Weekend Reading

Still too busy to get outside, but I saw this and thought

'great that'll make an easy filler post'

Enjoy

SBW

Two Down SBW To Go

Good news, Good news, and Bah!

Friends of the blog have been afield having long-dreamed-of success with their hunting; after 10 years of trying Mike Skelly (remember him? Guest post about learning to hunt and a guest post about learning to hunt safely) has a moose on the ground (hopefully he'll be doing us a guest post telling the tale soon)

Meanwhile Holly 'El NorCal Cazadora' has bagged her first deer.

On this side of the pond I'm still in refub hell and hoping to get afield sometime before the winged pigs fly over the frozen wastelands of hell!

Keep well

Your pal

The Suburban Bushwacker

Up Close And Personal

What else can you do for 115 euro that's this amazing!

All the details are here - parahawking.com

Your Pal

SBW

PS interesting Nepal fact - during the insurgency of the last twenty years the Marxist rebels of Nepal were the only guerilla army known to give receipts. True. If you were stopped and 'taxed' while trekking in the mountains they would give you a receipt to show to any of their colleagues who you may run into, who would except it a proof of payment so you would not be asked to pay again. Ahh bless.

PETA and PETEO

"You choose to exploit animals by keeping them as pets to satisfy your emotional needs. I choose to exploit rabbits by killing and eating them to satisfy my dietary needs. The rabbits I exploit roam free until the moment they’re killed, the ones you exploit are kept in some sort of confinement. Don’t pretend you’re somehow morally better simply because you choose a different form of exploitation".

Stonehead

Dear PETA supporter

Can I ask you a question? A question about the things we do to be who we are.

If I am to understand you. You are a courageous defender of those without a voice. You strive to be a benevolent hand, altering the rules, leveling the playing field, so nature conforms to your sense of fair play. You look into animals eyes and see the goodness of a soul that knows none of the cruel ways of man, a soul that looks back in gratitude for your efforts.

I think you're wrong, Walt Disney was an entertainer, David Attenborough is the educator, but I salute your passion and stand in defense of your right to be wrong.

I am a participant in the wonder of nature, the often violent wonder of nature. I have hunted to fulfill my dietary needs, and given the opportunity will do so again. Taking what I need to live, letting everything else live the life it was born to live. Regretfully accepting that life for wild animals will be short and either end in starvation or violence. Sorry but that's just the way it is, always has been and always will be. Wild free animals either starve or are eaten alive by predators. My personal ethic in my role as predator is make sure that when i kill, i do so as suddenly and as comprehensively as possible. I don't wish to see any more suffering, I've seen enough and the human world provides more of that than I can bear to watch most days.

My default setting is to support the underdog, especially when the underdog is trying to act beyond the narrow confines of the accepted wisdom. So naturally my interests and sympathies lie with the Greens. I've even voted for them.

Once upon a time a very nice woman (we've never met, but I project very-niceness on to her) sent me a letter explaining that in the Peoples Republic of Hackney the Labour Party (as it was then known), would be getting elected sure as eggs is eggs. But if I so pleased, my vote (for her) could be used as a gentle reminder that the natural world mattered and was worth preserving and defending. If enough people sent this message such issues would move into the mainstream of political thought.

WOW it's not every day you get to vote for an honest politician! I took up her offer, imagining it to be a once in a lifetime opportunity. Sadly it was, it seems a once in a lifetime opportunity. As I WILL NEVER VOTE FOR CRUELTY.

The thirst for votes, votes at any cost, means The Green Party is offering it's self up to the 'single issue activists' a strategy that will keep them sidelined, just at a time when they should be finding their natural authority.

Instead of moving to the centre of political debate the Green Party have decided that we should first: have so many rabbits that we are unable to grow crops, then as the food source has multiplied, we should have lots and lots of foxes. Foxes who when they've eaten the rabbits will eat, what? Chickens, Ducks, Geese and then?

Apparently we are also to have more of those lovely deer, with their honest soulful eyes, they will eat anything the rabbits can't reach, and for a few years there'll be more and more of them. Many will die agonizing deaths after road traffic accidents. The survivors will starve as soon as their numbers are greater than the food sources will support.

Sadly that's what a total ban on hunting means. I could not support animals being treated in that way. It would be cruel.

I have never met a vegan who knew as much about animals as the hunters I've met. Although I have met vegans who advocate violence towards people who eat meat. Not all vegans are fascist hate mongers, not all people who kill animals do so for the thrill of killing.

I'm not going to dress it up as anything it isn't. There are people who lust after the thrill of killing, you may think of them as a subset of 'hunters' I think of them as criminals. Criminals who are most likely to be reported to a disinterested and under resourced police force, by hunters. Why? Because hunters have the most to lose if 'thrill killers' are afield. Thrill Killers don't need a license, they don't need to put anything back in terms of supporting habitat or managing resources. They are the kind of people who are involved in other acts of cruelty, to humans and animals.

Not all vegans or vegetarians are supporters of PETA, and its immediately obvious that not all PETA supporters are even vegetarian, let alone vegan. I believe myself to be a person who wishes to see the ethical treatment of animals. I just don't happen to be using the same definition of ethical as Ingrid Newkirk and her unthinking supporters. Some people see the horror of factory farming and want never to eat meat again, I see the same horror and wish only to eat meat that lived wild and free. The way i wish to live myself, a freedom I'd extend to you too.

To me there are certain forms of coercion that are way outside of any ethical position I could ever defend. Causing shock and terror in children then telling them that the only way to stop the feeling of fear is to comply with the wishes of the person causing the fear is despicable. It's despicable in a 'religious' children's home where the wrath of the big bully in the sky will be visited on any child who dares to speak out against the nocturnal visits of that bullies emissaries on earth. Just as it's despicable to show children exceptional images of animal suffering while implying those images are the norm. To me it's not right to attempt to traumatize children in the hope that what marketers call 'pester power' will coerce those children's parents into your chosen belief. It would not be ethical for me to treat another person in that way. That's why I propose 'People for the Ethical Treatment of Each Other'.

All comments welcome, even from those of you whose rage needs to hide behind anonymity.

The Bushwacker.

PS This post was influenced by posts from Hubert Hubert, well worth a read.

The Karma of Hubert? On PETA, Suicide Food, the Cathars and Road Rash

PETA: Your Daddy Kills Animals.

Hunting & Politics: I won't be voting 'Green'.

PETA - Bullying Again

What is it with these people? They have the word ethical in their name and yet they behave like this. Again and again.

Coercion using stress, or coercion using the fear of consequences is BULLYING.

At last someone has given them a slap on the wrist: The Advertising Standards Agency have called a halt to their latest bout of scaremongering where they refer to a number of diseases, two of which were known to have originated from eating contaminated meat and two that did not.

"Although we understood the intention was to refer to livestock and meat production rather than just eating meat, we considered that the message was, at best, ambiguous," ...."We considered that some readers might infer from the poster, and in particular the claim "Meat kills" in conjunction with the claim "Go vegetarian", that eating meat caused swine flu. We concluded that the poster was likely to mislead and could cause undue fear and distress to some readers."

Notice how the words 'swine flu' are highlighted to be the first words the reader sees after the headline?

What was ethical about that?

Dear PETA supporter reading this, please consider this question.

If you have to lie to convince others of the rightness of your cause, maybe your cause is dishonest? Just a thought.

SBW

Wombles - Ranger Squirrel

A while ago I showed you how to make a nifty lantern out of the kind of junk that modern life has covered the surface of the planet with. Well it seems I'm not the only Womble in town. I've been conversing with a recent commenter on this blog, our new pal Ranger Squirrel. He's an industrious blogger and outdoorsman who has made this cool video showing how by taking your rubbish home with you, you'll have materials at hand. Here he is using that easily harvested staple of parks, trails and beaches worldwide, the beer can.



"Underground, Overground, Wombling Free, the Wombles of Wimbledon Common are we.
Making good use of the things that we find, things that the everyday folks leave behind...."

Because modern life is, after all RUBBISH!

Your pal
SBW

Is There Someone At Home

who would be delighted if you came home with a



Cheers
SBW

Paying For It

Just a quick one today to let any of you still reading that I've not fallen off the edge of the world.While I'm not a paper pusher anymore I've been all work and no outdoor play for the last few weeks, that's given me a cold so i stayed home yesterday to avoid succumbing to Karoshi.

This also gave me a chance to catch up on the goings on in the bloggersphere and expose another gapping chasm of my ignorance.

A while back I learned the collective noun for a group of Ferrets is a business, many of us have long suspected that it would be a 'wunch of bankers', but what about the rest of the animal kingdom? Fortunately The Terrierman has used his considerable powers of research to compile a list. Very cool. Have a look.

Hope you're all well

More news as i get time to make it

Your pal

SBW

BUFFS - The Review

Having run into Henry from Buffs at the start of the Mongol Rally '09, who very generously gave me and the kids some Buffs I've had the opportunity to test them afield and learn a little bit more about them.
What's a BUFF bushwacker?

A Buff is a seamless tube of very stretchy material that I would wear around my neck or stretched over my head, [yes THAT stretchy!] If you're young and hot [or in middle youth and still hot] you could also wear it as a dress or boob tube type top. Or If you're folliclly challenged [ in the common parlance - a slap-head] you could wear one as a Do-Rag.

You wouldn't be telling us about it if it didn't do something more than that, surely bushwacker?

Glad you asked, you know me so well, here's the clever bit.

Because of the way the material is knitted Buffs offer a very high grade of protection against UV light, in fact 95% which is better than many sunglasses. So when spending the day fishing, near snow covered slopes, or on the water they offer the kind of UV protection that we'd usually have to resort to environmentally questionable and expensive sun creams to obtain. They also do a range of Angler Buffs in all kinds of fish skin prints which are pretty cool.

OK so that's fishing, snow and water sports covered, anything else?

Yes, for lots of hunting applications, Rabbits, and Turkeys for instance, face camo can be a real help. Henry didn't have a any of the types of 'Camu Buffs' to hand when we met but there's a match for pretty much any pattern you might choose. Obviously my first question was 'do the dies contain optical brighteners?' i.e the chemicals in washing powders and cloth dyes that make clothes look bright, clean and vibrant to the human eye, but which literally make us GLOW to the eyes of a deer. Henry didn't know but was good enough to pass my question on to Sarah at Buffs HQ who passed word back telling me she thinks not.

Cool, so great for Summer, late Spring and early Autumn [Fall] then?

The Buff folks are keen outdoors people too and they've long stocked a Polar Buff which is basically a regular buff stitched to a fleece tube. Not bad, I wore a fleece tube while commuting by scooter all winter and it was a godsend, but the latest development is what's got me exited - the new 100% Merino Buff.

The color I want wasn't in stock yet but as soon as it arrives I'll be doing an 'unboxing' review. I'm expecting great things, as regular readers will know, after receiving that Merino Icebreaker top for swagmas last year I'm a total convert to Merino wool. Its almost water and windproof, it combines the super insulative qualities (wet or dry) of wool, with the stretchy comfort of a cotton lycra mix. It's now my default choice for all but outer wear.

Warning to potential buff owners - The Littlest Bushwacker has already had her Buff misappropriated by EX Mrs SBW who is now wearing it as an Alice band, and she would have taken Bushwacker Jnr's too if he hadn't caught her in the act. Keep 'em close or lose 'em.

More soon

Your Pal

SBW