Tigers are Making a Comeback

The tiger population is increasing across Asia, especially in wildlife sanctuaries in Thailand and India.  This information is from a report by the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The increased numbers are mostly from better protection of tigers’ habitat and — finally! — cracking down on poachers.  In Thailand, a poaching ring was arrested last year and their leaders are serving five-year prison sentences.  (That’s IT???)

And in Russia, the government has created additional protected areas for tigers.

Cristián Samper, president of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said:

“Tigers are clearly fighting for their very existence, but it's important to know that there is hope. Victories like these give us the resolve to continue to battle for these magnificent big cats.”

On the down side — tiger penises are back on the menu at Wong’s China Kitchen.

Memorable Quotations from 2012

It’s been a hell of a year for wacky quotations.  Where to begin:

“By the end of my second term, we will have the first permanent base on the moon, and it will be American.” — Newt Gingrich

“You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” — Foster Friess

“If it’s a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.” — Todd Akin

“I’ve got a little bumper sticker for you: Osama bin Laden is dead and General Motors is alive.” — Joe Biden

“We’re not going to let our campaign be dictated by fact-checkers.” — Romney pollster

“Well, in Romney's world, the cars get the elevator; the workers get the shaft.” — Jennifer Granholm

“You want to jump out of your seat and rush down to the debate stage and take a swing at him.” — Tagg Romney referring to President Obama

“Life is that gift from God. And even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” — Richard Mourdock

“If you say you love American cars in the debate, but you wrote an article called ‘Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,’ you might have Romnesia.” — President Obama

“The president has been all over this and he deserves great credit.” — Chris Christie on Obama’s response to Hurricane Sandy

“I’m not concerned about the very poor.” — Mitt Romney

My two favorite Mitt Romney quotes weren’t mentioned in the linked article:

“I like competition, and I think the game [running for president] is like a sport for old guys.  I mean, you know, I can’t compete in competitive sports very well, but I can compete in politics, and there’s the — what was the old ABC ‘Wide World of Sports’ slogan? ‘The thrill of victory and the agony of defeat.’  The only difference is victory is still a thrill, but I don’t feel agony in loss.”

And:

“We don’t have a setting across this country where if you don’t have insurance, we just say to you, ‘Tough luck, you’re going to die when you have your heart attack.’  No, you go to the hospital, you get treated, you get care, and it’s paid for, either by charity, the government or by the hospital.  We don’t have people that become ill, who die in their apartment because they don’t have insurance.”

Been an interesting year.

Bad Pharma

Bad Pharma:  How Drug Companies Mislead Doctors and Harm Patients is the title of a book by Ben Goldacre.  It’s fun to laugh at those late-night drug commercials where two thirds of the ad is taken up with “warning:  may cause…” and “do not take if you’ve ever experienced…”

But the problem is a lot worse than we ever suspected.  As the book’s preface says:

“Drugs are tested by the people who manufacture them, in poorly designed trials, on hopelessly small numbers of weird, unrepresentative patients, and analysed using techniques which are flawed by design, in such a way that they exaggerate the benefits of treatments. Unsurprisingly, these trials tend to produce results that favour the manufacturer. When trials produce results that companies don’t like, they are perfectly entitled to hide them from doctors and patients, so we only ever see a distorted picture of any drug’s true effects.”

And this brings us to the recent pandemic of mass shootings — a subject which is discussed in the comments section at the end of the linked article.

Everyone — pro-gun, anti-gun, liberal, conservative — is reciting in unison “these mass murderers didn’t get the mental health treatment they needed.”

For conservatives, “mental health” is probably just a soundbite to take the focus away from assault rifles.  When it comes to actually paying for mental health services on a mass scale, conservatives will freeze all funding.  Or they’ll insist that mental health care can only be paid for by taking the required funding away from jobs training programs, environmental protection and other government programs they hate.

Anyway, would psychiatric medication — and other treatments — really have prevented any of these mass murders?  I don’t have a solution; it’s much easier to pinpoint a problem than to solve it.

But with the horror stories about psychiatric drugs — mentioned in the linked comment section, plus the stories we’ve all heard elsewhere — you have to wonder if the mental “cure” is worse than the disease.

What say you?

The Origin of Santa Claus, Christmas Trees and Flying Reindeer

Most of the rituals and trappings we associate with Christmas may have had their origins in ancient Siberia.

According to John Rush, an anthropologist and instructor at Sierra College in Rocklin, CA:

“Santa is a modern counterpart of a shaman, who consumed mind-altering plants and fungi to commune with the spirit world.”

During earlier times, shamans would (literally) drop into people’s homes during late December, bearing gifts of hallucinogenic mushrooms:

“As the story goes, up until a few hundred years ago these practicing shamans or priests connected to the older traditions would collect Amanita muscaria (the Holy Mushroom), dry them, and then give them as gifts on the winter solstice.  Because snow is usually blocking doors, there was an opening in the roof through which people entered and exited, thus the chimney story.”

This particular hallucinogenic mushroom, Amanita muscaria, lives throughout the northern hemisphere, usually underneath evergreen or birch trees.  The fungi is a deep red with white flecks.  According to the author of Mushrooms and Mankind:

“Why do people bring pine trees into their houses at the Winter Solstice, placing brightly colored (red and white) packages under their boughs, as gifts to show their love for each other?  It is because, underneath the pine bough is the exact location where one would find this 'Most Sacred' substance, the Amanita muscaria, in the wild.”

There also was a tradition in Siberia of dressing up in costumes that resembled these mushrooms, i.e. a red suit with white spots.

Reindeer are common in this area, and it’s possible that Siberians tripping on Amanita muscaria thought they saw flying reindeer.

Anyway, food for thought.

There’s another interesting little tidbit about Amanita muscaria, which wasn’t mentioned in the linked article.  Amanita muscaria passes through the urine completely intact.  Russian aristocrats used to ingest the drug, and then they’d let the peasants drink their piss so the peasants could get a free high.

NRA’s Outreach Program for Children

by Wayne LaPierre


Hi kids.  I’m here to talk to you about the most important thing in your household — your gun.  In fact, I want you to go and get your gun right now, take it out and look at it.  Admire it.

That is, you DO have a gun, don’t you?  If you don’t, then you tell Mommy and Daddy to go right out there and get you one.  NOW.  Your Mommy and Daddy ARE Americans, aren’t they?

Now, Liberals and Communists — wicked people who don’t like America — have been saying mean, nasty things about guns.  I hope you haven’t heard any of these terrible things, but in case you have — they’re NOT true.

Anyway, you’ve got your gun now.  See how nice it looks, just sitting there all sweet and innocent like?  Contrary to what those mean Communists have told you, your gun will NOT get up and start walking around on its own, or start firing itself at people, now, will it?

And isn’t it pretty?  I’ll bet it’s the neatest toy you’ve got.  And it’s also your friend.  Your best friend.

And like all good friends, your gun will be right there by your side during your hour of need.  Some bully gave you a wedgie in the locker room?  BLAM!  A teacher reprimanded you and embarrassed you in front of the whole class?  BLAM!

Now later on, when you start getting interested in girls, you can impress them with your powerful shiny gun.  And if you can’t find any girls who will go out with you, well, who needs girls?  You’ve got your gun.  Look at it.  Caress it.  Lay it on your pillow next to your head, and whisper sweet nothings to it.

Or maybe you’ll get mad at that stuck up girl who wouldn’t go out with you.  In that case, you know what to do.  [see above]

Isn’t your gun just the neatest coolest thing you’ve ever owned?  Or to paraphrase Norman Bates:  A boy’s best friend is his gun.

Robert Bork: 1927 — 2012

Robert Bork, Richard Nixon’s solicitor general and thwarted — i.e. “Borked” — Supreme Court justice, has died.  Nobody ever accused him of being dumb, but he sure had some misguided ideas.  The Supreme Court was wrong to overturn a Connecticut law banning birth control; there is NO right of privacy implied in the Constitution — oooookay.

If you’re older than dirt, you probably remember Robert Bork from the Watergate scandal.  Watergate independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox subpoenaed President Nixon for copies of the infamous Watergate tapes.  Nixon responded by ordering Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire Cox.  Richardson refused, and resigned in protest.  Nixon then ordered Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus to fire Cox.  Ruckelshaus likewise refused and resigned in protest.

The third time was the charm.  Nixon ordered Solicitor General Robert Bork to fire Archibald Cox, and Bork — being a Good German — followed hisss orderss and fired Cox.  This sequence of events — Saturday, October 20th, 1973 — became known as the Saturday Night Massacre.  And almost immediately, there was a bumper sticker saying “Nixon is a Cox Sacker.”

I didn’t hear or read anything else about Robert Bork until 1987 when Reagan nominated him to be a Supreme Court justice.  Congress rejected him, thereby coining the term “Borked,” past tense of the verb to Bork.

Conservatives had a mass tantrum that an intelligent, clearly qualified legal scholar would be rejected solely because of his political views.  And herein lies a certain irony, which millions of California residents will vouch for:  During this same period, California State Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird was up for reconfirmation by the voters.

(California Supreme Court justices are appointed, but after a certain number of years their reconfirmation is put to a Yes or No vote by the public.  There’s hardly ever a No vote.)

Rose Bird ended up getting voted off the California Supreme Court solely because of her opposition to capital punishment.  So during this period, millions of California conservatives were simultaneously a) champing at the bit to get rid of Rose Bird because she was against capital punishment, and b) shocked and outraged that a Supreme Court justice would be voted down because of his beliefs.  Anyway, non-conservatives will probably pick up on the irony.

Nowadays terms like “Astroturf” are almost a cliché.  But this was less common in 1987, or less publicized anyway.  The successful PR campaign against Rose Bird was a joining of two forces:  corporate VIPs with more money than God but not much empathy from the general public, and the pro-death penalty sentiment which caught fire with the public but had no money.  Presto!

Rose Bird was considered “anti-business,” and one particular ruling had the corporate crowd in a mass pantytwist.  She ruled that shopping mall owners could not use trespassing laws to prevent petition circulators from soliciting signatures and charity groups from seeking donations on the premises of a shopping mall.  Unfortunately — for the moneyed set — there weren’t millions of Californians walking around all fired up over the “property rights” of shopping mall owners.  But when the VIPs teamed up their millions with the capital punishment groundswell, that was the end of Rose Bird’s career.

But remember now:  it was an outrage that Robert Bork was kept off the Supreme Court because of his political views.

Has America reached Peak Stupid yet?

I didn’t make up “peak stupid” — I stole it from Josh Marshall at Talking Points Memo.  But the term is so descriptive, I had to think up a post where I could use it.

America’s SQ (Stupid Quotient) has been rising steadily, but it reached a boiling point after last Thursday’s incomprehensible mass murder in Newtown, CT.  Personally I don’t think this tragedy should be used as a political football for anyone’s agenda, whether it’s fewer guns, more guns, more prayer rituals at the office, whatever.

But some of the scapegoats people are coming up with are just plain, well, Peak Stupid.  Or at least we can hope this is the peak.  You’ve probably seen some of this garbage.  The tragedy in Newtown was caused by:  allowing same-sex marriage and other permissive ungodly behavior; kicking God out of our public schools; steamy sex scenes in movies and on TV; using birth control; you name it.

And some of the “solutions” are even wackier:  arming students and teachers, and/or training grade school students to rush the gunman in the middle of his shooting spree (described in the linked article).  Other “solutions” include Special Ops training for all teachers — plus arming them to the teeth — so they’ll be trained to react automatically during an assault weapons attack.  The teaching credential program would probably look more like Navy SEAL training, with that there booklarnin’ being just an afterthought.

And there are other examples of Peak Stupid besides the retarded “solutions” to last week’s mass shooting.  Just one example:  in Arizona, GOP leaders are STILL dredging up Obama’s fake birth certificate.

[sigh]

If we haven’t reached Peak Stupid yet, what will the real Peak look like?

How to Save Taxpayers $80 Billion a Year

Every year, state and local governments hand out $80 billion worth of subsidies to large corporations.  Is this where you want YOUR tax dollars going?

As this column by Neal Peirce says:  “It should be called for what it is: corporate grand larceny, aimed at your tax dollars, your public services and mine.”

These taxpayer handouts consist of tax credits and exemptions, cash grants, property tax abatements, and free buildings, among other giveaways.

These corporate VIPs probably aren’t the same “47-percenters” that Mitt Romney was ranting about, but they’re draining the public treasury just the same.  The column continues:

“And what are the companies providing in return? Promises, promises. They assure some city, county or state that with a payout from the public treasury, they’ll move their office or plant into the ‘lucky’ jurisdiction. Or alternatively, they won’t desert a facility that’s already there.”

These corporate welfare cheats include manufacturing companies, large banks, fossil fuel conglomerates, tech and entertainment companies and big box stores.  Stadiums — which the author doesn’t mention — have always been the most blatant example of this, IMHO.  A few multi-millionaire team owners will con gazillions of tax dollars out of a city in return for an even bigger glitzier stadium.  They always have statistics showing how many megabazillions of dollars will be brought into the city by sports fans, without mentioning the megabazillions of dollars that the city will have to spend on overtime pay for police and other first responders, and the lost productivity caused by monster traffic jams before, during and after each game.

Neal Peirce’s column is based partly on a New York Times investigation by Louise Story, and partly on the work of Good Jobs First.  The founder of Good Jobs First, Greg LeRoy, wrote a book in 2005 titled “The Great American Jobs Scam.”

Another staff member of Good Jobs First — Phil Mattera — has created a site called Subsidy Tracker:  “Discover Where Corporations Are Getting Taxpayer Handouts Across the United States.”

Good Jobs First and Subsidy Tracker are both worth bookmarking.  With federal and state lawmakers getting ready to cut and slice and dice in the name of deficit reduction, these corporate giveaways need to be on the chopping block.

“Period of Testing” for Conservative Principles

You’ve gotta be kidding.  You almost have to feel sorry for John Boehner:  He’s being pulled in one direction by the voices of sanity and moderation; and the opposite direction by rightwing billionaires and their useful idiots who keep trying to drag us back to the Middle Ages.

Boehner received an open letter yesterday signed by about a hundred prominent conservatives, warning him not to “give in” to Democrats and moderates because Republicans are “entering into a period of testing.”  The letter talks about a “mandate to fight for conservative principles.”

Signers of the letter include the chairman of the American Conservative Union, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas (can you say “conflict of interest”), Foster “tell her to put an aspirin between her knees” Friess, direct-mail has-been Richard Viguerie and Phyllis “Hump Your Bible!  Again!” Schlafly.

“Entering into a period of testing?”  I believe a test was already administered last month.  Yes, it was…let’s see…it was administered on Tuesday, November 6th.

And the results of that test were…OK, here we are…your test results were:

You

FAILED!!!!!!

Republicans’ New Plan to Rig Future Presidential Elections

Voter suppression laws are sooo 2012.  And besides that, they backfired.  But now:  onward and upward.

Nobody ever accused Republicans of learning from an electoral defeat.  Party leaders never say “gee, maybe the voters don’t want a few billionaires to eliminate workers’ safety laws” or “I guess the voters don’t want to turn the clock back to the 1600s and bring back the Salem Witch Trials.”  Nope, it’s always “we didn’t communicate our message effectively enough” or “we need to be more devious and corrupt; tilt the playing field even further to the right.”

Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio have come up with a new twisted convoluted scheme for rigging the Electoral College for future presidential elections.  All three of these states are swing states that are controlled by Republicans, and President Obama carried all three of these states in 2008 and 2012.  Rightwing power brokers cannot allow this to happen again.

Currently every state hands out electoral votes on a statewide basis, but apparently that outdated method isn’t corrupt enough.  Virginia’s “solution” to the problem is being proposed by State Senator Charles Carrico Sr. (R—Blows the Koch Brothers).  It works something like this:

The state’s electoral votes would be divvied up based on which candidate got the most votes in each congressional district.  Virginia, for example, has thirteen electoral votes and eleven congressional districts.  A presidential candidate would get one electoral vote for each district where he/she won the popular vote.  The remaining two electoral votes would go to the candidate who won the majority of the eleven congressional districts.

Just reading that previous paragraph, does your head hurt as much as mine???  WTF?!?!?!  Just imagine, if these sleazy cocksuckers put one tenth as much brain power into SOLVING problems instead of creating hare-brained labyrinthine schemes to rig the election…

And this scheme is even more corrupt than it sounds on the surface.  Example:  Obama won Virginia’s popular vote last month by four percentage points.  But he only won four of Virginia’s eleven congressional districts.  If Virginia’s vote-rigging scheme had been in place last month, Mitt Romney would have carried Virginia even while losing the state’s popular vote by four points.

If every GOP-controlled swing state had had this scheme in place last month — that’s Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — Mitt Romney would have won the 2012 election.

Michigan’s “Right to Work” Legislation

I first learned the word “euphemism” in high school civics class.  The example the teacher gave was the term “right to work laws.”  And all these decades later, rightwing droolbuckets are still pretending “right to work” laws are a good thing.  The right to work — who could be against that?  It’s all about Freedom.  Choices.

As you know, the Michigan legislature — during their lame duck session — is in the process of passing right-to-work legislation.  The legislation should be finalized this week, and Governor Rick Snyder has promised to sign it.

Earlier today, President Obama gave a speech to an audience of Daimler union employees:

“What we shouldn't be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages.  These so-called right-to-work laws, they don't have to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics. They're about giving you the right to work for less money.” 

He also said Michigan is a perfect example of how labor unions have helped to “build a better America.”

Last week, Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer blasted Republicans on the Senate floor:

“You must be kind of embarrassed right now.  Your floor leader doesn’t know the rules and your leader doesn’t even want his name on this bill. Well I have a simple question: Why are we here today?…Lets be clear, this legislation is petty and vindictive politics at its most disgusting.  You began this two year session by attacking workers and their families with your emergency managers legislation that raised the ire of people around the state and brought thousands of protesters here to Lansing. And now for one of your final pieces of business in this legislative calendar, you want to pass ‘right to work’ legislation that hurts workers and our economy by lowering employee wages, benefits, and workplace protection. Another bow to big business and wealthy special interests at the cost of our people.”

The Michigan AFL-CIO calls Michigan’s right-to-work legislation the “Freedom to Freeload bill” because it allows workers to get all the benefits of collective bargaining agreements without having to join a union and pay dues.

And the Detroit Free Press has an editorial urging Rick Snyder to put the “right to work” issue on the state ballot instead of signing the lame-duck legislation.

Ellen DeGeneres Wants to Ram her Lesbian Christmas Down America’s Throat

Fellow Christians, the unthinkable has finally happened:  the War on Christmas and the Homosexual Agenda have joined forces to create America’s Worst Nightmare — a Lesbian Christmas!

Ellen DeGeneres and JCPenney have collaborated on this Satanic mockery of everything America stands for.  Fortunately, a God-fearing Christian group — One Million Moms — is organizing a crusade against this debauchery.

In case you’re skeptical of One Million Moms — their motives, their credentials — they’re an offshoot of the American Family Association.  So rest assured:   whatever crusade they’re undertaking at the moment, God’s Love is smiling down upon us.

JC Penney has defied the will of America’s snake-handling Biblehumping community by running a TV commercial featuring Ellen DeGeneres, a known lesbian.  If you love America and Christmas  — and hate homosexuals, as Jesus commanded — please join One Million Moms in their boycott of JC Penney.

If you love Jesus, you must prove it by signing up for the boycott at the One Million Moms website.

Jim DeMint: the Quitter

What is it about rightwing politicians who can’t even finish the term they were elected to serve?  You betcha!

Senator Jim DeMint (R—Spanish Inquisition) will be leaving the Senate.  He still has four years remaining in his current term.  South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley will appoint a replacement senator until a special election can be held.

Jim DeMint will be leading the ultra-rightwing Heritage Foundation.  A high-ranking member of the Heritage Foundation once said publicly that only property owners should be allowed to vote, so that gives you an idea of their politics.  And in everybody’s favorite irony of ironies:  the Heritage Foundation originally came up with the idea of the individual health insurance mandate in the early 1990s.  It didn’t become synonymous with Soviet tanks rolling across America until President Obama adopted the idea.

Jim DeMint told Rush Limbaugh:

“I think the problem is, as conservatives, we have not taken enough control of our message and our ideas and communicated them directly to the American people.”

Hallelujah!  That’s EXACTLY the problem.  In their hearts, the American People WANT to ban all abortions, eliminate all government spending on that commie infrastructure, and  increase “defense” spending so we can invade even more countries more often.  This is what Americans truly WANT, but conservatives just haven’t been able to communicate this message clearly enough.

Republicans Have Become More Tolerant and Open-Minded Since Last Month’s Election

NOT


Before the 2012 election, Republicans were perceived as a bunch of dimwitted misogynist bigots who think the Earth is 6,000 years old and insist there’s a War On Christmas.  Since then, GOP leaders have talked about modernizing their image and reaching out to women, minorities and working people.  Here’s a progress report:

Twenty-five percent of Republicans want their state to secede from the United States.

And 49% of Republicans think the 2012 election was stolen by ACORN.  There’s just one problem with this theory:  ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) went bankrupt and disbanded in 2010.  But hey, don’t let a few facts get in the way of a nice soothing feelgood rush of tinfoil hattery.

As somebody at Talking Points Memo said:  “GOP outreach — this might take awhile.”

But on the bright side — for Republicans — there really IS a war on Christmas.  But conservatives are wrong about what’s causing the War on Christmas.  It has nothing to do with that devil-worshiping cashier who says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”

Christmas is threatened by global warming.  Extreme drought could ruin the Christmas tree market.  Almost two thirds of the U.S. mainland (i.e. the Lower 48) is currently in drought conditions.  This year’s Christmas tree crop hasn’t been affected, but future Christmases might not be so bright.  As the linked article says:

“The prolonged drought has hurt the growth of newly planted trees, which take years six to 12 years to reach full height. The more mature trees have developed root systems to survive little water, meaning growers expect normal supply for the holiday season. Since the youngest trees lack enough water to develop their roots, they die off quickly.”

OK, so Christmas might be derailed by climate change, which is either non-existent or God’s Will.  Go ahead, rightwads — spin your way out of this one.

Anonymous Campaign Donors Unmasked

And the more you learn, the more mysterious and inscrutable it gets.

In California, two ballot initiatives last month would have a) prevented unions from using dues money for political contributions, and b) derailed Jerry Brown’s tax plan.  An anonymous dark money group from Arizona — Americans for Responsible Leadership — had donated $11 million to these two initiatives.  They both lost.

On November 5th, the day before the election, a court ruled that Americans for Responsible Leadership had to reveal its donors.  Transparency at last!  The rock was lifted.  Hiding and cowering underneath the rock was…drumroll…Americans for Job Security.

WTF?!?

As the linked article puts it:

“Behind one anonymously financed and neutrally-named group was simply another anonymously financed and neutrally-named group. Like some kind of dark money Russian doll.”

And it gets even more labyrinthine.  The $11 million spent by Americans for Responsible Leadership (or was it Americans for Job Security?) had been funneled through another group:  The Center to Protect Patient Rights.

And when you lift up the rock to see who’s financing The Center to Protect Patient Rights, hiding underneath the rock is…another rock.  And when you pick up THAT rock, you find…

(to be continued)

Rick Santorum joins World Net Daily

It’s a match made in Heaven.  The Bible-humping-est presidential candidate of all time joins forces with the world’s wackiest tinfoil hat conspiracy organization.

World Net Daily issued this press release yesterday:

“Rick Santorum – the former U.S. senator who ignited grass-roots conservatives as a Republican candidate for president this year – today joins WND as an exclusive columnist.  During his run for president, Santorum spoke about his belief that strong families help produce a strong economy.  He shared his views that opportunities for all Americans must be expanded by encouraging incentives for marriage, children and free enterprise.”

And Rick Santorum has hit the ground running.  His first World Net Daily column has some frightening news:  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is planning to “cede our sovereignty to the United Nations.”

Specifically, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities — a treaty adopted in 2006 —  has some very “dark and troubling implications.”  It would  “put the government, acting under U.N. authority, in the position to determine for all children with disabilities what is best for them.”

Oh My God — Death Panels!

Rick Santorum's column will only be once a week — every Monday.  I’m already looking forward to the next one.  Be Very Afraid.

Wolverines 1, Inbreds 0

The endangered wolverine has won this particular battle, if not the war.  Montana is the only state besides Alaska that allows trapping of wolverines.  The trapping season was scheduled to start this weekend, but yesterday District Judge Jeffrey Sherlock issued a restraining order which had been sought by conservation groups.

The issue will be discussed at a hearing in January, and the trapping season goes until mid-February, so we’ll see…

Climate change is a threat to the wolverine’s long-term survival prospects, since wolverines live mostly in snow-covered areas at high elevations.  And in the short term, there are only about 250 to 300 wolverines remaining in the Lower 48.  Let the mouth-breathers trap something else — preferably each other.

One of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit had said:

“We think there are enough other threats that wolverines are facing, with climate change and habitat loss, that trapping is not another one that needs to be piled on top of them.”

Fortunately Judge Sherlock agreed.

A member of the Montana Trappers Association disagreed with the ruling:

“If somebody can trap a wolverine and sell a wolverine pelt for $500, and they can make a house payment with that money or pay groceries with that money, that comes down to subsistence.”

Get a job Cletus.

Wolverines are small, but no other animal — not even a grizzly bear — will tangle with one.  The only thing they have to fear is an inbred with a steel trap.

I saw a stuffed wolverine at a museum a long time ago.  Even stuffed and displayed behind the glass, it looked fierce.  Axel, the wolverine from the Fusco Brothers, is presumably not an accurate portrayal.