Previous | Start | Next
28 February 2009
blind...
Blind Man and Dog...
A blind man is waiting to cross the street when his guide dog suddenly pisses on his foot.
He reaches into his pocket, and takes out a biscuit for the dog.
A pastor, who saw everything, remarks, "That's very tolerant of you, after what he just did."
"Not really," comes the reply from the blind man.
"I'm just finding out where his mouth is... so I can kick him in the nuts!"
*
27 February 2009
warning...
Canada issues Mexican travel warning...
CP - 21 Feb '09
By Jennifer Ditchburn, The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Things are getting ugly in parts of Mexico, and the federal government is warning Canadians not to get caught in the crossfire.
The Department of Foreign Affairs, Friday, updated its travel report on Mexico, in light of the bloody drug cartel wars that have thrown some cities into chaos.
It recommends Canadians "exercise a high degree of caution" when travelling to areas in northern Mexico, along the border with the United States.
Cities like Tijuana, and Ciudad Juarez, have become the frontline of a war between the government and increasingly powerful drug cartels.
Mexico tripled its military presence this week in Ciudad Juarez, where even the police chief and the mayor's family have left town.
"Armed clashes between security forces and drug groups are commonplace in certain areas, and could occur at any time without warning," the travel report reads.
"Travelers could get caught in the crossfire."
Last year, 20 per cent more Canadians traveled to Mexico than the year before, rising to 1.4 million people
But the cities in question are not generally where Canadians travel.
Snowbirds flock to the idyllic beaches of the Mayan Riviera, Puerto Vallarta, Hualtuco, and other resort towns.
None of those locations were singled out in the travel report, although Cabo San Lucas and Acapulco are located in states that were mentioned - Baja California and Guerrero.
"You can see, certainly the conventional tourist spots, the major tourist locations, don't have any more risk involved than at normal times," Peter Kent, Canada's junior foreign minister, said in an interview.
"But there are parts of Mexico off the beaten path . . . where there have been incidents lately, and they're itemized on the (departmental) website."
Kent called the advisory "really just a heads-up to remind folks there are situations in Mexico that can be risky, if not dangerous, and people should think before they get into certain situations, certain locations."
Brad Miron, vice-president of business development at itravel2000, said people have to be careful not to paint the entire country with the same brush.
He noted the troubles in Ciudad Juarez are thousands of kilometres away from the swaying palm trees of Cancun.
"I spend about three-and-a-half months a year in Mexico.
"The southern beach resorts are ... like anywhere in the world.
"You have to take your own precautions, you have to be aware of your surroundings and not let your guard down," said Miron.
"Mexico, on a per capita basis, is one of the safest places in the world to travel."
The U.S. State Department has gone further than Canada, issuing a travel alert.
It has told diplomatic staff to curtail all non-essential travel to Durango, and other hotspots.
It has also warned spring-breakers to keep their wits about them when traveling into volatile Mexican border towns.
"Ciudad Juarez, Tijuana, and Nogales are among the cities which have recently experienced public shootouts during daylight hours, in shopping centers and other public venues," says the State Department.
"Criminals have followed, and harassed, U.S. citizens traveling in their vehicles in border areas, including Nuevo Laredo, Matamoros, and Tijuana."
trained...
Toilet Cat...
My friend's cat is the kind that hardly ever uses his kitty litter.He just walks into the bathroom, sits on the toilet seat, does his business into the water, and yowls for someone to flush.
Sometimes in the middle of the night, his yowling wakes up the whole house, and someone has to flush the toilet.
Once, he was yowling so loud, the neighbors heard him all the way down the street!
Another time, a car drove by with the radio on so loud, dogs and cats began yowling, howling, and barking outrageously.
But it was very weird too.
The song on the radio was,"LET'S START A COMMOTION" - and it did!
*
Mini XXXVII...
*
Runes...
In casting your hand carved runes, you discovered a perfect stranger was about to enter your life.
While far from 'perfect' by anybody's definition, a stranger to you I was, indeed.
By the roadside, parched and bludgeoned I lay, while you salved my wounds, slaked my thirst.
Then your bindrune... body perfect... sealed my fate.
~2009 laughingwolf
...The correct link should read "Drakaina by Mike Ratera"
and point to http://drakaina.com/
***
surgery update...
greets from the great white north :)
eye surgery went well, able to see within about two hours
kinda staggered around a bit due to general anesthesiology, but managed not to fall over, though was touch and go for a bit
had to wait til son got off work to be driven home
surgeon sez he wants followup examination 8 - 10 weeks, to determine next steps
thank you for all the well wishes, they helped my speedy recovery, will be on meds for at least 3 - 4 weeks :D
eye surgery went well, able to see within about two hours
kinda staggered around a bit due to general anesthesiology, but managed not to fall over, though was touch and go for a bit
had to wait til son got off work to be driven home
surgeon sez he wants followup examination 8 - 10 weeks, to determine next steps
thank you for all the well wishes, they helped my speedy recovery, will be on meds for at least 3 - 4 weeks :D
26 February 2009
load of croc?
24 Feb '09
A crocodile observes at the water surface in the Florida's Everglades, near Miami, in this file photo from 02 February 2005. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Florida tests using magnets to repel crocodiles...
By Jane Sutton
MIAMI (Reuters) - Florida wildlife managers have launched an experiment to see if they can keep crocodiles from returning to residential neighborhoods by temporarily taping magnets to their heads to disrupt their "homing" ability.
Researchers at Mexico's Crocodile Museum in Chiapas reported in a biology newsletter they had some success with the method, using it to permanently relocate 20 of the reptiles since 2004.
"We said, 'Hey, we might as well give this a try," Lindsey Hord, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's crocodile response coordinator, said on Tuesday.
Crocodiles are notoriously territorial and when biologists move them from urban areas to new homes in the wild, they often go right back to the place where they were captured, traveling up to 10 miles a week to get there.
Scientists believe they rely in part on the Earth's magnetic fields to navigate, and taping magnets to both sides of their heads disorients them.
"They're just taped on temporarily," Hord said.
"We just put the magnets on when they're captured, and since they don't know where we take them, they're lost.
"The hope would be they stay where we take them to."
Hord and his co-workers have tried it on two crocodiles since launching the experiment in January, affixing "a common old laboratory magnet" to both sides of the animals' heads.
One got run over by a car and died, but the other has yet to return, Hord said.
Once an endangered species, American crocodiles' numbers have rebounded to nearly 2,000 in coastal south Florida, their only habitat in the continental United States.
That puts them in increasing contact with humans, especially in areas where backyards border on canals around Miami and the Florida Keys.
Crocodiles are still classified as a threatened species, so game managers are reluctant to move them to new areas where they might be killed battling other resident crocodiles for turf rights, Hord said.
Unlike alligators, which are far more numerous, each crocodile is considered important to preserving the species, he said.
"These crocodiles are unique and valuable creatures and we feel like we have a responsibility to live with these animals as much as we can," he said.
Many frightened residents don't share that view, although crocodiles are shy creatures, Hord said.
Wildlife managers will try to relocate any thought to pose a significant risk, mainly those that seem to have lost their fear of humans.
Most crocodiles in Florida are tagged as hatchlings so biologists can easily recognize them, Hord said.
Any that come back twice, after being captured and moved, are sent to zoos or otherwise placed in captivity, something biologists hope to avoid if the magnet experiment works.
"This one is by no means a really well-developed scientific study with a control group.
"It's just something we thought we would try," Hord said.
"We do have to make some room to live with them."
(Editing by Pascal Fletcher and Todd Eastham)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
tragedy... :'(
26 Feb '09
A mother puts booties on an infant.
An 11-day-old baby girl died after her mother unwittingly infected her with the virus which causes cold sores, probably through a kiss or breastfeeding, a coroner ruled Thursday. Photo:Robert Sullivan/AFP
Baby killed by mother's kiss: inquest...
LONDON (AFP) - An 11-day-old baby girl died after her mother unwittingly infected her with the virus which causes cold sores, probably through a kiss or breastfeeding, a coroner ruled Thursday.
An inquest found newborn, Jennifer Schofield, died from Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV).
Her mother Ruth, 35, probably caught it late into her pregnancy, the coroner said, most likely for the first time in her life, meaning she had not developed immunity, nor had her child.
The virus attacked the baby's major organs... and she died within days.
Schofield fell ill with flu-like symptoms a few days before giving birth, and was treated for several mouth ulcers.
Her daughter subsequently became unwell, and was admitted to hospital because she was sleepy and not feeding.
Coroner James Adeley said no one could be blamed for failing to identify the virus.
Schofield is now campaigning to raise awareness of the condition which she said kills six babies a year in Britain.
"I have been left totally devastated and heartbroken by the death of Jennifer.
"It's more than a year since she died, but the pain has not lessened," she said.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse.
All rights reserved
note to my pals...
saw eye surgeon today...
i go under the knife tomorrow, 27 feb, 9 am... need to be there by 7...
he wants do make minor cuts to muscles in both eyes
dunno when i'll be able to see enough to post again, so don't think i've abandoned anyone ;) lol
i'll post til around midnite, my time, tonite... if i have something :O
til i return after surgery, blessings to all
i go under the knife tomorrow, 27 feb, 9 am... need to be there by 7...
he wants do make minor cuts to muscles in both eyes
dunno when i'll be able to see enough to post again, so don't think i've abandoned anyone ;) lol
i'll post til around midnite, my time, tonite... if i have something :O
til i return after surgery, blessings to all
first sex?
25 Feb '09
An artist's impression of Austrophyllolepis, a flattened placoderm fish with large appendages on the pelvic fins used for mating. REUTERS/J. Long/Handout
Prehistoric fish pioneered sex...
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON (Reuters) - Sex has been a fact of life for at least 380 million years, longer than previously thought.
Internal fertilization was widespread among prehistoric fish living on ancient tropical coral reefs in the Devonian period, research published in the journal Nature on Wednesday showed.
The discovery sheds new light on the reproductive history of all jawed vertebrates, including humans.
"It shifts how we think about how reproduction evolved.
"You're a jawed vertebrate and I'm a jawed vertebrate, so this is our own history," said Zerina Johanson, a paleontologist at the Natural History Museum in London.
Johanson and colleagues in Australia, where the fossils were unearthed, deduced copulation was common among armored placoderms, extinct shark-like species, after finding embryos inside Materpiscis, Austroptyctodus, and Incisoscutum placoderms.
Finding fossil evidence of reproduction is rare, and experts initially missed the signs in the case of one specimen, where a tiny embryo was at first thought to be a last meal.
It was thought such ancient fish would show a more primitive type of reproduction, with sperm and eggs combining externally in the water, as still happens with many modern fish.
Adding to the evidence is the discovery of a modification in the pelvic fin on the belly of adult fish.
The scientists believe this was used by the male to grip the female during mating, as happens with modern sharks.
Placoderms, thought to be the oldest jawed vertebrates, were fearsome predators with bony armor covering their head and forming the biting surfaces of their jaws, which could act like self-sharpening scissors.
The biggest were as large as a great white shark.
(Editing by Louise Ireland)
Copyright © 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
Mini XXXVI...
*
Team...
You have been my constant companion since mama and my tiny siblings were trapped and butchered.
For the past three snows, your subtle magicks have healed my wounds, strengthened my body into the adult you see now... and hardened my resolve to wreak revenge.
Come sunrise, with your guidance, we will find... and destroy... them.
~2009 laughingwolf
...The correct link should read "Drakaina by Denis Lapierre",
and point to http://drakaina.com/
***
12-word novel VIII...
***
Heavy, wet snow.
Thousands without power.
February has been a crappy month.
**
only...
Crate of Chickens...
A farmer sent his nephew a crate of chickens, but the box burst open just as the boy started to take them out, and they all scattered.
The next day he wrote his uncle, "I chased them through my neighbor's yard, but only got back 23."
A farmer sent his nephew a crate of chickens, but the box burst open just as the boy started to take them out, and they all scattered.
The next day he wrote his uncle, "I chased them through my neighbor's yard, but only got back 23."
The uncle wrote back: "You did all right, boy!
"I only sent six."
25 February 2009
philip jose farmer, rip :(
Philip Jose Farmer Has Died...
Science fiction pioneer Philip Jose Farmer "passed away peacefully in his sleep", his website noted this morning.
The 91-year-old author was best-known for his Riverworld series, a surreal collection of books about a world where historical figures mingle on a watery planet.
Wikipedia counts six Hugo Award nominations for the author during his long career.
Here's more from the PJ Star: He was once quoted as saying that, particular in his early career, he had more fans in France, Italy, Germany, and Japan, than in the United States.
Even after he retired from writing, his fans continued to produce 'Farmerphile,' a magazine devoted to his life and works."
(Via Scalzi)
read this... [use mouse to hilite text]
Forensic Science - CSI Award
At the 1994 annual awards dinner given for Forensic Science, AAFS President Dr. Don Harper Mills astounded his audience with the legal complications of a bizarre death.
Here is the story:
On 23 March 1994 the medical examiner viewed the body of one Ronald Opus, and concluded he died from a shotgun wound to the head.
Opus had jumped from the top of a ten story building, intending to commit suicide.
He left a note to that effect, indicating his despondency.
As he fell past the ninth floor, his life was interrupted by a shotgun blast passing through a window, which killed him instantly.
Neither the shooter nor the descender was aware a safety net had been installed just below at the eighth floor level, to protect some building workers, and Ronald Opus would not have been able to complete his suicide the way he had planned.
"Ordinarily." Dr. Mills continued, "a person, who sets out to commit suicide, and ultimately succeeds, even though the mechanism might not be what he intended, is still defined as committing suicide."
That Opus was shot on the way to seeming certain death, but probably would not have been successful because of the safety net, caused the medical examiner to feel he had a homicide on his hands.
The room on the ninth floor, whence the shotgun blast emanated, was occupied by an elderly man and his wife.
They were arguing vigorously, and he was threatening her with the shotgun.
The man was so upset when he pulled the trigger, he completely missed his wife, and the pellets went through the window, striking Opus.
When one intends to kill subject A but kills subject B in the attempt, one is guilty of the second degree murder of subject B.
When confronted with the murder charge, the old man and his wife were both adamant.
They said they thought the shotgun was unloaded.
The old man said it was his long-standing habit to threaten his wife with the unloaded shotgun.
He had no intention to murder her.
Therefore, the killing of Opus appeared to be an accident; that is, the gun had been accidentally loaded.
The continuing investigation turned up a witness who saw the old couple's son loading the shotgun, about six weeks prior to the fatal accident.
It transpired the old lady had cut off her son's financial support, and the son, knowing the propensity of his father to use the shotgun threateningly, loaded the gun, with the expectation his father would shoot his mother.
The case now becomes one of murder, on the part of the son, for the death of Ronald Opus.
Here's the exquisite twist.
Further investigation revealed the son was, in fact, Ronald Opus.
He had become increasingly despondent over the failure of his attempt to engineer his mother's murder.
This led him to jump off the ten story building on 23 March, only to be killed by the shotgun blast passing through the ninth story window.
The son had, actually, murdered himself.
So the medical examiner closed the case... as suicide.
six-legged soldiers...
Six-Legged Soldiers...
Using Insects as Weapons of War
Description
The emir of Bukhara used assassin bugs to eat away the flesh of his prisoners.General Ishii Shiro, during World War II, released hundreds of millions of infected insects across China, ultimately causing more deaths than the atomic bombs dropped on Japan.
These are just two of many startling examples found in Six-legged Soldiers , a brilliant portrait of the many weirdly creative, truly frightening, and ultimately powerful ways, in which insects have been used as weapons of war, terror, and torture.
Beginning in prehistoric times and building toward a near and disturbing future, the reader is taken on a journey of innovation and depravity.
Award-winning science writer Jeffrey A. Lockwood begins with the development of "bee bombs" in the ancient world, and explores the role of insect-borne disease in changing the course of major battles, ranging from Napoleon's military campaigns to the trenches of World War I.
He explores the horrific programs of insect warfare during World War II: airplanes dropping plague-infested fleas; facilities rearing tens of millions of hungry beetles to destroy crops; and prison camps staffed by doctors testing disease-carrying lice... on inmates.
The Cold War saw secret government operations involving the mass release of specially developed strains of mosquitoes on an unsuspecting American public--along with the alleged use of disease-carrying and crop-eating pests against North Korea and Cuba.
Lockwood reveals how easy it would be to use of insects in warfare and terrorism today: In 1989, domestic ecoterrorists extorted government officials and wreaked economic and political havoc by threatening to release the notorious Medfly into California's crops.
A remarkable story of human ingenuity--and brutality--Six-Legged Soldiers is the first comprehensive look at the use of insects as weapons of war, from ancient times to the present day.
Reviews
"Six-Legged Soldiers is a fascinating account of the many ways scientists and military strategists have used insects to torture, starve, and kill targets."
--ScienceNews
"Six-Legged Soldiers is an excellent account of the affect arthropod-borne diseases have had on warfare...
"This book will inspire readers to understand...threats and prepare new methods to combat them."
--Nature , November 2008
"Both science and military history buffs will learn much from Lockwood, a self-described skeptic with a sense of humor."
--Publisher's Weekly, Oct. 2008
"An infectious, haunting read."
--The Financial Times
"Lockwood thoroughly and objectively assembles an engaging chronicle on a topic for which official documentation is often sparse and the opportunity for propaganda is rife."--Science News
About the Author(s)
Jeffrey A. Lockwood is Professor of Natural Sciences & Humanities at the University of Wyoming, where he teaches in the department of philosophy, and in the MFA program in creative writing.
An accomplished writer, his work has been included in the popular anthology Best American Science and Nature Writing , and he is winner of both a Pushcart Prize and the John Burroughs Award.
He is the author of Grasshopper Dreaming: Reflections on Killing and Loving and Locust: The Devastating Rise and Mysterious Disappearance of the Insect that Shaped the American Frontier .
geithner...
Cartoon by Mike Keefe
We have a great collection of cartoons called "Geithner's Goofy Plan" LOOK!
Check out Monte Wolverton's blog, Why So Grim, Tim? Why do you think Tim Geithner always looks so perplexed? Let us know what you think!
Trillions From Heaven?
by Deroy Murdock - Comment on the column
President Barack Obama would lose his quiet struggle against nicotine addiction if he dispatched the Secret Service to score him a carton of Camels.
So why is Obama fighting Washington's addiction to debt by...sinking Washington deeper into debt?
On Monday, Obama correctly criticized Republicans as the "folks who presided over a doubling of the national debt..."
Former President George W. Bush, largely in cahoots with GOP lawmakers, amassed $3.35 trillion in deficits from 2002-09.
This disgraceful legacy has crippled Republicans from coast to coast and relegated the party to fiscal therapy for the foreseeable future.
But rather than correct the GOP's recent debt-swelling ways, Obama is exacerbating this mess.
"Obama pledged to fix what he considers Republican governing errors, not double down on them," Heritage Foundation fiscal analyst Brian Riedl wrote Wednesday.
"Adding the 'stimulus' bill to a realistic budget baseline yields a projected 2010 -- 2017 cumulative budget deficit of $8.4 trillion - 2.5 times the size of President Bush's deficits over the equivalent eight-year time period."
The $789 billion Obama-Pelosi-Reid-Collins-Snowe-Specter spending blitz is a bargain, compared to the $2.25 trillion in fresh bailout funds Secretary Timothy Geithner unveiled in the Treasury's Cash Room, Tuesday.
fore and closure...
Cartoon by Nate Beeler
We have a great collection of cartoons called "Facing Foreclosure" LOOK!
It's Time To Treat America's HomeOwners As Well As We've Been Treating Wall Street's Bankers
by Arianna Huffington - Comment on the column
If you were to make a pie chart showing the amount of attention given to the banking part of the financial crisis -- both by the government and by the media -- and the amount of attention given to the foreclosure part, the catastrophe being faced by millions of American homeowners would barely rate a sliver.
But we are facing nothing less than a national emergency, with 10,000 Americans going into foreclosure every day, and 2.3 million homeowners having faced foreclosure proceedings in 2008.
When we put flesh and blood on these numbers, the suffering they represent is enormous, and so is the social disintegration they entail.
For a small sample, check out Brave New Foundation's new Website, Fighting For Our Homes, where you can see video of people doing just that.
People like Debra from Pennsylvania who, due to health-care costs, is facing foreclosure on her home of 33 years, or Penny from Texas, who has been pushed to the brink of homelessness as the result of costly repairs necessitated by Hurricane Ike.
"The banks are too big to fail" has been the mantra we've been hearing since September.
But when you consider the millions of American homeowners facing foreclosure, aren't they also too big to be allowed to fail?
Despite being treated as an afterthought, foreclosures are actually a gateway calamity: every foreclosure is a crisis that begets ...
outta the deeps...
24 Feb '09
Giant fish washes up on English coast...
LONDON (AFP) - A three-metre long oarfish was discovered by a man in Tynemouth, on Tuesday.
The perfectly-preserved oarfish, the longest species of bony fish, will be taken to a nearby aquarium where scientists will try to determine how it died.
Oarfish can measure up to eight metres in length, though there have been reports of individual oarfish measuring up to twice that, Blue Reef Aquarium staff said in a press release.
According to aquarium curator Zahra d'Aronville, Tuesday's find was only the fourth such specimen to have been recorded since 1981.
Oarfish are found throughout the deep seas of the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean, usually at a depth of 180 metres.
Their diet typically consists of plankton, small crustaceans, and small squid.
Copyright © 2009 Agence France Presse. All rights reserved
canines...
| Cartoon Canines | ||||
| ||||
sheep...
Blonde and Sheep
Once upon a time, a blonde became so sick of hearing stupid blonde jokes, she had her hair cut and dyed brown.
A few days later, as she was out driving around the countryside, she stopped her car to let a flock of sheep pass.
Admiring the cute wooly creatures, she said to the shepherd, "If I can guess how many sheep you have, can I keep one?"
The shepherd, a real gentleman, said, "Sure!"
The blonde thought for a moment and, for no discernible reason, said, "352."
This being the correct number, the shepherd was, understandably, totally amazed, and exclaimed, "You're right!
"O.K., I'll keep to my end of the deal.
"Take your pick of my flock."
The blonde carefully considered the entire flock, and finally picked the one by far cuter and more playful than any of the others.
When she was done, the shepherd turned to her and asked, "O.K., now I have a proposition for you.
"If I can guess your true hair color... can I have my dog back?"
***
dawg... [sorry folks, messed up :( ]
The Deputy Dawg Show, the story of an amiable but dim-witted Southern lawman, showed up in syndication in 1960.
Deputy Dawg, created by Larz Bourne, attempted to uphold law and order in Mississippi, while being constantly opposed by a supporting cast of animals.
The cast included Vincent 'Vince' Van Gopher, Ty Coon the Raccoon, Muskie the Muskrat, and Pig Newton.
Mini XXXV...
***
Li'l Red... wednesday
I usually don't bother with the late night/early morning talent at Tiana's Taverna, but when I heard that husky, smoke-and-whisky cured voice belt out some Bessie Smith favorites, I perked up and had to see her for myself.
She ended with another classic, "I wanna be loved by you".
I did a triple take!
~2009 laughingwolf
*****
24 February 2009
...Red-tailed Hawk 
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
