Sunday, August 21, 2011

Buhler? Buhler? Perry? Perry?


Cross posted from Penigma.blogspot.com

I disagree with Perry and Ben Stein on cultural issues. I'd expect better of Stein than to share the views of an extremist Right Wing Religious Nut like Perry.  But Stein quite correctly takes Perry to task for his appalling ignorance of basic economics, an ignorance Perry shares with some of the other presidential wannabees - notably Bachmann.  Perry doesn't know enough about economics to be the governor of Texas and do a good job, much less the entire country.  The man is long on talk, and a dimwitted swaggering dummy on substance.  He's taken the thriving economic opportunities of Texas, and trashed the state, turning it into a pit of  pollution and rampant poverty, with the exception of a few wealthy individuals and corporations that pay off people like Perry, for the legalized looting of resources.

When corporations pollute, in effect because they leave the expense of resolving the pollution damage to others, especially tax payers, it effectively transfers the polluters costs of doing business, their liability, to us, instead of fairly pricing their costs of doing business into their product or services costs.  That means that they take more profits, leaving us with the dirty end of the stick.  Those profits increasingly go directly into the pockets of executives, and not into the pockets of the middle and lower level employees of the companies, and increasingly not even to stockholders, the nominal owners.

Further, it is pretty much invariably less costly to prevent pollution than to try to clean it up.  Just one of the ways in which Perry's way of doing business in Texas redistributes wealth away from the middle and lower economic strata into the pockets of the few.

To excerpt again from my comments and expand on them from an earlier post, Texas has among the worst stats of the 50 states for poverty, for ignorance, for suppressed voter participation, and for pollution.

Is this what we want? Does anyone in their right mind believe that this is the way to economic growth and competitiveness?  Texas is:

49th in teacher pay
1st in the percentage of people over 25 without a high school diploma
41st in high school graduation rate
46th in SAT scores

 1st in percentage of uninsured children
 1st in percentage of population uninsured
 1st in percentage of non-elderl­y uninsured
49th in mental health funding

50th in homeowners­' insurance affordabil­ity

 3rd in percentage of people living below the poverty level
49th in average Women Infant and Children benefit payments
1st in teenage birth rate/ unintended pregnancies, and repeat teen unintended pregnancies
50th in average credit scores for loan applicants
50th in percentage of voting age population that votes
1st in annual number of executions

1st in minimum wage jobs

1st in air pollution emissions
1st in volume of volatile organic compounds released into the air
1st in amount of toxic chemicals released into water
1st in amount of recognized cancer-cau­sing carcinogen­s released into air
1st in amount of carbon dioxide emissions

This is Texas. This is what you get with the politics of Rick Perry. This is what you get with far right Republican politics. This is what happens when single issue voters go gaga for gun happy characters who are all bullets and no brains, all fire power, no brain power.

All hail the ignorant, gun toting tea party.

19 comments:

  1. He has already been anointed, Mike! Even five months in advance, I predict him as the winner of the SC primary, barring anything unforeseen. (i.e. one of my Texan commenters seems to think he has some dirty secrets; I guess we'll see about that!) And he will ride the wave to Super Tuesday from there.

    I think the powers-that-be have already settled on him.

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  2. Daisy, this was written by me, Dog Gone, not MikeB.

    Too many people oppose him -like Karl Rove, and he has too many enemies in Texas who will happily use this occasion to highlight Perry's gaffes, flip flops, and low lights.

    He has no more chance than Bachmann; even the tea party likely understands that Perry won't appeal to mainstream voters, only the fringies.

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  3. He shot a coyote while jogging. That's pretty cool.

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  4. FatWhiteMan said...
    He shot a coyote while jogging. That's pretty cool.

    He was alone, jogging without his security detail. How stupid is that? And how convenient that we have no one to verify that this happened. No dead coyote body. No witnesses.

    Coyotes are sometimes bold, in a group. One lone coyote? Not likely; they are far more likely to be people shy. As someone who lives with plenty of coytoes nearby, and is very familiar with them - I can hear the local pack howling as I write this - the story is implausible.

    To put it bluntly, given what I know of coyotes, and what I have seen of Perry, Perry is a liar. Or he exaggerated, might have seen a couple of coyotes, not shot and killed one charging his dog.

    Not so cool, that.

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  5. Daisy, Thanks for stopping by. I sure hope you're wrong about that, but I can't think of another one of them I'd like to see run against Obama.

    I guess I'm gonna root for Obama again and hope he shapes up a bit in the second term.

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  6. "Coyotes are sometimes bold, in a group. One lone coyote? Not likely; they are far more likely to be people shy. As someone who lives with plenty of coytoes nearby, and is very familiar with them - I can hear the local pack howling as I write this - the story is implausible."

    We have coyotes here too and yes they howl in packs all night long. But I have never seen a coyote pack during the day. Every coyote I have seen during the day was solitary.

    But we know coyotes would never attack a human, they are too shy.
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33509516/ns/world_news-americas/t/coyotes-kill-woman-hike-canadian-park/

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  7. FWM wrote:But we know coyotes would never attack a human, they are too shy.
    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33509516/ns/world_news-americas/t/coyotes-kill-woman-hike-canadian-park/


    FWM, I have had a long experience with giant sighthound breeds which hunt and kill predators, including coyotes. About ten years ago, for example, I lost one of my bitches to a cougar encounter. We have everything from timber wolves - the largest of the canids - gray wolves, what we call brush wolves (what your article calls prarrie wolves)as another term for coyotes on down to fox. The northern tier coyotes/ brush wolves are btw typically quite a bit larger than the southern states version. Southern coyotes run 30-40 lbs; ours typically run in the 40-60 lbs range. The MN DNR, where friends of mine work, even have an urban coyote Task Force / project. In that context, we have urban encounters with bear and cougar as well, and both gray and timber wolves are becoming increasingly intrusive around livestock in the exurban areas of our major metro areas.

    I have more practical expertise in this area than I think you do. The article you quoted makes my point better than it does your own, which stated:

    Coyotes, which also are known as prairie wolves, are found from Central American to the United States and Canada.

    Wildlife biologist Bob Bancroft said coyote attacks are extremely rare because the animals are usually shy.

    ‘It's very unusual’
    Bancroft, a retired biologist with Nova Scotia's Department of Natural Resources, said it's possible the coyotes thought Mitchell was a deer or other prey.


    "It's very unusual and is not likely to repeated," Bancroft said. "We shouldn't assume that coyotes are suddenly going to become the big bad wolf."


    What the article doesn't state are a couple of important factors that argue against this being a two-coyote attack. Coyotes hunt by taking on prey proportional to the size of the pack; bigger prey, bigger pack. The reason is that predators are at risk of injury which can hurt or kill them every time they attack prey. If they aren't killed outright, lacking vet care, the chances that incapacitation or infection will kill them is a very real risk. It is a common canine behavior for canine pack members, including domesticated dogs, to turn on an injured pack member, killig it, as a pack health/safety behavior. Therefore they attack prey which appear to be vulnerable-and that doesn't fit a large, fit, actively and atheletically moving human being with a dog.

    Given the size of a human being, and the number of bite wounds, this was far more likely to be the result of a larger pack attack, four or more. Just because only two were seen, some time after the attack, does not mean that there were only two coyotes involved. My educated guess from the description is that the one coyote was shot from a distance, not up close.

    Further, coyotes do not attack, when they DO attack, singly, a pair, or a pack, in the way that Perry described. They do not charge their prey, and they do not charge like that when defending territory.

    This whole story of Perry's stinks, and the expert statements in this article you quoted only confirm it, not support that.

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  8. If it makes DG cry....August 22, 2011 at 7:15 PM

    ......Perry can't be all bad, that and the free fire zone against wild boar in TX, no bag limit you can use any method you want, shit you can pen em up by the dozens and shoot them in the head......

    http://www.ehow.com/about_7238907_wild-boar-hunting-amarillo_-texas.html

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  9. Cry baby wrote:
    ......"Perry can't be all bad, that and the free fire zone against wild boar in TX, no bag limit you can use any method you want, shit you can pen em up by the dozens and shoot them in the head......

    http://www.ehow.com/about_7238907_wild-boar-hunting-amarillo_-texas.html

    I'm not aware of any state that has season limitations on wild boar hunting, cry baby. So that doesn't make Perry special in any way, just......ordinary, or maybe in Perry's case, below average.

    An example:http://dnr.wi.gov/org/land/wildlife/hunt/pig/pig_hunting.htm

    Penning them up and shooting them like fish in a barrel is hardly sport; it's stupid.

    Be a man crybaby; do it the traditional way, with spears:
    http://wildboarhunting.blogspot.com/2009/08/spear-hunting-wild-boar.html

    or:
    http://huntingpigdog.com/; the original boarhound was the Great Dane.

    I bet you'd really cry if you'd run into Hogzilla: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogzilla

    While I doubt crybaby would know a Duroc from a Berkshire swine, much less the distinctions between wild bora and feral swine, I doubt you are aware of how dull some wild swine can be to hunt.
    http://www.thehunterwiki.com/wiki/index.php?title=Feral_Hog

    I learned about the differences in swine as part of my continuing interest in theriogenology (look it up), including performing swine castrations. You have to be quick; it's done without anesthesia. Much more challenging, and requires more skill than penning animals up and shooting them in the head.

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  10. Crybaby isn't enough of a man to want to try tradtional boar Pigsticking.

    Hardly a manly art to use a firearm.

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  11. High on the hog at Mikeb's siteAugust 23, 2011 at 11:44 PM

    Be a man crybaby; do it the traditional way, with spears:

    I bet you'd really cry if you'd run into Hogzilla:


    Hogzilla shot by a gun.....ohnoes evil guns!!!!!!!

    Ah, the traditional cry of the gun control whores, I try to imagine you as sorority girls screaming how mean hunters are....

    Meanwhile

    Ever since 2005, there have been nearly 30 cases of wild boars attacking residents and citizens in Seoul, the capital of South Korea. Due to the disappearance of predators such as tigers, leopards and wolves, the wild boar population has exploded and the total crop damage last year was worth 6.5 billion won (some 6.2 million US dollars).

    http://wildboarhunt.blogspot.com/2009/08/wild-boar-in-korea.html

    As of 2008, the estimated population of 4 million feral pigs caused an estimated US$800 million of property damage a year in the U.S.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feral_hog#Feral_pigs

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  12. Are you capable of reading a comment and making an intelligent reply?

    Perhaps it needs to be thrown in your face for you to understand it?

    Or are you illiterate?

    Pigsticking was a form of boar hunting done by individuals, or groups of spearmen on foot or on horseback using a specialized boar spear. The boar spear was sometimes fitted with a cross guard to stop the enraged animal driving its pierced body further down the shaft in order to attack its killer before dying.

    That is the boar is handled up close and personal.

    None of the distance and safety provided for you by a firearm.

    Next time, be a man.

    Or Dog Gone will castrate you.

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  13. Crybaby wrote: "I bet you'd really cry if you'd run into Hogzilla:

    Hogzilla shot by a gun.....ohnoes evil guns!!!!!!!

    Ah, the traditional cry of the gun control whores, I try to imagine you as sorority girls screaming how mean hunters are....


    Crybaby, apparently you are ignorant (in oh so many ways) including who it is you are addressing.

    Both Laci and I are gun owners. I hunt a pack of sight hounds on live game, predators like wolves, coyotes, and cougar the prefered prey. Or perhaps you missed the part on coyotes and other predators where I mentioned losing one of my hounds to a cougar? I'm guessing you are too much of a wuss to go out with baby food jars of rubbing alcohol and safety pins in your pocket, used for emergency field sutures in case of injury.

    Yes, Hogzilla was shot by hunters. In GEORGIA. Proving my point, which you lost track of quickly, as you seem so easily distracted, that there is NO season, anywhere, on wild hogs. So therefore, Perry is not particularly distinctive or special in that regard.

    In fact, the man is a dufus, a putz, a failure, a massive ignoramus.

    Or are you incapable of reading? Texas does have a huge literacy problem, so that would not be surprising...given that Texas is the worst for people over 25 without high school diplomas.

    Perry's grades were so poor, he might as well not have graduated high school.

    http://www.businessinsider.com/texas-budget-shortfall-2011-1

    From January 2011:
    Wow: Texas Deficit Estimate Comes In Worse Than The Worst Expectations

    But heck, he sure does love to let people shoot em up them thar wild hogs, wow, guess that makes up for that ol' budget deficit that has Texas so deep in the hole.

    Dumbass.

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  14. imagining DG wasting her timeAugust 24, 2011 at 6:32 AM

    .....and her dog's lives

    Or perhaps you missed the part on coyotes and other predators where I mentioned losing one of my hounds to a cougar?

    Be a man crybaby; do it the traditional way, with spears:


    Right, spend a ludicrous amount of time taking down one sow with a spear or dogs like some kind of dumb-ass medieval throwback, meanwhile let dozens of them get away to to litter dozen more, bright move, was that the same brilliant thinking that got your dog killed.....

    In that context, we have urban encounters with bear and cougar as well, and both gray and timber wolves are becoming increasingly intrusive around livestock in the exurban areas of our major metro areas.

    Sounds like your DNR guys are pretty incompetent, maybe they should try shooting them dead rather birth control/castration?

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  15. I lost a friend to a cougar once. He was barely 21 and the first time he was ever in a bar. He never saw her pouncing until it was too late.

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  16. Dumbass, I didn't lose the bitch hunting, the cougar got into the yard where the bitch was kept separate because she was in heat.

    The best guess is that the cougar was attracted to the dog food.

    While she died of her injuries, it is believed that she inflicted wounds that would subsequently have killed the cougar.

    I have never had a dog injured going after live game, because hunting requires hunting with a pack of two or more dogs who work cooperatively to hunt and protect each other.

    That same cougar was a problem to the farmers in our rural area and killed several other farm dogs.

    I put five thousand dollars into trying to save that bitch.

    The reason for working dogs on live game is that form follows function, and any proper breeding program requires that dogs are able to do what they were bred to do: that is hunt live game.

    Otherwise, you lose function, breed instinct, correct temperament, and eventually type because the dog no longer resembles the kind of dog that it was bred to be.

    I have never hunted boar in the traditional and sporting manner, but I have respect for those who do. It is a traditional sign of bravery.

    Otherwise, you are running an abbatoire.

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  17. Also, this post is about Perry's ineptitude, not boar hunting.

    Although, it seems I have trapped a bore.

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  18. The wit and crackle is at a high pitch, I see.

    I think Gov. Perry is a raving lunatic, "ineptitude" is too mild a word to describe him.

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