Thanks Pres - Oil Exploration near Canyonlands

[specialed]

Industrial energy conservation is actually the best "alternative energy source" as reported by American Prospect. But George isn't into conservation because that means less $ for his oil buddies. He could be promoting energy efficiency through tax-breaks, etc. but he'd rather drill up Supercrack of the Desert.

[Terminal_Gravity]

Check out these...

http://www.georgewgirls.com/

Dru, this is just for you

http://www.georgewgirls.com/showgal.php4?p=wgirl010.jpg

[Dru]

Thanks TG but i can't look at that stuff at work.

[Terminal_Gravity]

When you do look at it; you will never think of Brittney Spears ( or G dubya ) the same way.

[Alpine_Tom]

quote:

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Originally posted by AlpineK:

rather talk about what a morron George W is and what a bunch of loadies his daughters are.

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"Loadies" Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

[AlpineK]

Oh I like loadies. I am one... But I think a guy like George W who's born again might not. I get a good laugh every time one of his kids gets busted for drinking or something.

[Fairweather]

With an 85% approval rating for pres Bush, I guess that puts a lot of you guys in the minority. Oh well, at least you all can still watch "The West Wing" on NBC and fantasize about what it would be like if "your guy" was running the show. ...Now go turn on the TV...and try to calm down.

[AlpineK]

Those approval ratings are fleeting. I'm sure everyone is pro George cause everyone's been focused on terror and shit. Just like everyone liked his dad after we kicked Iraq's butt.

If the economy picks up people will still love him, but if it stays in the tank everyone will want a new president. Not that he has any control over the economy.

But anyway how about that Jenna Bush. I bet Fairweather thinks she's hot. Kind of makes you reevaluate your stand on drugs huh F?

[specialed]

quote:

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Originally posted by AlpineK:

Not that he has any control over the economy.

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Except that he could balance the fuckin budget instead of spending billions of dollars on building a magic missile protection shield. If the bad guys really wanted to fuck us up, they wouldn't be shooting scuds at us. They'd be crashing more planes into us or unleashing anthrax at us, you know terrorism style.

[Zenolith]

Here's something actually related to Will's original post.

Chewing Up a Fragile Land

February 21, 2002

By TERRY TEMPEST WILLIAMS

CASTLE VALLEY, Utah -- For many Americans, the Bushadministration energy plan, developed by Vice PresidentDick Cheney with the help of a task force whosedeliberations he will not reveal, is an abstraction atbest, and at worst a secret. Here in the redrock desert ofsouthern Utah, it is literally an earth-shaking reality.

Oil and gas exploration is going on in the form of seismictests - conducted with what are called thumper trucks - insensitive wildlands adjacent to Arches and CanyonlandsNational Parks. Last Sunday, with a group of friends alldeeply concerned about the fate of this landscape, one ofAmerica's most treasured, I witnessed the destructive powerof the thumper trucks on the fragile desert.

We had a Bureau of Land Management map showing theterritory leased by Eclipse Exploration of Denver - 23,000acres elevated in priority for exploration and drillingunder the Bush energy plan. We oriented ourselves from atopthe sandstone cliffs above the Colorado River that overlookthis pristine country of Entrada sandstone formations,pinyon and juniper forests, and fragile alkaline desert. Itis one of the proposed preserves in America's RedrockWilderness bill now before Congress - and with significantsupport. If this bill were law, it would protect theselands from new leases for oil drilling and exploration.

Lines drawn on the map marked the physical corridors wherefour 50,000-pound trucks would crawl cross-country, tampingthe desert for clues as to where oil might be found. As weset out to look for the trucks, our task was simplified bya helicopter flying overhead with a long cable carryingwhat appeared to be an enormous doughnut. It was a tire. Wewatched where it was dropped and hiked to the work site.

A thumper truck was stuck, tilted on its side, lodgedprecariously in the steep banks of a wash. Its rear lefttire, as tall as the man staring at it, was not only flatbut torn off its axle by an unseen boulder. Parked nearbywas a white truck - the "smart box" where WesternGeco, thecompany contracted to do this preliminary work, records andcompiles all the seismic information.

Three other thumper trucks were at work about half a mileahead. Behind them was pulverized earth: a 15-foot swath ofbeaten down and broken junipers, blackbrush, rabbitbrush,squawbush and cliffrose. The delicate desert crust thatholds the red sand in place from wind and erosion, known ascryptobiotic soil, was obliterated. Replacing it, ineffect, was a newly crushed road.

In January Jayne Belnap, a United States Geological Surveyexpert on soil damage, submitted an official comment letterto the Bureau of Land Management about the fragility ofdesert crusts, warning it could take from 50 to 300 yearsfor the dry soil to recover from the damage incurred byheavy equipment.

Up close, the thumper trucks creeping across the desert,following a path of fluorescent pink ribbons, looked likegigantic insects, gnawing and clawing, articulating rightand left as they balanced themselves across the ruggedterrain. Fumes from hydraulic fluid stung our eyes, and thenoise threatened to blow out human eardrums. The men in thetrucks were reading newspapers as the operation proceeded,computerized and routine.

At the designated stops, each truck in the convoy lowered asteel plate onto the desert, clamped tight, applied some64,000 pounds of pressure against the sand and then sent ajolt of seismic waves below to record density. The groundwent into a seizure. Sand flew and smoke obscured thehorizon where Skyline Arch and Sand Dune Arch - the Windowssection of Arches National Park - stand. We were only fourmiles from Delicate Arch, the redrock icon where a fewweeks ago a Ute elder uttered prayers and passed the WinterOlympics torch to his granddaughter in the name of goodwill and peace. When the steel plate lifted, the oncesupple red sand had turned to concrete.

The trucks moved forward, post to post, now scrapingsandstone with the chains around their tires, headingstraight for a spring where 100-year-old cottonwood treesprovided a rare canopy of shade alongside a creek. We ranahead, not believing the trucks would force a road intothis fragile desert oasis, but they did, gunning the gas,breaking down stands of squawbush and willows and rippingright on through the cottonwood shoots. There was nothingwe could do but watch. This was our country's new energyplan, translated into action.

A manager from the Bureau of Land Management suddenlyappeared, and I felt a flash of relief, thinking he hadcome to stop this sacrifice of wild country that might atbest yield a tiny fraction of the supply of fuel thisoil-hungry nation uses every year. He was perturbed, butnot by the trucks plowing through the cottonwood wash. Hehad come to monitor us - the public, walking on publiclands. The bureau had received a call, he told us, sayingthat we might be harassing the operation, putting theproject at risk.

I should not have been surprised. I knew that a memorandumsent by the Bureau of Land Management to field offices onJan. 4 had said that when an oil and gas parcel is leasedfor exploration and drilling, or when an application forpermission to drill comes in the door, this work must bethe No. 1 priority.

We asked the land manager as politely as possible if he hadthe jurisdiction to redirect the thumper trucks from thisriverbed to an already established seismic road to thesouth. "We've got the discretion to make them do that," hesaid. "But, in the end, it's all a trade-off. We've chosento just accept the project as they give it to us." Hepaused. "You can see the pink ribbons on the trees," hesaid. "They've had it all staked out since September."

[Norm]

http://www.theonion.com/onion3724/bush_vows_to_remove.html

No really he doing this for the environment

[vegetablebelay]

And so we have yet another cc.com liberal circle-jerk going. Sweet

[AlpineK]

quote:

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Originally posted by vegetablebelay:

And so we have yet another cc.com liberal circle-jerk going. Sweet

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I would love to drive xc in some huge truck.

I don't like a bunch of the language used in the above article, and I don't buy into all the attitudes.

I don't think we should drill national parks and such just cause even if we drilled the shit out of North America we still wouldn't be energy independent.

There already is a lot of oil on tap already. Why not spend a bunch of money on renewable stuff and fuel cells. In the long run the US would be in great shape. Just think of how much money we would save from fighting wars in the midle east.

I'm afraid GW is owned by big energy companies that can't see past burning oil.

But anyway how about that Jenna Bush? She sure knows how to party!