i'm surprised noone's brought up the parallels between these policies and mao zedong's great sparrow campaign in the late 50's, where PROC encouraged civilians through propaganda to help cull the populations of four pests: flies, mosquitoes, rats, and sparrows.

sparrows were on the list because the government, with limited understanding of the ecology, decided that they were responsible for eating grain from humans' stockpile. after a few years, it quickly became clear that even if the sparrows got into a bit of grain, far more crucially they were a natural enemy of the locust. with the sparrow population under such great distress, locust swarms soon devoured far more grain than the sparrows ever did and, according to wikipedia, between 1958 and 1961 thirty eight million people died of starvation.

indeed, many of the republicans' policies and political tactics remind me of the communists, from the bolsheviks to mao. i actually don't have anything against the ideology of communism, but it seems that in practice all of these parties display a complete disregard for the facts and it almost always leads to a horrible backlash. if history hasn't taught us these lessons yet, you'd think that the iraq war AND the mortgage crisis would've done so. i guess people just don't learn.

well, let's try wolves being shot...whaddya think, boys? I'm sure we'll produce the ire of them nasty Repugs. We are at our wit's end, aren't we, boys? They have a winner and now we are forced to really dig. Any suggestions for the next attack?

Stop being such liberal pussies! You're just the type of wimps that the Republicans characature (successfully) every four years. Most American voters don't care about your delicate sensibilities, and actually find them stupid and annoying. If you ever want to win the government back from the evil, lying bullshit artists of the GOP, stop playing into their hands. All this hand-wringing simply makes you look foolish to most of your fellow citizens, and does not help! And those who will inevitably respond that they know lots of people who agree with them on animal rights, I'd say that's simply because you hang out with people of like mind, and probably don't get out into more rural, "redder" areas very much (the very places that need to be cultivated).

I shudder to think how some of you react in the ground beef section of your local supermarket (assuming you actually go to a regular market, rather than an all veggie co-op). Geez, guys, elections are won by winning people over to your side by emphasizing issues that matter to THEM, not mentally masterbating over your own pet concerns.

Really? does anyone know how much airplane fuel is these days? How many paws equals a full tank? When does one start making a profit?

I don't know the answers to these questions, but I do know that airplanes use a lot of fuel, and it doesn't seem to add up to much of a profit.

To understand predator control in Alaska and the debate over if and how it should be conducted, you have to understand the debate over subsistence.

Palin opposes a rural preference for subsistence, unlike the majority of Alaskans. She and other politicians who oppose a rural preference (examples -- Hickel, Seekins) have relied on predator control to avoid dealing with the subsistence dilemma entirely. The idea is: plentiful game, no need to have a constitutional rural preference. The big problem is that the goal of plentiful game is not really backed by the objective science on the subject. Longterm, you really can't turn Alaska into a big moose ranch. It won't work.

And longterm, you can't avoid dealing with the subsistence dilemma, no matter how many wolves you kill. See ANCSA and ANILCA.

I'm sure that the various know-it-all "experts" defending Palin here have no idea what I'm talking about.

There have been wolves on the scene along with the herds for thousands of years. When the guys with guns first showed up, the herds were vast. But in a mere two centuries, things have gotten so bad that we have to kill off the wolf population to give the hunters a level playing field? Seems like the wolves knew a lot more about herd management than we do.

You see the same damned thing with fisheries versus otters/dolphins. There have been otters and dolphins eating out of those fish stocks for millennia longer than there have been diesel-powered trawlers with multiple-mile long nets that scoop sea life out of the water literally by the ton. When we first got here on this coast there were reports of shoals of fish thick enough to practically walk on. Also otters enough to send back pelts by the boatload. Gee, how could that possibly work, if they're such predacious little bastards? And yet, somehow, when the fish stocks start getting thin, it's the otters' or dolphins' fault, and the fishermen want permission to start shooting them.

Who is it, really, that is fucking up the ecosystem? Can't be us humans. Nope. Not us.

*headdesk* *headdesk* *headdesk*

Three levels of Salon Genius:

Moron.

Idiot.

Imbecile.

****************************************************************

I'm sure you know that our government, in the early 20th. Century, classified immigrants using those three terms in order to not seem bigoted or prejudiced. They especially used it against the Jews, in order to justify lowering the quotas. Anti Semitism ran rampant during that time. “Them Jews are just too damn smart…..we can’t have that.”

Thus modern Republicanism was born where “smart” equals “ignorant,” or even better, “unpatriotic.”

…..and it works. So who’s the stupid ones?......lol

I guess that's it for Sarah Palin. Sorry, John! I can not vote for anyone who advocates the killing of our wildlife, especially, Wolves. I wonder how she feels about Seal slaughter. I should have known, since she is an avid hunter.

Her stances on wolf killing, global warming, etc are just red meat for the republican base. She was chosen to increase turn out among those who think that McCain isn't conservative enough.

What matters in this election is swing voters. Since she is clearly more conservative than MCain, I can't imagine that Palin helps with these folks. What democrats need to do is question McCain's judgment for picking such a political novice to be one heartbeat away from the presidency and to point out that her beliefs and attitude are just more of the same republican partisanship.

Focusing in on the wolf program (awful as it is) is just going to feed into the idea that the idealized conservative lifestyle is somehow under attack and needs to be preserved. This is just throwing more red meat to the base. She is just going to turn around and say that her detractors are tree-hugging liberals that care more about wolves than people.

So, I'd say drop the wolf issue. Focus on the economy, stupid!

Repeat after me: "Are you better off now than you were 8 years ago?" Repeat endlessly until the election is over.