As a fellow wounded warrior at the games, I found myself with the unfamiliar feeling of comfort in my surroundings. It was a feeling I had not felt since I was a recovering patient at Walter Reed in 2007. Despite the fact I was at the games as a civilian journalist, and was surrounded by many who had injuries far more severe, I heard “thank you for your service” more times during my one-week stay than in my last six months in the civilian world. At the Warrior Games, people get it. They did not ask a million questions, some bordering on the absurd or obtuse. They did not debate you on the merits of the war, or apologize for what happened to you because you had to go “over there.”

Go read the whole thing.

Writing in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Robert Bryce described the toll that the nation’s burgeoning wind farms have taken on endangered birds. At one site alone — Altamont in Alameda County,California— 2,400 raptors, including 70 golden eagles, have been killed by the giant whirling blades. In 2009 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimated the national death toll from wind turbines at 440,000 birds that year alone.

That seems like a lot of birds, particularly for those of us in thePacific Northwest, where a once-vibrant timber economy has been devastated in a failing effort to save the spotted owl. Of course, we’re losing a lot of birds to wind farms as well. One 2010 estimate put the annual death toll in Oregon and Washington at 6,500 birds and 3,000 bats, but that seems low if the Fish and Wildlife estimate is correct.

But whatever the number, there is no controversy that birds, including birds listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act, are being killed in significant numbers by the wind turbines. Though there is concern among environmentalists and government officials alike, thus far these bird kills have been accepted as a cost of advancing alternative energy.

I’ve got to imagine that, for an unemployed logger in rural Oregonor the owner of a shuttered lumber bill, there is something not quite right about this picture.

As I mentioned previously, shutting down millions of acres of forest land in the Pacific Northwest was the intent all along, “protecting” the spotted owl was simply the catalyst. It was all because of the progressive environmental religious belief that humans are a parasite on the planet, and any impact they have on nature is harmful.

The proof is in the pudding. The main reason the spotted owl is in decline is competition from another owl, not logging.  So not only did a ban on logging in protected areas not stop the decline of the spotted owl, but –much to the chagrin of the environmental groups- loggers have since been called upon to log some areas to help the bird.  Meanwhile, we do have a known killer of all species of endangered birds, and yet? Environmental groups are silent on the issue:

 “So this is the picture: On the one hand we have an uneconomic wind energy industry being promoted and heavily subsidized by the government with the full knowledge that it is killing thousands of endangered birds and hundreds of thousands of other flying critters. On the other hand we have a moribund timber industry shut down by government in a failing effort to save a few hundred spotted owls. And because the spotted owl continues to decline in numbers despite the millions of acres of forest set aside as owl habitat, the government now plans to shoot hundreds of barred owls that compete with the spotted owl. (Barred owls also interbreed with spotted owls, but never mind what that might imply for the spotted owl’s status as an endangered species.)

Will we suddenly have dirty hippies camping out on top of windmills, shutting them down? Will environmentalists chain themselves to construction equipment, preventing the building of new windmills?  Of course not.

I have been spending a lot of time digging for information to look past the media’s racism narrative. Slowly I have been putting together little bits and pieces of information in order to find out what actually happened.  In other words, I have been doing the job the media should be doing, but has been too lazy to get off their ass and actually do themselves.  Because hey, what media outlet doesn’t enjoy a selectively edited racism story based on half-truths and hearsay, right? So what if the narrative destroys a few lives and reputations. The truth doesnt always generate ad dollars or sold newspapers.

Well, I am interested in the truth. The world deserves to know what actually happened without a false veil of racism being hung over the proceedings. The world needs to know the truth not just for the accused, but for Private Danny Chen as well.  I am not out to get Chen, or to slander his memory, or to simply nitpick details in order to create a shadow of doubt for the accused.  I have no dog in this fight.  I know no one in this scenario. I did not know Chen, his unit, or anyone else involved. And aside from the fact we all served in the military, I have no association to anyone.  My only goal here is to present the truth of the matter as the facts present.

While I still have more digging and organizing and sifting to do, at this point in time I can say that the race narrative being pushed by the media, Chen’s parents, and the NY-OCA, is without merit.  Chen did not receive unwanted attention because of the color of his skin, or the way he spoke. He received unwanted attention because he was unable to complete even the most simple tasks required of a Soldier, let alone an Infantry Soldier in a highly volatile combat zone.  To paint a picture of a unit gone racist, attacking one of their own, is not only highly inaccurate, by outright dishonest.  While the media may be comfortable going along with this narrative, despite evidence that says otherwise (if they bothered to spend the time and look), I am not.  For the sake of everyone involved, the truth needs to be heard.  Because frankly, the world has yet to hear it.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) today formally proposed several actions, some of them controversial, to aid the iconic northern spotted owl, an endangered species in the Pacific Northwest whose population continues to shrink. The proposals include designating more critical habitat, encouraging logging to prevent forest fires, and an experiment to shoot a competing owl species.

The northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) ran into trouble in the 1980s as its old-growth forest was severely logged in Oregon and Washington. Even though destruction of its habitat slowed dramatically after the owl was placed on the endangered species list in 1990, its numbers have continued to decrease by an average of 3% a year. A major problem is competition from barred owls, which have invaded its territories.

Today’s proposals come from a recovery plan for the owl, released last summer by FWS. The announcement adds more detail and begins the process of creating a formal rule that the agency expects to finalize by November. In its draft, the agency proposes to increase—perhaps nearly double—the current 2.2 million hectares designated as critical habitat, although the agency is keen to exclude private and state lands. The first step is an economic impact analysis of designating critical habitat in various places, along with public comment on the plan.

If you read the latest research, logging wasn’t to blame for the declining numbers. It was the encroachment of another species, the barred owls.  “Invaded?” No, I’m pretty sure its simply natural selection at work.   Of course, that hasn’t stopped the government from wasting millions of dollars and destroying thousands of lives over the last 20 years, all in an effort to save a bird that seems hell bent on extinction.

Lets get one thing straight here.  This whole twenty plus year charade has had little to do with the spotted owl, and everything to do with shutting down logging through environmental activism.   The spotted owl was simply the reason environmental groups used to shut down the industry and close huge swaths of both government and private land to logging.  The same tactics have been used with other species around the country with similarly devastating results.  California’s Central Valley was once considered the most fertile and productive ground in the country.  Now its called “the Dust Bowl Congress created, all in the name of saving the Delta Smelt, a non-edible fish.  As a basic trainee at Ft. Benning, Georgia, I remember huge swaths of land closed off from training all in the name of “saving” the Red-cockaded Woodpecker.   We have similar environmental activist tactics being employed here in Wisconsin at the moment.  Instead of using an endangered animal, they are trying to get fracking sand classified as a toxic substance. Therefore the government can regulate it, and shut down any mines it deems “a threat to the public health.”  Or at the very least it can tie them up in the court system for decades.  Because if they can stop the mining of fracking sand, then its one step closer to their ultimate goal, which is shutting down fracking altogether.  In the enviro-religious world, the end justifies the means.  So what if people lose their livelihood.

Personally, I think the logging industry should borrow a play from the movie Braveheart in responding to requests to help save the Spotted Owl. They should release a public statement to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that says the following:

Take your proposal and march right back to Washington, DC, stopping at every loggers home you pass by to beg forgiveness for 30 years of theft of income, rape of the forest products industry, and murdering the well being of hard working families.  Do that and your spotted bird may live. Do it not, and we will watch every one of them continue to die through natural selection.   And before we cut one log, the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must present himself at the next loggers congress,  put his head between his legs, and kiss his own arse.

Do that, and we’ll consider helping your bird.