A BOARing topic....

By MarkSHoyle (Bolo) on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - 08:16 am: Edit

Does Texas still allow Hunting/Killing from Helicopters.....

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - 02:04 pm: Edit

I don't know. I never did it nor wanted to. I see helo-hunts on YouTube but don't know what states they are in.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - 02:08 pm: Edit

Yes, Texas legalised helicopter hunting of feral hogs (often called the "Pork Chopper Law") to control their destructive population. It is legal on private property with landowner authorization and requires an Aerial Wildlife Management Permit from Texas Parks and Wildlife. Several commercial operators offer these hunts.

By Nick Blank (Nickgb) on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - 02:37 pm: Edit

Get to da pork choppah!

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, March 31, 2026 - 05:30 pm: Edit

I looked it up and found places doing pork chopper in Houston and Bryan, both hundreds of miles from here.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, April 05, 2026 - 12:10 am: Edit

There is a pork chopper operation just north of Amarillo in Dalhart county.

Kansas has eradicated 99% of its wild hogs and keeps them down to near zero at a cost of $300,000 a year.

There are radioactive wild hogs at Fukushima and Chernobyl.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Friday, April 17, 2026 - 10:48 pm: Edit

I doubt anyone cares but the Harry & Meghan circus is spiraling down the drain. They are running out of money, unable to get any serious money making deals, lost their relationship with Netflix, are not taken seriously by Hollywood when they try to pitch movie ideas, and it's getting worse. Harry is now being investigated by the US for lying on his immigration form. and Price William of Wales is howling mad over their "pretending to be royal" tour in Australia. William has asked lawyers to review the violations of the Sussex's separation agreement with a view toward cancelling their titles. There are also rumors that William will convince Charles to require that the top 10 people on the royal succession list must swear an oath to not do anything for private profit outside of the special "estates" that some royals hold. Harry would have to make his wife give up her show biz Career (which is a flop anyway) or voluntarily remove himself from the succession. Meghan is such a drama queen that no one in Hollywood even wants her at their parties; she was thrown out of the last one she attended because she deliberately wore the same color dress as the guest of honor, which is a huge violation of "the rules".

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Monday, April 20, 2026 - 02:18 pm: Edit

Harry's $50,000 speech in Australia flopped as the room was empty. Everyone now knows that you cannot sell tickets to anyone to listen to Harry whine about his horrible childhood. He was supposed to give practical advice people could apply in their lives but all he could manage was "don't grow up in a castle."

Meghan's "girls best life weekend" ended in chaos. She was only there for two hours and one big group photo. For $3600 Leanna had expected a private photo with the duchess, just the two of them. No one is ever going to buy another ticket for a Meghan event.

Princess Royale Anne has asked her brother King Charles III to remove the titles from Harry and Meghan.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 03, 2026 - 01:45 pm: Edit

According to Meghan, I (Steve Cole) have the legal right to put HRH in front of my name (so does anyone in the royal line of succession and their spouses), so I am now….

HRH Stephen Hopkins R. G. van Valkenburg Cole, PE

Cool, huh?

( I am something like one million in line for the English, but not the Scottish, throne.)

By Mike Grafton (Mike_Grafton) on Monday, May 04, 2026 - 04:09 pm: Edit

and I might be 1000th in line to be the future Duke of Grafton.

In addition to actually being the eldest male heir of Zachary Taylor (not much of a president but one heck of a General). My nephew Gary manages deciding who can be buried in the family plot (in the Zachary Taylor National Cemetery) for the clan. Because he likes tracking family trees.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Monday, May 04, 2026 - 07:48 pm: Edit

If a couple hundred other folks were to suddenly vaporize, I'd be the Duchess of Gravina (for what very little that means in today's Italy).

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 05, 2026 - 07:50 am: Edit

Family photo, metal bleachers, thunderstorm.

By Jessica Orsini (Jessica_Orsini) on Tuesday, May 05, 2026 - 09:27 am: Edit

Ah, good ol' King Ralph....

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Tuesday, May 05, 2026 - 06:59 pm: Edit

I happened upon one of the 6000 Meghan/Harry videos today that summarized bits and pieces I had heard over years from many sources.

Meghan assumed that since Harry's family had billions, she could spend anything she wanted any time she wanted. She found out that Harry had a personal inheritance and a fixed allowance, not unlimited money.

She bought an expensive dress and sent the bill to the government. The government said that the dress was not part of the budget for her royal duties and gave the bill to Harry, who had to explain what she would pay it, not the government.

She got a house along with the marriage, but only for use as long as she did unpaid public appearances scheduled by the government and family, not as her personal property to do with as she wanted, sell if she wanted, and take with her in the eventual divorce.

While the Tower of London held a fabulous jewelry collection, she could not take what she wanted for Hollywood runway appearances. She could only borrow what the Queen approved and only for royal appearances.

Told all of this in the first months of marriage, she considered it a personal attack on her vision of her lifestyle.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 10, 2026 - 06:10 am: Edit

The Meghan baby controversy is a significant one, not just a conspiracy theory. Here are the salient points.

The big problem is that British law, two centuries old (current law, the same provision was in previous law), says to be in the line of succession the baby must be born “of the body” of a woman in the line or married to a man in the line. This is supposed to block adopted children, and was written before surrogacy was invented. If they used a surrogate, the children are still legitimate but cannot be in the line of succession.

The surrogacy story is due to Meghan’s age, officially 37 when Archie was born, but rumors say she has been lying about her age and was actually 43, either was very old for a woman’s first pregnancy. She is also known to be a cranky person who theoretically would not want to be inconvenienced by pregnancy. It is said that she had eggs extracted and frozen years enforce meeting Harry.

There are no end of rumors that she wore a fake baby bump, with some evidence to indicate that might be true.

There are no end a questionable items around the births of both children. The formal announcement did not include doctor signatures, unlike every other royal birth. There were no end of contradictory statements at the time including Harry saying the baby had changed in the previous two weeks only two hours after he was born.

There has never been a DNA test for either child. Doing one would take permission from the parents or a court order. This would be an extreme step.

As a practical matter, nobody that far down the succession has taken the throne in six centuries.

By Jeff Anderson (Jga) on Sunday, May 10, 2026 - 02:49 pm: Edit

What if someone in the direct line of succession were to quietly give a DNA sample for posterity? Probably not a hair sample from Prince William , but maybe something from King Charles?

Keep it locked up. Should something almost unthinkable happen and Archie may be set to ascend to the throne, have him be required to also give a DNA sample and compare it to that of his grandfather. That should prove proper lineage, shouldn't it?

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Sunday, May 10, 2026 - 05:43 pm: Edit

Already done. The real question is whether Harry is related to Charles.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 14, 2026 - 04:32 am: Edit

BRONZE AGE COLLAPSE
This happened around 1200BC-1150BC. All of the Bronze Age Empires were destroyed by ... something. Mycenia, Minoa, Hittites, Mitanni. Assyria and Egypt only barely survived and were in a far weaker condition and did not recover for centuries.

There are a lot of YouTube videos on it. It's a fascinating historical event. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse

No one knows, but one theory is that something (perhaps a volcano in Iceland that was super jumbo size) caused a major climate shift, and a famine struck most of Europe and the near east.

The "sea peoples" including people from the balkans, greece, and the western Med got up and collectively moved east and south. The result wasn't good. Imagine a president allowing 200 million illegal aliens to enter the US. Yeah, that kinda bad. Were the sea peoples fleeing famine or were they driven out by other people from northern Europe. We may never know. Trade routes and economies collapse. Tin (the oil of that era) came from remote areas and the caravans carrying it could no longer reach the "civilized empires". No tin means no bronze. No Bronze means no new tools, no new weapons.

Fascinating as it is, Professor Cline, author of the definitive book (1177BC) says this is exactly what it happening now. with
climate change
mass migrations
religious wars
collapsing governments
oil crisis
corrupt governments

Makes me kinda happy that I'm not going to live long enough to see the US fall, but you guys better be ready for it.

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, May 14, 2026 - 07:00 am: Edit

Seems a little repetitive…to some degree, religious wars, collapsing governments and corrupt governments are different terms describing similar symptoms.

If the government’s in question were say religious oligarchy, the overlap would be very significant.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 14, 2026 - 07:08 am: Edit

One thing feeds/causes another, not always in the same order.

By Ted Fay (Catwhoeatsphoto) on Thursday, May 14, 2026 - 10:14 am: Edit

There's been talk of civilization collapse pretty much every century since the Renaissance, and of the end of the world in every century in recorded history.

I am deeply skeptical of Prof. Cline. To paraphrase the Dread Pirate Roberts, "No good. Known too many Ph.D.s"

Climate change is real, but has been hyped and overrated.

Mass migrations haven't been that huge (comparatively) since Western systems are currently able to feed the increased population.

Religious wars are usually much more about economics than religion (religion is just a motivator to manipulate people). The so-called "religious wars" of today are nothing compared to the complete genocides of the ancient world.

Collapsing governments: So what? The Soviets collapsed and it wasn't the end of civilization. It's only if all the major powers collapse that we'll see that.

Oil crisis? Please. Yes, it's painful and damaging to the economy, but we're still able to absorb the cost increase and more or less maintain our current habits. No collapse.

Corrupt governments. These have always been with us. Frankly, as bad as they are, the governments of the modern age are the least corrupt in history (which is a scary thing to say, I know).

To quote Bill Joel: "We didn't start the fire, it was always burning since the world's been turning..."


CAN a complete civilization collapse happen? Absolutely. It's happened before and will again.

WILL a complete civilization collapse happen? Absolutely. History suggests an asymmetric cyclical nature of such collapses, but these seem likely tied to major geological or astronomical events that affect the whole Earth - not what we're doing. Nuclear war could change that, I guess.

Am I worried about a civilization collapse? Not enough to make me change the way I live my life. Yet.

I do prepare for emergencies and have several months of supplies ready for my family. But if civilization collapses people pretty much have to play life by ear and do their best to survive. No matter what one will have to be flexible and adapt to changing circumstances.

So, if it does happen, I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

By Steve Cole (Stevecole) on Thursday, May 14, 2026 - 02:11 pm: Edit

Best of luck to all of you surviving what is coming.

I will pass on the single best piece of advise I ever heard.

"Whatever bad thing happens to you, you'll survive it better if you start with a healthy body."

By Jeff Wile (Jswile) on Thursday, May 14, 2026 - 02:48 pm: Edit

Climate Change:

Its the third iteration by the same folk’s who brought out “Global Cooling” back in 1969.

Then, when the data didn’t support that particular cataclysmic event, they changed it to “Global Warming.”

Then, when 2001 came and went, and the end of the world failed to occur, it got changed to “Climate Change”.

Best of all possible worlds.

Now they can collect money from gullible idiots regardless of what Climate events occur (be they hot or cold or in between.)

The problem for those of the “world is ending” band wagon , is the historic record (based on ice cores, silt cores and dendrochronology) shows the world has been colder, then hotter , in a cyclical pattern for as far back as we have data.

Some how, humans have managed to survive.

I am putting my money on “Humans to survive.”

Will cover any doom/gloom money you guys have. Just be sure to tell me who you want your winnings paid to, in case you win.

By Matthew Lawson (Mglawson) on Thursday, May 14, 2026 - 03:09 pm: Edit

Concerning the "Sea Peoples" I like the theory that these were (partially or maybe mostly) returning Greeks after their victory over Troy, but they were gone so long, the Greece they returned to no longer needed or wanted them, but they were battle hardened veterans/warlords with armies with nothing to lose at that point and set the Mediterranean ablaze.
Time-frame is about right and a couple of the Greek ethnic groups are named in surviving texts involving the Sea Peoples.