Bucky Buckaw on The Bravery of Chickens and the Cowardice of Congress

Animal Enterprise Terrorist Act (AETA) is as falsely labelled as the PATRIOT ACT. As Bucky says on this weeks Backyard Chicken Broadcast, this bill is not about violent individuals with an agenda. It is about suppressing legitimate criticism of companies. Despite claims that there is a clause in the bill that exempts first amendment protected activities, a wide range of legal experts including Sagebrush Variety Show favorite, National Lawyers Guild, agree that the clause is weak, at best. Undercover investigations, employee whistle-blowing, organizing boycotts, and standing outside a fast food joint handing out pro-vegetarianism leaflets are now all officially equated with terrorism. Seriously, Bucky Buckaw could be convicted and punished as a "terrorist" since his nefarious plan includes telling the truth about factory farms and phony "free-range" operations in order to get people to raise backyard chickens to give up grocery store eggs. AETA is opposed by more than 160 animal protection, social justice, and civil liberty organizations including: National Lawyers Guild, Humane Society of the U.S., ASPCA, Natural Resources Defense Council, the League of Humane Voters and more.

Butch Otter was an original cosponsor of the AETA in 2005. I guess his heroic libertarian streak reaches its limit when the opportunity arises to imprison anyone who might someday picket the Governor's mansion in defense of wolves, ferrets, puppies, kittens or baby chicks. But he was in good company. The bill sailed through both houses with the sole objection coming from Dennis Kucinich as reported here. Barak Obama, "progressive" flavor of the month for the NPR set, attempts to justify AETA in this letter to Blogger, John A. Duerk.

Check out the Equal Justice Alliance anti-AETA site for more information on AETA and how to continue the effort to restore our civil liberties.

Homeland Security Level Red: Photo-Terrorism

This weeks Level Red is inspired by the Reporter Arrested for Photographing Governor's Inauguration Parade in Connecticut earlier this month. Now, consider that Boise and the Spokane/Moscow area have Criminal Investigation Units that are part of the same Local Franchise Opportunities in Homeland Security as the one that decided that Ken Krayeske's work on Green Party campaigns merited a folder with large glossy photographs and, apparently, instructions to arrest on sight. We really, really, love this annotated arrest record.

In fictionalizing our account we made the educated guess that Krayeske was familiar with the National Lawyers Guild Know Your Rights pamphlet. The Sagebrush Players strongly recommend everyone read it before they are arrested. To recap, listeners to our show know that you may be detained, arrested or at least harassed if you: wear a t-shirt with arabic lettering on it, are a documented Green Party volunteer, make non-traditional dietary choices, display the wrong bumper sticker of your bicycle or motor vehicle, are a clown on a unicycle, etc.

The upbeat angle to the story is that people are finally getting outraged about this sort of thing and supporting their fellow activists as noted on Krayeske's Blog. Particularly inspiring is how Connecticut Democrats in the Legislature have made the uncharacteristic decision that defending a fellow wonk's political rights is more important than silencing the Green Party through restrictive ballot access laws, constant negative spinmeistering and various social punishments.

Bucky's Backyard Broadcast: Background Links

As promised, here's the page with notable quotes from chicken intelligence researchers. and the study indicating chickens worry. In other words they can anticipate the future and act to influence outcomes. Also, a sample conversation from a fairly typical chicken message board. And in all fairness, I should post to the two essays that dared to talk smack about chicken smarts. There's no doubt that Barbara Kingsolver has a profound appreciation of chickens in Lily's Chickens and When Chickens Fall From the Sky got a chuckle from me despite the "size of a pea" crack. It does seem like the hens get more respect than the men in her family.

Homeland Security Level Red: Rutabagas & Emmetonians - Episode Links

This episode is inspired by The Idaho Green Party, the city of Emmett police and the National Animal Identification System (NAIS) but the main inspiration was this article, Protester=Criminal?, from The Progressive. You know the oft quoted and even more often paraphrased "they came for so and so and I just chilled, then they came for so and so and I was like, it's not my problem, then they came for me and there was no one left to watch my back"? Well, they came for the clowns in 2003 so watch yer back.

I couldn't bear to change the Flying Rutabagas cool name for this episode but the members names and other details are, of course, tweaked for fiction. I'm not sure what the organization or its founding members are up to these days but the original Cycle Circus website is still up.

It is true, however, that Idaho Green Party member, Kevin Bayhouse, ran for Ada County Highway District with a logo featuring a unicycle on his website, pamphlets and road signs. Unfortunately, we never managed to arrange for a real unicyclist to help promote our cause.

Furthermore, although the real Rutabagas didn't protest the National Animal Identification System (NAIS). I'm pretty sure they would agree with our own Bucky Buckaw's anti-NAIS sentiments. NAIS uses the flimsy excuse of disease control as a rationale for a widespread program of microchipping and databasing of poultry and livestock that would be a boon to agribusiness but would most likely smother small farming and backyard animals. After several years of protest from small farmers, homesteaders and "hobbyists," the USDA has officially toned down their rhetoric about mandatory, universal implementation. However, it seems NAIS proponents simply changed strategies to make it appear as if it's not a federal plan but one being implemented by a each states Department of Agriculture. For more on how the NAIS two recommended starting points would NO NAIS and Stop Animal I.D.

The bit about the FBI going through people's trash and the nerdy agent putting a "trash cover kit" in the secret santa pool came from the Sagebrush Variety Shows mole in the Bureau so we can't give you any more details on that. We've said too much already but we thought it was too good to pass up.

And finally, the Sagebrush Variety Show Players have, indeed, been stopped by the Emmet police on flimsy pretexts - at least 3 times. "Technically not breaking the speed limit but failure to slow down well in advance of a new posted speed limit" was one of them and the fictional "interrogation" scene is actually edited down considerably from the interminable and pointless ones we experienced. Tune in next week for Level Red based on Ken Krayeske's outrageous arrest at the hands of his local CIU (it can happen here, folks, Boise's CIU is no doubt spying on your local group as we speak).

The Public Comment

For all the current public comment opportunities at DEQ mentioned on the program, see the list on their public comment opportunities page. 31 January: Idaho Public Utilities Commission, Case Nos. IPC-E-04-15 and IPC-E-06-32. Idaho Power Co. is seeking approval for two pilot programs. Read carefully; their website is user-hostile. Then again, so is the entire agency. 7 February: Idaho Housing and Finance Association and the Idaho Department of Commerce and Labor are accepting public comment on their Annual Action Plan.

Bucky Buckaw on WOOL 100.1 FM Tonight

Bucky Buckaw, host of the Sagebrush Variety Hour's Backyard Chicken Broadcast segment, as heard on Boise Community Radio and KRFP, Radio Free Moscow will be the special guest on Mark Green's "No Depression" music show on WOOL 101.FM serving the Great Falls area of Vermont and New Hampshire tonight at 9:15 EST (that's 7:15 for all you local Mountain Timing Backyard Chicken aficianados). We're hoping WOOL's webmaster will see lots of logins of people tuning in to the webcast from IP addresses in Idaho. We know you Bucky fans are out there!

Snow Blow Hard Songs of the Week

The original concept for Snow Blow Hard: Xmas with a Vengeance was to combine elements of A Christmas Carol and It's a Wonderful Life with characters, settings, and events from Idaho politics and business, de-christianize it, give it our leftist spin, and make it as a musical. Last year's debut only included two songs but this year we've written 4 additional songs (so far) and it's a bona fide musical. Today's set of episodes contains a duet between a very old billionaire rancher (guess which Idahoan he's based on) and a version of Tiny Tim recast as one of those "South Park Republican" youths that drive us up the wall. The other is a number about genetically modified organisms sung by an angry food activist. Question: which recently elected Idaho Democrat provided fodder for the first verse of the song with a remarkably uninformed apology of Monsanto et al's success at weakening biodiversity, seeding genetic pollution and then suing for "infringement," introducing allergenic (in some cases fatally allergenic) proteins into the food supply, and resisting attempts at testing or labeling through lies, deception, and manipulation of international trade agreements (for starters)? "Isn't [genetically modifying organisms] just progress?" NO!!