'Nuff said

Challenge Accepted!

Seattle: Boy, the WTO Riots were the worst, weren't they?
Hamburg: Hold mein bier and watch this...

— Drang (@DWDrang) July 7, 2017

Mayday, Mayday!

May first in Seattle is always a pain in the fourth point of contact. Traditionally (so to speak) the pro-illegal immigrant faction has shown solidarity and tried to win hearts and minds by blocking rush hour traffic on Interstate 5. Here's a report from last year: Seattle May Day protests marred by violence - CNN.com

So this headline isn't exactly going out on a limb: Seattle May Day Protests Might Create Traffic Headaches - Seattle, WA Patch

The only honest commie on the Seattle City Council -- meaning she's the only member who actually admits to being a commie -- has called for "civil disobedience" (WARNING!: Link goes to commie web site.) Thus: Seattle Councilmember Sawant under fire, accused of trying to incite problems on May Day | KOMO

(Gotta love this quote:

"I barely believe that the anarchists are going to be barely a blimp in the whole process," said Juan Jose Bocanegra, Co-chair of the May 1st Coalition.

What does that even mean?)

I'll be at work, and I try to avoid Seattle in any case, but I suspect things will get sporty at this event:  Stand Against Communism

I must be slowing down

Today an employee -- not one of mine, but a Salt Mines employee -- told me his hours in military time.

He then apologized for using military time.

And explained what military time is.

And translated "1300 hours" for me.

I managed not to reach through the phone and choke him.

Or direct him to address me as "First Sergeant."

Or tell him I was using military time when his father was trying to figure out what number Mickey's Big Hand was pointing at.

Told one of my colleagues about this and she said "It's like I don't even know you anymore."

I suppose I can cite this the next time someone tells me I need to ease up on the staff...

WA Governor proves he learned nothing

One might think that one of the few democratic governors left these days might have learned from  the 2016 election that now is not the time to double down on Democratic party big-money causes.

Nope.

Courtesy of Shift WA we learn that Governor Inslee has decided that Olympia is coming up a little short. $8.7 Billion short.

But that's OK, he has a plan...

That graphic neatly summarizes what Shift WA calls Governor Inlee's Lumps of Coal for WA:

1. A lump of Inslee coal in your stocking: A “bold” budget to fund bigger gov’t. A 21% increase...
2. Lump #2 of Inslee coal in your stocking: A new state income tax Proposals for an income tax always play so well here...
3. Lump #3 of Inslee coal in your stocking: A BIG gas/carbon tax We voted down a carbon tax last November. This one was even designed to partially offset our high sales tax. So what does Jay want to do? Of course!
4. Inslee’s Lump of Coal #4: Let’s sock it to small businesses This one is a "Gross Receipts tax", not a tax on profit, so it will literally tax some businesses out of business...
5. Jay’s lump of coal #5: Tax the foreigners (from Canada)! People from out of state are exempt from the state's high sales tax. He wants to end that.which costs businesses business.

(edited to add) RELATED: Washington has what’s the nation’s most regressive state and local tax structure.

Uh-oh... UPDATED

So I woke up about 0200, couldn't get back to sleep, decided to read a bit. Mrs. Drang informed me that she was watching a DVD because the satellite dish was acting up again, "probably the snow." (See comments to previous post.)

About 0400 or so as I was about to turn out the light she came to bed and informed me that we might be about to lose the birch tree in the back yard.

"Nothing we can do about it now" we agreed.

Right.

Ten minutes later I was out in the back yard.

One of the limbs her father had secured with a line (plastic-sheathed clothed line, I think) was hanging down almost to the ground; the line had snapped.

The upper branches from the limb were over-hanging the corner of the roof, although I couldn't get a good look. Being me, I grabbed a large pair of side-cutting loppers from the back porch/lawn tool storage, and trimmed it up as best I could.

I think I need a real chain saw.

Did get the satellite dish cleared, though.

The tree in question.
Pretty sure I ran pics of it in pretty much this condition a few years ago.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

Same tree, from driveway, post-dish clearing.
The white streaks are more snow falling, BTW.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

The hood of Mrs. Drang's car.
The snow is heavy enough that the front half of the hood was cleared, the snow there slid off of it's own weight.
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

The solar-powered garden light seems to have problems...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

For those of you in Fimbulwinter-free zones:
This picture was taken with ambient light, no flash.
"Waiting for daylight to assess the damage" wasn't completely necessary...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

No bird baths today...
Photo ©2017 D.W. Drang and The Cluemeter

While I was out there I could gear limbs cracking all over the neighborhood, but did not see any actual damage to any of our trees. I think maybe what woke me up was a limb breaking down the street.

UPDATE: Just heard a loud cracking noise from outside. 😟 Can't tell if it's ours or a neighbors. Will wait for full daylight for further inspection, don't want to walk around under it if  it's about to go...😨

UPDATE 2: Lost power just before 0700. Lost two limbs from the birch tree, they fell down in the street. Called in power outage, notified 911 of a downed line in the street. Checked out the limbs in the street, decided it was enough of a public nuisance I needed to clear it away...

...and my silly little electric chain saws had no power.

Dug around in the garage and found a fairly large saw that Mrs. Drang's father had, grabbed it and a pair of offset loppers and got the street cleared, if not the entire mess cleaned up.

Power just came back on, trying to decide if I'd rather have breakfast or a shower first...

a pox on both their houses!

with apologies to e.e. cummings.

listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door. election 2016 is ted cruz v james webb. let's  go.

— Drang (@DWDrang) October 22, 2016

Mr. Bad Example

So, what spare time I've had the last week or two had mostly been spent transcribing my notes from MAG40. I think I'll pass on posting a day-by-day AAR and just post the outstanding things from it.

When I'm ready.

In the meantime... I often pass on posting about things in the news, because others post about them so much better. But sometimes...

As seen on View From The Porch: See this? Don't do this?

Man, 20, killed by shotgun blast outside northeast Raleigh home | News & Observer

This. This right here is why we can't have nice things.

(And actually ties in with some of the things covered in MAG40.)

Acknowledging that the press almost always leaves important details out, and that events as described by friends and family of the deceased are biased and not to be trusted...

A bunch of young males in their late teens and early twenties at, or leaving, a party two doors down does not sound like "hoodlums and vandals."

The part that really caused me to face palm so hard I almost gave myself a concussion was this:

I fired my warning shot like I’m supposed to by law.

Not only is there no legal requirement to fire a warning shot, but police are generally prohibited from firing warning shots. 

And, sweet Jesus, if you HAVE to fire a warning shot, shoot into the ground!

The 911 calls include this:

12:50 a.m. “We’ve got a bunch of hoodlums out here. I’m locked and loaded, and I’m going outside to secure my neighborhood. You need to send PD as quickly as possible.”

and

“You need to send PD as quickly as possible, I’m on neighborhood watch. I’m gonna have the neighbors with me. There’s hoodlums out here racing up and down the street. It’s 1 o’clock in the morning, um, there’s some vandalism.”

and

12:57 a.m. “We have a lot of people outside our house, yelling and shouting profanities. I yelled at them, ‘Please leave the premises.’ They were showing a firearm, so I fired a warning shot and, uh, we got somebody that got hit.”

at which the dispatcher asked (reasonably enough)

“Someone was shot?” the operator asked.
“Well, I don’t know if they were shot or not, ma’am,” he told her. “I fired my warning shot like I’m supposed to by law. They do have firearms, and I’m trying to protect myself and my family.”
The operator asked who had come to his house.
“Ma’am, I don’t know who they are,” the man said. “There’s frigging black males outside my frigging house with firearms. Please send PD.”

Okay, so...

• Neighborhood Watch is no more a license to kill than a concealed carry permit. 
• The evidence as presented in this article makes it sound like no one got further than a few feet onto the idiot's property. 
• At this point, we only have the idiot's word that anyone had anything resembling a firearm besides him.
• And since the evidence makes it sound like he fired from inside the garage, through a window, it hard to see what made him feel he or his family were in such danger that discharging a shotgun was necessary.

The bad part, aside from all the people who have been writing and training about these things for years having apparently done so in a giant exercise in futility, is that there are people out there who will read this little screed of mine, and similar ones by others who are more experienced, have taken more training, and have more exposure, and excoriate us for "abandoning" this guy. (Not to mention NRA, SAF, etc.)

Make no mistake: There may be evidence to come that will change this to another "Good Guy With A Gun" story, but at this point this moron is a moron who deserves to be locked up, and only trotted out when a Bad Example is needed.

New York Values!

Or: Some animals are more equal than others!

NYPD probe ensnares man offering to expedite gun permits - NY Daily News

A Brooklyn volunteer safety patrol member was charged Monday with bribing cops with $6,000 in cash and other goodies to expedite gun permit requests, and three officers were transferred out of the licensing unit as part of the far-reaching NYPD corruption probe.

Shaya (Alex) Lichtenstein, 44, was so cozy with cops in the License Division that he’d spent nearly every day inside the office in police headquarters since 2014, federal court papers say.

Mrs. Drang and I enjoy the TV show Castle, because Malcolm Reynolds is in it, after all, but I have to laugh every time Castle laments the fact that he can't get a gun permit...

The undercover then said he was nervous about getting involved in the scheme.

In response, Lichtenstein pulled out a calculator and estimated the officer could earn $900,000 if he helped with an estimated 150 permits.
...
He claimed all of his customers were eligible applicants and that he was merely asking the officers to speed up the process, the complaint shows.

But a review of his cases showed one applicant who was approved for gun permit in 2013 had a long criminal history, prosecutors said.

I know that a man named Jim March was bringing suit, or suits, in California because in the majority of the state, the way you got a carry permit was by making a large (four or five large, as it were...) donation to the county sheriff's reelection campaign.

Mr March's website does not seem to have been updated in over a decade, so I have no idea what his status is, although at least some counties are better about going shall-issue...)

This could get real festive: Sources: NYPD Corruption Probe Expands To Mayor’s Fundraising « CBS New York

See, the strongest argument against "may issue" (AKA "Local Option", AKA "Discretionary Licensing") is that whomever makes the decision gets to pick and choose, and even if that doesn't result in palms being greased to "expedite a friends request", it is inherently discriminatory. Which was part of Jim March's argument.

Farewell to Facebook

or: Goodbye to all that.

Drang's Statement of Principles

Those of you who have been following these scribblings may recall seeing last June that I posted a post called Attention, Facebook Friends!, in which I explained that Facebook was telling me that, in order to access my account there, I would have to provide them with scans of government issued photo ID, or certain acceptable alternatives.

I used that post to tell Facebook what it could do with that idea.

Facebook is a private firm, it can set the requirements for use of it's services at whatever they want to.  The thing to remember is that, as Chris Byrne says,

If you're not paying for the product you ARE the product.

It's free, they make a shit-ton of money off of advertising and selling the members information.

I get it.

I also know that my business is my business.

Among other things I see people at work get all worked up about so-and-so said this or did that. I don't want those loons looking me up and sending me friends requests.

I've also heard too many accounts of those oh-so-tolerant, freedom loving clowns on the left "doxing" someone for something that was said on the Internet; while I have no illusions that this account could not be traced back to me, I want to make it as hard as possible.

(Note that the first purpose listed in that Wiki article for "doxing" is to "aid law enforcement", which is a crock; it's usually some commie posting the address of someone who has the temerity to disagree with them...)

And, I dunno, maybe my background as a Secret Squirrel/MI Geek had something to do with it.

Now when I set that account up I honestly don't remember seeing something that said "Account must be in your legal name", although I was vaguely aware that that was the policy. Maybe I didn't look hard enough. Maybe I ass-you-me'd that a well-established Internet presence, including a moderately successful blog, would count. I dunno.

I don't care.

It's hard enough maintaining Personal Security in the modern age as it is, I am just not comfortable with the idea of handing over copies of ID to some faceless strangers. Barn-door late, of course, considering that my own government hired a bunch of ChiComs to set up the Personnel Database, and now Beijing has access to my and my wife's data, but just because the horse is gone is no reason to open the pig pen up, too, to coin a phrase.

(So, Zuckerburg goes jogging in Beijing to prove it's not all that unhealthy in an effort to get the Chinese to open up to Facebook...
(Seeking Access to Facebook in China, Zuckerberg Courts Risks - The New York Times)

So last week I clicked on a link to an article that someone posted to their Facebook page, and while there just for shits and giggles I clicked on the "Log In" button, and it worked. Cool.

It was cool because, in the 9 months or so since I lost access, a bunch of people have migrated away from other venues where I could interact with them regularly, and were hanging out on Facebook. I didn't even notice it, because I could just go to Facebook and talk to Tam about her latest blog post, for example, or hang out with The Cool Kids in a Facebook Group. Since I'd never even been invited to be one of the Cool Kids before, it was... Cool.

But.

My business is my business.

My information is my information, my identity is my business, and if I tell you my name is "D.W. Drang", you can damned well like it or leave it.

Yes, I'm aware of the irony, considering that Facebook is telling me "All your data are belong to us, like it or leave it."

When I was able to get back in I thought perhaps they had relaxed the policy a bit. Maybe I could have the account in my legal name and have that private, all anyone would see would be my "nickname."

Nope.  You can have a nickname, but it will be displayed right next to your legal name.

And, yes, I can make a Facebook page for the blog, but it must be associated with a legal name, which will be visible to anyone looking at the blog's page. they said I have until March 22^nd to send them the goods.

UPDATE: And I forgot to mention that, when I got back in last week, Facebook said I have until March 22^nd to upload the goods.

So, no.

Repeat after me:

My business is my business.

My information is my business.

My identity is my business.

Stop the derp!

So, elsewhere on the Internet, in a discussion of defense training for folks in the education business, someone trotted out the hoary chestnut "Just keep a can of wasp spray on your desk!"

I didn't like that advice the first time I heard it, on the basis that spraying folks with nerve agent seemed like a bad idea. If you need a less than lethal option, OC spray or Mace, or even one of those crappy stun guns they sell everywhere, would seem like a better idea.

Why? Because the label tells you not to use in an enclosed space, or to evacuate an enclosed space before use. Because these products generally have a warning that says something like "Illegal to use in a manner inconsistent with this labeling" as part of the safety precautions.  Because of the possibility of some lawyer standing up in a courtroom and reading the label of the can, and challenging any suggestion that it was "less than lethal". Since you gave and/or took advice that this was useful as a self-defense tool, the issue of liability is greater than I was comfortable with.

Mind you, if you're attacked by a gang while spraying that wasp nest in the back year, it's what you have and they have it coming, but deliberately arming yourself with a bug bomb seems questionable.

I suppose the reason that wasp spray specifically gets recommended is that it shoots what seems to be a powerful stream for a relatively long range, and the target will curl up and drop when hit. It's a (relatively) little bitty bug, hit by a stream that is powerful relative to it's size, and formulated to it's biology.

So when someone said "Wasp Spray", I mentioned that I thought it was a bad idea, and sat back with a metaphorical bowl of popcorn and waited for the experts.

They did not disappoint:
Wasp spray for self defense? This myth just won’t die! – www.GrantCunningham.com

You should read the whole thing, but:

The concentration of pyrethrins in a typical wasp spray isn’t all that high, but the amount of material in the stream which hits the insect may weigh as much as it does; even in a small concentration, the insect will get a huge dose of the poison relative to its weight. The distillates which serve as the carrier are selected to get past the bug’s exoskeleton and deliver the poison very rapidly. The result is the effect described above: the insect loses its ability to control its muscular functions in mid-air and drops to the ground, where it rapidly dies.

When directed at a human, I can tell you from experience this doesn’t happen. As I said at the top, several years ago I managed to spray myself in the face with some wasp spray as I attempted to snuff out a large nest. I wasn’t looking at the can as I shifted my grip to get the spray into an difficult place, and I was wearing gloves so that I couldn’t tell where the button was pointed. Instead of hitting the nest the spray hit my face!

I was in no way incapacitated and had no problem walking into the house, cleaning myself off, and checking the manufacturer’s website for first aid procedures. I did notice some tingling and my vision was a little blurry in one eye for a bit, but that was about the extent of it.

Mr. Cunningham also links to an American Preppers Network article with a detailed discussion of the chemical make-up of wasp spray, and of the differences between OC for humans and for bears, as well as a link to a news item about a couple who tried unsuccessfully to use wasp spray to "repel boarders" during a home invasion.

Plus, this video:

So, spraying wasp spray on a news crew filming the news in a public area put them in such distress they thought it was... windshield washer fluid.

Can we please stop the derp?

Thought For The Day, 03/03/2016

Thought for the day: Donald Trump's popularity represents the return of the Know Nothing Party.

— Drang (@DWDrang) March 3, 2016

If you're unfamiliar with the term, read up on it here: Know Nothing - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Native American Party, renamed in 1855 as the American Party, and commonly known as the Know Nothing movement, was an American political party that operated on a national basis during the mid-1850s.
The movement arose in response to an influx of migrants, and promised to "purify" American politics by limiting or ending the influence of Irish Catholics and other immigrants, thus reflecting nativist and anti-Catholic sentiment. It was empowered by popular fears that the country was being overwhelmed by German and Irish Catholic immigrants, whom they saw as hostile to republican values, and as being controlled by the Pope in Rome. Mainly active from 1854 to 1856, the movement strove to curb immigration and naturalization, but met with little success.

And as Abraham Lincoln is my witness, I wrote that before I read this: Will this year be an 1860 moment? No such luck | Power Line

Officer Involved Shooting, Seattle, 02/21/2016

From the Seattle Police Department Blog:
SPD Releases Dashcam, Photos From Officer-Involved Shooting of Armed Felon In North Seattle

The Seattle Police Department is releasing photos and video from a fatal officer-involved shooting, which occurred Sunday as officers attempted to arrest a felon illegally armed with a handgun.
Around 3:30 PM police were conducting surveillance in the 2200 block of Northeast 85^th Street as part of an ongoing investigation. Officers observed a man with a holstered handgun, and identified him as Che Taylor, 46, a convicted violent felon, legally prohibited from possessing a handgun. Taylor’s criminal history includes convictions for assault, robbery and rape.
At approximately 4:15, officers called for additional units to assist in taking the suspect into custody. As Taylor stood at the passenger door of a white Ford Taurus, a marked patrol vehicle with emergency lights on pulled up facing the Taurus.
An SPD arrest team then approached the vehicle to take Taylor into custody. Officers ordered Taylor to show his hands and get on the ground. He did not follow officers’ commands, and instead leaned into the Taurus.
According to officers, as well as a civilian witness interviewed by investigators, Taylor reached for his handgun, leading officers to fire.
Officers detained the other two people in the car and called for medics. Police performed CPR on Taylor at the scene until medics arrived. He later died at Harborview Medical Center.
Detectives are still serving warrants as part of the investigation, but have recovered Taylor’s firearm, When Taylor arrived at Harborview Medical Center, he was carrying approximately 6 ounces of suspected crack cocaine and black tar heroin. Officers booked one of the other people in the vehicle into the King County Jail for possession of a significant quantity of suspected heroin.

This is the OIS I referred to in the intro to my previous post, that has local activists all riled up.
‘Black Lives Matter’ protesters demand firing of police chief after fatal shooting | The Seattle Times
Mayor, police chief promise timely update on fatal shooting of black man | The Seattle Times
Because a known convicted felon open-carrying a pistol during a drug deal is obviously in the clear...

That was unexpected

It seems that I have made it almost to the end of Downton Abbey without actually seeing an episode until the last week or two. I wa vaguely aware that it was considered to be somewhat subversive by some because of it's tendencey to show that British Upper Class, and specifically the landed, titled Upper Class, in a good light, but really, never had any interest.

So the last few weeks, what with my work schedule change, I have sat through a couple of episodes,  not really watching them, as I have nearly no chance of really following what was going on, but there is a sub-plot in which there is a bid by a larger hospital to absorb the smaller, local one. Most people support the move on the grounds that it will result in better care locally. Professor McGonagall*, who has transformed herself into the current mother of the Earl of Grantham, and is therefore known as the Doawger Countess, OTOH, is fighting to maintain local control; everyone assumes that she simply does not want to lose power, despite the fact that she has said repeatedly that the move would result in worse care locally, notwithstanding the allegedly better equipment the move would bring.

The other day she expanded on that, using a line of reasoning one might not expect from a member of the gentry. Citing King John Lackland and the Barons, she said (from Washington Examiner)

"For years I've watched governments take control of our lives, and their argument is always the same — fewer costs, greater efficiency — but the result is the same too," Violet said. "Less control by the people, more control by the state, until the individual's own wishes count for nothing. That is what I consider my duty to resist."

She went on to argue, "Your great-grandchildren won't thank you when the state is all powerful because we didn't fight."

Alas, not only your great-grandchildren not know whether you fought or not, it will probably never occur to them that there was anything to fight about.



*Yeah, I know, but I couldn't resist. Some actors, you always see them in a certain role.

I am shocked, SHOCKED!!!

Gov. Inslee halts Bertha work after sinkhole forms near project - Puget Sound Business Journal

After moving less than 200 feet in the past 10 months, the Bertha tunnel boring machine will stop drilling again.

Washington Gov. Jay Inslee on Thursday ordered tunneling work to halt temporarily after a sinkhole formed near the waterfront earlier in the week – the same day digging stopped after a barge carrying dirt tipped over and spilled into Elliott Bay.

Seattle Tunnel Partners will have to find the cause of the sinkhole and prove the contractor can prevent similar incidents in the future before resuming work, Inslee said. Bertha is scheduled to start drilling under the viaduct in March.

“STP will not be allowed to resume tunneling until their analysis and work plans meet the satisfaction of our experts,” Secretary of Transportation Lynn Peterson said in a statement. “I want to remind everyone that replacing the viaduct is critical to public safety.”

 I predicted at the time this was going to make Boston's Big Dig look like a marvel of efficiency.  (a co-worker from Bahston shrugs and says "Hey, it was only 8 times over budget.")

Looks like I underestimated Seattle's ability to add an element of low farce to municipal incompetence.

UPDATE: Wikipedia is several months behind the news: Alaskan Way Viaduct replacement tunnel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fer Pete's Sake

So, Tamara has this song she wrote, a pastiche on "A Few Of My Favorite Things" from The Sound of Music. Tamara's is commonly referred to as "The Fun Show Song", and it's about the joys of going to gun shows.

Ambulance Driver and Squeaky made a music video of it as a Christmas Present for Tamara, which she posted here.

The notorious plagiarists at a certain site noteworthy for their unintentionally ironic use of the word "truth" in the title posted it without attribution; Bobbi has some details at Stop, Thief!. Be it noted that I have no idea about the whole Dead Hooker magazine thing, but since Tamara makes a living as a writer, and a writer owns copyright on the words she puts into certain order, and Dan Zimmerman and that website have infringed copyright before, I think we can certainly state that Dan Zimmerman is an intellectual property thief.

Look, it's all too easy to embed an image or video without attribution. When the copyright holder says "Hey, I own that" you should either replace the embedded code with a link, or (at least) add the proper attribution.

Linoge has a history of the infringements at the truth about the truth about guns and robert farago | walls of the city.

Earworm, Weekend Weather Update Edition

We have been having some seriously blustery weather the ;at few days, rain and wind, and multiple simultaneous weather-related watches, warning, and alerts, incluiding for rain and wind, as well as flooding and landslides.

This morning when I got up the sun was shinging, and I foolishly opined that maybe teh storm had blown itself out a day or two early.

Yeah, right. The old Lightfighter weather taboo ("No matter how good or nice the weather is, if you talk about it it will get worse:) came true again.

So, you know:

An Observation...

It's amazing how many "How To" videos on YouTube prominently feature the wannabe teacher's back, or hands, or...

Especially when he's saying "Take this like that and push there..."

"WHAT? WHAT? HOW AND WHERE?!"

QOTD, 08/01/2015

I actually saw this yesterday, but I already had a QOTD for yesterday, so it got deferred to today.

At what Tamara likes to refer to as "An away game", and while discussing the Cecil The Lion "scandal", which in the way of these things devolved into a free range discussion of hunting, and what was Right And Proper and Pure, and What Was Evil and Wrong And Bad, David S. observed

How is it that so many of us in the gun community, who distrust the "liberal media," are so willing to accept this story at face value?

I've never been on an African "Safari"¹. If I had the money for same, I'd probably invest half and spend the rest on an Alaska hunt instead.

So here's what I know from talking about it with people who have been on Shikar²:

• You pays your money, you hires the Professional Hunter and his staff.
• The PH takes you around, and tells you when and where and which animal to shoot.
• That makes you the sport, not the, or a, "hunter."
• You have the option of paying "trophy fees" and getting a mount of the head.
• The meat is distributed among local communities.
• Hunting is controversial, especially among those whose knowledge of actual ecology ended at viewing Bambi at a young age.
• Hunting different from the way you/I do it is also controversial. 
• Mid-Westerners who "stalk"with a rifle or shotgun are liable to view those who hunt from a stand as some kind of barbarian, regardless of whether hunting from the ground there is practical, or even legal.
• People who have a scope on their shootin' 'arn feel the same about those without, and vice versa, ditto regarding legality.
• (EDITED TO ADD:) That goes double for weird styles of hunting involving strings and pointy sticks, guns that load from the front, or guns that look... icky.
• Also, some idiots are so much more concerned about the fate of a wild (well, semi-wild) animal than the facts that the "sport" in this case has received death threats, and the enlightened government of Zimbabwe (!) is demanding that said "sport" be extradited.
• Cecil was 13 years old. 
• The Average Life Span Of A Lion in the wild is 10-14 years.

Clearly, it's time to move to a cave in the mountains with a pile of "dead tree" books and give up on the human race.

***

1. Safari: A long overland trip, usually for diplomatic or trading purposes.
2. Shikar: Hunt, hunting.
This pretty much exhausts my knowledge of Swahili.

Attention, Facebook Friends!

Facebook wants me to upload digital copies of my photo ID to them.

Fuck that.

Sorry, it's been real.