Did you ever look closely, using Google Earth, at the state of West Virginia?

[Postman]

http://www.ilovemountains.org/

Seems they're blasting the mountains out of existence down there....

[Captain Angry]

1. It's the mountain's fault.

If it hadn't hidden the coal, we wouldn't have to blow them up.

But they had to be cute, and keep the stuff deep underground.

So, we taught them a lesson.

[ColbertWatcher]

17. Damn right. n/t

[ChairmanAgnostic]

2. all that inbreeding has to be the cause.

according to the VP.

yeah, mountain top mining is a scourge on life there. truly disgusting.

[ileus]

3. that's what they get for voting Bush.

[Lorien]

5. Can we cut this crap? Not everyone in WV voted for the assholes!

Not everyone in ANY state voted for BushCo. There are hundreds of activists in WV and elsewhere who are trying to end mountaintop removal, and they desrve our support. No ifs, ands, or buts.

[rebel with a cause]

16. I agree.

Illinois was blue, but we had counties that were red. I am sure most other states did also. It has been four years, I have stopped screaming those dang red states. Dang them all. Of course I still dang our red counties, and they know who they are. :rofl:

[Winterblues]

24. But the very great majority did indeed vote for bush* and the GOP

West Virginia gets exactly what they voted for.

[Bluebear]

6. Virginia voted for Bush as well. Does your state "deserve" some calamity?

[Winterblues]

26. This is not just some calamity

This is entirely man caused. And it is because of GOP governing that it is allowed to continue and in fact grow..

[knowbody0]

4. horrific

clean coal? yeah right. evidently their well water runs black now, people have terrible skin rashes from bathing with it, and cancer rates are way high.

the people actually went to the UN to plea for help against the big corporations who have paid off the local gov.

[proud2BlibKansan]

7. It's one of our most beautiful states

This is so sad.

[Gabi Hayes]

8. thanks! a woman involved in this project was on Ring of Fire yesteday.

as one who goes to WVA almost every year, I found the whole appearance heartbreaking....the part that got to me the most was when she talked about the people who LIVED on/alongside these mountains, and whose lives, along with all the surrounding ecosystems were destroyed (yes, animals count). "Once a mountain is gone, there's NO WAY to ever restore it".....words to that effect.

Ring of Fire is one of the very few reasons to listen to AAR anymore. they're not long for this world.

Poor RFK....this is going to be a VERY hard week for him: forty years since his father was killed

[Gabi Hayes]

9. Fire Tower on top of Craig Mountain

you can see seven/eight ridges in the distance, depending on the 'smoke'

the valley below, from the tower: Waiteville, WVa



my friends' house is at the base of the mountain



migratory route for raptors

saw a bald eagle lazing by, riding the updrafts, not more than 20 feet away

[Adsos Letter]

11. THAT is some beautiful country, my friend...

just beautiful. :thumbsup:

[Gabi Hayes]

12. most of the state is like that...course a good bit of that region is like that....

for now

every time I go there I hate to come back. If I could have found a sustaining job there, I'd have moved a long time ago

place I go used to be a log cabin, built in mid 1800s, added onto over they years...first addition was a room called the 'slave quarters'
there's a website with lots of pictures...can't believe I don't have it at fingertips

they bought the place in 1972...no water, bathroom...had to go to a creek a hundred yards down the road to fill tanks/haul them back to the place. over the years they fixed the place up, added onto it, so it's pretty livable, but nobody stays there. most live in DC area, about five hours away.

probably going out there on the Fourth of July

[Adsos Letter]

13. We have some high desert places we love up in North-eastern California...

I'd love to live there, but there just isn't any work...which is probably why it retains its native beauty.

[Gabi Hayes]

15. there's a beatiful description of that area, I think (certainly somewhere in Cal)

in one of Kim Stanley Robinson's latest trilogy, in which global warming causes a mini ice age. great read, with one of the 'heroes' being a president cut from the mold of someone everybody here would give their left reproductive organs to have as an actual politician

Set in an America of the almost-now, Fifty Degrees Below (and the first volume of the trilogy, Forty Signs of Rain) tells the story of the efforts of a loosely-connected group of scientists, campaigners and politicians to provoke a national response to the crisis of global warming. Unfortunately for them, as environmental aide Charlie Quibbler observes, it's "easier to destroy the world than to change capitalism even one little bit". It is not until the combination of two colliding storm systems and an unprecedented tidal surge causes Washington's Potomac river to bursts its banks and overwhelm the country's capital at the climax of book one that the world sits up and takes notice. But, by this point, the polar ice caps have already begun to melt in earnest, shutting down the warm waters of the Gulf Stream and creating environmental conditions that could usher in a new ice age. The last ice age, 11,000 years ago, took just three years to start.

These disturbingly convincing, exceptionally well-realised novels are the latest works from one of the undisputed leaders of the field in contemporary science fiction. Justly famous for his epic, award-winning trilogy on the colonisation of Mars, Robinson's brand of imaginative but grounded sci-fi, combined with his gift for riveting narrative, fine evocation of place and flair for acute personal and social observation, has brought him many devotees, from within the genre and beyond. The topical subject matter of his latest novel, particularly in light of its disturbingly prescient depiction of a US under siege from the weather, will no doubt bring him many more.

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/sciencefiction/story/0,6000,1569830,00.html

highly recommended reading...and you'll be very interested to read the section where they hike back into the high desert, wherever it is (Cal for sure, but can't remember exactly where, but how many high desert regions are there in the state?)

[Adsos Letter]

21. There is quite a bit of High Desert in California....

but my favorite areas are in the Northeastern part of the state, up around Cedarville, Alturas, Susanville.

Here is a link to some pics Mz Pip posted in the photo forum from that area:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=280x43353

And here are a few I took last July:
















Thanks for the link to the reading! I will definitely check it out; I am off for the summer and could use a break from my reading list of Syro-Palestinian Archaeology. :hi:

[Gabi Hayes]

22. beautiful shots; thanks.

wish I could go out there sometime

are you an archaelogist in the making?

[Gabi Hayes]

23. fall, friends' farm in Waiteville

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/~fletcher/purdue/photos/Farm.bmp

bought in 1972 along with about 80 acres for ~$12 K.

[AnnieBW]

10. Coal companies are big Repug donors

And responsible for the heinious "Kerry's going to take your Bibles and guns away and force you into gay marriages" bullshit from 2004. My technical writing professor is from southern WVA and very much into the anti-mountaintop-removal movement there. I got quite an education when I took his class - and not in tech writing, either! :D

[Gabi Hayes]

14. don't tell that to Byrd or Rockefeller

''The favorite politician of the coal companies is Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. His wife, Elaine Chao, is Bush's Secretary of Labor. According to Reece, 89% of coal company political donations over the last 4 years have gone to Republicans. And the other 11% have probably gone to Robert Byrd and Jay Rockefeller, the Democratic Senators from West Virginia.''

they're not AS bad, but the coal companies know where the bread is buttered

http://alterdestiny.blogspot.com/2005/03/mountaintop-removal.html

another take on mountaintop removal at this link. so sad

[FourScore]

18. The link is down. n/t

[Postman]

19. Probably getting slammed with traffic..

n/t

[Glorfindel]

20. Thank goodness there's no coal under the north Georgia mountains

they're hardly unspoiled anymore, but at least they're not being blasted away to get at hidden minerals. I've lived away from the mountains for almost ten years now, but I'll always be a hillbilly.

[Aristus]

25. Well, if those mountains just had their own explosives to defend themselves

against the mining companies, that wouldn't have happened... :sarcasm: