Two more “accidents” in which animals in cages have caused grave bodily harm to morons who stick parts of their bodies too close to the bars.

In the first case, a woman in Wisconsin lost part of her hand when she reached through warning barriers and bars to try to feed two bears.  Her husband was also bitten when he tried to help her.  I don’t ding him in the least for his injuries.  That’s kinda the point of being a husband, to put yourself in danger if something or someone attacks your wife.  But this woman, who had her grandchild along to see the whole thing, is to blame for the entire incident.  Oh well, this is how therapists stay in business.

Authorities say that alcohol may have been involved.  No fooling?

Another woman in Florida lost her thumb when a jaguar bit it off.  Again, she put her hand in the cage.  In this case, she was visiting a private animal sanctuary, not a zoo.  The proprietor of the sanctuary has been cited for not having warnings and barriers up, but in her defense, warnings and barriers can’t prevent a case of the galloping stupids.

Both stories say that the animals involved probably won’t be euthanized.  Good.  It’s not the animals’ fault that their mommies never told them not to put their hands into an animal’s cage.  Like Chris Rock said when discussing Siegfried and Roy, that tiger didn’t go crazy, that tiger went tiger.  You can’t expect a wild animal to not react non-violently to morons getting their booger-hooks within reach of claws and teeth.

In both of these cases an adult, who is entrusted by society with driving a car, purchasing and using firearms, and raising children, was dumb enough to think it would be a good idea to put their hand into an enclosure that contained a large predatory carnivore.  People like this don’t belong at the top of the food chain, and shouldn’t be allowed to swim in the gene pool.

Are we protecting the stupid too much? Will the human race become dumber as time goes on because we do too much to protect the idiots from their own idiocy?  Stupidity is supposed to be fatal, but we may be messing with that natural selection thing a bit here.

Marko, the Munchkin Wrangler, has put a wonderful short story up on his page.  I’m definitely putting him on my list of authors to watch out for.

I’ve been hooked on military SF since I found my step-father’s copy of Starship Troopers.  Read it through twice in one night.  Been re-reading it every so often since then.  I had a first sergeant once who was the biggest geek I’ve ever seen who also had a combat drop star on his jump wings and a Ranger regiment combat patch, and he required all of his NCO’s to read Heinlein for professional development.

David Drake caught my eye when I saw a Hammer’s Slammers book in the PX in Germany, and I’ve read everything I can find of his since then.  Even though I love the Slammers series, my favorite of his is Redliners.  It’s a lot less about the technology and more about the people and the impact that combat has on them.  Less deux ex machina than the Slammers, even if Drake uses the Slammers to retell wonderful historical stories, such as the Nika Riots and the Odyssey.

I recently read Freehold by Michael Z. Williamson.  It’s a good story with a real focus on the development and evolution of the main character.  It’s highly political, and has a bit too much sex in it, but it made for really engrossing reading.

Of course, Roberta X. has her “I Work on a Starship” series, which are excellent short stories that I’d love to see printed in dead tree format so I can give them to my kids.

Speaking of something I pass onto my kids, Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter International was a quasi-military SF yarn that I liked so much, I bought a copy for Junior Bear for Christmas. 

My favorite military SF occurs in the ‘next century’ kind of timeframe.  Maybe we have FTL drive and all the other high-tech goodies, but it’s not a smooth ‘let’s go’ kind of thing that’s been around for centuries. People in the stories are still people with all their warts and cracks, not totally together self-actualized wonderkinder.  Technology may have changed, but it’s still as buggy and cantankerous as it is today.  I grew up reading and watching Star Trek, but as an adult, I’ve lost a little interest.  After actually being in the military and seeing how unevenly things work in the real world, I find it hard to suspend my disbelief enough to get into something where everything mostly works.  And in the event that something does break, it’s fixed in a couple of hours by people who intuitively know what’s wrong and don’t have to spend hours or days reading through manuals to find out what that !@#$!@# unpublished error code means.

Not to say I don’t watch Star Trek, though.  Hey, I’m still a geek.

3 teachers in Los Angeles have been suspended because their students brought pictures of basketball player and freak Dennis Rodman, drag queen RuPaul, and OJ “The Slasher” Simpson to a Black History Month parade. 

The teachers’ defense is that all three of these people were on the approved list of personalities to study for Black History Month.

OK, two things here folks:

1.  Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
2.  What grade A, whizbang bluntskull decided it would be OK for children to study two cross dressers and a convicted felon for Black History Month?

What, were Jackie Robinson, Thurgood Marshall, and Frederick Douglas not available?  Did the school board all drop a tab of acid before coming up with the suggested set of appropriate African American icons to study?

What’s next, an assembly devoted to Inspector Clouseau on Bastille Day?  The Frito Bandito drawing contest on Cinco de Mayo? 

We have these group-specific heritage months so that children in particular and society in general can learn about the good examples that each of the ingredients in our melting pot bring to the soup.  Not so we can stress the freaks and bad examples that come with every ethnic and cultural group.

A company in Texas is marketing a pickle juice popsicle.

As weird as that sounds, it actually might be good.

I’ll definitely try them if they sell them around here.

I like popsicles, but the massive amounts of sugar in them makes them a rare treat for me.

Something salty, sour, and garlicy that’s made of ice might be good on a hot, muggy Kentucky day.

Opinions?

Reuters is reporting that looting is becoming prevalent in Conception in Chile.  This city was devastated by the magnitude 8.8 earthquake that occurred over the weekend.

Reading about this, Haiti, and Katrina got me to thinking about the taking of things that don’t belong to you during emergencies.

Here’s my philosophy:

Taking essentials such as food, water, diapers, and medicine from abandoned stores when there is no legal way to get it is scrounging.  But if you back up a truck to the store and you and your buddies fill it up so you can profit from the ill-gotten supplies is looting.

Negotiating with a shop owner to basically get an IOU for the supplies that you want to get from him when money just isn’t there is scrounging.  Threatening shop owners with a mob and just taking everything in the stores is looting.

Picking through rubble to find some clothing for you and your family after you got out of the house at 3 AM is scrounging.  Smashing a shop window to grab some designer clothing and a TV is looting.

Asking your neighbor who was lucky enough to not take significant damage from a disaster to take your family in in exchange for labor and what supplies you have is scrounging.  Running your neighbors off or killing them so you can take over their property is looting.

Scroungers can be forgiven so long as they are only taking what they need.  Looters should be used to decorate light poles.

Let’s face it, both scrounging and looting are bad choices.  People who basically have to steal to get the necessities of life have no other choice.  Taking what’s not yours when society in general is in a state of chaos tends to get one shot.

The lessons I take from all of these incidents is that I can only rely on those who I know I can trust, and I have to be able to provide for my family myself.  For me, that means having a means to house and feed them in the event we can no longer get food and shelter in the normal ways, knowing enough about first aid and health care to take care of minor injuries and illnesses and how to prevent what I can’t treat, and to protect them from anyone who might seek to take those things away from us.  Counting on scrounging and charity to provide for your family should be the last resort, not the only choice.

Breda has a good rundown on how having one pet can quickly turn into having multiple pets.

I got Koshka shortly after Girlie Bear was born.  Our previous cat had recently died, and I have always had a cat when I was allowed to.

After Girlie Bear and Little Bear’s mom and I split up, it was just Koshka and me. She was home alone all day, and was making a hobby of getting into everything and destroying anything left out.  She was bored, and needed something to keep her out of trouble.

When a co-worker at Fort Campbell mentioned that his cat had had kittens, I agreed to take one as soon as they were weaned.  So I got Annya.  She was young enough that she still allowed Koshka to pick her up by the scruff, give her baths, and basically mother her.  So my pet had a pet of her own to keep her busy.

When I met the Irish Woman, she was petless, but was thinking of getting a dog.  We eventually got her a yellow English Labrador puppy.  Bluegrass was as cute and fuzzy as you could ask.  She definitely fit in with our new family.

But as she got a few months older, she became harder to handle.  Puppy energy in a package that was getting big and muscular was hard to control at times.  Our vet suggested getting her a companion to play with.

So the Irish Woman came home one day with a black lab mix that was about Blue’s age.  Shadow was very shy at first, and let Bluegrass bully him while they played.  Eventually, he got over his jitters and asserted his equality with her.  Basically, she nipped him one too many times, and he showed her who was boss by body slamming her and sitting on her for an hour or so. 

So the Irish Woman had a pet, and her pet had a pet.

We stayed at that balance of two cats and two dogs for several years.  I’d like to say they were blissful, but Annya decided she didn’t like dogs, so there were continual yowling fits as the dogs tried to live in peace with her.

Eventually, Annya and Koshka reached middle age, and started getting fat from lack of exercise.  They had apparently gotten into some kind of “I leave you in peace to nap, and I’ll leave you in peace to nap” deal with each other.  Since I didn’t want to lose them to obesity, I thought having a younger cat around might help.

So we adopted Timmy.

He did exactly as I expected, and more.  His energy and outgoing personality kept the other cats on their toes and shed some of their weight.  Of course, he himself doesn’t subscribe to any philosophy of eating right and exercising, so he’s gotten a bit rotund.  As he’s slowed down, the other cats are exacting their revenge on him.  He’ll lose those pounds if he wants to survive being ambushed.  So my two cats have a pet to keep them active.

Last summer, I heard a quiet meowing from a bush in our yard, and found a small kitten.  She wouldn’t let me get close enough to capture her, but she would eat if we left food out.  I kept putting food out in hopes that eventually she would come to me and I could take her to a shelter.  No luck, and after the neighbor caught her and took her to get spayed, he released her into the yards again.  No idea why he didn’t just take her to a shelter, but now she won’t come very close to us at all.  She does, however, love our dogs.

She spends her days playing with Shadow and Blue in the yard, and gets her naps cuddled up with them.  I continue to put food out for her, and she’s been keeping the mouse population down in our detached garage and woodpile.  So our pets have another pet.  The kids named her Patches due to the pattern of her coat.

So here’s the chart:

I have one pet, Koshka.

Koshka has one pet, Annya.

Koshka and Annya share a pet, Timmy.

The Irish Woman has one pet, Bluegrass.

Bluegrass has a pet, Shadow.

Shadow has a pet, Patches.

So I can honestly say that Irish Woman and I only have one pet apiece.  But our pets have pets, and those pets have pets.  That rounds out our managerie.

Yes, I live on the edge of madness.  Why do you ask?

Breda, the world’s best heat packing librarian, recently had a run-in with an oblivion who managed to hit her twice from behind and leave incriminating evidence at the scene after he cut and run.

This pic pretty sums up that guy’s accomplishments:

Here’s hoping Breda a quick recovery!

Irish Woman:  Mumble, mumble, oatmeal, mumble
DB:  What’s the matter, darling?
Irish Woman:  Where is all the blueberry oatmeal?  All that’s left is that nasty strawberry and peach!  I can’t eat that!  Someone has eaten all of my blueberry oatmeal!
DB, in his best Gollum voice: We can’t eat nasty strawberries and peaches!  It burns us!  Nasty hobbits eat all of the good blueberries and leave us to starve!
Irish Woman, walking away: Mumble mumble mumble smart mumble wise mumble.

Case de Oso, always on the edge of madness.

A gentleman in central Kentucky decided it was a fine day to ride his horse to church.  And he went packing heat.  No-one would have objected, except he was apparently enjoying a little more booze than the shot glass fill of sacramental wine they had at communion, and he took his hogleg into the church with him.

I’m all about the lawful carrying of firearms.  And Sunday was a fine day to go on a horseback ride.  And I appreciate a snort of Kentucky’s finest every so often myself.  But for heaven’s sake don’t do all three and then go to church.  Alcohol and guns don’t mix, and alcohol and religion are even worse.

In further news, there is a move in the state legislature to remove the promise not to engage in duels from the Kentucky state oath of office.  Apparently it was thrown in there when Kentucky became a state, and has never been removed.

I support this wholeheartedly.  I watch a bit of what goes on in Frankfurt, and there is quite a lot of vitriol being spewed by politicians on both side of the aisles.  I believe that it is this promise alone that keeps our state representatives and senators from taking each other out back and going at it with Bowie knives.  Maybe if we remove this sacred vow not to take the guy who just called you the “half wit son of a syphilitic sheep pimp” outside and knocking his teeth in with a shillelagh if he doesn’t take it back, politics might become a more civil affair.

In fact, I’d like to see this become how business gets done at the national level.  George Bush might have had a quieter administration if he could have taken Dingy Harry Reid or Nancy “The Joker” Pelosi out behind the White House for pistols at 10 paces.  Or, if President Obama doesn’t like to be called a socialist, he could get Michelle to beat the snot out of Glenn Beck.

Update –

Just saw that Uncle John over at  Dvorak seems to hold the same opinion I do.

My brother-in-law and several of my neighbors are volunteer firefighters, and they tell me that nothing raises their mood more than seeing a car parked in front of a hydrant when they get called out for a fire.  If they can’t find the owner in about 8 seconds, the hoses are going through the window.  If the window is closed, so be it.

Bonus points if it’s a Mercedes or Lexus.