Remember our old friend, Craig Thomas? [See "This is Embarrassing I, II and III] Now he's working on a pipeline job in Nevada - and he's sent us some pictures that prove you can use logging equipment in mountains where there isn't a tree in sight.

Meanwhile, bark beetles continue their murderous assault on federal forests in the Intermountain West and the ignoramuses on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals continue to do the dirty work for radical environmentalists who see nothing morally or ethically wrong with their litigious opposition to thinning in at-risk federal forests that are being wiped out by bark beetles and inevitable wildfire.

Craig Thomas and his equipment, at work on a pipeline job in Nevada's rugged mountains, are pictured below.  In a saner world, he and his equipment would be working in dead timber you can see from his front yard in western Montana's Bitterroot Valley.

Click below to read a story from the Nov. 15, 2010 edition of the Albany, Oregon Democrat-Herald. Thereafter, you will better understand why we wrote "This is Embarrassing I, II and III.

Craig says he "misses home." We suppose his wife and kids miss him too. But at least he's working, which is more than can be said for the thousands of unemployed loggers who could be working in the millions of acres of dead and dying timber than now dominate the West's federally-owned landscape.

11-15-10 Oregon Democrat-Herald