I am glad that Idaho and Montana have large intact wilderness areas. Murphy Flat on the Southfork of the Flathead in Montana has a magnificant stand of very old yellow pine – they are actually old enough to live up to their name. On my first trip down the river, 10 days, we saw no other parties on the water or trails. We used to float the NF Clearwater before Dworshak Dam. Never saw another party. Used to go on the Middle Fork of the Salmon and the Selway before permits were required. Now you are lucky if your party can draw a permit for one of these or the Main Salmon rivers. The use of this and other wilderness areas has greatly increased over the past few years. With increased population more land is needed for wild land recreation – fishing, hunting, packing, rivering, hiking, solitude . . .The forests are filled with logging roads – lots of places for motorized recreation and road hunting.

Manage the forests in areas that have already been roaded and logged. Leave the marginal lands roadless.

http://www.newwest.net/citjo/article/hunting_for_an_angle/C33/L33/

In early 1998, starting with an advance notice of rulemaking in the federal register January 28, the Clinton Administration began taking steps to give this administrative move a gloss of bureaucratic and procedural legitimacy.

Political legitimacy for this effort came almost-solely from the so-called Heritage Forests Campaign. HFC was not a spontaneous public call for wilderness, but a directed political campaign funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which in turn was Joseph Pew’s Sun Oil fortune.

Member organizations included the Wilderness Society, Sierra Club, Earthjustice, Natural Resources Defense Council, Ralph Nader’s U.S. PIRG, Defenders of Wildlife and Audubon.

Audubon was the “fiscal agent” for disbursement of several million dollars in Pew funds to the other groups for HFC campaign purposes. HFC, incidentally, is now apparently defunct with their website domain up for renewal.

Notably lacking from HFC’s “partner” list were sporting groups, although there were plenty of Earth First! spinoffs such as the American Lands Alliance and Wildlands Center for Preventing Roads.

Despite the thin political veneer, in a time when even the dinkiest timber sale gets tied up for years, the “roadless rule” process began October 13, 1999 and was implemented in record time, hitting the Federal Register January 12, 2001, a week before George W. Bush would become President.

The general public perception was that sportspeople as a whole did not support the roadless initiative.

The biggest sportsmen’s group of all, the National Rifle Association, was taking the position, as “roadless” supporter-writer Ted Kerasote cited: “No roads, no access, no hunting.” Other groups, such as the Safari Club, also opposed the Clinton rule.

The “roadless initiative” was widely perceived as a “green” thing that lacked genuine legitimacy, especially in the West where its impacts would be felt and where so many sportsmen and women live – and work — where just enough votes were cast to help Bush barely squeak by Albert Gore in the Electoral College.

Had Gore been elected, the Clinton roadless rule would likely be closer to permanent law than it is today.

Conservatives favor conservation, which views the environment as a resource, while environmentalists favor preservation, which views the environment as an end unto itself: like an object in a museum, to be kept just as it is.

Preservation is for museums, historical sites, communities and sacred places;

conservation is for our forests and waters, the land and the wildlife, and other natural resources.

The liberal democrats, are forcing rural citizens to pay for a radical environmentalist agenda, and that’s not right.

Jes says “But right now, we have a economic problem with oil and gas that needs to take precedence”. I feel it far more important into the future to have public lands that have not been compromised for economic gain now. Are you suggesting that there is oil and gas to be had on Idaho’s public lands? I think not.

The Obama I know sees you, the law abiding gun owner, as nothing but a low-class lummox who is easily swayed by the flash of a smile and a ration of rosy rhetoric.

The Obama I know is a stony-faced liar who has honed his skill at getting what he wants – so long as people are willing to give it to him. That’s the Barack Obama I know.

The ISRA is the state’s leading advocate of safe, lawful and responsible firearms ownership. Founded in 1903, the ISRA has represented the interests of millions of law-abiding Illinois firearm owners.

Great article Tom, It’s all there for the reading.

A British couple whose drunken escapade involving sex on the beach led to tabloid headlines — and a clash between Western permissiveness and Islamic values — were sentenced Thursday by a Dubai court to three months in prison.

Vince Acors and Michelle Palmer were each sentenced to the prison term, fined $272 for drinking alcohol and ordered to be deported immediately upon leaving prison.

The pair was found guilty of having unmarried sex after a taxi had picked them up from a champagne brunch at a five-star hotel and drove them to Jumeirah beach in the United Arab Emirates’ most culturally-tolerant emirate of Dubai.