Resistance is futile!

Rodeo Gal

So it looks like newspapers are doctoring photographs of Representative Katherine Harris to make them look as though she has problems with make-up.  This is typical of left-wing journalism: remember the distorted Ann Coulter photo on the cover of Time?

Some people might think this is to get even with Harris for her role in the contested 2000 Presidential election.  But I think it's something else: jealousy.  I think all those Helen Thomas-like hags in the press just can't stand the idea that a 48-year-old mother (Republican, mind you) can look this good:

quizzes

I am 29% White Trash.

The white trash in my blood will not keep me from becoming a doctor or a lawyer, but it will keep me from a good haircut and any sort of fashion sense.

Take the
White Trash Test
@ FualiDotCom

Sounds about right...

But wait!  There's MORE:

I am 8% Hippie.

What? Am I a Republican? Why did I even bother taken this test?! I guess I’ll back to my George W. Bush fan club and tell them I just wasted 10 minutes of my life. At least I don’t stink, man.

Take the
Hippie Test
@ FualiDotCom

(courtesy of Memento Moron)

We need a bigger gun...

I got this one in the old mailbag...

The downloaded pictures are of a man who works for the US Forest Service in Alaska and his trophy bear.  He was out deer hunting last week when a large grizzly bear charged him from about 50 yards away.  The guy emptied his 7mm Magnum semi-automatic rifle into the bear and it dropped a few feet from him. The big bear was still alive so he reloaded and shot it several times in the head.  The bear was just over one thousand six hundred pounds. It stood 12' 6" high at the shoulder, 14' to the top of his head. It's the largest grizzly bear ever recorded in the world.  Of course, the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Commission did not let him keep it as a trophy, but the bear will be stuffed and mounted, and placed on display at the Anchorage airport to remind tourists of the risks involved when in the wild.  Based on the contents of the bears stomach, the Fish and Wildlife Commission established the bear had killed at least two humans in the past 72 hours including a missing hiker. The US Forest Service, backtracking from where the bear had originated, found the hiker's 38-caliber pistol emptied.  Not far from the pistol was the remains of the hiker.  The other body has not been found.  Although the hiker fired six shots and managed to hit the grizzly with four shots (the Service ultimately found four 38 caliber slugs along with twelve 7mm slugs inside the bear's dead body), it only wounded the bear and probably angered it immensely.  The bear killed the hiker an estimated two days prior to the bear's own death by the gun of the Forest Service worker.  Think about this: If you are an average size man; You would be level with the bear's navel when he stood upright.. The bear would look you in the eye when it walked on all fours! To give additional perspective, consider that this particular bear, standing on its hind legs, could walk up to an average single story house and look over the roof, or walk up to a two story house and look in the bedroom windows.

Being a naturally suspicious person, I was skeptical.  A few things in the text stood out as less-than-Kosher:

First off, the notion of deer hunting in Alaska with a 7mm Magnum sounded... odd.  While Alaska is full of big critters (moose and elk, as well as these bears), the deer of Alaska are known for being rather small and delicate.  A 7mm Magnum is overkill.  But... in a land where giant bears like this come out of nowhere, a 7mm Magnum is certainly too light considering you may need to fall back on it as a defensive weapon.  If I were deer hunting Alaska, I'd be carrying a .243 Winchester rifle, with a .454 Casull for backup.  And I'd do my darnedest to stay out of any area where bears had been spotted recently!  If I were hunting the larger members of the deer family, like moose, then the minimum rifle I'd choose would be a big .300 Magnum with 200 gr. bullets.  That is about the smallest I would want to have with me, for moose hunting, or a bear emergency.  But ideally, I'd go bigger: anything between a .338 Winchester and a .375 H&H.  And the final word on the gun is this: were I out seeking a trophy Alaskan brown bear, seeking to come face to face with a creature like the one in the photo, a .375 H&H would be my minimum choice.  These are creatures than can rip you in half with one swipe.  There is no room for error when hunting these monsters.  African game hunters choose weapons starting at .375 H&H and going up to the .460 Weatherby (and beyond!) to hunt lions.  Brown bears average twice the size of African lions!

Next is the size.  Now, I didn't doubt that the bear in the photo could be the size in the text.  But would that make a record?  I'm sure you have seen Bart the Bear, a "pet" bear that appeared in countless movies and TV shows.  I remember reading that at one time, Bart topped 1,700 pounds.  Well, a quick Google check found the Bart page.  According to the page, Bart only hit 1,500.  So maybe this bear really could be record size...

Now then, there is the part about putting the bear in the Anchorage airport.  This is believable, as anyone who has been to the Anchorage airport (my family calls it "the hall of dead things") can attest.  It would outdo the Kodiak airport, which is home to what is labeled there as the world's largest brown bear (about 14' feet tall, but I don't remember the exact height).  Maybe this story is legit?

Then there is the man-eater aspect.  The information here sounds plausible: bears can and do kill people in the wild.  But, bears are most likely to kill people when startled, then ignore the corpse once it stops moving.  Bears don't tend to like to actually eat people (although sometimes they do).  So this sounds a little fishy.  Plus, the details about the victims are vague.  You would think that whoever sent the e-mail would copy and paste the details from a news article.  News articles tend to sensationalize, and would give details like, for example, "a college student from New Jersey, visiting Alaska on his summer vacation, who will now never complete his degree in environmental science..."  You get the idea.  Back to skeptical...

The bullet report.  This makes me want to fact check.  The supposed autopsy revealed TWELVE bullets from the hunter.  Hunting guns are limited to 5 round capacity.  Many hold only 3 or 4 in the magazine, especially in guns made for the fatter magnum rounds.  That means this guy reloaded TWICE.  So... he empties his gun and drops the bear.  Believable.  The bear is down, but still alive.  Believable.  The hunter reloads, and approaches to fire the killing shot into the bear's head at point-blank range.  Believable.  Then, he empties the whole magazine, reloads, and fires again... Not so believable.  Maybe if he was just some dumb hick out to shoot stuff.  But the story says he is a forest service worker... we'd hope he would be a more responsible hunter!

But... the pictures look pretty convincing... what's the real story?

So... time to dig...

And digging found this:

The Giant Grizzly Bear

In real life, the big grizzly in the first two photographs measured 10' 6" from nose to tail and weighed an estimated 1,000 to 1,200 pounds — unusually large for the vicinity in which it was found, says the USDA Forest Service, but not quite a world record, nor even a record for Alaska.  It was killed on October 14, 2001 by U.S. Air Force Airman Theodore Winnen on Hinchinbrook Island, Prince William Sound. The photos were taken by his hunting partner, Staff Sgt. James Urban. Both were stationed at Eielson Air Force Base near Fairbanks at the time.

Though the bear was within 10 yards of the hunters' position and moving towards them when he fired the first shot, Winnen says, it did not charge them, contrary to what the email claims. "I don't know if the wind was in our favor or what," he told the Anchorage Daily News.  "We were dressed in camouflage.  He might not have seen us."  Winnen's weapon was a 338-caliber Winchester Magnum, not a 7mm semi-automatic as alleged.  The first bullet pierced the bear's brain but left it standing; five more in the chest brought it down.

So... I was right about the choice of weapon: no one would be in bear country with a 7mm Magnum.  And the number of shots fired: five, plus one in the chamber... The size: big.  Really big.  But short of a record.

So... in response to the end of the e-mail, asking you to think about the size of the bear... yes, a record bear would have been as tall as the letter stated.  But more importantly, look at the pictures, and consider that the record bears, bears that are out there in the wild right now, are significantly larger than the one in the photos!   YIKES!

What about the victims?

Was the bear a man-eater, as claimed in the email?  No, says the Forest Service, there is no evidence of that.

Well, it's a less interesting story without the victims.  But at the same time, it's good to know that two people didn't die.  It's ironic that people being eating by bears seems newsworthy, but people not being eaten bears isn't.

There you have it.  The real story is: these are real photos of a real bear.  It's a big bear.  It's an impressive bear.  The sad thing, though, is that urban legends and exaggerated e-mails have reduced the experience of Airmen Winnen.  What should have been his once-in-a-lifetime trophy hunt will, to the end of his hunting days, be an exercise in rumor-squelching and explanation.

Airmen Winnen didn't kill a world record bear.  He didn't bring down a dangerous man-eater.  But he did have a successful hunt; he did bring down a very, very respectable bear.  That's what we should remember.

Airmen Winnen: wherever you are, God Bless you for serving your Country, and good job on a good hunt.

The Montana Free Zone

An old friend of mine, who wishes to remain anonymous for reasons of personal security, sent me the following letter he received from a Blue Stater, along with his fisking rebuttal.  I am printing it for you below, sans his personal contact information.  But please note that the anonymous e-mail address mentioned is for real, and you can send your replies there.

Dear Red States,

At least you started off polite.  Hello, Blue States!

We're ticked off at the way you've treated California, and we've decided we're leaving.  We intend to form our own country, and we're taking the other Blue States with us.

Good Lord, we of the Montana Free Zone pray it is true.  When are you leaving?  Do you need help packing?

In case you aren't aware, that includes Hawaii, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois and all the Northeast.  We believe this split will be beneficial to the nation, and especially to the people of the new country of New California.

We get Montana, Alaska, Wyoming, Idaho, the Dakotas and Northern California.  You get a bunch of nasty cities with pollution problems.

To sum up briefly: you get Texas, Oklahoma and all the slave states.  We get stem cell research and the best beaches.  We get Elliot Spitzer.  You get Ken DeLay.

I assume you meant Tom DeLay?  Or was it Ken Starr?  That’s OK; we’ll take them both.  And we get General Schwarzkopf and Toby Keith.  You get O.J. and Michael Jackson.  As far as beaches, remember that Florida has more coastline than any of the other lower-48 states.  Speaking of which, we’ll happily take the fjords of Alaska.  And Corpus Christi. 

We get the Statue of Liberty.  You get OpryLand.  We get Intel and Microsoft. You get WorldCom and Enron. We get Harvard and Yale. You get  Ole' Miss.

Not that you would know what it represents, but you can have the Statue of Liberty; it came from France, anyway.  We’ll take the Grand Ole Opry, as well as Dollywood.  And since we get Texas, we get Texas Instruments, AMD, Sikorsky, and the Dallas Cowboys.  You get Hillary Clinton.  And George Soros.  We get Duke, Rice, Notre Dame, and Purdue.  You get Berkeley.

We get 85 percent of America's venture capital and entrepreneurs.  You get Alabama. We get two-thirds of the tax revenue, you get to make the red states pay their fair share.

We get most of the land-mass of the United States, including Alaska and Texas and all their oil.  We like oil.  We use it to power our Suburbans.  You need it to make all your plastic and nylon products.  We’ll take Alabama.  You get New Jersey.

Since our aggregate divorce rate is 22 percent lower than the Christian Coalition's, we get a bunch of happy families. You get a bunch of single moms.

At least we get married to people of the opposite sex.  You can keep Rosie O’Donnell and Ellen Degeneres.

With the Blue States in hand, we will have firm control of 80 percent of the country's fresh water, more than 90 percent of the pineapple and lettuce, 92 percent of the nation's fresh fruit, 95 percent of America's quality wines (you can serve French wines at state dinners) 90 percent of all cheese, 90 percent of the high tech industry, most of the U.S. low-sulfur coal, all living redwoods, sequoias and condors, all the Ivy and Seven Sister schools, plus Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Cal Tech and MIT.

We get all the wheat, corn, and beef.  You get earthquakes and smog.  But at least you have all those illegal immigrants to pick your fruit.  By the way, you can have the French wines.  We’ll stick with Shiner Bock for our state dinners.  Speaking of which, we retain Anheuser-Busch and Coors.  We’ll gladly buy your coal, since we know you won’t burn it.  Besides, we get West Virginia, which has enough coal for everyone.  We’ll miss the redwoods: they make great decks.  Keep the useless condors; we’ll get most of the glorious bald eagles.  Oh, and FYI, Harvard and Yale are included in the Ivy League.  Plus, you mentioned them already.  You don’t want to appear redundant.  We get William & Mary and the United States Air Force Academy.

With the Red States, on the other hand, you will have to cope with 88 percent of all obese Americans (and their projected health care costs), 92 percent of all U.S. mosquitoes, nearly 100 percent of the tornadoes, 90 percent of the hurricanes, 99 percent of all Southern Baptists, virtually 100 percent of all televangelists, Rush Limbaugh, Bob Jones University, Clemson and the University of Georgia.

Since your crime rate is 80% higher than ours, we get a more tranquil life.  You get the murder capitals: Washington D.C., Detroit, Chicago, L.A., N.Y.  We’ll take Boise.  We get small-town life.  You get more prisons.  You get the rap music, the new-agers, the vegans, and the Neverland Ranch.  We’ll keep Rush Limbaugh; you keep Al Franken.  We’ll keep Bob Jones; you can keep Wellesley. 

We get Hollywood and Yosemite, thank you.

I grieve for Yosemite, and what you will do to it.  Keep Hollywood.  By the way, isn’t ironic how you complain that things like large crosses or statues of Jesus pollute the natural beauty of the land, yet you want to keep that giant concrete “Hollywood” sign that pollutes the natural beauty of the land?

Additionally, 38 percent of those in the Red states believe Jonah was actually swallowed by a whale, 62 percent believe life is sacred unless we're discussing the death penalty or gun laws, 44 percent say that evolution is only a theory, 53 percent that Saddam was involved in 9/11 and 61 percent of you crazy bastards believe you are people with higher morals than we lefties.

Lest you lead more people astray, let me state the obvious: EVOLUTION IS A THEORY, hence the term "THEORY of Evolution."  What’s wrong with believing in The Bible, anyway?  Is that any stranger than believing that the entire Universe happened by accident?  That people have no Souls?  That there is no God?  Additionally, Life IS sacred, and so is FREEDOM.  We will defend both like a mother protecting her babies, although you may not understand that statement, since you would rather kill babies than keep your legs closed.  We do have higher morals; they come from our relationship to God Almighty.  You can try to make up your moral deficit with legislation and taxation; let us know how that works out for you.

Please be aware that New California will be pro-choice and anti-war.

Please be aware that The Montana Free Zone is PRO-LIFE and supports the rights of defenseless people over power hungry aggressors.  AND we will defend our land against infiltration by those who want to get away from the Pit that will be Nuevo Kalyfornya and turn us into the same.  Remember that we have most of the LEGAL weapons, and we teach our citizens how to use them.

We're going to want all our citizens back from Iraq at once.  If you need people to fight, ask your evangelicals.  They have kids they're apparently willing to send to their deaths for no purpose, and they don't care if you don't show pictures of their children's caskets coming home.  We do wish you success in Iraq, and hope that the WMDs turn up, but we're not willing to spend our resources in Bush's Quagmire.

The rate of enlistment is far higher from our states than yours.  And we will gladly grant political asylum to any members of the Armed Forces who, by accident of birth, are from Blue States.  I’m sure they’ll rather be with us.  So we’ll claim the United States Naval Academy and West Point; they can be islands of the Montana Free Zone, the way Guantanamo Bay in Cuba is.  Plus, we retain NORAD and the world’s largest military base: the Norfolk/Oceana complex. And when you eventually get overrun by foreign aggressors, while sitting around smoking pot and singing Kumbaya, we swear we will not interfere unilaterally, without the approval of France.  After all, the attackers probably have good reasons for what they are doing, and it is none of our business.  Once Nuevo Kalyfornyans are finished with their natural selection process and have devolved into slavery and/or nonexistence, we will happily come in and take back the land.  It will take years to clean up all the Starbucks coffee cups and drug paraphernalia, but it will be worth it in the long run.

By the way, we're taking the good pot, too. You can have that dirt weed they grow in Mexico.

By the way, you can have all the pot and other narcotics.  Our brains work just fine, and we don’t want to ruin them the way you have ruined yours.  You are welcome to visit our drug-free land, but if you are caught sneaking your filth in here, you will be held accountable.  That means prison with hard labor, like an Alabama chain-gang, not release and notoriety, like Robert Downey, Jr.  You have been warned.

Sincerely,

Author Unknown in New California.

Sincerely,

A Citizen of the Montana Free Zone

P.S. Anyone who feels the same and/or would like to help the Nuevo Kalyfornycans leave, send replies to [email protected].

Go ahead and send mail to "Citizen" expressing your thoughts on this issue.  He tells me he's getting quite a bit!

Why they are food

Ever see one of those chop-sockey movies where the bad guys all stand menacingly in a circle around the good guy, then charge in to fight him one at a time, resulting in the good guy knocking out each bad guy?  Ever say to yourself, "if those morons just charged him all at once, they'd swarm him, knock him to the ground, subdue him, and the movie would be over"?

Apparently, this happens in nature, too:

Police fired at the buffalo with semiautomatic rifles as each charged officers one-by-one. "If five of them would have charged at once, I'm not sure we would have had enough manpower to kill all of them," Colorado Springs police Lt. Larry Laxson said.

Now you know why buffalo are food.

Speaking of dogs...

Proof that money does not equal taste.

It's good to be a pimp

9th Circus Court of Appeals Pimps Evel Knievel's Ride...

I am not making this up.  The 9th Circus Court of Appeals threw out a suit by famed stuntman Evel Knievel, who wanted to sue a website for defamation after it posted a picture of him and two women with the caption "you're never too old to be a pimp."  This has been the big topic on this morning's Rush Limbaugh radio show.

The term "pimp" was probably intended as a compliment, the court said. But Knievel said, "What good is law in the United States of America if five or six goddamn bimbos are going to rule against it?"

I am sure that Knievel probably meant "goddamn bimbos" in the most complimentary way.

We need a bigger boat

And you thought it was just a line from a movie...

The Shark took off towing the 42 foot fishing boat backwards through the water at about 7 Knots. Just like in 'Jaws'. The boat was taking on water, the Shark would jump completely out of the water at times.

That's a new record Mako shark, caught off the shores of Nova Scotia.  What's particularly scary is, that's a Mako shark, not a Great White.  Although a Mako looks almost exactly like a Great White, they are much, much smaller.  Even this record beastie is a runt compared to a mature Great White, which on average are triple the size of this fish.  The largest caught on hook-and-line was 3,450 lbs.  Here is a big one snagged in 2002 off the coast of Natal:

Experts estimate that the largest Great Whites, rarely seen and never captured, may reach over 7,000 lbs and 23 feet in length.  And even at this size, Great Whites can completely clear the water in order to catch prey as large as elephant seals.  Check out this totally authentic dramatic re-creation of what a rogue Great White might do:

This is why people fishing, boating, or helicoptering in or around waters where one might encounter sharks like this need hardware like this:

The Barrett XM-109.  When you absolutely, positively, have to kill that critter fast, accept no substitute.  One of these bad boys would have made Roy Scheider's life a little easier...

Now go get yourself a copy of Jaws.

And keep your eyes open for the upcoming motion picture The Life Aquatic, starring Academy Award nominee Bill Murray.

Based on the previews, this one looks hilarious!

"What would be the scientific purpose behind killing it?"

"Revenge."

Must.  See.  This.  Movie.

The Kennedy Center Honors

This year's Kennedy Center Honors have been announced.  Congrats to Warren Beatty, John Williams, Sir Elton John, Dame Joan Sutherland, and real-life couple Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee.

But I wonder about Ossie Davis... did the Kennedy Center Board see THIS?

Ossie Davis, J.F.K., the Kennedy Center Honors... it all adds up...

Blue State Blues

It's total fiction, but it's written so well that it's hard for me to be sure.  Iowahawk has written a brilliant "essay" detailing a new psychological phenomenon whereby Blue-State Youth are taking on a Red-State Philosophy:

"I'm not sure where we went wrong," says Ellen McCormack, nervously fondling the recycled paper cup holding her organic Kona soy latte. "It seems like only yesterday Rain was a carefree little boy at the Montessori school, playing non-competitive musical chairs with the other children and his care facilitators."

"But now..." she pauses, staring out the window of her postmodern Palo Alto home. The words are hesitant, measured, bearing a tale of family heartbreak almost too painful for her to recount. "But now, Rain insists that I call him Bobby Ray."

Even as her voice is choked with emotion, she summons an inner courage -- a mother's courage -- and leads me down the hall to "Bobby Ray's" bedroom, for a firsthand glimpse at the psychic devastation that claimed her son.

She opens the door to a reveal a riot of George Jones CDs, reflective 'mudflap mama' stickers, empty foil packs of Red Man, and U.S. Marine recruiting posters. In the middle of the room: a makeshift table made from a utility cable spool, bearing a the remains of a gutted catfish.

"This used to be all Ikea," she says, rocking on heels between heaved sobs. "It's too late for us. Maybe it's not to late for me to warn others."

Read the whole thing; it'll crack(er) you up.

(Hat tip: SondraK!)