Reply #19: I live in the wilds of the NC mountains.

[DemoTex]

I am sandwiched in between the Nantahala and Pisgah National Forests. In the early 1900s the robber barons clear-cut the timber from this land. What we have now is relatively new growth, and it took 100 years to get that. They hired bounty hunters to come in and kill the pesky panthers, black bears, and other critters of the forest. The black bears are, again, plentiful. Panthers are making a slow comeback from near extinction in these parts.

I fully expect President Kerry, as one of his first orders of business, to issue Executive Orders re-instating all pre-Bu$h environmental regulations. In fact, if Kerry doesn't get a bad case of writers' cramp from signing Executive Orders in the first days of his administration, he won't be doing his job.