CNN wrote: ...a federal judge ruled Monday.

WGP wrote: And since when does "a federal judge" trump the POTUS?

Since 1787?

carl_the_sniper wrote: How does one conduct a test to see if sonar hurts whales?

Really.

The thing that gets me about this is that it is all speculation "we think it hurts whales so we aren't going to allow it." Who makes decisions like this when you don't even have facts to back them up? If there were concrete facts to backup the descion then who cares, but when you are doing something that has no basis in fact? Seriously.

Hades wrote: Google: Whale+sonar+test. Is it really all that hard? Then insert foot into mouth

Care to link?

Everything I am seeing isn't from credible sources.

Hades wrote: http://www.whalesandsonar.navy.mil/marine_mammals_and_sound.htm - Credible source is relative... Would the Navy itself be a creditable source?

From your source:

Navy wrote: It is clear that mankind knows relatively little about how the majority of marine mammals hear and how they may be affected by sound. The National Academy of Sciences has recommended that research be conducted to detect subtle changes in marine mammal behavior that could result from manmade sound interfering with biologically important acoustic information. Short-term responses of marine mammals to anthropogenic sound have been documented to a limited degree. Research to date has shown that marine mammals react to manmade sound in some cases, but do not react in other cases.

So even the Navy is saying that there is not enough research...

The paragraph after that:

Still, according to the U.S. Navy, whales being killed or injured by sonar is largely unproven.  Lt. William Marks, the Navy's spokesman on sonar and marine mammal policy, told TruthOrFiction.com that the website of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric administration lists more than 35,000 incidents of stranded mammals over a period of ten years. Only one of those has been conclusively linked to the use of Navy sonar--and that's the one in the Bahamas in 1991.  Lt. Marks said that since that event, the Navy has been careful to not to operate under the conditions that existed in the Bahamas.

So, they had a problem, fixed it, and since then there has not been an event that has been linked to sonar use by the Navy.

There has been one docuemnted case, not nearly enough to justify shutting down all navy operations invovling sonar along the majority of the western seaboard...

The judge's opinion is linked in the story.  And Bunkered, the judge is not offering a scientific opinion.  That's not what judges do.  What they do is base their opinions on what the expert witnesses testified about, and whatever written evidence was submitted.

I hate note having acrobat reader on this stupid computer.

lolzers.

Bunkered wrote: I don't really respect a lot of these activist judge's opinions on matters like this. It'll go to a higher court and get turned over, just as it should.

I think you should read the opinion before making random declarations like that...

As usual, the article only got half of the facts.  This case has been up and down a couple of times, and ended up turning on a very specific constitutional issue regarding the authority of the President.

The court did not "decide" that sonar harms whales.  It simply agreed that the Navy's own findings were sufficient to trigger an in-depth environmental review, the same as for anybody else.  The Navy declined to play along with the in-depth review, and litigation ensued.

Bunkered wrote: Erm... I did read the article? Not the judges opinion because my computer is B0rked...doesn't want to load certain pages. I'm pretty sure the Pres is allowed to give executive orders, and that's exactly what that sounds like.

I said read the opinion, not read the article.  The article is useless, as articles on technical matters usually are. 

The Pres did not issue an executive order in this case.  Nor could he have.  It is a lot more complicated than that, on many levels.

Because that is not what the case was about.

The case is about separation of powers, and the interaction between a particular statute, presidential powers, and the Article III judiciary.

Whales and submarines are strictly incidental.

Benjichang wrote: That's wut she said.

I'll admit it - I lol'ed a little.

I have to agree with bunkered on the evriomental part. But that being said I didn't even think of it as a constituional issue. The lawyer is right, it isn't about the whales or w/e its about seperation of powers.

I didn't think of it that way, I was being close minded.