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[ZippySLC]

Yup, Jeff. Everybody who disagrees with you is wrong, but shame on the person who calls you out.

I banned you for blatent abusive behavior towards other people on my website, not because of your views. But I wouldn't want to confuse you with facts, because your mind is already made up.

Enjoy your stay here. I imagine that you won't see too many people arguing with you since the discussion forums here are dead, there is no moderation at all, and the website was sold on ebay last week and has not changed at all yet. ( http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2539695513&category=11763 )

At least I won't have to deal with you attacking other people because they disagree with you. It's a shame because in person you're a nice guy, but online is another story.

---
NJPineBarrens.com - Exploring the Ghost Towns of Southern New Jersey

 

[BobM]

Oh Jeff, you really too, too much. Haven't you learned anything about the pines in the past year but to manage them like Ranger Rick and carry pom-poms for the forestry council? Ben can be excused for changing his views, after all he is young, flexible, and open to new points of view. But you have no excuse Jeff. You are about 15 years older than he is, right? You walked and talked and laughed with us in the pines and on Ben's site for the past year, but when it comes to loving the pines like they should be loved, your head is still as hard as one of those concrete posts they put in front of the local mom and pop grocery store to keep you from ramming your car into the front door. Loving and understanding the pines is:

-Exploring all on your own, deep in the woods, finding new places no one has been to in years, with no sound but the cat bird and the towhee to keep you company.

-Flying along a sand road at dusk on a summer day on your motorcycle, standing up on the pegs and smelling the pines in all their dusky, heath-like glory.

-While canoeing the Oswego, getting out once in a while, ducking under the surface, grabbing on to something, and letting the cool current envelope and rush around your body.

-While bushwhacking straight through the deep woods where no roads are, topping out on a ridge covered in vibrant green blueberry and huckleberry bushes, and thinking to yourself; "wow, this is my New Jersey, and I love it".

-Searching for that one elusive orange orchid you just can't seem to find.

-Talking old times with a piney who still has that lovely, but slowly dying out accent.

-Being perfectly still on a late spring evening in the middle of the swamp, listening to the tree frog next to you, the one you know is there, but you just can't seem to find in order to take his picture.

-Listening to the cicadas vibrating their wings while walking barefoot on a lonely sand road in mid-summer.

-Walking down the middle of a wonderful tea-colored cedar steam, about knee high, on a hot summer day, deep in the pines, without a stitch of clothes on.

-Eating blueberries right off the bush that you found next to you when you stopped the motorcycle for a moment to take a break.

-Watching the seasons change, and adjusting your mood to fit the season, be it the melancholy feeling you get while walking through the crumpled leaves on a late October day, to the exhilarating feeling you get when you see the first arethusa orchid in the spring.

That's the pines Jeff....that is the pines. It has nothing to do with hugging trees and radical environmental views. Someday maybe you'll understand.

 

[JeffD]

What spin and non sequtiur from both of you! You say I was abusive, Bruset, but it is you with your little innuendos about me and about the webmaster of this site that is offensive. And Bob, you talk about appreciating nature. Fine. But that's not what I was addressing. And you talk about me not getting it, being hard headed as if you have a market on absolute truth. THAT is exactly nmy point. You have a right to epxress your views, but so do others. Early on you made comments about me "teaching" and being arrogant simply because I expressed a vew different that yours. And, in the most recent example on this site, you said that it would be better if Tom left this site after he agreed with me about what a certain sub-culture is all about (which unfortunately has become mainstream somewhat). And now that manipulative guy from the website where regulars from this site migrated employs the same tactics as you. It was allright, as far as that yuppie was concerned, for you to make a sarcastic remark about me just looking at a few wide areas on a river and basing my opinion of the river on that, but when I turn it around and said that that applied to you and the thinking of the radical environmentalists, the yuppie buts in and makes an unfounded comment that I don't think through things and bascially am arbitrary. This is his moral equivilancy. No black and white but grey and nobody is right and nobody is wrong, unless it involves someone who disagrees with his tree huggers.

I am not the only one who sees two camps in the environmental movement. I like to think of it as conservationists versus environmentalists. See my Fourth of July post for details of that view and links that show people in the movement who want the environmentalists to clean up their act, the way the loggers did during the 20th century. Last night on the news I saw some protesters protesting W's Healthy Forests Initiative. They didn't say why the initiative was bad except that it was bad for the environment. Typical.

You people are all friendly and smily until someone challenges your viewpoint. Again, it is you guys who have been making personal attacks and innuendo, not me. I just am forceful about my opionions. And that is what this is about; opinions. I am not going to recant my view just to appease you feel-good Woodstock mentality types.

 

[BobM]

Jeff you are not just "forceful with your opinons", you ram them down my throat with a two by four. You then proceed to hammer them home even harder with a 4 pound hammer. I feel plenty full now, no more if you please.

Go ahead; count how many times you brought up logging and thinning the forest, and disney ecologists, and radical environmentalists. Now contrast that against your posts regarding other things. If the first is just 10 percent it is too much. Why ruin friendships over something like that?

 

[ZippySLC]

---
You say I was abusive, Bruset, but it is you with your little innuendos about me and about the webmaster of this site that is offensive.
---

I have a whole ton of posts on my site where you've attacked people who simply disagree with you. This place is full of them too. I have no doubt that you take your holier-than-thou attitude everywhere you go.

Manipulative? Me? Hardly. I listened to what you had to say and agreed with you for the most part. But the more time I spent in the forest, the more I came up with my own ideas. Sure I might agree with Bob on some things here and there, but the way you put it you make it seem like I have no ability to make up my own mind about things.

I never had a problem with you speaking your mind and letting your opinions be known. I drew the line when you started attacking people who had different opinions than you did.

---
You people are all friendly and smily until someone challenges your viewpoint. Again, it is you guys who have been making personal attacks and innuendo, not me. I just am forceful about my opionions. And that is what this is about; opinions. I am not going to recant my view just to appease you feel-good Woodstock mentality types.
---

Jeff, look in the mirror. You're the one who has a meltdown when someone disagrees with you. You fly into a rage, start calling people names, and act like an asshole. You and I have had conversations before about this when I asked you to tone things down a bit. You want to talk about name calling? You're the one who implies that we're all "Disney Ecologists" or "Woodstock Tree Huggers" or whatever nonsense you call it.

I can't think of a single instance where anyone expected you to change your opinion. I personally just take exception to the way that you treat other people who disagree with you. You've been particularly viscious to both myself and Bob on my site, and I had enough of it. That's why you were banned, not because of your views (I mean if I really didn't want your views to go out, would I have published all of your articles or let you post on my site?) but because of the way you acted online.

When the world thinks that you're wrong in the way you act, a wise person would take stock of themselves and see if the problem isn't in fact from within. But no, Jeff - you're content to joust any windmill you see.

It must feel so great to be right all the time!

---
NJPineBarrens.com - Exploring the Ghost Towns of Southern New Jersey

 

[JeffD]

There you go again, Bruset, getting it backwards. Saying someone who holds a particular view a Disney Ecologist or a Tree Hugger is hardly abusive. It is a discriptive term (from my point of view). And by the way, Bruset, it's "JeffD" to you. You should look at yourself in the mirror, asshole. You have a big ego problem and have been acting like a sociopath. You think that you and BobM can do no wrong.

Sure, you let me post my views, but then you use an underhanded way to try to discredit me. And spare me the victim status of you and BobM. You two remind me of the rabid anti-hunt protesters at the park where I worked. They would provoke the hunters by throwing something at them and when the hunters reacted they would quickly get their sycophants in the media (who were most likely waiting in the wings) to turn on the camera and make it look like those terrible Bambi Killers were attacking them. You two also remind me of Hillary Clinton. There's one thing in New Jersey there's no shortage on, and that's ferilizer. You two are certainly keeping up the supply.

Again, BobM makes some snide remark at me, I turn it back, and then you snick your nose in and make some snide remark. I think BobM is old enough to fend for himself. You ignor this but just say that I'm abusive just because you say so. If that's not elitism I don't know what elitism is!

Even when I was out alone with what, as they even jokingly referred to themselves as, treehuggers, BobM started razzing me. Referring to a dead tree, he said something to the effect that I would want it cut down and later added that I'll never live that my views on ecology, fire, and the forest) down. I'll never live it down? What's there to live down? Again, this is an example of intollerant folks who think they have a market on truth. I'm free to hold my opinion and so are they. I of course think their ideas are nutty, but I wouldn't say something like that, as if I'm just not cool or with it because I don't buy their ideas. This is the problem. Some environmentalists don't want to have their ideas of nature debated, just as BobM critized me just because I challenged, in a humorous fashion, SOME of the comments made in the trail guide and a sign at Wells Mill County Park. I guess in your book questioning a statement from an environmentalist is blasfamy! I could go on. One last example: A long time ago I contacted the Forked River Mountain Coalition to ask for specific directions to the nature area in the Forked River Mountains. The FRM coalition in essence told me they couldn't help me unless I joined them. Now if this was private property it would be in order that I not visit a place unless I paid. But this group gets money from the government. It didn't surprise me when I found that BobM has a position with them.

And out in the Pine Barrens I hope I don't run into you phonys.

I've belabored the issue of people who have a personal problem too much, so back to the subject of this post, fires. Here's some current information about forest fires, which responsible land mangers are trying to remedy via the Healthy Forest Initiative:

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0612Fire.htm

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0612Twelve.htm

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0610Green.htm

And here's one about the harmful lawsuits by radical environmentalists:

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0604Priceless.htm

 

[JeffD]

One more link which analyizes forest management and monster wilfire prevention.

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0603Reform.htm

 

[ZippySLC]

Jeff,

If you think that I wanted to discredit you, you're way off base. I could care less about your - or anyone elses - views on the environment. Again, I state that you were banned from my site for being abusive to other people. I wouldn't stand for that kind of action from anyone else on my site, so don't feel that I am singling you out. You're the one, however, that had a problem with everyone else.

Go cry me a river, Jeff. You can feel slighted all you want. You can feel as if I am singling you out, or I am kicking you out of our "secret club" of "environmentalists" (of which I don't consider myself one - I just appreciate nature) on my site. You're right Jeff - the Internet is just one great conspiracy to make you look bad. It has nothing to do with you, or the way that you talk to everyone else.

How can you handle the stress knowing that everyone on the internet is out to get you? It must be overwhelming, right? I hope that this site works out for you, and you find plenty of people to agree with you here, since that's all you're interested in.

---
NJPineBarrens.com - Exploring the Ghost Towns of Southern New Jersey

 

[BobM]

Jeff wrote: "A long time ago I contacted the Forked River Mountain Coalition to ask for specific directions to the nature area in the Forked River Mountains. The FRM coalition in essence told me they couldn't help me unless I joined them. Now if this was private property it would be in order that I not visit a place unless I paid. But this group gets money from the government. It didn't surprise me when I found that BobM has a position with them."

You didn't ask me Jeff, I would have told you. In fact I led everyone to the mountain last year. I Don't think you made that trip. I don't think what they did to you (not telling you) is standard policy and I certainly don't agree with it.

 

[JeffD]

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0626Dispel.htm

OH TREE HUGGER!

I went to the Jersey Pine Barrens
With a chainsaw on my knee
I went out in the woods today
Just to cut down a few trees

Oh tree hugger
Oh don’t you cry for me
For I’ve gone to the Jersey Pine Barrens
With a chainsaw on my knee

They said the Pine Barrens Tree frog
Was still an endangered species
It was so, not!, you chose for it may be death
What a crock of Green feces

Oh tree hugger
Oh don’t you cry for me
For I’ve gone to the Jersey Pine Barrens
With a chainsaw on my knee

Here comes the forest fire fighters
When the forest burns you see
Growers of blueberry/cranberry
Loggers, the rest of the armies

Oh tree hugger
Oh don’t you cry for me
For I’ve gone to the Jersey Pine Barrens
With a chainsaw on my knee

Loggers have been clearcutting
Lots and lots of trees
Top it off with a controlled burn
To favor the pine trees

Oh tree hugger
Oh don’t you cry for me
For I’ve gone to the Jersey Pine Barrens
With a chainsaw on my knee

He said controlled burns create wastelands
So leave alone let burn naturally
But that was so hot it burned to death
the earth underneath the trees

Oh tree hugger
Oh don’t you cry for me
For I’ve gone to the Jersey Pine Barrens
With a chainsaw on my knee
For I’ve gone to the Jersey Pine Barrens
With a chainsaw on my knee

 

[JeffD]

Here is the ENVIRONMENTAL AND RESOURCES REALITY REPORT. I had to search a little for it:

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0626lcv.htm

 

[BobM]

You like that guy Richard Pombo? What a bag of wind he is. He's that guy who supported a constitutional amendment to prosecute people for burning the flag in exercising their right to free speech. I never trust those kind of people.

 

[JeffD]

The fire report for this season so far:

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/parksandforests/fire/index.html

Last year, at a public hearing on wildfire management in the Pine Barrens, experts discussed ways to prevent monster wilfires. It's a lengthy report, where a NJ forester sketches the history of managing land to protect sturctures and the resources from wildfire. Forester Gifford Pinchot was called in and the end of the 19th century for his expertise in analysing why too much of modern forests are lost to wildfire.

According to a forester who works with private landowners in the Pine Barrens, fire suppression over the years was a factor in creating conditions for higher risk of forest fires. To protect homes and the forest itself, forester Bob Williams thins trees and brush and advocates prescribed burns. He also, as conservationist Aldo Leopold discussed in A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC, discussed choices on what and where to cut and grow. Mr. Williams' discussion is followed and complimented by NJ State Forester James S Barresi.


http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/legislativepub/Pubhear/082902rs.htm

 

[JeffD]

PAMBO NUMER ONE

A little bit of common sense on our side
Realistic management is really wise
A little bit of cutting down some trees
Some space between them is what we need

They jump up and shout him down
And start to spin around
Point your finger over there
And give them a good scare

A little bit of science if you please
Disney ecology is what we don’t need
A little bit of Healthy Forest Initiative
On his district even Tom Dashel thinks we should cut some trees

They jump up and shout him down
And start to spin around
Point your finger over there
And give them a good scare

A little bit of Giffort Pinchot is what we need
Also Aldo Leopold wrote of managing trees
A little bit of science on my side
Look at the world realistically is wise

Doo-dupe Dit-dit Dit-dit Dit-dit-dit
Doo-dupe Dit-dit Dit-dit Dit-dit-dit
DOOT!
POMBO NUMBER ONE!

 

[JeffD]

And with... a guy like you
It's no wonder... that... the whackos are blue
They can't run
They can't hide
They can't bamboozle us with another guise
Facts and science are on our side

Doo-dupe Dit-dit Dit-dit Dit-dit-dit
Doo-dupe Dit-dit Dit-dit Dit-dit-dit
DOOT!

They jump up and shout him down
And start to spin around
Point your finger over there
And give them a good scare

A little bit of Giffort Pinchot is what we need
Also Aldo Leopold writes of managing trees
A little bit of science on my side
Look at the world realistically is wise

Doo-dupe Dit-dit Dit-dit Dit-dit-dit
DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-m
Doo-dupe Dit-dit Dit-dit Dit-dit-dit...

A little bit of standing too much in the sun
Will make their imaginations wild run
A little bit of reality if you please
Isn't writing parodies so much fun?

 

[BobM]

I don't know about Pombo, don't want to comment anymore on him. But I did read the NJ fire seminar you posted. Very interesting. I especially liked the testimony by Dr. Devito and Carlton Montgomery. Makes sense. The only testimony I did not totally agree with is the forest service policy to suppress all fires, whatever the cost.

I would think they would be more scientific and professional about it. I mean, if it is a cool damp day, and its far out in the woods, and they know they can easily control it when it gets closer to development, and the fuel really does need to be reduced, why not let it burn? Why not do that and just watch it closely?

 

[JeffD]

I think private forester Bob Williams and state forester James Barresi were right on target. Williams pointed out that in the absence of the low intensity fires that burned before humans settled in the area, you can't just let nature take its course and practice a let-it-burn policy. Land managers, such as Bob Williams, try to mimick nature in their management practices. They choose what trees to cut and use controlled burns (when weather conditions permit). The problem with using fire alone, whether a so-called controlled burn, or an arson started forest fire, is that the fuel is to dense and will climb up the ladders, as the foresters said, and create a monster fire that gets out of control and sterilizes the soil, damages wildlife habitat, creates flooding, etc. This is what happened at Bandlier National Monument. Yes, the weather conditions were a factor too. As Texas A & M Forestry Professor Thomas Bonnicksen (sp?) testified, if the heavy fuel isn't there there isn't as much to burn, no matter how hot and dry it is.

According to the scientist who was with the Academy of Natural Sciences (his name escapes me and I am overtired), only very small areas in the Pine Barrens have not been either burned by the Indians or logged. BTW, in the article he wrote he also says that if Atlantic White Cedar forests are just left alone too long, there will be alot of disease, i.e., a healthy forest. A healthy forest maitains its beauty, doesn't have a lot of pests such as beetles, and doesn't get eaten up by fire. Fire created the Pine Barrens. But why not, in the case where oaks are starting to crowd the pines, just cut the oaks? This would promote better growth (that's how a forest stays healthy) of the pines, would provide useful timber rather than have it burned up in smoke, which is air pollution, albeit natural. There are cases in forests where when a big so-called controlled burn is done, EPA air quality standards are violated. I think that selective cutting followed by the low-intensity controlled burns in the Pine Barrens will create a healthy, beautiful forest. This is the sort of thing that Aldo Leopold discusses in A SAND COUNTY ALMANAC. I read it recently and found it interesting and challenging. I'm not sure if I agree with or even understand everything Leopold says, but I think he has good ideas.

 

[JeffD]

A judge dumped the mindless roadless forests rule. This may have even kept fire fighters out of an area to fight a fire! The let-it-burn advocates would have loved that. But, alas, those not under the influence of the Tree Hugging cult have prevailed. Like Mothers Against Drunk Driving, there's been a crackdown on legislators under the influence as well as a cleanup of the constitution that was trashed out.

http://resourcescommittee.house.gov/press/2003/0715roadless.htm

 

[JeffD]

As the foresters said in the meeting, the potential exists for a monster wildfire in the Pine Barrens, and steps need to be taken to avoid this. BTW, proper management also prevents diseases and pest outbreaks, such as the bark beetle. Good advice, to listen to the experts, rather than let the special interests dictate policy, is found in the link below.

http://www.azcentral.com/news/specials/wildfires/0630whiting.html

 

[BobM]

What a load of crap Jeff. For instance, this quote from the article:

"Understanding the forests and caring for them were things I was taught from the time I was a boy"

Yeah, right. Just how was he taught to "care for the forest". Did he go aroung blowing its nose?