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US Supreme Court Allows Sonar Use
gollum123 writes "The US Supreme Court has removed restrictions on the Navy's use of sonar in training exercises near California. The ruling is a defeat for environmental groups who say the sonar can kill whales and other mammals. In its 5-4 ruling, the Supreme Court said the Navy needed to conduct realistic training exercises to respond to potential threats. The court did not deal with the merits of the claims put forward by the environmental groups. In reinstating the use of sonar, the top US court rejected a lower federal judge's injunction that had required the US Navy to take various precautions during submarine-hunting exercises. The Bush administration argued that there is little evidence of harm to marine life in more than 40 years of exercises off the California coast. It said that the judges should have deferred to the judgment of the Navy and Mr Bush. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said overall public interest was 'strongly in favor of the Navy.' 'The most serious possible injury would be harm to an unknown number of the marine mammals,' Chief Justice Roberts wrote. 'In contrast, forcing the Navy to deploy an inadequately trained anti-submarine force jeopardizes the safety of the fleet.'"
When the United States was founded, the states had significant powers unto themselves. No longer. Now individual states' laws are frequently and intentionally trumped by Federal laws written to make things convenient for whomever pays the most lobbyists in Washington D.C., or whatever ideology is in vogue (if only by a 5-4 vote).
Europe, the further you go down the road towards unification, the more you're going to see the same bullshit happen to you. In the name of some kind of "greater good", laws that you decide for yourselves will be swept aside by an inevitably corrupt and ever less democratic center of power.
Just thought you should know.
It's a little hard for the whales to do that, because apart from the fact that the sonar travels for hundreds of miles in water, in the shallow portions of the coast where these exercises take place, there aren't a lot of places for the whales to escape to.
A Sonar technician already calculated that the maximum volume of the sonar in the water isn't "hundreds of miles". So you are posting your propaganda, not I.
that you seem to want to grind regarding people who aren't just thinking about number 1 all the time...., given your immediate leap to the unpatriotic "why do you hate america?"
No, I genuinely believe the hard core leadership of the environmental movement is ultimately anti-humanity. All I ever see them do is block project after project. Trying to appease the environmental movement is like trying to be a black guy looking for job in the 1950s... it's always something supposedly constructive that can be approved, the suit, the tie, the shoes, the presentation, education, experience or delivery, but ultimately, old blackey never gets promoted because it doesn't have to do with anything other than his existence. Same with industry.. first its particulates, dumping and now its CO2... there will always be something that puts the environmental movement protesting at the gates, shutting down projects, driving jobs away, and wrecking the American middle class. Even if you could a factory in a hermetically sealed bubble, environmentalists would be protesting the effects of the bubble. They simply are anti-industry, and therefor, anti-American.
This is my sig.