Saturday July 5, 2008, 9:55 am
Just what Montana - and the rest of us - need - more ugly, expensive homes, more encroachment in the Crown of the Continent ecosystem, home to grizzlies and other endangered species as well as glacier valleys, lakes and rugged forest land. More roads, enabling major water runoff. Gated communities for the super-rich. Don't it make ya wanna cheer, folks? THANKS, GEORGE, YOUR CORRUPT SOULLESS B**TARD!

Saturday July 5, 2008, 10:15 am
people have no jobs they are in india,china how are they paying for it

Saturday July 5, 2008, 10:27 am
honeysuckle, these are houses for the RICH RICH RICH...read the story. It talks about the type of people who typically buy houses in this area...LOTS start at $100,000.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 10:31 am
Scumbags!

Saturday July 5, 2008, 10:46 am
Do as much damage as they can before they leave...I second the SCUMBAGS vote Joycey!!! Cate thanks for informing us and educating!

Saturday July 5, 2008, 11:20 am
Arrrrggggghhhhhhhhhhhh,.... how much more damage can this one man do ?????

Saturday July 5, 2008, 11:54 am
Noted thanx Cate I agree. Blessings

Saturday July 5, 2008, 12:15 pm
Trees are essential to the ecology of the earth! When will these people realize that we are sealing our own doom when forests are destroyed?

Saturday July 5, 2008, 12:55 pm
What Michael said.
Noted with sadness and frustration.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 1:04 pm
I was sitting here mulling over this news and I suddenly remembered that Grand Teton National Park was only made possible because the Rockefeller family saw the land and thought it was worth preserving as open space. The donated the land to the country and Truman signed the bill creating the park.

Now, Goddess knows the Rockefellers were robber barons of the highest order, but at least they did the whole country and the environment a favor by buying up and donating the open land for this beautiful national treasure. Why doesn't some modern-day robber-baron-turned-philanthropist - oh, let's say, Bill Gates - invest a billion or so in this land and preserve it for the people, the wildlife and the ecosystem?

But oh no...he's too busy buying off Congress to give him thousands more H-1B visas so he can import more slave labor from India to work at Microsoft for thousands less than he'd have to pay the thousands of well-qualified, unemployed AMERICAN technology workers.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 1:08 pm
noted, very depressing

Saturday July 5, 2008, 1:09 pm
Wouldn't it be lovely for a huge tree to just fall on top of Bush sometime in the near future.

The man is a disgrace to all of what nature is all about!!!!!!!!

PLANT TREES FOR LIFE...............

Saturday July 5, 2008, 1:12 pm
While most of us continue to cinch up our belts with our dwindling finances others hemmorage money out their backsides to build a second home they can escape to once or twice a year....meanwhile trees are destroyed,land leveled and wildlife shuffled to survive outside their familar territories...when ( not if) the economy goes to hell the houses will be sold, or tossed off as owner file for bankruptcy...the land will eventually heal itself unless someone thinks they can make a profit off the dirt....This area is breathtaking....what a shame......

Saturday July 5, 2008, 1:28 pm
doesn't this make you so, so sad?... i don't think people like the rockefellers even exist any longer with money... now people with money can only think about me, me, me... i, i, i... my, my, my... our society has become so morally bankrupt it is pathetic... are there even philanthropists around anymore?... noted...:(

Saturday July 5, 2008, 1:30 pm
Well, Christine, to be fair, Gates has set up an Aids foundation to help Africans. But what has he done for the American people lately?

Saturday July 5, 2008, 1:58 pm
I's just hard to comprehend how people don't recognize the connection between the land and the creatures and the humans - that we are all on a continuum - that we are all part of the same grand planet, the same ecosystem.

How is it that some people can view themselves as totally apart from the world in which they live? It blows my mind....

Saturday July 5, 2008, 3:04 pm
noted thanks cate for posting. this is so sad :( too much to comment anymore,

Saturday July 5, 2008, 3:12 pm
I think I am gonna be sick.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 3:25 pm
after doing a brief reurch and I do mean brief- it seems to me that if we are interested in preserving these things then we or some one who has the money or someone who can speak for us such as an organization, or if every member here donated a dollar or 10 dollars we would have enough money to BUY these lands up for sale and hold them in reserve for animal protection,land protection ect.If we the people do not buy these lands then they the corps, will- I am off to do more research -Blessings

Saturday July 5, 2008, 3:25 pm
There are options:

That same impulse drives a different kind of land deal in the area: The buyers are the Nature Conservancy and other organizations that purchase desirable private land to preserve it. Since 2000, the groups have paid Plum Creek market rates to secure 280,000 sensitive acres in Montana alone.

Another 320,000 acres are being preserved under a provision that Sen. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) forced into the farm bill, which survived President Bush's veto. The measure includes $250 million to back bonds to buy Plum Creek lands that otherwise might be developed.


Much better idea than providing for "third and fourth" homes!!!!!!

Thanks Cate :)

Saturday July 5, 2008, 3:33 pm
Would have been a little better if the FS could have traded access for some of that timberland.

"Now that Plum Creek is getting out of the timber business, we're kind of missing the loggers." "A clear-cut will grow back, but a sub-division of trophy homes, that's going to be that way forever." Well, DUH, dumdums.

As mills and timber companies get squeezed out by lack of timber access, due at least in part to the FS offering hardly any timber sales anymore, this is what you are going to see more and more of when timber companies stop logging their lands and start thinking of them in terms of real estate instead of timber resources.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 3:46 pm
This is so so sad I so hate my family farm to be sold and probably to the coal Company!I would at least like an acre or two to save for the children AND ANIMALS!

Saturday July 5, 2008, 3:49 pm
We are not ever going to have peace and traquiltiy as long as Herr Bush and the thugs he appointed are still in office. He will do whatever it takes to continue to destroy our environment, our State Parks, our Forests, and whatever else he can steal from us if he can. Our fearless leaders in Congress and the Senate are the only one's who have the authority to stop the lunatics running the government. Even when Herr Bush is out of office I seriously doubt we will ever see the last of him. He is a black mark in our history and there's no eradicator that has been developed to erase this "black mark." Is it November yet?

Thanks Cate.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 3:51 pm
Or you can forget about the government and take personal action - support some of those organizations, like the Nature Conservancy, mentioned above.

http://www.nature.org/

Saturday July 5, 2008, 4:10 pm
I get sick each time I see how our dictator Bush is destroying the land and the people. We can vote these republicans out ASAP. We can speak up. That is why I will do everything I can to make a change...Obama.
We are the ones who will get us back to WE THE PEOPLE. Do it.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 4:15 pm
Why are the rich buying homes and land so far north? Do you think it could be that THEY KNOW the impending danger of Global warming and Climate Change in the very near future(already occuring in many places, but the Mainstream media is not inclined to scare the $%#@ out of you ,YET?), and are getting prepared? The Rich are not buying land in the Keys or Malibu, or palm springs or any where too south, thats for sure. FOLLOW THE SIGNS TO AWAKEN, OBSERVE, DON"T JUST WATCH, TO BECOME AWARE. We all know these guys are bought and paid for, I wonder why we are still suprised when they keep $$%^^& US? Spread the word but please don't spread fear, then you unknowingly help THEM. There is nothing to fear, America and other contries are more informed and mentally prepared than those cocky $%^holes know, luckily. It is there certainty that will be their demise......Thx Cate!

Also, this Mark Rey(Forest Service) guy, is a real GARBAGE CAN!. I have been tracking his activities off and on for 16 months now, he works INTENTLY on giving up all the land, etc. that he can for his corporate and governmental "bosses". Some of them don't know that they are doing wrong, this guy enjoys his work! He has very little time to switch sides, although its not too late to switch to the winning side, YET! WE STILL WELCOME ALL!

Excerpt from article_
"The deal was struck behind closed doors between Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who oversees the U.S. Forest Service, and Plum Creek Timber Co., a former logging company turned real estate investment trust that is building homes. Plum Creek owns more than 8 million acres nationwide, including 1.2 million acres in the mountains of western Montana, where local officials were stunned and outraged at the deal. "

"We have 40 years of Forest Service history that has been reversed in the last three months," said Pat O'Herren, an official in Missoula County, which is threatening to sue the Forest Service for forgoing environmental assessments and other procedures that would have given the public a voice in the matter"

Saturday July 5, 2008, 4:24 pm
The "Denialists" call us "alarmists" with disdain, lol. I like the name, most people can't wake up with out an ALARM these days! RRRRRRING , WAKE UP PLEASE! OUR PLANET IS DYING.........NEEDS OUR HELP!

Saturday July 5, 2008, 5:00 pm
Oh how very sad, that with his last breath in office, Bush is first, last, and always about the almighty dollar. I hope the people in Montana scream their heads off, and petition the forest service until their computers crash.....would sign petitions myself! Thanks for info, Cate.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 5:08 pm
The rich are buying homes in the north because the land is still relatively unspoiled and unpeopled and they already have homes in Florida or Palm Springs.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 5:49 pm
Donni- Gee, thx for clarifying, lol.

Saturday July 5, 2008, 5:58 pm
You're so welcome, Serge.