"Well, I stand up next to a mountain and I chop it down with the edge of my hand" -- Jimi Hendrix Voodoo Child
"The Bush administration is set to issue a regulation on Friday that would enshrine the coal mining practice of mountaintop removal. The technique involves blasting off the tops of mountains and dumping the rubble into valleys and streams?'This is a parting gift to the coal industry from this administration,' said Joe Lovett, executive director of the Appalachian Center for the Economy and the Environment in Lewisburg, W.Va. `What is at stake is the future of Appalachia. This is an attempt to make legal what has long been illegal.'"
The Bush administration continues to overwhelm my capacity for outrage.
"The bottom line is the Appalachian coalfields, our native ecosystem, is going to get hammered," he said. "It is just a matter of how long it takes to get it done, and are we willing to play it out in advance to minimize the damages and maximize the post-mining uses of the impacted lands."