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Re: The Fight for Truth, Justice & the American Way, in Monahans

In a message dated 6/2/98 6:28:06 PM Central Daylight Time, eroberts@ntplx.net
writes:

<<  they obviously prefer to
 let material go unfound rather than open the country to U.S. style
 commercialism. >>

That is my whole point.  If they want to do it, that is their choice, but I
think it hurts the whole science of meteoritics to let them rust away.  My
original point was that I don't think most people would agree that it would be
best to do the same here.  Canada got away with passing their laws because a
couple of people in the government wanted to keep them all, and no one IN
CANADA stood up and resisted and they had a real easy time of yanking away
those particular rights from its citizens and the potential finders as well as
the whole field of meteoritics is hurt by the greed of a few, 

<<
I would hope you had a written agreement with the government before
spending all that time and money. A verbal "Of course!" is nice and
should be binding, but government hierarchies don't work that way. What
was acceptable to him may not have been acceptable to the guy paying the
bill.
>>

Well, I didn't know ahead of time if my first find would be an H5, EH4, CO3 or
SNC.  I didn't know if it would be 100g, 5kg or 300kg in size, so there was no
way to get an agreed price in writting before I started!  I know, Ballke is
going to jump in here and say ALL meteorites are only worth $1/g or less, but
that is not so. 

But in the U.S., when I find a meteorite and our national collection at the
Smithsonian doesn't want it, I am free to sell it anywhere else where there
might be some interest at whatever the free market allows, in whatever country
I can find a buyer!  In Canada, Canadians don't have that freedom.   AND DON"T
THINK THAT THE OFFICIALS IN CANADA DON"T KNOW THAT!!!  

They figure that Blaine will have to give up eventually and give it to them
for free and take the tax write off for the loss!  They are just playing the
sleezy game of "it's our ball it's our bat, and you are playing in our yard,
so we will play by our rules," even if the rules keep changing each inning.
They may indeed win every game where someone is stupid enough to to play with
them once, but they also never have anyone come back and play again.
Meanwhile the meteorites rot away!

I know I could turn up dozens of meteorites up there, but why should I?  Why
should anyone?

<>

Ask Canada, I couldn't give a crap!  

Steve
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