This video, by In a Nutshell, speaks about how the Syrian crisis is an international issue, and how it all started with countrywide unrest and the civil war in Syria. …
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
Category: government
$350,000 to shoot a rare black rhino
Sounds horrendous. The hunter faced death threats from outraged conservationists.
But the issue is far more complex than it seems at first glance.
The permit came from Namibia’s Ministry of Environment and Tourism. Each year it targets several older rhinos that are no longer able to breed but still pose a deadly threat to younger males. The proceeds are meant to go toward anti-poaching and conservation efforts.
That $350,000 does much to protect black rhino. Many hunters are keen conservationists.
Want to know more?
Back in 2014, Corey Knowlton paid $350,000 for a hunting trip to Namibia to shoot and kill an endangered species. He’s a professional hunter, who guides hunts all around the world, so going to Africa would be nothing new. The target on the other hand would be. And so too, he quickly found, would be the attention.
This episode, producer Simon Adler follows Corey as he dodges death threats and prepares to pull the trigger. Along the way we stop to talk with Namibian hunters and government officials, American activists, and someone who’s been here before – Kenya’s former Director of Wildlife, Richard Leakey. All the while, we try to uncover what conservation really means in the 21st century.
Listen to the story on RadioLab.
ALL OUT against Harper
Adbusters doesn’t like Harper.
There are attack ads. And there is … this.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
It’s amazing how demonized this guy has become. He certainly hasn’t been the worst Prime Minister. On the other hand, Harper has to go.
#WeAreBetterThanThis
President George H. W. Bush resigns from the NRA
He did the right thing.
May 3, 1995
I was outraged when, even in the wake of the Oklahoma City tragedy, Mr. Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of N.R.A., defended his attack on federal agents as “jack-booted thugs.” To attack Secret Service agents or A.T.F. people or any government law enforcement people as “wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms” wanting to “attack law abiding citizens” is a vicious slander on good people.
Al Whicher, who served on my [ United States Secret Service ] detail when I was Vice President and President, was killed in Oklahoma City. He was no Nazi. He was a kind man, a loving parent, a man dedicated to serving his country — and serve it well he did.
In 1993, I attended the wake for A.T.F. agent Steve Willis, another dedicated officer who did his duty. I can assure you that this honorable man, killed by weird cultists, was no Nazi.
John Magaw, who used to head the U.S.S.S. and now heads A.T.F., is one of the most principled, decent men I have ever known. He would be the last to condone the kind of illegal behavior your ugly letter charges. The same is true for the F.B.I.’s able Director Louis Freeh. I appointed Mr. Freeh to the Federal Bench. His integrity and honor are beyond question.
Both John Magaw and Judge Freeh were in office when I was President. They both now serve in the current administration. They both have badges. Neither of them would ever give the government’s “go ahead to harass, intimidate, even murder law abiding citizens.” (Your words)
I am a gun owner and an avid hunter. Over the years I have agreed with most of N.R.A.’s objectives, particularly your educational and training efforts, and your fundamental stance in favor of owning guns.
However, your broadside against Federal agents deeply offends my own sense of decency and honor; and it offends my concept of service to country. It indirectly slanders a wide array of government law enforcement officials, who are out there, day and night, laying their lives on the line for all of us.
You have not repudiated Mr. LaPierre’s unwarranted attack. Therefore, I resign as a Life Member of N.R.A., said resignation to be effective upon your receipt of this letter. Please remove my name from your membership list.
Sincerely,
[ signed ]
George H. W. Bush
This is the guy I blame more than any other for the disproportionate influence of the NRA on American politics – Wayne LaPierre, vice president of the National Rifle Association.
why were first nations not more advanced?
I’ve never understood why the societies in Mexico and South America evolved so much further than did those in North America.
Aboriginal people in Canada interacted with Europeans as far back as 1000 AD but prolonged contact came only after Europeans established permanent settlements in the 17th and 18th centuries. …
The Aboriginal population is estimated to have been between 200,000 and two million in the late 15th century. Repeated outbreaks of European infectious diseases such as influenza, measles and smallpox (to which they had no natural immunity), combined with other effects of European contact, resulted in a forty to eighty percent aboriginal population decrease post-contact. …
prevalence of guns results in more murders / suicides
If you like guns, fine. Buy them. Use and store them safely.
But don’t tell me the average person is safer at home with a gun than without. They’re not – even if 63% of American believe that NRA lie to be true.
WITH one of the highest murder rates among OECD countries—second only to Mexico—America retains its reputation as a disproportionately dangerous country.
The number of violent assaults in America is comparable to those of other western countries, yet murders are much more common. The prevalence of guns goes a long way toward explaining America’s terrible record—they are used in two-thirds of all murders. Americans are five times as likely to be murdered as Brits but over 40 times as likely to be murdered with a gun. …
USA should QUIT the Middle East
Andrew J. Bacevich:
… Today, three-and-a-half decades after America’s War for the Greater Middle East was launched, that region is less stable than it was when U.S. forces first began making their appearance.
Costs, sustained as well as exacted, have been considerable. Successes have been few and transitory. …
… In our day, it’s not Saudi Arabia and Iraq that the United States should worry about defending, but Canada and Venezuela. Given startling adjustments in estimates of accessible global oil and natural gas reserves, the United States can count on being able to satisfy its energy requirements by drawing entirely on sources within its own hemisphere for many decades to come. We don’t need the Gulf.
So although ISIL is as vile and vicious an organization as humankind has managed to produce in recent memory, it does not pose a particular danger to the United States. …
U.S. policymakers who conclude otherwise — who persist in claiming that it’s incumbent upon the United States to “degrade and defeat” ISIL — are throwing good money after bad. …
Politico – ISIL is a problem, but not America’s problem
Andrew J. Bacevich is writing a military history of America and the Middle East.
American troops should put boots on the ground … in America. Bring the troops home.
related – Why Does the U.S. Have So Many Military Bases Abroad?
the right to die
Economist – Doctors should be allowed to help the suffering and terminally ill to die when they choose
The argument is over the right to die with a doctor’s help at the time and in the manner of your own choosing. As yet only a handful of European countries, Colombia and five American states allow some form of doctor-assisted dying. But draft bills, ballot initiatives and court cases are progressing in 20 more states and several other countries (see article).
In Canada the Supreme Court recently struck down a ban on helping patients to die; its ruling will take effect next year. In the coming months bills will go before parliaments in Britain and Germany. …
I’d like that right. Voluntary euthanasia is working well everywhere it’s been tried.
John Oliver on televangelists
Some televangelists are utter criminals. 😦
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
“the right of the people to keep and bear arms”
… The United States is the only country with such a constitutional amendment, though a few keep similar policies (e.g. Mexico, Switzerland). Every other democracy that maintains stricter gun controls continue to scratch their heads on why this is such a big deal. …
Russel L. Honoré ( born 1947) is a retired Lieutenant General who served as the 33rd commanding general of the U.S. First Army at Fort Gillem, Georgia. He is best known for serving as commander of Joint Task Force Katrina responsible for coordinating military relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina-affected areas across the Gulf Coast and as the 2nd Infantry Division’s commander while stationed in South Korea.
Rick McCharles 