What government does
Man catches 800lb tuna. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office of Law Enforcement* confiscates the fish because it was caught in a net and not on a rod and reel.
* Another agency with a SWAT team?
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November 22nd, 2011 at 10:30 am
SWAT = Special Weapons Against Tuna?
November 22nd, 2011 at 10:31 am
No shit! I met that guy back when I was working for NOAA. Nice guy, and a good captain.
NOAA? A bunch of hacks cooking numbers like Global Warming and declining fish stocks out of numbers that says nothing of the sort just so they can get more grant money next year.
Fuck them!
The guy had tuna permits, and I doubt they had a tuna rig on board to catch the fish, and the permits are NOT short money. I bet NOAA was misleading the guy so they could collect his money…and his fish.
November 22nd, 2011 at 10:34 am
“He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.”
November 22nd, 2011 at 10:39 am
You can’t spell substance without tuna.
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:31 am
““The matter is still under investigation,”said Monica Allen, deputy director with NOAA Fisheries public affairs. “If it’s determined that there has been a violation, the money will go into the asset forfeiture fund.””
I think that last sentence explains it right there.
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:52 am
Given the market value they fetch at auction. Me thinks NOAA wants the value of the fish for it’s own coffers.
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:43 pm
Hey, boss, I have a great idea for a new TV show: “NOAA 911!” Whaddya think?
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:47 pm
Who’s coming to the big cook-out this weekend?
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:53 pm
The captain might want to ask for a refund on his tuna vouchers, considering they were sold fraudulently to cover any tuna he might catch in his nets.
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Shoot, shovel, shutup. Or is it “don’t ask, don’t tell?”
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:25 pm
“Nobody ever told me we couldn’t catch it with a net.”
Not knowing the rules is pretty rarely an excuse, and you’d have to be an idiot to be engaged in commercial fishing and not know that bluefin populations are in big trouble and are being watched.
If you have any evidence, any at all Weerd, that NOAA is incorrect in this regard (bluefin), I’d be all for considering it. But considering just how hilarious it is to see someone still carting out the “AGW evidence is being cooked” canard after it’s been so thoroughly debunked, my guess is we’re talking about another timewaster.
Why is it the same people who constantly bitch about the need for fiscal responsibility are the same ones who insist we need not have any responsibility with things like fish stocks?
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:59 pm
Perusing my copy of the constitution here, I don’t see any sort of enumerated power of the fed.gov to be responsible for fish stocks.
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:10 pm
Commerce.
Next.
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:12 pm
(But if you have a better idea for how to handle a diminishing resource that doesn’t belong to or in any state, I’m all ears).
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:12 pm
Wrong.
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:14 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause#Significance_.E2.80.93_federal_rights_in_navigable_waters
Once in a while the reflexive “but the Constitution blah blah blah” is a useful means for a blind squirrel to find a nut.
But anymore it’s mostly just A) annoying and B) really wrongheaded. And occasionally hilarious. Better peruse a lil deeper in Article I. 🙂
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:18 pm
No. The entire premise that regulating commerce means that the .gov can regulate anything incidentally involved in commerce is ludicrous on its face. And I’m quite aware that through the years the supreme court has held exactly that and, as such, the commerce clause may as well not exist at all. It, de facto, means they can regulate whatever and whoever. It’s kind of one of the things us crazy ass libertarians get our panties bunched up about.
The one bright spot in the obamacare lawsuit is that maybe the commerce clause will rise from the dead. But I don’t have my hopes up.
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:19 pm
SCOTUS says I’m right.
And I’m still waiting for your better idea. Like it or not, protecting fish stocks is something that *has* to be done.
Your better idea?
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:22 pm
I just said that.
Not playing that stupid game.
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:25 pm
It’s only ludicrous to you because it leads to things you don’t like, but it is what it is. If the Founders didn’t want Congress having the ability to regulate what goes on in navigable waters, they probably would have worded that Article a lot differently.
They didn’t.
Getting your pants bunched up just means you’re getting all excited about something you’re really, really wrong about. Your position, while academically interesting, is, as a practical matter, fucking DOA.
It’s about as long standing and deep seated a precedent as you’ll find, and the SCOTUS isn’t very likely to suddenly rule that the EPA, the FAA, the USDA, etc are things Congress can’t appropriate money for. Like…ever.
So pulling out your hair over it is a big waste of time and energy.
The reality is, like it or not, we need these sorts of regulations and we need to be able to negotiate them and join with other nations in enforcing them.
Whether you like it or not.
So…bearing all that in mind, considering that SCOTUS and precedent and public support and practical reality are all decidedly aligned with me and against you…
Your better idea for keeping idiots from raping the bluefin and lots of other fish stocks out of existence is?
(Crickets….)
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:28 pm
I don’t like a lot of things. I like even less that people actually have debates over which shit sandwich tastes better, which is why I don’t have those debates.
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Translation: I don’t really have one, and rather than discuss the actual issue here, namely that yeah, you kinda do have to play by the rules when you’re fishing, we’re gonna have a picayune, DOA discussion about an issue that was settled a long time ago that’s predicated on the assumption that the Founders didn’t really think about this sort of thing when they wrote the Commerce clause to mean exactly what the fuck it means.
Fair enough :).
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:32 pm
Oh, I’m aware it’s DOA and have now said so quite a few times. Not sure why it’s hard to wrap your head around that.
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:41 pm
I’ve only offered said pronouncement about as many times as you tossed out the old standby ;).
Seriously though…if we’re keeping it reality based and all…
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:07 pm
Yeah, the 2A was thought DOA too until some libertarian lawyer had a go of it.
The issue I have with this sort of crap is it’s the foot in the door that leads to, say, corralling passive protesters into nets and spraying them in the face with pepper spray. All government is force. And we’re seeing that now. I’m not a fan of it at any level. YMMV.
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Don’t get me wrong, I’m wholeheartedly in agreement that Uncle Sam has his nose in plenty of places where it isn’t welcome, isn’t useful, and isn’t warranted. That it’s legal for it to be there is irrelevant. It might also be legal to pepper spray those peaceful protestors, doesn’t make it right, welcome, useful, or warranted either.
The difference in this case is that actually yeah…it is a good thing that our govt can work together with other nations to make sure the oceans aren’t fucking dead.
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:15 pm
Sebastian, I haven’t read the regs, nor bought permits. I will say I met the guy and he’s one of the biggest owner non-operator in New Bedford which, at least when I was stomping the docks, was moving more fish than Fulton Fish Market in NYC, making it the largest fishing port on the East Coast.
He started out as an immigrant fisherman, but now he’s a business man and spends all his time running the business on land.
Also to own as many boats he he does you can’t be a dummy…further to have guys WANTING to work on your boats (There were a few fleet owners in various ports that have the Misfit toys for crews because the pay and catches are so shitty) you need to know your stuff…and in these times knowing the regulations and how to work your trips best around them is a must-have skill.
So just going off all that information, I’d be surprised if he had bought all those permits without some assumption that he knew how to lawfully land the fish on it.
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:17 pm
It was legal. But that’s rather the point.
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:26 pm
We seem to disagree on where the line is drawn. As I get older, I’m more inclined to tell them all to fuck off.
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:54 pm
Someone’s raping fish now?
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:56 pm
I’m not in the business, so I had to look up “pound net” and “fish weir”, but it does seem unlikely that catching a Tuna with a drag net is covered by the permit.
https://hmspermits.noaa.gov/other/07catdes.doc
Also, it seems that the permits are $20/year per boat.
https://hmspermits.noaa.gov/News.asp#news293
__________
(Not legal advice) Next time, throw a hook in the things mouth and tell ’em Oliveira caught the damn thing off the back with a rod and reel. Or a harpoon.
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Sebastian the Blogles said “AGW evidence is being cooked” canard after it’s been so thoroughly debunked, my guess is we’re talking about another timewaster.”
Are you stating that you actually BELIEVE the “Global Warning” alarmists? That “Global Warming” actually is occurring and caused by human activity?
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:00 pm
The proper way to deal with diminishing stocks is for the people who homesteaded that resource to claim it as private property and start farming it.
No government intervention needed, other than to run the court that the fishing coop uses to sue poachers.
The proper use of the commerce clause is to prevent state A from inflicting tariffs on imports from state B. The commerce clause desperately needs an amendment to explain this to power-grabbing retards.
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:02 pm
Anthropogenic Global Warming is as provable as Anthropogenic Plate Tectonics.
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:42 pm
Comedian, or jab a harpoon in it as you yank it out of the net wings!
Only $20? That maybe makes more sense. Usually commercial permits like this are general a grand or more.
I was really more on the weights and measurements and watching the charts.
Thanks for the info.
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:53 pm
Average temperature and atmospheric carbon dioxide are both rising — most people agree. But correlation does not mean causation. The 19th century weather was cold and nasty, and we’re still climbing out of it. If humanity is causing the warmth, we should get a medal.
Back in the Middle Ages, England was a wine-exporting country. We aren’t up to that level of warmth yet. In between the Middle Ages and today, they had something called the Little Ice Age.
Weather/climate has been changing long before the industrial revolution. I suspect trying to make them stop changing would be as easy as wrestling an avalanche into a new path.
Besides, I’m a Minnesotan, and think a little warming is a good thing. Why should I be taxed so a lot of politicians can take my money away to ‘fix’ things that nobody has proven are my fault? Global Warming is now being called Climate Change because the warming isn’t doing much. If there were no money attached, there wouldn’t be this hullabaloo.
In any case, what the Hell does this have to do with tuna confiscation?
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:28 pm
Except, you know, the commerce clause doesn’t SAY that.
Can you tell me which foreign nations were involved in this transaction? Or which state governments? Or which Indian tribes?
Because I read it was a guy catching fish to sell to consumers or perhaps corporations.
Tell me: What are the limits in your view? What can’t the government regulate?
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:54 pm
Hmmm, Sebastien keeps using the “debunked” word. I don’t think it means what he thinks it means.
November 22nd, 2011 at 6:52 pm
Before anyone relies on a SCOTUS ruling to bolster an argument, please keep in mind that SCOTUS has been usurping powers not granted to it by the Constitution since circa 1805. I don’t see them as any less political, or any more principled, than the other branches.
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:04 pm
Ellen I may have started it mentioning that NOAA is one of those agencies that gets its funding by predicting catastrophes, one of them is Global Warming, the one I was a part of was declining fish stocks. The fishermen would catch more fish than the year before while expending less man-hours at sea, so NMFS would declare that the stocks were being overfished and fishing boats needed sea days hacked off their permits.
If LESS fish were landed that would be trumpeted as proof that the stock was declining.
They’d close a section of ocean because they used my data to show that’s where the boats were fishing, and then complain that the fishermen would fish AROUND the closed area.
I could go on all day, but needless to say the Fisheries bureaucrats ALWAYS would say fish were in decline and we needed more regulation because if they didn’t funding would be cut. The Meteorologist Bureaucrats would say the Earth was warming and humanity was doomed if we don’t get more research funding, because if they don’t their funding would be cut.
I don’t even know if its sinister, as the .gov essentially hired these people to discover and solve problems….and if the problem gets solved they get fired.
I’m glad I don’t work for them anymore.
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:26 pm
keep slurping that state dick, sebastian.
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:25 am
Yeah, I’m sure those big ass Chinese and Japanese and Russian Trawlers and Factory Ships will just pull over for a NOAA Boat out in International Waters so they can see if the Tuna was caught in a Net. So why do Americans have to take it in the shorts while the rest of the world gets to “Rape Mother Gaia?”
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:46 am
Weerd – you may have started it, but I was actually replying to Sebastian’s comment:
“But considering just how hilarious it is to see someone still carting out the “AGW evidence is being cooked” canard after it’s been so thoroughly debunked, my guess is we’re talking about another timewaster.”
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:12 pm
Yeah Sebastian is a nice guy, but he still holds onto some religious convictions that I won’t waste my time on.