The Colorado Index

A Pulitzer Prize Nomination

It is my intention, early next year, to nominate the Rocky Mountain News for the 2008 Pulitzer Prize for journalism: 

5. For a distinguished example of local reporting that illuminates significant issues or concerns, in print or in print and online.

My nomination will be based on their coverage of the Larry Manzanaras situation, especially the apparent attempted obstruction of justice by the state court administrator (months before Manzanaras committed suicide).  The nomination will highlight their two editorials, one calling for an investigation, and one calling for a constitutional reform of the Commission on Judicial Discipline.

It turns out that making such a nomination is easy to do, relatively inexpensive, and appropriate.  In fact, I have learned that each year newspapers routinely nominate themselves or their employees for the honor, so why shouldn't a reader do so with even more credibility.

By February 1, the Administrator's office in the Columbia School of Journalism has received more than 1,300 journalism entries. Those entries may be submitted by any individual from material appearing in a United States newspaper published daily, Sunday, or at least once a week during the calendar year.

The cost is the time it takes to put a notebook of clippings together, to write a letter, and $50.

I first looked into the possibility of making a recommendation in early March when the Rocky did something that the other two major papers, the Post and the Gazette feared to do.  They published both a story and an editorial on a news conference held by a member of the staff of Chief Justice of Colorado who claimed that there was no obstruction of justice in the state court administrator's attempt to sidetrack the prosecution of former judge Larry Manzanaras for the alleged theft of a laptop computer. 

The Post had a reporter there.  A day later that reporter appeared on Colorado Inside Out, a Denver PBS public affairs program.  He said about the issue "somebody really should look into this."  Instead of looking into it and writing about it, the Post went dead silent, not only on the involvement of the state court administrator, and the fact that there was a news conference, but on the whole subject of the theft.

It takes courage for a newspaper to take on the judiciary in its own state.  I have been surveying and writing about legal issues for about a year, and have discovered that it seldom happens.  It is not unusual for a major paper to write informatively about judicial transgressions in another state, but when it comes to their own state, the criticism, if there is any criticism at all, is muted.

There is a good reason for cowardice.  Judges abhor criticism of themselves and others.  Some will use any method possible for retaliation.  It is quite easy for a judge to slow roll a litigant.  Justice delayed is justice denied.  Justice delayed is invariably very expensive.  News media are often litigants, giving judges have many opportunities to stick it to their critics.  Sometimes judges can be subtle in their effort to sabotage a lawsuit, but often they are so anxious to send a message that they don't care if they are subtle or not.

The Colorado Springs Gazette very seldom writes anything critical about the Colorado judiciary.  Instead, it curries favor with the local judges with fawning coverage.  When an initiative, amendment 40, was submitted to the voters that would make appellate judges come before the voters more often than once every eight or ten years, the Gazette opined that the voters got enough information to make informed decisions about judicial retention.  If that is true, they don't get it from the Gazette. 

When the Denver Post writes its occasional story about judicial malfeasance, it does so in general terms, being careful not to mention the names of the judges involved. 

In 2006, questions were raised about the performance of an appellate judge with a Hispanic surname.  The Rocky explained with great thoroughness why some members of the state judicial performance commission had voted not to recommend retention to the voters. 

The Denver Post was on the other side of the issue.  It lacked the facts to defend the judge, and didn't even try to use facts.  Instead, it played the race card based on his name and claimed that no one who had been damaged had the courage to publicly comment on the judge's performance.  They criticized others for not having the courage to do the very thing the editorial board of the Post routinely lacks the courage to do, criticize a judge publicly and by name.

This wasn't just cowardice, it was cynical, mercenary, demagogic conduct.

The thing that makes me sick is that even when I submit the recommendation, it will have to be passed on by the Pulitzer board.  One of the members of that board is Greg Moore, the editor of the Denver Post.  My nomination will be seen, and should be seen as a direct criticism of his stewardship of that paper on this matter.

Sometimes boards like the Pulitzer board operate on the good old boy system and destroy their credibility in the process.  It will be interesting to see if it rewards and recognizes journalistic courage as Pulitzer intended:

In May 1904, writing in The North American Review in support of his proposal for the founding of a school of journalism, Pulitzer summarized his credo: "Our Republic and its press will rise or fall together. An able, disinterested, public-spirited press, with trained intelligence to know the right and courage to do it, can preserve that public virtue without which popular government is a sham and a mockery...

On the other hand, the board might succumb to the standards that Mr. Moore's paper routinely demonstrates, and which Pulitzer warned us against in the very next sentence:

... A cynical, mercenary, demagogic press will produce in time a people as base as itself. The power to mould the future of the Republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations."

This quote was lifted from the Pulitzer board's own web site.

It will be interesting to see what happens.  At the worst, I will be $50 poorer.  If this gives other papers the courage to investigate and write on a legal ethics system that looks to be corrupt, it is possible that we will all be a bit richer.

Footnote:  This was written last week.  Today, the Rocky Mountain News published a letter in which special prosecutor Scott Storey defended his conduct as routine.  It was routine.  Hopefully, that will put to bed the complaint Attorney Regulation reports it has received.

One wonders if all of the sparks and smoke generated by those who were "offended" by the prosecution and the publicity are not simply lawyers and judges who hope to see the uninvestigated part of this sordid story (the state court administrator's and the Chief Justice's actions) remain just that--uninvestigated.

The Left is Like a Three Year Old in the Back Seat

Those of you who are parents and grandparents know that little children are all about attracting attention and will do anything to get it.  If it looks like a sibling might get credit for doing something that they have already done, they raise a stink.

We have a new project going that forces us to look at what the left wing media is saying about a certain politician.  Today, we found a Media Matters Colorado article on the 7 News coverage ... well, lets let Media Matters take it from here:

Summary: KMGH 7News co-anchor Mike Landess reported on June 28 that Republicans "now believe troops should start coming home" and that some GOP members "are calling for a revival of the Iraq Study Group [ISG] to look at new options for Iraq."

Yes, that's news.  What isn't news is the fact, and it is a fact that the Democrat rejectionists have been making the same call for years now.  That part of the story is a "dog bites man" story.  There probably isn't an American over the age of 12 who isn't in a coma who doesn't already know that.

When 7 News didn't mention the well known position of the Democrat party, media matters issued a two thousand word essay!  The tone of that essay reminds anyone who has ever been around young children of a three year old who is afraid his/her two year old sibling might get some attention.

Given the headline news format of most Television stations, 7 News gave the Democrat side of this story exactly the amount of coverage it deserved: None.  Unless 7 News wants to bore their viewers into switching channels, it will continue to cover dog bites man stories just as it did this one.

Chalk this one up to a theme this blog will be following:  The left is utterly lacking in common sense.

Don't hold your breath

Sunday, the Rocky Mountain News suggested that Colorado modify its constitution to make judicial discipline more transparent.  Their preferred method was to go through the legislature.

Let's be clear:  The current legislature is a wholy owned subsiderary of the Colorado Bar Association.  We learned that last February when a very simple bill (HB 1227) that would have cut the number of statewide judicial performance commission commissioners who were beholden to the Supreme Court from six of ten to four of ten was killed on a party line vote in the house judiciary committee.

If such a simple good government bill can't make it out of that committee, what makes the Rocky think that their proposal has even a snowball's chance in hell of a fair hearing there?

June 29, 2007 Sweep

Schaffer v Udall  Maggie Fox to Change Her Name? 

Schaffer v Udall  Mark Udall Fears Top of Ticket  The Mark Udall campaign admitted

Schaffer v Udall  Anti-Energy Busy Body 

Slapstick Politics  Chinablogging--(More) Toothpaste With Antifreeze, Contaminated Seafood, Censorship

Mount Virtus  Colorado's Hiways are 29th  Reason Foundation

Mount Virtus  Be Gracious to the Left:  Let Them Know the Weekend is Here  Readers of my blog, you may consider sending a sympathy card (or e-card) to SquareState’s Luis and his Lefty friends.

Mount Virtus  Bennets Powerful Message:  Bring Back American History There’s so much to discuss and explore in the themes Bennett raises in this article, but textbooks and teachers seem to be one great place to start. Let’s promote and reward the truly good ones. 

Slapstick Politics  CU Regents Approve Tuition Hike  bloated bureaucracy and useless administration?

Slapstick Politics  Colorado Flies Front Line Flag, Honors Fallen SEAL Danny Dietz  In anticipation of the dedication of Navy SEAL Danny Dietz' memorial next week on July 4,

Exvigilare  Head Above Water

Colorado Charter Schools  Open Source Textbook Website  There's a new open source website that allows anyone to go on the site and create their own teaching modules or numerous modules in a course--in essence, creating their own "textbook."

A Line of Sight  Senate May Not Think Its Amnesty - but Mexico does While many members of Congress and the President insist the current proposal isn’t amnesty, those that would seek to take advantage of the legislation sure do, and are ramping up criminal activity to take advantage of it.

Colorado Senate News  Senate GOP touts energy windfall for higher-ed revenue, invites guv on board  Estimates of the windfall that would be paid to the State of Colorado for leasing the Roan range from $500 million to $1 billion.

Comment:  If things seem a little mixed up today, and they are, it was a pure accident.

As many of you know, we have stopped covering Clear Commentary because it so seldom writes on Colorado issues.  It is an outstanding blog, and today it has a non Colorado item really worth mentioning, so as an exception to our rules, we link to  Celebrating a Colorblind Society. 

Odds and Ends June 29, 2007

The judge in the Larry Manzanaras case has dropped the charges.  This is normal practice when the defendant dies, even after conviction but before sentencing as we learned in the Ken Lay case.  Manzanaras' lawyer, Gary Lozow tried unsuccessfully to keep the gag order in place, but his motion was denied.

Lozow is apparently one of those threatening to bring special prosecutor Scott Storey up on ethics charges.  Our bet is that he will think better of it after he sleeps on it.  There are provisions in the ethics code that require a lawyer to report another lawyer if he knows beyond a doubt of misconduct by another lawyer.  He probably has inside knowledge of what the state court administrator (another lawyer) did and would be required to report it or face charges himself for failing to do so.  Of course lawyers would argue that his knowledge is protected by attorney client privilege, but it might not be.

Everyone is trying to milk the Manzanaras tragedy.  Read this and guess what the profession of the author might be. 

The Rocky is reporting on another sex scandal by a well known person.  Denver Post Columnist Woody Paige has been sued for sexual harassment in Federal court.  It will be interesting to see if all of Manzanaras' friends spring to the Paige defense and chastise the Rocky for reporting on sex.  We would bet not.

The Gazette had a story titled Failure of Immigration Bill Will Hurt Colorado.  It had some quotes that support what we have been saying-that it would devastate the Colorado economy if the immigrants disappeared overnight:

Census data show foreign-born workers filled almost 27 percent of jobs in agriculture, 25 percent of cleaning and maintenance jobs, and 21 percent of construction trade jobs in 2000.

Immigrants held 267,576 jobs, according to 2000 data, or far more than the 89,000 Coloradans seeking work in May, suggesting that the unemployed would not be able to pick up the slack if immigrant labor were not available, private economist Tucker Hart Adams said.

We have 89,000 folks "looking for work" in Colorado?  As former employers, we can tell you of people coming into our shop who admitted that they weren't really looking for work, but had to apply if they wanted to keep collecting benefits. 

The fiction that Americans will do hard labor is just that.  The fiction that we need no immigrants if we are to keep our economy going is just that.  The fiction that Colorado businesses owned by native born Coloradoans aren't being hurt by a lack of labor is just that. 

The Senate bill might have been and probably was bad news, as "secret" bills often are.  No bill might be worse, though it is hard to tell.

Unfortunately not a single immigration opponent who wants to hang their argument on the fact that the folks who came across the border broke the law seems willing to admit what the Gazette's numbers show.  Many of these immigrants would have likely been legal if the Congress had met its responsibility over the last 20 years to recognize the need for immigrant labor and provided a mechanism to meet it.

More From Mudshark on the Left's Own Carbon Footprint

Mudshark left us another comment.  We first heard from him when he commented on "The Left's Own Carbon Footprint."  Again, we will comment paragraph by paragraph.

Good points, and kudos on the civility.

Thanks.  There is great value in civility.  People who write stuff that isn't civil simply are not read, either by their friends or their opponents.  What is the point of writing, if not to be read?

My point simply is blaming "The Left," broad-brushed, oversimplifies the history.

If by "the Left," you refer to Julia Hill and the ELF, then yeah, the Left is totally, reflexively opposed to logging. And I'm not going to make hay for Democrats sneaking favors in Congress during election years. But the overgrowth of our forests is not something that happened overnight, or since the Sixties. Fire suppression essentially WAS US forest management policy as the West was settled in the later 19th and early 20th century. Fire, an essential part of a healthy forest, was entirely misunderstood as an insidious and wholly malevolent force. Overgrowing of the forests doesn't happen in ten or twenty or even forty years; we're talking about a hundred year process here, really.

We dislike the use of the terms "the left," and "the right."  Unfortunately, the Democrats and the MSM think it clever to call everyone they disagree with "right wing."  Birds only fly with two wings, and if they insist that their opponents are right wing, then this author will return the favor from time to time, especially when it seems warranted by their conduct.  If the Sierra Club and Mark Udall are uncomfortable having their roadless policies called unreasonable, idiotic, and left wing, they will moderate them.

No, we didn't mean the ELF, and we don't know who Julia Hill is, though we would guess by your context that she is an extremist (recall that we write out of a sense of vacation driven outrage on a subject we haven't studied enough to know the players).  The left we are writing about are the rank and file Democrats who gladly take campaign funds from environmental groups and then leave their common sense at home.  That is the nature of politics, but they shouldn't be above criticism when they pass dumb laws, with terrible consequences. 

It is not clear in this corner that the Sierra Club, the Al Gores, and the Mark Udalls have learned anything yet.  They won't change their policies and positions until their own constituencies begin to speak up.  That too, is the nature of politics.  If an essay like the last two you commented on makes their voters and contributors think the problem through more thoroughly, then we will have made an impact.  That is why civility is so important.

We won't quibble with your overgrowth history.  It took decades to create the problem and it will take decades to fix it.  We'd prefer that it be done in the smartest way possible, consigning the prejudice against strategic logging to the dustbin of history.

And yes, responsible thinning can help manage fire danger and even maximize the benefits/minimize the harm from wildfire. In terms of protecting property, defensible space is essential, and most property lost in wildfires burns because homeowners totally disregard this basic bit of common sense.

Add the phrase "and governments" after "homeowners" and we are in full agreement.  Colorado Springs has its own "Hillside Ordinance" whose directives, if followed, promote this kind of property loss.  On the other hand, the fire department provides neighborhoods free chipping services to mitigate the danger, promoting actions that are often in conflict with the hillside ordinance.  The days of homeowner association required shake roofs may be gone, but that is another example of asthetics over common sense.   

As for logging, sure, log the forests, but the idea that Colorado can support any kind of sustainable forest products industry with 200 sawmills is kinda ridiculous. Log all ya want, but don't chop down trees faster than they grow back.

This is not a paragraph that this author is happy to see.  We have no idea either how many sawmills are in the state, or even how many were here sixty years ago.  Maybe the right number is 10 or 20, given the efficiencies of modern logging.  Nothing in any of these essays is intended to promote logging for logging's sake, only to promote enough to limit forest fires to smaller areas with fire breaks which would seem to us to be good interim management until thinning can occur.

And, as for Boulder, I use that example because the Boulder County foothills- essentially the areas between the plains and the Peak to Peak Highway- is one of the highest-risk areas for catastrophic wildfires in the Front Range, as far as I've been able to tell. The mulch thing is a bit of snark, sure, but there has to be some kind of balance between total moratoriums on all logging and free-for-all plundering of the forests willy-nilly. Either you agree that some areas should be set aside for other uses, or you don't, and reasonable people can certainly disagree on this policy issue.

We'll overlook the mulch if you overlook the 200 logging companies.  We had a lot of fun with the mulch comments, if that wasn't obvious.  Blogging is fun if you can sit in your chair and laugh out loud as you write, and that happened as we picked on poor Boulder.  You served up a wonderful softball.

What is obvious, though, is that logging companies will try to open up the oldest, most easily accessible forests they can. And a lot of these lands, for better or worse, are held in trust for the public. Maybe if the federal government got market value in their timber leases, instead of giving the timber away to political allies for pennies, the Julia Hills and Forest Rescuers wouldn't get the popular support they get.

In some ways, we are talking past one another.  Yes, Glacier is held in trust for the public, but the trustee failed to take precautions to preserve it out of what we both agree was ignorance without real blame.  Now that the trustee has been educated, what steps is he willing to take, and what steps is the environmentalist left willing to allow him to take to preserve what remains?  Six years after the MacDonald Ridge fire, the first burn we saw, there is no evidence that the trustee is taking any action beyond putting up a sign observing what wonderful woodpecker habitat has been created, and there is such a sign.

For the sake of this argument a burned forest has no value, so why would anyone care if the loggers were paid in logs (i.e. paid nothing and required to pay nothing) to quickly create fire breaks that would save most of it?  The left cannot get hung up on requiring "fair value" for the logging rights if the real value the government gets is quickly established fire breaks that limit the damage any single fire can cause to a few hundred or even a few thousand acres. 

Indeed, the environmentalist left's solution would be to pay someone (not logging companies, heaven forbid) to cut the fire break timber and haul it off to be buried or destroyed.  That may be this author's conservative prejudice showing, but we'd bet dollars to donuts that solution will be suggested by the Sierra Club or some similiar part of the environmentalist left and proposed in Congress if the fire break solution is adopted.  The left is totally lacking in common sense and completely predictable. 

Libertarianism is fine, as far as it goes, but this country isn't run by libertarians, nor should it be. There's a big difference between the totalitarian conspiracy some see when it comes to resource extraction, public lands, and "the environmental left" and the system we actually have- the biggest benefit of which has been the preservation of as much wilderness as has been preserved. If people could set aside their ideological viewpoints and if the government could manage these lands with the public interest in mind, we could have healthy forests, forest industry, and preserve wildlands for future generations.

Hear! Hear! on your last sentence.  We all need to work for that.  Care to meet for coffee?  You seem like someone willing to do just what you suggest.  If you come to the Springs, we can get you onto the Air Force Academy grounds where some impressive small scale thinning has already taken place, post Hayman.

This will not be the last we write on the subject of the left's own carbon footprint.

June 28, 2007 Sweep

Schaffer v Udall  New Co-author  it is important that someone keep tabs on Boulder liberal Mark Udall and what is being said about him. The left will try to pass him off as some sort of "moderate."

Clay Calhoun  Principles  If you live, breath and vote by these principles...then you really can only support the candidates of one Party.

Slapstick Politics  France Honors WWII Hero in Colorado  Now that Nicolas Sarkozy has been elected, perhaps France and the United States can once again become more like allies and less diplomatic adversaries

Slapstick Politics  No Documents, No Aid; Tancredo Sends Lettuce To Chertoff; Race Card Played In Manzanares' Suicide  The founder of a new scholarship program created to help Denver Public Schools students afford college said the fund will not give any money to undocumented immigrant students... overheated rhetoric surrounding illegal immigration

Daily Blogster  Six Days and a Wakeup 

Mount Virtus  Blogger Eyes on Washington I’ll be happier when the federal government begins taking border enforcement seriously so we can start having a real and serious debate about reforming the immigration system.

Mount Virtus  Please Read More Carefully, Cara   No hard feelings, just a quick correction. It’s a forgivable mistake for amateur “independent” journalists like us.

Backbone America  TV, July, A Secure Border for the Fourth  Five Head on Debates 

Colorado Conservative Project  Liberal Blog Gives Kudos to Musgrave   I love it when Democrats have to admit that Republicans did something good!

Best Destiny  Big Day Thursday  And, in what has to be the most hilarious justification for passing this bill, the always-intellectual Arlen Specter weighed in with this:

Comment:

The Left's Own Carbon Footprint-Take 2

As is our custom, we try to respond to civil comments in a thoughtful and civil manner, and yesterday, we got a very civil comment from mudshark, obviously a liberal.  We will respond paragraph by paragraph.

Catastrophic fires like Hayman, etc., are not the result of any ban on logging- by "The Left" or anyone else. Rather, these areas became dangerously overgrown with dense stands of Small, low-value trees during decades of land management that erroneously emphasized fire suppression.

As politely as we can, we would like to inform you that your history is wrong.  In the years before the Hayman fire, Congress had passed laws that the environmentalists were using in court to protect every tree, even the "dense stands of small, low value trees" from logging.  The Hayman fire was actually a turning point in environmentalist thinking because there was a small, experimental area that had been thinned in the Hayman fire area.  It didn't burn.

Even so, the environmentalists got a chance to embarrass themselves immediately after that fire.  After the fires that year, Tom Daschle managed to get his state, and only his state, exempted from the no thinning rules.  The environmentalists gave him a total pass because they thought he might lose his 2004 re-election bid.  If we remember correctly, this bit of environmental organization hypocrisy did them no good, thanks in part to Dick Wadhams.  (Care to bet that Mark Udall voted to protect South Dakota and to let Colorado burn that year?  Nice guy, but always loyal to the environmentalist left, even when it doesn't serve Colorado interests.)

Don't kid yourself about the left's opposition to logging.  They oppose forest roads because any road built might one day make it possible to harvest a tree.  While they know it has become politically incorrect to oppose thinning, they still oppose the construction of roads that would make thinning feasible.  We will be hearing much more about that in the coming days as the folks being burned out in Lake Tahoe vent about the Sierra Club's opposition to building a road, and how that opposition slowed thinning.

These forests got overgrown and now burn catastrophically, essentially killing the soil and leaving the charred wastes we see in the Hayman burn area.

Agree, but who was driving, or trying to drive that train, conservatives or liberals?  One of the stories coming out of the Tahoe fire is of a woman who saved her house by previously thinning in the forest adjoining her property line.  She admitted on national TV that she broke the law to do so.  You can't simply raise your hands, palms outward, and claim the environmentalist left has no responsibility for the results of the insane policies they have advocated for decades.   

To say "The Left" is responsible for causing these fires by preventing logging in these areas- as you clearly imply- is completely disingenuous. Timber companies weren't interested in these areas to begin with, as the timber there was not high quality enough to make it worth their while financially- they'd rather log older growth Douglas forests than the lodgepole and Ponderosa that grow in the Hayman area, or forests on flatter ground than the steep and rugged Boulder County foothills.

Forgive us if we only implied that "The Left" is responsible.  Folks who merely try to imply something are so weak kneed, so limp wristed that few can respect what they write.  We meant to say it loud and clear and strong.  The left bears full responsibility for the death of our timber industry.  The left did what it did with malice and forethought. 

Hopefully that statement is without nuance.

If we had forty Colorado sawmills, or better yet, two hundred, there would be competition for the timber, no matter the terrain.  The lack of competition means that the few remaining operations can afford to go for the easy, high value stuff.  Again, we see no evidence that the left wants there to be any logging at all, so we would point out that it isn't our argument that is "disingenuous."  You were looking to put the blame on an industry that has been reflexively victimized and castigated for decades by the left.

As a sidebar, we used to live in Tacoma and are familiar with Washington State, where they do a lot of logging on privately held land.  Not long ago there was a 60 minutes story about how successful the left had been in controlling logging on land owned by timber companies.  For example, no logging could occur within 200 feet of a stream, creating a 400 foot wide swath of timber that couldn't be harvested.  It reached the point where it wasn't profitable to own and harvest that land, so it has been sold and now it is being developed.  Houses are replacing trees. 

The moral of that sidebar is that the more successful the environmentalist left is in controlling other's lives and property, the more likely the outcome will be one that no one likes, a point we are trying to make about the fires and the forest roads.   

Newer harvesting technology has made accessing these areas a better investment for logging companies than it was in the past, but timber harvesters are still interested in taking out the older, bigger trees, as opposed to the overgrown midgets that populate areas like the Boulder foothills and raise a real danger of catastrophic fires like Hayman.

We beat this horse to death already.  See above for comments on the opposition to building roads to make access possible and the impact of the lack of competition in the timber industry.

The whole "logging will prevent catastrophic wildfire" line is plainly a Trojan horse designed to facilitate the looting of our national forests by Dubya's timber company pals without doing anything that will actually reduce the real risk of catastrophic wildfires in overgrown areas. Timber companies obviously aren't interested in scrub oak and chaparral in the hills around Glenwood, and they aren't interested in the Ponderosa in Boulder County either. To imply otherwise is misleading and dishonest.

First, this site does not belong to one of "Dubya's timber company pals."  Second, we've had a blog for almost a year and only decided to write about this issue as a result of personal observations while on vacation last week.  Other than what you see this week, we have never written on the subject before. 

We wish we had good photographs of the MacDonald Ridge fire in Glacier, but we admit that if there had only been one burn, we would have ignored the issue (and you would never have had to defend the indefensible).  We only started becoming concerned when we saw the second, 34,000 acre burn on the other side of the park. 

We studied that fire more closely.  Part of it was in the park where the forests were dense and totally destroyed, but part of it was in the Blackfeet reservation outside the park.

It appeared that the Blackfeet had done a small amount of harvesting before the fire, and that the resulting clear cutting had protected small areas of forest that were adjacent to a clear cut from being burned.  Our bet is that they wish they had done more harvesting, and that more strategic harvesting might have saved their whole forest, as the fire started in the park.

We like aesthetics as much as the next person.  We wish that we didn't have to suggest strategic harvesting in national parks, but we don't see another alternative that protects the maximum number of trees.  If we could turn back the clock ten years and strategically clear cut five percent of the of the forest in the Glacier burn areas, it is likely that that would have had the potential to save 90% of the remaining trees that have now been burned.

Yes, we should work to thin the forests and not allow clear cutting to be a final solution. The point that the left misses, and indeed that you have missed, is that we must find a way to protect the maximum forest acreage quickly while we wait the decades it will take to do so by thinning.  Unfortunately, the left appears prepared to let all of the forests in the country burn rather than allow a single tree to be harvested.

A real fire policy would look at building codes and require the owners of trophy homes in high-risk areas to pay their fair share of the enormous emergency services costs that are invariably incurred when these properties are threatened. A real fire policy would offer timber harvesters the opportunity to harvest low-value trees on ecologically responsible terms (after all, mulch still costs money, last time I checked), but would refuse to write a blank check to these companies to take whatever they want, wherever they want, however they want, under the rubric of "fire prevention." A real fire policy would reject the line you're taking here, blaming your favorite boogeyman, "The Left," for what is simply the natural result of one hundred years or more of mismanaged forest policy.

You are too centered on Boulder.  The problem isn't an urban problem.

Without trying to offend you, we note that except for the first sentence, this paragraph is an example of idealistic but flaky thinking that conservatives often associate with the left.  Mulch is sufficiently abundant in Colorado Springs that the city gives it away.  It is silly to suggest that logging companies should be satisfied to make mulch for sale without acknowledging how quickly the market would be flooded.  Picture Boulder as the mulch capital of the world, with the whole town buried in two hundred feet of mulch from the thinning of a single national forest.  Outside of town, someone would eventually put up a sign:  "Free Mulch:  Here lies the former site of Boulder, Colorado, buried in its own hubris and humus."

Six years ago, the environmentalist left was adamant that thinning wasn't the solution.  They've come around, but still want to be obstructionist when it comes to permitting the construction of forest roads that would allow the necessary thinning.  Note that Mark Udall opposes even the retention of those roads that already exist. 

The Tahoe fire is likely to put the environmentalist left on the defensive once again, embarrassing them into a reasonable road policy. 

When enough Americans tire of seeing large swaths of forest turned into woodpecker habitat (woodpeckers love burned trees, though not much else does), they will look for a solution.  The status quo isn't a solution, much as the left might like.

Of course, when and if catastrophic wildfire eventually hits Boulder County, that'll just be "The Left" reaping what they've sewn, right? Puh-leez.

We'll take no pleasure in it.  If it happens though, we note that Mark Udall is from Boulder and we will agitate for the "Mark Udall carbon footprint" designation.  Think of it as bigger and better than naming a post office after him.  Heck!  If the attraction drew enough visitors, Congress might also put a post office in the place.  It could be a win-win situation for this hero of the left.

Added:   We have another comment from Mudshark.  We will be commenting on it tomorrow, and we promise that our comments will not be as long as today's.

June 27, 2007 Sweep

Daily Blogster  Humpday Funny 

Mount Virtus  Colorado Right to Work Initiative?  Good Idea but Unlikely Success  Without their financial support, labor unions would be at the advantage to motivate their base in opposition, to spend vast resources, and to confuse voters by distorting the issue.

Colorado Charter Schools  Pay for Performance  "Charter School Models for Merit Pay for Teachers," which includes a thorough description of the merit pay system being used by the Liberty Common School in Fort Collins.

Best Destiny  Quick Reaction  Well, my first reaction was simple: lots more free time in the Fall of 2008. What with not having to do any campaign work for anybody

Best Destiny Never Mind After sweeping the Yankees in a three-game series last week, the Rox have proceeded to lose four in a row, including two blown saves   

Best Destiny  A Remarkable Story  this is about the news and the media.

Comment:  We somehow skipped the last two Best Destiny essays yesterday.  Because of the way his site works, you will need to scroll down past the essay that we did catch to see them.

Odds and Ends-June 27, 2007

Normally, unless we are publishing rumors, we like to hold our essays to one a day, believing that quality trumps quantity.  There is so much going on at the moment that deserves some attention that we are going to break that "rule."

Today's full fledged essay is an answer to the comment we got at the bottom of our "The Left's Own Carbon Footprint" essay.  It will be published immediately after we do the sweep.  We had fun writing it and hope readers have fun reading it.  "Stick around," said the spider to the fly.

A most entertaining lawsuit has been filed by a former Pueblo cop.  (Warning-a bit off color)

John Gleason, head of Attorney Regulation made the news again.  It seems that friends of Larry Manzanaras are calling his office to find out how to file a complaint against the special prosecutor, Scott Storey for overzealous prosecution.  We hope that Gleason actually prosecutes Storey, not because he did anything wrong, but because he didn't.  When does Gleason plan to file ethics charges against the state court administrator, something he will almost certainly have to do if he goes after Storey.  Expect this to go away very quietly.

Someone sent us some very interesting statistics this week about Gleason's office.  It seems that the most common reason Gleason's office has for refusing to punish a wayward lawyer is "lack of jurisdiction."  If the numbers we got are accurate, they are astounding!  We plan to put a strong case before the state commission on judicial performance in 2008 and 2010 advocating that each and every Supreme Court justice be recommended for non retention for failure to provide Colorado with an ethics system that actually protects the public. 

Yes, we know the commission is stacked, but there are ways of embarrassing people into doing their job or having to explain publicly  why they didn't.   

The Denver Post had something nice to say about Justice C. Thomas.  They observed that one of his concurring opinions was "enormously refreshing."  While the left may dislike him intensely, he is likely to be remembered in history for his intellect.

Andrew Romanoff, who with every other elected official in the state lacked the courage to oppose Amendment 41.  He now wants the voters to punish themselves by making it almost impossible for anyone but a Billionaire to change the Constitution.  The tour started Monday in Colorado Springs.

Gazette Editorial  UdallGazette