The following is an excerpt from How to Win a Fight with a Conservative by Daniel Kurtzman.

Twelve Popular Conservative Bumper Stickers

1. In case of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmanned

2. Ted Kennedy’s Car Has Killed More People Than My Gun

3. If You’re Gonna Burn Our Flag, Wrap Yourself in It First

4. Run, Hillary, Run (placed on front bumper)

5. Protest Noted. Now Shut the Hell Up!

6. My Honor Student Beat Up France

7. No Oil for Pacifists

8. Spotted Owls Taste Like Chicken

9. If Guns Kill People, then Spoons Make Michael Moore Fat

10. Stop Global Whining

11. My SUV Can Beat Up Your Prius

12. Except for Ending Slavery, Fascism, Nazism, and Communism, War Has Never Solved Anything

What are your favorite progressive bumper stickers? Let us know!

Check out more of your favorite progressive authors at PBC! http://progressivebookclub.com/blog

I object to that last one. Communism was ended by peaceful engagement, not war. Communism and Apartheid are points for the pacifist side.

>2

The fight against communism involved both peaceful and non-peaceful means. For starters, the Soviets were significantly weakened in their Afghanistan war, during which the US supplied Afghan rebels directly. Most observers put the Soviet experience in Afghanistan high on the (not short) list of factors that brought them down.

One might add that communism in a number of places (ie., South Korea) was certainly ended by US arms.

As for apartheid, while it is true the ultimate end was peaceful, the ANC carried on a thirty-year armed struggle against the white government. The ANC was, among other things, a military organization. In retrospect, I think the jury is out whether that struggle helped, hindered or had no effect on the eventual outcome, but it's rewriting history to ignore the struggle, and turn Mandela into Ghandi. Giving up the armed struggle was, in fact, a long-running demand of the white government, which Mandela turned down. Indeed, as per Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nelson_Mand...), he reaffirmed the need for the ANC's armed struggle on the day of his release.

Message edited by its author, Jun 2, 2009, 5:44pm.

my personal favorite bumper sticker is the "These Colors Don't Run" with the flag background.

what makes it so great is that people put those on their cars and then ignore them. so basically, you get "These Colors Don't Run, but they do fade into oblivion and flake off."

i chuckle every time i see one.

Has anyone done:

Ted Kennedy’s Car Has Killed More People Than The Same Number of People as My Gun?

Message edited by its author, Jun 3, 2009, 1:15am.

There are plenty of good politically offensive stickers at libertystickers.com. A couple of the dictionary themed ones rank high on my list like...

conservatism (noun): communist state-worship for right-wingers

and...

liberal (noun): One who supports aggressive war so long as Democrats are in power

and then there's the classic...

Bush killed the Constitution. Obama will bury it.

Message edited by its author, Jun 3, 2009, 6:43am.

I would like to see a sticker designed to paste over the

1. In case of Rapture, This Car Will Be Unmanned

and make it say

1. In case of Rapture, Will be available for overtime.

Nice.

Has anyone come up with a good retort to the "It'll be a great day when schools have all they need and the military needs to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber"? That one always ticked me off. When I was a kid, it was a sort of requirement for Volvos in Cambridge.

Message edited by its author, Jun 19, 2009, 3:20am.

#8

"It'll be a great day for our children when politicians run neither schools nor wars."

@7: I've seen, "Come the Rapture, Can I Have Your Car?"

#10 tee hee pretty funny, I just wanted to point out I would put the "rapture overlay sticker" on other peoples cars in the parking lot, not mine!

I felt strange about not having any bumper stickers until I read the more bumper stickers, either conservative or liberal, the more prone to road rage. I do fantasize about twin 50 caliber machine guns aka James Bond when in bad traffic on occasions however.

What are your favorite progressive bumper stickers?

I've seen - on a Volvo in Northampton, no less -

U.S. OUT OF NORTH AMERICA

Message edited by its author, Jun 24, 2009, 1:23am.

"One might add that communism in a number of places (ie., South Korea) was certainly ended by US arms."

When was S. Korea "Communist"?

#13: That statement was probably meant to be about the prevention of communism rather than the removal of it. In any case, even if any war has solved any problem, that's besides the point if war is the worst way to solve problems at the outset. The funny thing about intervening militarily for the "good" of a nation is that it often means that the government to be installed is going to be even less accountable to the populace than governments usually are.

Message edited by its author, Jun 25, 2009, 3:03am.

>13

Although the point is prevention of a long term communism in South Korea, almost all of South Korea was captured and ruled by Communists, who occupied Seoul and pushed South Korean forces to a tiny region around Pusan during the summer of 1950 (see map). During their brief rule, Communists systematically murdered or disappeared tends of thousands of South Koreans. (It's worth adding the war was often dirty on the South Korean and US side too.) It's fairly certain North Korean forces were pushed back by UN forces under US command, although coincidence is not excluded.

Message edited by its author, Jun 25, 2009, 3:23am.

That the "Commies" occupied almost all of S. Korea is not the same as ruling -- governing -- because there wasn't any stability to the occupation.

And many tens of thousands of Central and South American citizens have been "disappeared" (etc.) under gov'ts imposed and supported by the US, and not only so long ago as the 1950s. And the gov'ts overthrown -- and imposed -- by the US were not "Commie".

It also supported dictatorships for decades in not only S. Korea but also -- a very brief list -- in Taiwan, the Philippines, and Iran.

It seems that if the US is to "righteously" point its finger at the commission of indefensible evils, it should point it first at the offender closest to the US.

Message edited by its author, Jun 25, 2009, 6:33am.

Fine, let's take your position. I stipulate agreement with it all. The US aided or imposed bad guys. Some of them were removed by force, liberating their peoples. If Castro is the answer, he still won by the gun—war solves things. Whether you make evil your good, or you think as I do, the bumper sticker wins! :)

My favorite conservative sticker is "If you can read this, thank a teacher. If you're reading it in English, thank a soldier!"

Groan.

Message edited by its author, Jun 25, 2009, 3:56pm.

Some of the bad guys imposed by the US were removed by force by whom? The US? In recent memory, only one on-again off-again US ally was removed by force: Saddam Hussein. And though that (too) was done by means of lie -- and the wrongful death of even more of the US's precious bodily fluids -- it was done because, for one, he was a torturer who imposed the crime of torture on his people.

So the US removed (alleged -- when has the US told the truth about those it hates?) evil by evil means in order to impose that exact same evil, but in more "refined" and "civilized" forms.

Your underlying either/or extremism is obvious: if one criticizes the US's actual imposition of far-right dictatorships onto other peoples behind the lie that it is democracy, that automatically means the critic is a "leftist" who sides with alleged "Commies".

The obvious actual point is that war solves nothing, and is in all instances, except in self-defense, indefensible -- regardless who initiates and defends it in only those instances when an alleged "Commie"* "oppressor" is overthrown. Thus the US deposed a democracy in Iran, and imposed a dictator, and now bashes Iran as a "dictatorship" for having thrown out the US's bloody-handed dictator and replacing him with a gov't which at least in part is self-determined by the Iranian people.
_____

*Saddam Hussein was on the opposite end of the political spectrum, despite the lengthy concerted effort by that end of the spectrum to portray Hitler -- and thus Hussein -- as being a "leftist"/"Commie". Because everyone knows a fascist/Nazi is preferable, to the freedom-loving, to "Commies".
_____

That is especially the fact -- war is in all cases indefensible except in self-defense -- when the nation engaging in it claims to be Christian, and the implicit rationale is "moral" superiority. The issue is not what others do, as excuse to do exactly the alleged same -- "two wrongs make a right" is irrational, irresponsible, intellectually dishonest, and immoral -- but what the US does.

The US was illegally -- and unnecessarily -- in Vietnam -- and the only result was the loss of millions of lives and the waste of resources to only delay the inevitable. An accurate knowledge of Vietnamese history would have obviated that entire "adventure". The illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq were unnecessary -- add to which fact that it increases the number of enemes, behind the lie that it would do the opposite -- but the US will remain bogged down there so long as the overriding imperative is to save face. To never admit being imperfect, let alone being in the wrong.

And the overriding effort to save face will inevitably consist in the defense of war as being necessary, while steadfastly both pointing accusatory finger away from ourselves based upon the usual allegations of evil in those at whom pointed.

The evil you defend is that you make your good: by contrast, Castro was acting in self-defense against a US-imposed dictator -- an action you defend when your gov't tells you to do so, based upon the irrelevancy that the result was an alleged system of gov't you are instructed to hate, even when it isn't the form alleged.

Does the US have the right to dictate what forms of gov't other nations must have? No -- but let's point our finger away from that fact, and to be doubly certain cover it over with the flag. And then outrun the lie by defending war as "necessary".

Does the US act in the interests of freedom and democracy when it deploys terrorist death squads to undermine and overthrow democratic movements and gov'ts? No -- but let's just allege the movements and gov'ts were "Commies," and that will make it all alright. And then outrun that lie by defending war as "necessary".

Always based upon the implicit lie that the US is morally superior to all who differ from and with it.

Message edited by its author, Jun 28, 2009, 12:00am.

No, my point was that, if I stipulate everything you believe, the bumper sticker still stands—force changes the world for the good. It's not the US that overthrows dictators, but US-backed dictators are overthrow, either by freedom-fighting local forces or by allies of freedom, like the Soviet Union.

#20 --

"I stipulate everything you believe".

You don't know what I "believe". I do reject the convenient hypocrisy employed by those who can't and or refuse to face the fact that the US isn't perfect -- despite the extremist simpleton's fantasy that it would be if we only learn to lie constantly and hard enough, and to suppress all dissenting voices, or at least constantly change the subject away from the factual content of their dissent.

That convenient hypocrisy by means of which the US excuses its own hypocrisy and wrongdoing, while simultaneously and selectively condemning the exact same thing in SOME others. That constant irresponsible and irrational pointing of the two-year-old's finger at someone else and shrieking, "They do it too!"

"force changes the world for the good."

In effort to avoid the issue -- US wrongdoing -- you generalize away from the specific. By contrast, one obviously cannot rationally, reasonably, and or honestly assert that force ALWAYS changes the world for the good, else one must praise not only Hitler but also Stalin.

And typical is the incomplete -- PARTIAL -- and avoidant sarcasm:

"It's not the US that overthrows dictators, but US-backed dictators are overthrown, . . . ."

Let's be honest and therefore complete on the point -- your effort to yet again avoid the issue making it necessary to repeat the facts you endeavor to avoid:

In fact, the US has a long anti-American/democratic history of, in part or whole, overthrowing democratic gov'ts and replacing them with dictators, backing dictators, and propping up dictators. I underscore the example of Saddam Hussein.

Want to know what fundamentally increases the number of enemies of the US? The refusal of the US to ever admit being imperfect, and or doing harm, while at the same time lying mostly-successfully to itself, and to the rest of the world in FAILED effort to prevent itself and the rest of the world accurately seeing exactly what the US is and does in and to the world.

The least informed about the US -- not only concerning domestic civics, but also that the US does in and to the rest of the world -- is the US citizenry. And those who actively make a career of keeping them uninformed and misinformed with distractions, evasions, and false and irrelevant equivalencies, are part of that deplorable anti-democratic/American reality.

Message edited by its author, Jun 28, 2009, 12:32am.

I'm sorry. Let me repeat my point more clearly: I don't care to fight with you about US policy. I am making no claims about US policy. I will stipulate whatever you believe or don't believe simply because I am uninterested in fighting about the topic.

The topic of the virtue and vice of the US, and its effects on the world, is a frequent one on LT, and too large to "get at." It's like debating whether conservatives or liberals are right, whether the media is fair or not, or whether love is an illusion. Issues that large and complex can't be solved in little snippets of text. Not are the evidence and arguments endless, but the things we believe there, whether justified or not, so color our world that we'd probably butt heads on dozens of issues of evidence and interpretation and still not get anywhere.

Now, I think you're raving. And insofar as I'm not saying very much, I know I'm not raving. But this is a soap bubble on top of an ocean—one we're not going get to the bottom of. There no way to solve the issue of whose model of the world fits reality better. Not without being locked in a library for a year with you and a chalkboard.

I saw one that said, "I fight poverty. I work." This is the perfect summation of conservative economic philosophy. If you're poor, it must be your fault because we live in the land of opportunity.

I wouldn't go so far as to say this isn't true in some cases. But I think that just emphasizes the difference between liberals and conservatives. Many liberals are willing to concede that the causes of poverty are multi-faceted. While many conservatives just dogmatically conclude that poverty is solely an affliction of the lazy and immoral.

My old boss--now 81?--a conservative rich guy and a hunter--sported the bumper sticker "I eat my road kill". He made the mistake of driving this vehicle to a radio interview for which PETA was also invited. Someone let the air out of his tires!!

He really did eat his road kill. Soon after I moved from Canada to the US I ran over a squirrel--a fox squirrel, which I had never seen before. He gave me hell for leaving it behind! (Eat a roadkill squirrel, eeew!)

Years later, I hit a turkey on my way to a business meeting--that sucker dented and scratched the roof of my truck! Anyway, my boss who eats his roadkill again gave me hell for leaving it behind! A, I told him, I was not going to dress a turkey in my hotel sink, and B, there wasn't a drumstick left that wasn't hamburger!

Amazinglyly, the roadkill must be restorative. This year, the old guy drove down the east coast to winter with a lady friend in FL!

Message edited by its author, Jun 29, 2009, 2:57am.

Marqd, you may find this story amusing. I work for a government agency in a courthouse so there is security, an x-ray machine and metal detectors at the entrance. One day, some guy comes in to see us and he hands his paper bag to security and they run it through the x-ray machine. He had a dead possum in the bag and explained to security that it was going to be his supper that night.

I've never ate road kill but I have ate squirrel. Not much meat on them. People who eat squirrel generally like them as way of making gravy not for the meat itself.

These old guys and their roadkill/squirrels! At another meeting--this time in Canada--an old biologist who was driver in my car spies a BLACK squirrel dead by the side of the road. Well, he ties flies and they don't have BLACK squirrels in his neck of the woods. He slams on the brakes, runs out and grabs the squirrel, triumphantly depositing the carcass at his passenger's (moi!) feet. Once back at the hotel (a camp kind of place on the St Lawrence River opened for us in March) I see him and his room-mate liberally bandaged and band-aided. Apparently they amputated the squirrel's tail with a safety razor!! Their room is befuzzed with squirrel hair!! I always wondered what they encountered from US Customs, and whether Customs x-rayed the bag with the squirrel's tail. Anyway, my colleague sent me an Atlantic salmon fly made with the squirrel, which I still have as memento.

Message edited by its author, Jun 29, 2009, 2:58am.

My understanding is that squirrels have a prion-based disease like mad cow, which periodically kills people in Appalachia. I'm not messing with that sort of thing.

In the UK it is illegal to collect your own road-kill although perfectly fine to stop if you happen to see some on the side of the road. Apparently this stops people using cars to hunt down animals ... although I don't know if anyone has ever been prosecuted for it.

Don't know any good bumper stickers - not that common a practice over here.

Right, Tim: You don't wish to fight about US policy; you simply want the actual facts about its errors and deiberate wrongs omitted altogether, or that your assertion of the standard boilerplate disclaimer -- see below -- be that last and final word on the issue.

Take the point, Tim: this is not yet another "Compare and Contrast Progressive and 'C/conservative' Patriotism and Anti-Commie-ism 101" forum in which EVERY legitimate, true, and factual criticism of the US's errors and -- especially -- deliberate wrongs against other nations and peoples MUST include the boorish far-right lunatic fringe hysterical paranoid's standard boilerplate bona fides disclaimer:

"Hate Commies-Commie-ism-'Red' China-Cuba-USSR-Castro-Mao-Stalin!"/"Oh, yah!? Well, THEY DO IT TOO!"

I'll remind you, Tim: It's safe to assert that everyone here grew up, from earliest memories, being indoctrinated with that rant and rave -- that propaganda -- and that it is permanently at the backs of our minds. It is therefore unnecessary -- no law or loyalty oath requires it, though paranoid obsession does -- to endeavor to establish, in each and every single instance of a criticism of the US, an attempted equivalency by yet again dragging in that propaganda in effort to change the subject, to neutralize and bury any and all criticisms of the US, especially the legitimate, factual, and true.

Most especially when legitimate, factual, and true.

Note, Tim: On the list of the demonized and executed by Hitler were the "Commies". And the US went to war against the Nazis during WW II essentially because of the illiberal (Liberals were also on that list) nature of his view, and the actions which predictably flowed from his hate-speech. (Does hate-speech have predicatable and observable consequences? I'd suggest that you ask the Jews at such as Dachau but they're dead.)

Yet some five years later the identical demonization began within the US, lead by such Liberal-hating thugs as Joe McCarthy, and many lives were destroyed based upon his several sheets of blank paper. And in addition, not incidentally, freedom of thought -- the right to believe anything one chooses -- was shortened by the defenders of all things "freedom" far-right lunatic fringe to exclude the demonized

"Commie-ism!"

And it is hardly secret that the same forces today continue to demonize

Liberals.

And, of course, "So-shul-ists," "forgetting" that a number of the US's staunchest allies have systems consisting of:

1. Monarchy.
2. Democratically-elected parliament.
3. Socialist economics.

A few of the predictably strange-sounding names of such foreign allies which immediately come to mind are:

1. Britain.
2. Denmark.
3. Norway.
4. Sweden.

Perhaps it's the result of oppression, but I don't hear the populations of those "despotic" "tyrannies" yelling about how unfree their countries are because of the democratically-elected "Commie"-"so-shul-ist"-"Liberal" "fascists".

Beg, borrow, or buy copy of the film "Judgment at Nuremberg" and watch it -- paying especial attention to the critique of that view -- the view which not only defends the use of force, and not only also urges the necessity and "good" that comes of using force, but which will make every effort to provoke and initiate it based both upon that rationale and the allegation, "THEY DO IT TOO!"

And make every effort to prevent discussion of the US's deliberate wrongs against other nations and peoples by means of the use of force, and in defense of the use of forace, and because the use of force is always a good. (Except, of course, when used by alleged "Commies"/"So-shul-ists" . . .)

The US's invasion and occupation of non-threatening Iraq was and is illegal PRECISELY because the US, more than any other participant in WW II against the "Axis," wrote the law making it so -- and as an act and show of good faith VOLUNTARILY subjected itself to that law.

Such war of choice/aggression was made illegal because Hitler and his allies engaged in that act while urging the same view -- force is always good -- and in every instance tacked on that same standard anti-"Commie" (and Liberal, and so-shul-ist, and trade unionist, and Jew, and gypsy, etc.) disclaimer.

The same false demonization occurred during the 1960s against those engaged in peaceful efforts to support the troops by bringing them home from the US's "force is always good"/illegal intervention in Vietnam. It is the views of those who engaged in those efforts in support of the rule of law -- and of the troops -- which "tick you off," and which you condescendingly mock. Tell us, Tim: was Gandhi a "Commie"-"so-shul-ist"-"Liberal" too?

So too during those years did Nixon-Agnew and their supporters, including such as Rumsfeld and Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney, mock and ridicule the "Left" for opposing that illegal intervention and supporting the troops. While at the same time the likes of Dick "Five Deferments" Cheney were both dodging the draft and bashing the "Left" as draft-dodging pro-"Commie" draft deferment-seeking anti-Americans.

That view was wrong in WW II Germany, and during the 1950s within the US with the far-right lunatic fringe attacking other US citizens within the US -- "the enemy within" -- and in the 1960s in the US, and is as wrong today as the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, and such attendant crime as torture. It is that view your defense of force as "good" defends. Even if that means the excuse to use force must be provoked, or the force initiated based upon allegations of provocation.

And what's your dodge? The effort to discredit all alternative views by reducing everything to mere "opinion"; and with that all standards, all fact, and the fact of truth are subverted and negated, eliminated as obstacles to moral relativism, nihilism, masquerading as intellectuality.

Not all fact and truth are negated by reducing them to mere "opinion," of course: there is one tiny area of reality which is indisputably fact and truth: the standard boilerplate disclaimer cited above: that is unassailable -- along with the truism that it justifies all uses of force by all patriots who oppose that litany of alleged evil.

Patriotism isn't only the "refuge of scoundrels"; it is also the villain.

Message edited by its author, Jun 29, 2009, 1:20pm.

I am not asking for anything to be omitted and I'm not telling anyone to shut up. I just don't think my participating in a conversation about this topic is likely to be very productive. I also think its unproductive generally, but I'm not stopping you from having it with anyone who actually wants to. That you can turn that simple and non-hostile statement of interest into all sorts of raving accusations about things I didn't say and don't believe proves my point better than anything.

Anyone—help!?

Message edited by its author, Jun 29, 2009, 2:00pm.

Just sitting back, enjoying the give and take.

Favorite bumper sticker: "Honk if you passed P-chem"
It's not particularly political, but dear to the heart of anyone who has taken physical chemistry.

#9:"It'll be a great day for our children when politicians run neither schools nor wars.". Over here they're not doing a great job of running the country either.

Here is one of my favorite bumper stickers: "DEATH TO EXTREMISTS!". Is this Liberal or Conservative, or just a trick question? Also, what does one say when someone asks if oneself is an Extremist?
A wise person once said "Do we not destroy our Enemies by making them into our our Friends?". But what do we do when our enemies would rather kill us or put us under a repressive regime than be our Friends? What if corruption and crime are commonplace in our society and the least corrupt people are the hard-line religious conservatives? Can Liberalism save people, and society, from themselves? How can amoral and cynically self-serving people be expected to transform themselves into enlightened socially-responsible and generous citizens?

A couple of thoughts:

>15, 16
Important subject, sure, but do we have to use "disappear" as a verb? Of course we can, but it sort of "impacts" me disagreeably.

>25,26,27

Let's not be too hasty about dissing squirrels. In my youth I ate my share, with pleasure. Liberals and shotguns aren't necessarily strangers.

>34

What do they taste like? Seriously.

#33: Here is one of my favorite bumper stickers: "DEATH TO EXTREMISTS!". Is this Liberal or Conservative, or just a trick question?

To paraphrase Dan Carlin, the "mainstream" has indeed become "extreme." Death to mainstreamists! :P

> 34 Let's not be too hasty about dissing squirrels. In my youth I ate my share, with pleasure.

Sorry--where I grew up, roadkill was never on the menu! And the squirrels were way too small to bother with. Actually, the fox squirrel I hit was the biggest squirrel I have ever seen--size being the major reason I mentioned the incident at the office. I come from a huntin', snarin', and fishin' family myself and have faced some interesting items on my own dinner plate, but not squirrel...

> 34 Liberals and shotguns aren't necessarily strangers.

I worked with resource managers and biologists in the Great Lakes region, and in my experience Republican appointees tended to come from a hunting / conservation background--one went on to become NRA president--and their more liberal colleagues approached fish and wildlife management as "environmentalists". Not an ironclad rule, of course, but it was always interesting to watch the two groups try to interact and cooperate on behalf of the resource.

> 27 My understanding is that squirrels have a prion-based disease like mad cow, which periodically kills people in Appalachia.

I hadn't heard about a squirrel prion disease, but you prompted me to check the progress of chronic wasting disease in moose, deer, and elk. The bad news is that it's spreading. The good news is that there is still no evidence that people have caught it. Also, that wildlife managers are daring to contemplate CWD's eradication.

Message edited by its author, Jun 30, 2009, 3:39am.

Catching up, in no particular order, on squirrels:

>35 Re taste: it's been a while, but I remember them as nice dark meat fried in an iron skillet. Now that I'm older and more spoiled, I suspect that I might find them gamey-tasting. But that can be easily addressed with marinating and chopped onions. Treat it like the French do a "civet" and you'll have a tasty time.

>34 Re size: Sure they're small, but there are more ounces on them than plenty of other things we eat, say, a small hamburger patty or a fresh-water fish like bass or blue gill. There's enough eating on them. They weren't roadkill, either--we hunted them with shotguns (watch out for those lead pellets). They are also relatively easy to skin--you just cut down the belly and peel off their little squirrel suits.

>35, 37 Re health risk: Tim, when you wrote that, it triggered a vague memory of something I'd read somewhere, and a quick internet search has this 1997 account from the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/29/us/ken...

Note that it refers specifically to squirrel brains. If true, then sure, there's cause for caution. In my particular region we always cut off the heads, so the issue didn't really arise.

That said, the American squeamishness about eating heads (of other, less risky creatures) needs to be re-examined. It's dubious, if not hysterical.

"Gross", of course, is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, the conditions of battery chickens, casually consumed, suggests that American consumers of these birds live in a glass house. Of pretty rickety construction. Bear with me about French cooking: traditional recipes for rabbits include the head, and the cheek is a particularly tasty bit. The brain is consumed after prising open the skull with the sharp point of a knife. (Traditionally, a "dad" thing, though in truth nowadays most people won't be bothered.) It's pretty tasty, and worth trying before rejecting. My rabbit recipe is available, upon request.

>34 Re liberals and shotguns: your description sounds very plausible to me. I should've specified that I'm speaking from a particular context and era, as a kid from the 60s and 70s. Likely that's ancient history now. Dick Cheney I'm not.

Note that it refers specifically to squirrel brains. If true, then sure, there's cause for caution. In my particular region we always cut off the heads, so the issue didn't really arise.

Spines work too, though.

I'd rather face a liberal with a shotgun than a radical with a pistol. At least I would have a small feeling the liberal wouldn't shoot me just to watch me die.

Oh, BTW, that Ouzi automatic is a piss poor weapon for hunting squirrels.

It's my understanding that prions can occur in any nerve tissue. I guess the animal dies before it appears in peripheral nerves. Eating brains is just too risky.

#38""Gross", of course, is in the eye of the beholder. For instance, the conditions of battery chickens, casually consumed, suggests that American consumers of these birds live in a glass house. Of pretty rickety construction. Bear with me about French cooking: traditional recipes for rabbits include the head, and the cheek is a particularly tasty bit.
"

'Gross' is seeing fully skinned furless head-on rabbits casually displayed in German market places. I've happily skinned my own and am not particularly freaked out by seeing the animals forms of the meat I'm about to eat, but leave the fur on the head - those teeth! They really are scary without the fur.

#38 Great informative, scary article! I used to hunt squirrels but never ate them just gave them away. Well come to think of it I did taste some fried squirrel once out of a cast iron skillet - just to see what it taste like.

We have a group of 3 or 4 apparently young vultures who frequent our housing development recently. They eat road kill squirrels all the time and walk around like huge black chickens.

I've always thought that the Conservatives have a way better sense of humor, and I am left of radical!! How about.."I always thought it was Mom and Dad, not Tom and Brad" or "When you complain about America's farmers, don't talk with your mouth full". The latter is less decidedly conservative, though a good one, nevertheless!! Oh yeah..you folks are way too serious!!

#43: I dunno. Not that there's any hard and fast rule, but "conservative" humor has seemed to me to harbor a degree of bitterness and mean spiritedness. Not that I could cite any examples of the top of my head, but while "liberals" tend to joke about what people do, "conservatives" tend to joke about who people are. (possible exception being liberals making fun of rednecks)

Message edited by its author, Jul 1, 2009, 11:59pm.

Seen in the wild:

"Frodo failed; Bush has the ring"