OK; you seem to want to spend your time arguing about whether Bush is evil or not. Where do you stand on this one?

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It is here:

Wilderness

These are specifics and not generallities.

By-the-by, I taught the pup to howl today. What is the world coming to when a pup doesn't know how to howl? :<)))

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), May 30, 2002

Answers

who the hell cares

-- (cin@cin.cin), May 30, 2002.

Sorry Z, I was referring to the whole Bush thing.

Cool about your pup. You teaching your pup to howl is definitely something I'd like to see. ;o)

-- (cin@cin.cin), May 30, 2002.


Your initial gut reaction was correct Cin, you should stay with it. I'll second the motion... who the hell cares.

-- (whoop@dee.doo), May 30, 2002.

It wasn't as specific as you promised.

-- (dumbya@evil.one), May 31, 2002.

I hate to be so predictable, but I am in favor of having more land set aside as wilderness in Washington state, or anywhere else in the USA for that matter. Because my opinion on this is currently defined as "liberal" (although it is objectively a conservative position) I expect few people will bother to hear why I think as I do. They have learned to dismiss any "liberal" position out of hand. Nevertheless, I'll explain briefly.

I live in a Western state where a very high percentage of the land is federally owned and controlled. Folks from other parts of the country like to imagine that the West is full of wilderness. That may have been true in 1940. It isn't true today. Of the federal land that has not already been set aside as wilderness, only a tiny fraction (something like 3%) retains enough wilderness characteristics to qualify for the designation. The rest has been roaded, logged, grazed or mined. It's amazing what heavy machinery can do when you apply it decade after decade. Really, this fight is over the last few scraps of what was once a "virgin" land.

So, why bother? Why not just let go of the last few scraps, and squeeze out a bit more logging, grazing and mining? Why not let it generate a little more money and jobs for those rural folk who live out there? At least those are benefits we all can grasp, as opposed to some airy-fairy, tree-hugging, psuedo-druidical, phony religion like environmentalism.

It isn't simple to answer those questions, but this s how I would approach the problem.

We already know what happens to resource-extraction communities when the resource runs out. They become ghost towns. Just look at the history of gold mining in the west. Gold == town. No gold == ghost town. So, if the point is to provide jobs and keep towns alive, letting the last bit of unprotected wilderness go through the grinder is pointless. That's a bit like a Dust Bowl farm family grinding the seed corn for cornmeal just before they walk away from the farm forever. It just postpones the day of reckoning for a very short time.

When this country was founded, this continent was a storehouse of oil, timber, minerals, and wildlife. We have been plundering the storehouse ever since. We've been acting like a twenty-one year old who comes into a big inheritance and starts spending like there's no tomorrow. Except tomorrow is much, much nearer than when we began. The storehouse has been running low for decades now. We're poking into the last nooks and crannies.

For any civilization, any culture, any people, the name of the game is to sustain itself over the long run. It is time to start saving what's left of that inheritance for when we (or our descendants) truly need it. That's why this is a deeply, deeply conservative position. It recognizes that for all its allure, money is shallow wealth - land is real wealth -- and that our squandering of that wealth is not a source of good fortune, but a self-inflicted misfortune.

The only "good" to come out of squeezing out the last drop of resources out of the last scrap of wilderness would be to prolong the illusion that we can go on raiding the storehouse -- until it is too late to save anything from the general wreck of that illusion.

-- Little Nipper (canis@minor.net), May 31, 2002.



Nipper:

Like you, I'm conservation-oriented, though I recognize that the desire to preserve what little we have left is easier in the abstract, than when you are an Nth-generation miner, logger, or rancher faced with losing or being denied this long heritage. It's hard to lose that history, hard to retrain as something completely different in midlife when you don't want to, hard to understand why you must sacrifice so that others need not. Doesn't seem quite fair. Old habits die hard.

No question husbandry of the land entails things like sustainable yields, watershed amd habitat preservation, and a much more farsighted view of our national benefits. My view of government is to be deeply suspicious of social programs that have the effect (despite the intent) of rewarding failure or subsidizing idleness. But neither am I the kind of conservative who feels that we benefit from soiling our own bed because it was more immediately profitable than a trip to the outhouse. If there are any mutual concerns for which government is absolutely required, environmental protection is right up there.

And without any serious question, we are (in the words of David Suzuki) burning medieval masterpieces to cook tonight's meal. Ultimately, the problem has been (as E. O. Wilson writes) that for the last hundred years, human breeding patterns have been far more bacterial than primate. And as with bacteria, this trend can continue only so long before it implodes. Will enough remain so that the survivors can get restarted? Your (and my) preferences notwithstanding, we have little observable reason to be optimistic.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), May 31, 2002.


I am not 100% sure what area they are talking about. I think it is an area west of Steven's Pass. If so, I have hiked there and it is a fine area [just south of the Darrington loop]. There is this about Washington: I remember going there in the early 60's. The Cascades were a giant green carpet flowing under the plane. Now there is clear-cut everywhere you look. Much of Oregon is the same. I don't know if the proposal is viable; I seem to remember that there is another wilderness area just north of there.

Cin: The pup is making progress. He now puts his snoozle into the air and emits a continuous tone. It isn't much but it is a start. We have a half hour practice every night. Maybe Aussies can't howl but I have to give him an A for effort.

Best Wishes,,,,,

Z

-- Z1X4Y7 (Z1X4Y7@aol.com), May 31, 2002.


So very true Flint. Suppose we could outlaw fucking but doubt it would work. Whether man caused or a cauldera blowing off survivors of the next human contraction are going to find the lack of easy energy sources a setback that could last thousands of years.

-- Carlos (riffraff@cybertime.net), June 01, 2002.

"survivors of the next human contraction are going to find the lack of easy energy sources a setback that could last thousands of years."

We've barely begun to tap the easy energy sources, and they will last at least as long as the human race could survive on this planet. Guess you never heard of the sun and the wind.

-- (all@too.obvious), June 01, 2002.


Tapping the sun and wind would hurt starving children in Ubekeztan. I say we raise taxes in order to provide more energy for our children and their children's children.

-- Lefty Socialist (working@cbs.newsdepartment), June 01, 2002.


LOL "Lefty", just goes to show how far out of touch you pugs are with reality.

-- (repugs suffering from @ Rush Limbaugh-manufactured. delusions), June 01, 2002.

Yeah, the repugs are living in la-la land. Who will protect true patriots like us?

-- dumbya is (face@of.evil), June 01, 2002.

Wild Sky map.

-- (spotted owl@howling.wolf), June 01, 2002.

"Who will protect true patriots like us?"

I don't know about you but I don't need any protection from the fascist repugs. Me and my good friend Mr. Mossberg will do just fine. Those greedy bastards try to steal from me and I'll give them free air conditioning.

-- (i agree @ dumbya. is evil), June 01, 2002.


Talking to yourself again? LOL

-- (ha ha@hee hee.ha ha), June 01, 2002.


No, in case you didn't notice dipshit, I was talking to "dumbya is (face@of.evil)", whose question I was answering. Gaaaawd, you pugs are dumb!

-- bwahahaha! (dumbya@is.satan), June 01, 2002.

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