perfidy

Deutsche Welle's picture of the day for 25JUN:

Am Mittwoch (25.06.2008) wurden in Kerbela, 80 Kilometer von Bagdad entfernt, 115 weibliche Polizisten in ihren Dienst entlassen. Sie hatten in der irakischen Stadt die Polizei-Akademie besucht.

On Wednesday in Karbala, 80 kilometers from Baghdad, 115 female police officers left for their service. They attended the Iraqi city's police academy.

[wik] Dig it- Murdoc found another pic from what might be the same activity. Not sure whether the chador/burqa is ideal field gear, but they seem to have it together in the weaponry department.

AKs and Glocks- like peanut butter and chocolate.

Ha ha that title ought to pull in some perv traffic from Google.

But no really, I saw a big snake today. I'm out with the Li'lest Lethal who, while strictly speaking is no longer sick, he can't go back to school until he's 24 hours fever-free. Since he's feeling himself and it's a gorgeous day out, and he's been up since 5 waiting to do something, around 10 I took him to a nearby conservation area a coupla towns over.

Now Johno and Mrs. Johno suffered one portion of that property, a largish hill (elev ~1250 ft) that we made them ascend one hot and stuffy summer day. You might have thought that when we got to the top, where a chill rain was feeding the blustery wind tearing at the bald top of the hill it might have been a little relief from the relentless sun and heat, but no not really. Just cold. And wet. Oh, and I made Johno pull a Radio Flyer about halfway up too, over the rockiest, most jagged bits.

Where was I going with this?

Oh right, I said that next time we'll do a circuit of the pond about a mile away from the hill. It's easy, no surprisingly miserable local weather patterns, and it's all very Thoreau-ly pleasant. Ha. Ha. Ha.

'Cept for the snakes.

To be fair, it didn't try to bite myself or my boy. We were well off the trail, skirting the edge of the pond. We were gently and cautiously squelching our way along the moss and plants where the water just starts to creep up the fairly steep and rocky slope that describes the whole southern end of the pond.

We had already spooked a few big frogs who had hurled themselves into the water with a screeching "meep!" at our approach, but the Lesser Lethal hadn't actually seen them. I wanted him to see some though, so we kept going. It didn't help that, being not yet 3 years old, my boy finds it impossible to stay silent for more than 3 or 4 consecutive seconds.

When there was a burst of motion from the clump of fern immediately to my right; a bit of black lightning shot from it, straight across where I was about to step, and into the water: thrush rush splash.

From what I could see it was black all down its length, roughly 30", and probably no thicker than half my wrist. And that's about all I got from the encounter. Oh, and that it was frigging fast. Made no effort to warn or fight; went straight into escape mode, and apparently safety to this snake means getting in the water.

I'm thinking it was a Black Racer:

or a Black Rat Snake:

[wik] And I think it goes without saying that, had that been a zombie, we'd'a both been dead. Eh, undead. I'm trying to treat it as a lesson learned, but am still feeling like I failed. Gotta be way more alert and aware than that when the zombies come.

George Carlin, dead at 71.  I never looked at my possessions the same way after hearing his bit on "stuff."  Carlin made high-quality, well-appointed and sturdy mental furniture, and never failed being fucking hilarious.

[wik] And here is a quote from Carlin that is, sadly, apropos.

As the capitol of Connecticut, one might be forgiven for associating Hartford with the caricatures of liberalism: lattes, chardonnay, fundraisers at the Bushnell, and a city teeming with bleeding hearts.

That population moved out to tony West Hartford a generation ago.

The only bleeding heart left within Hartford's city limits yesterday afternoon belonged to the 78 year old man who was paralyzed in a hit and run in full view of numerous witnesses who continued to go about their business. The link to today's Hartford Courant includes video of the accident and the Chief of the HPD's remark that it's "unclear" whether anyone even called 911; the unit that arrives on scene at the end of the video was actually on its way to a different call and happened upon the guy laying (nearly) dead in the middle of the street.

Aside from the Chief's uncharacteristically candid observations came this astonishingly callous remark from Hartford City Councilman Matt Ritter:

"It's been a tough few days...Most violent acts, the vast majority tend to be targeted, as the chief will tell you, at someone who was up to no good. Then this happens, this spate of incidents where it's random, and that's scary."

What Councilman Ritter has failed to grasp is that when the people who are up to no good are trying to off each other, their horrendous marksmanship makes for stray bullets killing everybody around the target, be they thugs, people sleeping in their beds or kids playing outside. More significantly, folks' first reponse to small arms fire in the street is not typically, "Good! Finally! More gangbangers offing each other. Thank God."

It's not ok, Councilman, to have to live with rampant violence, whomever it may be directed toward.

Some other news of the day from New England's Rising Star Scar:

Man Killed in Drive-By Shooting in Hartford

Hartford Chase Results in One Death

Activist Faces Brain Surgery After Beating

Hartford Toddler Dies of Stab Wound

And in recent news, most of it in the domain of standing headlines:

2 Men Wounded In Shootings

Hartford Police Investigate Shootings

Two Held in Hartford Robberies, Shootings

That's all just since the end of May; summer hasn't even started yet.

The Ministry was seemingly contacted by Bill Murray last fall at a crisis moment.

Expressed as a dream manifestation, the message- a plea for help from Murray- should have come via the Ministry Dreamgate Terminus at Muscle Shoals but appears to have been shunted to the south Asian substation in Karachi for reasons unexplained at this time. There it languished for several seconds before redirection to Byzantium Prime, Domnu-West, and Lytani, and finally going unflitered straight into my cerebral receiver. Had the communication been routed normally through MDT Muscle Shoals, I might have been able to decode, interpret, and react to it properly. As things stand, the misdirection allowed it to become garbled and the message was lost, nested in imagery of golfcarts and college reunions.

A shame, really, because it was the first oppoprtunity to deploy the Ministry's newly-formed Bill Murray High-Energy Reaction/Interdiction Team, formed for just such an emergency.

I've already tasked the Directors of the dreamgates in question to investigate the ethereal messaging in the relevant timeframe. Ministers or minions who have ideas about how this could have happened are asked to comment below.

End communication.

It provides a reminder that might be valuable to see more often than once every three years:

Will I Be 80

I recently turned 65 and had to choose a new primary care physician for my Medicare program. After two visits and exhaustive lab tests, he said I was doing "fairly well" for my age.

A little concerned about that comment, I couldn't resist asking him "Do you think I will live to be 80?"

He asked: Do you smoke tobacco or drink alcoholic beverages?"

"Oh no," I replied. "I don't do drugs, either."

"Do you have many friends and entertain frequently?"

"I said, "No, I usually stay home and keep to myself".

"Do you eat rib-eye steaks and barbecued ribs?"

I said, "No, my other doctor said that all red meat is unhealthy!"

"Do you spend a lot of time in the sun, like playing golf, sailing, hiking, or bicycling?"

"No, I don't," I said.

"Do you gamble, drive fast cars, or have a lot of sex?"

"No," I said. "I don't do any of those things."

He looked at me and said, "Then why do you give a shit?

The Onion reports:
Nation's Poorest 1% Now Controls Two-Thirds Of U.S. Soda Can Wealth

Related

Lately I've been thinking about how I might best avoid the Tyrannosaurus Rex in the event I went back in time 70-odd million years, either by design (time machine) or by accident (CERN's accelerator warping spacetime and hurling me back to the Cretaceous).

Howevermuch 12 gauge ammo you might have managed to bring with you will not be enough. The male T rex was 40+ feet long and every ounce of five tons; females even bigger. It would be like trying to kill a whale with a shotgun- I suppose you could do it, eventually. But imagine that the whale is not trying desperately to get away from you, but is instead bent on pursuing you until you are food. What are you going to do with your shotgun then? Look, when we're talking zombies, shooting your way out can be a valid option. When we're talking about dinosaur survival, I don't think firearms are the way to go.

So now what?

My thinking so far is that an animal as massive as a T rex must have had a similarly massive range. It is not hard to imagine a box 20km on a side, for example, that would encompass enough prey animals to sustain the beast. So that's something right there- you try to be the needle in this haystack, and that's really the natrual instinct of tiny mammals isn't it? Avoid. Hide. Dig. Burrow. Interesting that that's my initial thinking as well. This may be optimistic, but I don't think predators that size would be so hard to stay away from. A critical first step would be in indentifying what T rex liked to eat, and then staying the f*ck away from that.

Another bit that would have to be resolved quickly is understanding their mating habits. When they are in rut or pregnant appetites might be ravenous, even by dinosaur standards, bringing them into areas they may not typically go in their search for food. Similarly, we need to recognize possible nesting habitats, and stay out of those.

The success of the avoidance plan hinges on the things being solitary, and there's no way to be sure until you get there. It's possible they could operate as a team, or at least tolerate other individuals in close proximity at certain times of the year or under certain environmental conditions, the way crocodiles can. If that's the case, and you're hiding not from one scary monster but several, that's a more complex problem that I am not prepared to address at this time.

Bumwines, for your drinking pleasure