The murderous threat posed by a small, but fanatical, minority of the deer community.

[Flabbergasted]

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/66f7ce1c-759f-11dc-b7cb-0000779fd2ac.html


Fear the deer, not the terrorists
By Gideon Rachman

Published: October 8 2007 19:35 | Last updated: October 8 2007 19:35

In a recent book John Mueller, an American academic, notes that the number of his fellow-countrymen killed by terrorists since 1960 “is about the same as the number killed over the same period by accident-causing deer”.

I was upset when I read this. Hitherto, I have always rather enjoyed watching the deer in Richmond Park in London. But now I find myself looking at them with suspicion and resentment. Of course, we must be careful not to generalise about deer. Most of them live peaceful lives. But surely it is foolish to blind ourselves to the murderous threat posed by a small, but fanatical, minority of the deer community? A vicious ideology has lodged itself between their antlers. They seem to be willing to kill and die in pursuit of a deadly fantasy – returning to a golden age when deer controlled the forests of medieval Europe.

snip

The same point about relative risk applies even more strongly in the US. Brian Jenkins of the Rand Corporation points out that: “The average American has about a one in 9,000 chance of dying in an automobile accident and about a one in 18,000 chance of being murdered. During the past five years including the death toll from 9/11, an average American has only a one in 500,000 chance of being killed in a terrorist attack.”

Yet it is the threat from terrorism that has convulsed the American government and US foreign policy. In the name of the “war on terror”, the US has launched two real wars – in Afghanistan and Iraq – and is contemplating military strikes on Iran. The Bush administration has also created the Department of Homeland Security, which with 200,000 employees is now the third-largest cabinet department in the federal government. Opinion polls suggest that almost 50 per cent of Americans worry that they or their families could fall victim to a terrorist attack.

[liberalmuse]

1. My neighbors came back from a deer hunt with a messed up SUV...

They had to tear it up through the woods because the stupid fuckers were shooting at their car. Deer hunters aren't exactly the smartest people.

[Flabbergasted]

2. Call DHS!

[zabet]

4. Last Thanksgiving..

a neighbor down the road shot his nephew deer hunting ---
he saw a bush move. That was his reasoning, the nephew
escaped with minor pellet burns as the neighbor couldn't
hit the sky shooting at it and there was a big bush in
between them.

[Rex]

3. I see a WMD sticking out of his butt! Barely can see it, squint!

There IT IS AGAIN! SHOOOT!!!!

[Ghost in the Machine]

5. Ga. Man Killed in Apparent Deer Attack

Ga. Man Killed in Apparent Deer Attack
Published: 10/8/07, 5:05 PM EDT

BALL GROUND, Ga. (AP) - A man who kept exotic animals on his property was killed when a red deer gored him with its antlers, authorities said.

The body of John Henry Frix, 66, was found Sunday night inside the deer's pen on his property.

Frix had been gored several times in the upper body by a deer's antlers, Cherokee County sheriff's Sgt. Jay Baker said.

The deer was among the buffalo, llama, horses and other animals Frix raised on his property about 50 miles north of Atlanta where million-dollar mansions rub up against aging rural homesteads.

His relatives told sheriff's deputies the deer had recently been acting hostile, probably due to rut - the period when deer mate.

http://home.bellsouth.net/s/editorial.dll?fromspage=ch/c.htm&categoryid=&only=y&bfromind=7775&eeid=5454156&_sitecat=1522&dcatid=0&eetype=article&render=y&ac=11&ck=&ch=ne

[Elidor]

6. I've heard it said that roughly 30,000 Americans die in car accidents each year

Strangely, many school districts are no longer offering driver's ed. But then, our "news" orgs don't devote endless news resources to death on the highways.

[TomInTib]

7. Hell, the curb on the sidewalk in front of my Gallery is more of a danger to me...

than any "terrorist". And why do I call them that if I am not terrified of them?

And the deer become so aggressive on the trails here at this time of year that I carry a pistol to walk to work.