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Tom Partin's focus on fire and disease in forests is another red herring, and one often used by the timber industry, which he is speaking for. The timber industry wants you to think that they simply want to manage our forests and "fix" them, but it's just an excuse they're using to take down the big timber that remains on public land. As long as we don't have permanent protection of old growth, they will try every excuse they can think of. Fire and disease are NATURAL processes, and a normal part of our forests.

posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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Regardless of how you define the age of old growth, it is easy to figure out what forests are virgin forests and have never been touched by a chainsaw. These virgin forests are almost always old growth, though often of poorer quality than the old growth that used to blanket our state, because the best was the first to be cut. But even these virgin forests that remain, about 10% of our current forests, are being pursued tirelessly by logging interests. Logging companies have never been satisfied with the number of massive trees that they cash in on, and they never will be until permanent old growth protections are in place.

posted 3 years, 6 months ago
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I'm not a woman (99% sure) but I want to mention what for me is a CRUCIAL point in the abortion debate, and one that I never hear discussed. I first learned about this back in college during a Philosophy and Ethics class where we broke down the arguments of both sides with respect to weighty moral issues. With the abortion issue we inevitably talked about the moment of conception, and how most of those opposing abortion view conception as the moment when babies acquire the right to life, and when our souls are in effect "birthed". I also learned that after conception a surprisingly large percentage of pregnancies are spontaneously (or naturally) aborted, and this is also called miscarriage. This is a completely natural process, completely independent of human action and often without even the knowledge of the pregnant woman. The only only one that can take any responsibility for that one is God, right? Does this mean that God is planting souls in babies after conception, and then snuffing them out, or does this mean that the right to life is not as straightforward as pro-lifers would like to think? If you believe (as John McCain and Sarah Palin do) that life absolutely begins at conception and that abortion is murder, then it also means we have a rather murderous God.....(for those with the traditional view of an omnipotent God).

- Kristian

posted 3 years, 8 months ago
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