Posts Tagged → Josh first
January 25th, 2014
If you haven’t done so already, pay attention to global warming/ climate change claims.
Whenever the weather is hot, or cold, or windy, or in a lull, the vacuous claims are bandied about that these occurrences are evidence of “climate change” or “global warming.”
We’ve had an unusually cold winter. Why, it reminds me of the ones I used to know in my childhood. Do you, too, recall the deep snows on roads and huge piles of plowed snow in parking lots of the 1970s?
That snow was considered normal back then. Then we had twenty years of warm winters. Now we’ve had two years of cold winters. It’s certainly not global warming! Why, could it not simply be the natural variation of a complex, large weather system in a complex planet?
No matter what, people claiming that current weather is evidence of some bigger trend cannot ever be wrong. No matter what the weather is, they ascribe it to their favorite sky-is-falling environmental crisis du jour. It is a pretty ingenious way to argue, you have to admit: They just cannot ever be wrong. No matter what the evidence is – black or white, Saturday or Wednesday, Mars or Venus, cold, hot, very cold, very hot, lukewarm, tepid, accurate or inaccurate – or when it occurs, it all proves the same thing to promoters of human-caused climate change.
And the fact is that there are real environmental quality issues that need to be addressed and resolved. One that is near to my heart is the high grading of private forests, where the best commercial trees are removed and the junk trees are left behind. This creates huge swathes of forest with little habitat value for animals, and little present or future commercial value for landowners and the surrounding society that needs their forest products.
How sad that high grading forests is accomplished with such simple emotional appeals: “Why Mabel, we will just take the big trees, and leave the little ones for later. There’ll be lots of green left in your woods,” goes the high-grader’s sales pitch.
Because western clearcutting was so damaging to western ecosystems, clearcutting got a bad name back east. Back here most of our private forests are at a point where it’s either clearcutting most of our private woods, or allowing forest fire to shape them. Most of our private forests need to be re-set to zero. That will provide maximum diversity and the broadest habitat and commercial values.
But like claims of global climate change, clearcutting is another false boogey man whose opponents are driven by emotions, and not science. And the real damage is allowed to go on under the false guise of “protecting” the forests.
January 19th, 2014
Hunters United for Sunday Hunting will be in booth 4511 in the Outfitters Hall of the Great American Outdoor Show. Come see us.
November 12th, 2013
Managing Pennsylvania’s endangered and threatened species: Are we going from bad to worse?
By Josh First
Democratic government is by its nature slow and difficult. It’s designed to be inefficient. That’s why less government is better than more government.
House Bill 1576 is being voted on Wednesday, sponsored by legislators responding to legitimate complaints from their constituents and stakeholders. HB 1576 would change the way Pennsylvania manages threatened and endangered species, by adding IRRC, the heavily politicized arm of regulatory government as the final arbiter of scientific reviews originating in our wildlife agencies.
Here’s my three reasons for opposing HB 1576:
1) It’s more bureaucracy, which in this case is designed to hamstring the current regulatory process overseen by the PA Game Commission and the PA Fish & Boat Commission. Careful what you ask for, because if Pennsylvania lets endangered species management become a political issue, the US Fish & Wildlife Service will take over. If you think our state agencies are a pain in the butt, wait til distant, unresponsive, politicized federal bureaucrats take over and are making the decisions about our wildlife issues. You’ll get gridlock up the yinyang then. And Pennsylvania will lose the annual +\- $30 million in self imposed excise tax money from sporting goods that is distributed to PGC and PFBC by the Feds each year.
2) It emasculates the two independent agencies, setting them up for further questions about their function and role in state government. The ultimate goal by some people is to fold PGC and PFBC into DCNR. Emasculating the agencies is a step in that direction.
My opposition to that is strictly cultural: PA is more like Idaho or Wyoming, and unlike every other state surrounding us, in that we have uniformed PGC officers teaching kids how to use firearms safely, and teaching them that firearms ownership is their constitutional right. State personnel in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, etc don’t do that. Those are Commie states where leftist governors have politicized the line agencies. Due to the extremists running their governments, these states actively deprive their citizens of their Second Amendment rights. That could happen here, say, under a Governor Allyson Schwartz, an extreme leftist now in the lead to be the Democrat nominee for Pennsylvania governor.
Let’s not let Pennsylvania become a Commie state, or let our traditional hands-on culture at PGC and PFBC get overrun by the next governor who flits through the office. Let’s hold onto this old, beautiful aspect of our culture, and let our qualified authority figures teach the next generation about the beauty of individual liberty.
3) It’s a sledgehammer when we need a scalpel. With HB 1576, I think the PGC and PFBC just got the message that their process isn’t working for everyone. But it must work for everyone. So let’s sit down and hammer out a new, better process that meets the worthy stewardship goals of PGC and PFBC, without undermining those agencies.
Sure, there are other reasons to oppose HB 1576, but those three are enough for me.
September 16th, 2013
While it is presently unknown who is behind the deadly rampage at the US Navy Yard, it is a fact that innocent people have been killed and wounded in the attack.
Whether this is another act of domestic terrorism by Islamic crazies, like the Fort Hood Massacre and the Boston Marathon bombing, or if it is some workplace politics vendetta, remains to be determined.
The fact is also that most US military installations are disarmed, surprisingly. The lesson from Fort Hood has not been learned, namely, that properly armed workers are safer. Workers who have concealed carry permits should be able to carry at a federal work site, and especially a military one, so that they are better able to defend themselves in situations like this. Gun control proponents will use this to try to promote their gun confiscation plan, when in fact the opposite policies are needed.
My heart goes out to the innocent and brave people who died or who were injured in this tragic event.
July 27th, 2013
If you want to add some beauty to the world, and who doesn’t, then do this simple thing: Let milkweed grow on your property.
Monarch butterflies follow the world’s most incredible migration, but they are increasingly challenged by unnecessary weed control and manicured lawns that eliminate milkweed.
Why milkweed became Public Enemy Weed #1 is probably lost to early 1900s history. But the negative association in most Americans’ minds keeps it suppressed far and wide.
In an urban and suburban environment, milkweed is no worse than the ailanthus (“tree of heaven”) growing everywhere, and it provides a home for beautiful butterflies that make our summers happier and more fulfilling.
So if you see a patch of milkweed growing on your back corner, please leave it. Beauty on wings will thank you, and that miraculous journey will continue for another year.
July 21st, 2013
With the moose head, elk rack, and bison skull in the back of my pickup truck, I can look past Guernsey’s poor organization that kept me and dozens of other buyers standing in line, in the heat, for no apparent reason.
Today’s bidding at the carousel on City Island was surprising. People were paying top dollar for every little item brought before them. Auctions typically have “nests” of buyers who are interested in particular types of things. Today, bidding was highly competitive across the entire audience and from all corners of the room.
Once again, Steve Reed may have screwed up, but it’s rare that screw-ups get redeemed so well. The cit
-tay is raking in big cash. Ironic as it is that the warehouse full of artifacts is literally in the shadow of the anchor, errr, incinerator.
I’m sad to see this part of our city’s history end. But if the address on the crate holding my moose is any indication, it’s a period and way of doing business we need to improve on in the future. The crate says :”To Brian Kelley, Museum, S 19th Street…,” which is the exact location of the city’s incinerator. What kind of a loony bin was being run here?
April 24th, 2013
Upcoming subject matter includes: Boy Scouts of America policy on sexualizing children (don’t do it), immigration ‘reform’ and the Boston bombing (don’t do it), trading off the Second Amendment for the First Amendment after Muslims blow up the Boston Marathon (don’t do it), the lack of coverage of mainstream media of the Gosnell Abortion House of Horrors and Freak Show (msm is not doing it), and the Obama administration’s odd handling of a young Saudi Arabian kid who was caught up in the Boston bombing and then whisked away by federal officials and scheduled for deportation, without being brought to justice in America….
Separately, thank you to Kim Stolfer and FOAC who organized yesterday’s wonderful Second Amendment rally at the PA state capitol. I enjoyed catching up with many friends and fellow activists, including Shira Goodman, an activist for the other team. Shira works for CeaseFirePA, a gun prohibition group. Yet Shira continues to surprise me, saying she reads this blog regularly (Hi Shira! Thank you!), and that she is taking shooting lessons (DO IT!).
Thank you also to the PA Federation of Sportsmen’s Clubs, which held its annual Legislative Shoot yesterday at the Mechanicsburg Sportsmen’s Association. Well over 50, maybe 60 members of the PA House attended, as well as quite a few state senators. It was my great pleasure to teach a young Democrat how to shoot an AR-15, so he could see that it’s not a weapon of war, nor is it inclined to jump up and immediately start shooting people of its own accord.
April 5th, 2013
Josh will be speaking at the Tea Party Patriots gathering next Monday night at 6006 Old Jonestown Road, in Lower Paxton Township, at 7:00 PM. The venue is accessed through an entrance around the back of the old church, in an auditorium. Parking is right there. The subject will be the Second Amendment. Josh will be speaking with local attorney Marc Scaringi, who in 2012 ran in the Republican primary for US Senator from Pennsylvania while Josh was running for PA State Senate.
March 12th, 2013
Attending a lovely social event recently, several people came up and told me that they enjoy what I write and asked me to keep on writing. That means a lot, because I usually don’t hear back unless someone strongly disagrees.
Writing opinion pieces and independent reports, and emailing them out, is a bit risky in the world of politics, because it reveals often closely held values. These can alienate anyone for any reason. On the other hand, what I have been told is that readers find that independent perspective refreshing.
Dear readers, you inspire me. Thank you!
-Josh
March 11th, 2013
In 2009 my congressional campaign opened with something similar to the thought below. Back then, as a new candidate I just blurted it out in a newspaper interview. Some three years and a lot of political work later, it seems truer now than before:
The sooner patriotic Americans realize we are engaged in a bar room brawl, the better. Stepping outside and puttin’ up yer dukes is gentlemanly, but you might never make it outside when the opposition is grabbing beer bottles and heavy beer mugs off the bar and whacking people over the head. Wanna win the fight? Grab a beer mug and start swingin’ back.
–Josh