what a sad story... I have a few thoughts however...
While, I am no fan of 'over-rabid environmentalism for the sake of being environmental'
(example - My sister and bro-in-law used to work at Johnston Atol in the South Pacific, where they worked at responsibly destroying the worlds stock pile of chemical weapons. (they just finished with Hitlers Sarin stockpile in the mid 90's if you can believe that.) ANy how, the facility is so state of the art and environmentally friendly, that NOTHING leaks out into the surrounding reefs and nearby game preserve, it is a very highly regulated, and highly maintained site... yet... every day they had a greepeace ship circling the island taking water samples (and finding nothing) and had to deal with them harrassing people that lived on the island by pulling on the horn and such... in the long run, I am sure the ship did more damage than the plant.
Any how... that being said... Green Peace is a rabid organization, and the last thing the forestry service would want is an organization like that hounding it.
hmmm... twisted thoughts...
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I am all for a petition, I think this is a valuable sight that MUST be protected! Who wants to organize it? we are now taking volunteers.
Finally, I love the idea of having a bbq. gotta tell a story now.
I used to date a girl who's daddy was a platoon commander out at Ft. Hood. Ranchers are allowed to run their cattle on Ft. Hood as long as they sign forms stating they know if they do not remove them when they are notified that live fire exercises will be held, then it's tough luck. well, one day, a rancher I guess didn't get his cattle off the property, and they are out threir in their M1A1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks.
As he tells it, a target on a track representing an enemy personell carrier popped up and started running along it's track. One of the tanks in his platoon sighted in on it, loaded a SABOT round (during war time SABOT rounds are made of depleted uranium, since this was a test fire, it was inert metal) and fired. The round, as expected, punched through the target. But rather than just disapear and dive into a berm some where on the live fire range, it ended the life of a bovine. The tankers finished their exercise a few minutes later, and then hooked chains around the largely intact cow, and towed it back to base. Apparently freshly killed cow really is better than the stuff in the super market! Who knew. They said you could hardly taste the accelerants.