Hunting News December 2009
It's winter and cold in Seattle.
Have a great Christmas.
Dave
My Quick Camping/Hunting Kit contains everything I need:
Tent and rain fly
sleeping bag
air mattress and electric pump (put new batteries in)
flashlight
gas stove
fuel tank
cooking kit
3 days freeze dried food
knife
length of rope
first aid kit
water bottle
coffee cup and instant coffee packages
fire starter - wet weather
poly ground tarp
It's all contained in a big nylon camo bag, which makes it easy to grab and carry.
New Client using Outfitters Services
We have a new customer: Cascade Outfitters of Omak WA. Richard Caryl has a great Outfitters store in Omak, WA. He has been operating his guice service in the Okahogan region of Wahsington for many years. Now he's using our services. His new web site is: www.cascade-outfitters.com. I've personally used Cascade Outfitters on guided hunts and these guys are great. They make you feel right at home. You can reach him at: (509) 826-4148.
New Products from Outfittersservices.com
SuperFly: Be sure to check out our new products on the Home Page. I've added a great Camo, waterproof tent rain fly with Mylar emergency blanket material sewn under the camo rain fly. These rain fly’s extend all the way to the bottom of the tent and provide complete rain protection, even in the wettest weather. The thin thermal Mylar blanket reflects heat from the inside of the tent back down into the tent keeping the occupants warmer. The fly is available for small, medium, and large tents and sells for $50, $75, and $100. These rain fly’s are life savers in bad weather.
Burris Speed Bead Shotgun Sight:
This is the latest shotgun sight from Burris. This electronic attaches to your shotgun between the butt stock and the receiver. It presents a red dot on the screen that manages to float just ahead of your target making it very easy to improve your shooting. It's small but effective. The cost is steep; list price is $318 dollars but should be available at a discount. http://www.burrisoptics.com/speedbead.html
Buddy Heaters: Another great product that I have begun using is the Mr. Buddy portable propane heater. The Portable buddy cranks out up to 9,000 BTU’s, heats 200 square feet, and runs all night on a single small standard propane bottle. The heater has an O2 shut off in case oxygen levels dip below a safe level. They are completely safe for tents. Pop one of these babies in your tent along with my super waterproof rain fly and you are warm even on the coldest and wettest of nights. The Portable Buddy can be found on sale for $70. The Big Buddy sells for $119. They both can be modified to use larger external propane tanks. Check them out. http://www.mrheater.com/
Announcements & The Politics of Hunting
There are several laws that affect hunters before the Congress and various State Legislatures. I'll comment more on them later.
Do You Value Your Right to Hunt?
Barack Obama’s pick for “regulatory czar,” Harvard Law School Professor Cass Sunstein, may be the incoming president’s most controversial appointment so far. Judging from his resume -- best-selling author, “pre-eminent legal scholar of our time,” and an endorsement from The Wall Street Journal -- we can almost understand why. Almost. Because as we’re telling the media today, there’s one troubling portion of the new Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) Administrator’s C.V. that has seems to have flown under everyone’s radar: Cass Sunstein is a radical animal rights activist.
Don’t believe us? Sunstein has made no secret of his devotion to the cause of establishing legal “rights” for livestock, wildlife, and pets. “There should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, scientific experiments, and agriculture,” Sunstein wrote in a 2002 working paper while at the University of Chicago Law school.
“Extensive regulation of the use of animals.” That's PETA-speak for using government to get everything PETA and the Humane Society of the United States can't get through gentle pressure or not-so-gentle coercion. Not exactly the kind of thing American ranchers, restaurateurs, hunters, and biomedical researchers (to say nothing of ordinary consumers) would like to hear from their next “regulatory czar.”
A version of the same paper also appeared as the introduction to Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, a 2004 book that Sunstein co-edited with then-girlfriend Martha Nussbaum. In that book, Sunstein set out an ambitious plan to give animals the legal “right” to file lawsuits. We're not joking:
“Animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law … Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by (human) counsel, who would owe guardian like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients’ behalf.”
It doesn't end there. Sunstein delivered a keynote speech at Harvard University’s 2007 “Facing Animals” conference. (Click here to watch the video; his speech starts around 39:00.) Keep in mind that as OIRA Administrator, Sunstein will have the political authority to implement a massive federal government overhaul. Consider this tidbit:
“We ought to ban hunting, I suggest, if there isn’t a purpose other than sport and fun. That should be against the law. It’s time now.”
Sunstein also argued in favor of “eliminating current practices such as greyhound racing, cosmetic testing, and meat eating, most controversially.”
He concluded his Harvard speech by expressing his “more ambitious animating concern” that the current treatment of livestock and other animals should be considered “a form of unconscionable barbarity not the same as, but in many ways morally akin to, slavery and mass extermination of human beings.” Sound familiar?
As the individual about to assume “the most important position that Americans know nothing about,” Sunstein owes the public an honest appraisal of his animal rights goals before taking office. Will the next four years be a dream-come-true for anti-meat, anti-hunting, and anti-everything-else radicals? Time will tell. For now, meat lovers might want to stock their freezers.