SHOT Show Isn’t All Shooting And Killing Stuff

You can hardly turn on one of the hunting channels these days without someone taking disabled kids, wounded vets, or some other special case into the field.  It’s a great thing, and an excellent use of the resources the hunting shows and their sponsors have available.

The SHOT Show reflects that philanthropic aspect of the industry as well as all of the shooting and hunting.  Several organizations that support the military were represented, as were the more traditional organizations such as 4-H and Kids and Clays.  If I tried to write about all of them, I’d be at it for days.  However, I attended press conferences for a couple that serve as good examples of what’s going on.

First of all, Bushnell Sport Optics threw a breakfast for the media.  After a run-down of their new products, they came back to the Folds of Honor program.

Folds of Honor was created by USAF Major Dan Rooney after his second tour in Iraq.  The mission of the organization is described on the Folds of Honor website as follows:

The Folds of Honor Foundation is rallying a nation to ensure no family is left behind in the fight to preserve American freedom. Through scholarships and other assistance, we give back to the spouses and children of soldiers killed or disabled in service to our country. We provide healing, hope and an opportunity for dreams to be realized…with the support of people like you. We feel this is our duty as citizens of the greatest country in the world.

This is Bushnell’s second year as a partner in the program.  Among other things the optics giant is doing, they’re offering a rebate on certain rangefinders.  The customer can then opt to donate part or all of the rebate to the Folds of Honor Foundation.  At this year’s presentation, Bushnell presented a check for $200,000 as a result of the generosity of the corporation and its customers.

Another cool aspect of the presentation this year was the appearance of Craig Morgan.  Morgan is a country musician as well as an outdoor television host (All Access Outdoors on The Sportsman Channel).  He performed a pair of songs he’d just written, and made an announcement about some work he might be doing soon to support the Folds of Honor Foundation.  I’ll let ya’ll know as soon as the news is official.

Later in the week, as I was sitting in the press room, a couple of NSSF people came through the room announcing a press conference.  I looked up and saw outdoor media luminaries like Jim Shockey and Jim Zumbo heading into the conference room, so I figured this might be worth checking out.

And it was…

The conference was to announce the kickoff of the Outdoor Legends Tour, a goodwill tour of outdoors “personalities” who would be heading over to “somewhere in the southeast asia area” to visit the troops.  Included in the group were Shockey, Zumbo, Michael Waddell, Brenda Valentine, Cuz Strickland, and many others.

From what I understood (where the heck did I leave my notes?), the tour would be similar to USO tours, only the celebrities would mingle directly with the troops, shaking hands, distributing swag, and generally doing what they could to provide a positive impact on morale.

As I mentioned, these are only a couple of the numerous programs and organizations driven by American outdoorsmen and the industry.  There’s an opportunity for all of us to take the hunt to a different level, share our heritage, and help out some folks who could really use a little extra good in their lives.

Lindsey – Calling all Elk!

 It was a cold morning in September, I was bow hunting for elk with Mike and Preslee. Mike would sit and do a call while I would walk down a ways to hopefully catch a big boy off guard. We had heard that magnificent bugle from across the meadow before daylight, then another, and yet another.  You can imagine how excited it got me. Finally, what seemed like a year (it was more like 20 minutes) three bulls coming from three different directions decide to make their approach eweee! I had to try and calm nerves thinking this might be it. I look back I can’t see Mike but can hear his call. I do see my little Preslee all hunkered down playing quietly on her Nintendo DS, ha ha! Of course I’m thinking pay attention this is going to be a great learning experience, at the same time I’m just thankful she is being quiet and still. The bull from the north starts coming in strong. I was crouching on the side of a hill with lots of trees knowing that when he did come in I would have to be ready. I stopped listening for the bulls behind me and tried to focus on this guy. He kept inching his way closer his screams getting so loud it could blow my hair back. I look down and my right arm is shaking so bad that I was sure a satellite could pick it up. And then boom!!!! eh hem….not the boom I’m hoping for like blammo I hit him or boom he was right smack dab in front of me, it was BOOM that sucker was gone! The wind had swirled and he had busted me. And just like that my hunt was over. Never heard the other two bulls and the last I heard my bull was two ridges over. Was I mad? Sure, but did I learn some things absolutely. And that’s hunting! I love it! ~ Linds

Streaming Live Video/Audio in Maine Black Bear Den

Dear Friend,

On behalf of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, I am sending you this email today to inform you of an exciting new endeavor the Department has undertaken with the Wildlife Research Foundation.

We urge you to visit the Foundation’s new website by clicking here. A camera has been placed in a bear den in northern Maine, providing 24/7 streaming of one of our radio collared bears, “Lugnut” who birthed two cubs on January 16. This is the first time a live streaming video has been placed in a wild Maine Black Bear den.

The website provides us with an opportunity to share Lugnut’s world and watch her as she raises her cubs. You will also see videos of our bears “Spunky” and “Nell” and as the project develops, we will follow those bears and others.

There are videos that tell the story of the north Maine woods, its habitat, including how the camera was installed in the den. Fascinating stuff.

The video in Lugnut’s den provides not only a unique visual, but audio as well; the two cubs (yet un-named) often squeal and protest quite loudly as they adjust to life in the den.

The Foundation’s mission statement states their goal is to provide funds and support to the scientific community and wildlife managers to enhance wildlife and habitat research and inform and educate the general public concerning the value and necessity of wildlife research.

The bear cam allows us to do that in a fun and exciting way!

The Foundation approached the Department with this unique opportunity and we are pleased to work with them to educate the public on Maine’s Black Bear population and urge donations to the Department’s wildlife research projects. Maine is fortunate to have two of the most well respected bear biologists in the nation, Randy Cross and Jen Vashon, and I know the website will be an effective and exciting tool to educate people around the world about Maine’s Black Bears.

The website has become popular right out of the gate. It has been live for just two weeks, and has had over 15,000 visitors.

We encourage you to share this email and the link to the website with your family, friends and colleagues, urging them to follow the story of Lugnut and her cubs and to also support the work of the Foundation and Maine’s wildlife research projects.

Thank you very much and I hope you will follow Lugnut’s journey as I will on a daily basis!

Sincerely,

Chandler E. Woodcock
Commissioner
Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

Florida Republican Primary Voting Today

Today is primary voting day for registered republicans in Florida to choose who will represent their party in the November election against incumbent President Barack Obama.

I voted. I just returned. I hopped on my bicycle at 10:05 and peddled about one mile to the precinct, cast my vote and peddled home knowing and resting in comfort that for the next year anyone who doesn’t like my berating of the politicians and ask me if I voted, I can say yes! A vote cast is a permit to bitch.

Get your bitching permit today! (And God make my telephone stop ringing!!!)

Tom Remington

“The Outlook” – Cook Inlet, Alaska

The outlook is over Cook Inlet from what is known as Homer Spit (in Homer, Alaska), looking at the Aleutian Range on the right and the left is into the Katmai Nat’l. Park.

Photo by Al Remington Click on Image to Enlarge – Larger image has better quality.

“Nor, They Say, Is Life ‘Sacred’”

“[I]f killing were wrong just because it is causing death or the loss of life, then the same principle would apply with the same strength to pulling weeds out of a garden. If it is not immoral to weed a garden, then life as such cannot really be sacred, and killing as such cannot be morally wrong.” <<<Read more>>>

Open Thread – January 31, 2012

Please use this open thread to post your ideas, comments and information about issues not relevant to the content of articles posted on this web site. Thank you.

Our Seven-Day Forecast Calls For Global Warming

It appears that the freaks who have swilled the Kool-Aid and been baptized in Al Gore’s global warming cult are pushing to kick all those local weathermen off the air who don’t espouse to their religion and speak of it on a regular basis while reporting the weather. I suppose their seven-day forecasts would look something like this:

According to the Daily Caller, the true believers want all local weathermen to include man-caused global warming in their daily forecasting of the weather. It’s a far cry difference between forecasting weather and understanding what causes our climate to fluctuate.

But aside from those differences, it’s a moronic statement to define global warming “deniers” as: “anyone who expressly refutes the overwhelming scientific consensus about climate change: that it is real, largely caused by humans, and already having profound impacts on our world.”

As was well stated by the late Michael Crichton: “Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with consensus.”

Tom Remington

A “Feeding” Tube is a Media Device

It’s political regurgitation season once again and once again the people are fully displaying their inability to think, evoke history or differentiate truth. But it’s not solely their fault.

For those of us fortunate enough to be living in Florida, we have all become subjected to the intrusion of filthy and disgusting mass robotic telephone messages that seldom allow anyone to have a moment of peace. It’s worse than living with several 2 and 3-year-old children who have yet to grasp mentally those benign traits necessary for coexistence.

Because our dishonest and lying lawmakers exempted themselves from “do not call” lists, the primary season has them out in full battle gear intruding into every aspect of our lives. It’s worse than SPAM.

What is the reason for this? It’s because the average voter fits a certain profile; a portrait of a non thinker that requires a feeding tube in order to know what is required of them and what decisions to make. The creation of this caricature began in our infancy, molding us into what we have become. As such, those so-called masters of the campaign strategies, believe they know what each candidate should say and do to get you to vote for them, regardless of truth.

Most voters require a feeding tube in order to get their political nutrition. I laughed this morning as I was preparing information to write this article. I decided to Google “feeding tube”. Wikipedia’s first sentences reads: “A feeding tube is a medical device used to provide nutrition to patients who cannot obtain nutrition by swallowing.” Bingo! I changed a couple of words and came up with this: “A feeding tube is a media device used to provide political nutrition to voters who cannot obtain nutrition by thinking.”

As of this writing, there are four GOP candidates remaining in the race. Mitt Romney will be 65 in March. Newt Gingrich will be 69 in June. Ron Paul will be 77 in August and Rick Santorum will be 54 in May. Anyone who has mental capacity to think and recall, knows all about Mitt Romney. He was governor of Massachusetts. The same can be said of Gingrich, who spent years in the United State Congress and was Speaker of the House. Ron Paul has been around in Congress longer than the dust in some of the cracks and Rick Santorum was a senator from Pennsylvania. All of this and people require a televised debate, where biased and misleading questions are asked to candidates, the most who have been instructed how to answer them in order to please the most number of voters. And if having all this valuable information available, there are voters who are undecided. Really?

Because we have been programmed to know where our political nutrition must come from, voters sit down and plug in their feeding tubes to all sources of media. But like with eating food or even taking it by feeding tube, our stomachs must retain the ability to digest and process this food to get the nutrients from it. Being tube fed by the media, still requires the act of digestion. In other words, it is required of the voter, even if you can no longer swallow, to digest the information discarding the waste and using the nutrients.

Media is very powerful. It decides many things in this country and around the world. We are programmed to believe that what comes from media is truth. It is not. There are facts mixed with propaganda – nutrition mixed with waste. You can digest it or regurgitate it.

It is time for voters to once again learn to chew and swallow, get rid of the media feeding tube and engage a thinking-for-yourself kind of brain. Or, you can let the feeding tube tell you how to vote, what to think and how to act.

Tom Remington

A “Feeding” Tube is a Media Device

It’s political regurgitation season once again and once again the people are fully displaying their inability to think, evoke history or differentiate truth. But it’s not solely their fault.

For those of us fortunate enough to be living in Florida, we have all become subjected to the intrusion of filthy and disgusting mass robotic telephone messages that seldom allow anyone to have a moment of peace. It’s worse than living with several 2 and 3-year-old children who have yet to grasp mentally those benign traits necessary for coexistence.

Because our dishonest and lying lawmakers exempted themselves from “do not call” lists, the primary season has them out in full battle gear intruding into every aspect of our lives. It’s worse than SPAM.

What is the reason for this? It’s because the average voter fits a certain profile; a portrait of a non thinker that requires a feeding tube in order to know what is required of them and what decisions to make. The creation of this caricature began in our infancy, molding us into what we have become. As such, those so-called masters of the campaign strategies, believe they know what each candidate should say and do to get you to vote for them, regardless of truth.

Most voters require a feeding tube in order to get their political nutrition. I laughed this morning as I was preparing information to write this article. I decided to Google “feeding tube”. Wikipedia’s first sentences reads: “A feeding tube is a medical device used to provide nutrition to patients who cannot obtain nutrition by swallowing.” Bingo! I changed a couple of words and came up with this: “A feeding tube is a media device used to provide political nutrition to voters who cannot obtain nutrition by thinking.”

As of this writing, there are four GOP candidates remaining in the race. Mitt Romney will be 65 in March. Newt Gingrich will be 69 in June. Ron Paul will be 77 in August and Rick Santorum will be 54 in May. Anyone who has mental capacity to think and recall, knows all about Mitt Romney. He was governor of Massachusetts. The same can be said of Gingrich, who spent years in the United State Congress and was Speaker of the House. Ron Paul has been around in Congress longer than the dust in some of the cracks and Rick Santorum was a senator from Pennsylvania. All of this and people require a televised debate, where biased and misleading questions are asked to candidates, the most who have been instructed how to answer them in order to please the most number of voters. And if having all this valuable information available, there are voters who are undecided. Really?

Because we have been programmed to know where our political nutrition must come from, voters sit down and plug in their feeding tubes to all sources of media. But like with eating food or even taking it by feeding tube, our stomachs must retain the ability to digest and process this food to get the nutrients from it. Being tube fed by the media, still requires the act of digestion. In other words, it is required of the voter, even if you can no longer swallow, to digest the information discarding the waste and using the nutrients.

Media is very powerful. It decides many things in this country and around the world. We are programmed to believe that what comes from media is truth. It is not. There are facts mixed with propaganda – nutrition mixed with waste. You can digest it or regurgitate it.

It is time for voters to once again learn to chew and swallow, get rid of the media feeding tube and engage a thinking-for-yourself kind of brain. Or, you can let the feeding tube tell you how to vote, what to think and how to act.

Tom Remington

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