Filed under: Domestic Policy, Environment, Law | Tags: Excessive Regulation, Overcriminalization, The Heavy Hand of Government
FREDRICKSBURG, Va. (WUSA) — Eleven year-old aspiring veterinarian ,Skylar Capo, sprang into action the second she learned that a baby woodpecker in her Dad’s backyard was about to be eaten by the family cat.
“I’ve just always loved animals,”said Skylar Capo. “I couldn’t stand to watch it be eaten.”
She couldn’t find the woodpecker’s mother , so she brought the baby bird to her own mother Alison Capo, who agreed to take it home. “She was just going to take care of it for a day or two, make sure it was safe and uninjured, and then she was going to let it go,”
On the way home they stopped at a Lowes in Fredricksburg and brought the bird inside because of the heat. That’s when they were confronted by a fellow shopper who said she worked for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. She pulled out a badge.
The problem was that the woodpecker is a protected species under the Federal Migratory Bird Act. Therefore, it is illegal to take or transport a baby woodpecker. The Capos said they had no idea. As soon as they got home, they opened the cage, the bird flew away, and they reported it to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “They said that’s great, that’s exactly what we want to see. We thought we had done everything we could possibly do. “
About two weeks later the same woman showed up at the Capo house. This time, accompanied by a state trooper. Capo refused to accept a citation, but was later mailed a notice to appear in U.S. District Court for unlawfully taking a migratory bird. She has also been slapped with a $535 fine. If convicted she could face a year in jail.
After a little publicity, the Service determined that no further action was warranted and the ticket should not have been issued.
The amount of excessive regulation that needs to be undone is a little frightening.
(h/t: Moonbattery)
Filed under: Capitalism, Economy, Statism | Tags: More Spending, Sad and Depressing, The Heavy Hand of Government
The State of the Union is not too good. The President’s speech: interminable, cliche-ridden, with nothing new at all. We’ve heard all this before, and it didn’t work over the last two years. I don’t know what possible reason we could have to assume that it will work now.
More spending, lots more spending. This time he calls it “investments.” Investments in education, new technology, high speed rail, government directed innovation, “winning the future,” infrastructure, technology, clean energy and clean living. It’s the Twenty-First Century, and we have to do twenty-first century things. I think he actually said “our sputnik moment.”
How dare he demand more spending, when the stimulus that was supposed to rescue the economy went instead to bail out the unions that had supported Obama’s election and to the states’ budgets? He eventually admitted that there weren’t any “shovel-ready” projects. He even managed to blame Bush and drag out the preposterous claim that greedy insurance companies are destroying your health care.
Innovation does not come from government, Mr. President. Innovation happens when government gets out of the way!
The media was mostly fascinated with the fact that Democrats and Republicans were sitting together. Obviously they weren’t much impressed with the speech either.
If this was supposed to be a “move to the center” or Obama “reinventing himself,” it didn’t work. Nothing has changed. It’s the same Obama. The magic is gone.
