i'm sure you've heard by now of the shrub administration's latest effort to destroy precious natural resources by opening up roadless areas in national forests to logging.

as is probably true of most liberals, i support protecting wilderness areas without even thinking about it. it seems so obvious that protecting a priceless, public, fragile, irreplaceable natural resource like a wilderness in an increasingly developed world is more important than making sure some loggers have jobs. today, oldman1787 gave me another reason to maintain that view. the reason that loggers are having a difficult time of it, he says, is not because of suffocating environmental regulations. rather, they're facing competition from tree farms. well-managed tree farms are both more efficient and kinder to the environment than logging virgin forests, so market forces are pushing loggers out of business. to stay alive, the loggers have to run to the government for subsidies and friendly environmental laws. all this so that they can cut down OUR trees for free and sell them back to us in the form of paper and a damaged environment.

get more information about the roadless rule, and tell congress how you feel about it (scroll to the bottom for a link).