Glenn Grothman: still wrong on snakes and herbicides.

Hi folks,

And just when I thought we'd have to forgo my complaining about Glenn this week, his column appeared in the West Bend Express News (Sunday, Sept 23, 2006 vol 4, issue 39 p.7).

Glenn is long on opinion but the facts, as usual, get in the way.

He starts like this.

"Today we will focus on a lack of common sense in environmental issues."

Politicians usually only appeal to "common sense" when they want something like candy; things they can't -- or shouldn't -- have.

I'll only mention the first two. These should be eerily familiar by now.

1)

"If you expand your business in our area and are near any wetlands, the Department of Natural Resources will require you to look out for a supposedly threatened snake called the Butler's garter snake."

I suppose the Butler's gartersnake is "supposedly threatened" only if you believe what the scientists at the DNR say, although, stranger still, I've started getting email from scientists in other states who ask if Glenn is a shill for land developers or an idiot. It's getting harder to answer this question fairly.

Glenn notes, quite rightly, that the snake is found in a number of other locations and suggests, as far as I can tell here, that it would, therefore, be quite all right to keep destroying their habitat if it means an athletic field for the Timberwolves at Living Word Lutheran HS.

The garter snakes, alas, cannot be expected to rent a truck and move over to the Cedarburg Bog or Jackson Marsh, so you end up killing them locally. Their job in the ecosystem is local, just like Glenn's. Fortunately, if he keeps this up he'll destroy his political habitat first.

And 2)

"Wisconsin's regulatory agencies tried to regulate this product allowing half as much as Minnesota without even doing a peer-reviewed study. At the request of the Farm Bureau and the Pork Producers, we have derailed this new imposition."

Here he tip-toes around the critical details I mentioned in an earlier posting. Specifically: a) that the DNR only wants some standards set and that b), Glenn wanted to let Monsanto, the producer, do the "peer-review "testing.

Um... how is that a "peer-review"? and what part of "fox in the hen house" gets by you on this?

He also leaves out that fascinating detail that the break-down products from this stuff have already been found in 28% of the randomly tested wells state wide --presumably not in Glenn's.

Look, none of this is rocket science.

1. You don't step on Superman's cape,
   
2. you don't spit in the wind, and
   
3. you don't ask the fox to guard the hen house, especially when
   
4. the chickens have hired you to keep the foxes from using them for BBQ.

hiho
Mpeterson