*insert pic of Kramer pirating lobsters here*

They just gotta stop being so crabby about lobsters in Maine.

They take their crabs seriously in Maryland. They itch.

It sounds like the victims brought this on themselves, for farks sake what happened to judges who knew when to throw cases out?

Mmmm... ocean roach.

FTA: Vance Bunker, 68, who also has a home in a Owls Head.
/weird.

Vance Bunker is my gay porn name.

/obligatory

LaserShark: It sounds like the victims brought this on themselves, for farks sake what happened to judges who knew when to throw cases out?

It's hard to put blame on either party after reading the article, but it seems that if the defendants weren't such cowards, a gun would never have been involved. It doesn't seem as though physical harm was ever threatened, but I can see how two cowards would interpret the situation that way.

It surely wasn't the victims fault for being rude as rudeness doesn't constitute a threat of physical harm, but the agoraphobic witnesses can't really be blamed either as their mental fragility caused them to be unreasonably frightened of a benign situation.

Where is the lobster rage fists!!!

jxb465: LaserShark: It sounds like the victims brought this on themselves, for farks sake what happened to judges who knew when to throw cases out?

It's hard to put blame on either party after reading the article, but it seems that if the defendants weren't such cowards, a gun would never have been involved. It doesn't seem as though physical harm was ever threatened, but I can see how two cowards would interpret the situation that way.

It surely wasn't the victims fault for being rude as rudeness doesn't constitute a threat of physical harm, but the agoraphobic witnesses can't really be blamed either as their mental fragility caused them to be unreasonably frightened of a benign situation.

I would like to see more medium-speed lobster boat chases on COPS.

is Matinicus near Castlerock?

So....they called the victim and told him "Come to the dock, we got somethin' for ya!" and ended up shooting him, at the dock, and this isn't suspicious? Okay. I guess "attempted murder" isn't in their vocabulary, or did I read this wrong? The article does a really shiatty job of actually explaining what happened.

Barakku: So....they called the victim and told him "Come to the dock, we got somethin' for ya!" and ended up shooting him, at the dock, and this isn't suspicious? Okay. I guess "attempted murder" isn't in their vocabulary, or did I read this wrong? The article does a really shiatty job of actually explaining what happened.

Reading comprehension is tough -- it was the "victim" who told the defendant to "Come to the dock, we got somethin' for ya!"

So the defendant brought heat. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

/okay so that wasn't entirely fair, the article is a piece of shiat and sounds like it was written by a 10th grade journalism student

Ahuh, the lobstah business is serious around these pahts, mistah man. But flatlandahs like you wouldn't undahstand that.

Left claw North.

Whenever you dive in New England waters they tell you not to mess with the Lobster Traps or the Lobstermen absolutely will shoot you.

The boat captains are very serious about this.

Barakku: So....they called the victim and told him "Come to the dock, we got somethin' for ya!" and ended up shooting him, at the dock, and this isn't suspicious? Okay. I guess "attempted murder" isn't in their vocabulary, or did I read this wrong? The article does a really shiatty job of actually explaining what happened.

Ah, the wonderful world of the Bangor Deadly News. Most of their stories are written back-to-front like that.

Years ago there were three car accidents in different parts of town on the same day, so they wrapped them into one awesome, tangled-up story about the misadventures of a BDN reporter wandering around, asking a kid up in a tree if he had seen an accident, at one point hearing a "noise like a goat", and later discovering "some kind of animal" penned nearby.

About ten years ago they ran a front page story about Nixon's CREEP giving secret campaign contributions to Shirley Chisholm. I guess they'd just found out about it.

Ahuy, we sure do!

Ya don't fark with anotha lobstaman's traps.

I actually find them easygoing, in the Maine.

Waiter, this lobster only has one claw.

It must have been fighting with another lobster in the tank.

Then take it back and bring me the winner.

Are they sure it wasn't a claw shrimp?

Bangor Daily? I'm willing if she is.

The Furry Lobster

The "old furry lobster" as illustrated in the book.In one section of The Areas of My Expertise, "A Brief Time Line of the Lobster in America," Hodgman explains that lobsters as we know them today were not introduced to Maine until the turn of the century, after Theodore Roosevelt built a secret canal from lobster-ridden New York City to the coast of Maine. Before that time, writes Hodgman, an entirely different animal - particularly "a kind of sea otter" - was known in Maine as the "lobster" (the photo of a European otter at right is included with the caption "Figure 11: The Lobster"). The new lobster threatened the existence of the "Old Lobster," the last of which died in 1980, in the kitchen of a Furry Old Lobster restaurant (which itself is part of a conglomeration owned by [new] lobsters).

T.M.S.: Whenever you dive in New England waters they tell you not to mess with the Lobster Traps or the Lobstermen absolutely will shoot you.

The boat captains are very serious about this.

I spent the summer as an intern just a few miles from where the shooting happened.
Messing with normal traps is dangerous, but these guys live on their own isolated island with a purely lobster based economy.
They are not to be farked with. Ever.

As a Mainer, I thought this should have gotten the Obvious tag...

ME-iac: Ya don't fark with anotha lobstaman's traps.

I don't believe anybody was farking with anybody's traps. I think that's just the standard hue and cry when a non-local moves into your territory, simply because trap-tampering is actually illegal.

FTFA:
the tradition that allows only people who own property and vote on the island to fish in Matinicus water. State law allows fishermen to work in zones where they are licensed to fish.


All you have here is a hillbilly turf war. Maybe the problem is there are getting to be more lobstermen than lobsters.

Gunz_drawn: FTA: Vance Bunker, 68, who also has a home in a Owls Head.
/weird.

EVERY time they refer to Bunker in the articles about this (and there have been many), he's introduced in the story as "Vance Bunker, 68, who also has a home in Owls Head".

I think the reporter at BDN was really intrigued by this concept of multiple home ownership, and can't help but call attention to it at each storied opportunity.

Either that, or they're trying to distinguish him from another 68 year old Vance Bunker who lives on Matinicus Island...

dholway: Bangor? I hardly even lobster!

I once had sex with a crusty Asian.

/not really

Throw in the Patrick Swayze Express and Phil Collens, and this sounds like a season finale of the Trailer Park Boys.

As a life-long Southerner, I'd like to thank all parties involved in this wicked pissah lobstah brawl for again showing that redncks are not a geographical phenomenon particular to the sunny side of the Mason and Dixon.

Also, anyone caught poaching my fried chicken traps will be browbeaten and forced to watch the director's cut of Steel Magnolias with the DVD commentary by Paula Deen turned ON.

demanton: A
Also, anyone caught poaching my fried chicken traps will be browbeaten and forced to watch the director's cut of Steel Magnolias with the DVD commentary by Paula Deen turned ON.

The horror...the horror...

They take lobster seriously up in down Maine.

Theah, fixed thot fow yuh.

knifeyspoony: They take lobster seriously up in down Maine.

Theah, fixed thot fow yuh.

ayup

I HAVE BEEN TO MATINICUS...the farking island is only 2 x 1 miles across.

/Probably the only black man to set foot there ever.

Got there sitting in the front seat of a Cessna with the pilot, landed on a runway that couldn't have been more than 350ft. long.

/decent story, bro.

Gwynplaine: Where is the lobster rage fists!!!

I guess if you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself.

LordPomposity: Gwynplaine: Where is the lobster rage fists!!!

I guess if you want anything done right, you have to do it yourself.

Or wait around all day till someone does it for you!

/works for me

Pepperidge Farms remembahs (new window)...

I remember this! I was actually up in Hancock for the summer, and I remember hearing incessant debate about this issue on the local volunteer public radio station.

/Good times
//GREAT BEER!!!

I got crabs

Farknuck: I HAVE BEEN TO MATINICUS...the farking island is only 2 x 1 miles across.

/Probably the only black man to set foot there ever.

Or the only one who lived to tell the tale. Matinicus sounds like a redneck stronghold from the article.

Don't bring a gun to a fight unless you want to shoot somebody.

Because that's what's going to happen.

/the pepper spray was a better way to go.

Hongcouver: Farknuck: I HAVE BEEN TO MATINICUS...the farking island is only 2 x 1 miles across.

/Probably the only black man to set foot there ever.

Or the only one who lived to tell the tale. Matinicus sounds like a redneck stronghold from the article.

Eh, since it's only accessible by boat or small plane, the only inhabitants are a couple of rich-ass families who bought houses there (like my old friend who I visited with), or your old-ass lobster fishermen who generally keep to themselves.

Truth be told, I was there for 7 days...might have seen TWO other people besides my group of 4 who were there.

/It works best if you hum the ancient battle music from Star Trek.
//Da-da-da-dadaaa....