Mood:
accident proneTopic: "Dirty Copter" (4)
There are times when Frodo wonders why anything surprises him any more. All it takes, so it seems, is for there to be any mention of the State of Texas, and something truly bizarre will be added to the growing list of reasons why secession should have been accepted without prejudice. Frodo suggests, dear reader, that before you proceed into the next paragraph, pour a little bourbon into a glass, over ice, and steel yourself for what is to follow.
Texas State Representative Sid Miller, of Fort Worth, has proposed that ordinary Texans, with rifles and shotguns, be allowed to shoot pigs from helicopters.
Do you think that, even Frodo, could make this stuff up?
The issue seems to be that "numerous calls and complaints" have come into the office of our dedicated public servant. An estimated 2 million wild hogs are causing $52M in crop damage annually in Texas. They trample crops, dig up plants with their snouts, and steal animal feed. According to Rep. Miller, even an entire peanut farm has been stripped. This latter event offers a potential solution to the salmonella problem resulting in a massive national peanut butter recall; simply let the hogs die from their consumption of tainted peanuts.
Since wild hogs were first introduced to Texas by Spanish explorers more than 300 years ago, Frodo wonders why this has just recently become an issue. Do you think, dear reader, that maybe it took that long for Texans to recognize that they had a problem? As Frodo has testified before, the landscape of Texas is as forlorn as any on our small blue planet. There are more trees in Brooklyn than there are in the entire State of Texas. Maybe nobody noticed that the wild hogs were causing any damage out of the ordinary. Additionally, it should be noted that there are many, many Texans who bear a family resemblance to the wild hogs. Could it be that many of the pests were simply mistaken for residents of Waco?
Frodo nearly wet his pants when Rep. Miller declared "You're not going to have some bubba up there going 'Pass me a beer and ammo' and huntin' some hogs. We want to do it right." Frodo's response to Rep. Miller is that if his assertion is correct, then from what State are the hunters going to come? It would be impossible to put any living Texan into a helicopter in such a situation without having launched a 'bubba' into our airspace.
This is the only proposal anywhere in the US of A that would allow helicopter hunting of anything other than a predator. Frodo is quite concerned about the precedent. Alabama is not too far away from Texas, and Alabamians could be of a mind to take to the air in order to cull the States' population of those with an IQ exceeding their age. The number of said individuals in Alabama is, as we all recognize, quite small to begin with, but eliminating both of those individuals seems somewhat cruel. Senators Shelby and Sessions (R-AL) of course, would not be impacted.
