Ozarks Property Rights Congress
Property Rights Meeting – November 12
Gainesville – Vaught’s Family Restaurant
7:00 p.m.
On meeting night, food is served from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m.
Vaught’s is located on Highway 160, west of Gainesville, west of the junction of Highway 160 and Highway 5 South
President’s Message by c. Russell Wood
Bob Parker and I went to DNR headquarters in Jefferson City on the 28th to attend another session of the group putting together plans for the classification of ALL STREAMS, DITCHES, MUD HOLES, DRY OR WET in the state. They want 180,000 miles of Missouri streams to be designated as safe to swim in. What makes this such a scary issue is not only will it turn control of all watersheds over to agency regulators like DNR and EPA, but the extremist groups such as the Sierra club are pushing to get the most stringent controls possible on land use. They want to insure (they say ) that all creek and storm runoff water will be safe and will not make them sick if they happen to get any water up their nose while swimming, canoeing, wading, fishing or otherwise playing in the creek.
DNR claims they have to do this to comply with federal clean water laws. Truth is they do this to get millions from the feds of our tax money. They readily admit that there is no eminent stream contamination problem that requires this broad and drastic action. It all seems to fit right in with the “Clean Water” bill being brought to Congress.
While there we learned that Phil Schroeder is retiring from DNR. Phil is the one agency employee who was willing to come down here, meet with us and listen to our concerns. He told me that he had learned a lot from our association. He said his trips down here had “opened his eyes” and caused him to see things differently. His leaving DNR is a loss for us, but he asks that we give others a chance to show they have the right outlook. He insists there are other good people working there. We`ll see.
As the result of the discussion at the October 22 meeting in Mountain Grove, and the concerns voiced there, I`ve sent a letter to Mr. Tom Draper Forestry Regional Supervisor of the Conservation Department, outlining those concerns about the Massengill CA boundary dispute with its neighbors. Here is the text of the letter:
“We view the Conservation Department as a state agency whose duty is to manage the fish and wild life of the state. We consider the Department to be excessively funded with tax payer money. MDC revenue is exceeded only by Florida and California, giving Missouri the third largest conservation budget of all the states, while having far less population and land mass than the two top states. Since the inception of the 1/8 cent sales tax over 25 years ago, the department has become the state’s largest single landowner. This tax brings in some $100 million annually.
Partly because of the above, partly because we believe in private ownership favored over public ownership, and partly because we believe in neighborly conduct and common sense, we view your approach to the Massengill Conservation Area boundary issue as follows:
* You were given the 200 plus acres to manage in its natural state. That would prohibit turning it exclusively into a public park or recreation area, so how is the public going to be deprived use of the disputed boundary acreage? You will be harvesting timber as needed, as Mr. Massengill had done.
* It seems tacky at best that the state’s largest landowner ( a state agency at that) would accept a gift from a donor then challenge the same neighbors the donor had shared boundaries with, over fence location and land use. A few acres is so miniscule in your overall ownership picture and seems rather petty.
* The letter you sent to the neighbors on February 24, 2009 telling them how things were going to be and making demands of them, was not the action of a neighbor, but of a heavy handed bureaucracy, insulated from the reality of sharing boundaries. Put yourself in the position of living on the gifted property yourself next to these neighbors from now on. Would your approach to them have been the same?
* It is a generally accepted practice that a fence line standing and maintained for seven years cannot be changed without mutual consent. If the state is exempt from that practice, it shouldn’t be.
* Mr. Massengill would not like to know that his gift and his name are being embroiled in controversy with the neighbors he lived beside, respected, and enjoyed for many years.
* Your actions in this matter should be seen as a warning to well meaning landowners who might be considering leaving their land to your agency.”
One of the landowners in this dispute has agreed to speak at the Gainesville meeting on November 12.
Upcoming Meetings
November – no meeting in Mountain Grove
December 3 – Mountain Grove Hayloft Restaurant -7 pm
Representatives from the Missouri Department of Conservation are scheduled to attend and address the concerns in the dispute over boundaries in Douglas County.
December – No meeting in Gainesville
January 14, 2010 Gainesville – Vaught’s Restaurant – 7 p.m.
January 28, 2010 Mountain Grove
Hayloft Restaurant 7 pm
Notes: Always at the Hayloft, come early if you care to eat, as no food is allowed in the meeting room due to limited staff.
At Vaught’s Family Restaurant in Gainesville, food is served from 5:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. on meeting nights.
All winter meetings are held on a weather permitting basis. Email: info@ozarksprc.com
All meetings are in Missouri unless otherwise noted.
NAIS – Let the Enforcements Begin
©Doreen Hannes for R CALF USA
Used with permission of the author
In the state of Wisconsin, which has mandated the first prong of NAIS through agency rule making, the prosecutions of individuals opposed to NAIS has begun.
On September 23rd, an Amish gentleman, Emanuel J. Miller, was taken to court in Clark County Court Neillsville, Wisconsin, for an evidentiary hearing on complex civil forfeiture for failing to register his premises and moved immediately to the first stage of trial. Emanuel Miller and his father as well as their Deacon testified in the trial as to their objection to the NAIS premises identification number. As the USDA has proudly proclaimed in many glossy brochures, premises registration is the -first step- in the National Animal Identification System. The Amish in Wisconsin have become quite aware of this.
On October 21st, in Polk County, Wisconsin, R-CALF USA members, Pat and Melissa Monchilovich are going to trial for the same charges of complex civil forfeiture. Pat and his wife raise cattle in Cumberland, and have failed to register property as a premises with the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture Trade and Consumer Protection as DATCP has required by regulation.
This is the tip of the iceberg that is NAIS. One could look upon Wisconsin as the sentinel case in the enforcement measures necessary to bring NAIS compliance in this nation.
Although the statute passed enabling DATCP to require premises registration, it did allow for exemptions. When DATCP wrote the regulations, they decided to disallow any exemptions. This is a major issue, particularly with the Amish community (and others) who hold religious objections to the program. As reported from the Miller hearing, the Amish say that although they cannot state with absolute certainty that the premises number is the precursor to the Mark of the Beast, they do know it is the first step of NAIS which leads to the individual numbering and tracking of animals, and believe that caution is in order to avoid discovering later that they had violated their beliefs and then have no recourse to remedy that error.
Despite a desire on the part of proponents of NAIS to negate the religious objections against the National Animal Identification System, the fact that it is a global program is indisputable.
The enforcement measures and final details are left up to the member nations of the World Trade Organization. In Australia, rancher Stephen Blair was fined a total of $17,300 for using the wrong tags on 177 of his cattle. Notably, the components of NLIS, the Australian animal identification plan, are the same as those in NAIS.
Another case where the identification of cattle was in violation of the identification mandate to facilitate global trade is the UK. In March of 2007, a dairy farmer, David Dobbin had an unspecified number of cattle whose tags didn’t match their passports. The EU regulations allowed DEFRA, the UK equivalent of the USDA, to confiscate both his cattle and his passports and require him to positively identify the herd within 48 hours or face their loss. It is a complete impossibility to positively identify animals without either the animals or their paperwork, but that was the requirement. The case was put off for one month and then appealed on the basis that the agency couldn’t afford to keep feeding these cattle, so they were destroyed. Mr. Dobbin lost 567 cattle and was paid no indemnity at all.
At issue in the Wisconsin cases is that we are witnessing the first enforcement actions in the implementation of the National Animal Identification System. The fines in the charges brought against Emanuel J Miller and R-CALF USA members Pat and Melissa Monchilovich are between $200 and $5,000. Premises identification is just the first step of this program, then it’s individual or group lot identification and thirdly, the tracking of all movements. The final component is enforcement, which is now coming to bear in Wisconsin. More than 90% of attendees at the USDA listening sessions on NAIS said “No NAIS, Not Now, Not Ever!” If we mean that, we must stand in support of the people being charged in Wisconsin.
1) Miller trial
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2009/09/27/the-lost-people-part-ii/
2) Stephen Blair, Australia
http://nqr.farmonline.com.au/news/nationalrural/livestock/cattle/cattle-producer-ordered-to-pay-17300-for-nlis-tag-breach/798558.aspx )
3) DobbinUK http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1545862/Christopher-Bookers-notebook.html
On October 21, 2009 in Wisconsin Circuit Court, Polk County, the Judge found Pat & Melissa Monchilovich guilty of failure to register premises.
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2009/10/22/look-what-1-5-million-can-buy-you-in-wisconsin/
Wisconsin Judge Orders Beef Rancher to Register Premises http://www.thecountrytoday.com/
The Cap & Trade Bill is on the move!
The Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works held meetings on the “Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” (Cap & Trade or Cap & Tax bill, S1733, HR2454, or whatever you want to call it) last week (October 27-30). Senator John Kerry, the bill’s co-sponsor, said he was confident that the Senate would be able to bring a bill to the Senate floor for a full vote before the United Nation Climate Change Conference, December 7-18 in Copenhagen.
Kerry also said in an article on the theenergycollection.com website “This is really when grassroots count.”
We couldn’t agree with Senator Kerry more, in this case. NOW, MORE THAN EVER, we need to stand up and be inconstant communication with our elected officials voicing our concerns on legislation and issues.
Will it do any good? It certainly won’t do any good to sit on our hands and do nothing!
In addition to the Cap & Trade
bill, other ominous bills lurk.
The Clean Water Restoration
Act, (S787) is laying in wait.
Missouri DNR folks, in the meetings Russell, Bob, and Ray have attended, are already using language like “waters of the state of Missouri,” “waters of the U.S.” Terms that are part of the Clean Water Restoration Act that hasn’t been enacted yet.
And, don’t forget the “food safety” HR 2749 that will amend the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improve the safety of food in the global market, and for other purposes. On August 3, 2009 HR2749 passed the House of Representaives and was received in the Senate and read twice and referred to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions. And, there it waits. . .
None of these bills are good for ordinary hardworking Americans. From the editor
From Tom DeWeese,editor of The DeWeese Report – Freedom21.com
70 Main Street, Suite 23Warrenton, VA 20186 – 1-540-341-8915
Environmental Facts the Greens will never mention
From The DeWeese Report – Page 7 – October 2009
ITEM: Compact fluorescent light bulbs, mandated to replace the century-old reliable incandescent bulb (at four times the cost) contain poisonous liquid mercury over 300 times the EPA’s standard accepted safety level. In addition, days after a bulb has been broken, vacuuming or simply crawling across the carpeted floor where the bulb was broken can cause mercury vapor levels to shoot back upwards of 100 times the accepted level of safety.
These figures are according to a report by the Maine Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) after a woman was quoted $2000 for cleanup of a broken compact fluorescent bulb in her house. In short, it basically takes a HAZMAT team to clean up when a bulb is broken. Worse, as the bulbs are used by more Americans, landfills will become toxic waste dumps, forcing massive government response to deal with normal disposal of the filthy bulbs.
Apparently that is how the “green” industry intends to create jobs. These toxic bulbs are bad for the environment, bad for the economy and bad for your health. Who benefits? General Electric and Sylvania, corporations which lobbied Congress to ban the incandescent bulb so they could market the much more profitable “green” bulbs. They make more money and they get to tout their “good environmental stewardship.” They even get awards for it.
Time to demand that Congress rescind the coming ban on incandescent bulbs and bring back safety and common sense. Remember, the “green” bulbs were forced on us to cut back on energy use to protect us from global warming. That too is being proven to not exist. Follow the money.
ITEM: Even the Sierra Club calls wind farms “Cuisinarts in the sky as the blades slash birds and bats right out of the sky. They have become a major threat to endangered raptors like Eagles.
ITEM: Another green lie exposed. “The amount of carbon emissions caused by world forest destruction is likely far less than the 20 percent figure being widely used before global climate talks in December, said the head of the Brazilian institute that measures Amazon deforestation. Gilberto Camara, the direct of Brazil’s respected National Institute for Space Research, said the [IPCC’s] 20 percent tally was based on poor science but that rich countries had no interest in questioning it because the number put more pressure on developing countries to stem greenhouse gases.” —Stuart Grudgings, Reuters, August 21, 2009
What Next? Cap & Trade for Babies
Earth: An environmental writer mainstreams an idea floating around the green fringe — save the earth by population control and give carbon credits to one-child families. Are we threatened by the patter of little carbon footprints?
It’s long been a mantra on the left that people are a plague on the earth, ravaging its surface for food and resources, polluting its atmosphere and endangering its species. Now we are endangering its very climate to the point of extinction. Even the result of our breathing — carbon dioxide — has been declared by the EPA to be a dangerous pollutant.
Treaties like Kyoto and the upcoming economic suicide pact to be forged in Copenhagen have focused on the instruments and byproducts of our civilization. Now the focus is shifting increasingly to the people who built it.
New York Times environmental writer Andrew Revkin participated in an Oct. 14 panel discussion on climate change with other media pundits titled “Covering Climate: What’s Population Got To Do With It?” People who need people they are not.
Participating via Web cam, Revkin volunteered that in allocating carbon credits as part of any cap-and-trade scheme, “if you can measurably somehow divert fertility rate, say toward accelerating decline in a place with a high fertility rate, shouldn’t there be a carbon value to that?”
He went on to say that “probably the single most concrete and substantive thing an American, young American, could do to lower our carbon footprint is not turning off the light or driving a Prius, it’s having fewer kids, having fewer children.”
”More children equal more carbon dioxide emissions,” Rivkin has blogged, wondering “whether this means we’ll soon see a market in baby-avoidance carbon credits similar to efforts to sell CO2 credits for avoiding deforestation.” Save the trees, not the children.
Rivkin’s views are unfortunately shared by people with power and influence. Jonathon Porritt, chairman of Britain’s Sustainable Development Commission, believes that “having more than two children is irresponsible” and that people should “connect up their own responsibility for their total environmental footprint.” . . . . . . . . .
Ozarks Property Rights Congress Contacts
Mountain Grove and Gainesville meeting information
info@ozarksprc.com
Arkansas Info: Mary Rivera P.O. Box 37, Gepp, AR 72538
Barry County Chapter
Paul Bingham
Email for location & date
paulbingham44@yahoo.com
Far Southwest Chapter
Arthur & Virginia Waggoner
New-Mac Community Center, Anderson, Missouri
2nd Tuesday at 7:00 p.m.
wagg@leru.net
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