What lurks in those hills?

[bwells]

An interesting read from another forum. It's pretty long, but there's some weird stuff there.

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=148441&highlight=wierd+woods

 

[RallySoob]

An interesting read from another forum. It's pretty long, but there's some weird stuff there.

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?t=148441&highlight=wierd+woods

there is alot of good stories at that link, thanks for the post.

about the weirdest thing I have come across was a tree stump that was about 50x bigger than any tree around in the area. I mean not one tree was as even close to the size of this tree stump. I had my buddy stand in front of it when I took the pic to give you an idea. In person it seemed unusualy massive for the area we were in. He is about 6'2" 325

 

[Buddhalux]

I'm guessing that that was an Old Growth tree.

 

[A2theK]

Yep they used to be everywhere until "we" showed up.

Now trees like that can only be found as stumps.

So when people say trees are "renewable" they are only half right. It's like saying Plutonium is biodegradable.


Have more kids people!! Protect ALL human life. Save the children!

We are our undoing.


<Enviro rant mode off> Yes, I do burn wood and use toilet paper.

 

[gallogiro]

hunting season 2006, one guy I know found a marijuana plantation in the abiqua basin. We were doing a push and he saw a water house on the floor, he pulled it up and it stretched out into the woods. Being the smart one that he is, he followed it and found the marijuana plants, already harvested. There was trash, camp stove and other random camping supplies. The other end of the hose led to a creek where they were probably pumping water out of.

 

[ZeroRing]

It's almost as if you need to post an armed guard on your gear when your out hunting, riding, fishing, hiking, whatever. Not enough BG's in jail/prison it seems to me.

Not enough BG's in jail/prison it seems to me.

sorry to pick on my friend's quote here but it's handy.

Good grief, there are more people in prison in the USA than any other nation on earth.

Maybe if more people had a meaningful education and a profitable job we could reverse this decline-

A definition of insanity is to keep repeating the same thing and expecting a different result... throwing billions at maintaining an Empire year after year has it's consequences.

As to what's in the woods, this reminds me of the time an older lady asked pianist Fats Waller, "What is jazz?"

His reply: "If you don't know by now, don't mess with it."

Yeah, taken out of context I suppose you could have a point.

But, does that mean that until: a) the economy is good; b) all people who want a six-figure job have one; and c) all people have masters degrees from ivy league schools... I should just expect to have my junk stolen any time I want to enjoy the outdoors??

I am ALL for helping out folks in need but I refuse to elevate them to Sainthood "just because". That sounds to me like it really would be the inmates running the asylum then...

 

[elsullo]

The reason that the USA has the highest percentage of incarceration in the world is because we have the highest percentage of Bad People in the world.

By this I mean feral humans who have deliberately chosen a lawless life of predation upon their fellow citizens. These life-long sociopathic criminals are usually hard-drug addicts: cocaine, heroin, oxycontin, and especially meth. It's not the drugs that cause the crime, it's the drug-addicts. Repeat violent drunks should be included too. Not to mention the mob of rapists and child-molesters who mostly have an irresistible urge to re-offend.

Sure, many come from deprivation and bad education, and an upbringing with no hope of success in "working" society. Nevertheless, most people from that situation work hard and overcome their disadvantages, to become good citizens. Only a few CHOOSE a life of crime and drugs, and these are the felons of our concern.

As I age I come to admire some Asian justice systems: like Malaysia where dealing drugs automatically yields the death penalty, period; or China, where most serious felonies mean a simple bullet in the head, no recidivism.

How about this goal: any arrestee with hard-drugs in their system gets a mandatory six-months in concentration camp to get clean and educated about drug addiction; any arrestee caught a second time with hard-drugs in their system gets a quick bullet and a long dirtnap.

I am sick of seeing people hurt by drug-driven crime!.........................elsullo

 

[RallySoob]

I agree with you elsullo, they need to extremely criminalize hard drugs to the illest degree and completely legalize/tax marijuana. end the drug cartel madness and everything else to follow

 

[Scott]

What?? You mean actual cambodians out in the woods? Are you serious, I've never heard of this. Do they just live out there or something?

No they don't live there, they are just picking mushrooms and they are very protective of their area. They spend most of the season picking but they are armed and protective. I don't think they adjusted to our customs yet....

Scott

 

[Martini_Up]

decriminalize all drugs and make them free to those that want them... much as they want. I figure in about a year or two we won't have many people with a drug problem in our society or the problems associated with them.

 

[slythorne]

The reason that the USA has the highest percentage of incarceration in the world is because we have the highest percentage of Bad People in the world.

Funny you make this quote and then talk about the real reason.... are justice system has been to sissified! We want to cradle and nurture are criminals. We can make them change... **** that! The reason Capitol Punishment doesn't work here is because there isn't enough of it! /rant

 

[clearconscience]

Funny you make this quote and then talk about the real reason.... are justice system has been to sissified! We want to cradle and nurture are criminals. We can make them change... **** that! The reason Capitol Punishment doesn't work here is because there isn't enough of it! /rant

+1
With a system that's so full most criminals get plea agreements to side step court is ridiculous. I think we need to start cutting off hands for stealing. I think most would learn the first time. The middle east does have some good ideas.

 

[tionico]

Yup. decriminalise all drugs, but control sales through some system of distribution so it can be taxed like crazy. The revenue will go to pay for our prison system, and perhaps treatment for those who WANT to get off it. The main reason the druggies turn to violent crime is that the price of the junk is so high. It is high because of the extreme risk and bad consequences of being caught for the dealers/distributors. Take the insane profit motive out, there won't be so much pressure to develop and control markets, nor to find new customers. Supply and demand all over again. It would end the drug wars in Mexico and Colombia as well.
Trouble is, it will never happen: consider the billions now spent in the "war on drugs" and the "war on crime". Thousands of overpaid public "servants" sloppin at the public trough would end up unemployed, wouldn't they? that's a no go.

Of course, make things like driving and operating dangerous machinery under the influence even more a crime than it is now.... employers could still test for drug use, refusing to employ users at their option.
with the profit motive out of the equation, some quality controls in place, a system of distribution (similar to how states contol alcohol now?) the whole scenario would radically change.

 

[jordanvraptor]

Yup. decriminalise all drugs, but control sales through some system of distribution so it can be taxed like crazy.

So criminals who are breaking the current law are all of a sudden going to turn honest and pay taxes on their product? This government regulation is going to make the drugs cheaper? When has government ever improved the efficiency of production? What do you do to the drug producers who don't bow down an go legal? Arrest them like they still do with moonshiners and tobacco tax counterfeiters? Seems like there are a lot of flaws to the legalization argument.

 

[tionico]

If the product is readily available at retail, like alcohol and tobacco are now, most users will take the ready way and buy it from the legal distributors. The taxes will be built into the pricing structure, just like with booze and backy. Sure, a few do make their own, so what? More revenue is expended in trying to reel in the moonshiners than the taxes they avoid paying.

The main thing will be the availability outside of the present criminally based and huge profit driven system. Sure, prices will be way lower. Face it, when the Colombianos build a $300,000 submarine, pay four crew fifty thousand bucks each to navigate to the drop poing, they lose a third of them to capture, and sink the rest once they've delivered their cargoes, and STILL make billions each year.... creating a legal though regulated supply chain by turning the stuff into one more commodity will greatly reduce prices. It costs fifteen cents the pound to ship green coffee from origin in Colombia to a warehouse in Portland Oregon. I can't see coca costing more than twice that. Contrast that with hundreds, thousands, PER OUNCE in the present scenario and yes, prices WILL be a fraction of present levels. Why would the narcotraficantes continue to spend outrageous sums to circumvent a newly legal and simple transportation and distribution system that regularly moves the goods for pennies the pound? Seafrieght containers aboard merchant ships are hard to beat on a price per pound basis. Or for time. No private method can compete with that system.

Most of the tobacco tax evasion comes down to private normal citizens buying at Indian smoke shops, tax out, rather than at Albertsons, tax in. The Indians are SUPPOSED to tax non-tribal members, but often don't bother. Washington State have recently gone on a rampage trying to stem this... even to staging patrols near the reservations, busting non-tribal members with large quantities of cigs in their cars, just purchased from Crazy Larry the Indian Cigar Store Owner. They got a few, nailed them to the wall, the press had a field day with it, and most regular folks got scared and quit buying them there. They also did a bit to reel in the Indians flaunting the law. Put the tax on at the federal level, no way around it on the local level.

 

[jordanvraptor]

Ok, you make a pretty good argument on the cost of transportation. I'll make you a deal, I'll support legalization of drugs if you support my idea of genocide for 95 percent of the world's population. I can make a logical argument for it as well. In the end you have to decide if something is right or wrong and I just can't get behind the idea of rewarding those who live off the misery and addictions of others. Its wrong and everybody knows it. We tolerate it to a certain extent because its easier than fighting it. Appeasement never leads to victory. If you say we can't legislate morality, well we do it with every law we pass. If you don't agree with my opinion, fine, that's your protected right. I do care about what other people believe, but more importantly, I want them to believe in something and take a stand. I commend you on your articulate and thoughtful reasoning though I will always disagree with it.

 

[tionico]

Let's leave aside illegal drugs for a moment, and switch to alcohol. While there are differences, the similarities will help make my point. We all know getting rim snorting drunk is wrong, morally. We also know that doing certain things whilst crocked is dangerous, for one's self, for those round about him, and for property. Thus doing those things loaded is doubly wrong. Drunk or not, a man is responsible for injury, death, damage to others. SO... what does the law do? No US jurisdictions have passed laws making it illegal to drink.. leave that for the moslem lot, eh? Nor is it illegal to get pasted in the privacy of one's own home. (though certainly immoral, it is no crime). HOWEVER, get behind the wheel of a vehicle, airplane, be on the street falling down drunk, sitting on a park bench, and the Man will put you away for a while. Why? Because being drunk in such situations poses a clear and present public danger. The civil authorities have been established for the express purpose of punishing those who harm others. (it has certainly expanded well beyond that, but, another day for that one). It is well known that someone snockered and at the controls of a motor vehicle can, and most often will, cause serious damage, harm, death to others. Thus, it is against the law to do so. BUT--- remember it is not illegal to get ripped within your own home... you run little risk of serious harm to others (though my drunken neighbour, years back, decided to have a pot of french fries one afternoon... lit the gasring, put the large pot of oil on the hob, went back into the livingroom and fell asleep watching the telly..... the explosion woke him up, I smelled the smoke, went over the fence with MY hosepipe, kicked in the back door and put out the fire.... three more minutes and the whole block would have been ashes....but he broke no laws)
Remember, they tried banning ALL alcohol nationwide... prohibition, they called it. Somehow they mustered sufficient support to win over enough of the Congress to pass it. Net result? A serious and foul national business supplying the contraband to any and all who desired it. Crime, inexplicable murders, thefts, gangland shootemups, general mayhem, inside groups gaining political control (Seattle's present government and political machine are directly descended from the days of run running, speakeasies, warehouses in the woods.... the profits involved in supplying an illegal substance utterly corrupted those in power). Once Congress realised their folly in passing that ammendment, it took a long time to get enough support to repeal it.... the corrupt power and influence realised they'd be out of their easy incomes and power structures once prohibition ended. BATF and the IRS "revenooers" were big business as well, "trying" to stem the flood of illegal ethanol, making enough busts to look like they were "on it", but on the take often enough to be sure business continued.

We spend billions annually trying to eliminate illegal drugs, thousands have been killed in the fracas (the toll in Mexico alone for 2008 and 09 is over six thousand... more than the entire Iraq conflict has cost). Add in Colombia, the US itself, and the toll is staggering. Innocent civilians have been killed as "collateral damage" by overzealous enforcers, twitchy traffickers, users driven to a frenzy for the large amounts of cash needed to buy the illlegal stuff, and for "deals gone bad".
After Prohibition was repealed, states reactivated their systems of control of distribution, some more onerous than others (Washington and Oregon are among the worst, California one of the less burdensome). Alcohol is readily available to those of legal age, certain activities are prohibited whilest under the influence, taxes are levied and collected through the sale system, the criminal supply chain is gone, and the bloodshed, shootings, abuse of power, largely things of the 1930's. Want a bottle of Single Malt Islay, find the legal supplier during business hours, walk up to the counter with the product, produce ID showing proof of legal age, pay for it, walk out. Normal. No one getting shot at, housebreaking to steal my cameras and guns to pay a hundred bucks a quart cause the market it slim just now, my supplier's been arrested.
And yes, I am well aware the differences metabolically speaking between EtOH and cocaine..... you're either stoned or not, a little stoned doesn't get it. But a shot of that single malt DOES satisfy...

Now, how is the present system of booze distribution "rewarding those who live off the misery and addictions of others."? It doesn't. the checker at Costco makes no more money scanning that bottle of Mouton Cadet Rothschild than that bottle of Simple Green. Just another commodity. Put the (presently) illegal drugs back in the pharmacy section, the druggist checks ID for age, the product is standardised in dosage and purity, taxed just as is alcohol... and the use of it in dangerous situations (just as for alcohol) is just as illegal as it is now. Those who want to buy a half gallon of cheap rum, carry it sealed in their car to their home, walk in and down the whole thing can now do so, legally. Those who want to buy a bottle of whatever mind-destroying drug, carry it home without using any, then walk inside and swallow it in the privacy of their home, let them, legally.

Approximately one third of our prisoners nationwide are in for non-violent drug offenses... simple possession, perhaps selling some to another, being under the influence whilst driving their forklift at work, getting pulled over for a burned out taillamp, being stupid enough to consent to a full search of the vehicle when the copper finds his powder.... sure, immoral activities, all. But prison for years? On MY dime? Come ON..... Its about as ridiculous as putting Cool Hand Luke in the pen for cutting down a parking meter.
I firmly believe intoxication is morally wrong, and no one should do it, ever, anywhere. BUT--- in a nation where the highest court in the land can sit, blackrobed, and declare that the State of Texas cannot legislate against immoral behaviour with their laws against sodomy, I find it rather strange that we DO legislate against immoral behaviour with extreme consequences (and not just for the "offender"--families, businesses, are also seriously affected when a key person goes to prison for ten years for having two ounces of controlled substance in the monkeybox of his car) when it comes to certain intoxicants. Double standards in the extreme. BUT--as always, follow the money. WHO now profits from the largely useless attempts at "enforcement" that will no longer if made legal?
Not to even TOUCH on the international implications... WHY are we militarily active in so many nations in the effort to halt their production and distribution? Make the stuff legal, and that entire network dissolves. Perhaps the citizens of Colombia could once again get after growing things like coffee, bananas, corn, biofuels, and live again, not fearing the cartels who hold them slaves at the point of a gun, threatening their very lives and livelihood if they choose to grow something other than coca.

I might also point out that, five years ago, I firmly held the exact opposite position. It has only been in result of openly considering many of the angles of this issue that I ahve come to my present position. Partly, I have become aware of the incredible cost to OUR society, and those of many other nations (some of which I have spent time in, and dearly love the people..Mexico, Guatemala, Nicaragua) in dollars wasted, lives terminated or destroyed, economies spiralling downhill under the weight of skewed production and non-normal cash flow paths, families, commmunities, whole nations in a mess because of the disruption of healthy political control, kidnappings, incarcerations, quasimilitary occupation........ all of which will persist as long as there is such unbelievable profit to be taken in this illegal trade.

and a significant aspect of this whole drug economy is the inordinate use of firearms... on all sides. There are parts of Northern California, and I understand now Eastern Oregon, where a normal citizen durst not travel unless in large groups and significantly armed and ready. Make a wrong turn on a trail and you're in some drug grower's "territory" and subject to death, the questions as to your intent and identity left for later speculation over supper. Thus, we are often held prisoner, banned from access to public lands because of the fear of the illegal producer being discovered. In Homboldt and Mendocino Counties (N. Cal) one dare not stray off the main roads. Get in the rough, you're as likely dead as allowed to pass. Even law enforcement do not go in except in large masses, air support, dogs, full auto weapons, RPG's.... and then only to raid a known specific target. Insanity.

 

[jordanvraptor]

If criminals are allowed to operate freely then that is wrong. Fight them. The problem with today's fighting is that people don't do it seriously anymore. If the "government" wanted to eliminate criminal drug activity, it could. Govt has the manpower, resources, and time to its advantage. The problem is they aren't serious about it. Again, its appeasement. People by and large just don't think its worth it to fight crime in the way that would actually cripple major criminal operations. Its too ruthless for their stomachs. That is what the people have chosen so the problem will continue. So its left up to us to defend ourselves in these areas. Choose not to go there, choose to defend yourself, or choose to surrender to someone else's mercy. Its all about choices. Choose wisely...

 

[yotehunter]

I keep coming back to this thread to see what others have seen in the hills. But there is to much other stuff being talked about. I personally haven't seen anything weird yet, but I am starting to hunt by myself so this stuff does interest me.

 

[tionico]

Jordanraptor, correct and accurate on all counts. BUT--- given the three options, we find the government will NOT do their job halting the criminal activity, preferring to give a show of the attempt without the desired results. The undesired result is that we, the people, are subject more and more to the desires of the criminal sector, and continue to pay the government sector to not do the work we've commissioned them to do.
Option one, things as they are. Not acceptable.
Option two, let the hoodlums run the entire show. saves cash (no more DEA, BATF) but unacceptable as well.
Option three, decriminalise (in other words, end the legal proscription of this immoral behaviour) presently illegal drugs. Not acceptible either, but, I believe, by far the least unacceptable of the three.
I suppose there IS an option four... somehow bring about a true and universal moral reform such that no one WANTS to use these substances any more. Totally acceptible, but I think small tan critters with corkscrew tails will learn to fly before this comes to pass. Worth working toward, but meanwhile I think it would be nice to be able to move about anywhere without fear for one's life, and the present useless burden on our posketbooks....