Thursday, November 16, 2006

Bits n pieces

I've been busy, and been gone, so I haven't had time to comment on current events.

The abortion ban was defeated. I don't know why for sure. I'd guess it was due to not getting the message out. Part of the reason was, proponents claimed that there was an exception for rape or incest when the words "rape" and "incest" never even appeared in the law. So the argument over whether or not the provision was there distracted from the argument over if it SHOULD be there. I think a lot of people voted against the ban believing there should be exceptions for rape and incest. Nobody put out an ad trying to convince them otherwise.

Now the ban allows anyone to take the morning after pill before a pregnancy test can establish a pregnancy. This was the so called rape and incest provision. I think the abortionists scored some points pointing out that there was no real provision. (In my opinion, a rape or incest exception means that there is a specific exemption that applies to them and excludes them from the ban.)

The alternative would be that my so called conservative state is pro abortion and I don't really want to think about that.

The ban will be back in two years I'm sure. Whether or not it is in its present form or not I don't know. I don't know how a so called rape or incest provision would work. Can a woman who is 4 months pregnant decide she doesn't want the baby and cry rape? What is the standard of proof? Does the man she accuses get prosecuted? I would definitely support strong penalties for falsely accusing someone of rape to get an abortion.

So don't sell your stock in coat hanger factories just yet.

In other happenings, I went west river deer hunting. It was nice getting away. It was also very physically demanding. We hunt in the badlands. Very rough country. I like hunting out there, but the public land is very crowded. I guess we go more just to be in such a rough and beautiful country rather than to shoot a deer. There is no off road vehicle traffic allowed in this unit. So if you get a deer, you have to have a way to get it out. For us, this is a strong incentive to only shoot a deer if it has large antlers. Nobody wants the work of packing out a doe. Last year I shot two deer out there. One was a buck, and easy to get out. Only one mile to pack it out and all downhill. The other was a doe, and I dropped it as it ran across the dirt trail. We literally drove down and loaded it up. The intense hunting pressure makes it hard to find a buck big enough to shoot. They don't live long enough.

This year, only my brother got a deer. Which was good. He's not much of a hunter. He wasn't really into it when he was younger. He is not really an outdoorsman. He had never gotten a deer before. For perspective, I've shot somewhere around forty deer and he is older than I am. So he was getting pretty frustrated and wanted to give up hunting. I wanted him to get a deer before he quit completely. At least he got that monkey off his back. He was pretty happy. It was only a forkhorn, but he made one heck of a shot to get it.

My uncle and I shot the heck out of a poor coyote. Then we skinned it in the field and brought the hide back. Maybe I can get a few bucks for it.

We saw something that was pretty unbelievable. It snowed the day we went out. Then it got nice and the snow melted. The soil in the area is what they call gumbo. When it gets wet, it has the consistency of peanut butter. It sticks to your boots, and your feet get really heavy. It gets to be really hard to get around, and pretty unsafe. It is like trying to stand on a greased up pig.

The point of all this is, when the snow melted, the roads were slick. We had to leave the truck at the bottom of the hill and walk to camp. We and four other pickups couldn't make it up the hill. The next day, it dried out a little, and all the pickups had made it up the hill. But there was a new one, with Indiana license plates. The guys in it looked like a couple hippies. The pickup was a ford ranger, and it was a two wheel drive. This, to us, was the height of idiocy. To drive that thing down the hill was one of the dumber things I have even seen. But, it got more interesting. Of course they couldn't get up the hill. They had gone down to the creek and loaded the back end up with rocks till the springs were squashed flat. They got stuck at the base of the hill right in front of us. We figured they were screwed. We had to pull a 4 wheel out of the same spot that morning. Amazingly, the driver kept rocking till he got unstuck. He yelled to the passenger, who was talking to us, "Are you coming along or are you going to stand and talk to them?" I figured his chances would have been better with us. Then, my uncle let them try the hill in front of us. We could not believe they were even trying to get up, there was no way they would make it. Yet they kept trying, driving up 20 feet and then sliding back down. After 20 minutes, they made it up the steepest part. We all would have bet $1000 that they would not have made it. Their tracks were actually steaming. It took us three tries with a four wheel drive and brand new off road tires to make it up. Now they had made it through the worst part, but they still had a long way to go to get to the top. After we got up the worst part, we had to wait while they got up the next part. They kept getting stuck, and we kept thinking there is now way they would get out of this one, but by some miracle they kept getting out.

After a while, they made it up to where the traction was good for a little ways, and then got bad. The driver kept trying to start out in top gear, but he couldn't get the back wheels spinning. So he would rev the engine way up and let the clutch slip. After he tried this a couple times the truck quit moving forward and came down the hill in a cloud of white smoke. The clutch finally burned up. We could smell the clutch stinking when we first pulled up. They let us go past to the top of the hill. We didn't think it would be too long before they walked up looking for help.

We marveled quite a while at the sheer persistent stupidity of these guys. When we went down the next morning the truck wasn't there. Somehow they got up. They had to have about ruined that truck and must have nearly burned off the back tires. If you see a black ford ranger for sale on eBay from Indiana, pass on it.

My brother and I saw a bobcat. The second time I have seen a wild one.

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