Adventures

National Geographic asked all 100 state senators to draw a map of their state from memory and label three important places.

This is Senator Al Franken's version of Minnesota:


This is Senator Saxby Chambliss' version of Georgia:


(In case you need a refresher, this is what Georgia actually looks like.)

...Yup.

I spent the evening at a gay bar in Atlanta with some very dear friends. For each state that CNN called for Obama, the entire bar cheered and clapped. When the presidency was called (at 7:00 p.m. in California), the entire place erupted in screams of happiness, tears of joy and chants of "Yes We Can." Finally, our voice was heard.

It was nothing short of incredible.

Rosa Parks sat so Martin Luther King can walk. Martin Luther King walked so Obama can run. Obama is running so we all can fly. - Jay Z

Congratulations, Barack Obama. :-)

I've mentioned before that my parents get Republican Party surveys in the mail, because despite being registered democrats, they live in a heavily republican-populated area.

( Guess what they got in the mail last week! )

There are very few things that get me as riled up as when someone mixes the environment and politics together in a way that harms the environment. President Bush's recent proposed policy changes to the Endangered Species Act is a prime example. I usually don't blog about these things *because* I get so upset, but people deserve to know how anti-environment Sarah Palin is.

Palin is known for her life-long membership to the NRA, her desire to run a natural gas pipeline through Alaska and attempt to sue the US government to get polar bears taken OFF the Endangered Species List, but many people don't know about the gruesome "sport" that Sarah Palin supports.

Sarah Palin believes in a very controversial hunting method called "Aerial Hunting."

It's the practice of hunting animals from a low-flying aircraft. The hunter will board an airplane or helicopter and target animals from above, usually tracking the animal in the snow, chasing them to exhaustion and shooting them from the air or land the aircraft and shoot them from the ground. Oftentimes, the shot is not a "clean kill," and instead, the animal suffers through immense pain, sometimes several rounds of shots, until it finally collapses and dies, only to be slaughtered and turned into a "trophy."

Here's an informative ten-minute long video on aerial hunting:

If you can't endure ten minutes, check out this two minute version.
Warning: Both videos show animals getting shot and in pain. Please consider this when deciding whether or not you watch the video(s).

This hunting method is so controversial that even many pro-hunting groups oppose it because it's not giving the animals a "fair fight." It's sneaky. It causes extreme, inhumane torture to animals who don't even have a fighting chance of making it out alive. It's cruel. It's absolutely gut-wrenchingly cruel and inhumane. It IS animal abuse.

Calling it a "sport" is degrading to the real sport of hunting, which is legal, and most importantly, ends the animal's life swiftly with little pain.

Aerial hunting has been banned in America since the Airborne Hunting Act was passed in 1972. However, for the past 30 years, Alaska has circumvented the Airborne Hunting Act by exploiting a loophole that allows states to "administer" wildlife management using an aircraft. They justify this horrible action under the thin veil of shooting wolves via aircraft in order to boost the moose and caribou populations. Why does Alaska want to boost the moose and caribou populations?

So they can hunt and kill moose and caribou.

Private citizens with state permits can either shoot the wolves from the air or land and shoot them. In early 2007, Palin's administration approved an initiative to pay a $150 bounty to hunters who killed a wolf from an airplane in certain areas, hacked off the left foreleg, and brought in the appendage to state wildlife officials in order to boost the amount of kills. Ruling that the Palin administration didn't have the authority to offer payments, despite Palin's administration defense that the "program was not a bounty, but an incentive for a select group of people that would provide the state with biological information". The state judge ordered the Alaskan Department of Fish and Game to stop the wolf bounties. However, the state judge did not order the aerial hunting to stop.

Alaskan voters took to the polls twice since 2003 and voted to end aerial hunting. The legislature over-turned the voters' decision both times. The third time it was on the ballot, in August 2008 (while Palin is governor), they voted 92,781 to 74,124 to allow it because the wording on the ballot was confusing and "some who voted no on Measure 2 thought they were banning the practice, when in fact it took a yes vote to stop private hunters from gunning wolves and bears from the air." Sneaky, eh?

Wildlife organizations are against aerial hunting. Environmental groups are against aerial hunting. This is perhaps the only thing that I'll agree with PETA on, because they're against it, too. Many hunters are against aerial hunting. At it's core, it is a barbaric, cruel way to kill animals. If for no other reason, Sarah Palin's approval of this hunting technique makes me categorically against her.

I'm a wildlife rehabilitator. I'm still unsure on how I feel about hunting in general- I can see both sides of the issue and I can also understand and appreciate the cultural significance and history behind ground hunting. But I cannot, EVER, understand why Palin approves aerial hunting, which is so incredibly cruel and selfish.

God's creatures do NOT deserve to die a slow, painful death because some asshole gets joy out of the "sport" of aerial hunting. For someone who thinks it is "God's will" to build a pipeline in Alaska, she certainly has a convoluted way of respecting God's animals.

And as an added bonus, a LOLzSarah:

As we say goodbye to Karl Rove, let's look at a couple of his accomplishments during his time at the White House:

Most recently, Rove was supeonaed to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee in a probe of the firing of nine federal prosecutors. The Shrub veoted the supeana.

Rove helped the Shrub win his campaign for presidency...twice.

Karl Rove purportedly helped leak name of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the press. After testifying five times before a federal grand jury, he was NOT indicted on the charges of the CIA leak.

Inspired a Karl Rove condom imprinted with the phrase "Some things should never leak!"

But let us not forget his greatest accomplishment!
MC Rove!


( Click here for a Karl Rove desktop background )