Kenai man defiant after being fined for feeding young moose: Alaska Newsreader | Alaska news at adn.com

Frank Roach, a resident of Kenai's Old Town, says he won't pay a $310 ticket issued by Kenai police, and upheld last week by a judge, for routinely feeding a young moose through a window in his house. Roach claims he can't be charged with "feeding game" because the moose -- he named it Mongo -- is too young to be hunted. But police say Roach's neighbors are fed up: The moose has become aggressive in approaching them. Officer Todd Hamilton told the judge he has had to pepper-spray the moose, reported the Peninsula Clarion.

Up until a month ago, the 1-year-old male moose could wander over to Frank Roach's yard, tap on the window with his fuzzy brown snout, and receive a wealth of tasty goodies: corn dogs, trail mix, beef jerky, tortillas, cookies, Ramen noodles. Basically the staple cuisine of any broke college kid.

Roach, a 51-year-old man who lives alone in a tiny apartment on Broad Street, said Mongo's favorite food is Ritz crackers, sometimes with peanut butter on top.

"He likes that buttery flavor," agreed Randy Gale, Roach's 46-year-old neighbor who has also become quite fond of Mongo.

Roach witnessed Mongo's birth in some nearby woods about a year ago, and the baby moose and his mother soon became permanent fixtures in the neighborhood. Roach said he never fed the cow or her calf until a couple months ago, when Mongo's mother disappeared.

"I felt sorry for Mongo because he was so hungry," Roach explained, speculating that his mother either cut him loose or died.

Roach hasn't made any attempt to hide his alleged transgressions. He's posted several videos of the moose at his window on YouTube.

Larry Lewis of the Alaska Department of Fish and Game says Roach may well believe he did the right thing by feeding the moose but has in reality endangered it for the long term. Roach claims he has stopped feeding the moose -- but admits it still comes up to the window to lick crumbs from the sill.

The moose in question.

From the files of Work Your Own Side of the Street...

...or "Not funny ha-ha; funny queer."

So all the high profile, office holding Republicans have been bending over backwards these last few weeks to renounce the birthers and their nonsensical claims that President Obama is an alien even after they aped birther language all the way through the election process last November and even after that.

So why all the haste to distance themselves from their thinly veiled racist rhetoric?

Why Donald Trump of course.  If most Americans think similarly to me, then we all know Trump is a joke, a laughingstock billionaire (thanks to his dad dropping dead!) who is stupid and more than a little retarded.  He wants to lead the Republican party as their president.  Well, shit!  I guess I'd be going out of my way to put as much distance between myself and that asshole too!  I mean, if you can cause the queen bee Jan Brewer to renounce birtherism, you know it's a serious problem because Jan Brewer is a racist who still kills white people in her state by denying them medicare coverage who proudly wore her birther credentials on her sagging chest like it was the freaking Medal of Honor!

I think the GOP establishment is realizing what a circus they made of things and a man fit to be ringleader of a circus is now challenging them for nutcase supremacy to attract the rabid, far right extremists otherwise known as "the Base".  I think they also realize that, given Trump's celebrity status, he is a viable threat to win a presidential race.  Now, before you say, "That's dumb, Mike!" I give you governor Ahh-nold Schwarzenegger.  Man, the Terminator can dupe humans into voting for it than Donald Trump can certainly get hired as Commander in Chief!

So now the GOP will paint their own rhetoric in truer colors.  Birtherism is now "destructive, unproductive, a distraction from civil discourse" and so on and so forth now that it is no longer safe to keep whipping the rubes and yokels up into a racist tinged frothing frenzy over our Black Panther, Socialist, Communist, Kenyan, secret Muslim terrorist, but otherwise nice guy
President, Barack Obama.

For some reason people are still wondering if Trump is really running for president or not, and, as I posted about a month ago, he already announced he was.  At the end of the Comedy Central roast of him.  Watch it and see it for yourself.  Naturally the clown Trump needed a circus setting to announce his plans.  Otherwise, it just wouldn't be the Donald. 

Disobey

Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves. -- Henry David Thoreau

Relaxation

World view

Get drunk

Killer Combo of High Gas, Food Prices at Key Tipping Point - CNBC

The combination of rising gasoline prices and the steepest increase in the cost of food in a generation is threatening to push the US economy into a recession, according to Craig Johnson, president of Customer Growth Partners. Johnson looks at the percentage of income consumers are spending on gasoline and food as a way of gauging how consumers will fare when energy prices spike.

With gas prices now standing at about $3.90 a gallon, energy costs have now passed 6 percent of spending—a level that Johnson says is a "tipping point" for consumers.

"Energy is not quite as essential as food and water, but is a necessity in today's economy, and when gasoline costs more than bottled water—like now—then it takes a huge bite out of disposable spending," he said, in a research note.

Of the six US recessions since 1970, all but the "9-11 year 2001 recession" have been linked to—of not triggered by—energy prices that crossed the 6 percent of personal consumption expenditures, he said. (During the shallow 2001 recession, energy prices had risen to about 5 percent of spending, which is higher than the long-term 4 percent share.)

What may make matters worse this time around, is there has been a steep increase in food prices that occurred as well. In other recent recessions food costs were benign, at between 7.5 percent and 7.8 percent of spending.

This year food prices have climbed 6.5 percent since the beginning of early January, according to Consumer Growth Partners.

"The combined increase in the necessities of food and energy creates a harsh double whammy for already stressed consumers," Johnson said. The last time this happened was in the recession that lasted from 1973 to 1975.

Johnson estimates that food and energy eat up about 15 percent of consumer spending at today's prices, compared with about 12.7 percent two years ago.

Of course, at lower income levels, these percentages are much higher. One sign of the stress some consumers are already feeling is that some AAA offices have already seen an increase in out-of-gas service calls, as motorists try to put off filling their tanks or drive around trying to seek out the gas station with the least expensive price.

Also some regions are being hit harder than others. Gas prices in Hawaii continue to set new highs, according to AAA data. The average price on Wednesday was $4.51, topping the prior record of $4.50 for a gallon of regular unleaded set in July 2008.