Trees need to die so the CoP can send useless fliers to all its citizens.

The timber industry always picks up during hurricane season.

Many areas along the north coast suffered extensive blow down of trees last year during the storms. Trees are down, layer upon layer for miles and miles along 26. Maybe they are harvesting those?

Bingo! We made a nostalgic visit to spouse's hometown, Rockaway, two weekends ago. He hooked up with an old buddy who said that some of their mutual friends were hauling a lot of that blowdown out of the hills.

The finished lumber will soon be loaded on ships headed east.

Well, people still need paper for various things. From newspaper to wiping their backside.

Many areas along the north coast suffered extensive blow down of trees last year during the storms. Trees are down, layer upon layer for miles and miles along 26. Maybe they are harvesting those?

Doubtful, enviro-types usually fight to keep lumber companies from picking that stuff up. You can usually get a personal permit for firewood without a problem though.

If you were on the northern coast, Bush has nothing to do with it. Federal lands on the coast are in the Siuslaw and Siskiyou national forests, and they don't extend north of Tillamook.

Nope, it's all blowdown. The timber-types don't want to sell a stick of standing timber with these market conditions. They're breaking even at best. But they have to haul out the downed stuff or lose it all. Then they have to replant the blowdown to protect future profits. Depending on who you listen to, they have the equivalent of around five years of harvest on the ground right now. They tell us they have about 18 months to clear the land before the bugs take over. They're 10 months in and we are at about 30% log truck traffic down here on 101 right now.

The 'logging story' has gotten twisted and bent from so many spinnings, it is hard to say who knows what about it, or hard to know who says what about parts of it.

The basics I know are these. It used to be, in the '50s, along highways we drove and where we hiked and camped, all over the State, there were trees and full forests. Now there aren't. Anywhere I get up on a ridgeline with a panoramic view, there ain't no trees. So I don't know about no spotted owl b.s.

Fact is, it seems to me, in the beginning the forest land was split 50-50, federal-private. The State got a big chunk, some of it as a share of the federal 'reserve' as public-owned, and some the State 'bought back' from private ownership, mainly the railroads. Also, the State sold some of its titled holdings, transferred to private ownership, in typical political graft and bribe dealings.

So the privately held areas could be cut as much as the owners liked. And they cut all theirs.

Then they came coveting the public-owned federal and State areas, and cut a major chunk of that land, too.

So today logging is greatly reduced; mills gone out of business. The exploitive capitalists blame it on 'environmentalists' blocking logging. Ha. Fact is, there's no trees left to cut. Since they cut them all.

And, NO they can't have the paltry slivers of pristine land left. The public says so, not any boogeyman phony scapegoat 'enviros' -- or whoever 'they' make up instead of 'themselves' taking responsibility for greediness -- to blame.

Forests is a sustainable 'crop.' After cutting an area of trees, just wait 200plus years, and it'll all grow back, no problem, easy-peasy. 'They' can log again after 2150, get back to us on that, then. Until then, shut the fake up ... and next time, don't gorge on the bounteous blessing in big gulps all at once.

Meanwhile, go cut the trees 'they' already own. Oh, what's that you say? There are no trees left on the land 'they' own? Hunh. How 'bout that.

Loggers are always busy this time of year cutting and hauling because snow will come to the higher elevations sooner, making logging and hauling logs impossible, no matter whether it's blowdown, state, federal, or private timber.