When Fishing Poles Are Outlawed, Only Outlaws Will Have Fishing Poles. (UPDATED)

Charlie Foxtrot has a post up about this article, in which the author claims that Team Hopenchange and their extremist allies in the environmental lobby concerned friends at Big Environment want to get control of, regulate, and perhaps eliminate, private angling.

I read the report in question, and while it says nothing specific like "ban cane poles" or "make bass boats illegal", there is enough holistic Lefty government boilerplate in there to give one pause. Generic and undefined feel-good phrases - "restore the health and biological diversity", "establish and implement an integrated ecosystem protection", and "implementing sustainable practices" - have been used to before by activists to claim open-ended authority to implement their extreme measures. And considering Big Enviro hates angling almost as much as it does hunting, well...

Charlie Foxtrot did come up with the best hook (and line and sinker! - ed.) to clarify the issue:

"Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you might get him arrested."

UPDATE: I mean, what kind of sick, depraved bureaucrat would want to ban this?