The Karner blue butterfly is a tiny thing, with colorful wings that extend just an inch across and a life that rarely wanders more than 600 feet from where it began. Its caterpillars can only eat wild lupines — a flower that’s become less abundant in the wild because of development and habitat fragmentation. As a result, the Karner was named an endangered species in 1992. But Karner blues are getting help from an unlikely source: gun sales.

The Nature Conservancy has a project in the works near Saratoga, New York, that will preserve an area that’s already home to these lupines and butterflies, and much of the program’s funding comes from the sales of guns and ammunition. For that, Karner conservationists can thank the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act.

Passed by Congress in 1937 and commonly referred to as the Pittman-Robertson Act, it sets an excise tax of 10 to 11 percent on the sale of guns and ammunition, paid by manufacturers at the wholesale level. Prior to the law’s passage, guns and ammunition were already subject to taxes, but the Act ensured that the money was set aside to protect game species and their habitats. The law has helped bring deer and elk back from the brink in areas in the East, but it’s also given refuge to many non-game species, like the Karner blue butterfly. At another project in New York, Pittman-Robertson money is helping to protect 5,000 acres of grouse, turkey and deer habitat, and all the snowy owls and other birds of prey that come with it.

Environmentalists who don’t hunt might not think they have much in common with the guy tromping off into the woods with a gun. Yet hunters and anglers have a long history of land stewardship, said John Gale, national sportsmen campaigns manager at the National Wildlife Federation. At the time the Pittman-Robertson Act was passed, widespread hunting had cleared deer and other big game from large areas along the Eastern Seaboard. Realizing that the sustainability of their pastime was at risk, hunters banded together to urge legislative action. “Hunters are the original conservationists — we’ve been carrying wildlife and fish on our back for a long time,” Gale said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service distributes Pittman-Robertson money to state agencies. A portion goes to hunter education, and the rest pays for habitat restoration and management. “Without hunter dollars, we wouldn’t have fish and wildlife departments and we wouldn’t have wildlife management,” said Jim Curcuruto, director of industry research and analysis at the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

All together, state agencies responsible for wildlife management receive about 75 percent of their funding from Pittman-Robertson taxes and hunting and fishing licenses. But the share of people hunting has fallen over the last 60 years. In 1960, about 7.7 percent of the U.S. population bought a hunting license, while in 2010 only 4.8 percent did. In absolute numbers, hunting license sales are fairly flat.

How Skyrocketing Gun Sales Are Helping To Conserve Butterflies

Decent article until the lie about the number of hunters being “flat”.

From the same source the author cites…

“The major growth of spending by hunters is good news for businesses throughout the country, particularly small businesses in rural areas,” said NSSF President and CEO Steve Sanetti. “It also is gratifying to see the nine percent increase in hunting participation. Not only is the traditional male hunter going afield more often, but more women and novices are going hunting as well, demonstrating the widespread appeal of this great outdoors tradition.

http://nssf.org/newsroom/releases/show.cfm?PR=011713_SHOT_CSF-NSSF.cfm&path=2013

I’ll bet she would be screaming if her retirement account or investments lost 9%

A recent meeting in Vienna, between the member states of Opec finally uncovered what the world had expected for months.

Saudi Arabia is playing politics with oil, forcing Opec to maintain its current production levels at 30m barrels per day, to force down the price.

Consequently oil prices have fallen 35% in 2014, tipping under the $70 mark for the first time since May 2010.

The question is why the Saudis would risk the goodwill of other Opec members, simultaneously emasculating the organisation and undercutting their ability to use it in the future to serve their interests.

It is a game of high-stakes poker and in the long run will cause the Saudis some harm, but that is not where their immediate thoughts lie.

Since the first oil shocks following the 1973 Middle East War, the Saudis have understood the role they can play in regional and world affairs by turning the taps on and off.

But recently, as the US upped its production, it would have been reasonable to assume that Saudi would have correspondingly cut surplus supply to maintain a healthy balance sheet.

But instead Riyadh has done the opposite.

From Riyadh the world looks a grim place, and the Saudis have a host of concerns that they feel are not being addressed adequately, either by their allies in the West or by their partners in the region.

Saudi-Iran tension

Many experts talk of a Cold War between Saudi and Iran, where on every major issue of regional concern an Iranian gain is viewed by the Saudis as a loss, and for the House of Al Saud alarm bells are ringing.

In their view the US has effectively caved in, and allowed Iran off the hook.

The Iranians were not supposed to be allowed any domestic uranium enrichment capacity, let alone get paid $7bn for the privilege.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-30289546

Why go after U.S. troops?

Why not go after Taliban,Al-Queda,ISIS,Al-Shabab, et-al?

The International Criminal Court in The Hague is tiptoeing closer to a confrontation with the United States. The key issue is U.S. detention practices, and the alleged use of torture, in Afghanistan. A report just released by the office of the court’s prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, for the first time explicitly names U.S. forces as potential culprits.

The back story of the International Criminal Court’s (ICC’s) inquiry into possible crimes in Afghanistan extends more than a decade. Afghanistan joined the ICC in early 2003, less than a year after the court opened its doors. That move gave the international prosecutor potentially broad jurisdiction over crimes committed by all combatants on Afghan soil. Shortly thereafter, the ICC opened what it calls a “preliminary examination” of possible crimes in the country. In this phase of the court’s work, the prosecutor’s office reviews mainly outside sources of information about situations and considers whether to launch a full investigation of its own.

Year after year, the court’s inquiry on Afghanistan has remained in limbo, even as reports of abuses in Afghanistan accumulate. The United Nations estimates that about 8,000 civilians have been killed in the country since 2009 alone.

To many observers, the ICC’s sluggishness in responding to one of the world’s bloodier conflicts appeared odd, particularly as it opened multiple formal investigations in Africa. It was hard to avoid the conclusion that the ICC might be avoiding Afghanistan precisely because an investigation there would involve scrutiny of U.S. actions and otherwise complicate major-power diplomacy related to the conflict. No NATO state involved in Afghanistan has expressed support for an ICC role.

While the court’s inner workings are not easy to divine, it appears that a more assertive approach to Afghanistan developed sometime after Bensouda took over from the court’s first prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, in mid-2012. As prosecution officials prepared an update on the Afghan situation, they gathered NGO reports of abuses by U.S. forces and material from U.S. internal inquirers to go along with much more voluminous material on Taliban crimes and alleged Afghan government abuses.

In a Foreign Policy article published in May, I detailed the heartburn that the court’s more energized inquiry was causing in Washington. In 2013, three senior State Department officials dashed to The Hague for a meeting with the deputy prosecutor, veteran Canadian lawyer James Stewart. At that meeting, the U.S. officials discouraged the prosecutor from specifically discussing alleged U.S. misconduct. It appears that Washington’s alarm had an impact; the ICC’s 2013 update on Afghanistan contained no direct references to U.S. forces. Allegations of U.S. misconduct were instead lumped into the category of “pro-government forces” and elided by the passive voice. “It has been alleged,” 2013’s report noted, “that, between 2002 and 2006, some of the detainees captured in Afghanistan were subjected to interrogation techniques which may constitute torture or inhumane treatment.”

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2014/12/03/the_war_over_us_war_crimes_in_afghanistan_is_heating_up_icc_hague?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=*Editors%20Picks&utm_campaign=2014_EditorsPicks12%2F3SLO

AN FRANCISCO (KPIX 5) — Police in San Francisco hope surveillance video of men suspected beating a homeless man to death will lead to their arrest.

Video…

http://http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=10910041

Read the rest@   http://dcbeacon.com/video-3-hooded-thugs-beat-homeless-man-to-death-in-san-francisco/