Brianna Waters vindicated – sort of… A federal appeals court in Seattle has ordered a new trial for a waters who was convicted of helping to carry out a 2001 ecoterror attack that destroyed the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture. Waters was convicted of arson for allegedly serving as a lookout during Earth Liberation Front attack. She was sentenced to six years in prison. A unanimous three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that U.S. District Judge Franklin Burgess made several errors that raised questions about the fairness of her trial. The panel said the judge should not have admitted certain articles advocating violence as evidence, and should have done more to ensure that news coverage of an unrelated arson did not influence the jury. Prosecutors argued that Waters was connected to a cell of radical environmentalists who carried out “attacks” throughout the West from 1996-2001.
The Association of O&C Counties is proposing federal legislation it says could resolve a long-standing dispute over managing federal timber in western Oregon. The proposal involves 2.1 million acres overseen by the Bureau of Land Management (Bunch if LoggingMagnates’?) The government is required to use 75 percent of timber harvest revenue from the land to support public services in 18 Oregon counties. However, since the early 1990s, there have been severe reductions of timber harvests on the federal lands. Leaving rural counties shit out of funding. But that was back in the 1990’s, friends: don’t you think 20 years is enough time to come up with a better idea? “Never Tap Out Your Capital” That’s the first rule of managing finances, whether personal, local, state, federal. The forests represent what’s left of our natural capital. Once they’re gone, they’re gone. Making way for GMO tree farms (so much easier to maintain and log!). The association says its proposal would preserve nearly 1.2 million acres while selling the remainder of the land, which has been cutover and burned. The money from the sale would provide money for schools and counties nationally, along with a permanent trust for the 18 counties. In other words, making the same mistakes…over and over again…
- KBOO