Random Nuclear Strikes

In this case, Stupid is Washington’s “Barely Governor” Christine Gregiore, who has joined into a lawsuit with Oregon, California and New Mexico to sue the federal government because the Bush Administration wants the opportunity to open national forest lands to mining and logging.

Once again, Miss Chriss is pandering to the national environmentalist lobby while putting her state is the #2 spot.

Jobs and revenue dollars are just two things that mining and logging opportunities provide, and it’s not like Washington couldn’t use a few more of those. But it appears that Gregiore would rather be ‘The Environmental Governor’ than ‘The Jobs Governor’ with this statement,

“Joining this lawsuit is our last effort to defend Washington’s quality of life and our economy,”

That anyone’s ‘quality of life’ is going to be hampered by a private company punching a hole in the ground or select cutting timber is just such an ignorant idea that I cannot even put my head around it. As for our economy, thinning a forest will have zero to no effect on tourism to our national forests and the same goes for mining.

The whole key to this issue, and the actual reason the enviros are going nuts about this, dates back to the Clinton Administration when they helped push through and then signed the ‘No New Roads’ rules for federal wilderness lands.

Basically, the ‘No New Roads’ rules said that: 1. No new roads could be built, 2. Some roads had to be closed in order that ‘Mother Nature’ could “Reclaim” them, and 3. If a road deteriorated say, in a washout, no repairs were to be done to that section of the road, making the rest of the road “Reclaimable”.

Their entire mindest was to have the forests to go back to their wild state, out of the reach of the average citizen, all the while claiming that this was good for the average citizen.

The cutting of timer and mining requires one very important thing to make them work, and that thing is roads. You can’t select cut timber if you can’t haul it out and there is no use putting a hole in the ground if you can’t haul out what you’re digging for.

But there is a real life problem with this ‘No New Roads’ program and it was discovered during the 2002 California wildfire season.

1. If you have no roads, you either have extreme difficulty or you simply cannot transport firefighters to where they need to be to effectively fight the fire.

2. If you have one road in and out, you can get the firefighters in, but if the winds change, which is very common during deep forest blazes, you may not be able to get them out.

In the later example, you have just commited those firefighters to a death sentence because some dippy hippy wants to enjoy the pretty scenery without having to worry about the Jones’ coming around the corner in their SUV on summer vacation.

While I too would like to enjoy unspoilt wilderness without having to deal with my fellow citizens and their chillun mucking about the place, I know that if that is my preference, I am going to have to buy my own land that I can tell people to get the hell off of. They’re called “public lands” for a reason.

But the enviros want all the public lands (along with the money that comes with them) without any of the nasty little people who might happen along.

And this is the line of BS that Gregoire not only fell for, but now sees as fit to spread about. Just another reason she doesn’t deserve her position.