Link

Wow, these ELF guys are brilliant. Way to encourage environmentally conscious construction, guys. I realize they burned them because ELF felt that the houses were not as environmentally friendly as they claimed, but in effect what they did was burn some houses that were trying to be more environmentally friendly and ignored all the other houses that are openly not eco-friendly. Thus the lesson: If you try to be environmentally friendly, ELF will burn your house down if you fail. If you say "screw it" and don't try at all, and don't make any claims, they'll leave you alone.
Or do you think, perhaps, that was not the message they were trying to send?

Fire District 7 is one of those semirural areas outside of Everett that's really suffering from sudden buildup. Despite national trends, property values are still skyrocketing as new, expensive buildings go in and new people move to the area (a great deal of it is suburban growth from Everett... which many consider to be a suburb of Seattle) leaving a lot of the locals with older homes suddenly paying for their neighbors expenses with increased property tax, road and school levies, and the like.

A lot of the recent housing developments in the area are pretty vulgar. Very little environmental sensitivity has gone into their construction, and it's getting frustrating to look up at what used to be forested hills above small towns and see clearcuts filling with manufactured homes growing like cancer. I'm a city boy, myself, and I appreciate the need for development... but urban density is needed, not more sprawl. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if this was a fake ELF event... the recent trial in the area has given them a lot of attention, and a local deciding to burn some of the places down and throw up a fake sign wouldn't require too much effort to imagine.

Good point. Someone's getting a very large insurance settlement for an over-priced "eco-friendly" luxury house. Er, four of them.

Hmmm... sounds like a plot hook or two?

ELF has done this before, and regularly enjoy burning things. I always thought that rather curious since burning stuff, especially houses with modern insulation and hummers with all the gross stuff in them, is very environmentally unfriendly. They really should find another method of destroying stuff.

(IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif) Only in this place...

If it really was the ELF, it would be totally funny to point out to the ELF the irony that eco-friendly or not, burning those houses released a metric TON of pollutants into the atmosphere.

We need radical environmentalists like this that do not think before they leap. How else will we get radical groups in the future such as Alamos 20,000?

ELF is what you get when a bunch of angry college kids with half a brain apiece decide to get environmentally involved in a "direct action" kind of way. The smart guys don't tend to get caught, or at least realize that looking like a bunch of kooks and burning shit down doesn't really bring people around to your point of view. You gotta contend with market forces, man...

I really wanna just go, "Hey, guys! Way to be carbon-neutral!"

Seriously, though? The ELF and the ALF and all the eco-crazy groups tend to be just a little bit culty and full of crazies.

To be fair, Alamos 20,000 has been pretty successful at what they do.

I also spotted this up on CNN today. Sort of linked in the whole eco-whacko attack scenario...

Link

Something is wrong with people who would endanger human beings to save animals. Whales are great and I don't support whaling, but these people are nuts.

This thread is tagged RL but I continue to want to post in character. Mostly in response to the comments.

must... show.... restraint..

In Shadowrun, they would have released a magical kudzu bomb that would have caused explosive plant growth to surge through the houses, wrecking them entirely, down to even the foundation. Now THAT would have been eco-terrorism. Not like these morons (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

Seriously, when you subtitle a thread "God damn hippies" and start calling people nuts, you're just asking for your thread to turn into a flame war. I'm not judging; I get into it over politics myself from time to time.

I really have to restrain myself here. I really don't want this to turn into a thread about how I, for one, value the lives of whales over those of most people. Because it started out as such a beautiful opportunity for us to all hate each other over the issue of whether or not rich people deserve to live in a world where they can be guaranteed that their house won't be burnt down, when worse than this happens to poor neighborhoods everyday. Nobody really wants to see where all this is going, because we do it so often in threads that WEREN'T designed to promote such conflict.

Just be a little more tolerant when starting threads about hot-button issues.

just like PETA

Am i the only one that found this a hilarious pun? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/rotfl.gif)

In their defense, the amount of pollutants released by a few burning homes is trivial compared to global automobile use, forest fires, volcanoes, and cow farts. Farts alone contribute more to global warming that the other three leading causes combined, with volcanoes coming in a distant second.


And the real point of setting things on fire is to gain attention for the cause. No publicity is bad publicity and even people who disagree with their methods might agree that building those sorts of homes in that area is a bad idea. It worked for Nelson Mandela when he blew stuff up (and conspired to blow people up) to bring attention to the injustice of Apartheid. It also worked in this case. I had no clue about that HOusing development untill reading that story and now I'm opposed to it on principal.

First, my apologies if you were offended. I had no intention of "promoting such conflict" when I posted.

Second, valuing the lives of whales over people does not legitimize attacks on human beings. If you reread my statement I said quite clearly that I am against whaling, but I am opposed to their methods. If you are saying that attacking people is an okay way to convey your opposition to whaling, then we can certainly agree to disagree. I personally have little tolerance for that kind of "protest".

I value the lives of sentient beings over those of non-sentient beings. Seems like a good place to draw a line.

"I value the lives of sentient beings over those of non-sentient beings. Seems like a good place to draw a line."

Do you value the lives of intelligent humans, over the lives of unintelligent humans, such as newborns? Or does the newborn's mere potential to develop intelligence qualify for value? Just asking...

That depends on how one defines "sentient" doesn't it. For most people, the definition tends to be limited to beings that they can communicate with. If not for the fact that some Jews could speak English, the Final Solution would have been seen as an ecologically unsound attempt to rip Europe of an annoying species of animal.

Given that some great apes are fluent in American sign language and are perfectly about to converse with humans using it, I find it silly to assume that a creature isn't sentient just because it doesn't have the vocal apparatus required to speak English.

Did I do that at any point?

Creatures with the potential to develop sentience within their lifetime (babies are a good example) get to be in the upper rung of my hierarchy. Creatures that might do it sometime down the evolutionary road don't get to sit on the same rung as those that are already or will become (in their lifetimes) sentient.

Jeez, people. It is a post about environmental radicals harming other people for the sake of what they believe to be environmentally and ecologically wrong. This thread is meant to convey real world links to events that are similar to ecoterrorism in Shadowrun, not to inspire hate and conflict... And where the hell did that transgress into eliminating the Jews? Calm down, have some dip and stop looking for strife and conspiracy where there is none, some people are capable of posting things without the intent of pissing people off.