IB Hooked - July 13, 2007

Ya know guys, them chicoms just may be on to somethin‚. Catch a
bureaucrat in a nefarious act, shoot the bugger as happened this week to
the dude responsible for the tainted food that Red China exported.

Gotta thank the editor of this rag for findin‚ space to jump Dr. Bob
Shipp‚s letter to the editor, I was afraid they‚d have to run it in
microdot size. Here‚s the skinny on that smoke signal, Dr. Bob has been
teachin‚ Marine Science at the U of South Alabama since 1972 and now
chairs the department, he‚s also a member of the Gulf Council and has been
up to his ears in this snapper crap for decades. He authored the letter
because the enviros PR machine has been in hyperdrive spewin‚ out BS that
some mainstream dailies been runnin‚ as op/ed pieces giving their BS
credibility it don‚t deserve, this is reason numero uno. Reason numero
two-o is that the East of the Mississippi Gang are finally feeling some
pain.
For the last dozen years Texas was the stepchild getting‚ hosed on red
snapper regs and it was party hardy for the East of the Mississippi Gang
since they controlled the majority of the Council votes. For the last
dozen years they‚ve allowed NOAA Fisheries to push fantasy data and make
fishery policy on said data. Then came the enviros in the form of the
Ocean Conservancy and their law firm Earth Justice and every other enviro
group with a five-dollar bill to kick in the hat and filed suit in Federal
court in Houston against NOAA Fisheries. Judge Belinda Harmon bought in to
their alchemist argument that the red snapper is at just 3% of it‚s
historical population and the shrimpers are to blame along with
recreational fisherman. Uncle Sugar‚s minions didn‚t put up much of a
defense, how could they, the enviros were using the data that the models
produced to prove their case. The fact that everybody involved in the
litigation cept the judge knew that data being used was pure fantasy
didn‚t seem to bother anybody at the time so the judge issued an edict
based on the „science‰ presented and these draconian regulations came to
pass.
The pain that Mississippi-Alabama-Florida, I‚m leavin‚ out Coonassland
cuz them swamp rats could care less about Federal fishery regulations,
their gonna sell their catch to the Breaux Fish House in the bayou permits
regs or no permits or regs and the fish house is gonna pay them in green
backs. The East of the Mississippi Gang is now feeling the pain Texas has
endured for the last dozen years and they‚re tolerance is much lower than
us Texans. That may be why Dr. Bob one of the biggest most respected guns
on the subject has gone public. He and Dr. Vernon Minton the chief
bureaucrat for marine fisheries in Alabama presented a letter for the
record at Council meet in March 2006 stating their concerns about the
model, it was ignored by the economists that run the model. They finally
responded six months later with an insulting dismissive slap in the face,
they were gonna stand by their model and it‚s conclusions. The move to
divide the Gulf in to east-west management zones has now been shot down by
the Gulf Councils legal staff, on what grounds I haven‚t a clue.
Sooooo, round two in the snapper mess will play out in Judge Harmon‚s
court later this Fall and it sure as hell looks like the East of the
Mississippi Gang is gonna enter the fray with both feet. One thing I keep
wonderin about is that if in fact the enviros truly believe their position
why didn‚t they go for an Endangered Species listing cuz 3% of a critter
population that was deemed nonexistent in historical surveys would seem to
qualify for a listing.

Cut line- Proud pappa Denny and Mr. Nick Bomarito celebrate the kids loss
of virginity marlin wise as is the custom the world over take a dip in the
marina. Mr. Nick age 11 caught his first blue marlin aboard Quick Sea on
eighty-pound stand-up tackle in the last club tournament. The club will
hold a marlin hunt this Saturday weigh-in is over by Dirty Al‚s at the Sea
Ranch.