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[Sava]

sorry Defiant, create a new thread if you wish to discuss the budget deficit and what contributes to it...

[Sava]

Originally posted by Defiant
Hell, anybody's carry more than yours, Sava.

I know that's why I always provide sources... I have no original opinions, my knowledge is based upon a collective osmosis of information from people much smarter than myself.

[Defiant]

Mitchell,
Logging is not ridiculous as a form for proper forest management(to help reduce forest fires), the argument is amount of logging.

Like my bottom heading?

[Defiant]

sorry Defiant, create a new thread if you wish to discuss the budget deficit and what contributes to it...

Naturally, makes a statement and then doesn't back it up, typical.

[Harry Seldon]

let nature destroy our woodland by not maintaining our woodland.

Please! I guess that's why we had so little nature left after 2 billion years of "letting nature care for itself," right?

[mrmitchell]

Like my bottom heading?

Very much

Logging is not ridiculous as a form for proper forest management(to help reduce forest fires), the argument is amount of logging.

And you're going to trust LOGGING COMPANIES to take care of the amount?

[Defiant]

Mitchell,
With proper regulation, of course. We do it in many other industries, why not here?

Nobody is advocating that nature can't take care of itself, it does, but over how many years. All I am saying that some of these forest fires may not have been necessary, with proper management. Nature will rebuild these forests' but in how many years?

[Harry Seldon]

Well, I'll give 'em one thing; if you completely log the forests, you won't have to worry about fires anymore.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Garth Vader


I don't understand why so many people are so mad at Davis in California for racking up the deficit, but not mad at Bush

A big difference: The US controls money supply and interest rates, and is essentially a single-source debtor (i.e. the US Treasury). So US cost of money is limited, deficits are long accepted practice, and the US government really is the benchmark for bond debt rates.

California, OTOH, has to deal with investor's rating services, and has had it's bond rating dropped in the past for excessive indebtedness.

California is also not a single source borrower - it acts as a guarantor for a hundreds of which have independent borrowing authority (California government code agencies and some California Water Code agencies) under the aegis of the state of California. Those agencies typically use conditional property tax assessments to collateralize their debt, but their cost of money (often variable) is based on the state's credit rating.

Those agencies (and the taxpayers with the conditional property tax assessments) have hundred of billions of dollars of existing debt being paid off, and any agency with future capital projects is extremely leery of the markets slamming California again. The state has an abysmal history of fiscal management, which goes far deeper than the current general fund budget issues.

[Harry Seldon]

If Kennedy would have killed the Treasury Department before he was assassinated we wouldn't have this problem. The US is digging a hole it can't get out of with deficit spending. Debt is an epidemic in this country and it's hard to argue against it when it's all that's propping our economy up.

[Odin]

Forest fires are a natural part of dry forests. Many conifers have life cycles that need fire. For example, Jack Pine, a scrubby pine found throuout the Northern Coniferous forest and the transition area between norhtern hardwood forests and grassland, has cones that only open after a fire. If people want to live in dry forests don't complain if you get burned.

The reason our debt is so huge is because people want government sevices but don't want to pay for them, aka taxes.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Defiant
"That's right folks, you heard it here. Bill Clinton is responsible for forest fires. Do you have a link to the dumbs' website or do you come up with this crap on your own?"

It was on CNN last night, your station, they were covering Bush in his trip out West to view the damage done and promoting his bill for the forests. Then they went to the local forest ranger who opposes Bush's bill and says it goes too far for the logging industry but he mention "responsible logging" helps to reduce massive forest fires. Drought as a catalyst increases the chance of forest fires, but poorly managed forests make it too easy for forest fires to start, whether by accident or intentional. Odds go up.

Geeee Mtg, thought you were smarter than that.

A lot of forests in the US aren't suitable for commercial logging at all, due to the types and/or quality of trees there. If commercial logging was a major component of forest management, then you'd have two distinct forest fire regimes, one for commercially logged forests and one for non-commercially logged forests. You don't.

The primary issue with forest management has NOT been commercial logging, but decades of misguided policy (back to the original Smokey Bear days) that made fire prevention and immediate containment almost religious dogma. That led to an overgrowth of brush and deadfall, which made both clearing operations and controlled burns impossible to manage. That mismanaged policy of fire prevention as opposed to fire management led to the massive, uncontainable fires in and around Yellowstone, Yosemite and the huge fires in Colorado.

Since a lot of forests are not commercially logable anyway, forest management professionals have had to develop workable plans for fire management that don't involve commercial logging. Forests managed to sustain themselves quite nicely since the last ice age without commercial logging, otherwise, all of our sod-busting ancestors back east wouldn't have had to bust their asses so hard clearing all those trees, now, would they?

Virtually the whole eastern US was hardwood forest when whitey got here, so the evidence points to forests being able to survive without Pierre and his saw.

Nature just don't happen to concern itself with human dwelling and property in it's way, so that's where human fire management practices has come in. I've lived in Potlatch and Weyerhaeuser country and seen how they've "managed" forest resources.

[KrazyHorse]

BTW, commercial logging (harvest style) goes after the biggest trees in an area, which aren't the real problem. The real problem is the knee-high bramble, brush, deadwood etc.

And clearcutting, while it certainly prevents forest fires, does nothing to protect forests (unless you were to simply clearcut firebreaks 20 meters wide and hundreds of kilometers long...which doesn't sound too economical to me).

[Az]

++ Israel/Palestine: As Mid East analysts Ahmed Nassef and Stephen Zunes have pointed out, Dean's positions regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are very disappointing for those who seek a just and sustainable peace in the region.

[Sava]

Naturally, makes a statement and then doesn't back it up, typical.

No, I wish to prevent a Fezzing on your part in my thread... YOU were the one who brought up specifics of the deficit. It is you who made the statement, not I.