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USARK has secured a meeting with Senator Bill Nelson's office for Friday August 7, 2009 in West Palm Beach. We will be asking Senator Nelson to understand that S373, the Python Ban, will hurt thousands of his constituents and create significant problems for the entire United States if passed as written.

If passed as written S373 will BAN the IMPORT, EXPORT and INTERSTATE COMMERCE of ALL Pythons. This is not a Florida issue. It is a federal bill in the US Senate. This is about the BAN of ALL pythons nationwide... from ball pythons on up. We believe that this bill will move in September following the August recess. The only question is what Senator Nelson might do to amend the bill prior to that time. We are optimistic that he will listen to our well thought out position. You can be sure that USARK will fight tooth and nail to defend the ENTIRE python community.

Update HR2811 (House companion to S373):

USARK continues to work with the Judiciary Committee and the bill's sponsors to further amend the bill to allow the captive bred trade in Burms and Afrocks to continue. Our policy staff has crafted language that, if accepted, would protect trade and investment in these animals. PIJAC contacted USARK yesterday with suggestions for amendment of the bill. We welcome the pet industry's desire to become engaged on this issue. We will review this proposal to ensure that it is consistent with our position. We are open to creating a second option. Whatever the final decision is, the solution must be simple, effective and protect the interests of the captive bred trade in Burms and Afrocks. We thank PIJAC for their interest and hope their proposal may prove helpful.

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Andrew Wyatt
President USARK

Andrew,

Sincere thanks to you and your staff (that you can count on one hand) for what you managed to accomplish with HR-2811…I’m absolutely certain that things could have been MUCH worse!

Having said the “kudo’s”, I believe that this is a pyrrhic victory though for the following reasons…

1. I spoke with my congressman’s staff and I know that HR-2811 was passed out of the “Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security Sub-Committee” and then to the “Judiciary Committee” (not the Natural Resources Committee)…Meaning they found a “backdoor” to get this passed out of committee for an eventual vote on the floor! This is not exceptional move by the radical politicians (we’ve seen this “maneuver before in Texas-at the state level)…What IS notable is that they are hell-bent to get a bill passed into law, anyway they can.

2. If S.373 is also passed by the Senate, then when they “meet” to reconcile the differences, it is VERY LIKELY that they will “insert” items more favorable to their agenda and if not then, when it’s sent to USFWS for regulation, it’s likely to appear there as well…Even after public comment (which USFWS may discard)…

So in my opinion, the objective for this “round” was to get A bill passed (since previous rounds have failed) that they can “tinker with” for decades to come (you know the drill)…As they have done with the Lacey Act, and the Endangered Species Act…This is the Saul Alinsky “blueprint”…The death by a 1,000 cuts.

Regarding the python project at SREL, you are right on with your assessment regarding a “grant money pit”…Since the state of Georgia opted not to fund the majority of the SREL operation after the federal funding dried up, I’m certain that the grant money (whether it’s taxpayer or dot.org) will be “milked” for all it’s worth…After all, professor’s have mortgages too…

I’ll not hold my breath regarding the results…After all, there is that “agenda” to support here…If the specimens there perish this winter, then it’s only a regional problem and what ever regulation is derived from HR-2811 & S-373 will be rendered irrelevant…Which will not be good for the government’s “economy"…

Just my 10-cents worth…

Later,
Jim.

PS: I'm glad you're going to speak to the senator, what I'd say to him couldn't be posted here...
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CSRAJim

As far as the Python Winterization Study goes -- They have a huge bias for success built into that one. They'll probably bring them indoors if things seem to be going against their expected result.
jsc
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"As hard as I've tried, just can't NOT do this"
John Crickmer

John,

Hey man...No matter how the "experiment" turns out, I suspect that we, the private herper will be on the loosing side of the equation - For the moment.

As someone has already posted (great post by the way), they are controlling the agenda...In military terms, they have the initiative (causing us to react to their actions) we just have to survive for the time being as best we can...Which I why I really appreciate what Andrew has managed to "salvage" from the situation regarding all of this...

The bottom line is that until they loose a majority of both houses of the Congress, it's kind of like the Eastern Front (WWII) after July 1943 (Kursk), the Pusan Perimeter in South Korea or the Fulda Gap (Cold War) scenario in Germany...No matter how many of their T-62, T-72 or T-80's we knock-out, there's another battalion to take it's place - For the time being.

On the bright side, eventually, they'll overstretch their supply lines and run out of fuel...And a tank that can't move is a steel coffin waiting for incineration.

The interdiction of their momentum is beginning to happen and even though we don't see it in most of it on the news, you can see it in the shrillness of desperation that is beginning to show with the politicians at the town hall meetings and from the pundit/talking-heads on TV...

People are beginning to get in their face (I ain't talking about Code Pink either) and the politicians and media are beginning to react accordingly...They delude themselves, when the banking and mortgage industries collapsed (that Congress helped cause-IMO), it effected EVERYONE regardless of political party...

And now that people are actually reading the government health care bill(s), they are beginning to understand what it says...And the politicians are discovering that we, the people, actually love our mom and dad (most of us anyway)...

As if we don't know what end-of-life counseling actually is...Let's see, forced euthanasia (oops, that was politically incorrect of me) under the guise of take a pill and be happy until you pass on to the other side of life…

Hopefully folks like Andrew can help stem the tide...Until the counterattack.

Later,
Jim.

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CSRAJim

I just find it funny that the AR hippies aren't all up in arms about this experiment, which should very well end in the death of all those snakes. Way to stick to your so-called "values" ya friggin' hippocrites. Even if the snakes do die, these people could very easily lie, replacing the snakes with new ones to "prove" that they were right. C'mon---who is going to question their results? Lying about results is definitely not unheard of in science or politics. Our enemies are not above this. Jim--great analogy BTW--this is a "Cold war" type scenario--neither side will back down, the fight will just wax and wane like the moon, until attrition finally takes its' toll on one side or the other. Let's just see to it that its not us.

Aquick,

Thanks…The old axiom of “a chain is only as strong as its weakest link" is where I was going with this…And the use of the Soviet analogy was not random…When I was in the military, it was paramount to “study” our enemy…Which meant learning about “who they are”…To understand “how they’ll fight”…For brevity sake, because of the soviet system itself, fear was a constant “over-the-shoulder” aspect of every soviet citizen (more so once they were in the military-each commander had a political officer to ensure “loyalty”-depending on the size of the unit and its mission)…That leads to hesitancy via lack of initiative based on fear of failure (e.g. many soviet commanders were called back to Moscow during WWII and were never heard from again…They simply “vanished”). Weakness #1 was communications, command and control (C3), meaning, every time a command or communications asset was identified by NATO meant “take-it-out”…This meant that the unit(s) it controlled would follow the last orders but once accomplished, probably would not initiate additional actions until they received new orders as if they failed, they didn’t want to disappear.

Weakness number #2 was fuel. We knew the capabilities of all of the armored weapon systems (as did they about ours) and we knew that if we could “interdict” their logistical supply lines…Well, it would take a lot of infantrymen to push a tank forward…So, as a lesson learned from WWII, the soviets did push forward large quantities of fuel (forward positioned supplies was captured in LARGE quantities by the Wehrmacht during the first 9 months of Barbarossa) except for the initial attack units and the immediate follow on units to exploit the breakout…About 200 km (until supplies could be brought forward)…Soldiers, tanks and entire units were expendable as a fight of attrition (the winning formula from WWII)…Because of their heavy forces, they required MASSIVE amounts of fuel, these depots were difficult to disguise and left a very large “footprint” to see from eyes-in-the-sky…So, our side developed the rockets to take these out…

So what does this have to do with today? The ECO Agenda Movement (politicians, “dot-orgs”, etc) has two fundamental strengths that are based on the “message” itself. 1) They are able to “frame” the debate based on their “propaganda” and present it in the “firstest-with-the-mostest” message to the American people because as an industry, the news media (the overwhelming amount of it) provides them the vehicle to accomplish this. 2) Because of #1, they are also the arbitrators of the “truth”…In other words, they decide not only what is discussed, but they decide what “truth” is allowed to be discussed.

Bluntly stated, their message is one of DECEPTION that can only be successful as long as they control the agenda…In other words, this effort on their part falls under the guise of “the best defense is a good offense”…If they are ever exposed to American people, it will be a bad day for them…As long as they are able to sell us with their inflatable tanks (dummies filled with air), they maintain the position of strength…As far as actually being real, they are neither real or genuine.

All of this “stuff” is based on three central tenets which are 1) biodiversity conservation (invasive species is part of this), 2) climate change and 3) sustainable development…In two words, this means CENTRALIZED CONTROL of the entire American economy…

Granted, the invasive species is a small piece of the “trilogy” above but, within the scope of the World Heritage Program…This is very important and one of the reasons why it continues to pop up over and over again on the legislative agenda – In addition to controlling this segment of the economy, which they honestly have no idea how large or small it actually is…For that matter, they can not even accurately define how many timber rattlesnakes (or any other plant or vertebrate for that matter) actually exist in areas where they’ve provided grants (to their approved “experts”) to study and report their findings…The numbers that they often cite are based on calculations based on variables (which they can manipulate) and observations from field studies (another tax payer financial “black hole”)…There are numerous variables here so this is just a general observation for brevity…I think you get the idea…

#1 provides them with the “propaganda” banner for education, out-reach, etc; #2 provides them with additional “propaganda” to control the energy of our country and #3, well, this is the non-discussed, central planning aspect that will result from #1 and #2…#3 is what they attempting to do and the other two are the ones that are what they want us see…It’s the perfect “smoke and mirrors” deception campaign and it is the message that they control…

Later,
Jim.

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CSRAJim