Owl data knowingly faulty -- The Washington Times The Washington Times reports that the US must pay a lumber company $9.5 million in damages after denying logging rights to an area of California that an environmental study falsely claimed was habitat to the, tada, dreaded and famed spotted owl.

A quote from one scientist who contributed to the false/faulty(/lying?) report: "I came away with the strong impression that it was, in fact, within my gestalt notion of what suitable nesting habitat is after having walked through dozens of places like this throughout the Sierra Nevada and in other parts of the owl's distribution throughout the West."

His "gestalt notion"? Ah, the wonders of science. He is later quoted in the article as saying that he was sure there were a paid of them there owls somewhere in them there woods; they just hadn't found 'em yet.

Last year I took a prolonged motorcycle ride through northern California, coming from up Lake Tahoe, to Quincy, over to Susanville, etc. Our family used to do a lot of camping in the Quincy area, which always had an active lumber industry. In the mid-1980's, Quincy was a bit of a boom town. Today it's a shell of its former self, all grown out and empty. Riding through town on a Saturday evening was distinctly similar to wandering through a graveyard. Now a newspaper digs up the dirt that much of the movement to stop the logging industry was based on "gestalt notions." This is why so much of environmentalism is called "junk science;" it's an earned title.

Well, at least Susanville was doing all right. They've got that state prison, you know.