Thursday - October 28, 2010

A & R Thursday

Last week’s coincidental co-postings of archaeology and redheads was fun, so I’ll keep it going. Who knows, maybe we can make something of this. After all, everybody loves ... archaeology! Um, this one might more properly be called anthropology ... the line blurs sometimes ... especially after a few beers!

Did Ancient Nubians Drink Beer As Medicine?

Ancient Brew Masters Tapped Antibiotic Secrets

ScienceDaily (Sep. 2, 2010) — A chemical analysis of the bones of ancient Nubians shows that they were regularly consuming tetracycline, most likely in their beer. The finding is the strongest evidence yet that the art of making antibiotics, which officially dates to the discovery of penicillin in 1928, was common practice nearly 2,000 years ago.

The research, led by Emory anthropologist George Armelagos and medicinal chemist Mark Nelson of Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc., is published in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.

“We tend to associate drugs that cure diseases with modern medicine,” Armelagos says. “But it’s becoming increasingly clear that this prehistoric population was using empirical evidence to develop therapeutic agents. I have no doubt that they knew what they were doing.”

Armelagos is a bioarcheologist and an expert on prehistoric and ancient diets. In 1980, he discovered what appeared to be traces of tetracycline in human bones from Nubia dated between A.D. 350 and 550, populations that left no written record. The ancient Nubian kingdom was located in present-day Sudan, south of ancient Egypt.

Armelagos and his fellow researchers later tied the source of the antibiotic to the Nubian beer. The grain used to make the fermented gruel contained the soil bacteria streptomyces, which produces tetracycline. A key question was whether only occasional batches of the ancient beer contained tetracycline, which would indicate accidental contamination with the bacteria.

Even the tibia and skull belonging to a 4-year-old were full of tetracycline, suggesting that they were giving high doses to the child to try and cure him of illness, Nelson says. “The bones of these ancient people were saturated with tetracycline, showing that they had been taking it for a long time”
...
The first of the modern day tetracyclines was discovered in 1948. It was given the name auereomycin, after the Latin word “aerous,” which means containing gold. “Streptomyces produce a golden colony of bacteria, and if it was floating on a batch of beer, it must have look pretty impressive to ancient people who revered gold,” Nelson theorizes.
...
The ancient Egyptians and Jordanians used beer to treat gum disease and other ailments, Armelagos says, adding that the complex art of fermenting antibiotics was probably widespread in ancient times, and handed down through generations.

So, perhaps the next time you feel a bit under the weather you should just have a glass of beer. I’d recommend a nice Irish Red ... (click pics)

Tea Party’s misplaced rage ??

Yeah. That was the short headline in a paper today for a very brief thing they got from The Washington Post.  Which I now may assume is a liberal paper. Right?
But wait ... George Will writes for that paper as well and he sure as heck is not a libtard. No way.

Would like to get some feedback and see what BMEWS makes of this statement.

Tea Party’s Misplaced Rage

As battle cries go, the Tea Party’s “Take our country back” is a pretty good one.  It’s short and punchy and it addresses a very widespread sense that the nation that American’s once lived in has changed – and not for the better. 
When the Tea Players get around to identifying how America has changed and to whose benefit, however, they get it almost all wrong.

(Harold Meyerson, Washington Post)

I have no idea if that was part of a larger quote as going to the post got me nowhere.  And there isn’t any link to the above that I could find.But no matter. I copied it word for word.
Thing that bothers me is, he does not as you can see here, tell us what exactly the party gets almost all wrong.  That’d help understanding him better if that were stated.  Or maybe it was in the original. Naturally enough, many will read this kind of thing over here, and make the assumption that the Tea Party is some sort of unified political party with a central command and one speaker for all of it. Might be better if it were but so far it doesn’t seem to be doing too badly. 

   Wednesday - October 27, 2010

eye candy

I’m outta here for the night ....

I leave you with Tila ...  Try and ignore the dumb tattoo.

Lets give Danzig back to the Germans ..ok..  maybe a bit extreme but … not happy with Poles today

Can’t imagine what’s next but .... ?

Too frustrated at the moment.  What’s he doing loose? Why? Is he really innocent? Is there something else going on here? Did he in fact mastermind the attack on the USS Cole?

Al-Nashiri was the chief al Qaeda operative in the Persian Gulf region and allegedly masterminded the deadly 2000 attack on the USS Cole in Yemen

Terrorism suspect given ‘victim’ status by Polish legal authorities
A terrorism suspect who claims he was detained and tortured at a secret CIA site in Poland has been granted the status of “victim” by the Polish legal authorities.

By Matthew Day in Warsaw

The status gives credence to allegations by Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, a Saudi citizen suspected by the US of involvement in the bombing of the warship USS Cole in 2000, that he was held at an airfield in Poland and subjected to harsh interrogation tactics, including being threatened with an electric drill, by American intelligence officers in 2002.

“Granting ‘victim status’ means that the prosecutor’s office is, to a great extent, convinced of the argumentation that he was rendered and held illegally on the territory of Poland,” said Adam Bodnar from the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights.

The legal move, which allows Mr Al-Nashiri ‘s lawyers to view evidence and appeal against decisions, comes as part of a two-year investigation by Polish prosecutors into whether the CIA operated a clandestine camp in Poland as part of its anti-terrorism operations.

Poland’s former leaders have always denied the existence of a so-called black-site.

Aleksander Kwasniewski, Polish president in 2002, said “that there were no prisons” although he conceded that US flights had landed at Szymany Airport, the suspected location of the camp, in north-east Poland.

Despite the denial, there is mounting evidence that the US operated a secret base in Poland from December 2002 to the autumn of 2003, and that detainees were subject to torture.

Last month a declassified report by the Inspector General of the CIA revealed that an agent code-named “Albert” used techniques unauthorised by the US justice department on Mr Al-Nashiri in Poland.

USS COLE

2A Outrage!

New York City: No guns for litterbugs or jaywalkers



The gall these mofos have is unbelievable. Forget about having enough gall to divide into 3 parts*. These cretins have the elitist moxie arrogance to sell the stuff by the pound.

Bad Driver? In Debt? Proposed NYC Law Would Ban You From Owning a Gun

New York City residents who want to own a gun may soon be denied permits if they are litterbugs, if they are bad drivers, or if they have fallen behind on a few bills.

Under proposed revisions to the police department’s handgun, rifle and shotgun permit procedures, the NYPD can reject gun license applicants for a number of reasons, including:

If they have been arrested or convicted of almost any “violation,” in any state; having a “poor driving history”; having been fired for “circumstances that demonstrate lack of good judgment”; having “failed to pay legally required debts”; being deemed to lack “good moral character”; or if any other information demonstrates “other good cause for the denial of the permit.”

Critics say many of the restrictions are vague, have nothing to do with one’s fitness to own a gun and are unconstitutional.

Supporters say the new restrictions will make gun purchasing more efficient and don’t give the NYPD any more power than it already has.

Gosh, you see, they had to do this. Because the city council realized they were about to be sued naked over the exorbitant fees they charge to get the permits, so they lowered the fees. From around $400 to around $70. But to stop the expected “flood” that would result from the vast hordes of less well-off folks applying for permits, they told the cops to tighten up the requirements to the point that even fewer permits would be given out than before.

With the lower fees, the New York Police Department also introduced revisions to the police department’s gun permit procedures, which, unlike Vallone’s bill, need only approval from the mayor’s office, not the City Council.

“Although I do have oversight capability and I can have a hearing on it, I don’t have any formal say in it,” Vallone said.

Councilmember Dan Halloran says those revisions are intended to give the police more power to deny licenses, which could counter a possible spike in gun ownership triggered by the lower fees.

“The disqualification categories are downright scary. They’re completely open to interpretation and they really don’t measure anybody’s fitness to own a gun,” Halloran told FoxNews.com.

He pointed to a restriction stating applicants can be denied if they’ve “been arrested, indicted or convicted for a crime or violation, except minor traffic violations.”

“So now the city can deny a permit for a building code violation, a sanitation ticket for failing to sweep the sidewalk … an array of non-criminal acts,” Halloran said.

What a load of crap. See you in court Bloomberg. Just like your idiotic counterpart in Philthydelphia, you’ve thrown a monkey wrench in the spokes so blatantly that the courts are going to bitch slap you upside your dumb head. Again.

* “Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres” Yes, it’s a pun. A very very old one.

Naked performers who ‘hug the audience … how daring, how arty, how stupid. but it’s ‘art’

So now it’s finally come to this.  Junk as art.  Not that it’s the first time of course.  But society must accept it because you see, it’s “art.” Look at Tracy Emin.
She’s a millionaire and what’s her life accomplishment?  What gave her fame in todays world?  An exhibition at the Tate. What was exhibited?  THIS You may Google her if you don’t know about her but be warned. She is UG-LY!

Now back to where I started.
I call it cheap crap and no talent and hope the so called ‘ballet’ didn’t get any grant but won’t hold my breath.  There are no standards of good taste left because everyone is, pushing the envelope.  A phrase used to hide behind when writers,actors,producers etc., have hit a dry spell.  Can’t think of anything witty? No problem. We’ll take our cloths off, prance around a stage and say it’s the latest thing in ballet.

Well .... once word gets out that the ‘performers’ are going out and hugging members of the audience, I’ll bet ya they get an audience they don’t normally get at a ballet.

Flesh dance: Naked performers who ‘hug the audience’ push boundaries of taste in Sadler’s Wells show

By Sophie Freeman
Last updated at 3:56 PM on 27th October 2010

Naked dancers will perform explicit acts on stage before hugging members of the audience in a new Sadler’s Wells production.

The renowned theatre is pushing the boundaries of taste with the ‘audacious’ spectacle, Un Peu De Tendresse Bordel De Merde! (A little Tenderness For Crying Out Loud!)

Choreographed by Canadian director Dave St Pierre, it features an ‘audience participation’ segment where naked men dressed in blonde wigs embrace startled theatre-goers.

LETS NOT BE CRITICAL BECAUSE, IT’S ‘ART’ YEAH,RIGHT.

Look I know. None of my business and since I won’t make a point of going to watch a bunch of guys prancing around a stage in nothing, I shouldn’t care.
In a way I don’t.  Someone else wants to see that, it isn’t up to me to say they can’t. But I just think it’s another indication of how far down the drain western culture has gone.  Nobody appointed me minister of good taste and decorum.  But there are just some things you feel instinctively. Just another “art form” to coarsen the culture. No big deal. Right? 

Going Through The Motions

Voter Fraud! Be Afraid!!



Looks like we are going through our annual noise-fest about scruffy election controls. Poll workers stuffing ballot boxes!! Nevada ballots handed out with Harry Reid’s name already checked! Acorn! Feds strike down Arizona proof-of-citizenship voting law! Racism!! Diebold voting machines are rigged! Glen Beck forecasting riots and blood in the streets!!!!



There they go again. Sound and fury, signifying nothing.



Don’t get me wrong; I believe strongly that many of the election processes around the country “have their thumb on the scales” so to speak. And it is something that people should be aware of, and that needs significant citizen watchdogging. Groups like True The Vote down in Texas, and others, are doing a great job.

The problem is, aside from a few contested recounts, we won’t hear another word about this starting three days after Election Day. But I can guarantee you that when it comes time to vote next year, about a month out we’ll hear all the same crap once again. Voter fraud has become another one of the annual fear topics for the media to trot out seasonally. No different from the “experts predict this will be a terrible year for hurricanes” or the “we’re all going to die from flu this year, and the government/big pharma doesn’t have enough vaccine to go around” tales. Sound and fury. And nothing ever ever gets done.

Ok Tea Party people, I’ve got a job for you. A job that needs doing in every town, city, county, and state across the nation. A job that does not need to be done once, but needs to be done all the time. We are a fractured nation, broken along political lines. We need to close that fracture. We need to have not only a more honest government, we need people to have faith in that government. And that faith starts with people having faith in the election process. Ok, it also starts with people having faith that the candidates running for office are legally qualified to run, such things as showing public proof that they are citizens, natural born ones if necessary, or that the ones running for Mayor of Chicago have followed Chicago’s law and have actually lived day to day in Chicago for the past several years, but that’s not what I want to discuss here. I want to talk about cleaning up the voting process. I’ve done this before, so I’m equally guilty of the seasonal scare story too, but the only reason I’m here talking about it again is that no solutions seem to have been put in place.

If one of these ever-present polling companies were to take a large nationwide poll, perhaps half a million people chosen at random, and asked about their views on the voting process, I could probably guess within a few points what the results would be. You would find that 2/3 to 3/4 of the left to far left leaning folks do not believe that any monkey business is afoot. You would find that 2/3 to 7/8 of the center to right leaning folks believe that not only are the monkeys out there, but they are fed steroid laced bananas and that they all have turbochargers hooked up to their little monkey butts. You would also find that at least 80% of the leftish people say that any kind of effort to clamp down the election process is racist, while fewer than 30% of the rightish types feel that way. Heck, if you asked that question the proper way, 90% or more of the right leaners would say that a rigid election process is patriotic.

Let me posit a solution. Yes, I lean to the right. You may have noticed this once or twice in the past. So much so that sometimes I wonder how I manage to stand up straight. So hold on to your seats, because I’m going to do something radical. I am calling for an increase in government. More government workers. Shocking, I know. But the only reason I am calling for this is that the voter registration process is often left to the lowly county clerk, who has about a billion other jobs to do. And a strict and structured registration process is going to require some staffing. No, you don’t have to pay these people $185,000 a year each. But it’s a $40,000 job for a number of them, and a $65,000 job for 2 or 3 managers. And everyone who gets one of these jobs takes it with the full knowledge that their job is on the line each and every day. Screw it up and you are history.

My solution is radical because it is simple. It does not take rocket science or a Master’s degree in engineering to do. All it takes is cooperation, and the honesty to put aside the willful blindness of PC. Let me get all “post racial” and “bipartisan” like our wonderful president: skin color does not preclude you from making a bit of effort to get yourself registered to vote. Period. No discussion necessary. Physical motile ability does not preclude you either. Nor does advanced age. Nor does sexual orientation ... come on, who gives a damn what you bump uglies with when it comes to voting?

My solution does call for cooperation among the branches of government. In our post-9/11 world, that wall that Jamie Gorelick built has to come down everywhere. Blanket statements from the Social Security folks that they are not going to cooperate is a no-go. It’s cause for instant dismissal. Period. Same goes for the military and the criminal justice people. Be part of the solution, or be gone.

So, where do we begin? First up would be proof of citizenship and proof of age. We do not have a de facto National ID card in the United States. And rightfully so. But we have the next best things. We have our Social Security card, our state issued driver’s license, the IRS, the military, and our credit cards. Everything runs on plastic these days. Every one of those knows our age and our current address. And our Social Security number, because 99.987% of all citizens over the age of 18 have one. Oh, but laws say you can’t use your SSN for purposes of identification!! Really? Then why does every single form you fill out anywhere for anything have a space for your SSN? Change the law, or at least put in a caveat for voter registration. And at least one of those groups has a picture of you. So the first step is fairly easy. To register to vote, you need to show up at the clerk’s office well in advance of Election Day - 90 days or more - and prove you are eligible. They have a limited function card reader, just like the one in the grocery store, but with a better screen. Enter your numbers or swipe your plastic, and the result that comes back has your name, your current address, and you SSN. Does that match what you’ve put on the registration form? Good, you’ve just passed Step One. The clerk presses another button, which sends your SSN to the criminal justice databases. And I say databases, because there are lots of them. Hey, I’ve been through the NJ pistol permit process, so I know. And the only data that gets returned to the clerk is a green light or a red light. Green light means proceed, red light means stop.

Should convicts or felons on probation have the right to vote? That’s a side issue, and one that should be solved by state or national referendum every so many years. Personally, I feel that if you have done your time, you are back in. Still doing time, still on probation, no vote for you ... if the crime you were convicted of was serious enough to disable your voting rights. And all the crimes that do take away that right need to be gone over and looked at again with an eye on “cruel and unusual” and “excessive fines and penalties”. But that’s another side issue on this side issue. However if you are convicted of such a crime, then you have to turn in your registration card.

Assuming you get a green light, the clerk takes your picture, and creates a voter registration card for you, with your photograph and its own unique number on it. And that card expires every 7 years, so you have to go through this again and again throughout your life. Too bad. Voting is a right, but it’s a right you have to make a bit of effort to use. Tough titties. But there is no cost, no charge, no fee for getting a registration card. And every county seat or town that does registrations puts the office right on the public transportation routes. Hospitals have a staffer or two on stipend to do the task remotely for long term care patients. And for shut-ins, old folks in nursing homes, etc., the county sends some people around, on appointment by request. So if you can’t come to the office, the office will come to you. But only for those who actually, really, honestly can’t. The lazy and uppity folks who can’t be bothered to go downtown to register and who just make an appointment are hit with a $2500 fine for wasting the government’s time. My plan makes everyone make some effort, so you’re going to get a slap down if you try to play the system.

Hold onto that registration card and keep it in a safe place. Bring it with you when you vote. Just like the “Got your Show Me?” billboards in the alternate universe in the Fringe TV show, public reminders are run several weeks before the elections. Show up to vote with your card AND some sort of current bill or government letter addressed to you as proof of current address. The poll worker checks your face against your card and swipes it. Got the green light? They match the retrieved address against the piece of mail you brought with you. If they match, then go ahead and vote. Got the red light? The clerk will enter your information manually. Still red? No vote for you. Period. It’s your duty to make sure your card works ahead of time, especially since there are only two reasons the red light would come on: false information or recent conviction of a crime that takes that right away. Oh, I forgot my card, I lost my card!!!  Fine. See that line over there? Get on it. And that clerk will enter your information manually, and she won’t work all that fast, but if you are legit, then the system will Ok you and you can vote. Oh no, I forgot to register. Can I do it now? Go to hell. Sod off. No, you can not register today, nor can you vote today. Not even provisionally.

People who have moved between one election and the next are responsible for getting their registration cards updated well in advance of Election Day. Those who have not updated their current address can go back to where they live and vote this one time ... and the clerk will then take and destroy (in front of witnesses) the registration card. Can’t I have an absentee ballot? No, because there are no more absentee ballots. They are a thing of the past. And to make sure that duplicate IDs are not issued, any new ID card issued shuts off any existing cards under that SSN and name.

What??? Whaddya mean, no more absentee ballots????  Just what I said. They are a thing of the past for those able to make the effort. Yes, for the hospitalized, the disabled and so forth they still exist. But those people are already on a list that lets them use this method. For everyone else, you have to make the effort to exercise your right, and get your lazy ass to the polling station. But we’ll make it easier, and from now on Election Day will be Vote Counting Day. That means the polls are actually open from 8am to 10pm every day of the week for 3 weeks beforehand. Hire a couple of people as temps at a tax free $10/hour to man the voting booth, with the caveat that if they let an improper voter vote then they go to jail for 6 months. Train them and test them, and give them support ( a cop and the town clerk ) if they have to turn anyone down. And woe be unto the person who attempts to vote, gets turned down, raises a fuss, has the support people called in, and is found ineligible to vote. 10 days in jail and a $1000 fine.

Um, I’m dead. Does my vote still count? Um, no. The coroners have to send in the data on the newly dead every single day, once positive and unassailable identification has been made. And fined if they screw up or forget. And the county clerks will process that data every day, deactivating the registration cards of the deceased. Show up to vote while “dead” and you can’t vote ... because the onus is on you to make sure your registration is in order ahead of time. No excuses, not even death.

If you have gained or lost massive amounts of weight, suffered from some horrible accident or illness that has radically changed your appearance, or undergone elective plastic surgery to the extent that the new you doesn’t look a thing like the old you ... then the onus is on you to get your registration card updated with a new photograph. And do it well ahead of time, and don’t forget to bring several forms of ID and proof of current address with you. Those folks just released from the hospital can go back there to do their voting if their release date falls between the registration cut-off date and the polls opening date. Once the hospital’s stipended polling worker verifies that you were a recent patient they will take your vote, as long as you get that good old green light.

And that’s about all there is to it. The military would set up it’s own system, the troops would vote ahead of time, and those votes would be sent in early. Early enough so that any bumps or glitches could be hammered out before Vote Counting Day. Ex-pats living abroad would have to show up at the embassy and vote there. Same process, same visual and electronic verification, same penalties for abusing the system, and the same vote ahead of time schedule that the military uses.

I think I’ve covered all the bases. Voting is a right that we should cherish, but the exercise of that right should not be whimsical. Put some steel in the backbone of the system and sharpen its edges to guard against abuse. Putting a system like I have outlined into place will cost something, but it won’t cost billions and zillions. But it will stop the dead and the false from voting. And that’s a big step. Please feel free to fill in any gaps I’ve missed, or to shoot my plan full of holes if you don’t think it will work. But if you do, I’d really like to read about your alternate plan. Because we need a plan, and if mine won’t do the job then maybe yours will. So pony up.

What about illegals who have fraudulent or stolen SSNs? Once again, this is where the branches of government have to digitally cooperate with each other. Digitally, because this kind of thing is a database to database communication with little or no human input. Social Security knows what numbers are valid, and what names those numbers were issued to. The credit card companies, the banks, and the utility companies - the sources of those letters that prove current address - know where you live. So showing up to vote with a falsely obtained registration card, or even trying to obtain a registration card under false pretenses, sets off an alarm. And alerts the cops and ICE. And earns the registration clerk a $100 bonus for bagging an illegal or a cheater. But that’s another side issue.




So what do we do about them that scream raaaaacism when anyone tries to True The Vote? Throw it right back at them: they are guilty of the prejudice of lowered expectations. They are in support of fraud. Don’t question their patriotism, deny it entirely. We The People are all equal in this. Belonging to any kind of group - ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, whatever - has no bearing at all. And it’s high time we took that stance, took up the fight, and won this little pissing contest once and for all. The first step to recovering national faith in our leaders is making sure that the electing of those leaders is done only by the properly qualified citizens. The next step is making sure that the system used to do that electing is honest and bulletproof. The next step is making sure that the people vying to become elected leaders are qualified to do so. The step after that, once they’ve been elected, is holding their feet to the fire every single day to make sure they do what is right. And that’s what we have to do to get our country back.

http://townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2010/10/27/the_lefts_voter_fraud_whitewash
http://www.slate.com/id/2272405/
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/26/court-strikes-ariz-law-requiring-voters-prove-citizens/

No more beef and cheese: Go vegetarian, by order of Government food police …..

Lets not get overwrought here. Ain’t gonna happen but must say I got a laugh out of it.  Although some are quite serious about this. And naturally I think they’re all Moonbatty.

No more beef and cheese: Go vegetarian, by order of Government food police

By Sean Poulter

Wholesale changes to the nation’s diet, with a move towards vegetarian food and away from beef and cheese, have been recommended by Government advisers.

A report commissioned by the Food Standards Agency suggests radical changes to what we eat and even how we cook.

These include eating more seasonal produce to reduce transportation and switching to microwave ovens and pressure cookers to use less energy in preparing food.

Out would go beef, cheese, sugary foods and drinks such as tea, coffee and cocoa. In would come vegetables and pulses, together with yogurt.

The FSA says the switch is necessary as part of a move to a diet that is low in greenhouse gases (GHG), which are associated with climate change.

The report, compiled by a team from the University of East Anglia, suggests that schools, hospitals and other public bodies should be expected to lead a change in national behaviour by putting low-GHG food on their menus.

The university was at the centre of allegations last year that it had manipulated climate change data to magnify the problem.

Its report, called Food and Climate Change, will be controversial given that many people may baulk at being told what they should eat in order to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets.

a bit more here

   Tuesday - October 26, 2010

Oh Deer

British Knickers In A Twist
Over One Dead Deer



Largest stag in England has died. A hunter shot him. Weighing in at a whacking great 300 pounds, about the size of a regular mule deer, the red deer named The Emperor of Exmoor is no more. The deer was at least 12 years old, and red deer live perhaps 13 years in the wild. Regardless, anti-hunters are all riled up, and everyone is saddened that what could have been the largest wild animal in the UK is no more.

[earlier this month] Thought to be the largest wild animal in the British Isles, he weighs around 300lb and stands 9ft tall from the ground to top of his antlers. Photographed on his traditional stamping ground near the Devon and Somerset border, his precise location is kept a closely guarded secret for fear that poachers may try to stalk him. The mating season lasts until the end of this month, giving the Emperor plenty of time to prove he’s still the UK’s alpha male.
...
Local wild deer expert Peter Donnelly said after a sighting of the Emperor last year: ‘Red deer stags are the biggest indigenous land animal left in these islands, so it is possible that this is the largest wild animal in the country today.

‘The deer on Exmoor are larger than the ones in Scotland because of their diet, and this is a very fine beast. He’s so big and powerful.’

The shooting of a red deer named The Emperor has raised the issue of stalking - the tracking and shooting of the animals.

The Emperor, nearly 9ft (2.75m) tall, was thought to have been the biggest wild land animal in the UK - though some experts have questioned this. Stalkers see their activities as an important part of land management - a key method of regulating the number of deer in the wild. Government figures show about 350,000 deer are already culled each year in the UK, but numbers are still rising.

For professional stalkers like Mr Freedman, concerns about the shooting of Emperor were unjustified.
He said: “It’s a stag. It’s been shot. That’s how it happens. I’ve shot three deer this morning. It’s something we do every day.”

The rutting season in England lasts until the end of October. Odds are good that he’d done his fall business already. But the bucks will fight to keep their harems, and like our elk, sometimes it’s a fight to the death. And folks drive in from all over to run about the parks to watch the rut, oblivious to the possible danger. Hey, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.

These moors are also home to Devon’s largest land mammal, the red deer. Autumn is the best time to see red deer, and October is the time to catch the rut, or mating season, when the animals are often active during daytime.  This is the period in which red deer society loses its normal calm and enters a state of unrest. Dominant stags spend their time guarding groups of hinds (females), bellowing out warning to potential rivals and occasionally coming to blows with them.

Nature lovers are mourning the death of a red stag dubbed the Emperor of Exmoor — a nine-foot (2.75 meter) giant reported to be the biggest wild animal in the British Isles. He was found dead soon after his picture appeared in the national press.

His size set him apart from the herd, but also made him prize prey for hunters willing to pay handsomely for such a majestic trophy.

“With a set of antlers such as this deer had, it was basically going to kill him in the end,” said Richard Austin, the photographer whose images of the stag appeared in newspapers earlier this month — inevitably accompanied by the word “majestic.”

“He was his own worst enemy, I suppose, Austin told the BBC Tuesday. “Growing that big and that huge and that magnificent, he was a definite target.”

A former royal hunting ground, Exmoor is popular with local hunters and with wealthy outsiders, who jet in to stalk red deer — Britain’s biggest land animal. They pay landowners for the right to hunt on their land and take away sets of antlers as trophies — or for a higher fee the whole head. If done during the hunting season, which runs from August through April, it is perfectly legal.

Hunting is a divisive issue in Britain, where the traditional practice of chasing down animals with packs of hounds was outlawed in 2004 — though with enough loopholes that hunting carries on pretty much unimpeded across the country. Supporters say it is a vital part of the rural economy, but hunting is bitterly opposed by some animal lovers.

The witness who saw the stag’s body said they recognised it as being the Exmoor Emperor as it was being taken away. Peter Donnelly, an Exmoor-based deer management expert, said it was a disgrace the animal, which is believed to have been 10 to 12 years old, had been shot during the mating season.

“It could be that he didn’t get a chance to rut properly this year, therefore his genes have not been passed on this time round,” he said.

And that’s the big story in the UK today. One deer, hunted. Oh, the humanity of it all. But please, hold your tears, all hope is not lost:

Mr Donnelly said he had seen a very large young stag in the past few days - which could well be the offspring of Emperor from an earlier rutting season.

It’s a Start

Pull !

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia took fellow Justice Elena Kagan out for a lesson in skeet shooting at his shooting club in Virginia last week.

The witnesses saw Scalia at the Fairfax Rod and Gun Club, where he is a member, around noon on Wednesday of last week. He was with a woman who was noticeably diminutive in height, like Kagan, who stands at about five feet three inches. The witnesses, who got a very close look at the pair, say that the woman was the newest Supreme Court Justice.

Scalia was bending down in order to teach Kagan how to hold the shotgun, the witnesses say, and the pair were shooting skeet.

Kagan, who was nominated to the Supreme Court by President Obama in May and confirmed by the Senate in August, is generally believed to hold negative opinions toward the Second Amendment. The perception is based on a memo she penned in the eighties as Justice Thurgood Marshall’s law clerk, in which she said she was “not sympathetic” to the Second Amendment argument in a case that dealt with the District of Columbia’s gun laws. Also, during her time as a member of the Clinton administration, she played a role in instituting a temporary suspension of licenses for the importation of assault rifles. Kagan did not comment on the issue of gun rights during her confirmation hearings.

The Fairfax Rod and Gun Club would not comment on the matter. The Supreme Court of the United States did not respond to request for a comment.

I know what you’re thinking. I had the same two thoughts as well. And so did the folks who left comments.

“Did he give her a head start?”

and

“Where the heck is Dick Cheney when we really need him?”

But this was Antonin Scalia, and he’s smarter than you or me. And he knows that a great way to get people who may have an irrational fear of guns over that fear, is to expose them to firearms in the most benign way. And skeet shooting is one of those ways. You play it with shotguns. The loads are about as mild as it gets. With shotguns you don’t even have to aim all that well. And at the gun club, out on the skeet range, everybody, and I mean everybody, is conscientiously practicing gun safety all the time, without making a big deal of it. And the targets ... they aren’t animals, just little disks of clay. All you have to do is nick them a bit and it counts.  Ok, trap shooting might have been even less challenging, or some time spent at the practice hut where they gently loft the skeets in a line directly away from you. But overall it was a smart move. And a classy one. Take her again Antonin. Get her hooked and give her a membership. Get her her own gun, a pretty one all done up with rosewood and high figure walnut, with artistic engraving, checkering, and gold inlays. Elegant. Something about as far from that “evil black plastic gun” look as possible. Then move on to light rifles, and then to mild pistols. Then arrange a chance meeting with Paxton Quigley or other folks of a similar ilk. Someone elegant and gentle. Take the soft approach ... patience ... do it well enough and they’ll never even know it’s there.

   Monday - October 25, 2010

eye candy

I don’t know who she is but I could gaze upon her forever ....

I think she’s from India. Man they make em nice there. 
okay ... I am outta here for the night.

Head teacher says schoolchildren do not need books …. ok, then what?  answer > Wikipedia.

At some point last week, or maybe the one before, I posted a stupid school story. I can’t even remember now exactly what was at issue, except I assigned it a Moonbat I’m sure.

Well, now it’s the turn of my own country and frankly I don’t get it.  No books?  How’s that work? This I think deserves a Moonbat or two. See what you make of it.
Is it only me or does this not make any sense?  And what’s this person doing in a school anyway?  Read on and see an example of his academic brilliance.
Maybe someone should have shared a book with him. 

Head teacher says schoolchildren do not need books and recommends Wikipedia

The head teacher of a school in New York is facing calls to resign after he sent out an error-strewn letter claiming that children did not need books, while he also recommended Wikipedia.

By Jon Swaine in New York

Andrew Buck, the principal of The Middle School for Art and Philosophy, Brooklyn, wrote to his teachers to defend the school’s policy of not providing textbooks, which had been criticised by some parents.

His memo contained so many spelling mistakes, grammatical errors and non-sequiturs that a concerned member of staff passed it on to parents, who began handing out copies at the school gates.

Mr Buck, who is paid $130,000 (£83,000) a year, wrote: “Text books are the soup de jour, the *sine qua non*, the nut and bolts of teaching and learning in high school and college so to speak.” However, he added, “just because student have a text book, doesn’t mean she or she will be able to read it Additionally students can’t use a text book to learn how to learn from a textbook.

“Are text books necessary? No. Are text books important? Yes. Can a teacher sufficiently teach a course without them? Yes, but conditionally.”

Mr Buck went on to say that not being able to answer questions in his own school textbooks made him feel “dumb and inadequate” when he was a boy.

“Personal experience aside, which surfaces a concern about the potential adverse affects of textbooks to students learning, let’s return to the essential question of learning and how it is best achieved,” he wrote.

After listing the names of educational theorists whose work, he said, would back up his claims, Mr Buck wrote: “Check out Wikipedia if you want to learn more about learning theory”.

Pupils at the school, where only one in eight 14-year-olds passed state reading exams last year, are given no textbooks for some classes and have to share in others. The school has no library.

Paulette Brown, a nursing assistant with a daughter at the school, told local reporters: “Our principal denies us books and then he sends this nonsense. You can’t understand what he’s saying in the letter. He has to go.”

Mr Buck, a former official in the local education department, has led the school since its foundation in 2007. He was found to be the least trusted principal in Brooklyn by a New York teachers union survey the following year.

He said in an emailed statement: “I often correspond with teachers on educational issues to enhance communications and generate discussion. If any parent has concerns, I am available to speak with them.”

edju-ca-shun

a good twist

Infidel w**ore!! How can she be the winner without a mustache?

But at least Jeter will have more time for her now that the Yanks are out of it. Waaat-waaat-waat-waaa. Gee, too bad.

Getting Graphic

Seegee Aiye has a cousin. This is Anna May.







Mad Skillz indeed!

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