Mike Vandeman, a martyr for the environment, railroaded by invented evidence

This Mike Vandeman business is absolutely amazing. He is accused on a
collection of charges that were dug out of people's memories from long
ago in an emotional atmosphere with a great many similarities to child
molestation cases where every single charge was fabricated and plated
by overwrought social workers, and every conviction was overturned on
appeal.

Vandeman is accused of assaulting and threatening people, but there
are no wounds to show, not even the tyre he is accused of damaging.
One would think that a guy who'll cut a tyre will cut a hated mountain
biker, but apparently not. All there is -- wait for it! -- is a little
saw used for marking trails and cutting off small branches hanging
over paths. For a little saw Mike Vandeman is going to jail. And for
telling a bunch of hooligans that a path is closed to mountain
bikes...

Where I live middle aged ladies keep a little saw in the car. It isn't
to attack anyone with, or to defend themselves. It is used to "crop
the long acre" -- to dash out of the car, take a cutting from a hedge,
and be gone back to their own gardens to plant it. If someone says,
"Hey, that's my hedge," or "Hey, that's a protected plant," these
motherly ladies will stand there with their little, and go to jail for
it if some malicious person, months later, wants to inflate the
incident to show solidarity with his fellow yobs.

A normal way to carry a little saw is in the hand down by one's thigh,
for a trailmarker, for a lady gardener, for anyone. But that clown of
a reporter, Peter Frick-Wright, as biased as one would expect from his
affiliations, turns it into a threat with an analogy of a conveniently
seen street hood holding a knife by his thigh. This is a very unlikely
story, but Mr Frick-Fright has dreams of a graphic novel, which must
have *visual* elements.

This entire trial is a scandal of bad faith, bad evidence, bad law.
The DA who brought the charge should be recalled, the witnesses who
perjured themselves, and anyway made their animosity to Vandeman
clear, should be charged and jailed, and those in the mountain biking
community who stoked up this matter and coached the witnesses should
be charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

If Mike Vandeman is jailed, or fined, or warned, or banned, or in any
way censured or sanctioned by the Judge, American law will be an ass
-- and Vandeman will be a martyr for the environment.

Funny how the global warmies on RBT don't stand up for the environment
when it is Mike Vandeman protecting it against wreckers on mountain
bikes.

Andre Jute
Conservationist

On Mar 22, 3:37 am, Andre Jute wrote:
This Mike Vandeman business is absolutely amazing. He is accused on a
collection of charges that were dug out of people's memories from long
ago in an emotional atmosphere with a great many similarities to child
molestation cases where every single charge was fabricated and plated
by overwrought social workers, and every conviction was overturned on
appeal.

Vandeman is accused of assaulting and threatening people, but there
are no wounds to show, not even the tyre he is accused of damaging.
One would think that a guy who'll cut a tyre will cut a hated mountain
biker, but apparently not. All there is -- wait for it! -- is a little
saw used for marking trails and cutting off small branches hanging
over paths. For a little saw Mike Vandeman is going to jail. And for
telling a bunch of hooligans that a path is closed to mountain
bikes...

Where I live middle aged ladies keep a little saw in the car. It isn't
to attack anyone with, or to defend themselves. It is used to "crop
the long acre" -- to dash out of the car, take a cutting from a hedge,
and be gone back to their own gardens to plant it. If someone says,
"Hey, that's my hedge," or "Hey, that's a protected plant," these
motherly ladies will stand there with their little, and go to jail for
it if some malicious person, months later, wants to inflate the
incident to show solidarity with his fellow yobs.

A normal way to carry a little saw is in the hand down by one's thigh,
for a trailmarker, for a lady gardener, for anyone. But that clown of
a reporter, Peter Frick-Wright, as biased as one would expect from his
affiliations, turns it into a threat with an analogy of a conveniently
seen street hood holding a knife by his thigh. This is a very unlikely
story, but Mr Frick-Fright has dreams of a graphic novel, which must
have *visual* elements.

This entire trial is a scandal of bad faith, bad evidence, bad law.
The DA who brought the charge should be recalled, the witnesses who
perjured themselves, and anyway made their animosity to Vandeman
clear, should be charged and jailed, and those in the mountain biking
community who stoked up this matter and coached the witnesses should
be charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

If Mike Vandeman is jailed, or fined, or warned, or banned, or in any
way censured or sanctioned by the Judge, American law will be an ass
-- and Vandeman will be a martyr for the environment.

Funny how the global warmies on RBT don't stand up for the environment
when it is Mike Vandeman protecting it against wreckers on mountain
bikes.

Andre Jute
Conservationist

So, you think being in the woods on foot is kosher for the
environment, while being there on two wheels is destroying it. Many
others are similarly deluded.

On Mar 22, 3:37 am, Andre Jute wrote:
This Mike Vandeman business is absolutely amazing. He is accused on a
collection of charges that were dug out of people's memories from long
ago in an emotional atmosphere with a great many similarities to child
molestation cases where every single charge was fabricated and plated
by overwrought social workers, and every conviction was overturned on
appeal.

Vandeman is accused of assaulting and threatening people, but there
are no wounds to show, not even the tyre he is accused of damaging.
One would think that a guy who'll cut a tyre will cut a hated mountain
biker, but apparently not. All there is -- wait for it! -- is a little
saw used for marking trails and cutting off small branches hanging
over paths. For a little saw Mike Vandeman is going to jail. And for
telling a bunch of hooligans that a path is closed to mountain
bikes...

Where I live middle aged ladies keep a little saw in the car. It isn't
to attack anyone with, or to defend themselves. It is used to "crop
the long acre" -- to dash out of the car, take a cutting from a hedge,
and be gone back to their own gardens to plant it. If someone says,
"Hey, that's my hedge," or "Hey, that's a protected plant," these
motherly ladies will stand there with their little, and go to jail for
it if some malicious person, months later, wants to inflate the
incident to show solidarity with his fellow yobs.

A normal way to carry a little saw is in the hand down by one's thigh,
for a trailmarker, for a lady gardener, for anyone. But that clown of
a reporter, Peter Frick-Wright, as biased as one would expect from his
affiliations, turns it into a threat with an analogy of a conveniently
seen street hood holding a knife by his thigh. This is a very unlikely
story, but Mr Frick-Fright has dreams of a graphic novel, which must
have *visual* elements.

This entire trial is a scandal of bad faith, bad evidence, bad law.
The DA who brought the charge should be recalled, the witnesses who
perjured themselves, and anyway made their animosity to Vandeman
clear, should be charged and jailed, and those in the mountain biking
community who stoked up this matter and coached the witnesses should
be charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

If Mike Vandeman is jailed, or fined, or warned, or banned, or in any
way censured or sanctioned by the Judge, American law will be an ass
-- and Vandeman will be a martyr for the environment.

Funny how the global warmies on RBT don't stand up for the environment
when it is Mike Vandeman protecting it against wreckers on mountain
bikes.

Andre Jute
Conservationist


Tell us more about these old ladies who carry saws around and steal
cuttings from other peoples' plants. Are you one of them?

On 3/22/2011 11:31 AM, RobertH wrote:

So, you think being in the woods on foot is kosher for the
environment, while being there on two wheels is destroying it. Many
others are similarly deluded.

It's probably a matter of degree. When I was in Montana in the 80s they
were having problem with off roaders. You could see these deep ruts all
over what had been pristine wild flower fields. It would take a lot of
hikers to do the damage of one of those. There was talk of outlawing
them but I never found out what happened.

Of course you also had the parents showing their kids how to write their
name with a stick in the algae ponds in Yellowstone. Or throwing coins
in the geysers...

On 3/22/2011 11:45 AM, Duane Hebert wrote:
On 3/22/2011 11:31 AM, RobertH wrote:

So, you think being in the woods on foot is kosher for the
environment, while being there on two wheels is destroying it. Many
others are similarly deluded.

It's probably a matter of degree. When I was in Montana in the 80s they
were having problem with off roaders. You could see these deep ruts all
over what had been pristine wild flower fields. It would take a lot of
hikers to do the damage of one of those. There was talk of outlawing
them but I never found out what happened.

Motorized bikes create far more damage than pedaled bikes, horses do,
too. Around here (New England), the terrain is heavily glaciated, so you
typically have a shallow loam layer with rock and gravel not far
beneath. When the loam is compressed (by whatever method), the fine
roots are killed and the topsoil will erode from rain, particularly if
the trail follows the fall line, but the erosion stops once it reaches
the hard stuff.

Motorized bikes can carve deep berms in turns, and even
"whoop-dee-doo's" on the flats. I've never seen mountain bikes do that
except in steep areas frequented by "downhiller's" with deep topsoils or
sands. I've never seen that kind of terrain in New England. Bikes can
leave ruts in muddy soils, but that's typically where there is standing
water, and it takes moving water to cause erosion.

Hiking trails generally follow the fall line, which is very bad for
erosion. Switchbacks control erosion well and prevent the kind of
downhill speeds that can create mechanical soil displacement in turns.
The studies I have seen indicated similar levels of trail impact by
hikers and bikers, bikers do generally cover a lot more distance in a
given time, though. I don't know about the rest of the country/world,
but mountain biking, for whatever reason, seems to have been on the
decline for several years now.

On 3/22/2011 12:33 PM, Peter Cole wrote:
On 3/22/2011 11:45 AM, Duane Hebert wrote:
On 3/22/2011 11:31 AM, RobertH wrote:

So, you think being in the woods on foot is kosher for the
environment, while being there on two wheels is destroying it. Many
others are similarly deluded.

It's probably a matter of degree. When I was in Montana in the 80s they
were having problem with off roaders. You could see these deep ruts all
over what had been pristine wild flower fields. It would take a lot of
hikers to do the damage of one of those. There was talk of outlawing
them but I never found out what happened.

Motorized bikes create far more damage than pedaled bikes, horses do,
too. Around here (New England), the terrain is heavily glaciated, so you
typically have a shallow loam layer with rock and gravel not far
beneath. When the loam is compressed (by whatever method), the fine
roots are killed and the topsoil will erode from rain, particularly if
the trail follows the fall line, but the erosion stops once it reaches
the hard stuff.

Motorized bikes can carve deep berms in turns, and even
"whoop-dee-doo's" on the flats. I've never seen mountain bikes do that
except in steep areas frequented by "downhiller's" with deep topsoils or
sands. I've never seen that kind of terrain in New England. Bikes can
leave ruts in muddy soils, but that's typically where there is standing
water, and it takes moving water to cause erosion.

Hiking trails generally follow the fall line, which is very bad for
erosion. Switchbacks control erosion well and prevent the kind of
downhill speeds that can create mechanical soil displacement in turns.
The studies I have seen indicated similar levels of trail impact by
hikers and bikers, bikers do generally cover a lot more distance in a
given time, though. I don't know about the rest of the country/world,
but mountain biking, for whatever reason, seems to have been on the
decline for several years now.


I'm talking more about ATVs than bikes but I imagine that aside from the
weight differential, motorized bikes cause similar problems.

Like these guys:
http://www.go-montana.com/ATV-Jeep-Offroad/

http://wilderness.org/content/tranqu...r-two-medicine

On 3/22/2011 4:37 AM, Andre Jute wrote:


Where I live middle aged ladies keep a little saw in the car. It isn't
to attack anyone with, or to defend themselves. It is used to "crop
the long acre" -- to dash out of the car, take a cutting from a hedge,

You use a clipper to take a cutting - not a saw. Good grief.

On 3/22/2011 10:45 AM, Duane Hebert wrote:
[...]
Of course you also had the parents showing their kids how to write their
name with a stick in the algae ponds in Yellowstone.[...]

Not by peeing their name?

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On 3/22/2011 5:37 AM, The André Jute wrote:
[...]

Too long, did not read.

--
Tºm Shermªn - 42.435731,-83.985007
I am a vehicular cyclist.

On 3/22/2011 8:07 PM, Tºm Shermªn™ °_° wrote:
On 3/22/2011 10:45 AM, Duane Hebert wrote:
[...]
Of course you also had the parents showing their kids how to write their
name with a stick in the algae ponds in Yellowstone.[...]

Not by peeing their name?

Can't say I've seen that personally with parents around.

Did see a parent telling a kid to touch the Van Gogh to check the
texture so I guess anything is possible.