Posted on 11/19/2001 8:32:37 PM PST by Cuban123
That's a good pic. Thanks. Now a question. Has anyone thought that perhaps these caribu in the picture may have at some time received therapy to help them deal with the stress of walking under the pipeline like that? Certainly someone must have shown them how.
Journalism is a business which makes money only by attracting attention. If it fails to do that, it fails financially. Because journalism has daily deadlines to meet, it naturally must be formulaic just like a sitcom. The formula for journalism is, quite simply, to scare the audience into paying attention. And the way to do that is to call into question the reliability of the things/people upon whom we must depend.
Good news--e.g., a large oil find--is good for a single headline, at most. From then on, it's all worry, all the time. Does a carribou trip over an oil barrel? That gets just as big a headline as the oil find did.
That part of the formula makes journalism negative and superficial. The other part of the formula is the pretense that journalism is "the first draft of history." It is, rather, the first draft of the Democratic Party platform. Journalists deny being in cahoots with any party, but that claim is mooted by the fact that "liberals" simply take journalism's horror-story-du-jour and run with it.
So journalism and liberal politicians have a simbiotic relationship. Conservative journalism is an oxymoron; you can't make money in journalism by actually being conservative. Note that I define "journalism" exactly the way the journalist does--no commentators (e.g., Rush Limbaugh) included.
Given the greenfreaks that inhabit the place, it would seem that they are preaching to the converted!
They were still pretty hard pressed to make it look anything like Yellowstone.
Wonder why they don't care about the environment in these middle eastern countries, where the technology to maintain the environment is decades behind ours?
My friend WAS willing to take the Saudi oilfields by force, if necessary. I thought to myself-- GEEZ, that takes Ugly Americanism to a new low. We won't drill our own wastelands because we don't want to destroy their "natural beauty", but we'll steal YOUR oil? Unbelievable.
You remind me of a friend of mine who visited me when I was living in a remote desert hamlet. He was on motorcycle, and went back home via (as I recall) the 395, past California's Mojave desert.
He later told me that as he was passing through mile after mile of, well, mile after mile, he thought to himself, "About the only thing this land would be good for would be testing bombs."
Just then he saw a sign on the fence beside the highway reading "DANGER: STAY OUT, BOMB TESTING AREA," with the name of the appropriate agency.
Dan
"Still, I do have a few shots that will give you a sense of what it looks like up there on the coastal plain. They are of mediocre quality — taken from the cockpit of a small, very jerky plane — so don't give me grief about how I'm no Ansel Adams or how I'm being unfair by showing crappy pictures of what Joe Lieberman calls "one of God's most awesome creations." Also, I don't have time to check against my written notes, so some of these pictures may be of the Prudhoe Bay side of the Canning River, which forms the border of ANWR's coastal plain. The important thing is that it is almost impossible to tell the difference between the ANWR side and the Prudhoe side without checking my notes and a map.
So, this and this [133, 134] are pictures of one of the spots where the Canning River lets out into the Arctic Ocean. Just beyond it is ANWR. And this and this [144, 145] are pictures of what I believe is a typical oil-loading facility on what amounts to the coastal plain on the Prudhoe side of the Canning River. This [142] is a typical pipeline running over the tundra and so is this [143]. This [140] is what the coastal plain and most of the tundra in Prudhoe look like, complete with the puddles I described. And so is this [141]. And so is this [137]. There some places without the puddles, however [196].
Now, as for the mountains in ANWR: There are many beautiful mountain ranges in this South Carolina-sized wilderness. But the ones closest to the coastal plain are not covered in lush trees, as you might think from looking at the media coverage. This far north it's too cold, dark, and bleak during the winter for trees to survive. So these mountains are impressive geologically, but — at least from what I saw — they look like barren, massive piles of gravel. For example: [169] [179] [171]. And some have really cool glacier-ice formations on them, like this [178]. But remember, these [180] are still very far from this [150].
I did see some caribou closer than this [150] but I didn't snap any good pictures. As you can see [151], they are hanging out on the shore of the Arctic Ocean trying to escape the bugs. I like to call the one on the very far left-hand corner Arthur. Speaking of the Arctic Ocean, the ice never really goes away [152]. Here you can see the dividing line between what were two giant sheets of ice [154]. That line is not man-made in any way.
And finally, this is me [131] looking like a doofus in hardhat and goggles at the Alpine Oil installation. The reason I don't look fatter is that standing against a large petroleum facility has a beneficial slimming effect, which is the real reason why I am favor of opening up ANWR. I do not pretend that you couldn't take prettier pictures up close on the tundra where the drilling might be, but that's not why I was there. And, besides, you couldn't take pictures of beautiful mountains where the drilling would be because, well, there are no mountains of any kind where the drilling would be.
Anyway, I've got more pictures, but that should do the trick. Besides, this didn't save me any time anyway. I'll just have to wing the speech. "
1) All Americas oil comes from Texas oil wells. Gore said so!
2) Alaska drilling will kill all the plants and numerous animals that live in the Alaska rain forrests.
3) It causes pollution in NY and Los Angeles.
4)Only rich capital businesses use that kind of oil.
Bush needs to educate. You would not believe how many people have no idea our oil comes from the middle east. If the polls are rising, someone must be letting them know!
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I cant...I'm snowblind!!!!!!
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Oh this baby bear is being SWALLOWED - oh the humanity!
Oh Brother!
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