Monday - March 26, 2007

Most Ridiculous Item Of All Time (and then some)

What is the world coming to when some half-baked, banana republic in South America jumps up and “demands” one of America’s largest and most loved companies change its name? I’ll tell you what it has come to. Arrogant bullshit is what it has come to.

Just who do these uneducated, illiterate, unwashed peons think they are? Don’t they realize that Coca-Cola’s annual revenue exceeds the sum of the entire GDP of Bolivia for the next hundred years by about a gazillion dollars?

Has the entire world gone mad? Let’s pop a cap in their ass just for laughs and giggles. Maybe have a flyover by USAF fighter squadrons dropping leaflets advertising Coca-Cola and rattling the windows with sonic booms for a few hours. If that doesn’t get the point across the go back and drop “The Real Thing” and I don’t mean soda pop.

If Coca-Cola has any guts at all they’ll re-brand all of their product to be sold in Bolivia to the new name, F-U-COLA and continue to sell Coke to the rest of the world.

And while we’re at it, what kind of deranged, ass-backward country puts a freaking vulture on it’s national seal right above a llama eating a bag of nuts under a palm tree? Am I missing some hidden meaning there?

Bolivia Demands Coca-Cola Change Its Name
SANTA CRUZ, Bolivia - (THE WASHINGTON TIMES) - March 22, 2007

Bolivia’s ruling party demanded that Coca-Cola drop the “coca” from its name to “dignify” the “bioenergetic” leaf that provides the main ingredient in cocaine.

“If we are not permitted to commercialize coca, then why should Coca-Cola be allowed to do it?” said Margarita Teran, president of the Coca Committee, which is part of a nationwide convention to write a new constitution. She said her committee has sent letters telling the soft-drink manufacturer to change its name.

Coca-Cola declined, suggesting that Coke, not Bolivia, is the real thing. “We need to say that Coca-Cola as a company is worth dozens of times more than all of Bolivia,” the company said in a statement read on a Santa Cruz television station. Coca-Cola contains a flavored essence of the coca leaf, but not cocaine, which was eliminated from the formula many years ago. (The cola comes from the kola nut.)

The coca campaign is a key issue for the ruling Movement Towards Socialism (MAS) party, which seeks to add the coca leaf to the national seal at the center of the nation’s tricolor flag.

“The state recognizes that the coca plant in all its varieties as a natural, economic, renewable, strategic and bioenergetic resource,” according to a statement released last week by Miss Teran’s Coca Committee. It calls the coca leaf an “axis of Andean Amazonic cultures” and a “sacred symbol.”

“The commission proposes that the laurel and olive branches, which currently adorn that national seal, should be changed for branches of the sacred and ancestral coca leaf plant to symbolize popular culture, resistance and social cohesion.”

Neither proposal is likely to be popular in Washington, which has cut millions of dollars in counternarcotics aid to Bolivia since leftist President Evo Morales, the leader of MAS, came to power on a promise to legalize coca growing.

On a recent trip to South America, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice decided not to take a miniature guitar she received as a gift from Mr. Morales back to the United States because it was lacquered with coca leaves.

MAS Sen. Antonio Peredo said that current symbols contained in the seal—olive and laurel in the talons of a condor—are a legacy of Bolivia’s colonial past, while “the coca leaf corresponds to Bolivia and all that was the Tahuantinsuyo,” referring to the ancient Inca empire.

Ms. Teran of the Coca Committee agreed. “The coca leaf should be declared a national patrimony and incorporated into our national seal because it’s sacred and should not be used as a mere commercial label,” she said.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/26/2007 at 02:37 PM   
Filed Under: • Latin-America • Stoopid-People •  
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Motivational Poster Of The Day

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/26/2007 at 01:45 PM   
Filed Under: • Motorvators •  
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Wooly Bully

I don’t see what the big deal is about this “sheeple”. Heck, the Arabs have been making half-man, half-sheep critters for thousands of years - and they didn’t need any scientists or artificial insemination methods to do it. Nope, all the ragheads need is a dark night in a convenient field, away from prying eyes and in just a few months they have a “sheeple”. No one knows what they call the half-man, half-goat critters they create. Leave your suggestions in the comments ...

Scientists Create A Sheep That’s 15% Human
(DAILY MAIL-UK) - March 26, 2007

Scientists have created the world’s first human-sheep chimera - which has the body of a sheep and half-human organs. The sheep have 15 per cent human cells and 85 per cent animal cells - and their evolution brings the prospect of animal organs being transplanted into humans one step closer.

Professor Esmail Zanjani, of the University of Nevada, has spent seven years and £5million perfecting the technique, which involves injecting adult human cells into a sheep’s foetus.

He has already created a sheep liver which has a large proportion of human cells and eventually hopes to precisely match a sheep to a transplant patient, using their own stem cells to create their own flock of sheep.

The process would involve extracting stem cells from the donor’s bone marrow and injecting them into the peritoneum of a sheep’s foetus. When the lamb is born, two months later, it would have a liver, heart, lungs and brain that are partly human and available for transplant.

“We would take a couple of ounces of bone marrow cells from the patient,’ said Prof Zanjani, whose work is highlighted in a Channel 4 programme tomorrow.

“We would isolate the stem cells from them, inject them into the peritoneum of these animals and then these cells would get distributed throughout the metabolic system into the circulatory system of all the organs in the body. The two ounces of stem cell or bone marrow cell we get would provide enough stem cells to do about ten foetuses. So you don’t just have one organ for transplant purposes, you have many available in case the first one fails.”

Scientists at King’s College, London, and the North East Stem Cell Institute in Newcastle have now applied to the HFEA, the Government’s fertility watchdog, for permission to start work on the chimeras.

But the development is likely to revive criticisms about scientists playing God, with the possibility of silent viruses, which are harmless in animals, being introduced into the human race.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/26/2007 at 11:55 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor • RoPMA • Science-Technology •  
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Soooooooeeeeeeee!!

For an additional amount for `Military Personnel, Army’, $8,878,899,000

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For an additional amount for `Operation and Maintenance, Marine Corps’, $1,503,694,000

For an additional amount for `Operation and Maintenance, Air Force’, $6,909,259,000

Provided, That the amount provided under this heading is designated as making appropriations for contingency operations directly related to the global war on terrorism, and other unanticipated defense-related operations, pursuant to section 402 of H. Con. Res. 376 (109th Congress), as made applicable to the House of Representatives by section 511(a)(4) of H. Res. 6 (110th Congress).

For an additional amount for `Operation and Maintenance, Defense-Wide’, $2,855,993,000, of which not to exceed $300,000,000, to remain available until expended, may be used for payments to reimburse Pakistan, Jordan, and other key cooperating nations, for logistical, military, and other support provided, or to be provided, to United States military operations, notwithstanding any other provision of law.

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/26/2007 at 09:18 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • Porkbusters •  
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Editorial: The Climatarian Church

I haven’t done one of my long, tongue-in-cheek editorials in quite some time so I figure I’m past due for another verbal explosion. While relaxing on vacation last week, I had a sudden thought occur to me over a pitcher of margaritas.

I got to thinking about creationism versus evolution and the difference between science and faith. Then, in a flash, Al Gore jumped into this mental discussion going on in my head and suddenly it all made sense as you can read below.

Upon my return, I had almost forgotten about this train of thought until I started seeing videos of Gore testifying before Congress last week. Before you can say “polar bear extinction”, my fingers flew across the keyboard and the vision became satire right before my very eyes. I then spent a little time in PhotoShop reinforcing the vision and what emerged is this ...

Archbishop Gore And The
Climatarian Church Of Latter Day Scientists

Al Gore should never have been allowed to go before Congress last week and by all means should not be allowed to take his message to our schools. His doing so violates the First Amendment intent of separation of church and state – not to mention the fact that conducting a national campaign to raise himself to messiah level and establish a new church is downright sacrilegious.

“What’s that?”, you say, “Gore is not a preacher.”

Wrong.

Gore is indeed a preacher and is head of the new Climatarian Church Of Latter Day Scientists. Let me explain …

The first thing a new startup religion needs is an existing religion to build a base on. The Muslims stole prophets and teachings from Christianity. The Christians stole from the Jews. The Jews didn’t actually steal anything. They just got a ten-percent discount from God on common sense ideas carved into stone in the Sinai Desert.

Let’s look at part of Archbishop Gore’s testimony to Congress on March 21 …

“I believe the purpose of life is to glorify God, and we can’t do that if we’re heaping contempt on the creation.” ₁

Whoa! The Prophet From Tennessee goes all the way back to Genesis and invokes God and Creation and chastises the human race for peeing in the swimming pool. You can’t get any more basic than that. The Hebrews are now second in line for having received the Word Of God, according to Gore. He got it first. Checkmate, Judah.

The second thing a startup religion needs is a prophet who has been cast out, wandered in the wilderness, purged himself of sinful thoughts and had a vision from … somewhere. Failing that, any fruitcake who has spent too much time gazing at the sun or his own navel will do in a pinch.

You may recall the Fall of 2000 and the aftermath of the Presidential election that Gore narrowly lost by a few hundred votes. Here was a man who had spent his whole life chasing one elusive goal – becoming President of the United States. He had spent his youth in the Army press corps covering Vietnam from behind a typewriter in the sweltering heat and danger of paper cuts. Then after years in Congress and later in the Senate, he was elevated to the Number Two slot in our Republic by William Jefferson Clinton, a direct descendent of P. T. Barnum and his wife who undoubtedly could trace her ancestry (and political habits) back to the Medici family.

Gore was only a heartbeat (and a blue stained dress) away from his lifelong dream. Then, with a resounding thud, the voters in Florida forgot how to punch chads – or some similar mythical occurrence that altered the course of the stars, re-aligned the planets and placed a dumb redneck rancher from Texas in the office that was destined to be his. Destiny can do that to you at times.

He screamed, ranted, wailed, tore his raiment, heaped ashes on his head and appealed to the highest magistrates in the land – to no avail. The prize of immortality as head of the Free World was wrenched from his grasp in a spiritually shattering instant.

He was last seen on a bleak December night downing Heinekens with Tom Petty and band (appropriately known as The Heartbreakers). Then he disappeared into the wilderness (actually the South of France but the difference is marginal at best).

There he fought his demons, gazed at his navel and grew a beard. He also had an epiphany. The message he received was to go forth and expand on a book he wrote earlier in life that sold dozens of copies worldwide.

The voices told him to address mankind and bring about a Luddite revolution that would set mankind back hundreds of years, remove evil technology and return us all to a utopian village of pastoralists completely in tune with God’s creation around us.

These are the same voices, derived from magic mushrooms or other natural ingredients, that have educated prophets for thousands of years. St. John of Patmos tried them and saw riders on pale horses and whores in Babylon. The Prophet Gore saw melting glaciers and an Academy Award.

Which brings me to the third thing a startup religion needs: a good PR department.

Now Jesus was really cool. He gathered these twelve guys around him, showed them miracles of God and rose from the dead right before their eyes. These twelve guys then went out into the world, completely convinced they had broken bread and shared a Chablis with the Son Of God. You just can’t do better than a dozen convinced (and convincing) true believers for spreading the word.

Mohammed came along and had an even more direct publicity department, namely the point of a sword – which will convince most people to believe in relatively short order. Either that or the unbelievers are eventually disposed of through attrition.

The Prophet Gore has them all beat though. Moses, Jesus and Mohammed never came close to the modern PR experts known as Hollywood and Media. This twin-headed dragon of modern propaganda holds the masses tightly in its grasp and controls what the people think, believe and crave. In a nutshell, they have us by the short hairs.

So the Prophet Gore went to these public relations magicians and their money changers for help. They provided the financial backing and the commensurate hype to help Gore make a book and a movie to distribute to the masses that would carry all the prophet’s warnings of doom and all the “wrath of God” stuff necessary to convert the unbelievers.

But wait! “Unbelievers” in what?

Aha! There comes the tricky part. The prophet had to come up with a message that was (a) vague, (b) convincing, and (c) unable to be disproved. After suitable consultation with the voices, the prophet came forth with the message of “Global Warming”.

“What we’re facing now is a crisis that is by far the most serious we’ve ever faced.  The Arctic ice will be gone entirely in 34 years.

The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, ‘Well, I read a science-fiction novel that tells me it’s not a problem.’” ₂

Folks, this is Revelations and Twilight Of The Gods all rolled into one. Hear the Chosen One! Heed his words or God will smite you all with hurricanes, floods and various assorted chiggers and gnats of doom.

Now anyone who didn’t sleep through geology class knows that the planet we live on is a closed ecosystem that throughout its lifespan has gone through numerous warming and cooling cycles so an explanation is pretty much only a good guess until we collect more data. On top of that, how much warming or cooling is what we could call “extraordinary”? This makes the prophet’s message vague.

The prophet points at recent deadly hurricanes and throws out as evidence certain glaciers that are getting smaller (pay no attention to the many others that are growing). He cites measurable statistics such as “one degree centigrade rise in worldwide temperatures” and “Arctic ice will be gone in 34 years” as though he has personally measured them himself with a precise caliper. This makes the prophet’s message convincing.

Then, unbelievers and skeptics are pilloried and ridiculed as if they have no say in the matter. Imminent scientists are told to shut up and get with the program … or else. The prophet brushes aside factors that we know are causing a temporary rise in worldwide temperatures such as sunspot cycles, planetary orbit and methane from cow flatulence and keeps hammering home the message that humankind is responsible and we must do his bidding … or else.

That’s where the rub comes in. The prophet declares in sweeping, majestic tones that we should eschew technology and revert back to a utopian vision of energy provided by windmills and people getting around on horseback. If we don’t we’re doomed to fry in the hell we create around us with our modern technology – which, by the way, is much cleaner and non-polluting than anything we had two hundred years ago … before we decided to upgrade our windmills and horses to clean nuclear power and EPA-approved internal combustion engines and clean, lead-free fuel to feed them.

“But, but, but”, you ask, ”This doesn’t mean it is really a new religion, is it?”

Haven’t you been paying attention here at all? I have shown you the prophet, the plan and the purpose. What else do you need to convince you that this is voodoo science and magic practiced on a planet-wide scale before an unwitting audience?

Wait. There is one last thing. There is one word that is used continuously by the prophet and his PR department to convince you to accept the new dogma. That word is “consensus” and it is used to end all argument about global warming. It must be true because there is a “consensus” among “leading scientists” that global warming is a fact and we’re responsible.

There is another word for “consensus” and that word is “faith.” We must have “faith” in the message of the prophet because all those scientists have arrived not at a provable scientific conclusion but have gathered together, rubbed their magic eight balls and arrived at a “consensus”.

Before I leave you with this testament regarding this startup religion, let me give you something to ponder. In the Middle Ages, sinners could “purchase” from the Catholic church what was called an “indulgence”, according to Canon Law.

An indulgence is the full or partial remission of temporal punishment due to sins which have already been forgiven. The indulgence was granted by the church after the sinner had confessed and received absolution. ₃

In other words, you could pay off the church and receive absolution for your sins. The modern-day Climaterian Church has something that is strikingly similar to these medieval “indulgences.” It is called “carbon offset services”.

A carbon offset service is one arranged with such a provider, that achieves this net reduction through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases. A wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits. ₄

In other words, you can pollute to your heart’s content, live in a 30-room mansion and force coal-burning power plants to provide you with ten times more electricity than the average home in America, you can jet-set around the globe releasing hydrocarbons into the atmosphere at ungodly rates and even mine toxic zinc for profit on your property – as long as you purchase an “indulgence” from a “carbon offset service” who will go plant a few trees in Oshkosh to “balance” out the environmental sins you have committed.

That, my friends, is old-time religion at its best. We shall now pass the tithing plate – the Prophet Gore needs your support. Hallelujah! Anybody interested in playing with my rattlesnakes?

———————————

¹ - “Gore Takes Global Warming Message to Congress”, National Public Radio transcript, March 21, 2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9047642

² - “Al Gore Testifies Before Congress on Global Warming”, National Public Radio transcript, March 22, 2007
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=9072304

³ - “Code Of Canon Law: Indulgences”, Canon 992-997
http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P3I.HTM

⁴ - George Monbiot, “Selling Indulgences”
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/10/19/selling-indulgences/

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/26/2007 at 05:02 AM   
Filed Under: • Climate-Weather • Editorials • Religion • Satire •  
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   Sunday - March 25, 2007

What’s That Smell?

You recall the story from a couple of weeks ago when the Christian Trejbal and the Roanoke Times decide that it would be great fun to publish a database of all Virginia concealed carry permit holders (no, I won’t be giving them a link).  Well, our local gun rights group, The Virginia Citizens Defense League has been on this case since the beginning.

Philip Van Cleave, the president of the VCDL, was interviewed for CNN yesterday.  Here is the story:

I was interviewed about the recent Roanoke Times debacle by Kyung Lah of CNN on Friday at Vinney’s Italian Restaurant in Midlothian.  The restaurant was very hospitable, setting us up in a large corner so that all the camera equipment could be spread out.

The interview went very well and was done professionally.  Ms. Lah asked some of the questions that were posed by Mr. Trejbal in his article - such as, “Don’t I have a right to know if you are carrying a gun?”

I had been standing up talking to Ms. Lah for couple of minutes after I arrived.  She looked at me and said, “Since you have a concealed handgun permit, aren’t you allowed to transport a handgun?”

I said, “Yes.”

She said, “Er, do you have one in the car then?”

I said, “No, but I have one on my hip.”

A little embarrassed for not having noticed, she then looked down and saw that I was open carrying.

I explained Virginia Law to her about having to open carry in restaurants that have a license to sell and serve alcoholic beverages for on-premises consumption.

THE ROANOKE TIMES AND CHRISTIAN TREJBAL ARE HYPOCRITES!

This is TOO good!  I asked Ms. Lah if someone was going to interview the Roanoke Times management and Christian Trejbal (the columnist who wrote the story about Virginia ‘sunshine’ laws, and who obtained and helped publish the CHP holder list).

Ms. Lah said that BOTH Mr. Trejbal AND the Roanoke Times Management are REFUSING TO BE INTERVIEWED!!!!!!!!

What about all that ‘sunshine,’ you were celebrating Mr. Trejbal? What about it Roanoke Times?  Surely you would want to lead the way by letting a little light shine on the damage that you did by publishing the CHP holder list?

I got a real chuckle when she told me about their refusal.

I guess I have been doing this too long as I wasn’t surprised.  I have dealt with people like Mr. Trejbal many times before.

Yes kids, that smell in the air is HYPOCRACY!

The spot is supposed to air on Monday night on the Paula Zahn show at 8:00 EDT

Posted by Drew458     on 03/25/2007 at 09:36 PM   
Filed Under: • Media-Bias •  
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The Patton Doctrine

General George S. Patton’s Solution For Iraq

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/25/2007 at 04:00 PM   
Filed Under: • Middle-East •  
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Three Hundred

Nobody ever said the Iranians had an ounce of common sense. They’re going to keep blustering, boasting and bloviating across the world stage until somebody smacks the living shiite out of them. It is times like these that we really need people like Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in charge. Are George Bush and Tony Blair up to the challenge?

What do you think we and our Brit friends ought to do if Ahmawhackjob and his Mad mullah benefactors actually try and execute these British soldiers who were not in Iranian waters when they were captured? Perhaps another F-117 raid like the one that turned Muammar Khadafi into a quaking little girl over night? How about a single nuke on Teheran? Just as a warning shot across the bow, so to speak? Perhaps in this version of the Persian Wars we need to use 300 B-52’s instead of 300 Spartans. Submission is not an option. What say you?

Iran To Try Britons For Espionage
_{(TIMES-UK) - March 25, 2007}

Fifteen British sailors and marines arrested by Iran’s Revolutionary Guards off the coast of Iraq may be charged with spying. A website run by associates of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, reported last night that the Britons would be put before a court and indicted.

Referring to them as “insurgents”, the site concluded: “If it is proven that they deliberately entered Iranian territory, they will be charged with espionage. If that is proven, they can expect a very serious penalty since according to Iranian law, espionage is one of the most serious offences.”

The warning followed claims by Iranian officials that the British navy personnel had been taken to Tehran, the capital, to explain their “aggressive action” in entering Iranian waters. British officials insist the servicemen were in Iraqi waters when they were held.

The penalty for espionage in Iran is death. However, similar accusations of spying were made when eight British servicemen were detained in the same area in 2004. They were paraded blindfolded on television but did not appear in court and were freed after three nights in detention.

Iranian student groups called yesterday for the 15 detainees to be held until US forces released five Revolutionary Guards captured in Iraq earlier this year. Al-Sharq al-Awsat, a Saudi-owned newspaper based in London, quoted an Iranian military source as saying that the aim was to trade the Royal Marines and sailors for these Guards.

- More ...

U.N. Backs Broader Sanctions On Tehran
_{UNITED NATIONS (WASHINGTON POST) - Saturday, March 24, 2007; 10:36 PM}

The U.N. Security Council unanimously voted Saturday to impose additional sanctions against Iran for its refusal to stop enriching uranium - a move intended to show Tehran that defiance will leave it increasingly isolated.

Iran immediately rejected the sanctions and said it had no intention of suspending its enrichment program, prompting the United States to warn of even tougher penalties.

“The world must know - and it does - that even the harshest political and economic sanctions or other threats are far too weak to coerce the Iranian nation to retreat from their legal and legitimate demands,” Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki told the Security Council after the vote. “Suspension is neither an option nor a solution.”

The moderately tougher sanctions include banning Iranian arms exports, and freezing the assets of 28 people and organizations involved in Iran’s nuclear and missile programs. About a third of those are linked to the Revolutionary Guard, an elite military corps.

The new sanctions - already a compromise between the stronger measures favored by the United States and the Europeans and the softer approach advocated by Russian and China - are considered modest. The ban on exports is among the harshest measures, but many of Iran’s arms sales may not be affected because they are illicitly sent to militant groups like Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Shiite militias in Iraq.

Still, world powers hoped that approving the resolution quickly and unanimously would signal that Iran will face stricter sanctions each time it ignores a Security Council deadline to suspend uranium enrichment.

The new resolution asks countries to restrict travel by the individuals subject to sanctions as well as arms sales to Iran and new financial assistance or loans to the Iranian government.

It asks the International Atomic Energy Agency to report back in 60 days on whether Iran has suspended enrichment and warns Iran could face further measures if it does not. But it also says all sanctions will be suspended if Iran halts enrichment and makes clear that Tehran can still accept a package of economic incentives and political rewards offered last year if it complies with the council’s demands.

- More ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/25/2007 at 09:17 AM   
Filed Under: • Iran • Middle-East •  
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Odds And Ends

First of all, I want to thank Mister Christian for filling in for me so wonderfully while I escaped from “civilization” for a while. We need to encourage him to post more often. I’ve been reviewing the posts from the last week or so and catching up on current events and I see the madness didn’t stop while I was away. Kudos to Mister Christian for keeping you informed.

I see we have a new advertiser in our right sidebar too. The Rudy Giuliani campaign would like to talk to you about putting Rudy in the White House in 2008. Go ahead and click the ad (shameless attempt to generate ad revenue) and see what Rudy has to say. Report back and let me know what you think. Our reader poll a few weeks ago had Rudy capturing your votes in 2008 by a wide margin. Things have shifted since then with Mitt Romney climbing in the polls, John McCain running out of money and Fred Thompson making presidential noises.

I’m still unpacking and getting things back in order around the house before I have to go back to work tomorrow but I’ll have a few observations later today about recent events. In the meantime, it seems the Democrat presidential candidates are getting down and dirty, real nasty and outright ugly with their campaigns. Here’s one from the Obama campaign and one from the Hillary campaign ....

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/25/2007 at 08:49 AM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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Virginia Deer

Question: what do you get when you (a) discourage people from owning firearms, (b) only allow hunters to hunt during a brief three-week period in the dead of Winter, (c) enact local ordinances all over the state to make it illegal to discharge a firearm within a hundred miles of any whining Liberal, (d) throw together in the state legislature a set of hunting regulations so obtuse and complicated that a New York lawyer would have a major headache figuring it out, and (e) keep building suburban housing further and further out into wilderness areas?

Answer: you end up ass-deep in antlers invading suburbia and carrying ticks with Lyme disease. Then again, all those little kids who watched “Bambi” back in the 1950’s are now grown and in politics and they’re determined to keep anyone from hurting those pretty little deer. As usual, they never stop to consider the implications of their actions. And if you think the problem is bad in Virginia, take a look at really weird states like Kalifornia and MassaTwoShits. Will they never learn ... ?

In Swelling Herds, A Growing Risk
Larger Va. Deer Population Making Lyme Disease a Public Health Issue
_{(WASHINGTON POST) - Sunday, March 25, 2007}

A surge in reported cases of Lyme disease in Fairfax County has prompted an outcry from residents who say the lawns and woodlands surrounding their homes are overrun with infected ticks and the deer that carry them.

The exponential increase has also led county health officials to acknowledge that managing Fairfax’s burgeoning deer population, which in some locations has numbered 400 per square mile, is no longer about nuisance control. It has become a serious public health issue that requires immediate attention, they say.

“Deer are the Metro system for the ticks” that carry Borrelia burgdorferi, the bacteria that causes Lyme disease, said Jorge R. Arias, who manages Fairfax’s disease-carrying-insect program. “The ticks are all over the county. Wherever the deer can go, they will take the ticks with them.”

Confirmed cases of Lyme disease, which is characterized by such varied symptoms as a bull’s-eye-shaped rash, fever and fatigue, rose from three in 2004 to 82 in 2006, according to county data. Much of the increase is due to better reporting of a disease that is often quickly treated with antibiotics without being confirmed by blood tests. Still, public health officials say there is little doubt that case numbers are rising locally and nationally.

According to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, reported cases rose from 19,800 in 2004 to 23,300 in 2005. Cases remain relatively low in Virginia—274 in 2005 compared with numbers in the thousands in such Northeastern states as Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and New York.

But the increase in the Washington region is causing growing concern. Loudoun County claims half of all reported cases in Virginia. In Maryland, Montgomery County has seen confirmed cases grow fivefold since 2004, to 216. And the very neighborhoods where deer are least welcome might be attracting the tick-carrying herds.

“Suburban lots with azaleas and rhododendrons is just like laying out a buffet for deer,” Arias said. “We have created in suburbia what is essentially a perfect habitat for them.” That, in turn, has created the perfect environment for transmitting the bacteria to humans, he said. “The deer population has been out of control for years,” Jakubowski said. “There have been minimal attempts to control it.”

Fairfax launched a deer management program about a decade ago after several traffic accidents involving deer made headlines. The county sponsors managed hunts during the winter months, during which screened applicants participate in a daytime hunt on parkland. Separately, police sharpshooters “cull” herds on overnight expeditions several times a year.

But the results are limited, said Earl L. Hodnett, the county’s wildlife biologist, who noted that most county parks where deer are counted remain far from his goal of no more than 15 to 20 deer per square mile. Officials are limited to parkland where firearms pose little risk to people but where shooters have limited access to deer, which are not constrained by public boundaries. Managed hunts in January and February netted 133 deer. An additional 48 deer have been killed in four sharpshooting events this year.

“We’re starting out with a big problem,” Hodnett said. “There’s no easy way to quickly fix a problem that’s been building since the mid-’80s.” But all agree the problem cannot be erased overnight.

“Eradicating the deer herd is probably not achievable,” said Frey, who counted more than 40 deer on a recent daytime tour of Cub Run Stream Valley Park. “Short of shutting down the parks and hunting 24 hours a day, I’m not sure how much we can do.”

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/25/2007 at 08:25 AM   
Filed Under: • Animals •  
• Comments (7) • Trackbacks(0)  Permalink •  

Sunday Funnies

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/25/2007 at 02:24 AM   
Filed Under: • Humor •  
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   Saturday - March 24, 2007

I HAVE RETURNED!

GET ME OUT OF HERE ...

Posted by The Skipper     on 03/24/2007 at 01:38 PM   
Filed Under: • Personal •  
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Saturday Blovations

Why does she even get a platform?  Jim says: “Not a working brain cell in the whole darned crowd”

Posted by Drew458     on 03/24/2007 at 09:04 AM   
Filed Under: • Politics • Stoopid-People •  
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Why the Gun is Civilization

Via Lawdog, we find this must-read from Marko.

Why the Gun is Civilization

Human beings only have two ways to deal with one another: reason and force. If you want me to do something for you, you have a choice of either convincing me via argument, or force me to do your bidding under threat of force. Every human interaction falls into one of those two categories, without exception. Reason or force, that’s it.

In a truly moral and civilized society, people exclusively interact through persuasion. Force has no place as a valid method of social interaction, and the only thing that removes force from the menu is the personal firearm, as paradoxical as it may sound to some.

Go read the rest.  It is as simple and complete a dissertation as I have ever read

Posted by Drew458     on 03/24/2007 at 09:00 AM   
Filed Under: • Philosophy •  
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