>"why is it that the environmentalists always seem to be in some sort of conspiracy against free enterprise?"

Tom is always harping about any kind of restriction on business. It seems it is his personal cross to bear in this lifetime. And his missive.
And he's always predictable about it too. You may try and reason with him, but you won't be the first.

That's just Tom. And sometimes I think he does it just to get us all riled up and debate him. He can be hysterically funny when he's not complaining. I like that part of his personality best (when he looks for the humor in things, not the financial rape).

Hey, are you going to put up your profile on the Album page? I had mine up for years, but asked Robert Shepherd to take it down after being dogged endlessly and very mean-spiritedly by a fellow Zoner. I've thought about putting it back up again, but it needs updating.

We also have a HZ fund which I think three people have donated a small amount of money to. For me, it was just a matter of good faith as Robert Shepherd has done a good job of keeping this place on line and all of it's participants IN line (well......almost).
The Zone has been instrumental in making me question my place in this world and it's values, because of the feedback. It's harder to be an isolationist if you come here daily. It increased my writing skills as well because I like this medium for expression, and I have been published in magazines several times. (My old English teacher who's a 33` Mason, is very proud of me.)

A good deal of us started off on the old MSNBC Space Science board back in 97-98, and moved here when that board went down.