Well the male bass producing eggs is no surprise, what with womens lib, & gay marriage, it was bound to happen. I ran into a communist mosquito running with a pack of killer bees...they were buzzing "Better Red than Dead"...the queen bee practices witchcraft and kills men !

Talk About Coincidences -

Bill, at the monthly meeting of the John Birch National Board of Directors this very topic was brought up! What you mentioned is so true and we have suspected as much for years now ...

Just kidding of course, but whales beaching themselves has been going on for some time and I don't give a damn what Biologist and the experts may say, it is in response mankind harming the balance of nature. Remember the Buddhist monks who immolated themselves in Viet Nam out of protest? I see the same thing with whales - they simply cannot be a part of it anymore. When animals are driven from their habitat and ecosystems assaulted, this sort of thing has to happen. Saltation manifests in the plant, mineral and animal kingdoms and more of it is being noted than ever before. The rain forests in Asia, Africa and South America are going bye-bye. Pump and dump, something has to give and we as a species are more ecologically vulnerable than our brethren the plants and animals are. They are at least adapting and we really aren't, we continue to exploit.

I have always held the same opinion as to whales......and a friend of mine was a Bircher back in 1969, I went to one his meetings, whoa !

I actually found some of thier points very interesting, but they are aboslutely convinced that everything and everybody who is not with them is a communist, from Dwight David on down....the only good man in government was Taft and the Senator from Wisconsin Joe Mc something.....Have they no shame !

Got my shot at VA, took an informal poll of waiting veterans from WWII, Korea, Gulf, & that little conflict in Southeast Asia, Jarheads, Squids, ground ponders and fly boys...group of 12...all agreed there was no way in hell they were liberal....all supported pro choice, all but two voting for Kerry, one for Bush one Liberterian, the Liberterian was from the Gulf war and very articulate. All felt gun control: folly, all thought Iraq a mess, but a catch-22, in that how do we pull out, here is what I found most intersting.....All without exception agreed with me that "WE" are still fighting with a WW II model, that we need to understand other cultures, including speaking the language and understanding other religions and customs...all felt CIA worthless.....all felt we need an elite team of operatives to take care of Osama Ben Forgotton...had a good time speaking with my brothers. The Liberterian was an army officer, the rest all enlisted including myself. (E-5) Not a scientific poll but very different from the perception most people hold about conservative veterans.

Bill you are on FIRE today!! So witty.

I thoroughly agree with you and Goesh on the reason for whales beaching themselves, and I have to say that the photos above were really ... for wont of a better word, creepy--almost otherworldly. Probably my biggest beef with our current environmental mentality is that terrorism takes precedence over ALL, and our environmental crisis has been relegated to the pages of the "extreme" left--the "tree huggers." I am very concerned with certain conditions that I feel cannot be ignored (those that Rowan has delineated).

Someone in my Cultural and Historical studies course recently asserted (with utmost certainty) that there is no resource crisis--the government has it figured out, he claimed and will unfold their policies in due course (when we run out of fuel I guess). He said there is no global warming, etc. His basic assertion was that the government would "never let anything happen to us." But I'm less optimistic. As an aside, for a staunch conservative I would ask, what could be a more "big government" outlook than that? Secondly, I think these problems are so momentous that there is an ostrich effect happening. Our attention has been (intentionally?) diverted.

At any rate, back to Bill. I was very interested in your informal poll, and your clever analysis. I pulled up behind a "Veteran for John Kerry" bumper sticker yesterday. It gave me hope.

I am very pleased to hear that you were able to get your flu shot!

Pamela, thought I would pass this on:

Only after the last tree has been cut down;
Only after the last fish has been caught;
Only after the last river has been poisoned;
Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten

Cree Indian Proverb

We should heed thier wisdom.

Dirge:

The frogs are dying. There was an article about it in a small town newspaper that I have access to. The World Conservation Union has been doing the research. The lead researcher, Simon Stuart,is quoted as saying," what we are seeing here is completely unprecedented declines and extinctions."
Roughly 32% of the known species of amphibians are globally threatened.

I wonder how many people who get this small-town paper read the article. I wonder what they made of it. I wonder what people really think about frogs - slimy, loathsome creatures? Ugly, giving some a mild dose of the creeps? Croaking and hopping creatures, bug-eyed things, yucky? Why is it that our vocabulary has nothing positive to say about frogs? We have all heard or are aware of these words used to describe frogs. Who calls them delightful, lovely, wondrous, pretty? One must demean to dominate, just like in war. There is nothing about frogs that is 'nice', and they are dying because of it. We are waging a war against them and losing.

Is it just our large brain, opposable thumbs and canine teeth sounding the death knell here? No - we have industries and agencies that enable this. They make a living from it - they are extinctionists - a new term here, folks, a new term - extinctionists. Note some of the anti-bug propaganda on TV, in which pesticides are foisted on people and how a positive message is conveyed over killing insects. We have a war analogy going, a paradigm of war, and we are losing.

Don't kill that fly !
Look---it's wringing it's hands,
wringing it's feet.

Kobayashi Issa
1763-1827

"The Essential Haiku
versions of Basho, Buson & Issa
Editied by Robert Hass
In 1995 he was selected by the Library of Congress
as Poet Laureate of United States.
Teaches at Berkeley

Wow, that last bit you write about was really fascinating. I read the full article and I am strangely moved by the plight of this unknown critter and sad that he was shot before he could receive care.