Quote:
Originally posted by cegerer
Why aren't these environmentalists over in the MidEast, staging protests out in the desert to stop the oil drilling? Isn't the potential for damage the same (or worse) over there as it is in ANWR? Sounds a lot like 'not in my backyard' to me. 
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That would be a little bit of an irony, wouldn't it? I mean, how would they get there? Enjoying the conveniences of modern transportation, no doubt.
I think a little self-preservation may be a factor as well. They are infinitely more likely to wind up rotting in a real jail or worse yet, shot. I lived a funny little microcosm of this behavior myself years ago with my wife. I took her to a somewhat ritzy opening for a show in Seattle years ago (WAY out of character for me...); the PETA folks managed to splash blood on a few of the more well-dressed ladies, decrying the animal furs they were wearing. Mere days later we were in the Kingdome parking lot for a rather large and well-publicized biker event. There were more dead animal skins adorning this crowd by a factor of hundreds. Funny, PETA never showed up to splash blood on us. It seems their conviction is inversly proportional to the likelyhood of getting hurt or in serious trouble.
Anyway, all of that out of the way, I'm not sure how I feel about this morning's news. I'm a big supporter of wildlife refuges and Alaska is one of my favorite places. Is there anywhere left that we will ever agree should be completely untouched, regardless of the riches that await us there? How much oil are we talking about anyway, enough to make any difference? I think the only real impact will be to the refuge and some already very well-to-do oil baron's pocketbooks. The rest of us will never see the difference.