Even though California is home to some of the richest companies in the world (Google, Apple, HP, Facebook, Wells Fargo, Disney, etc. ) and many of the world’s richest people (Steve Jobs, George Lucas, Mark Zuckerberg, the Getty family, Larry Ellison, Sergey Brin, Larry Page, the Hearst family, Charles Schwab, etc.) for some reason the state can’t seem to do much in the way of collecting enough tax money to run things. And that’s why the state park system, a state park system that is the envy of most entire nations, is out of cash and doing incredibly dumb and desperate things to make up for a $22 million budget cut. (That’s a whopping 59 cents per California resident, by the way.) So people are coming up with ideas! Ideas like, “Let’s turn over the state’s wilderness parks to off-road motorcyclists and quads and other exhaust-belching land-raping cretin machines.”
Yubanet posts this horrifyingly headlined article, Off-Roaders Seek Takeover of California Parks:
Grasping to recoup a $10 million cut in the California Off Highway Vehicle (OHV) budget, off-road lobbyists are urging compensation via a takeover of state park units. The idea, seconded by some state officials, surfaced at an “emergency” March OHV Commission meeting but was not published until posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).
One of the state parks specifically targeted is Henry Coe, the largest state park in Northern California. The 87,000-acre park in Morgan Hill (near San Jose) provides a major outlet for hiking, fishing and other outdoor activities. The park does not allow motorized recreation.
“We should not take these threats lightly. For some reason, the off-roaders seem to have a lot of traction with State Parks Director Ruth Coleman,” warned California PEER Director Karen Schambach, noting that Coleman is a holdover Schwarzenegger appointee. “Look what she has allowed them to get away with in Red Rock Canyon State Park.”
(What has happened in Red Rock Canyon State Park, a stunning arid wilderness at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountains that has long been loved by family campers and used as a living geology lab by the state’s college students, is that off-road vehicles are now tearing the hell out of the place.)
With 70 of California’s 278 state parks up for closure during this current make-believe budget crisis, the fear is that many of these natural areas will become prey to the industrial-criminal marijuana farmers, timber harvesters and animal poachers — or just be trashed by people who see a forest and think, “That’s a great place to dump this couch and these 300 cans of half-used paint.” But the OHV proposal would be actual state-sanctioned destruction of the last places in our society set aside for quiet, non-motorized use by human beings. Welcome to Sarah Palin’s America! It’s going to get a lot worse. [PEER]
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Off Roader: Look at that pretty nature, I want to drive the shit out of it.
WHOOO-HAAAAAWWWW!!!
(roar)
WHOOO-HAAAAAWWWW!!!
Fixed.
Quit copying off of Skoalrebel.
It will grow back, that is how plants work. #howdofuckingplantsworkinruttedmudafterbeingcrushedbymassivetires
Carlin said it best – if we can't fuck it, we kill it. In this case, a little of the former, a lot of the latter.
Virgin land!
Yes, let's turn our parks into mud-pits. Even better, sell rights to explode parts of them with big stacks of dynamite. That'll bring in some yahoo cash.
Assuming this would also have the tangible side-effect of taking out a few dynamite-wielding rednecks, I deem this proposal full of win.
Most common last words in the South?
"Hey, y'all, watch THIS!!"
If you can't drive your snow machine through Red Rock Canyon, all of Paul Revere's midnight bell-ringing will have been in vain.
Besides, Off-roaders are just patriots who want to warn the British about the ongoing revolution…
It's OK by me, so long as we're permitted to hunt off-roaders by helicopter.
Great idea: let four wheelers finish the job Ahnuld started!
Those maids aren't going to impregnate themselves.
Seriously…is there anything (or anybody) Gov Meathead didn't fuck?
That depends. Do you mean physically or metaphorically?
All of 'em, Katie. (sorry, I know promised not to use that one again).
Fuck that, make them use 3 wheelers again, and they'll all be dead in short order. And no free healthcare for their injuries, free markets, bitches!
Must be a few gallons of oil under those parks–time to drill, baby, drill!
Stay tuned… You can't fuck nature up the ass without lots and lots of light, sweet crude. Why not rob her while you're raping her? That there is just plain 'Murkan know-how and efficiency.
If there were oil, those things would be closed QUICKFAST.
A gentlemen will get mother nature drunk with greenhouse gases before drilling in her back door.
If these roadless wilderness areas don't want off-road vehicles, they can just put in roads. Simple as that. I mean, does New York City have problems with off-roaders? I don't think so.
You can always use your off-roader to navigate the pot holes on the BQE.
We do, but it rarely works out well.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dannydaly/5189017710...
"I mean, does New York City have problems with off-roaders? I don't think so."
*bangs on car hood with fists*
"I'M WALKIN' HERE! I'M WALKIN' HERE!!"
Don't bother converting the park, just go straight to mountaintop removal and strip mining.
Funny. I live in California and could swear they've already done that.
Every time you try to limit the areas available to off-roaders they start screaming about some kind of constitutional right to do donuts in the middle of a meadow.
My favorite recent local crime-blotter headline was about some methhead OHV guy calling the police because his ATV was missing, and he "didn't know if it was stolen by acquaintances or repossessed."
I thought the woman shoplifting meat from the local Pick n' Save by sticking it down her pants was the worst police blotter I would see. But, no.
Just thinking aloud here, but maybe I could top them both by stealing somebody's quad, then using that to go on a shoplifting spree at the ol' Pick n' Save. Drive that sucker right in through the the automatic doors…
"The librul eco-terr'ist took muh damn ve-hickle."
One of the local radio stations in NC used to broadcast stories like this on "The Wayne Lee Ray Update".
My absolute favorite was the two guys who stole a safe off a loading dock, towed it behind their car, and finally blasted it open. Turns out it was empty.
Freedom to burn as much gasoline as I can is inseperable for these yahoos from being an American. In what other wealthy country do such large percentages burn so much gas in so many stupid ways?
Apparently the constitution is written on a gas can.
It's California; I'd expect the state parks to be destroyed by an earthquake, wildfire or mudslide, not assholes.
This is America – assholes have first dibs on everything.
Schwartzenegger. All of the above.
It's still America, Soros. Assholes abound.
Don't lump in the marihoolio farmers with these off-road cretins. They provide the only service that'll get us through the mess that'll come when the shit REALLY hits the fan.
The guys who farm in Federal and state lands are scary fucks, shooting folks on sight and such. Support your local hydroponics dealer!
I have a tough time supporting asshats that voted against legalization in order to make sure they kept that sweet, sweet, caysh flow going.
"They provide the only service that'll get us through the mess that'll come when the shit REALLY hits the fan."
a/k/a "Dope will get you through times of no money better than money will get you through times of no dope".
What a great idea. Let's open up all the nation's parks for motorized fun – motorcycling in Yellowstone, driving your jeep through Glacier. I'm sure Teddy Roosevelt would approve.
I'm worried though. People might get hurt when their vehicles collide with oil drilling machines.
Remember, if every inch of wilderness is not paved over and made into strip malls and subdivisions with tract housing that is promptly foreclosed on by the banks, the atheist-communist-Kenyan-Muslin terrorists win.
This would be good for Minnesota, also. Boundary Waters ATV Area has a nice ring to it.
Fuck these half measures lets go the Full Monty. Off road vehicle racing, machine gun firing ranges, cruise missle test sites, teenage drinking hideaways, Republican rape camps, for profit prisons, endangered species fast food, coin operated dioxin showers and spent fuel nuclear storage in Cabelas pup tents.
We are all Mericans, Lou Sarah is our queen and we are exceptional, like the little colored babies with their hearts born on the outside.
What good is all this Nature shit if we don't destroy it for kicks?
You misspelled nucular. Or was that intentional? Damned pendants…
Fuckin' nature! How does that shit work?
Whoever invented those machines should be tried for crimes against humanity.
Whoever bought those damn things will eventually be buried under them, so it's a wash.
The inventors have long since shuffled off this mortal coil, and are therefore exempt from prosecution. Still, I cannot hate them for this, but rather blame the poor manners of their most recent generations of acolytes.
It's 11:21 AM.
Too soon to start drinking?
~
Thunder, it's 5: 21 pm somewhere!
Just use the "It's 5 pm somewhere" excuse.
"Does anybody really know what time it is?"
Does anybody care?
Time is an illusion.
It's time to start boozin'.
Literally or hypothetically? …I don't understand the question.
It's NEVER too soon!
If you hadn't stopped drinking you wouldn't be asking these damn foolish questions!
I hoped you have learned your lesson!
The urge to power-roll through an inherently quiet sanctuary isn't entirely lost on me. On Fridays, when most everyone else in the office is flex-scheduled absent or working from home? I'm sorely tempted to lace up my roller skates and take a few laps through the cubicle farm.
Cool. I'll bring my rollerblades and a couple brooms. We'll have our own Stanley Cup final in your office. I'm sure you can find a few trashcans for goals and a really stale bagel for a puck.
(I get to be the Canucks)
Apparently, office chair races are a real sport:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SoGLrznAvTg
In order to protect that resource of civilization, I'm afraid the editor of Wonkette is going to need to take protective custody of your fancy Parisian flat.
I'm a hiker. I carry caltrops.
Bring it on.
If I said "me too," I would be admitting to some sort of eco-terrorism.
Three things:
Hiking gloves
They're reusable
You're in a fucking forest, with no shortage of places to hide and laugh your ass off.
With any luck, a good portion of the quad-bikers will Darwin themselves out of the gene pool.
Wait–isn't Ken's desert compound somewhere near Darwin?
(Mine is…)
Seriously, I once had a hairdresser whose father was decapitated in a snowmobile/wire fence encounter. I felt bad for her, but really…fuck those people.
"decapitated in a snowmobile/wire fence encounter"
What, did somebody get fed up with the noise and string up the wire at neck level?
So let me get this straight, we are going to ruin the parks to save them? What the fuck is wrong with these people? All though, I wouldn't mind driving an off road vehicle over a couple of republicans.
It really couldn't possibly get any worse on Highway 1. At least scooters and golf carts are easier to get around than the rented motorhouses and Family Trucksters that currently impede progress along every single kilometer of that once magnificent road…
Yes.
Can you go muddin' with tracked-wheel backhoes and tower-building cranes?
One option in states with tanks and army training posts (Fort Hood, TX; Fort Bliss TX, Fort Knox, KY, etc) would be to open all military tank trails to the general public, while Abrams crews are in training. Holy crap that would be awesome.
For some reason, the off-roaders seem to have a lot of traction with State Parks Director Ruth Coleman
I'll bet it's those knobby tires on their ATVs!
They can drive their vehicles through my park if I am allowed to hunt them from a helicopter.
Perfect. There's a TV show in this, "The Drivin' Redneck": halfwits on ATVs attempt to negotiate a post-2011 state park obstacle course whilst hemp-clothed liberals take potshots at them with mock-pearl-handled revolvers fired from biofuel powered helicopters. Win a case of pabst or become tree fertilizer!
I think the same thing about golf courses. "They can play," I state vociferously, "but they will be hunted."
“That’s a great place to dump this couch and shoot up these 300 cans of half-used paint with mah new .55 cal hand-cannon! Murka! Weeee-doggies!”
The main things they like to shoot up are U.S. national park signs and old television sets. Which is kind of weird, because they claim to love the USA more than anything, and it is an uncontested fact that they spend all non-shooting/non-offroading time sitting in front of a teevee with a couple of five-dollar Little Caesar anusroni pizzas balanced on their bellies.
I think it's how self-loathing manifests itself when one can't talk or write good.
All National Parks should be opened to off roading as well. Start with Arlington National Cemetary. Becuz freedum isn't free, but sometimes it is dumb.
Gertrude Stein?
I made a mistake at staying in a state park that allowed offroadvehicles once because it was on the way from somewhere to somewhere. As I recall, they had a motors-off curfew, but I also recall not getting any sleep to speak of, and swearing "NEVER AGAIN", and vowing to look for a nice quiet hotel built directly over an interstate.
A former neighbor had a souped-up four wheeler that his kid rode around on weekends and after school. Let's just say that they can thank the Brady law. I was ecstatic when they
lost the housemoved.Some small, tasteful development should accompany the increased use of off road vehicles. A few Wal-Marts with multi-acre parking lots will bring in much needed revenue and offer employment for the displaced armadillos and other fauna.
Won't the Rapture finally come when the last national forest has been destroyed by ATVs?
It's really hard to decide what would be a better use of my time right now – chaining myself to the new coal plant my county wants to build, or chaining myself to an ancient growth tree in California.
Block the coal firing plant. They put out mercury over a wide area, in addition to other contaminants and greenhouse gases.
As someone who has the folks over from Europe and took them to a rather nice California state park yesterday only to find it was fucking shut on Mondays due to budget constraints, this one is cutting close to the bone.
There was a ballot measure on the last gubernatorial election sheet addressing exactly this issue: funding for state parks. It asked for an extra $10 fee on vehicle licensing in order to pay for park funding.
Of course, this was voted down, because what? Ten dollars more tax on Muh Car!?!? For some stupid trees and shit???
Now the same numbskulls who voted down that ballot measure are crying because a good chunk of the state parks will be shut down come September. It seems other, even more antisocial numbskulls want to drive their cacophonous two-stroke penis substitutes all over the fucking place. Hurrah.
Sorry that this has been USDA certified 100% snark-free, but I'm really fucking pissed off about it all.
So Mother Nature gets Mondays off now?
No wonder the weather and shit is so screwed up now. Let that stuff just go one day unsupervised and everything goes to hell.
Reminds me of the old, disabled tea baggers who show-up at the tea bag rallies and bitch about federal spending. When they learn we're going to cut federal spending by cutting their old age and disability benefits, they cry, "I DIDN'T MEAN FOR YOU TO CUT MY BENEFITS!!"
It's too bad more people don't get pissed off.
Look on the bright side: a lot of those parks are probably dangerous places to drive – hell, the one has canyon in the name – and many of these asshats will probably be driving through them drunk and bash their heads open.
Also, can anyone explain the appeal of driving an ATV? I know absolutely no one who's into it, but that may come from being a city boy.
"can anyone explain the appeal of driving an ATV?"
I've heard that you put in a card and take out cash. Maybe that's it.
Out here in rural NJ the most common place to ride is along railroad tracks, which if you think about it – is self limiting the population of ATV riders.
Add to this the fact that these idiots think the tracks are abandonned if they don't see a train come along in 10 seconds.
"and many of these asshats will probably be driving through them drunk and bash their heads open."
And then the state will spend millions looking for the body while the crying spouse gets their face time on the cable news circuit.
I'm running a little late re Wonkette, but let me hope that any such parks will become even more dangerous places to drive.
$22 million is pocket change for any of the zillionaires mentioned in the story. Or they could wait until their wealth gets confiscated and distributed by a People's Committee for State Parks.
They'd still park in the handy spaces with no tags because, "by god, I pay for these spots!"
In one way, I love these machines, bcause they do Darwin's work of weeding out the weak-minded. They wreak carnage on the fucktards. The worst accidents are of course always preceded by the words "hey, ya'll, watch this."
Alas, they don't kill or cripple nearly enough.
They're dangerous, expensive and they use gasoline. They stink and kids get killed every year hot dogging on them. There ought to be a huge-ass tax on owning one, then we could use the money for maintaining the parks for us normal people who like some peace and quiet in the Great Outdoors.
Hooray! No taxes! Everything is better now!
elitist.
*sobs* Jealousy rising.
Well, we do have our off-the-road-vehicular nuisances here too, in the form of motor scooters driving on already narrow and frequently dog-shit desmirched sidewalks. Still…
"that off-road vehicles are now tearing the hell out of the place"
They're also costing more in damages to natural resources and facilities than could ever be collected in entrance fees or off road licenses.
How do you put a cost on a stupid old fern anyway?
Robespierre?
It amazes me what voters reject as "increased taxes" when some of the amounts are so miniscule. Fifty-nine cents? Fuck CA, here's a dollar. You can keep the change.
Maybe we could have a bake sale and raise some money for CA.
I will bring Brownies.
Great. They, and the Boy Scouts, can do the baking.
I have a better idea. Let's open Darrel Issa's lawn to off-roaders.
Fuck Prop 13 all to Hell
Succinct.
David Brower spins in his grave. Except he probably was cremated.
Even though I was stupid enough to vote Reagan in 1980, I do remember that junior high year of prop 13 when I read the pros and cons of the measure on a display at the local lie-berry. (Socialist book reading.)
I remember thinking that prop 13 was going to be very bad, no matter what my parents said.
As explained to me by an Off Road Vehicle enthusiast:
"If you belong to Sierra Club, that is bad. Because they want to keep all the land for themselves so OHV people can't destroy it"
SIERRA CLUBBERS ARE GREEDY!!!!
Strauss-Kahn?
too apoplectic to write
4-wheeling: When you're too fat to hike. No wonder conservatives love it.
Off-road Hoverounds? USA USA USA!
I've actually heard the excuse that an older gentleman simply can't get around to go elk hunting because of his arthritis, so he NEEDS an ATV. I don't know how the old coot manages to see well enough to aim at an animal, let alone bring it down and haul it back to his $40,000 Ford truck.
The parks will be much, much better for this. Because we will be able smell those emissions so much better once all the goddamn wildflowers have been flattened by mud tires.
I suppose you can get a nice close up view of nature after you run it over.
Man vs Nature: The Road to Victory
If there is a Hell, Howard Jarvis is on endless bukkake detail.
I have some experience with the clash between off-roaders and other users of park land here in CA and there is no greater difference between two groups of people. There is no common ground at all. I have to wonder if they could even reproduce. The cutting of our government here in CA is deliberately being done so things like this can happen. The Party of Me is about to take over.
No snark here: I honestly wonder what will be left for my daughter (and hopefully, my grandchildren)?
I picture something from a sci-fi movie where they live as the elite and very well on scavaging, licking out refuse bins and delicious roadkill.
What do these folks do all day/week that makes them love noise? Could they go to the freeway and just set up a lawn chair and eat their Fritos?
Damn wilderness bein' all quiet and such!
They like to go "vrooom, vrooom." thats it, thats what they do, they go "vroom vroom", up and back, back and forth, "vroom vroom." They are fucktarded. Here in the watery archipelago wherein I dwell, they buy jet-skis, or Fountain raceboats, and they likewise go "vroom vroom, vroom vroom," up and down, back and forth, but on the water, you see, it is "vroom vroom" on the water. The water is slightly softer than the rocks of the desert, even at high speed, so not nearly enough are killed in the frequent stupidity-induced accidents.
There are better ways to get that.
The Henry Coe Memorial Wal-Mart!
off-road lobbyists are urging compensation via a takeover of state park units.
There is no compensation for a budget cut–it would take someone as stupid/evil as an OTR lobbyist to come up with the concept. What is the compensation for unemployed workers whose income support has been cut?
Henry Miller?
Nah, Henry just slept on your sofa until you kicked him out.
I had to go to Moscow to defend Trotzky in absentia. It couldn't be helped.
Really Sad. Henry Coe is, indeed, a beautiful state park.
The problem goes back to the "No New Taxes or Fees" people. They are getting what they deserve.
Eventually, when gasoline is $10 a gallon, these schmucks won't be able to ride their wheels anyway. Fuck 'em.
A little Clothesline Justice will remedy this.
# WINNING
Awful. Henry Coe? I mean, this is a park that makes most national parks seem inadequate by comparison. Last time I was there I hiked in the fog for less than three hours and saw 2 bald eagles, a flock of wild turkeys, several dozen deer, three coyotes, and a bobcat. It's spectacular – one of the few true wilderness experiences one can still have within 100 miles of the Bay Area. If the off-road people want a nature spot to wreck, how about giving them back the area around New Idria, where for years they used to create huge dust clouds with their ATV's until a nice geologist pointed out that they were riding around in ASBESTOS.
I understand Ken's point, but hey, what the heck am I supposed to do with this old couch and all these half empty cans of paint on my front lawn??
Put the "Show the Birth Certificate" sign right between 'em
Tax the marihuana farmers.
There, solved. How easy was that?
Keep your damn taxes off my weed, bro…
Hayduke Lives!!!
I really, honestly wonder what it must be like to not be able to recognize beauty, let alone consciously wanting to actively destroy it. Do ATV drivers like beating up Jared Leto in warehouse basements?
When are we going to realize that roaring through the woods on an ATV is a stupid waste of gasoline? If you can't go on foot or on horseback, stay home, idiots. Oh, and keep your food wrappers and pop cans out of the woods, too.
We long to see your view of other brick buildings.
Ah, Paris!
How romantic–if seeing concrete and bricks gives you a hard on…
Jason Bourne?
Eventually all parks will be privatized and turned into 'members only' venues for the diminishing supply of WASPs.
ugh, I wish you could put IEDs under these abominations, as well as "jet-skis"
Fucking dumbasses never quit. Just returned from walking the dog on a local beach, from which ATVs and other vehicles were blocked about 6 summers ago, and which has started to look halfway decent again – grass, flowers, wildfowl, bears, deer, otters, mink…and dumbass humans who leave burnpits full of cans, glass, and nails from pallets. Not to mention the places in the bushes used for latrines, complete with toilet paper – so dainty, eh?
Hey, it's a public beach, must be OK to dump all the trash one possibly can, right?
And now, back to my 15 minutes of sanity retrieval via Wonkette…
Well, it's not like running all those sporty vee-hick-yules will funnel ass-tons of money to those terraist muslin countries or anything.
You have our deepest sympathy.
Burning down an apartment building is eco-terrorism. Burning down a state park is fiscal responsibility.
It's a lot like the way mothers and children are anti-family.
We were just at Big Basin to see the redwoods. We are from Chicago but there were people from all over the world going on the many hiking trails. I can't imagine a bunch of off-roader machines ruining the quiet, not being able to hear the bird calls because some oaf is too lazy to walk.
My son hates everything about California except the wonderful federal, state, and local city parks. Other than his grandparents living there and those parks, he'd never go back.
They don't move to rural areas because non-rural areas are noisy, they move to rural areas to get away from "urban" (if you know who I mean) people and people who have ever read a book that isn't the bible.
By the way, percentage of noisy off-road vehicles owned by folks living in quiet rural areas?
A friend of mine made the point that since the U.S. is now in hock to other countries, one way to recoup that might be to promote tourism. We have lots of beautiful parks and scenery that other countries don't have, and it's something that's impossible to outsource.
Or we could, you know, just let stupid people spoil a priceless resource forever for no real reason.
"It would be like collocating an artillery practice range and a daycare center to save space and money"
AND get rid of those pesky teachers' unions!
Money gained opening stateparks for offroaders 10million. Cost to the tax payer patrolling,responding to emergencies and increase risk of fires, priceless.
i just had a lovely memory of parisian grace.
Coe may be my favorite park in Northern California, actually. It's massive, and the wilderness area is usually devoid of huge school groups and backpacking newbies, especially since many of the trails are ass-kickers.
The last thing we need is OHVs zoom-zooming all over the backcountry. A lot of the trails are already suffering from erosion, and because the park is largely chaparral, it's subject to fires (sometimes huge ones) in the summer. Frankly, I don't trust OHV operators to use spark arrestors or follow any kind of wilderness ethic – if you're the kind of person who thinks the best way to experience nature is from atop a gas-guzzling, fume-belching death-machine, you probably aren't super into the whole "leave no trace" thing.
…and they don't stop after two grunts and a shove…
Also, that's a promise meant to be broken, too.
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