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Great racks. I really like wall mount pedestals like this, I'm going to try to work one up like this for my next mount.

“I ought to take a flamethrower to this place!” -Pacino regarding Surly Movie forum

“A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away...” I’m not a super Star Wars geek, but it’s alternate universe sci-fi, part of the fun is imagining what other cultures would find fashionable/functional. We wear some pretty weird hats ourselves if you think about it.

I’ve been planting trees at our place and this is my water wagon setup: Works pretty well for about $10 invested

I don’t think bison would get through a five strand 48” fence. You could probably call the LBJ ranch and ask them what they have. I want to improve some of our low fence and get a little blackbuck herd going

Also, the Mayor of the town sounds like a real charmer: "Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. had previously said the videos would probably vindicate the officers. On Tuesday, he defended the police, telling Philly.com that Weinman was “by far the aggressor here” and that women are typically harder to subdue than men. “I worked as a doorman, a bouncer,” said Troiano, who told Philly.com that his father owned a nightclub. “They can be hard to control. They’re kicking. They don’t care.” “Everybody’s trying to paint this young lady as an upstanding model citizen,” he said. “She’s on probation for four years. She chose to attack the officer, spit on the officer. Look, I don’t care who you are and what you are, the worst people [to try to subdue] are women.” link

The PD released the body cam footage. Looks like he decided to "drop" her after she passed(?) a breathalizer test but then wouldn't give him her last name and was walking away, while being mouthy. I do like the nj.com logo/catch phrase "True Jersey."

It wasn't terrible or great, more novel/interesting at first and then depressing to my introspective little self. I remember sitting in the back of the squad car unsuccessfully trying to turn the ferrule that the handle to roll down the window would have been attached to, and that the handle to open the door didn't work. I remember immediately not liking the feeling of being "trapped" and wanted out. Also, I remember the sound/feel when those cell bars shut, standing there staring at the layers of peeling paint on the bars, imagining not being able to open the bars and how miserable that would be, and thinking "F this shit I never want to see this place again".... Who's ready for cake?

I was the recipient of some cheap bastard upbringing on occasion. For my 5th birthday "party", my mom took me and my friends down to the jail where we were all fingerprinted, spent some time in a jail cell and in the back of a locked squad car. When I was in the jail cell, the jailer closed the cell bars and my mom told me "if you ever get in here don't call us!". I'm sure she thought she was making a good joke, but it definitely made an impression. Also, to everybody abusing retailer's return policies:

I didn't see the regs on G&F's website, but this synopsis seemed legit: http://www.westernbearfoundation.org/wyoming-grizzly-bear-hunting-regulation/

From what I know: Bears don't usually travel as far or as fast as other apex predators, their "territories" overlap but they don't have habitual patterns to the degree things like deer do (like where you know the same deer that comes to the same spot every evening). They aren't social, Boars are solitary and Sows keep their cubs with them (I believe for 2 seasons). The only time I know of State Game and Fish depts singling out individual animals is when they are targeting problem apex predators that are habitually killing threatened/endangered species, livestock, or endangering people (e.g. mountain lion trackers/hunters can sometimes track individual lions from a kill site). Some State Game and Fish agencies do require non resident hunters to have a guide so as to help the hunters differentiate legal animals or male/female (mountain goats, some sheep, etc.), where the state want hunters to target older males. Sometimes in lieu or requiring a guide, the state will reduce the remaining quota of animals available if hunters shoot too many females during the course of the season. This Grizzly hunt is setup to target males, and of course most hunters going through the effort to hunt Grizz are going to be looking for a big/mature one. Here's a summary of the regs: Resident Application Fee $5 – If you draw the tag is $600 Non Resident Application Fee $15 – If you draw the tag is $6,000 Licensed grizzly bear hunters shall attend a mandatory training on grizzly bear ecology and management DMA Hunt Areas 1-6. The total quota for these units will be 10 Boars and 2 Sows Non DMA – Hunt Area 7. The Quota will be 12 bears Shooting sows with cubs is not allowed (probably a fineable offence) Only two hunters will be in the field at a time to allow the state to hit the exact quotas or less and not over-harvest.

IIRC, I think we have more personnel in military bands than we have diplomats.

If the crabapples were in season, he must have been a "likes to fight drunk", as opposed to the more mellow Buzzwinkle, who would just get smashed behind the bars and then stagger home later. Ungulate walk of shame:

Without bison and elk there, I don't think there is enough food for Grizz populations in Big Bend. I would wager we will have a Jaguar sighting in Texas in the next 10 years, which would be great.

That is exactly what state game and fish agencies do, very successfully, with basically everything else (black bear, mountain lion, wolves, elk, whitetail deer, mule deer, moose, sheep, goats, turkey, grouse, doves, pheasants, quail, ducks, geese, cranes, fish, squirrels, rabbits, etc., etc.) They monitor population numbers and habitat conditions, and set quotas as appropriate to maintain ecosystem balance. Hunters have been able to shoot big grizzly/brown bears uninterrupted in Canada and Alaska this entire time, grizz hunting is not some unobtainable thing. IMO this isn't about pent up demand for grizzly hunting. I don't know the ranching situation around Yellowstone very well, but I do know the Park Service in Yellowstone artificially increased the numbers of bears by feeding them garbage for the better half of the 20th century, and then stopped in the 1970's, which resulted in a huge reduction in population numbers, because the habitat couldn't support that many bears. It may have led directly/indirectly to the ESA listing, I can't remember the timing there. Hunters didn't create this mess, we all did, and hunters are funding the lion's share of the restoration efforts.

Are Pentagon politics the weirdest politics around? Two guys go to the other side of the world, put their lives on the line for US interests, do a bunch of heroic stuff, kill a bunch of bad guys, save a lot of good guys, a lot of it on film, and Pentagon bureaucrats want to oppose one guy's medal over the other guy's like its a zero sum game. Pentagon bureaucrats come off like tone-deaf assholes belittling the accomplishments of war heroes, in the process of decorating war heroes. Great job guys.

I don't know much about that guy, but the reduction in lion hunting after he killed Cecil really fucked up reserve management in Zim and elsewhere: "... management from Zimbabwe’s Bubye Valley Conservancy was considering a controversial move to cull upwards of 200 lions out of a rough population of 500 in order to ensure the reserve’s wildlife biodiversity. It was also reported that since the growing calls to end trophy hunting, due in large part to the killing of Cecil the lion in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park last year, conservancies like Bubye are no longer seeing the funding necessary to adequately cover conservation costs, which includes fence maintenance, financing local schools and health clinics, and providing meat to local people." link In Africa, "if it pays it stays". African countries/people are trying to feed their families off the land, build roads, industry, economies, homes, commercial agriculture, etc.; not so different that the US was 50-200 years ago. All of that can't coexist with unfettered wildlife populations. People in the US frequently look down on African wildlife management and commercial development, but that continent is industrializing in a similar way to the 19-20th century US, with probably less overall wildlife extirpation (and probably roughly equal or less genocide to native human populations).

Here's grizzly historic and current ranges: Here's bison range as of 1896: Notice any overlap? If we cut every fence and highway from Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande, burned down the buildings and got out of the way, in 100-200 years bison and grizzlies would probably again inhabit their native range. What we've done to the bison equals or exceeds what we've done to grizzlies. Why don't the bison get any love from the anti's? Sad fact: we colonized the "Serengeti" of the western hemisphere and fucked it up bad. We paved paradise and put a parking lot (to a certain degree). Luckily, hunters and anglers are willing to pay big, big money to try and reverse some of this via both tag purchases and DU, RMEF, etc. donations, which are used buy up a lot of land and put it in trust for conservation and re-population. We have more white-tailed deer than ever. Turkeys are in a great spot population wise. We have Elk in the Appalachians for the first time in over a hundred years. Hunters probably do more to affect positive wildlife environments than any other group, and they get shit on by a big portion of the public that enjoy the benefits as "free riders".

I'm going to run down the Steve Rinella talking points here: Point 1: Hunting and Fishing license/tag sales basically fund state fish and wildlife agencies (which manage conservation efforts). Folks who drive through Yellowstone for a day or two and then rail against hunting don't help. Hunters that are buying tags that cost between ~$1000 and over $100,000 (governor's sheep tags), buy fishing licenses, and pay additional taxes on firearms and fishing gear fund the agencies that actually conserve wildlife. Hunting participation numbers are going down nationwide. The money has to come from somewhere. Running down hunters is basically cutting off your nose to spite your face if you like being able to see wild places with lots of animals for free. Point 2: If humans live somewhere, we alter the environment. We build roads, houses, farms, yards, schools, towns, dams, bridges, etc. and drive vehicles all over the place. Additionally, we want our kids, pets, and stuff to be safe so we build a lot of fences. All of that alters the ecosystem. Grizzlies used to exist in much higher numbers across the US because the environment would support them (one factor is that we essentially eliminated buffalo, which, IIRC, frozen buffalo carcasses were a significant early spring food source). If we alter the ecosystem (by existing in it), the mature thing to do is to manage it from there on out. That's what state game and fish agencies do, and they are pretty good at it. Point 3: Specifically regarding species management, some species "regulate" their population numbers better than others. If we don't help manage population numbers, they tend to expand quickly when conditions are good, and then crash catastrophically a few seasons later when they have over-utilized food sources and conditions are bad. Right now hunters pay for the opportunity to help manage those numbers. If we stop hunting, we will have to pay game agency employees to kill animals. Point 4: Wolves and Grizzlies get all the "love" from anti-hunters, but they really aren't in a compromised population situation, there are populations that are facing much bigger challenges that the anti's don't give a shit about. Sheep, Woodland Caribou, Sage Grouse, etc. There are about a dozen caribou left in the lower 48. "Biologists who work with the Kalispel and Kootenai Native American tribes are concerned that the caribou will disappear before they can act, and urge more aggressive support from the public and agencies. “Wolves and grizzly bears suck up a lot of the money,” said Bart George, a biologist with the Kalispel tribe. “Where is the support for this charismatic species?”"

I think we’re gonna need more info here amigo. Where did she see a Thompson and say “hey that’s cool, I want to get one someday”? Did she grow up around guns or just get into shooting as an adult?

"Wait the fuck" is pretty great. Not "breath of fresh ass" great, but pretty good. Also, in addition to the random nature of the location, I like to keep neurotoxins and shit away from my food.

Oh, and she has come up with a super intuitive storage place for sunscreen and bug repellent: