Archives for January 2013

I’m not a food prude. While it’s true I give away a cookbook every year from another site I appear on, I like burgers, brats and beers just fine. The more astute among you have realized that I just listed a litany of dead animals. While vegetarians can certainly sustain a healthy body you aren’t going to see any vegan football players any time soon. They just can’t build up enough body mass with only vegetable protein. Still, while I may be an omnivore I don’t demand it of my friends. Oddly enough, that is not mutual. I hear a lot about how I am a horrid person for eating meat. Pointing out things like evolution and so on go nowhere since we are supposed to be better than that. At least in their eyes. Fine. I can live with a little outrage. It keeps me young. Even when it is sometimes baffling. For example, a couple of days ago I wrote quick little article about the history of cheese. I cannot conceive of a more innocuous subject. I was proved wrong, naturally. I mentioned that cheese, like language, math and literature, came from the middle east. It did. About 8,000 years ago. You would have thought I’d said the Taliban invented cheese and that people who eat cheese support terrorists. Oh, and cheese eaters want to kill baby Jesus. I went back and re-read the article several times and can only conclude some people read what they want to read and not what’s actually there. Either that or Arab-phobia is far more rampant than I thought.

Anyway, none of that is really relevant here today. Well, the vegetarian stuff is but the rest is just fun filler. It seems that PETA, People Eating Tasty Animals (sorry), is demanding – as in DE-FREAKING-MANDING, that Mars be a vegetarian colony. Since NASA said, over 20 years ago, that the only way to colonize an alien world would be if the colonists were all, mostly, vegetarian. You see, cows take up too much room in steerage.

Even so, PETA’s still demanding it.

Doubling-down on a request made back in 2011, animal rights group PETA is once again urging future colonizers of Mars to adopt a purely vegan diet.

The group’s latest appeal comes on the heels of a report that SpaceX founder Elon Musk may attempt a Mars landing as soon as 2018. Back in November, Musk outlined long-term plans that would send as many as 80,000 people to the planet for around $500,000 per ticket.

“At Mars, you can start a self-sustaining civilization and grow it into something really big,” he said.

For PETA, the opportunity to start over means going forward without animal products.

“The opportunity to colonize Mars means a chance to make a fresh start, especially now that we’ve degraded our own planet by treating our fellow animals like disposable widgets, filled the air with pollution that will soon make the sky in ‘Soylent Green’ look clear, and populated the Earth with so many humans that the premise of ‘Logan’s Run’ starts to look practical,” writes PETA. “We can get off on the right foot on our new biosphere by ensuring that SpaceX crafts traveling to Mars are stocked only with vegan food and that Mars’ colonists commit to enjoying an animal-free diet once they’ve arrived. Ensuring that Mars is a vegan planet (rather than importing animal products from Earth or creating factory farms on our new home) would protect animals from the horrors that they endure in the meat, egg, and dairy industries.”

While PETA is well-known for aligning its causes with the headlines of the day, in this case a vegan Mars is likely to be the norm and not just some pipe dream. Meat just isn’t sustainable or practical when it comes to space exploration. In a 2011 interview with Space.com, Musk supported the idea.

“I’m a big fan of free choice for any future Martian colony,” he said. “That said, it is likely that early Mars colonists would have a mostly vegetable diet, because of the energy and space needed to raise farm animals.”

Last summer, NASA announced that it was working on a mostly-vegan menu for astronauts’ journey to Mars.

“That menu is favorable because it allows the astronauts to actually have live plants that are growing,” said Maya Cooper, senior research scientist for Lockheed Martin. “You have optimum nutrient delivery with fresh fruits and vegetables, and it actually allows them to have freedom of choice when they’re actually cooking the menus because the food isn’t already pre-prepared into a particular recipe.”

After showing off a prototype of a space-based greenhouse called VEGGIE in October, the agency also touted another advantage to growing vegetables.

“Based upon anecdotal evidence, crews report that having plants around was very comforting and helped them feel less out of touch with Earth,” Gioia Massa said. “You could also think of plants as pets. The crew just likes to nurture them.”

Some things to note, tofu makes great cream cheese. I make a version with lemon instead of spices. You can have a pretty nice variety of foods if you are limited to veggies. But here’s the thing, and the reason NASA said “mostly vegetarian” instead of vegan. Building a colony on an alien world requires brute strength as well as brains. If the astronauts only eat a vegan diet they will require mechanical aid to build structures. Mechanical aid that just won’t be around. Animal protein will have to be stored and rationed but it will still need to be there. Especially since prolonged space flight leads to weakened skeletal muscles.

Those would be the ones that really need their animal proteins.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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Back in late 2004 Jere McAllister, a/k/a Mr. A.L.I., released a blazing single called Jam Sessions (Round 2). It featured the tag line “Back to reality, back to life.” I’ve always thought that it should be the soundtrack for the Chicago Public School system every fall. Besides being one hell of a groove it sets the right tone for any school year. It also states a clear point. Reality is what it is. It can’t be bent into something else. It is not a rumor or a discussable point, unless said discussion is how to deal with it. It must be dealt with on its own terms. Yet that simple fact seems to elude more and more people each and every day. Just because they want something to be so does not make it so. That has never been more evident than in the recent study released by Fairleigh Dickinson University which showed that people who watch Fox News are less informed than people who watch no news at all. Given the ratings that network pulls down that’s a scary thought. The survey further showed that people who exclusively watch any partisan network were less likely to be sure of the facts surrounding any issue.

One blogger, and long time fan of this fair site, F. Grey Parker, author of The Hand that Feeds You, tried to put some semblance of rationality into the debate on gun control. Then he tried again. Finally he just laid things out in simplistic terms. So far no good has come of it but I do think his attempt is worth sharing.

When I argue that we must close the so-called ‘gun show loophole’ and subject every gun sale to the same rigorous background checks, it is NOT secret code for ‘I want the government to take your guns.’

When I suggest that every firearm sold should be titled and insured for liability in the same way that automobiles are, it is NOT secret code for ‘I want the government to take your guns.’

When I put forward the idea that written and operational proficiency tests should be mandatory for all FOID applicants, it is NOT secret code for ‘I want the government to take your guns.’

When I recommend that extended magazines and drums should be unloaded for transportation outside of shooting ranges, on private property or in hunting areas and carrying them loaded in public should be a crime, it is NOT secret code for ‘I want the government to take your guns.’

When I propose that straw purchasing and failure to report stolen weapons should be federal crimes, it is NOT secret code for ‘I want the government to take your guns.’

When I advocate that all carry permits should require OPEN carry and not concealment so the public is aware whether or not a fellow citizen is armed, it is NOT secret code for ‘I want the government to take your guns.’

When I submit that an applicant’s mental health history should be a factor in all firearms licensing and failure on the part of a FOID applicant to disclose their history should be treated as perjury, it is NOT secret code for ‘I want the government to take your guns.’

I have never endorsed any scheme for the government to take away your guns.

If you want to keep guns in your home, that’s fine. I will not be setting foot in your home.

I don’t know any gun owner who has ever, and I mean EVER, used their weapon for self defense. I have, however, lost five friends to suicide by gun. In the last year, I have lost two friends who were murdered with their own licensed, registered and perfectly legal firearms.

This is, of course, in total accordance with the statistical reality of gun ownership in the United States.

And yet, I STILL have never endorsed, suggested, or recommended ANY proposal that would actually take away anyone’s guns.

Considering the degree of collateral damage I have witnessed, the carnage which has personally affected my life, and the terror I have watched my friends and loved ones endure all due to the availability of firearms, I would like to humbly suggest that the pro-gun crowd which continues to viciously and vacantly attack me should take a moment…

… and then say thank you for my continuing to bend over backwards to accommodate their Constitutional rights in spite of the fact that the 2nd Amendment doesn’t make one bit of sense anymore.

By the way, NONE of this was secret code for ‘I want the government to take your guns.’

— F. Grey Parker

Clearly Grey wants the government to come and take your guns.

He just doesn’t realize it.

In related news, the White House, yes, the one with the black man in it, was forced to announce it will not be building a death star. Why were they forced to make this announcement? Because 34,000 people wanted them to build one. You know, because. That’s why.

The Obama administration will not be starting a new “Star Wars” defense initiative.

The administration responded late last week to an online petition signed by more than 34,000 people. The petition did not call for resumption of the “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative involving nuclear ballistic missiles that began under President Ronald Reagan, but for a far more literal “Star Wars” plan, involving the construction of a “Death Star.”

The petition said the “Death Star” would spur job growth and bolster national defense. But Obama administration adviser on science and space Paul Shawcross responded to the petition with an answer rendered as comically as the idea itself.

“The Administration shares your desire for job creation and a strong national defense, but a Death Star isn’t on the horizon,” Shawcross wrote. “Here are a few reasons:

• The construction of the Death Star has been estimated to cost more than $850,000,000,000,000,000 (850 quadrillon.) We’re working hard to reduce the deficit, not expand it.
• The Administration does not support blowing up planets.
• Why would we spend countless taxpayer dollars on a Death Star with a fundamental flaw that can be exploited by a one-man starship?”

Shawcross went on to note that the U.S. is involved in numerous projects involving space exploration already.

The petition response noted that “we already have a giant, football field-sized International Space Station in orbit around the Earth that’s helping us learn how humans can live and thrive in space for long durations. The Space Station has six astronauts — American, Russian, and Canadian — living in it right now, conducting research, learning how to live and work in space over long periods of time, routinely welcoming visiting spacecraft and repairing onboard garbage mashers, etc. We’ve also got two robot science labs — one wielding a laser — roving around Mars, looking at whether life ever existed on the Red Planet.”

Furthermore, Shawcross noted, the nation has “floating robot assistants on the Space Station, a President who knows his way around a light saber and advanced (marshmallow) cannon, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is supporting research on building Luke’s arm, floating droids, and quadruped walkers.”

The response urged those who came up with the “Death Star” idea to pursue careers in science, technology, engineering or mathematics-related fields, and noted President Barack Obama’s strong support of such domains.

The response also casually reminded the petitioners that the Death Star was, in fact, an initiative completed by the Galactic Empire – the villains of the “Star Wars” universe.

“If you do pursue a career in a science, technology, engineering or math-related field, the Force will be with us!” Shawcross wrote. “Remember, the Death Star’s power to destroy a planet, or even a whole star system, is insignificant next to the power of the Force.”

A member of the New York Stars Wars Meetup posted that he loved the “hilarious response” from the White House.

While I admit that the answer is funny, and well thought out, the fact that such an answer had to exist at all is worrisome. Then again, we are talking about Star Wars fans and not real people.

I do find it ironic that the self same people who decry all forms of government waste would like to see an $850 quadrillion dollar boondoggle launched into orbit. I mean, what could possibly go wrong?

Besides Armageddon that is.

So what do do? How do we respond to a world filled with short sighted idiots? A New York waitress seems to have as good an answer as any I’ve encountered.

Serve pizza while nude.

Patrons at a restaurant in Bushwick, Brooklyn got a surprise last week when a waitress decided to celebrate her last day on the job by stripping naked as she served her customers.

In the days since, a photo of the racy scene has gone viral.

The waitress at Roberta’s Pizza, at 261 Moore St. in Brooklyn, was spotted taking orders in the buff this past Friday night.

A patron, Vicky Oyomba, captured a photo of the waitress from the back, along with the caption, “So there definitely is a 95% naked waitress serving patrons at Roberta’s in #BK right now!!!”

The photo shows the woman wearing nothing but boots, fishnet stockings and a server’s belt. The words “Peace Out” were written across her back.

Oyomba was not available to speak to CBSNewYork.com Tuesday night, but she said in other published reports that a cheer was heard throughout the restaurant when the woman appeared nearly nude, and that there was nothing covering the front of her body either.

Max Read, a writer for Gawker, also witnessed the scene and blogged about it.

“[W]e only caught the waitress, surrounded by customers taking photos, while walking out, stuffed with pizza and duck and pork, and when we asked we were told that Friday was her last day,” he wrote.

The Web site Grub Street was quick to point out that the display was not acceptable under New York City Health Code, which says “employees who prepare or serve food products, or wash and sanitize equipment and utensils must wear clean outer garments.”

But others in the blogosphere fired back. Gothamist called the staff at Grub Street “Never Nude buzzkills,” and pointed out that the fishnets “look clean enough to us” not to warrant attention from the Health Department.

I’m kind of hoping this becomes a trend.

There’s nothing wrong with reality making me smile once in a while.

Naked drink – performance

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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I have a lot of relatives in Wisconsin. My Aunt Bertha used to own a small grocery store in Soldiers Grove, before they moved the town. As you might imagine, she sold a lot of cheese. Since we were unaware of child labor laws we got to enjoy spending summers with her by stocking shelves and watching her chain smoke Lucky Strikes. We also got to eat cheese. Well, today, I was wandering around some science sites trying to pretend I understood anything when I noticed a little video tucked away at the bottom of the page. It was the purported history of cheese. It turned out to be more of a bullet point look at a recent discovery, which I’ll get to in a moment, rather than a true history of cheese but it got me to thinking. Even here, where I try to limit my subject matter to beer, boobs and borbarygmi (it’s amazing what I retained while listening to George Carlin in the 70’s), we have been forced to look at some serious subjects and try to discuss them intelligently. Easier typed than done. So when I see a softball like the history of cheese I swing for the fences. Speaking of which, my buddy Warren Johnson has been elected into the 16 inch Softball Hall of Fame.

YEAH WARREN!!!!!

Okay, back to cheese.

Archaeologists in Poland have announced they found the oldest physical evidence of cheese making in the world.

The history of cheese received an important update yesterday, when it was reported that a team of archaeologists digging along the banks of the Vistula River in Poland unearthed hole-studded shards of pottery, dating from 7,500 years ago, that have been conclusively identified as cheese strainers.

Now, if you’re thinking from that opening statement that I’m making light of this discovery, I’m not. The history of cheese is actually a very important part of the development of our culture and society.

Tolerance of lactose in adult humans — called lactase persistence — is a relatively recent development, and at a time before this tolerance spread in the population, separating milk into low-lactose curds and high-lactose whey allowed early humans to carry and store a very convenient source of protein.

“Making cheese is a particularly efficient way to exploit the nutritional benefits of milk, without becoming ill because of the lactose,” said Princeton University archaeologist Peter Bogucki, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Bogucki noted the perforated pottery shards during his 35 years work at the Polish dig sites, but it wasn’t until the early ’80s that he figured out what they might have been for. Visiting with friends in Vermont, he noticed their ceramic cheese strainers, and the similarities between them and the shards the archaeological team had found.

“It set off a few bells ringing,” he said, according to the LA Times.

His idea was only one of several competing hypotheses at the time, though. Others thought that they may have been part of vessels to hold burning coals, or perhaps to separate honey from honeycombs, or even in the brewing of beer.

Richard P. Evershed, a professor of biogeochemistry at the University of Bristol, became interested in Bogucki’s idea, though, and gathered a team to investigate his hypothesis.

Melanie Salque, one of Evershed’s doctoral students at the time, examined small fragments of the pottery by cleaning them of any contaminants, crushing them into a fine powder and extracting any fats that she found. Testing these fats found that they were animal fats (as opposed to those from plants or beeswax), and measuring the carbon isotopes in the fats revealed that they were from milk.

Similar milk fats were found in clay pots excavated in Turkey, which are dated at roughly 500 years before the ones found in Poland. However, the finds in Turkey, while they suggested cheese making, were not conclusive as they could have held any kind of milk product. These shards from Poland, though, with their perforations, would be quite useless for simply storing milk or other less-solid milk products, provide much stronger evidence.

“Scholars have been duking it out for decades as to what these sieves were used for,” said Paul Kindstedt, University of Vermont chemist and author of Cheese and Culture: A History of Cheese and Its Place in Western Civilization, who was not involved in the research. “This new finding is really definitive —beyond a reasonable doubt—that this utensil was used for cheese making.”

Okay, that’s all well and good, but where does cheese come from? Well, like lots of cool things (language, numbers, astrology, etc.), the Middle East.

Legend has it that, about 8,000 years ago, an Arab merchant was using animal bladders to store milk on his way to market. Due to the heat and other conditions the milk curdled and separated into curds and whey. Not sure what to do and not wanting to lose the sale, he ate the curds.

I should note that cheese curds are still a delicacy today.

Anyway, he didn’t die, the stuff was tasty and, unlike raw milk, it was easy to digest.

Early cheeses would have been saltier than what we are used to since early farmers would have used mined salt to preserve their foods. That would have given those cheeses a texture and flavor similar to feta, a fan fave around here.

Think of cheese this way, it is a direct link to history. Homer’s Cyclops had racks of cheese and lamb meat. Jesus ate cheese. In fact it is highly likely that He enjoyed a nice Jibneh Arabieh with His mug of wine. Cleopatra ate cheese, Socrates ate cheese, Genghis Khan ate cheese, Taras Bulba ate cheese and on and on it goes.

So grab a hunk of cheese and join the pantheon of greatness.

You’ve earned it.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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I think it’s time we stop ignoring the 800lb angry transvestite in the room. And I use that analogy purposefully. There is a lot of unnecessary drama going on here right now. But if we’re going to talk, then we must talk honestly and openly. And if we are going to accomplish anything with gun control, we must also talk rationally. And if we’re going to talk rationally we will need some history. Nothing erupts wholly new upon us. It came from somewhere. Popular opinions on guns are just another example. So, let’s bust out our propeller beanies and take a trip in our time machine back to 1871. That was the year that writer and editor William Conant Church and General George Wood Wingate founded the National Rifle Association. The express purpose of the association was to teach U.S. troops proper firearm safety and accuracy. Considering that during the Civil War the average soldier expended about 100 rounds per targeted hit this was a good idea. Proving that it worked the U.S. Rifle team won the Anglo-American championship (white folks only ya’ll) in 1874 and showed how much progress had been made in a very short amount of time. Although completely unintentional, the exclusionary nature of that event foreshadowed what would become a theme for the NRA.

While the NRA was still developing cities and towns across the U.S. enacted strict gun control laws. Tombstone Arizona? Mecca of the wild wild west? You had to turn your guns in when you hit the border. The same was true all over the country. No one cared too much if you came to town, got hammered and into a fight. They just saw no reason to be picking up dead bodies all the time.

Flash forward to 1934. The U.S. Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt passed the National Firearms Act. It outlawed the sale or possession of fully automatic weapons, short barreled rifles (a/k/a sawed off shot guns) and was heavily supported by the NRA. The idea behind the law was to stop, or at least slow, the gang wars that were plaguing our cities.

Sound familiar?

At the time NRA president Karl Frederick said “(I do) not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses.”

All the way through the 60’s the NRA was the voice of reason when it came to firearms. They promoted shooting matches, they taught gun safety and they supported laws that kept military grade firepower off the streets. When I was a kid my grandfather dragged me to one of those classes before I could even touch a BB gun. I thought it is was totally lame when I got there and thought it was the coolest thing in the world when I was done. It was all about safety and fun. As a 6 year old I could certainly understand the latter. The fact that the former was required for the latter bothered me not one whit. There were rules to everything, even hop-scotch.

As late as 1968 the NRA actively supported, and helped draft, the Gun Control Act of 1968.

So what happened?

Black people happened.

In the 1970’s an organization called The Black Panthers advocated arming everyone. Tired of what they saw as police oppression in poor neighborhoods and the lack of protection of their basic rights, they decided to arm themselves under the 2nd Amendment.

Gosh, that dystopian view seems vaguely familiar.

The NRA, already almost exclusively white, reacted badly. At a time when calm discussions and rational behavior were needed they threw up their hands and ran around the country screaming “Negroes! Negroes! Oh sweet lawzy save us from the scary Negroes!”

This was not as helpful as it might have seemed.

To be fair change scares the hell of of almost everyone and the country was changing. Rapidly. President Kennedy, Dr. King, Bobby Kennedy and Malcolm X had all been assassinated. The civil rights movement had made tremendous strides and many whites felt as though their futures had been compromised. Add in the anti-war movement, the free love movement and something had to give.

Unfortunately that “something” was civil discourse.

It was easy enough for the NRA to skew to the right. Most of their members were rural residents in the first place. By the late-70’s, thanks to the efforts of a man named Harlon Carter (a former border guard who had murdered a teenage Latino), the NRA we know today was in full swing. By 1980 it tossed off any semblance of impartiality and actively endorsed Ronald Reagan for president.

Ironically Reagan had voted for the Mulford Act, which was designed to disarm the Black Panthers and to prevent average citizens from carrying weapons in public. By the time he ran for president, however, he was a staunch advocate for gun freedoms.

I’m sure it was a decision he came to based on long hours of self reflection and had nothing to do with the new-found source of giant bags of campaign cash.

Anyway, the stage was set for what we have today. The NRA has backed itself into a corner. Any logical look at gun control or public safety is contrary to their stated goals of helping manufacturers sell as many guns as possible. The fact that people are more likely to kill themselves than any alleged burglar is background noise to them. The fact that they have helped create a society with the highest firearm related murder rate in the world is just noise that must be ignored.

And, just so we are all clear here when the modern NRA blames video games, the number one video game since 1998 has been Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

You can almost hear the blood can’t you?

Oy.

And, another video game related note, last year saw the release of some of the most violent video games in history and sales were down across the board. In other words, people ain’t buying it and they haven’t been for a while.

Of course, finding that out required research and patience, two more things the modern NRA is against.

Lastly, the modern NRA, realizing it has a problem, has resorted to faking quotes and attributing them to Hitler.

There is an old law on the internet. It was coined by Mike Godwin in 1990:

In short, in a heated argument, eventually someone will bring up the Nazi’s, Hitler, etc, and the moment they do, the argument is over because the side that does it has just lost it. This is because, no matter how bad the other side is, nothing can compare to the systematic, methodical and calculated genocide perpetrated by the Nazi’s in their goals for racial purity.
Absolutely nothing.
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(edited for space)
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This year will go down in history! For the first time, a civilized nation has full gun registration! Our streets will be safer, our police more efficient, and the world will follow our lead into the future!

This is of course complete bunk. Hitler never said such a thing. Germany had enacted tough gun control laws in 1928, years before the Nazi rise to power. Instead of banning guns, Hitler instead expanded gun ownership for German citizens (he’d stripped the citizenship of undesirables already) to levels which one cannot even get inside of the United States. The 1938 German Weapons Act actually relaxed all gun ownership restrictions save on pistols. A German citizen could own a fully automatic weapon complete with grenade launcher, legally, under Nazi control.

I know, facts suck. They’re no fun at all when you’re trying to terrify people.

But they must be addressed. Facts are not rumors or hunches or debatable. They simply are and, as such, must be respected.

So let’s start with these facts and then use our indoor voices.

Normally I put a cool video here. I’m not sure that’s appropriate today.

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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People do stupid things. It’s a given. It is, in many cases, why this blog exists. I’m sure you all remember the guy who died from a cockroach eating overdose when he was trying to win a live python. Well, his death is related to our story here today. And, yes, this all occurs in Florida. You see, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has come up with a great idea. In one fell swoop they will be able to increase the state’s IQ and reduce its population total. The twisted genius behind it is gloriously simple. They are taking the mentality behind “Hey ya’ll, watch this” and making it a contest. And, just to make sure they get the desired results, they are encouraging the use of weapons by untrained individuals. Did I say “encouraging?” Hell, they’ve got prizes.

Good ones too.

And since there are pesky laws that require people have some semblance of training before they embark on a guaranteed suicide mission, they are providing a picture book. One picture is of the thing they are supposed to find. The other pictures are of things they are supposed to leave alone.

What is this great idea that my friend Michelle told me about? They are sending average Floridians into swamps full of poisonous and deadly snakes to hunt pythons.

You remember pythons don’t you? They can kill people pretty easily even without poison.

A python hunting competition starting on Saturday is drawing hundreds of amateurs armed with clubs, machetes and guns to the Florida Everglades, where captured Burmese pythons have exceeded the length of minivans and weighed as much as grown men.

Python Challenge 2013, a month-long event sponsored by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, is open to hunters and non-hunters alike.

But the idea of luring weapon-wielding amateurs into the harsh environment of the Everglades has raised some alarms.

“I just thought it was as exciting as could be. It’s a once- in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said contestant Ron Polster, a retired salesman from Ohio whose closest encounter with the swamp has been from the highway heading south for the winter.

Participants pay a $25 entry fee and take an online training course, which consists mostly of looking at photographs of both the targeted pythons and protected native snakes to learn the difference.

The state wildlife agency is offering prizes of $1,500 for the most pythons captured and $1,000 for the longest python.

A Burmese python found in Florida last year set records as the largest ever captured in the state at 17-feet, 7-inches. The snake weighed nearly 165 pounds (75 kg).

FWC spokeswoman Carli Segelson said the number of registered contestants reached about 500 this week and was growing, with people coming from 32 states.

The stated goal of the competition is to raise awareness of the threat Burmese pythons pose to the Everglades ecosystem. The snakes are native to Southeast Asia and have no known predators in Florida.

The contest also serves as a pilot program to determine whether regular hunting competitions can cull the growing population of the invasive species, said Frank Mazzotti, a wildlife expert from the University of Florida who helped create the competition.

Python Challenge rules require contestants to kill specimens on the spot in a humane fashion, recommending shooting the snakes precisely through the brain.

“I was hoping there would be a lot of machetes and not a lot of guns,” said Polster, the retired salesman. He said he worries “these idiots will be firing all over the place.”

Shawn Heflick, star of the National Geographic “Wild” television show “Python Hunters,” told Reuters that despite the formidable size of the snakes, he expects the swamp itself, with its alligators, crocodiles and venomous snakes, to pose a greater threat to the contestants.

“You get these people going down there, they’ll get lost, they’ll get dehydrated, they’ll get sucked dry by mosquitoes,” Heflick said.

Segelson said the wildlife agency will provide training on the use of GPS devices and on identifying venomous snakes at the kick-off event. In the meantime, she said, contestants should be familiarizing themselves with the Everglades environment, just as they should before entering any other strange territory.

Heflick said most of the contestants likely were drawn to the Python Challenge by the romantic mystique of bagging a giant predator. He expects few will last long in the hunt.

“The vast majority of them will never see a python. The vast majority of them will probably curtail their hunting very quickly when they figure out there’s a lot of mosquitoes, it’s hot, it’s rather boring sometimes – most of the time really, and I think a lot of them will go home,” Heflick said.

This is great. Not only will they thin the herd down there they are getting the participants to pay them $25.00 a pop for the privilege. Seriously, I have a new found respect for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Any group of people that Machiavellian deserve to be bought beers.

And, as Mr. Heflick noted, these are people who will be surrounded by gators, crocs and water moccasins.

People who, as evidenced by the quotes, once drove past a wildlife farm on their way to a burger joint.

And they get to carry loaded guns!!!!!!

This is brilliant!

I wonder what the over/under is on the death toll in Vegas?

Listen to Bill McCormick on WBIG (FOX! Sports) every Friday around 9:10 AM.
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