Death Watch

Gateway Pundit has great presentation of something I’ve long suspected, but haven’t known for sure: that the casualties (meaning deaths) in Iraq have actually decreased after the Iraq war, as compared with Saddam’s period of rule — despite the insurgency and all the best efforts of al Zarqari. Well, the Gateway Pundit has researched the numbers and presented them in an easy-to-digest graph (at right, click to enlarge). As the Gateway Pundit says:

The red area in the graph below shows the estimated average deaths in Iraq under Saddam Hussein from 36 average deaths per day from mass grave discoveries, to 137 deaths per day. Saddam may have murdered up to 5% of the Iraqi population during his 20 years of rule.

The yellow area shows estimated total fatalities since the beginning of the War in Iraq from Iraq Body Count, an antiwar website. Yet, still with questionable tallies of death counts, the War in Iraq is definitely saving lives.

Go read the post to see the sources for yourself…

RIP, Luna

Mark (whom I know only through his blog) and I don’t share religious convictions, but we do share a love for our pets. Mark’s dog, Luna, was euthanized yesterday — and Mark is grieving, and he’s angry. He concludes with this:

Let them be damned who live to make fun of innocence, purity, and simplicity. They have cursed themselves, but oh, how I often wish they would feel it.

God, how I loved that dog.

Oh, yes, indeed. Mark’s wish is mine as well.

RIP, Luna. Your master’s grief and anger speak volumes of you…

Tip o' the hat to the Junkyard Blog…

Bolton Bashing

Not so very long ago, there was much gnashing of teeth and wailing from the liberal part of the world, faithfully (and loudly) reported by their MSM lapdogs. The cause of the angst? George W.'s recess appointment of “Bully Boy” Bolton to be the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.

Well, now Ambassador Bolton has been there for a while. Last I heard, the U.N. headquarters is still standing (darn it!), and relatively few delegations have committed suicide (I was really hoping to see the North Koreans and Libyans stage something dramatic like that). So this makes me wonder — just what is Bully Boy up to, anyhow? Is he having any effect at all?

From Investor’s Business Daily, Bolton Comes Out Swinging:

Clearly, recent developments have made Annan testy. The biggest factor more than likely was the sight of Bolton checking off the top items on his agenda. Bolton created an international stir — marked by the European Union’s formal opposition — when he threatened to block the body’s 2006-07 budget unless the U.N. commenced serious self-reform.

Last week: a successful start. The 191-member General Assembly approved a resolution for a two-year, $3.8 billion administrative budget. Attached to the resolution was a spending cap at $950 million, enough for the first half of next year. Look for Annan in June to request more money to pay U.N. personnel.

Some countries — among them Egypt, India and Jamaica — deny the emergency budget was tied to any reforms. But Bolton, calling the vote a victory for the U.S., said the resolution implies the General Assembly must approve, according to Reuters, “a new human rights body, new international accounting standards, a review of programs older than five years and a stronger internal watchdog office."

Remind us: Just why did the Democrats oppose this guy?

Ah ha! Bully Boy has put strict limits on their allowance!

Well, maybe not so strict — $950M sounds like a lot of pocket change. But it’s a terrific start, though it doesn’t inflict near the bureaucratic pain that I’d like to see inflicted. Yup, I’m 100% for bureaucratic torture: elimination of third-world rape privileges, reduction of Mercedes budgets, and even (gasp) making “diplomats” responsible for their crimes (yes, that means parking tickets, too).

But I’ll take caps on the allowance as a start…

Democratic Color

Remember the “Aunt Jemima” jeers by so many Democrats (and not just Deaniacs, either)? Those were very troubling to me, especially as they were just one example of a pattern: any black in a prominent conservative, libertarian, or Republican (especially!) position is routinely subjected to this treatment.

The latest example is one I just heard about this morning, thanks to an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. It’s by Ted Hayes — a Southern California legend, a tireless and effective activist for the homeless, lauded far and wide. Ted happens to be black. And he happens to be a conservative Republican, and a strong supporter of George W. Bush. He had this to say in this morning’s paper:

From the WSJ’s "Prejudice” ($), by Ted Hayes:

American blacks who are affiliated with the Republican Party are vigorously vilified by Democrats, especially black Democrats. Uncle Tom, sell-out, Oreo — the list of slurs is long.

But it is not only insults. I am the founder and director of a unique, progressive homeless facility in downtown Los Angeles, known as the Dome Village. Yet the 35 men, women and children and their pets who call the Dome Village home are being “evicted” from privately owned property after 12-and-a-half years — apparently on account of my political beliefs and activities. You see, though I am a leading homeless activist, I am also a conservative Republican and a strong supporter of President Bush.

Here’s how the situation played out. Recently, I was invited to address a local Republican Women’s Club; my landlord read an article in the local paper reporting on the event. Soon after, I received a notice raising the Dome Village rent from $2,500 a month to $18,330. Shocked, I inquired as to the seriousness of the change and the property owner blurted out that the cause of our “eviction” was “because you are Republican.” He said that as a Democrat, he was tired of helping me and the Dome Village. In other words, let the homeless be damned.

And people think the Democrats are the party of compassion and tolerance.

Ted goes on to give examples, including the example I cited of Condoleeza Rice. Then he issues a call to action:

These conservatives are attacked not because of the validity or judicious consideration of their views but because those views are supposedly heterodox for American blacks. Yet it is my opinion that many black people in the U.S. are politically and philosophically conservative — and many are in fact actually closeted Republicans, fearful of persecution by friends, business associates, society clubs, school mates and even churches.

It is time for American blacks to have a conversation about the phenomenon of Democrats persecuting black Republicans. Why is this happening? What is it that the Democrats don’t want black folks to understand about Republicans? What is it that the Democrats don’t want black folks to know about Democrats? And how is it that we have come to this point — after having endured so much — where we have ourselves curtailed the freedom of political expression through the threat of retaliatory consequences?

"What is it that the Democrats don’t want black folks to understand about the Republicans?” Interesting question, that.

I’d like to see Ted lead that national conversation, and I hope he succeeds in provoking its beginning…

More Maka Le'a

Maka Le’a is growing quickly — I think he’s nearly doubled in weight in the past couple of weeks. And he’s plainly getting stronger and more confident, even starting to climb our cat trees just a little. He climbed a short way up this tree a few times yesterday, making up perhaps three feet off the ground to the first platform, and falling off partway up on most attempts. It’s a good thing the bottom of the tree is nicely padded! Of course he’s in that stage of kittenhood where he plays at being the mighty hunter with anything that moves (and even a number of things that don’t!). His claws and teeth are gradually getting more effectve — and the rawness of my hands is growing progressivly worse! Another few days and I think he will start drawing blood; another couple of weeks and he’ll be taking pieces of meat from me…

Maka Lea got a whole bag of toys for Christmas, including this little stuffed mouse (blue with red ears — what was the designer drinking?). For some reason, he’s taken to sleeping with this little stuffed mouse, making for a very good photo opportunity…

New Citizens

Meet Vera and Konstantin Stankevich — two of the newest American citizens. Their history is almost unimaginable to most Americans: growing up in the Soviet Union, then participating in the Estonian independence movement and living there for ten years as Estonia shed its Soviet experience, and finally living in the U.S. for six years until they could get their citizenship. Their story is an inspiring one, especially when you get the chance to learn some of the details. It gave us great pleasure to raise a toast to these fine new citizens…

Today they live in Lake Forest, about 120 miles from our home. We invited them down to see us, and yesterday they did so (after some driving adventures trying to find us!). We spent a very pleasant afternoon swapping stories, sharing some laughs, introducing them to those members of our menagarie that weren’t hiding, consuming intoxicating beverages and food, and even taking a short walk through through the hills around us. Konstantin instantly found a new “best friend” with Mo’i (our male field spaniel), and Vera was able to easily win over Lea, our normally very shy female field spaniel. Jim Barnick (our friend and neighbor) joined us, and afterwards commented on what very, very nice people they were. As indeed they are!

Konstantin is an avid photographer, and he took a lot of photos during their visit. They sent us a collection of those photos last night, and it was a lot of fun for us to see ourselves through someone else’s “eyes”. We weren’t surprised to see that Mo’i and Lea were in the limelight a lot — but we were a little surprised (and very amused!) to see a fine portrait of my little Kubota tractor in the collection!

Vera was a little worried about all the fierce wild animals that we have out here, but she went for a walk with us anyway. I’m sure the fact that we had five people and two dogs along helped considerably. We met a rather small woman walking alone, which struck Vera as impossibly brave. I’m not sure Vera entirely believed us when we said such things were commonly seen <smile>…

Debbie and Vera are making plans to meet when Debbie is up her way for an agility show. I’ll bet Vera would enjoy watching one of those shows. And we’re hoping to see them down here in the springtime, for desert flowers and the green growing season, so we can show them the high desert at its best.

Ah, we had such a good time!

Earthrise

Christmas, 37 years ago: I was 16, and I was more than usually excited about the holiday. Since the launch four days earlier (on December 21), I had been avidly following all the available news on the Apollo 8 mission, with astronauts Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr., and William A. Anders. I could hardly believe that I was living through a time when men were actually travelling away from Earth. What a moment in history!

It’s probably difficult for many people — especially those not old enough to remember those days — to imagine just how daring and amazing Apollo 8 was. No human had ever ventured more than a few hundred miles from the surface of the Earth before, and now these three were going about a quarter Bomillion miles away! I was also afraid for them, even with my then very lightweight understanding of just how risky that voyage was. The astronauts had a good ship, the best that we could give them — but our technology was far less capable then than it is today. Looking back, across decades of technological improvement and my own greater understanding of engineering, I am even more amazed at the audacity of this mission. Those were three very brave men…

From Apollo 8 Man Around the Moon, part of the online Apollo 8 Journal:

It was Christmas time, 1968, when man broke his bonds to Earth. Three Americans, Frank Borman, James A. Lovell Jr., and William A. Anders, guided their Apollo 8 spacecraft across nearly a quarter-million miles of black void, out of the grasp of Earth, into orbit around the Moon, and back once more to a chosen pinpoint on their home planet.

Never before had man traveled so far, so fast or looked so closely upon another celestial body. Never before had so many millions listened and watched, their imaginations stretched, as the explorers spoke across the emptiness. Never, indeed, had adventure ever borne all mankind so daringly near the boundaries of its aspirations.

What the astronauts saw of the Moon, from 70 miles above that foreboding surface, can now be seen by all and studied by scientists in the array of still and motion pictures, many of them in color, taken from Apollo 8. What the astronauts succeeded in proving about the reliability of the spacecraft and its rocket vehicle confirmed that some day soon men will actually set foot upon the Moon.

It was the first time that men had been launched into space by the Saturn V, America’s most powerful machine. It was the first time, too, that men had sped at nearly 25,000 miles an hour, as Apollo 8 hurled itself from orbit of the Earth and into flight toward the Moon.

Each time Astronauts Borman, Lovell, and Anders vanished behind the far side of the Moon they lost all contact with the Earth for 45 minutes on each of the 10 orbits. During the first long silence the black void crackled with tension until Mission Control in Houston reported, “We’ve got it! Apollo 8 is in lunar orbit."

"Good to hear your voice,” said Astronaut Lovell.

On the Eve of Christmas, as the eyes of the world followed Apollo 8 across the moonscape, the astronauts invoked another, older voice, reading in turn the first ten verses of Genesis, the Story of Creation. Its conclusion, “…and God saw that it was good” echoed in Astronaut Borman’s words as again Apollo 8 headed into the silent, tantalizing absence of earthly communications:

"God bless all of you — all of you on the good Earth."

The famous image at above right, along with the astronauts' recitations described above, are what most people remember about Apollo 8 (if they remember it at all). While we could hear the reading of Genesis in realtime, the picture at right wasn’t available until months after the mission — for it was taken on plain old-fashioned silver halide film, with a Hasselblad 70mm camera. There was no such thing, back then, as “digital cameras” — and absolutely no way to get a high resolution image like this back to Earth across the void between the Moon and the Earth. No, we had to wait until Borman, Lovell, and Anders carried that film back home…

Just 7 months and three Apollow missions later, in July 1968, Apollo 11 landed on the moon. Those were heady times for anyone interested in the space program. We felt like we were living in a science fiction novel…

As usual, click on the picture at right for a (much) larger version…

Maka Le'a

Maka Le’a is Hawai’ian for twinkly-eyed, mischevous — a fitting name for this little fellow who has adopted us. He was born just a few weeks ago, and he’s had a tough start — motherless (for reasons we don’t know), rescued by Jo Beaty (our vet) and bottle-fed, then taken seriously ill — twice. The second bout with the illness left him with some neurological problems that mostly affect his movements; he looks like he’s always just a little bit dizzy, and his rear quarters never seem to obey. We don’t know if his condition will get worse or better.

But we do know a good attitude when we see one, and Maka Le’a has that in abundance. He’s completely fearless — swats our dogs around without hesitation, and pounces on their paws or tails with complete abandon. When he’s wandering the livingroom floor, Lea and Mo’i (our two field spaniels) usually retreat to the couch, where Maka Le’a can’t get to them. Yet. My hands are all rough and chapped-looking right now, all from Maka Le’a’s “attacks”. He loves to chase things, just like any kitten, and he just refuses to let his handicap stop him. One of the consequences of his condition is that his pounces are usually off-target — sometimes by 6” or more. He seems not to care; he just gets up and tries again…

Click on any of the pictures for a larger view…

M31

Wow! That’s all I can say about this image!

When I was a kid, a grainy and coarse black & white image of M31 was considered extraordinary. Now not so very many years later, just look at what our scientists and engineers can do!

From APOD:

The most distant object easily visible to the unaided eye is M31, the great Andromeda Galaxy some two million light-years away. But without a telescope, even this immense spiral galaxy - spanning over 200,000 light years - appears as a faint, nebulous cloud in the constellation Andromeda. In contrast, a bright yellow nucleus, dark winding dust lanes, gorgeous blue spiral arms and star clusters are recorded in this stunning telescopic digital mosaic with a cumulative exposure of over 90 hours. While even casual skygazers are now inspired by the knowledge that there are many distant galaxies like M31, astronomers seriously debated this fundamental concept only 80 years ago. Were these “spiral nebulae” simply outlying components of our own Milky Way Galaxy or were they instead “island universes” — distant systems of stars comparable to the Milky Way itself? This question was central to the famous Shapley-Curtis debate of 1920, which was later resolved by observations of M31 in favor of Andromeda, island universe.

As usual, click on the small photo for a larger view…

Doggy Wonderland

When our waitress discovered how much we enjoyed this poem, she told us that there were more doggy Christmas things underneath some of the other tabletops. And a little while later, she pointed out this one to us (sung to the tune of “Winter Wonderland"):

DOGGY WONDERLAND (unknown songwriter)

Dog tags ring, are you listenin'?

In the lane, snow is glistenin'.

It’s yellow, NOT white - I’ve been there tonight,

Marking up my winter wonderland.

-

Smell that tree? That’s my fragrance.

It’s a sign for wand’ring vagrants;

"Avoid where I pee, it’s MY pro-per-ty!

Marked up as my winter wonderland."

-

In the meadow dad will build a snowman,

following the classical design.

Then I’ll lift my leg and let it go Man,

So all the world will know it’s mine-mine-mine!

-

Straight from me to the fencepost,

flows my natural incense boast;

"Stay off of my TURF, this small piece of earth,

I mark it as my winter wonderland.

Christmas Dog

Debbie and I went out for dinner tonight, to the Descanso Junction restaurant — one of our favorite local spots. One of its charms (in addition, of course, to the fine food and cheerful help) is the collection of paper “stuff” they have under the clear tops of all the tables. These usually range from nostalgic pictures to magazine articles to granma’s recipes — entertaining reading, always. Tonight they had the joint decked out for Christmas, right down to thematic materials under those clear table tops. On our table there was this delightful poem (especially if you’re a dog person), a take-off on “'Twas the Night Before Christmas":

CHRISTMAS DOG (by Shel Silverstein)

Tonight’s my first night as a watchdog,

And here it is Christmas Eve.

The children are sleeping all cozy upstairs,

While I’m guardin' the stockin’s and tree.

What’s that now — footsteps on the rooftop?

Could it be a cat or a mouse?

Who’s this down the chimney?

A thief with a beard — And a big sack for robbin' the house?

What’s going on here?

I’m barkin', I’m growlin', I’m bitin' his butt.

He howls and jumps back in his sleigh.

I scare his strange horses, they leap in the air.

I’ve frightened the whole bunch away.

Now the house is all peaceful and quiet again.

The stockin’s are safe as can be.

Won’t the kiddies be glad when they wake up tomorrow

And see how I’ve guarded the tree!

And there’s more!

Lawson Valley Sunrise

This was the view from our patio, around 6:20 yesterday morning. The sky was full of unusually saturated color in a wide range of subtle hues and shades. A gorgeous display of Mother Nature’s art!

For those of you interested in the technical part: all of these were handheld at 1/60th, 100ASA setting. The panorama is composed of four shots, just by rotating myself in place on the patio. There actually is a hillside there causing things to move up on the right, that wasn’t me rotating oddly <smile>. I did minimal digital post-processing on these; it’s a pretty good representation of what we actually perceived.

As usual, click on the small photos for a larger view…

Merry Christmas!

For our Libertarian/Conserative/Republican friends:

Here’s wishing all of you a

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR !!!!

For our Liberal/Democrat friends:

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2006, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. And without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting these greetings you are accepting these terms. This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for herself or himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Good News

This is the only good news Michael Totten could find in Egypt. It came in an exchange with Egyptian blogger Big Pharaoh, who was showing him around Cairo:

“Can we talk about politics out in the open?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “We can say whatever we want.”

“Is it because we’re speaking in English?”

“No,” he said. “We could do it in Arabic, too.”

“You’re not worried about the secret police?”

“Not any more,” he said. “It is a real change from last year. Last year there was no way. But it’s better now, more open. Do you know why?”

“No,” I said. “Tell me.”

“Because of pressure from George W. Bush.”

That is the only piece of good news I have to report from Egypt.

The rest of Michael’s excellent post is a litany of the many political problems and challenges Egypt faces. It’s sad, and (despite the above) not particularly optimistic. When I finished reading it, I felt very sad for the Big Pharaoh, who seems to be torn between wanting to help Egypt become a modern secular society and escaping to America (or Canada, his second choice apparently only because it would make it easy for him to visit America. There’s some interesting discussion, with some local insight, on the situation in Iran as well. Though sad, it’s an insightful piece and well worth reading…

New Rules

The Junkyard Blog does what it does so well with a terrific satire piece that you won’t want to miss. As a taste, here’s the conclusion:

To review: Do not invade countries harboring terrorists. Do not capture terrorists and keep them for any duration, and do not interrogate them about ongoing or future attacks. Do not profile terrorists, making it easier to stop them. And do not monitor communications between terrorists or anyone else. Republicans and conservative Christians are the real enemy, so forget about that mumbling, swarthy guy with the bulges under his sweater who looks to be between 18 and 35 and concentrate on the owner of your local tire store who happens to go to church and votes Republican. Because he’s the real enemy!

So basically, just so we’re all clear on this, when you’re fighting terrorists who want to destroy your civilization, you can’t do a damn thing about it except demonize people who have no connection to terrorism whatsoever. Hey, if you’re lucky the caliphate will at least bring good health care when Dar al Islam reaches your neighborhood.

Have a nice day. Inshallah.

Now take a moment and go read the whole thing!

Toleration

Tolerate this!, says Jay. And he further comments:

Liberals seem to live by the axiom, “Do as I say, not as I do.” No matter what grand ideals they profess, they hold themselves entirely blameless for disregarding them; regardless of how contradictory their words and deeds are.

Take the professed Liberal doctrine of “diversity” and “tolerance” for instance. Ah, such noble, admirable ideals! Everyone will get along just fine if we just accept and embrace that we’re all different and we can all get along. Such an idyllic, utopian world view!

And what a frickin' pity that Liberals wouldn’t recognize such principles if they reared up and bit 'em square on their ass.

Hell, judging from the conduct of the average ACLUer and their Leftist cohorts in the Democrat party, the only “diversity” they respect is the kind that’s put on display by those goose-stepping clowns who parrot the Liberal platform word-for-word. Everyone else of every race, religion and ideology who refuses to kowtow to the Leftist agenda gets marginalized as an “Uncle Tom,” “extremist,” or “hater."

Add to that mix the Liberal hypocrisy in which they claim that they’re “inclusive” and “tolerant” of differing views. They pay a lot of lip service to such virtue, but when the rubber hits the road, these “inclusive, tolerant” Leftists expect everyone in the mainstream to keep their views to themselves while every Left-wing lunatic fringe group gets to monopolize the public square.

The sheer magnitude of this hypocrisy has become painfully apparent in the past several years, especially during the Christmas season. No longer content to criminalize public displays of any and all things Judeo-Christian, Liberals now seek to annihilate any and all public reference to the birth of Christ during the very season in which that birth is celebrated.

Seems these “tolerant, inclusive” people just aren’t content with getting the Ten Commandments removed from the public squares of a nation that is over 90% Christian. And these “tolerant” little Liberals certainly weren’t very happy about a harmless three-letter word spelled “G-O-D” that was in our nation’s Pledge of Allegiance and on our currency. Oh no…now they have to destroy every reference to the reason for the season while propping up fake holidays such as Kwanzaa.

Suffice it to say that I think it’s high time that the majority shrugged off the tyranny of this ridiculously small Leftist fringe and told them, in no uncertain terms, to practice some of that tolerance they preach and keep their intolerant, mean-spirited, anti-Christmas bellyaching to themselves.

As usual, click on the thumbnail for a larger view…

Final Moments

The rednecks I know wouldn’t be a bit surprised by this news item:

The National Transportation Safety Board recently divulged they had “covertly” funded a project with the U.S. automakers for the past 5 years, whereby the automakers were installing black-box voice recorders in 4-wheel drive pickup trucks and SUV’s in an effort to determine in fatal accidents, the circumstances in the last 15 seconds before the crash....

They were surprised to find in 38 of the 50 states the recorded last words of drivers in 61.2 percent of fatal crashes were, “Oh Shit!"

Only the states of North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, Louisiana and Texas were different, where 89.3 percent of the final words were: “Hold my beer, I’m gonna try somethin."

Christmas Dogs

At right are you can see a collection of four not-particularly-happy dogs. From left to right, there’s Lea, Mo’i, Jet, and Daisy Mae. The first two are ours; the second two belong to our good friend Sharon Shepard.

Lea, Mo’i, and Daisy Mae are all agility dogs of varied accomplishment — with Daisy Mae being the studly jumper/weaver/runner amongst them. Jet is still just a puppy (as was obvious trying to get him to stand still for this photo session!), but one fine day he too will run an agility course.

Looking at these pictures, don’t you just wonder what kind of loony would do this to his dog? Their expressions tell you exactly what they think of this evolution!

As usual, click on the small photo to get a larger version.

Iraqi Elections

That the inimitable Mark Steyn would kick some butt after the spectacularly successful Iraqi election was, of course, inevitable. And he doesn’t disappoint:

From “Iraq vote leaves Dems looking like the losers"

...pick almost any recent statement by a big-time Dem cowboy and tell me how exactly it would differ from the pep talks Zarqawi gives his dwindling band of head-hackers — Dean arguing that America can’t win in Iraq, Barbara Boxer demanding the troops begin withdrawing on Dec. 15, John Kerry accusing American soldiers of terrorizing Iraqi women and children, Jack Murtha declaring that the U.S. Army is utterly broken. Pepper 'em with a handful of “Praise be to Allahs” and any one of those statements could have been uttered by Zarqawi.

And he concludes with this:

The Anglo-American political tradition is the most successful in the world in part because of the concept of “loyal opposition.” Yes, the party out of office opposes the party in office and hopes to supplant it, but not at the expense of the broader political culture. A party that winds up cheerleading for a deranged loser death cult is the very definition of pointless self-defeating sour oppositionism. So, as Zarqawi flails, Dean and Murtha and Kerry flail ever more pathetically, too. Just wait till the WMD turn up.

Ouch!

That man does have a way with words.

Just wait, indeed.

And go read every last word!

Dear God

There was a man who worked for the Post Office whose job it was to process all the mail that had illegible addresses .One day, a letter came addressed in a shaky handwriting to God. He thought he should open it to see what it was about. The letter read:

Dear God,

I am an 83 year old widow, living on a very small pension. Yesterday someone stole my purse. It had $100 in it, which was all the money I had until my next pension check. Next Sunday is Christmas, and I had invited two of my friends over for dinner. Without that money, I have nothing to buy food with. I have no family to turn to, and you are my only hope. Can you please help me?

Sincerely,

Edna

The postal worker was touched. He showed the letter to all the other workers. Each one dug into his or her wallet and came up with a few dollars. By the time he made the rounds, he had collected $96, which they put into an envelope and sent to the woman. The rest of the day, all the workers felt a warm glow thinking of Edna and the dinner she would be able to share with her friends.

Christmas came and went. A few days later, another letter came from the old lady to God. All the workers gathered around while the letter was opened, it read:

Dear God,

How can I ever thank you enough for what you did for me? Because of your gift of love, I was able to fix a glorious dinner for my friends. We had a very nice day and I told my friends of your wonderful gift. By the way, there was $4 missing. I think it must have been those thieving bastards at the Post Office.

Sincerely,

Edna

Surrender Monkeys

Bingo! (click on thumbnail to see it in all its glory)

Ouch…

Tip of the hat to “All Things Conservative"…

Sharp Testimony

Tip of the hat to Anil for this good one:

If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp as this policeman. He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the policeman’s credibility.

Q: “Officer — did you see my client fleeing the scene?"

A: “No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away."

Q: “Officer — who provided this description?"

A: “The officer who responded to the scene."

Q: “A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?"

A: “Yes, sir. With my life."

Q: “With your life? Let me ask you this then, officer. Do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?"

A: “Yes sir, we do."

Q: “And do you have a locker in the room?"

A: “Yes sir, I do."

Q: “And do you have a lock on your locker?"

A: “Yes sir."

Q: “Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same officers?"

A: “You see, sir — we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room."

Gift Idea

Oh, my.

I can think of a few liberal politicians that are clearly in desperate need of this product. And also in dire need of the related facial tissue version.

Oh, my.

Tip of my hat to our friend Dr. B. (aka the “Merchant of Pain” — how fitting!).

Ivan and the Eland

This is a followup to yesterday’s post about our photo safari at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Josie (our driver) commented on our post, and asked for pictures of Ivan and the eland. Ask, Josie, and ye shall receive!

Ivan is the rather large male giraffe in the photos at right, and the eland (a Patterson’s Eland) is the roughly one ton antelope that Ivan is bullying. Yup, Ivan’s a big old bully. He just herded that poor eland around wherever he wanted it to go. I’m sure the eland isn’t used to such bullying, as he’s rather big and bad himself — but what are you going to do when you have Ivan after you? I know that if I had Ivan’s big, bony head swinging at me like a spiked wrecking ball, I’d probably get all humble, too. And then there’s those monster hooves, which Jeanne (our guide) told us can go whizzing around at very high speed, doing lots of damage to things like rib cages, skulls, and tank armor (I added that last category myself after seeing one of Ivan’s hooves up close and personal).

What is a little hard to absorb from these photos is the scale of the tussle going on. In motion, we saw two rather ponderous beasts dancing in slow motion; ponderous really only because of their size. In some of the other photos (in my original post), you can see Ivan’s head as he feeds from Debbie’s hands — it is enormous! Now look in the photos at right, and even though Ivan’s head is bigger than the eland’s head, that eland is still darned big. It’s the size of a fairly large cow — and look how Ivan towers over him. That poor eland couldn’t poke Ivan in the ribs no matter how hard he tried…

As usual, click on the small photos at right to get a larger version…

Wild Animals

Last Christmas (yes, almost 12 months ago!), our good friends John and Grayle gave us a gift of a “photo safari” at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Just this past Wednesday, we finally scheduled it. The photo safari is a very interesting and unusual sort of thing: you get onto the back of a small flat-bed truck, outfitted with rails, seats, and a canopy for shade. There’s a driver and a guide (Josie and Jeanne for our safari), both very knowledgeable not only about the biology (which we expected), but also about the history and lore of the individual animals (and that we didn’t expect). It lasted almost four hours, and at the end of it we were fairly tired — certainly not from physical exertion, but more just from the intensity of the experience. It was non-stop, wall-to-wall close encounters of the animal kind for the entire trip. And I took a lot of pictures — only about one in ten are posted here! In fact, there are so many pictures that I’m only going to mix a few in with the text; the rest will all be at the bottom. As usual, you can click on any photo for a larger version.

We arrived an hour or so before the photo safari started, so we decided to just wander around a bit. We hadn’t been to the Wild Animal Park for five years or so, and the map showed quite a few changes. Our plan was to go check out the new things, but a park employee mentioned to me that there was a baby lion in the nearby nursery, and it was just about time for it to be fed. That sounded way too good to risk missing, so we practically ran over to the nursery — and ended spending all our free time there. Koza, the baby lion, was only four weeks old — and so cute it oughtta be illegal! I didn’t want to risk a flash upsetting Koza, so I didn’t take any pictures of him. He weighed 11 pounds; to us, his most striking feature (especially as compared with house cats) were his truly enormous front paws. His behavior was practically identical to a housecat kitten of the same age, just on a very different scale. We envied the caretaker, who had the wonderful job of delivering some attention and loving to Koza. Debbie would give just about anything for a chance to do that, I think…

After the pleasant interlude with Koza, we walked a short way to the administration building. The caravan was scheduled to leave from there at 10:30. As we walked in, Jeanne (our guide) walked out to meet us, and told us the news we were hoping to hear: that we were the only people on the photo safari today! I had carefully planned the particular date (with some help from the Wild Animal Park staff) to (a) maximize the probability of good weather, and (b) minimize the probability of too many other people joining us. Each of the trucks can hold up to about 15 people, and they have six trucks — so you could (if you were unlucky) have as many as 90 people along with you. That would be a much different — and much inferior — experience as compared with ours. It was just the four of us: Josie, Jeanne, Debbie, and myself. What also helped was that Jeanne and Josie figured out pretty quickly that they didn’t need to be careful or circumspect around old farmers like Debbie and I — we just all had a nice time together. It was very cozy and friendly, not really much different that an outing with particularly well-informed family or friends…

Now I completely forgot to take a picture of Josie and Jeanne, and that’s a shame, because you’d probably like to see them after you hear the rest of this. Josie (our driver) has an email address that proclaims her to be a fox, and we’ll agree with that (even though she’s missing that bushy red tail <smile>). And Jeanne (our guide) has an email address that brags about her hiccups (which we didn’t experience, but heard stories about). What an interesting job they have, doing these photo safaris! I can imagine that it is sometimes rewarding, and sometimes frustrating (depending on who your customers are) — but no matter what, you get out to see and know these exotic animals every day. We heard some stories about people who actually went out and then wanted to come back early; 'tis hard for us to imagine, as despite being almost four hours long, it was over all too soon from our perspective.

The variety of animal and bird life we saw was a bit overwhelming. There must have been three or four dozen mammal species we saw, and a couple dozen bird species. The truck was a great way to see them — we could (and did!) get very close even to animals that would have been quite dangerous had we been on foot. Yet we never felt threatened in the slightest, even with gazillion-pound rhinos bumping up against the truck. And being in the open air meant perfect visibility — no windows to interfere with seeing or photos. We also learned some things that surprised us, such as the fact that a giraffe’s front hooves are quite heavy and dangerous — and that they swing their heads about as weapons (which is why their heads have bony protuberances all over them). We were only allowed to feed two kinds of animals (giraffes and rhinos), and we could only touch one (the rhinos). Debbie had a lot of fun feeding both of them (as you can see in some of these photos). Personally I was more interested in getting that kind of close to some of the members of the goat and sheep family, or the antelopes — there were a lot of them I found to be quite beautiful and interesting..

The first thing we saw as we left on our safari was an island full of chimpanzees (Bonobos). In the photo at right (an extreme telephoto), if you squint and use your imagination, you can see that the adult female is tending a small baby. This mother didn’t let this baby off the leash (she used her arm and hand as a leash and collar). There was another, older youngster who scampered and played up a storm — lots of fun to watch.

Our safari took us through several paddocks (three, I think), each with animals from a different part of the world. Jeanne told us what all of them were as we drove around, and interesting little tidbits of information about each — and of course we forgot almost all of it, almost immediately. But we sure enjoyed the style — not at all the monotonous monolog one so often finds on guided tours, but rather a very interactive talk, with answers to our questions in as much depth as we could handle. What I most enjoyed was the stories — such as the history Jeanne told us of a Chinese deer called the “Pere David” deer, after the friar who discovered them. It seems that they existed only on the emperor’s grounds, until Pere David and some other Europeans asked for some animals. The emperor had plenty of them, and so was happy to make the Europeans happy with a few deer — and it’s a good thing he did, because after various disasters in China, most of the living Pere David deer were in Europe!

Well, that’s about enough yakking. Now it’s all about the photos…