The Weird, Random, and Interesting things that Fit Nowhere Else Thread

[Blarghagh]

Oh no, they can see I'm a famous director after they google me. Knowing the name and not knowing its history is a big no-no.

[ManifestedISO]

[Raithe]

Japan Has Started Turning Abandoned Golf Courses Into Solar Power Plants

 

 

 

During real estate booms, developers have a tendency to build more than is necessary. When those booms go bust, we get to sit back and watch as people come up with creative uses for all that waste.

 

This is what’s happening in Japan, where developers built too many golf courses over the last few decades after demand shot up in the 1980s. Now the industry is in decline, with participation in the sport down 40 percent from the 1990s, and abandoned golf courses are starting to pop up.

 

 

Kyocera’s solution: turn the abandoned green space into solar farms. Japan has been hungry for alternative energy ever since the 2011 Fukushima disaster made nuclear power an unattractive option in the country, and golf courses just happen to be perfectly suited for solar power - they’re large open spaces that often get lots of sunlight.

Kyocera’s first project, now under construction, is a 23 megawatt solar plant on a golf course in Kyoto prefecture. When it goes live in 2017, the plant will produce enough power for about 8,100 households.

 

The company is also developing a 92 megawatt solar plant - generating enough energy for over 30,000 households - on an abandoned golf course in Kagoshima prefecture. No word on when that project will go live.

 

For Japan, using golf courses for solar power makes a lot of sense. But in other countries where golf is on the downswing, like in the US, suburban courses could have equally useful second lives as green spaces or infill development.

 

In sprawling suburbia, these large swaths of land could house densely-packed residential developments, shops, community centres, libraries, schools, and all sorts of other buildings that could help rebuild a long-lost sense of community.

 

 

[mkreku]

Interesting article on the economic state of the US compared to other nations (among them socialist Sweden):

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/the-american-middle-class-is-no-longer-the-worlds-richest.html

 

Tl;dr: The US is still one of the richest countries, but (almost) only because the top 5 percentile are so disgustingly rich, which skews the average. The poor in the US are poorer than in a lot of other western nations.

[Hurlshort]

These articles tend to be somewhat useless, since each state in the US is fairly independent and comparable in size to a country. It is like lumping 50 countries together and then comparing them.

[ShadySands]

I don't think it's that bad in this case but I do also recognize that "class" definitions vary (sometimes quite a bit) by state

 

 

 

source

 

 

I don't think any states in the top or bottom 10 are any of the 10 most populous

 

 

EDIT2- It also occurs to me that it is also after taxes and some of those countries get free healthcare and higher education

Edited July 25, 2015 by ShadySands

[Raithe]

For the utterly random and not quite so serious..

 

If the Justice League Were Samurai...

 

 

 

                              

The awesome fan and talented artist Brittney Williams has gone to the trouble of reimagining DC’s superheroes as though they stepped out of frames from your favorite Samurai movie. We’re swooning, everyone is so pretty heeeeeelp…

Here we have the Daily Planet crew! And Lois Lane is in a lovely purple kimono. *approval stamp*

You guys, ALFRED IS A DRAGON. ALFRED IS MUSHU.

If this were the cover to an actual comic, we would not be disappointed…

 

Wow. Check out more of Williams’ art on her Tumblr. Like, right now. It’s awesome.

 

 

 

[Fighter]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dead-la-man-1-200-guns-identified-part-alien-article-1.2301594

[Raithe]

For your dose of random cutesy heart warming news for those of you who still have some souls...

 

Kristen Bell left an adorable voicemail in full Frozen character for a young fan with brain tumour

 

There’s a new honorary Princess of Arendelle thanks to ‘Frozen’ actress Kristen Bell.

  

The actress left a message in the voice of her Frozen character, Anna, for Avery Huffman, a 6-year-old who was recently diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG) — an inoperable brain tumor — last month, according to Huffman’s official CaringBridge page.

 

Bell got into full character for Huffman, congratulating her on being such a “good girl” and “so brave” — and that Anna’s sister (Queen Elsa) wants to make her an honorary princess.

 

Her parents have been chronicling their daughter’s journey on Twitter with the hashtag #AveryStrong. Huffman’s father, Brandon, posted the full video of his daughter’s reaction to YouTube. See the video below.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUd2V4c9-YA&

[Bartimaeus]

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/dead-la-man-1-200-guns-identified-part-alien-article-1.2301594

 

Seems like someone watched a little too many X-Files episodes...

[JadedWolf]

I learned today that there's a town in Colorado called "Nederland" (Netherlands). I came to know this through this adorable video:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5gXqmwTSa0s

 

I also learned that this small town has a special festivity. The Frozen Dead Guy Days.

 

"Celebrating its 14th year in 2015, Nederland, Colorado’s Frozen Dead Guy Days is known as one of the most unique and quirky festivals in the country and continues to be a world-renowned spectacle. The home-grown frosty fest pays homage to Bredo Morstol who is frozen in a state of suspended animation and housed in a Tuff Shed on dry ice high above Nederland. Thousands of adventurous, life enthusiasts come annually to participate in and view the events along with local, national and international media and entertainment."

 

http://frozendeadguydays.org/

 

Apparently they are celebrating the frozen corpse of a Norwegian guy who was brought there by his family who had hoped to build a cryogenic facility for him. One of the things they do for fun during these days is... coffin racing.

[ShadySands]

[Raithe]

For the turn of the more serious nature..

Predators Using Online Games To Lure Children

 

The parents of a 10-year-old girl are sharing her harrowing story as a warning to others

It was frighteningly simple for 10-year-old Olivia to accidentally connect with a child sex predator through a game.
Olivia is an avid player of the building block game Minecraft. She explained that a person calling himself "Ben" sent her his gamer "tag," and she added him to her "friends" list.
It was that easy. Her parents initially had no idea.
 
For weeks, Olivia texted with "Ben," talking of hugs and kisses and being boyfriend and girlfriend. He said he was 12.


 
Someone named "Ben" posed as a pre-teen to send messages to 10-year-old Olivia Stribley.
 (Photo: WFAA)
 
Ben tried to convince her to send nude photos of herself to him. Olivia's mother discovered the messages, and tricked the person into sending nude photos of himself to Olivia's phone.
"We don't let our kids walk anywhere," said her mother, Jessica Stribley. "We don't let them go out by themselves. If they're outside riding bikes, somebody's out there with them. That's who we are. We know bad things can happen. The fact that it got that close — even right under our noses — is... I don't even know what to think about that."
 
Tyler Cohen Wood, senior officer and cyber branch chief for the Defense Intelligence Agency, says what happened to the Stribleys clearly shows that predators are using games to reach children.
 
"They're on the sites that they know that the kids are on, too — even the little games for young children where you can trade barnyard animals — so any game that you child is playing that has kind of a social media aspect to it, you have to be aware that this can happen," she said.
 
Jessica and her ex-husband, Dallas police officer Steve Stribley, agreed to let News 8 interview Olivia because they wanted to alert other parents to the potential danger.
The Stribleys certainly never considered that a predator could reach out to Olivia via a game. It just never occurred to them. They have three children together — 10-year-old Olivia and twin seven-year-old daughters.
 
"In my career, I hunt people down who do bad things," Steve Stribley said. "I'm very aggressive and protective of people that are vulnerable, so I don't like the idea that on a child's game — where you're just building blocks, and building buildings, and things like that — that a grown man would try to reach out to a pre-teen child."
 
Like most 10-year-olds, Olivia is innocent, and doesn't really understand that everybody is not who they say they are. She really believed "Ben" was 12.

"Because he said he was," she explained. "He sent me a photo, and it really kind of looked like he was 12." Olivia will be starting the fifth grade in the fall.
After she added Ben to her friends list, they exchanged phone numbers and began texting. He sent her text messages telling her that he wanted to be her boyfriend, and asking her not to mention to anyone that that they were texting.
 
Earlier this month, Ben sent Olivia a text asking her to send him a photo "with no clothes on." He wrote that when she sent it, he would do the same thing.
The request made Olivia uncomfortable, so she didn't do it. Still, she didn't tell her parents. "He said to keep it a secret," she said. But by then, her mother had become suspicious that something wasn't right. Olivia had become overly possessive of her phone. "She was doing what most people do when they've got something to hide," Jessica Stribley said.
 
On a recent night, she waited until Olivia was asleep for the night to check the phone.
"When I saw the conversation about sending pictures, I slammed the phone down and it took me another hour to be able to read everything on the phone," Jessica Stribley said.
She was terrified. Olivia had said nothing about the text messages. But a sure giveaway that "Ben" wasn't 12 was the text message saying: "I'm at work. I can't be on Xbox now."


 
Jessica Stribley posed as her daughter to communicate with a man posing as a 12-year-old boy.
 (Photo: WFAA)
 
As Olivia slept, Jessica pretended to be her daughter and sent a message to Ben.
 
"I said, 'My mom's asleep; send me a picture,'" Jessica Stribley recalled. "He said, 'Well if I take a picture of every inch of my body, will you do the same?' And I said, 'Yes, but I'm running out of time.' He sent three within 30 seconds." "Ben" begged her to send him a photo. "I said, 'Well, I'm trying, but I keep getting interrupted,''' Jessica Stribley said.
She then ended contact with the person who had been texting.
 
Stribley Googled the number "Ben" was texting from, and paid to do a reverse number search. She tracked the number to a man who lives out of state. His LinkedIn account indicates that he is a white collar professional. The Stribleys turned Olivia's phone over to the Plano Police Department, who obtained Jessica Stribley's permission to pretend to be her daughter and send the man more text messages. "Within the first five or 10 minutes, they got him to admit that he knew she was 10 years old," her mother said.
The Stribleys now fear there could be other victims.
 
In one of the text messages, the man mentions that he was writing in his diary, leading them to believe he was contacting other children.
Detectives continue to investigate, and no suspect has been arrested. For that reason, News 8 is not revealing any other details about the man, including what city and state he lives in.
Cohen Wood, the cyber crime expert, said Jessica Stribley "could have potentially saved her daughter from becoming a victim or rape... or worse."
 
"It really is the 'don't take candy from strangers,' 'don't go into some random stranger's car,' just in the cyber domain," she said. "The predators are finding new ways of getting to children. They're just looking for new ways because they think the parents are probably monitoring social media, so I'm not going to use social media, but they're probably not monitoring the game."
 
Wood is author of Catching the Catfishers, a book on how social media exposes people to predators and other online criminals. The book contains tips on how to keep you or children from becoming a victim.
 
Cohen Wood recommends that parents turn off the GPS tagging when they or their children post or send photos to prevent predators from getting information about their location. Other ways to spot a predator include: If they won't send a real-time message, or if their social media accounts lack other friends, regular banter or they're tagged in other people's photos.

 
She advises parents to have the same apps as their children, and to be friends with their children's friends on social media. She also suggests putting monitoring software on the computers and phones of their children, and to have the passwords to all their accounts.
 
"You let them know: 'It's not that I don't trust you; it's because I don't trust other people that are out there,'" Cohen Wood explained.
Steve Stribley said he's just grateful that his ex-wife became "snoopy and investigative." They're obviously thankful that Olivia didn't send any photos to "Ben."
Her father said he had checked her friends list not long ago, and hadn't found anything suspicious. At that time, he said he even felt bad for doing it, thinking, "She's 10. What can she do?"
 
"I didn't really keep in mind that there are devious people out there that do prey on children's innocence," he said.
Olivia is too young and innocent to fully appreciate the potential danger she was in, but she has clearly learned a new lesson: "It's not really safe to talk to anybody that's your friend that you haven't met yet," she said.
 
Her father has now put parental controls on her Xbox. She can't play with any real people on Minecraft or any other game.
He isn't planning to let her play real people anytime soon. And when he does, he said he will maintain control of it, and she will only be able to play with people who she has actually met.
"She's not emotionally equipped to deal with that as a 10-year-old," Steve Stribley said. "He's obviously an adult, and obviously a professional at this... I would say that he needs to spend the rest of his life in prison."

 

Edited July 27, 2015 by Raithe

[ManifestedISO]

Wasn't going to relay the quiz because it feels sorta like a horoscope in veracity, but then I read the name of my Gaming Style score and thought, yes, exactly, now if only I could feel this way on the inside: Calm, Spontaneous, Relaxed, Independent, and Grounded. 51% Creativity, 30% Immersion, 20% Mastery, 15% Action, 11% Achievement, 7% Social. Sorry if repost. 

 

https://apps.quanticfoundry.com/lab/10

[ShadySands]

Your Gaming Style : Calm, Spontaneous, Relaxed, Independent, Grounded, and Practical

 

Creativity 20%, Immersion 14%, Achievement 5%, Social 4%, Action 2%, Mastery 1%

[kirottu]

This is probably more like mildly interesting.

 

That was school lunch non-alcoholic beer she was shocked about.

[Raithe]

Insights from James Mattis

 

 

 

Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis is a legend in the military. Revered by Marines and non-Marines alike, Mattis has taken on the persona of a modern-day Patton — having the knowledge and insight to lead his Marines through combat, while standing behind them and taking the heat if things go bad. In short, Mattis is a hell of a leader.

In 2013 while serving as commander of Central Command in Tampa, Fla., Mattis retired after four decades of service. Since then, he’s been teaching at Stanford and Dartmouth, as well as speaking across the country on leadership. He’s also working on a book with author Bing West.

 

We looked back at some of the best insights he offered, through a great collection of quotes. Most apply strictly to military service, but some can be just as useful in the corporate boardroom.

 

"You cannot allow any of your people to avoid the brutal facts. If they start living in a dream world, it’s going to be bad."

The "dream world" Mattis is talking about is one of denial and complacency — a mood in combat that can get you killed. And in corporate America, it can get you wiped out by the competition.

 

"If in order to kill the enemy you have to kill an innocent, don’t take the shot. Don’t create more enemies than you take out by some immoral act."

Mattis, who co-wrote the manual for Counterinsurgency with Gen. David Petraeus, knows well that troops cannot win over the population to their side if they are killing the wrong people. His advice here to soldiers and Marines is spot on.

 

"I don’t lose any sleep at night over the potential for failure. I cannot even spell the word."

Of course he can spell it but that’s not the point. Mattis wants to impress upon his troops that failure should not be an option.

 

"Be polite, be professional, but have a plan to kill everybody you meet."

Before his Marines deployed to Iraq in 2003, he told them this (along with many other great pieces of advice in a now-famous letter). His point here is to be a professional warfighter who can be polite with civilians, but always remember that if things go south, the dirty work needs to get done.

 

"The first time you blow someone away is not an insignificant event. That said, there are some sh–heads in the world that just need to be shot. There are hunters and there are victims. By your discipline, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim."

Recalling the mentality of the wolf, the sheep, and the sheepdog, Mattis understands that there is evil in the world. It’s important for his men to be prepared for whether they will be the hunter or the victim if they ever face it.

 

"There are some people who think you have to hate them in order to shoot them. I don’t think you do. It’s just business."

One of his more controversial quotes, to be sure. But in Mattis’ view, to be a professional, you need to have a professional mindset. It’s not really necessary to get emotional about what you have to do. It just needs to get done.

 

"You can overcome wrong technology. Your people have the initiative, they see the problem, no big deal … you can’t overcome bad culture. You’ve gotta change whoever is in charge."

In a talk at Stanford, Mattis was relating how toxic culture can bring down an organization that has everything else right. The culture of an organization comes from the top, and if that part is screwed up, there are going to be problems.

 

"The most important six inches on the battlefield is between your ears."

Mattis doesn’t want robots just mindlessly following his orders. As a leader, he gives broad guidance and lets his men use their own brains to decide how it gets accomplished.

 

"Find the enemy that wants to end this experiment (in American democracy) and kill every one of them until they’re so sick of the killing that they leave us and our freedoms intact."

Amen.

 

"In this age, I don’t care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are, if you cannot create harmony — even vicious harmony — on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete. We have got to have officers who can create harmony across all those lines."

Mattis implores his officers to not get stuck in their own little boxes. Learning how to be brilliant on the battlefield is important, but it’s more important to be able to work with others to get the job done.

 

"PowerPoint makes us stupid."

Military officers endure (and have to create) tons of PowerPoint briefings to inform their chain of command what’s going on. Mattis however, is not one of those officers. He actually banned PowerPoint since he saw it as a waste of time.

 

"You are part of the world’s most feared and trusted force. Engage your brain before you engage your weapon."

Mattis wants his Marines to always be thinking before they take the shot. It’s advice that has no doubt saved lives.

 

"An untrained or uneducated Marine … deployed to the combat zone is a bigger threat to mission accomplishment … than the enemy."

The biggest detriment to mission accomplishment is not from the competition, but from within. Having the right mindset and skills is what results in getting results.

 

"No war is over until the enemy says it’s over. We may think it over, we may declare it over, but in fact, the enemy gets a vote."

Combat doesn’t happen in a vacuum. All the planning, meetings, and briefings on what potentially can happen in a given situation are good, but the bad guys will always react in uncertain ways. The key is to be prepared for anything.

 

"Be the hunter, not the hunted: Never allow your unit to be caught with its guard down."

Just because you are at the top of your game doesn’t mean someone won’t come along to knock you down. Units (and individuals) need to be vigilant and make sure that doesn’t happen.

 

"Ultimately, a real understanding of history means that we face NOTHING new under the sun."

Mattis is an avid reader. On all his deployments, the general brought along a ton of books that he thought may help him along the way. In an email that went viral (via Business Insider) on the importance of reading, Mattis wrote that it "doesn’t give me all the answers, but it lights what is often a dark path ahead."

 

"You’ve been told that you’re broken. That you’re damaged goods … there is also Post-Traumatic Growth. You come back from war stronger and more sure of who you are."

While giving a speech to veterans in San Francisco, Mattis tried to dispel the mindset that those leaving the service should be pitied. Instead, he told them, use your experiences as a positive that teaches you to be a better person.

[Raithe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFxe-Z8wnBY

[Raithe]

Heh, for an old post: Washington Post - Which of the 11 American Nations Do You Live In?

 

 

 

Red states and blue states? Flyover country and the coasts? How simplistic. Colin Woodard, a reporter at the Portland Press Herald and author of several books, says North America can be broken neatly into 11 separate nation-states, where dominant cultures explain our voting behaviors and attitudes toward everything from social issues to the role of government.

 

“The borders of my eleven American nations are reflected in many different types of maps — including maps showing the distribution of linguistic dialects, the spread of cultural artifacts, the prevalence of different religious denominations, and the county-by-county breakdown of voting in virtually every hotly contested presidential race in our history,” Woodard writes in the Fall 2013 issue of Tufts University’s alumni magazine. “Our continent’s famed mobility has been reinforcing, not dissolving, regional differences, as people increasingly sort themselves into like-minded communities.”

 

Take a look at his map:

 

Woodard lays out his map in the new book “American Nations: A History of the Eleven Rival Regional Cultures of North America.” Here’s how he breaks down the continent:

 

Yankeedom: Founded by Puritans, residents in Northeastern states and the industrial Midwest tend to be more comfortable with government regulation. They value education and the common good more than other regions.

 

New Netherland: The Netherlands was the most sophisticated society in the Western world when New York was founded, Woodard writes, so it’s no wonder that the region has been a hub of global commerce. It’s also the region most accepting of historically persecuted populations.

 

The Midlands: Stretching from Quaker territory west through Iowa and into more populated areas of the Midwest, the Midlands are “pluralistic and organized around the middle class.” Government intrusion is unwelcome, and ethnic and ideological purity isn’t a priority.

 

Tidewater: The coastal regions in the English colonies of Virginia, North Carolina, Maryland and Delaware tend to respect authority and value tradition. Once the most powerful American nation, it began to decline during Westward expansion.

 

Greater Appalachia: Extending from West Virginia through the Great Smoky Mountains and into Northwest Texas, the descendants of Irish, English and Scottish settlers value individual liberty. Residents are “intensely suspicious of lowland aristocrats and Yankee social engineers.”

 

Deep South: Dixie still traces its roots to the caste system established by masters who tried to duplicate West Indies-style slave society, Woodard writes. The Old South values states’ rights and local control and fights the expansion of federal powers.

 

El Norte: Southwest Texas and the border region is the oldest, and most linguistically different, nation in the Americas. Hard work and self-sufficiency are prized values.

 

The Left Coast: A hybrid, Woodard says, of Appalachian independence and Yankee utopianism loosely defined by the Pacific Ocean on one side and coastal mountain ranges like the Cascades and the Sierra Nevadas on the other. The independence and innovation required of early explorers continues to manifest in places like Silicon Valley and the tech companies around Seattle.

 

The Far West: The Great Plains and the Mountain West were built by industry, made necessary by harsh, sometimes inhospitable climates. Far Westerners are intensely libertarian and deeply distrustful of big institutions, whether they are railroads and monopolies or the federal government.

 

New France: Former French colonies in and around New Orleans and Quebec tend toward consensus and egalitarian, “among the most liberal on the continent, with unusually tolerant attitudes toward gays and people of all races and a ready acceptance of government involvement in the economy,” Woodard writes.

 

First Nation: The few First Nation peoples left — Native Americans who never gave up their land to white settlers — are mainly in the harshly Arctic north of Canada and Alaska. They have sovereignty over their lands, but their population is only around 300,000.

 

The clashes between the 11 nations play out in every way, from politics to social values. Woodard notes that states with the highest rates of violent deaths are in the Deep South, Tidewater and Greater Appalachia, regions that value independence and self-sufficiency.States with lower rates of violent deaths are in Yankeedom, New Netherland and the Midlands, where government intervention is viewed with less scepticism.

 

States in the Deep South are much more likely to have stand-your-ground laws than states in the northern “nations.” And more than 95 percent of executions in the United States since 1976 happened in the Deep South, Greater Appalachia, Tidewater and the Far West. States in Yankeedom and New Netherland have executed a collective total of just one person.

That doesn’t bode well for gun control advocates, Woodard concludes: “With such sharp regional differences, the idea that the United States would ever reach consensus on any issue having to do with violence seems far-fetched. The cultural gulf between Appalachia and Yankeedom, Deep South and New Netherland is simply too large. But it’s conceivable that some new alliance could form to tip the balance.”

 

 

[Raithe]

Okay then...  ‘American’, ‘Freshman': 12 Words That the University of New Hampshire Has Deemed ‘Problematic’

 

 

When students arrive on campus at the University of New Hampshire this fall, they’ll be welcomed with a “Bias-Free Language Guide” to help them in their conversations.

Since college campuses have become very concerned with “microaggressions” being committed on their campuses, UNH decided to help their students understand which words might offend others.

 

But, according to Campus Reform:

 

The university website encourages readers to understand that the guide “is not a means to censor but rather to create dialogues of inclusion where all of us feel comfortable and welcomed.”

 

A few of the words which are deemed “problematic” are:

• American
• Mothering
• Fathering
• Illegal Alien
• Caucasian
• Homeless
• Poor person
• Obese
• Overweight
• Healthy
• Orientals
• Freshmen

For each category, the University makes recommendations that, for the most part, are much longer and contain multiple words.

 

Instead of “poor person,” for instance, the student should say “person who lacks advantages that others have.” Mothering and fathering are frowned upon because they advance gender stereotypes. Instead, one should use “parenting” or “nurturing” because they describe the behavior.

 

“European-American individuals” is the favored term over “Caucasian.” And instead of “healthy,” use “non-disabled individual.”

 

The purpose is to:

 

“…not stereotype or demean people based on personal characteristics.”

 

Students will be able to access the university’s 4,750-word web page to easily understand which words they are supposed to use when conversing with their peers.

 

[ShadySands]

U.S. officials can’t find the dentist who killed Cecil the lion

 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to talk to Walter Palmer. But it can't find him.

 

Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who killed the famed Zimbabwean lion Cecil earlier this month, has fallen off the radar since Tuesday, when reports first surfaced identifying him as Cecil's hunter. In his one of his only public statements, Palmer said Tuesday "I deeply regret" killing "a known, local favorite" and that he relied on local guides. He said he was led to believe the hunt was legal.

 

"I have not been contacted by authorities in Zimbabwe or in the U.S. about this situation, but will assist them in any inquiries they may have," Palmer said at the time.

 

Edward Grace, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's law enforcement deputy chief, said in a statement Thursday that the agency is investigating the circumstances surrounding Cecil's death. "That investigation will take us wherever the facts lead," Grace said. "At this point in time, however, multiple efforts to contact Dr. Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful. We ask that Dr. Palmer or his representative contact us immediately."

[BruceVC]

 

U.S. officials can’t find the dentist who killed Cecil the lion

 

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to talk to Walter Palmer. But it can't find him.

 

Palmer, the Minnesota dentist who killed the famed Zimbabwean lion Cecil earlier this month, has fallen off the radar since Tuesday, when reports first surfaced identifying him as Cecil's hunter. In his one of his only public statements, Palmer said Tuesday "I deeply regret" killing "a known, local favorite" and that he relied on local guides. He said he was led to believe the hunt was legal.

 

"I have not been contacted by authorities in Zimbabwe or in the U.S. about this situation, but will assist them in any inquiries they may have," Palmer said at the time.

 

Edward Grace, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's law enforcement deputy chief, said in a statement Thursday that the agency is investigating the circumstances surrounding Cecil's death. "That investigation will take us wherever the facts lead," Grace said. "At this point in time, however, multiple efforts to contact Dr. Walter Palmer have been unsuccessful. We ask that Dr. Palmer or his representative contact us immediately."

 

There is another side to this whole killing of Cecil

 

In the interest of full disclosure I have no issue with legal hunting as I eat meat and venison which comes from hunting. But firstly Palmer claims he didn't know as he mentioned but now the Zimbabwe authorities have arrested the two  trackers and are making a BIG deal about it, like really big. They are saying they want to implement some law to jail them for 10 years and are "appalled at the utter disregard this American has for the wildlife and sovereign wildlife of Zimbabwe" so this is going around some  media circles as an attack on the USA

 

But in South Africa we have been dealing with the extermination of our Rhino's for years ...and yet this is often seen as a " white issue " as it seems like " white people care more about rhino than indigent black people " and more importantly  the actions of the Zimbabwean government over the last 13 years have led to game parks closing or being put under extreme financial pressure which has led to  80 % of the total population of animals in Zimbabwe that were on game parks dying 

 

http://time.com/3976344/cecil-lion-zimbabwe-walter-palmer/

 

So my point is the Zimbabwe government are the people really responsible for the mass death of its wildlife 

[Gfted1]

I saw some Zimbabwe "offical" on the news estimating the loss of Cecil at around "900,000 US Dollars". How convenient.

[BruceVC]

I saw some Zimbabwe "offical" on the news estimating the loss of Cecil at around "900,000 US Dollars". How convenient.

 

Yeah that is no surprise, I don't doubt that game rangers living in Zimbabwe are genuinely upset but all the rhetoric from the Zim government is just anti-Western diatribe, false anger and as you said probably   an attempt to get money from the USA

 

But now you have all the hardcore anti-hunting groups lambasting and vilifying this dentist ...yet where were they when there was the mass death of all the other Zim animals due to government policy?

[ShadySands]

In the interest of full disclosure I have no issue with legal hunting as I eat meat and venison which comes from hunting. But firstly Palmer claims he didn't know as he mentioned but now the Zimbabwe authorities have arrested the two  trackers and are making a BIG deal about it, like really big. They are saying they want to implement some law to jail them for 10 years and are "appalled at the utter disregard this American has for the wildlife and sovereign wildlife of Zimbabwe" so this is going around some  media circles as an attack on the USA

 

But in South Africa we have been dealing with the extermination of our Rhino's for years ...and yet this is often seen as a " white issue " as it seems like " white people care more about rhino than indigent black people " .-snip-

 

But people do tend to care more about the animals than other people. I remember reading several articles on this and will see if I can dig up links if anyone cares.

 

I believe the order of precedence of ****s given is as follows 

1. Human babies

2. Animal babies

3. Adult animals

4. Adult humans

5. Gwyneth Paltrow

 

Also, I personally have no issues with hunting for food either but trophy hunting isn't something I can get behind