[snopercod]

While you are out there cutting wood, do you ever consider that using a chainsaw would probably be illegal right now had AlGore been elected?

[Carry_Okie]

I doubt it. Gore is only trying to destroy the little guy, you know, Republicans. He had no intention of stopping large corporate timber operations and was instead focused upon the National Forests. The policy holds lumber and mineral prices at levels which please campaign donors. He also wanted to foist regulations to screw smaller landowners, to sell to developers and build dependent bureaucracies. It provides cheap dirt to developers which pleases campaign donors. It makes jobs for public employees and their labor unions. It feeds the university grunt system. It's about power. The rest of his eco-hooey is the kind of dishonest hypocrisy of which politicians are inherently capable. You know the stories about how Gore manages his land. He's the same as Babbit and his gravel mine.

I think the game would be pretty similar under Gore but proceed at a faster rate. I really don't expect a lot different out of Rey. I've talked with Tenny and Blackwell, too, BTW. The latter will just do what he is told. Who is going to talk them out of it and see differently? Me? Who the heck am I to do that? So you see, without some PR to make it easier for these guys to see a way out, how will things be different? Without the money to get the lawyers going, how will things be different? I can't see even starting that effort for at least another year without a lot more help than I am getting. So, sorry if I seem more than a little stressed.

So I guess your comment might have read: While you are out there cutting wood, do you ever consider that using a chainsaw would probably be illegal for you right now had AlGore been elected?

No, I don't think so. That eventuality will likely come at the hands of the State of California and the County of Santa Cruz and would do so no matter what happens at the Federal level. There will be regulations that make the work impossible without paying a fortune to the bureaucracy. Those will come from any number of directions. Only the rich will get to save their houses. That process is already starting. It's a form of redevelopment through forcing out the rif-raff to build bigger and more expensive houses. It's about tax revenue.

Those with the dough will hire Mexicans in public housing to do their thinning and weeding (public housing keeps wages down by getting the middle class to pay their rent).

Hopefully things will be different under Simon, but we'll see. He may not be able to harness the bureaucacy or waste valuable political capital in that fight, given the political landscape in California.