Grew up in the mountains of New Jersey, and this lady gets it half-right. Yeah, the bears are usually more scared of you than you might think... but notice this video is taped in autumn. That bear would have reacted a lot differently in the spring, when it wakes up from hibernation and is literally starving. Now imagine this woman trying to get between a starving bear and its acorns....

Bears get shot a lot in NJ (I'm referring here to out of season), but usually it is in the spring. Some are so hungry they will eat just about anything including your pets who happen to be tied up outside. One broke into our neighbor's house while the guy was cooking dinner to get at the steak that was being grilled. The thing literally knocked down the back door to get in. Once it was inside it ransacked the place. Eventually the cops came and had to kill it.

Another situation you want to watch out for is cubs... if there are cubs around and you startle the mama bear, it's a really bad situation. She's not going to bluff charge--she's going to maul you until you are either dead or have the sense enough to stop moving and play dead so that she thinks you're not a threat anymore.

Yeah, it sucks that New Jersey is rapidly depleting its woodlands and the bears have no place to go. Yeah, it sucks that some jerks shoot the bears just because they are a "nuisance" and tip over the garbage cans occasionally. I get the point this lady is trying to make with this video, but she's just advocating reckless behavior that in the wrong circumstances is likely to get someone seriously injured or killed.

>> ^BoneRemake:

2:30
" I am a woman, im all alone "
is that somehow supposed to inspire some sort of scenario of what , she is less capable ?
what sexist b/s


Men are, on the whole, stronger, faster and bigger than women. I think she's just making a point that she's more vulnerable than most of the pussies people claiming to have been attacked by black bears. I don't know if you're being sarcastic or not, though.

>> ^grinter:

wow what a moron.
being an idiot is not a good way to change people's attitude towards bears.
Didn't Timothy Treadwell and Werner Herzog teach us anything?
..and don't give me some crap about grizzlies being dangerous and black bears being harmless. That logic would imply that it's fine to taunt a grizzly because it's not as bad-ass as a polar bear. Bears are dangerous. Accept it.. treat them with the respect the deserve.


Well, no, it would imply that black bears are behaviourally different than grizzlies in a way that makes them less of a threat. These assessments are done species-by-species, according to the facts, not with an arbitrarily imposed system of logic.

>> ^BoneRemake:

2:30
" I am a woman, im all alone "
is that somehow supposed to inspire some sort of scenario of what , she is less capable ?
what sexist b/s


It's a jersey thing.

I'm gonna find me a bear so I can call bluff on his charge!

>> ^Sagemind:

I just don't trust the US government. And I don't understand why they destroyed all the real evidence (AKA the body).

Because he's not a trophy, as much as the average meat head dip-shit would like to believe. Gloating over his corpse is below the level that the US thinks of itsself, and rightly so. Doing so would be no better than those they fight.

I'm really not a lover of the US generally (oh how their crap gets into every pore of our lives), but i appauld them for taking the higher moral ground on this. Aside from all else, why pour petrol on the fire ? People can not believe it if they want and that's fine, as no unneeded anger leading to even more deaths gets caused that way at least.

Also, it would be an incredible bluff to make as it's so easily disproved. The fact that there's been no instant refusal should speak volumes.

Not much of an Olbermann fan these days, but he nailed this one.

Here's an article at The American Prospect, Why Democrats Are Deserting Obama. Here are the opening paragraphs:

Dorothy: You’re a very bad man for pretending to be a wizard. Wizard: No, I’m a good man, just a very bad wizard.

Barack Obama, you might say, is a very good man who is just not turning out to be a very effective president. And he makes a serious misjudgment if he thinks that it is just the liberal base of the party that is disillusioned both with the deal that he cut and with his leadership skills. Centrists like House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer are every bit as dismayed at the agreement Obama made -- a deal that increases the deficit by some $900 billion in a fashion that is both inequitable (too much to the top) and not very efficient as economic stimulus.

It was nothing short of astonishing to see Obama, at his surprise press conference Tuesday, with harsher words for members of his own party than for Republicans. It is the Republicans, after all, who have been blocking his efforts, wall-to-wall, while the liberal Democrats who have been his staunchest if often exasperated supporters.

I still believe Barack Obama is probably a decent man, and I agree with the majority of his political opinions. However, I agree much less with his political actions. He might be the smartest wonk to occupy the Oval Office in decades, but he has no political savvy. On the big issues he almost always blinks first. He never calls the Republicans' bluffs. Let's be frank: he's been at the helm for 2 years now, and his leadership has been weak. And just in the last 24 hours he has caved AGAIN, this time on the Israeli settlement issue. So if he's still wondering why so many Democrats are pissed off at him right now, it's because we have every right to be pissed off. EVERY right.

*quality

I still haven't watched the video, and still won't. I hate seeing a child have the trust and love that should be there between them and their kid be violated, so I still won't.

But, I just read through the comments and I see a number of people saying 'well, what should parent's do for punishment? You're not supposed to give a smack any more.'

And this question is an interesting one, and one that results in a lot of consideration at our house.

We have four kids. 7,6,4 and 17months. The 17 month old is too young for seriously doing wrong stuff, and for understanding being told off in any real sense anyway, so let's put her out of the equation. The three boys on the other hand will do countless things every day that can really get you riled up. When you're trying to get ready for school and get out the door and they dawdle with something or other despite repeated polite calls to please get dressed and get their shoes on. When they keep fighting and hurting each other. When they get stuck in a 'whinge mode' where they want something and will.not.let.up about it... that's the one that can really drive you nuts.

All of these things can cause you, as a parent to really get angry (and yeah, when you write them down they sound lame as anything, but other parents will get how annoying things like that can be)... and you can't now say 'This is your fourth warning, if you don't get your shoes on you're getting a smack', so what can you threaten? You tend to run out of punishments... in the cases when you're trying to get to school you can't make them go to their room (which works pretty well in our house as we don't have many toys or anything in their room, just books, so it's chill out and read time if they want), because you have to leave, like, 5 minutes ago. And so, you find yourself yelling at them. And this is something I'm REALLY bloody struggling with, I'm tending to yell too much. There's no swearing, no insults, just 'WOULD YOU GET READY RIGHT NOW!' and the like... and then you start realising that you are doing that all the time. And it's really NOT a good way to interact with your kids.

But you know what I discovered a little while ago that really stops them misbehaving or stop crying and whinging about wanting something, or just in general puts a stop to the behaviour rather than the final yell or final threat of a smack?

'If you do not get ready now, I'm taking $2 from your pocket money'.

It works a treat.
a) They actually do NOT want that to happen
b) It's a threat you can go through with (and we have on occasion). (Sometimes you'll find yourself making a threat you cannot go through with 'If you don't stop playing up we're not going to the party', when you have no intention of not going, so they can call your bluff)
c) It's re-enforcing good behaviour = reward, bad behaviour = punishment, as they get the pocket money for cleaning etc.

It's not the only solution obviously, and they do get sent to their room when it's not a time critical thing, and you do give warnings to allow them to stop without any form of punishment... but it's a good 'last resort' one that works well with my kids.

And early on I did smack my kids on occasion when it got to that end point, but my god I felt bad about it afterwards and it doesn't seem to have any positive result, just seems to make them get rougher in their play later on. So, smacking is out, yelling ALL the time really needs to be out, and I'm working on it, but man kids can rile you up.

Parenting isn't an exact science, you make mistakes, you yell when you didn't mean to, you may smack them when you didn't mean to, but if you're ever starting to make your kid really fear you, really feel afraid of what you may do to them, then I think you're doing something wrong. (Which I gather is what is going on in this video).

Ahem.

That was quite the bloody novel wasn't it?

As you were.

Ha! Awesome bluff.

[redacted]

>> ^Yogi:
This is all on a single CNN cameraman. Stand up and keep filming...get arrested...spend 1 night in jail and CNN will broadcast it all over the world. I just want one person who's confronted by this idiocy...one person to call the bluff and it'll just fall away. It reminds me of the guy claiming he was a cop calling in to that McDonalds and having the manager strip search an employee. It's BS...call it BS and show it to the world.


Like Martin Luther King Jr. It is a good tactic. However, these days, with Federal power as it stands and people's inability to get out in mass protest, I doubt it would have the effect you seek. The "Guilty" would probably be charged with chemical terrorism... or some crap.

This is all on a single CNN cameraman. Stand up and keep filming...get arrested...spend 1 night in jail and CNN will broadcast it all over the world. I just want one person who's confronted by this idiocy...one person to call the bluff and it'll just fall away. It reminds me of the guy claiming he was a cop calling in to that McDonalds and having the manager strip search an employee. It's BS...call it BS and show it to the world.

From LiveLeak: A B.C. filmmaker says he's lucky to be alive after narrowly avoiding a grizzly attack while filming in the Robson Valley, southeast of Prince George.

Leon Lorenz, who lives in Dunster, B.C., was filming grizzly bears in a nearby valley last Monday evening when he spotted a bear and her cub.

Lorenz said he took cover behind a spruce tree so he could film the bears without disturbing them, but the mother bear picked up his scent.

She turned suddenly, he said, and looked him right in the eyes.

Then, roaring, she charged through the trees right at Lorenz.

He recalls thinking, "This is for real. This is … no bluff charge."

Lorenz set the camera down on a tripod, capturing everything on film, and grabbed his handgun with the hopes of firing a warning shot to scare the grizzly off.

Crouched behind the tree, he aimed his gun high and pulled the trigger — just as the grizzly burst through the branches of the tree, a few feet from where he was hiding.

Lorenz said the shot spooked the bear, which he estimates weighed between 400 and 500 pounds, and she ran off with her cub.

"I knew if I would have run, I wouldn't be here," he said.

"If I didn't have my handgun, even if I would have fired a shot a quarter of a second later, the blast would have been too late. She would have been on me."

'I just thank God that I'm still here'
Lorenz said it's an experience he'll never forget.

"It's something that will stay with me for life. … It was really something that I never expected and I think I've grown from it," he said.

"I think even if I would have hit her, even a very fatal shot … she would have had enough life left in her to do me in."

He believes it would have been nearly impossible to survive an attack at such a close range.

"They were both so fast. It's unbelievable — the speed — and I just thank God that I'm still here."

Lorenz said he's grateful both he and the grizzly survived the encounter.

"The timing couldn't have been more perfect," he said. "The outcome couldn't have been more perfect as far as, you know, I wasn't touched, she wasn't wounded, she wasn't killed, her baby's OK … and I was able to capture the whole thing [on film]."

Lorenz said he has had about a dozen grizzly encounters, but a bear had never charged at him before.

"It just really shows … that their personalities are all different, just like people," he said.

"But also, it shows that they're unpredictable because they can be one way one day and totally different another day and … you just have to be as careful as you can."

Lyrics:
There comes a time
When we need to make a show
For the world, the Web and CNN

There's no people dying,
so the best that we can do
Is create the greatest bluff of all

We must go on pretending day by day
That in Gaza, there's crisis, hunger and plague
Coz the billion bucks in aid won't buy their basic needs
Like some cheese and missiles for the kids

We'll make the world
Abandon reason
We'll make them all believe that the Hamas
Is Momma Theresa
We are peaceful travelers
With guns and our own knives
The truth will never find its way to your TV

Ooooh, we'll stab them at heart
They are soldiers, no one cares
We are small, and we took some pictures with doves
As Allah showed us, for facts there's no demand
So we will always gain the upper hand

We'll make the world
Abandon reason
We'll make them all believe that the Hamas
Is Momma Theresa
We are peaceful travelers
we're waving our own knives
The truth will never find its way to your TV

If Islam and terror brighten up your mood
But you worry that it may not look so good
Well well well well don't you realize
You just gotta call yourself
An activist for peace and human aid

We'll make the world
Abandon reason
We'll make them all believe that the Hamas
Is Momma Theresa
We are peaceful travelers
We're waving our own knives
The truth will never find its way to your TV

We con the world
We con the people
We'll make them all believe the IDF is Jack the Ripper
We are peaceful travelers
We're waving our own knives
The truth will never find its way to your TV
We con the world
We con the people
We'll make them all believe the IDF is Jack the Ripper
We are peaceful travelers
We're waving our own knives
the truth will never find its way to your TV
The truth will never find its way to your TV

WTF is wrong with these reporters?

That would've been the perfect time to call BP's bluff. The two guard officers would most likely back down, because they know perfectly well that it's not a crime to film the coastline.