September 8, 2015


News Clips For The Day


http://www.cbsnews.com/news/biden-and-sanders-virtually-tied-for-second-in-national-poll/

Biden and Sanders virtually tied for second in national poll
CBS NEWS
September 8, 2015

Photographs -- (L-R) Vice President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont. REUTERS
Play VIDEO -- Joe Biden talks about 2016 presidential bid


Hillary Clinton remains the Democratic frontrunner, with 42 percent of Democratic support, down 10 percentage points from a month ago, according to a new national poll by Monmouth University.

And Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet announced whether he will seek the Democratic nomination, has caught up to Bernie Sanders. Biden, at 22 percent, and Sanders, at 20 percent, are now virtually tied. And a majority of those Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters who currently support Clinton (56 percent) and Sanders (also 56 percent) say they'd be at least somewhat likely to think about throwing their support to Biden instead, if he were to decide to run.

Sanders surges in New Hampshire, Trump's numbers strong as ever
Iowa poll: Bernie Sanders closing in on Hillary Clinton
CBS News poll: Democratic voters see Hillary Clinton is most electable

Both Biden and Clinton have 71 percent favorable ratings, while Bernie Sanders has a 41 percent favorable rating. However, there are still 45 percent of Democrats who have no opinion to him - this shows little change from his rating last month.

Martin O'Malley and Jim Webb each have one percent of the Democratic vote. Not a single respondent chose Lincoln Chafee. Comedian Conan O'Brien launched an effort on his show last month to boost Chafee to one percent support, but he has so far failed. Then again, O'Brien also said, "Let's be honest, I'm not trying to get him elected, okay? In fact, I'm personally not going to vote for him. But I think we should at least get him on the board so he's at least not humiliated, seems like the nice thing to do."

The Monmouth University Poll was sponsored and conducted by the Monmouth University Polling Institute from August 31 to September 2, 2015 with a national random sample of 1,009 adults age 18 and older. This includes 707 contacted by a live interviewer on a landline telephone and 302 contacted by a live interviewer on a cell phone, in English. The results in this poll release are based on a subsample of 339 registered voters who identify themselves as Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party.




“Martin O'Malley and Jim Webb each have one percent of the Democratic vote. Not a single respondent chose Lincoln Chafee. …. Hillary Clinton remains the Democratic frontrunner, with 42 percent of Democratic support, down 10 percentage points from a month ago, according to a new national poll by Monmouth University. And Vice President Joe Biden, who has not yet announced whether he will seek the Democratic nomination, has caught up to Bernie Sanders. Biden, at 22 percent, and Sanders, at 20 percent, are now virtually tied. And a majority of those Democrats or Democratic-leaning voters who currently support Clinton (56 percent) and Sanders (also 56 percent) say they'd be at least somewhat likely to think about throwing their support to Biden instead, if he were to decide to run. …. Both Biden and Clinton have 71 percent favorable ratings, while Bernie Sanders has a 41 percent favorable rating.

This survey uses undefined and similar sounding terminology to make the situation clear (or unclear in this case), and gives different figures for what sound like the same things. For instance, Clinton is rated at 42% of “Democratic support,” but in the next paragraph is said to be at 56% of “Democrats or Democrat leaning voters”. What??? Sanders and Biden, meanwhile, are both in the 20% range of popularity as candidate for 2016. A little further down it says that Biden and Clinton both have 71% “favorable” rating. They need to clarify a few definitions here and write it up in a longer, more clear-cut form. However, I can see that three dark horses -- Martin O'Malley, Lincoln Chafee and Jim Webb have only a very slim chance to be the candidate, and both Biden and Sanders are doing pretty well for not having done TV commercials as Clinton has. There also has been no Democratic Party debates yet, and Biden hasn’t even announced. If people haven’t made up their minds yet, that’s not surprising.

The problem is probably in the exact way the question was asked, and exactly who gave that response. One thing they always ask is whether the respondent is registered to vote, plans to vote, and a Democrat or Republican. Then the answer will be counted in a different way in each of those situations. I still think they need to DEFINE the exact criteria and then stick with that definition, when giving the percentages. How is “favorable” different from the other undefined types of popularity, lending Biden a 71% rating in one paragraph after just saying he had a 20% rating; and how could Sanders be rated at 41% in one spot and 20% in a “virtual tie” with Biden. Statistics can be complex and convoluted at best, but in this case I blame the writer. If he had written this for his English class I would have flunked him.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/baltimore-reaches-settlement-with-freddie-gray-family/

Baltimore reaches settlement with Freddie Gray family
CBS/AP
September 8, 2015

72 Photos -- Freddie Gray's mother, Gloria Darden, accompanied by Richard Shipley, arrive at Baltimore University to meet with Attorney General Loretta Lynch in Baltimore, Maryland in this photo taken May 5, 2015. REUTERS/JOSE LUIS MAGANA/POOL
Play VIDEO -- Protesters make their voices heard at Freddie Gray hearing
Play VIDEO -- Freddie Gray autopsy results leaked


BALTIMORE - The family of Freddie Gray, a black man who died after being critically injured in police custody, has reached a $6.4 million wrongful death settlement with the city of Baltimore, officials said Tuesday.

The deal has to be approved by the city's Board of Estimates, which will meet Wednesday morning.

The proposed settlement would require $2.8 million to be paid during the current fiscal year and $3.6 million during the next fiscal year, beginning July 1, 2016. It would resolve all civil claims stemming from Gray's death.

Six Baltimore officers have been charged in the 25-year-old Gray's death, which led to protests in the city and a riot that prompted National Guard intervention and a city-wide curfew. Gray was critically injured April 12 in the back of a prisoner transport van after he was arrested.

Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake said in a news release Tuesday that the proposed settlement "should not be interpreted as a judgment on the guilt or innocence of the officers facing trial."

"This settlement is being proposed solely because it is in the best interest of the city, and avoids costly and protracted litigation that would only make it more difficult for our city to heal and potentially cost taxpayers many millions more in damages," the statement says.

The news release said the settlement has nothing whatsoever to do with the criminal proceedings and does not resolve any factual disputes, and expressly does not constitute an admission of liability on the part of the city, its police department or any of the officers.

Officers Edward Nero, Garrett Miller, William Porter and Caesar Goodson, as well as Lt. Brian Rice and Sgt. Alicia White all face second-degree assault, reckless endangerment and misconduct in office charges in connection with Gray's death.

Rice, Porter and White also face manslaughter charges, and Goodson faces an additional charge of second-degree "depraved heart" murder.

Three of the officers are black and three are white.

Lt. Gene Ryan, President of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police, issued a statement calling news of the proposed settlement concerning and alarming.

"To suggest that there is any reason to settle prior to the adjudication of the pending criminal cases is obscene and without regard to the fiduciary responsibility owed to the taxpaying citizens of the City," the statement says.

"We strongly urge the city's spending panel to reject this proposed settlement and to wait until such time as there is a more appropriate response."

News of the settlement between Baltimore and the Gray family comes just under a week after a judge ruled that the six officers will be tried separately.

Defense lawyers had argued for separate trials for each of the six because not all of the evidence applies to each defendant and they argued they do not want jurors prejudiced against their clients based on evidence that was brought into the trial against another defendant, CBS News Justice Reporter Paula Reid reported.

According to Reid, the decision to try the officers separately means more money, more time, more jurors, and ultimately a lesser likelihood of conviction.

Last week, the judge also denied a motion by the defense to recuse State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her staff due to what defense attorneys characterized as conflicts of interest.

Defense attorneys had also sought to drop the charges against the officers, citing prosecutorial misconduct on the part of Mosby.

Initial police reports said Gray was arrested for carrying a knife, though whether Gray was legally carrying that knife is sure to be a centerpiece of the case as it moves to trial. Prosecutors say it's legal under a city ordinance, while defense attorneys argue that it's a switchblade, and thus illegal under both city and state law.




"This settlement is being proposed solely because it is in the best interest of the city, and avoids costly and protracted litigation that would only make it more difficult for our city to heal and potentially cost taxpayers many millions more in damages," the statement says. The news release said the settlement has nothing whatsoever to do with the criminal proceedings and does not resolve any factual disputes, and expressly does not constitute an admission of liability on the part of the city, its police department or any of the officers. …. Last week, the judge also denied a motion by the defense to recuse State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby and her staff due to what defense attorneys characterized as conflicts of interest.

When a defendant settles in the $6 Million range it really looks like they are at fault, according to the evidence. I’m glad to see that in this case because those “rough rides” that several city police departments have been giving a suspect to “shame” or “punish” him can’t possibly be legal, ethical or moral. I don’t know much about the law, but it does sound like a distinct lack of “due process.” It’s the court’s duty to punish and the policeman’s job to catch the bad boy and deliver him SAFELY to the PD, or at least without the extreme limits of abuse that were involved here. Such policemen as these six are “bad apples” and should be put in prison. Of course they won’t in this case. I do wonder what the specific “conflicts of interest” in this case are – the fact that she is a black woman, perhaps?





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/stonehenge-mystery-radar-finds-more-stones-hidden-landscapes-project/

Hidden landscapes at Stonehenge revealed
CBS NEWS
September 8, 2015

The mystery of Stonehenge -- how it was built and what it was for -- has kept scholars occupied for centuries. Now it seems they've got even more work because there are more stones -- lots more.

"New" 4,500-year-old relics have been found using the latest technology: ground-penetrating radar that can see beneath the surface, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips.

The scientists call it the Hidden Landscapes Project, and it has revealed hidden landscapes beyond their wildest imaginings -- a perimeter of standing stones -- and many times the size of neighboring Stonehenge.

The stones, it seems, where erected to delineate an area of special significance -- some sort of temple or public forum, or both. But the radar also reveals that the stones were then knocked down and covered with an earthen mound. There's plenty here to occupy archaeologists for the next several centuries, and they want more.

CBS News met Henry Chapman, an archaeologist with the team, on the project site late last year.

"It's sort of the sweet shop problem," Chapman said, "that, when you present it with loads of information, kinda think, so I want some more."

Scientists are pretty sure they know what Stonehenge was for -- it's essentially a large clock that tracks the seasons through the movement of the sun, a useful tool for a stone-age agricultural society.

But the point of the new discovery? Well, they know it's probably important, but they haven't a clue, really.

"The most important things that's been discovered in the last 20 to 30 years anywhere, it was completely unsuspected and it gives us a whole new chapter in the story," archeologist Nick Snashall said.

Stonehenge has been drawing visitors since the dawn of time. It's combination of scale and mystery has been irresistible, even to some of the most powerful people in the world. President Obama passed that way on a recent U.K. visit.

Now science has provided more to ponder.

Other modern techniques -- laser scanning, magnetic mapping -- can reveal even more about a fascinating place we may never fully understand. But what the archaeologists really want to do next is dig.




"New" 4,500-year-old relics have been found using the latest technology: ground-penetrating radar that can see beneath the surface, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. The scientists call it the Hidden Landscapes Project, and it has revealed hidden landscapes beyond their wildest imaginings -- a perimeter of standing stones -- and many times the size of neighboring Stonehenge. …. to delineate an area of special significance -- some sort of temple or public forum, or both. But the radar also reveals that the stones were then knocked down and covered with an earthen mound. …. CBS News met Henry Chapman, an archaeologist with the team, on the project site late last year. "It's sort of the sweet shop problem," Chapman said, "that, when you present it with loads of information, kinda think, so I want some more." …. Stonehenge has been drawing visitors since the dawn of time. It's combination of scale and mystery has been irresistible, even to some of the most powerful people in the world. President Obama passed that way on a recent U.K. visit. Now science has provided more to ponder. Other modern techniques -- laser scanning, magnetic mapping -- can reveal even more about a fascinating place we may never fully understand. But what the archaeologists really want to do next is dig.”

“It's combination of scale and mystery has been irresistible…” I would add one more word to that statement – beauty. Avebury and most other large stone monuments like these are mainly unworked stone. Stonehenge represented a more sophisticated effort. The fact that they are almost always circular lends evidence to the idea that they probably were a rough sort of “clock” or more particularly a calendar. The builders just quarried rough pieces of stone some twenty feet high and dragged them from the original site on a bed of logs as rollers, with the brute strength of dozens of local citizens. A group of British archaeologists in the last ten or fifteen years performed an experiment to prove that it is actually possible to do that. In the Mediterranean areas of Malta and Gozo there are very early hand hewn stone burial chambers and quarried blocks of stone larger than those at Stonehenge. That was done during the Neolithic. It took intelligence, but it also took social organization and wealth. I do wish I could have a time machine and go back to those times just to see what the world was like then. I think we wouldn’t find them “primitive” at all.

As for the question of whether or not those people were intelligent enough to have done the scientific part of the job at Stonehenge – placing the stones in a way that captured the beams of the rising sun on the equinoxes – the more “primitive” “cavemen” of some 50,000 years ago managed to travel on the ocean in some sort of water craft and probably used the heavenly bodies to guide them. They went from Eastern Asia south to Polynesia and other Pacific islands, and just possibly down from Siberia to Peru. A cave with charcoal in it dating to 30,000 BP was found there, though the find and the date are disputed. The original scholars put the forebears of the American Indians (and perhaps the Ainu!) in the New World around 14,000 BP. Homo Sapiens, even those very early ones who look slightly “different” in facial features from modern man, has been a fully intelligent form since his movement out of Africa. That includes some peoples in Australia, Indonesia and India.



http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/ancient/astronomy-stonehenge-au.html

Astronomy at Stonehenge?
By David Levin
Posted 09.30.10
NOVA

In the 1960s, a new theory surfaced that claimed Stonehenge was the work of ancient astronomers, and that its giant stone pillars were used to predict eclipses of the moon and sun. But was there anything to the idea? To find out, we talked to NOVA's senior science editor, Evan Hadingham. He trained as an archeologist and has written two books on Stonehenge.

An expert discusses the controversial question of whether Stonehenge was an astronomical observatory. Go to this website and listen.





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/scott-walker-fires-back-at-obama-on-collective-bargaining/

Scott Walker fires back at Obama on collective bargaining
By SEAN GALLITZ CBS NEWS
September 7, 2015

Photograph -- Republican presidential candidate Gov. Scott Walker, R-Wis., meets local residents Thomas and Lynn Walsh during a stop at the Washington General Store during his two-day motorcycle tour through the nation's earliest presidential primary voting state, Sunday, Sept. 6, 2015, in Washington, N.H. AP PHOTO/JIM COLE
Play VIDEO -- Who is candidate Scott Walker?
Play VIDEO -- Obama takes aim at GOP candidates during labor union speech


President Obama and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton are scared. At least, that's what Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker thinks.

Speaking to reporters in Rochester, New Hampshire Monday, the 2016 Republican presidential candidate said Mr. Obama and Clinton were targeting him and afraid of his candidacy because they believe that "we can win. And when we win, we will actually do what we said we were going to do."

Walker's remarks came in response to the president's Labor Day speech in Boston, in which Mr. Obama alluded to Republican presidential candidates who have worked to weaken unions.

"He is bragging about how he destroyed collective bargaining rights in his state, and says that busting workers prepares him to fight ISIL. I didn't make that up!" the president said of Walker, without naming him.


Walker told reporters that collective bargaining is "not a right, but is an expensive entitlement" and cited the cost savings in Wisconsin as a benefit to all taxpayers in the state.

He added that, "this is an issue where the president is just wrong."

Walker has seen his poll numbers decline steadily since announcing his candidacy in early July when he was leading in Iowa and in the top three in New Hampshire. The latest poll from NBC News and Marist has Walker in the middle of the pack with 4 percent support in New Hampshire and 5 percent in Iowa.

He is finishing a two-day motorcycle tour through New Hampshire, where he visited all ten counties on a Harley Davidson. This was Walker's fourth trip to the Granite State since he announced his candidacy.

On Tuesday, the Walker-aligned Unintimidated PAC will start airing its first television ad in Iowa that highlights the governor's fight with union members and protesters. Entitled "Fight and Win" the 60-second ad features footage from the contentious protests in Madison in 2011.




“Walker's remarks came in response to the president's Labor Day speech in Boston, in which Mr. Obama alluded to Republican presidential candidates who have worked to weaken unions. "He is bragging about how he destroyed collective bargaining rights in his state, and says that busting workers prepares him to fight ISIL. I didn't make that up!" the president said of Walker, without naming him. Walker told reporters that collective bargaining is "not a right, but is an expensive entitlement" and cited the cost savings in Wisconsin as a benefit to all taxpayers in the state. …. Walker has seen his poll numbers decline steadily since announcing his candidacy in early July when he was leading in Iowa and in the top three in New Hampshire. The latest poll from NBC News and Marist has Walker in the middle of the pack with 4 percent support in New Hampshire and 5 percent in Iowa. …. He is finishing a two-day motorcycle tour through New Hampshire, where he visited all ten counties on a Harley Davidson. This was Walker's fourth trip to the Granite State since he announced his candidacy.”

I have to disagree with Mr. Walker. His idea that labor unions should not be allowed to operate freely under the law -- because, I suppose, it keeps his pet “Robber Barons” from getting as large a share of the economic pot as they “deserve” -- is unethical to the hilt. Robber Barons don’t believe in fair play, clearly and neither does Walker. That is the true “expensive entitlement.” That’s why we give the big oil and coal companies government subsidies all the time. The Koch brothers and their ilk aren’t rich enough yet. I think Walker is unpopular because his message is horrible. The more our Middle Class and Working Poor keep on losing out from day to day, the less likely they are to believe his story. It is interesting that he is riding a Harley around. Is he trying to appeal as a more macho character to the “angry white men?”





http://www.cbsnews.com/news/snakebite-anti-venom-treatment-running-out-msf-warns-risking-lives/

Global supply of key snakebite anti-venom running dry
AP September 7, 2015

Photograph -- While only a fraction of the thousands of species of snakes are venomous, the World Health Organization estimates that snakebite kills anywhere from 20,000 to 94,000 people around the world each year. ISTOCKPHOTO


LONDON -- Doctors Without Borders says the world will run out of one of the most effective treatments for snakebites next year, risking the lives of tens of thousands of people, mostly in developing countries.

In a statement issued Monday, the medical charity warned that existing stockpiles of the anti-venom Fav-Afrique produced by Sanofi Pasteur will expire in June. The company stopped producing the anti-venom last year and has since switched to making a rabies treatment at its facilities instead.

"We are now facing a real crisis," Dr. Gabriel Alcoba, the charity's snakebite adviser, said in a statement. The aid group, also known by its French acronym MSF, said there would likely be no alternative available to replace the Sanofi Pasteur snakebite treatment for at least two years.

A spokesman for Sanofi Pasteur said the pharmaceutical was driven out of the market by competitors selling cheaper products and that they announced in 2010 they would stop making anti-venom.

"It's very strange that (health officials) are only realizing this problem five years later," said Alain Bernal, a Sanofi Pasteur spokesman. He said the company has offered to transfer the anti-venom technology to others but "nothing has materialized yet."

About 5 million people are bitten by snakes every year, including 100,000 deaths and several hundred thousand others who suffer amputations or other disabilities. When it's available, the anti-venom treatment typically costs $250 to $500.

Before a meeting this week in Switzerland, MSF called for international agencies to ensure that snakebite treatment is available where needed. MSF said that the World Health Organization should play "a leading role" in solving the problem and criticized the U.N. health agency for labeling snakebites as a neglected condition and for failing to create a formal program to address the issue.




“Doctors Without Borders says the world will run out of one of the most effective treatments for snakebites next year, risking the lives of tens of thousands of people, mostly in developing countries. In a statement issued Monday, the medical charity warned that existing stockpiles of the anti-venom Fav-Afrique produced by Sanofi Pasteur will expire in June. The company stopped producing the anti-venom last year and The aid group, also known by its French acronym MSF, said there would likely be no alternative available to replace the Sanofi Pasteur snakebite treatment for at least two years. A spokesman for Sanofi Pasteur said the pharmaceutical was driven out of the market by competitors selling cheaper products and that they announced in 2010 they would stop making anti-venom. "It's very strange that (health officials) are only realizing this problem five years later," said Alain Bernal, a Sanofi Pasteur spokesman. He said the company has offered to transfer the anti-venom technology to others but "nothing has materialized yet." has since switched to making a rabies treatment at its facilities instead. …. When it's available, the anti-venom treatment typically costs $250 to $500. Before a meeting this week in Switzerland, MSF called for international agencies to ensure that snakebite treatment is available where needed. MSF said that the World Health Organization should play "a leading role" in solving the problem and criticized the U.N. health agency for labeling snakebites as a neglected condition and for failing to create a formal program to address the issue.”

It seems there is blame enough to go around to all the pertinent organizations. I was ready to criticize Sanofi Pasteur, but they have explained that the problem is not a new one, and they did announce their need to stop producing it. The statement, though, that groups have been making supplies cheaper and thus drove them out of the market implies that there is – at a cheaper cost, no less – somebody else who is making the antivenin. If that is true, hopefully another news article will appear announcing that. If it is not true, then some government sponsored group needs to step up to the plate and start making more ASAP. Perhaps the World Health Organization as was suggested here will do it.





http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-hunter-tied-to-cecil-the-lion-killing-headed-back-to-work/ar-AAe1tOa?ocid=iehp

US hunter tied to Cecil the lion killing headed back to work
By BRIAN BAKST, Associated Press
September 7, 2015

Photograph -- Cecil the lion killed by American dentist Walter Palmer© Rex Cecil the lion killed by American dentist Walter Palmer


MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The Minnesota dentist whose killing of Cecil the lion fueled a global backlash emerged Sunday for an interview in which he disputed some accounts of the hunt, expressed agitation at the animosity directed at those close to him and said he would be back at work within days.

Walter Palmer, who has spent more than a month out of sight after becoming the target of protests and threats, intends to return to his suburban Minneapolis dental practice Tuesday. In an evening interview conducted jointly by The Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune that advisers said would be the only one granted, Palmer said again that he believes he acted legally and that he was stunned to find out his hunting party had killed one of Zimbabwe's treasured animals.

"If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study obviously I wouldn't have taken it," Palmer said. "Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion."

Cecil was a fixture in the vast Hwange National Park and had been fitted with a GPS collar as part of Oxford University lion research. Palmer said he shot the big cat with the black mane using an arrow from his compound bow outside the park's borders but it didn't die immediately. He disputed conservationist accounts that the wounded lion wandered for 40 hours and was finished off with a gun, saying it was tracked down the next day and killed with an arrow.

An avid sportsman, Palmer shut off several lines of inquiry about the hunt, including how much he paid for it or others he has undertaken. No videotaping or photographing of the interview was allowed. During the 25-minute interview, Palmer gazed intensely at his questioners, often fiddling with his hands and turning occasionally to an adviser, Joe Friedberg, to field questions about the fallout and his legal situation.

Some high-level Zimbabwean officials have called for Palmer's extradition, but no formal steps toward getting the dentist to return to Zimbabwe have been publicly disclosed. Friedberg, a Minneapolis attorney who said he is acting as an unpaid consultant to Palmer, said he has heard nothing from authorities about domestic or international investigations since early August.

Friedberg said he offered to have Palmer take questions from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorities on the condition the session be recorded. He said he never heard back.

"I'm not Walter's lawyer in this situation because Walter doesn't need a lawyer in this situation," said Friedberg, who said he knew Palmer through previous matters. "If some governmental agency or investigative unit would make a claim that he violated some law then we'd talk about it."

Ben Petok, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Andy Luger, declined comment about conversations with Friedberg and referred questions to Fish and Wildlife. An agency spokeswoman didn't immediately return a call and an email Sunday evening.

After Palmer was named in late July as the hunter who killed Cecil, his Bloomington clinic and Eden Prairie home became protest sites, and a vacation property he owns in Florida was vandalized. Palmer has been vilified across social media, with some posts suggesting violence against him. He described himself as "heartbroken" for causing disruptions for staff at his clinic, which was shuttered for weeks until reopening in late August without him on the premises. And he said the ordeal has been especially hard on his wife and adult daughter, who both felt threatened.

"I don't understand that level of humanity to come after people not involved at all," Palmer said.

As for himself, he said he feels safe enough to return to work — "My staff and my patients support me and they want me back" — but declined to say where he's spent the last six weeks or describe security steps he has taken.

"I've been out of the public eye. That doesn't mean I'm in hiding," Palmer said. "I've been among people, family and friends. Location is really not that important."

Palmer, who has several big-game kills to his name, reportedly paid thousands of dollars for the guided hunt but wouldn't talk money.

Theo Bronkhorst, a professional hunter who helped Palmer, has been charged with "failure to prevent an illegal hunt." Honest Ndlovu, whose property is near the park in western Zimbabwe, faces a charge of allowing the lion hunt to occur on his farm without proper authority.

Asked whether he would return to Zimbabwe for future hunts, Palmer said, "I don't know about the future." He estimated he had been there four times and said, "Zimbabwe has been a wonderful country for me to hunt in, and I have always followed the laws."

In addition to the Cecil furor, Palmer pleaded guilty in 2008 to making false statements to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service about a black bear he fatally shot in western Wisconsin outside of the authorized hunting zone. He was given one year probation and fined nearly $3,000 as part of a plea agreement.

Cecil's killing set off a fierce debate over trophy hunting in Africa. Zimbabwe tightened regulations for lion, elephant and leopard hunting after the incident, and three major U.S. airlines changed policies to ban shipment of the trophies.




“The Minnesota dentist whose killing of Cecil the lion fueled a global backlash emerged Sunday for an interview in which he disputed some accounts of the hunt, expressed agitation at the animosity directed at those close to him and said he would be back at work within days. ….. In an evening interview conducted jointly by The Associated Press and the Minneapolis Star Tribune that advisers said would be the only one granted, Palmer said again that he believes he acted legally and that he was stunned to find out his hunting party had killed one of Zimbabwe's treasured animals. "If I had known this lion had a name and was important to the country or a study obviously I wouldn't have taken it," Palmer said. "Nobody in our hunting party knew before or after the name of this lion." …. He disputed conservationist accounts that the wounded lion wandered for 40 hours and was finished off with a gun, saying it was tracked down the next day and killed with an arrow. An avid sportsman, Palmer shut off several lines of inquiry about the hunt, including how much he paid for it or others he has undertaken. No videotaping or photographing of the interview was allowed. …. Friedberg, a Minneapolis attorney who said he is acting as an unpaid consultant to Palmer, said he has heard nothing from authorities about domestic or international investigations since early August. Friedberg said he offered to have Palmer take questions from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service authorities on the condition the session be recorded. He said he never heard back. …. "I don't understand that level of humanity to come after people not involved at all," Palmer said. As for himself, he said he feels safe enough to return to work — "My staff and my patients support me and they want me back" — but declined to say where he's spent the last six weeks or describe security steps he has taken. …. Palmer, who has several big-game kills to his name, reportedly paid thousands of dollars for the guided hunt but wouldn't talk money. Theo Bronkhorst, a professional hunter who helped Palmer, has been charged with "failure to prevent an illegal hunt." Honest Ndlovu, whose property is near the park in western Zimbabwe, faces a charge of allowing the lion hunt to occur on his farm without proper authority. …. Cecil's killing set off a fierce debate over trophy hunting in Africa. Zimbabwe tightened regulations for lion, elephant and leopard hunting after the incident, and three major U.S. airlines changed policies to ban shipment of the trophies.”

An article during the last year about national African governments sponsoring hunts and charging a high fee for hunters to participate in them, with the idea of “controlling” the market rather than really cracking down on the poachers, struck me as very sick, greedy and cynical. That story concerned elephants which are endangered over their ivory tusks, which continue to be sold in the Far East at a high profit. Likewise in China there is a market for rhinosceros horns and bear bodily parts (the gall bladder for one) for “medicinal” uses. The people in China are too smart for these superstitious beliefs to cause the depletion of animal populations in this era of extinctions. They have Western medicine at their disposal which is more effective than the “magical” properties of rhino horn. That is bought by Chinese men who believe it to be a cure for male sexual dysfunction.

The article stated that the poachers themselves are local Africans who kill the elephants and rhinos for the money, and that Chinese traders had been caught in the jungle meeting with the poachers. The government looked the other way, or tried to set up sponsored hunts like that in this dentist’s case under the claim that the demand is so high that it can’t be otherwise controlled. It is interesting that Zimbabwe tried to extradite Palmer, which is not, thank goodness like the othe countries mentioned. Unfortunately I don’t remember which those were.

Personally I think hunting, except for food, is one of those very unnecessary and cruel practices that mankind simply cannot stop committing, apparently. Killing is so much fun that they must do it, it seems. In the Stonehenge article above I said that Homo Sapiens is not unintelligent or primitive, but I do think that wanton killing, rape, the enjoyment of war are some things that are in fact primitive and unintelligent. It should be done only out of need, not for “sport.”