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686

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Everything posted by 686

  1. 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".
  2. 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?”"
  3. 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?
  4. "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.
  5. Oh, and she has come up with a super intuitive storage place for sunscreen and bug repellent:
  6. We were 30 minutes late to a surprise birthday lunch with a bunch of people for my wife on Saturday. I had told her I wanted us and the kids to go to lunch for her birthday at 11:45. The morning of she starts dragging her feet, won't get ready. I'm trying to get kids ready, trying to get them to wear something nice, she undermines that. I'm trying to move her along without being a nag, but she suspects there might be someone there to meet us and is more concerned with interrogating me to solve that mystery than anything else. We are right on the brink of a full on argument by the time she finally gets in the car. The lunch goes fine, but people had been there for 45 minutes waiting for us. I wasn't planning/running the event, but I'll never go along with that kind of thing again. Afterwords, she says "I wish we would have dressed the kids nicer and I feel so bad people were waiting on us that long; I thought it was going to just be our moms there." (so you suspected our moms were there, knew I wanted to leave at 11:45 and didn't consider/care that any delay you caused would, at least, be inconveniencing them and me? WTF)
  7. Good thread idea. Did GE sell their consumer electronics division? How many individual stocks do you own, and at what rough percentage each of your portfolio? I hate trying to pick stocks. I'm in about 15 mutual funds, mostly Vanguard. Has anyone read/followed Sovereign Man? https://www.sovereignman.com/ Somehow I got on their email list, really pushes a lot of developing market (mostly South American) stuff based on the arguments that US stocks are overvalued and the US economy/debt/tax situation is poised for a rough run in the not so distant future. His general point is "the US is fucking up is fiscal position, if you want a Plan B in case paying the tab for this isn't to your liking, there are solid companies to invest in down here in that will earn you good returns and get you a passport/dual citizenship to boot". His logic is hard to argue with, I just don't know if his investment ideas are a ponzi scheme or something.
  8. Too much torque-in. Says right there.
  9. Hold up just a damn minute. Your wife wants a Tommy Gun? I also don’t recall you posting in the “wives and the stupid shit they do” thread. I’d like to call your attention to this graph sir. It sounds like you may be in the “Danger Zone” or the “Sub-Unicorn Zone”.
  10. I saw a fellow admirer of celestial bodies on the road the other day:
  11. Tom Coughlin is IMO the most under-appreciated coach of the last 10 years. He won 11 games in 2016, the Giants turn him loose and then win 3 games last year.
  12. that hull profile and paint scheme add some inches
  13. Is Wild Thing a 34 or 38?
  14. That's just amazing. kind of an interesting lawsuit going on with it too.
  15. This may not be "unbelievable" to most people, but purportedly all the gold ever mined in the world could fit into a cube with sides measuring 20 meters, which still bottles my mind.
  16. Monkeys fucking with dudes is funny; but that fucker that took a running start and about a 3 yard leap to knock the fuck out of that old lady needs to be shot on sight.
  17. ernest_t_bass' idea of a "low key night out":
  18. Nailed it. My wife remembers the foil but burns the bacon, just because.
  19. Awesome buck!
  20. Loaded protein yesterday. Lots of turkeys strutting still. Lots of fawns on the ground.
  21. Years ago, after I observed some fresh scratches on her car bumper, the right side of my brain thought "Where is she parking where other people are constantly bumping her car?" Then the left side of my brain responded with this:
  22. I always go lightly used 2-3 years old cars for the wife, because since she's going to scratch/ding it constantly and thrash the interior, I might as well start off by letting someone else take about $10K of depreciation.
  23. See, I go the other way here. If somebody is taking their half out of the middle, I pull down to where they know I'm waiting for them to GTFO, and then I just sit there with my truck idling (kinda loud diesel) as to hopefully add to their stress level/shame a little. Usually it does, as I can detect a quickened pace and more tense communications among their crew. You can almost hear the Yakety Sax...
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