How to solve the rhino horn saga

It being Rhino Day and all...

You think you are living in a modern world, a world where people are finally beginning to understand the way things work. Using science, logic and technological advances to solve problems is the norm.

No it isn't.

Some crazy backward bastards go and ruin everything by believing that a rhinos horn has medicinal value! According to 16th century pharmacists (yes, 16th century!!!) the magical horn is said to treat fever, rheumatism, gout, snake bites, hallucinations, typhoid, headaches, carbuncles, vomiting, food poisoning, libido, being possessed by the devil... but rhino horn does none of these things. These people may as well treat their condition by eating their own hair and nail clippings. Heck they may as well drink a glass of water, it's far more useful medicinally.

Thereafter, a group of even crazier money hungry sods go and harvest horns from live animals to meet the demand. A win win situation? I think not! Armed with aforementioned technological advances, poachers have become devastatingly efficient at harvesting horns. Rhino numbers are declining and so on and so forth...

THE SOLUTION

Okay it's pretty easy and I can't imagine why it hasn't been tried yet. You see the horn has tremendous value, it must have if poachers are able to form well organised armed teams in helicopters (!!!) to harvest a few (dozen maybe) horns a month at the most. Horns are also very scarce which drives their value up, this is logical. So what if...(let me put this into perspective)... what if authorities were to flood the market with fake rhino horn. If it is traditionally dispensed in a powder form simply drown the black market in fake product (it'll be just as effective, medicinally, as the real stuff).

1. Brainless customers will be happy because they could get their product cheaply.
   
2. Poachers would stop hacking rhinos to bits because selling chickens wings on the black market would be far more profitable
3. Rhino extinction probabilities would be reduced significantly
4. Hippies would stop their endless moaning on the subject (they'd find something else but we can be happy in between complaints)
   

Should I feel bad about the cat I ran over?

Okay, so everyone knows I don’t like cats. It would be fair to say that I’ve done some pretty mean things to them over the years. The most memorable being my revenge on the fat grey and white cat at a complex I used to live at in Johannesburg. This cat used to annoy the hell out of me by musking my front door (this smells intensely awful…imagine the smell of rotten potatoes mixed with the urine of a really dehydrated old man who hasn’t had a bath in three weeks) and walking all over (and leaving dirty paw prints) on my parked car. Occasionally I would even catch it napping on my cars roof before chasing it off and driving away.

One day I decided to sneak into my car and not wake up or chase the cat off the roof. I quietly put the car into first gear, pushed the clutch right in, turned the key and took off all in one quick movement. I had no idea if the cat had gotten startled and jumped off or if it stayed there but I couldn’t see it in my mirrors… ‘what the heck, let us have some fun’ I say to myself before flooring it and taking two 90 degree bends on my way out of the complex. I was almost there; I had about 20 meters to go before exiting the boom gate and hitting the main roads. Alas, I see Mandla the gate guard running toward me with his hands waving in the air ‘STOP!’ he screams.

Now the moment I had been waiting for, try to look innocent EEbEE… big eyes, questioning yet slightly confused expression… yes, perfect

Evil snigger

(Falsetto) ‘Hi Mandla, what’s the matter?’ Mandla is laughing so hard that he uses hand gestures to finish off his sentence which starts ‘Stop! Heeheeee…The cat hahaHAAA, she’s on hehe…(points at roof)’. Excellent! He is completely deceived by my wonderful acting (and quite possibly distracted by the cat clinging onto my roof for dear life) and suspects nothing. I open my door and get out ‘really? A cat? On my car? What’s it doing there?’

(Match point - EEbEE)

There are many who disagree with the concept of revenge. ‘Counter the bad with the good’ they say ‘make piece, not war’ they say, ‘where’s that sack of weed I was hiding from the cops’ they say ‘let’s tie dye our shirts and stop working for the corporate monsters’ they say... Let me tell them what I have to say! Watching that fat feline stumble away from me in a half panicked and drunken motion marked the end of the most satisfying act of revenge I’ve ever had. I know I should feel bad but the revenge, it strikes right to ones core human nature. I had little control over the matter you see, it was pure instinct.

Oh and if you are wondering about the title, I would never actually run a cat over. That’s just cruel (what do you take me for anyway!?). I’d just like for my bumper to smack that cat noggin hard enough to teach it to stay away from me (hmmm, what’s the analogy I’m looking for here. I have it! Picture a water balloon hitting a sumo wrestler and not exploding…in slow motion. The impact is spectacular and both kind of jiggle around for a while but still manage to walk (or roll) away from each other unharmed. So there…