Aug 31 2007
Tower Tremors: Wireless Communication Towers
Cellular towers are becoming a part of our modern landscape equivalent to when billboards began to multiply a few decades ago. And like billboards, they are a mixed blessing at best and an environmental blight to many people. Each year in North America an estimated 4-5 million birds per year are killed in collisions with communication towers, typically towers that are 200 feet or taller. Migratory birds receive the most damage, especially some 350 species of night-migrating birds, which violates the spirit and the intent of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Code of Federal Regulations at Part 50 designed to implement the MBTA (2000 figures from Fish and Wildlife Service). Bird loss caused from towers was a fact generally unknown by federal agencies or the public until the 1990’s. “People who man towers kept quiet about these bird deaths. They didn’t want to alarm the public on the extent of this problem.” Said bird expert Sam Robbins, quoted in the February 2000 issue of Wisconsin Natural Resources.
Why so many new communication towers? Many more of us are using cellular phones and the communications industry has been expanding. Like billboards, the towers are indicative of economic growth, yet are encroaching upon the environment and visually impacting the areas in which they are constructed. Environmentalists are trying to block new wireless towers; the Forest Conservation Council and Friends of the Earth petitioned the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny 29 applications for towers until further environmental studies have been done. An FCC Memorandum Opinion and Order on the matter was released on January 4, 2002. The 29 Objections/Petitions to Deny, jointly filed by the Friends of Earth and the Forest Conservation Council against 29 Applications for Antenna Structure Registrations, were dismissed. The FCC gave the reasoning that “We find that the Petitioners have not demonstrated standing to file their Petitions because the Petitions are speculative and do not show how the construction of these towers would affect the interests of any identified person.” John Talberth of the Forest Conservation Council says that inadequate research has been done on wireless towers “They cause significant adverse impact to wildlife, scenery, wetlands.”
Sphere: Related Content
Well, 
Today is the last day ‘of work’ for Karl Rove, aka the devil incarnate. Lets give him a rollicking good bye by remembering how he ruined the United States of America and basically the entire world as we know it. Let me start:
DES MOINES, Iowa — A county 
There are some bloggers who walk the walk. They are on the road much of the year speaking about the horrors and dangers of War. Charlie, Tammara and REB 84 are three who I have the pleasure of knowing, if only on the ‘internets’ through emails and their blogs. These are individuals that spend the majority of their life educating the public and our elected officials about the human cost of the wars our country wages. Tony Snow might call dead soldiers ‘just a number’ and to some they very well may be just that, but I choose to believe that people inherently care about the human cost of war. I might be deluded and god knows that is entirely possible..but I just couldn’t go through life thinking people are cold, calculating, unfeeling individuals by nature.
A flag is many things to many people. In the aftermath of Katrina this blanket of the American flag is her comfort. Little did she know that help wasn’t on the way. An old woman now…probably worked hard all of her life as someone’s maid or housekeeper. She had old age to look forward to and a country that offered its citizens a pension for their old years. Of course it isn’t enough for a mouse to subsist on…but no matter. This is America…where she has freedom and democracy. This is America… where her people are disenfranchised from what the Constitution equally bestowed upon its nation’s people.
Several federal agencies are 
The Senate Bill (SB294) would ask voters whether President Bush should end the US occupation of Iraq and begin the “immediate, complete, safe and orderly withdrawal” of troops.
the blogosphere has been pretty busy of late- what with all of the corruption oozing out of the government and whatnot. ever wonder why it is only just seeping out now? i do- but then again i tend to be suspicious in nature. so- a recent recap has seen at least 14 folks ‘resign’ from the executive branch within the last 6-8 months and several folks in the congress leave for a variety of reasons- mostly, if not exclusively, rethuglican. why? what do they know that we don’t? i would love to say it’s because they are quaking in their boots that they are going to be hauled under oath before congress and whatnot- but let’s get real. so, why now?
And our 
It started innocuously enough with 
recently, many good folks have hung up their spurs and walked away from writing- and i respect that. i just want you all to know- i miss you. that’s the funny thing about blogging- especially all of us who started out on blogger. it was a connection and we became almost a ’sewing circle’- with our morning coffee and gossip and talking about our lives; our country; our planet. i am really glad that i have gotten to know you- pc mary, divajood, and the many others i can’t think of right now because i am sad. it makes my heart heavy to lose the blogships- friendships- and i hope that you will consider email. i have a gmail account- and i know that there are plenty of us out here with contact me forms- check in once in awhile to let us know you are ok. hugs and kisses. betmo
Its about freaking time. The 
Mother Teresa and I share the same birthday, along with Martha Raye, Tuesday Weld and countless other unknowns like myself. I was reading about her letters to her Superiors, questioning her belief , I thought how typical of us Virgo’s~ second guessing ourselves and being our own worst critics. No matter your religious beliefs, or lack of them, most people consider this woman to have done much good in her life, yet she felt empty inside. I can relate to that and the self doubt. This is my third birthday without my boys, and I am making a better “go’ of it each day, but the veil that seems to be between me and the rest of you is still there. It flaps more in the wind than before to be sure, but the sense of not quite being “here” is still very real to me. I know this is part and parcel of my ongoing quest to heal from something that I will never heal from completely. As with the good Mother T. , it is my calling, my burden, my path, my gift from the universe .
I have to tell you, it made me smile and my heart lift when I read 
The people in Iraq can’t even get electricity 24/7 or running clean water. Yet Petraeus and our elected representatives are dining on lobster tortellini in Baghdad. This isn’t the worst of it however. That Petraeus would sit in a comfortable environment and lobby for the surge whilst eating this elitist food is wrong on many levels. Its wrong because it sends the imperialist message that the masses can ‘eat cake’ and suffer whilst the elite mutha fuckas suffer notta damn bit. The masses of course being the millions of Iraqi’s suffering through 115-120 degree temperatures without electricity, clean water or any of the other basic needs of a nation of human beings.