Thursday, February 23, 2006

Alpha on Cheney

The usual strong stuff from the Alpha Environmentalist on the quail kerfuffle:

"Was Cheney reluctant to publicize it? You bet! Heck, if I wounded a hunting partner, I’d be so mortified I’d probably reload and finish the job, then kill all the other members of my party, then tell the police they had slaughtered each other in some gruesome Hmong-esque orgy of hunting blood lust."

And then gets to the REAL point:

"Cheney, a member of an administration presently moving to sell off public land to offset short-term budget woes: . . . was hunting on a private, 50,000-acre ranch. Good for him, but I don’t own a 50,000-acre ranch, I don’t know anyone who does, and I doubt anyone reading this does either. We all rely on public lands for our access to hiking, hunting, and fishing."

(Snip)

"Second, when such land is sold off, guess what? You and I don’t buy it. Corporations involved in extractive industries do. The morning after the sale of, say, a bunch of virgin timberland, here’s what happens at the board meeting: “Gentlemen, we now own 100,000 acres of old-growth timber. We can manage this timber sustainably for all eternity, and provide each of us with a comfortable salary for life. Or, we can clear-cut it tomorrow and each of us can collect a check for ten million bucks the day after.”

"I’m attracted to much of the Libertarian philosophy, but their ideas about selling off public land are scary. I, for one, will not give up what I believe to be my heritage as an American: the right to roam across open, free landscapes."

Read The Whole Thing, please.

3 comments:

Mary Strachan Scriver said...

T.E. Scriver, my father-in-law, belonged to a small group of neighbors here on the Blackfeet reservation who like to go bird hunting in the fall, taking along a picnic and being quite English. One day T.E. had his shotgun in the crook of his arm where it accidentally fired, peppering his neighbor with birdshot. He never hunted again. He was, as you put it, quite mortified. This is unlike Cheney, who whirled and deliberately fired without identifying the target. It was the cocktail hour, but everyone swears no alcohol was involved. If there wasn't, that makes it even worse. Clearly he's an old impaired man who goes hunting in a luxury car.

Prairie Mary

Reid Farmer said...

I use Public land all the time and am glad we have it. I don't agree with the extreme Libertarian position of selling all of it off. I always find it amusing to reflect that from the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 to the Taylor Grazing Act of 1934 the Federal government did everything it could to sell land at rock-bottom prices or give it away to anyone who would take it. Our Public lands are the ones nobody wanted, or in some cases gave back (failed homesteads).

To put it baldly, our partimony is really left-overs. But they are tasty left-overs!

I don't know about these proposed sales and to say anything knowledgeable about it would have to look at a map. But the largest parcel is 200 acres. Having spent a lot of time working with managers at USFS and BLM over the last 30 years, I do know there are lots of nonsense parcels that those managers hate to deal with. Isolated pockets of land surrounded by private owners who won't allow access. Blocks that lock-in growing towns. This is an acceleration of a process that has gone on for many years. The BLM has sold thousands of areas around Las Vegas, the only way that city could grow.

Anonymous said...

Cheney shot at aquail in flight. His target was identified and he was concentrating on the bird. His companion was in a small gully and partially shielded by mesquite. He bears some responsibility for waht happened. One hunts in Texas from cars because of the distances between coveys and the mesquite and cactus that obscure the dogs on point. The guide was on hoseback to be able to observe the dogs.
A friend had the almost same thing happen last month in NW Texas, except the victim was a guide. He went to hospital but no police were called.