill’s acts in more detail:

- Passage of the Craig Thomas Snake Headwaters Legacy Act, which will designate 387 miles of rivers and streams in the upper Snake River drainage as “Wild and Scenic.”

- Passage of the Owyhee Initiative, which will create a Wilderness designation for 517,000 acres, and 316 miles of Wild and Scenic designation along the Owyhee river corridor.

- Passage of the Wyoming Range Legacy Act, which will result in increased protections for the Wyoming range from further oil and gas development.

Hell yes.

 Excerpted from British Columbia Wild Salmon Advocate Alexandra Morton’s article in the “Westcoaster” newspaper:

The website for Friends of Port Mouton shows a grim-faced Nova Scotia fisherman holding a fish farm protest sign.

The caption reads, “Something’s wrong when you have to fight like this just to keep your friggin’ harbour.”

He’s right.

Something is very wrong, and my grizzled-faced fisherman neighbours are standing in this man’s shoes a continent away.

While government scoffs at the science, the fact is the wild salmon are vanishing on the extinction trajectory we predicted.

As the wild salmon go, so we go….

Full article.

Link to the petition.

AMFF to Average Anglers- Go Fuck yourself

“Moments ago we spoke with Cathi Comar, the executive director of the American Museum of Fly Fishing, and learned that the Museum has gone ahead with their invitation to former Vice President Dick Cheney to attend their annual fundraiser dinner in the fall… ‘Although we work with conservation organizations,’ she said, ‘conservation itself is outside of our role.’”

Hat tip to Midcurrent for the update.

And the latest in the, “We Can Neither Deny Nor Confirm That Darth Will Be Appearing At Our Annual Dinner” Dept:

*** Money detail: In 2008, in the towns of Brattleboro and Marlboro, Vt. (less than 50 miles from the AMFF), the citizens of those towns voted to indict George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for  “crimes against our Constitution.” The indictments went into effect upon W. and Dick leaving office, which is to say, both are now “wanted men” in those  towns and police are authorized to arrest them on sight. Troof. We’re not making this up.

Now this begs the question - is the AMFF really so clueless that they would invite Big Dick, knowing that in towns less than 50 miles from the Museum, he’s been indicted for serious crimes against the Constitution?!? Or do they just not care? Either way, the Museum continues to be, “unable to confirm nor deny” that Cheney will be appearing at their annual 2009 dinner…

Btw, if you’d like to share your thoughts about Big Dick appearing at the AMFF, you can contact the museum’s  executive director, Catherine Comar, who, at this point, has taken a firm stand on only being able to confirm that she cannot deny that Dick might be there, or he might not be. Any bets on whether he’ll appear via secure tele-link from an undisclosed bunker location?

“In these sad and ominous days of mad fortune-chasing, every patriotic and thoughtful citizen, whether he fishes not, should lament that we have not among our countrymen more fishermen.”

- Grover Cleveland, 22nd and 24th President of the United States

(Herbert Hoover fishing at Brown’s Camp in California, 1928)

“Fishing is great discipline in the equality of men - for all men are equal before fish!”

- Herbert Hoover, 31st President of the United States

“As President I was able with the stroke of a pen to save a hundred million acres of wilderness in Alaska. This is the kind of thing that is gratifying to a President, but to be on a solitary stream with good friends, with a fly rod in your hand, and to have a successful or even an unsuccessful day - they’re all successful - is an even greater delight.”

- Jimmy Carter, 39th President of the United States

“A dolphin we catchd at noon, but cou’d not entice with a baited hook two baricootas, which played under our stern for some hours.”

- George Washington, 1st President of the United States (from his time in Barbados at age 19)

“I think I need to learn fly fishing. Get some waders, go out there, clear my head.”

- Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s President’s Day. Without a long history of Presidents who hunted and fished, we wouldn’t have the unique legacy of public lands that we have today. Give ‘em thanks by getting out and enjoying them as they were intended, and defend them with your life, for nothing less is at stake.

Buster-ites,

A while back we reported on the landmark legislation, S. 22, the Omnibus Public Lands Management Act, which passed the Senate on Jan. 15th, 2009 with a vote of  73 to to 21 (4 not voting). The vote on this bill, the 2nd largest Wild and Scenic protection bill in our nation’s history, goes to the House of Representatives later this week, and possibly as early as tomorrow. If it passes the House, it will then go to the President to be signed in to law.

Word on the street is that the bill may be a much closer vote in the House than it was in the Senate. So please, please take a minute out of your day to contact your Representative and ask them to support S. 22, The Omnibus Public Lands Management Act. You can also take action here.

This is huge, people. Thanks.

Dear [Name]:

We have received your letter/e-mail expressing concern that The American Museum of Fly Fishing has extended an invitation to Vice President Dick Cheney to be the guest speaker at a Museum-sponsored dinner in 2009. While we appreciate your opinion regarding our selection of the Vice President, and your evident interest in the activities that this Museum undertakes, we are excited to hold this dinner and the Board and staff are honored that the Vice President has agreed to attend. We hope that you continue to support the Museum and its mission.

The Museum’s Articles of Association identify its purpose to include the preservation of fly fishing “memorabilia for education of the general public on the history of fly fishing …” The back cover of our award-winning journal, The American Fly Fisher, confirms this purpose by noting in each issue that the Museum serves as a repository for rods, reels, flies, tackle, art, books, and artifacts relating to the rich heritage of fly fishing.

Among the Museum’s prized collections is one that contains the fishing equipment used by past presidents of the United States, regardless of their performance in office, their political leanings, or their current or past reputations. Our premier traveling exhibition, Anglers All, highlights the fly fishing paraphernalia of former presidents Carter, Coolidge, Hoover, Eisenhower, F. D. Roosevelt, and George .H.W. Bush. Controversy attended the administrations of each of these men. Fly fishing rods, reels, and flies of internationally acclaimed entertainers, writers, and industrialists, among other well-known people, grace our collections. We did not vet any of these contributions using a standard of political popularity nor could we serve the Museum’s overarching purpose had we done so. The Museum’s commitment to the total history of fly fishing is inclusive.

Vice President Dick Cheney is a significant historical figure in this country and the world and an avid, lifelong fly fisherman. The Museum is a nonpolitical institution that seeks to enhance its collections and richly preserve fly fishing artifacts, including those used by major figures in our own country’s history, as we have done for decades.

We hope that this letter assists in expressing our reasons for honoring the Vice President and accepting his fly fishing artifacts into the Museum as a part of its permanent collection.

Very truly yours,

Cathi Comar
Executive Director

Note: Ted Williams releases the hounds on the AMFF in a column in High Country news. A great, firebreathing read. Strong werk, Ted.

A couple weeks ago we told our faithful, degenerate readers that a major new public lands bill, which would include designating 387 miles of the Snake headwaters and its tributaries as Wild and Scenic, was on its way to the Senate.

Well, last week, the second largest Wild and Scenic package in history passed the Senate, safeguarding over 1,000 miles of rivers in Oregon, Idaho, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Vermont, and Massachusetts. S. 22, the bi-partisan Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2009, includes important protections for 270,000 acres of land along 82 new Wild and Scenic Rivers.  The legislation also contains new Wilderness designations for over two million acres of public land.

Hells yeah.

To find out more specifics, check out the good folks at American Rivers. And thank them for having a big hand in making this happen.

Snake River, Wyoming Range bill clears Senate hurdle

A bill that includes protections for the Snake River watershed and Wyoming Range is expected to get a vote in the Senate later this week after advancing Sunday.

By a 66-12 vote, with only 59 needed to limit debate, lawmakers agreed to clear away procedural hurdles on the public lands omnibus bill that includes the local measures and about 160 other bills, despite partisan wrangling.

The Craig Thomas Snake Headwaters Legacy Act would protect 387 miles of rivers and streams in the Snake River drainage under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The Wyoming Range Legacy Act would prohibit further energy leasing on 1.2 million acres in the Wyoming Range, Salt River Range and Commissary Ridge areas south of Jackson Hole and would allow conservation groups to buy and retire existing energy leases.

Good news indeed, chaps and lassies.

Full low down here.

Ted Williams reports that the guest of honor at the spring meeting of the American Museum of Fly Fishing will be none other than that ultimate defender of wildlife, Dick Cheney.

You may still be recovering from New Years, but you did read that correctly.

 Let them know how you feel

Catherine E. Comar, Executive Director
American Museum of Fly Fishing
4104 Main Street
Manchester, Vermont 05254

amff@amff.com

In a landmark ruling on a battle that has been ongoing for more than 20 years, the Montana Supreme Court has ruled that Mitchell Slough in the Bitterroot valley is a public access stream. “Big deal, you say - I never fish there anyway.” Well, you selfish prick, this type of ruling has the potential to affect access issues in other areas, including maybe yours.

From NewWest:

 ”With a 54-page ruling, the Supreme Court deemed the waterway a natural stream, which means access to it is protected by Montana’s stream access law, which is among the strongest in the country…

The case, which has been watched closely across the West as a crucial test of stream access law, has been a long-running extravaganza of protests, celebrity, and political maneuvering but more than that, it has been a spur for complex and often heated discussions on water rights, landownership, what’s natural and what’s not and most of all, how to square the values of the Old West with the demands of the New. “

Full article here.

Apparently not content with trashing the kid’s room and putting out their Kools on the floor, the Bush administration is shooting for a last-minute rogering of the Clean Air Act in the form of a new EPA rule weakening pollution regulations for power plants, allowing them to increase emissions without adding controls.

And as a special bonus, they’re also “expected to decide in November on another eleventh-hour rule that would allow more power plants to be built near national parks and wilderness areas.”

Whatever happened to just pardoning a few crooks?

 While we can’t reveal our source on this exclusive scoop, we also felt it would be unfair to wait until the date of the story to reveal it to our loyal Busterites.  And so, here are the unfortunate results of next week’s election:

FRI, NOV. 7, 2008

Obama’s Loss Traced to Donny Beaver 

Single Nonvoter Tipped Election To McCain-Palin Ticket

“If we find our government in all its branches rushing headlong… into the arms of monarchy, if we find them violating our dearest rights, the trial by jury, the freedom of the press, the freedom of opinion, civil or religious, or opening on our peace of mind or personal safety the sluices of terrorism, if we see them raising standing armies, when the absence of all other danger points to these as the sole objects on which they are to be employed, then indeed let us withdraw and call the nation to its tents. But while our functionaries are wise, and honest, and vigilant, let us move compactly under their guidance, and we have nothing to fear. Things may here and there go a little wrong. It is not in their power to prevent it. But all will be right in the end, though not perhaps by the shortest means.” - Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1811