What was it they said, “It’s a good day to… what, dig garlic maybe?” That’s next.

“If you shoot wolves to save moose, and then you shoot the moose, you’re either out of your mind or in Alaska.”
— Friends of Animals poster, autumn, 2024

And now the State of Nevada is using the same logic to kill mountain lions that prey on deer. The reasoning being that we need to save the deer so hunters can kill them. The hunters get a two-fer with this kind of program. If they’re lucky, they can bag a deer and a mountain lion on the same outing. What grand sport!

Deelishus doggies…

these little piggies…

I’m reminded of when the boys were 10 or 11 and we went to the county fair. All the piggies were washed up and on display, resting on fresh bedding, happy as clams. Many had the names of the meat packing companies that purchased them displayed beneath their prize ribbons.

Ben went vegetarian then and there.

Oh, by the way, does your city allow you to keep chickens?

Encounters (mp3)… Richard Nelson’s direct experience with polar bears.
Encounters (web site)
Richard Nelson biography

Blogs bringing up to the minute facts and perspectives from our 49th State…

• AndrewHalcro.com
• Mark Begich for U.S. Senate
• Progressive Alaska
• AK Root Cellar
• Alaska Anonymous
• Alaska Cafe
• Alaska Chinook
• Alaska Employment Law
• Alaska Peace Coalition
• Alaska Real
• Alaskablawg
• An Alaskan Abroad
• Bent Alaska
• Celtic Diva’s Blue Oasis
• Common Sense and Comity
• Dennis Zaki Blog – Alaska Report
• Far North Science
• FieryBlazingHandbasket
• freshwrestler’s reprieve
• Journey on the Wild Coast Blog
• Just A Girl From Homer
• Kodiak Konfidential
• Last Frontier Locavores
• Leave No Monkey Behind
• mt view forum
• Mudflats
• My Fairbanks Life
• own the sidewalk
• precinct 1080
• Ptarmigan Nest
• Radical Catholic Mom
• radio icebox
• rant.mivox
• Ray Metcalfe Blog
• Recycling & Renewables Rap
• subarctic mama
• The Ester Republic
• The Fairbanks Pedestrian
• the Fireweed
• The Immoral Minority
• The Rogue Wave
• USA vs Victor H. Kohring
• What Do I Know?

… The Chicago Tribune published a compelling report on an investigation of … death cases in Governor Bush’s time. It made chilling reading.

In one-third of those cases, the report showed, the lawyer who represented the death penalty defendant at trial or on appeal had been or was later disbarred or otherwise sanctioned. In 40 cases the lawyers presented no evidence at all or only one witness at the sentencing phase of the trial.

In 29 cases, the prosecution used testimony from a psychiatrist who — based on a hypothetical question about the defendant’s past — predicted he would commit future violence. Most of those psychiatrists testified without having examined the defendant: a practice condemned professionally as unethical.

Other witnesses included one who was temporarily released from a psychiatric ward to testify, a pathologist who had admitted faking autopsies and a judge who had been reprimanded for lying about his credentials.

Asked about the Tribune study, Governor Bush said, “We’ve adequately answered innocence or guilt” in every case. The defendants, he said, “had full access to a fair trial.”

There are two ways of understanding that comment. Either Governor Bush was contemptuous of the facts or, on a matter of life and death, he did not care.

Sadly for Alaska Governor Palin, her state abolished the death penalty in 1957. But even absent a level playing field, there is proof that she knows how to “execute:”

“Mommy! Can we go home now?” The child was in tears.

“Suck it up, Piper! It’s not like I killed fucking Bambi.” The mother does everything she can to ensure that her daughter embraces a love of the outdoors and traditional values of sportsmanship.

“But, Mommy, I don’t like all the blood. Look at his face!”

“Right. Must have been Rudolph. Santa will have to use the snowmobile this year, I guess.”

(AP photo, from LA Times)

[tags]Sarah Palin, dead meat[/tags]

See: Wired Science

-and-

See: Threat Level

[tags]drill and pump, pump and drill, kill the whales, eat their krill[/tags]

Staging a convention during a major natural disaster would be a public relations challenge for either political party. But GOP officials say the burden could be especially heavy for their party, whose reputation was tarred by the Bush administration’s bungling of Katrina and its aftermath in 2024.

USA Today reports,

As preparations gathered urgency, the first batch of 700 buses were being sent to a staging area near New Orleans. In Mississippi, officials were deciding when to evacuate residents who survived Katrina and are still living in temporary homes and trailers.

Fox News analyst and Republican insider Karl Rove lamented, “The Republicans can’t seem to get a break when it comes to August and when it comes to the weather.” McCain, who is trying to drum up interest in his Vice Presidential choice, will hold a rally today in the eponymous “Nutter Center” in Dayton. It’s reported that he will bus voters from across the state in an attempt to fill the venue’s almost ten thousand seats. Cynical progressives are asking whether these buses couldn’t be put to better use right now on the gulf coast.

The Dayton Daily News reported yesterday that there were still plenty of tickets available for the Nutter event.

[tags]gustav, mccain, nutter, rove[/tags]