Kenni Judd wrote:
I don't know George Norris; can't even recall doing any business with him
via email or Internet.
But my years as a lawyer compel me to point out that a guilty plea is not
always based on actual guilt. To roughly paraphrase an old saying [the
exact wording and name of the author, I've forgotten] -- the US legal system
stinks (going to trial is often a crapshoot); the only good thing to be said
about it is that it's the best one around.
Or he may be too old and too tired of fighting to want to go to
trial... Or he is guilty. Or both. I think I got a bunch of Mexican
species from him maybe 10 years ago. I don't think any of them were
illegal (or even on appendix II), and he sent me a copious amount of
paperwork indicating they were legal, not that I understand that kind of
stuff... Many of the old time orchid sellers are guilty of a little
orchid smuggling (or a lot). Perhaps that is because they were used to
being able to easily import what they wanted before CITES, and couldn't
be bothered (or couldn't understand why they should be bothered) to
comply with the new regulations.
I think the newer generation of orchid vendors is a little more wary of
the regulations, having never known anything else and having seen a few
showy examples of enforcement. That is why the feds go after the well
known guys, in case you weren't jaded and cynical enough to have noticed
that on your own. There is always going to be a market for smuggled
plants (unfortunately), it is just like anything else that the
authorities say we can't have - the price goes up in lockstep with the
risk of supply.
We could start a whole thread on CITES (we've done it in the past), but
my personal opinion is that it doesn't work for plants. Great for
animals, which you can't raise from seed or take cuttings of. Silly for
plants. Let's allow the plants to go extinct in their habitat, whilst
simultaneously preventing any introduction of these plants into
cultivation where they would at least continue to exist... Fix CITES
in one fell swoop by 1) make it easy and cheap to propagate desirable
plants, 2) ship them in flask so that we can see they were propagated,
and 3) let the market work from there. Habitat loss is the main
threat to most of these orchids, use the money you make on flasks to buy
a mountain on Java somewhere.
I think the phrase Kenni is looking for is 'There is no worse system of
government than democracy, except for all of the other ones" (to
paraphrase a paraphrase)..
--
Rob's Rules:
http://www.msu.edu/~halgren
1) There is always room for one more orchid
2) There is always room for two more orchids
2a. See rule 1
3) When one has insufficient credit to purchase
more orchids, obtain more credit