So, like what's been, like going down and stuff, yo?

Sell them right on the marsh? Is there a guy with a wagon and a bell yelling "Bring out your dead"

But seriously - all Monty Python aside who buys freshly shot alligators and what do they sell for?

 

There's an alligator farm that buys them , that's where I usually sell them. The price for alligators is so low nowadays. A 7footer is only about $100. I said out of the marsh, not ON the marsh.

 

I had the impression that they'd be a little more expensive than that.

Well considering that Alligator skin is made out to be a luxury.

 

That's what I meant , the prices are so low right now.

 

The prices are low because fewer and fewer people around the world think it's necessary to don an animal skin. Supply and demand. I dunno, something about having left the middle ages or something.

 

what is "leather" made from? what animal does it come from exactly? i know its either pig skin or cow/steer or something.

i know this is a completely silly question, but myreal point is that i think leather should be an exception. if we're going to eat them why not makeuse of the rest of their parts? they sure dont need skin to hold their muscles in any more, we ate all of those anyway. but "minks" etc, are just frivolous. just the thought of such things makes me want to run out and buy red paint. i saw "shark fin soup" on a menu in san fansisco's china town once, and that made me really angry, but i was sixteen and my dad wouldnt like me screaming at the restaurant owner etc... especially f my whole family was there etc... and we were on vacation.

now that i'm on the subject of san fansisco i'd like to share that later that night i saw the saddest thing i've ever seen walking back with my family to get a cab back to the hotel; i saw a young guy (24-ish) sitting in a doorway with a sign, looking freezing and sick even though it was the summer, and the sign said "homeless with aids, please help." he didnt look too happy so i'm just going to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that the sign was true, and accept the fact that that was the saddest twenty dollars i ever gave to anyone.

 

I agree that seeing homeless and miserable people is sad, but did your story imply that it was the first time you saw anyone who was homeless (or who at least claimed to be so)? If that's right, then you are lucky. Where I live, a person sleeping in the streets or in public places isn't such a rare sight; there's one, for example, who sleeps across my school, and I see him almost every day. Neither is it uncommon, if you take a bus, to see people asking for money because they've lost their jobs and/or homes and have babies to feed. You even see children begging there, or at traffic lights when the cars stop. And even if you doubt that they really need the money it's quite likely to be true. What I mean is, those sights are sad, but be thankful that you don't always see them, or that you aren't one of those people.

 

i just meant that its pretty sad that someone only 4-5 years older than me would be homeless with aids.

did i say i was sixteen when i saw this? i meant seventeen, it was last year.

 

If it was my destiny to shoot you in the head, would you try and resist that? I mean, come on, it's destiny.

 

People eat Alligator too , if you did'nt know. They make alligator jerky too. That's some good stuff, liberalinthian.

 

that's right!! CUT THOSE FUCKING LIZARDS UP!!! death to the Lizard rulers!! DAVID ICKE FOREVER!!!! WE'll show those lizard bastards who rules THIS planet!!!!
... sorry... you all had that coming... I haven't had Alligator myself, though I'm told it's bad tasting... and the same with Ostriche.... even though I can't spell it... I think one of the best foods in the world is Salmon.... Smoked Salmon. if you can name something else that tastes better (other than one of our furry, fish-scented friends) then speak it, and let us argue about what is truly better.

 

I know people eat alligator. I tried it both in steak and jerky form when I was bopping through Florida. Tastes like shit. Well, no, the steak tastes like shit. The jerky just tastes like jerky. Nothing special. Maybe it goes better if you just finished chewing some tobacco, you've got a Boone's chaser, and you're looking at the old chevy engine block hanging from the scraggly tree out front. What does your trucker hat say, Bayou?

Turnabout is fair play.

No, there really is a big problem with the screwy ecosystem you get when you kill off all large predators. If understanding the science and the history behind the the consequences of human action on other humans and the world as a whole makes me liberal, so be it. I prefer to call it educated. If knowledge and responsible action are anathema to conservatism, I want no part in it. If conservatism means you do what you want when you want because you've always done it that way, you want to do it that way, and dammit, reason isn't gonna get in your way, I gladly stand opposed to such a thing.

You know why nearly every metropolitan area in the US, especially on the coasts, is consistently democratic? Simple answer: nearly every metropolitan area in the US, especially on the coasts, has a higher ratio of educated people than rural areas. You know why the north and west is more democratic than the south? Same answer. Why is Europe more liberal than America? Same answer. Liberal is not a bad word. It means generous, a Christian virtue last time I checked.

 

you wanna know why even the uneducated in rural areas are democratic? because they have more contact with the real world. its easy or a farmer to wonder why we dont just send a few nukes over the sea and just kill all the packies, and arabs because they have no contact with anything but corn. its also easy for the rich to wonder the same thing because they're interests all lie within conservative views.
for example
my dad is a vice president in exxon mobile (shhhhhh, dont tell anyone else), he's completely sure that we should just turn iraq into a big radioactive glass desert. i wonder why he'd think that? he's also a homophobe, and i'm not sure but hes prolly anti-abortion too, but other than that hes a great guy, (a little short tempered of course, but whatever).

however he seems to percieve all liberals the way liberals think of conservatives (ignorant and short sighted and out of touch with the real world) but then he's also in favor of free-health care for all classes of society, so may be theres some hope for him

 

Well, from a basic experience you MIGHT see that, but all I see is that the undereducated tend to scream their views as opposed to say them. If you are intelligent, and can back up your ideas with logic, then I can respect your views, wether they are liberal, or conservative. No liberalism isn't a bad thing, I happen to think that all that "liberal bilge" is simply the idea that it's ok to NOT blow up everyone we don't like. The first response for the most "civilized" nation on Earth shouldn't be highly explosive and dropped from a plane. Of course, there are some republicans I respect alot for their views, mostly because they present them logically, concisely, and they don't automatically think you are some heathen for not sharing their beliefs.

 

OOOH!!! I've come up with a GREAT idea!!! Sleek asked me in another post what we should do with the 9 billion (7 1/2 now :razz tons of cement that made up WTC so here's my idea: we nude Iraq and Afganistan totally, like flatten the place to a perfect, glowing flatness. Then, we take the cement from WTC, pave the whole place, and make.... (ready? here it comes! this is the best part!) THE WORLD'S BIGGEST SHOPPING MALL!!!!!!

but seriously... I dislike most politicians... I mean look at Washington... our Govenor is an idiot, and the people are JUST NOW realizing that!! we've had an idiot in office for three terms, yet no one has noticed... until recently....

 

I take it when you say educated you're not refering to yourself, eh? How long have you been in the states? How long have the people of America had to put up with up ,I should say. If you're a Christian , tell me what religion do you happen to be? I hope I never get "educated" enough to where I'm as much of an asshole as you.

 

I'd like to make an "ass hole" of myself and point out that you didnt argue against his statement, you only insulted him. if your going to argue, please argue in a way that makes sense, or at least attempts to rebut the revious statement.

btw: what the hell does his religious preference have to do with the conversation anyway?

 

Not educated? OK. I guess the work I'm doing on my on my PhD thesis doesn't count here, so I won't include that here...

I grew up in the States. Philadelphia. Well, actually, I lived in rural central Pennsylvania for my first ten years. Highest concentration of Klansmen north of the Mason Dixon Line (and incidentally, the highest concentration of gun owners, AIDS patients, teen pregnancies, and fundamentalist Christians north of said line, though not south). Lovely place to grow up for a Jewish boy. (A belated L'shana tova tikka tavu, Solaris and, I think, Shadygrove)

No, I'm not Christian. Nor actively Jewish anymore, either. Something aabout knowledge of various religions makes it difficult, though I admit not impossible, to place faith in one. I'd say that now I lie somewhere in the center between Upanishadism, Chi'en, and scientific atheism. However, I've read every word in the Christian bible many times (also in the original Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic, though my grasp of the latter two is quite poor). Wrote my Masters thesis on Meister Eckhart's relationship to Platonism via the source script that led to the gospel o' St. John. That make sense to you? Origins of gnosticism? The destruction of all but four of the early gospels by the first pope? No? OK? How about Protestantism as merely a nationalist political movement that had nothing to do with religion? No? Well, OK.

If you wish to disagree with me, do so. If you wish to argue with me, please do so. Give me something to argue. But do not, please, do not, challenge my RIGHT to argue.

I gave you broad generalizations of the facts and stats. I agree, statistics lie, but only because they can be contradicted by other statistics in some cases and can be read many ways. Have you statistics as well that might contradict mine? Have you another interpretation?

I only wish to be proven wrong. Please, do try. I await the challenge.

However, blind anger is not an argument.

EDIT: clarified my religion, since that was seen as so important.

 

holy cow, you grew up jewish in a place full of skinheads? what the hell was that like?

speaking of christians as liberals, wouldnt you think the most likely political orientation of jesus christ would be socialist?

 

There's a difference between Klansmen and skinheads. The former, in modern times, mostly just whine a lot about the blackies taking their jobs. The latter curb people. Ick. Anyway, I was lucky to be shaped like a school bully, even though I wasn't one. My little brother wasn't so lucky when I wasn't around...

As for the otherr thing, if you read the chronicles of the early christian church, they formed themselves as closer to pure marxist communism than anything since seen, including cuba, russia, or china. They took the parable about the camel and the eye of the needle a lot more literally than most, or any, modern Christians.

The truth is that Jesus wasn't really a socialist. Rather, he was a mystic pacifist who didn't give a damn about the world around us (and thus worldly things like money or social status), other to say that it was God's, and we should seek nothing but God in it. "The kingdom of God is here and Now." "Render unto Caesar..."

EDIT: if Jesus sounds like a hippy, that's because he probably was one, or about as close as you can get without LSD (though 40 days in the desert is about the same). So if you're a good Christian, go hug a hippie. He'll hug you back.