from the mouths of babes and congressmen

Good news from Anchorage!

The U.S. House of Representatives approved a bipartisan measure late Wednesday night to end federal funding for logging roads in Alaska's Tongass National Forest.

I'm just drinking coffee, reading the news as it lands in my inbox (I used to read newspapers. Now the cat has nowhere to sit.) and, well, "Federal funding for logging roads" just leapt out and bit my nose. I mean, aside from all the usual reasons – environmental yadda yadda, corporate welfare, diddley oomp – mainly, I've seen a few logging roads lately and I'm here to tell you, friends and neighbours, I could pay for one out of my allowance. There's no road there. It's like they make 'em by holding bulldozer races.

Oooh, here's another good bit:

Sponsors say the amendment, if approved by the Senate, will save taxpayers $35 million, the amount the Forest Service estimates it loses annually on Tongass timber sales. Critics see it as a backhanded attempt to shut down the Tongass timber industry.

And those neo-cons tout their business acumen as one of their strong points. With accounting skills like what they have, it's no wonder the US debt is now what it is. In most endeavours, when you're writing "$35 million" as ($35,000,000) on a regular basis annually, it's time to close the doors.

J.D. Hayworth, R-Ariz., said the vast majority of the Tongass is off-limits to logging so it doesn't make sense to pass a measure that would hurt the existing industry, which has suffered major job losses in the last decade.

See what I mean? "Hurt the existing industry," the man says. If it were a horse, he'd'a shot it by now.

Oh, but this is the real gem:

Rep. John Peterson, R-Penn., said if hunters support ending logging or road building in the Tongass, they're misguided.

"I don't know how many of you hunt, but my hunters hunt where people timber," he said. "Old-growth forests don't have a lot of wildlife because there's no food there."

Uh huh. And if you sail your boat too far west, you'll fall off the edge. One wonders how all those plants and animals managed to survive till big industry came to their rescue. Magic beans, maybe.

The esteemed Congressman from the great State of Pennsylvania has made a child's error of confusing "what he likes" with "the sum total of existence." Come to think of it, so has the Republican Party.