Let’s say, (and why not) that you’re an educated state on the east coast that used to regularly hang folks accused of breaking the law from a big trap door platform in the center of town. You’d always do it on wednesdays and the sound of the trapdoors swinging open (and that little snapping sound that came after) would remind regular citizens not to speed or steal or cheat on their taxes. And you were happy with this rule until that really small child in 1995 suffocated in the rope after hanging there for 12 hours because they weren’t heavy enough to break their own neck. Residents got really upset about that incident, and a year later passed a law closing the gallows for good and insisting that the state could only kill offenders by lethal injection.

Mind you – not outlawing the death penalty. (The voters weren’t insane.) Just changing the tools the state could use to achieve it. And in fact, the gallows could still be used in severe cases if approved by the state.

Now let’s say, (and why not) that within a decade law enforcement was complaining that the number of criminals in the state had tripled, crime was on the rise, and that since it cost slightly more to inject someone than to hang someone poorer cities were less willing to apply the death penalty. Criminals, (they said) knowing they were less likely to die for their crime became bolder and were showing up on every street corner. How many more criminals you ask? No one actually knew, because no one actually counted, but every one agreed it was a LOT.

Meanwhile at the lethal injection factory, they were piling up dead bodies just the same as usual, and routinely going about their lethal business when asked (and paid) to do so. But sometimes when the technicians who administered the shot would flip on the news, they’d hear the entire state complaining in unison that the state had OUTLAWED the death penalty in 1996 and that no one could kill criminals anymore, and they’d scratch their heads in confusion. Didn’t lethal injection count? Wasn’t their work respected? Maybe folks should  change the rules back so that folks would hear that snapping sound on wednesdays and every one would know how hard they worked?

And thus it came to pass that the folks who should have known better lied about the crime rate, and the folks who knew they were lying helped them because they wanted their old job back and the reporters wrote everything down regardless of whether it was true, because that’s what they do.

Which brings us back to Massachusetts.

Beaver dams causing problems

Beavers have just one overwhelming drive: to stop flowing water, according to Robert Landry, Marlborough Board of Health administrator.  In towns like Holliston, Framingham, Natick, Hopkinton and Marlborough, an “explosion” of beavers is causing what animal-rights activists refer to as “human-beaver conflict,” Landry said.

 “It’s directly related to that Question 1 on ballot a few years ago that banned trapping. There’s been an explosion of beavers since then, and a marked decrease in trapped beavers that’s created an explosion in beaver population,” Cooper said.

 We’ve been here so many, many times before. Populations of beavers exploding! Mosquitoes and west nile virus on the rise! Beavers plugging up culverts and streams! And possibly chewing through internet cables! The lie-meters in the entire state must be off the charts.

The dams redirect water from rivers and streams into MetroWest backyards. In some cases, the beavers’ industry has dried up small ponds and at least one private well, area board of health officials say.

And we all know if there’s one thing those crazy beavers do, its dry up WELLS, for god’s sake. Mind you this three page expose isn’t content just not tell lies about beavers. They are committed to telling lies about Beaver Solutions too.

 As beaver populations grow and occupy more habitat, those water-flow devices (piping systems) will not remain functional over the areas beavers can occupy, McCallum said.

 Remember, the voters passed this law only 10 years before beavers came to Martinez. And Martinez made a unilateral decision not to kill them with crush traps or lethal injection or suffocate them with pillows. No extermination whatsoever. We decided to solve the problem instead of killing it. And we haven’t flooded, or died from west nile virus or had our wells dry up. Instead we had new fish new birds and new wildlife  and a healthier creek. We’ve had exactly half as much time as Massachusetts for our beaver population to explode and for our flow device to stop working: Our flow device still works and our population is 7.

If Massachusetts keeps this whining up they are going to have to change their nickname from the ‘bay state’ to the ‘baby state’.