Forest fires and EPA stupidity

The environmental nut-jobs have taken their brand of stupidity to new and previously unimagined heights. Check this out:

Lost in the images of aircraft dropping giant red plumes of retardant on a Colorado wildfire this week is the fact that the practice may not be legal under federal environmental laws.

A federal judge in July declared that the government's current plan for dropping retardant on fires is illegal, and he gave the U.S. Forest Service until the end of next year to find a more environmentally friendly alternative.

The aerial assaults have become a permanent fixture of television and media coverage of wildfires in recent years as planes and helicopters drop big loads of red chemicals over blazes. But environmentalists say the efforts are essentially public relations stunts that can send millions of gallons of hazardous chemicals into waterways while doing little to contain fires.
The Associated Press: Fire retardant drops come under scrutiny in West

So… Would the environmentalists prefer the fire? What about all the wildlife death that goes along with it? I don't think fires discriminate between endangered and non-endangered species.

Andy Stahl of Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, argued his case by telling the court any farmer that puts fertilizer into a creek or river knows he can go to jail for it. It would appear this clueless idiot cannot tell the difference between farming and fire fighting. I wonder if any of these idiots considered the collateral damage from the forest fire. From what I remember the ash, heat thinned tree sap and charred debris poisons the streams and lakes far more thoroughly then over splash form a slurry drop.

What is even more shocking then Stahl's stupidity is that a federal judge actually signed off on it. Last July U.S. District Judge Donald W. Molloy gave the forest service to the end of 2012 to come up with something more environmentally friendly. Does that mean we have to stop slurry drops on wild fires beginning in 2013? If that is the case, California and the southwest are going to have a hellacious 2013 fire season.

So the environmentalists believe human lives and property are to be allowed to burn rather then risk collateral damage from a slurry drop. Think these clowns might want that slurry drop if they or their homes happened to be in the immediate path of a fire?

I wanted to pursue information on the Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics, but nothing comes up on Google other then the news stories about this case. Guess their idea of the web is something strung between two trees in a forest.

If our country goes down the crapper, one of the root causes is going to this casting aside common sense in favor of extremist ideology.

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I resent the fact that people in places like Boston, New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, and San Francisco believe that they should be able to tell us how to live our lives, operate our businesses, and what to do with the land that we love and cherish.
- Wilford Brimley

World's First Female Pistol Duel

Back in 1877 Denver was the site of the recorded first gun duel fought between women. Madames Mattie Silks and Katie Fulton fought a duel with single shot Derringers over a married man they both laid claim to. Neither was his wife. Both followed the general guidelines, paced off their steps, turned and fired. Neither Madame took a hit.

However, Cort Thomson, the man at the center of the dispute was hit. Some versions of the story say that immediately after the smoke cleared the ladies engaged in the mother of all cat fights. Silks won the cat fight. A bloodied and bruised Fulton left on the next stage never to be heard from again.

Silks continued running her business and went on to become the most successful Madame in Denver. Eventually Thomson and Silks married. They had to wait for Thomson's wife to die as she wouldn't give him a divorce. Silks went on to purchase The House of Mirrors at 1942 Market Street.

Mattie Silks lived to be 83, passing away in 1929 at Denver General Hospital. She died from the complications of a broken hip. Her House of Mirrors establishment exists to this day as a bar with a museum to the world's oldest profession upstairs.

This moment of home town heritage was brought to you by Wild West Tech on the History Channel.

References:
Denver History - Mattie Silks
The Jailery - Mattie Silks of Colorado Queen of the Red Light District

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Prostitution, although hounded, imprisoned, and chained, is nevertheless the greatest triumph of Puritanism.
- Emma Goldman