Res Ipsa Loquitur

Happy Halloween!

I'll be getting Spiderman, er, WildChild I mean, into his costume pretty soon and heading out, so everyone have a safe Halloween. We're going up to "Pa's Scary Work" to trick or treat.....though WildChild's in for a surprise. They've decorated Mike's work area as CandyLand, which is WildChild's favorite game and not scary at all.

Then my daughter's coming by to take him to a few of her friends for trick or treating. And I will enjoy a few hours in which the words "Ma" and "Why" will be forbidden.

Because I tell you, I've heard them a few trillion times too many today. Hmmm, maybe I shouldn't have let him eat candy all day.

Naaahh.

Oooo, Scary

Really now, the UN shouldn't be so rough on Syria.

Key U.N. Security Council members dropped the threat of sanctions against Syria on Monday in a last-minute effort to get all 15 nations to back a resolution demanding that Damascus cooperate with an investigation into the assassination of Lebanon's former prime minister Rafik Hariri.

Now the resolutions merely threatens to taunt Syria a second time if they don't cooperate. Plus, language asking Syria to stop supporting terrorism has been excluded.

Well that'll learn 'em won't it?

EEEEEWWWW!!!!

The only thing worse than getting stuck following the chicken gut truck.

Residents near Cedarville got a smelly surprise late last night. A truck carrying chicken parts over-turned making a mess along Highway 59. Crews with Simmons Foods worked through the night cleaning up the site.

Mike said he saw this on the local news last night.....and it was about 4 ft. deep in the ditches. And what's particularly great is that I will be driving through there tomorrow to take WildChild home.

I may barf.

Scalia LIght?

According to the AP, Judge Alito is the new Supreme Court nominee. The official announcement is scheduled for 8 am (Eastern).

Let the wild rumpus begin!

Whoa!

I had no idea red CFMP's came in she-male sizes.

Love What You Create

My daughter decided, on the spur of the moment, to ride down with me to pick up WildChild yesterday. He was so excited when he saw us coming.....apparently Ma & his favorite aunt in the same car is just about more fun than the law allows. He was, shall we say, just a little wound up on the drive home. As in cranked to the max nonstop chatter the whole way.

About halfway home, I told my daughter about Mike accidently letting Sollie out the other night & the trouble we'd had getting him back in the house. My daughter started singing 'Who Let the Dogs Out?' and I had joined her.....briefly before we both cracked up laughing. A few minutes later, we heard a little voice pipe up from the back seat.

"Who let da dogs out......who let da dogs out"

We about died laughing. Then we started trying to get him to sing the rest. "Who...who who...who...who?" He wouldn't do it for the longest time, but finally he started singing loudly

"Who let da dogs out?
Who...who who...who...who PA!"

OMG we lost it. Of course once he saw he could make us laugh, he sang it over and over.......and when he got tired of that, he started singing the Ghostbusters theme song. Or at least the 2 or 3 lines he knew anyway.

It was freaking hilarious.

He kept us entertained the rest of the hour or so it took to get to my daughter's house. He was still singing both songs over & over & over when we got there as he stood in the yard waiting for my daughter to unload his overnight stuff. My daughter wearily looked at me and asked "Do you think that's going to still be as funny at 10 pm tonight when he's still doing it?"

"Nope, not so much," I replied. And I laughed as I drove away.

Payback time, oh yeah. heh

Reason #1,238 We Moved

We saw this coming.

The Fayetteville City Council on Thursday approved a 2 mill increase in property taxes for the year on a 5-2 vote.

The council decided to levy the millage in order to help balance the city budget for 2006, over objections of some residents and some council members worried about impacting fixed-income residents and controlling city spending.

The local tv news this week has been reminding everyone that the council could've passed up to a 5 mil increase....as if residents should be grateful it was only 2. And the increase isn't going to really balance the budget.

The 2-mill increase is projected to raise about $1.78 million next year, when the city is projected to have a $2.2 million deficit, said Steve Davis, city finance and internal services director.

Davis said a budget within $500,000 of balanced is considered even because of fluctuations that occur during the year.

Ummm, yeah whatever. The city's spending money like it's going out of style, and you think 'fluctuations' are going to take care of the remaining shortfall? Not bloody likely.

And there's even more increases coming down the road. (Registration req'd)

The council has approved a resolution to support the Fayetteville Public Library in pursing its own property tax increase of 2.5 mills, which would occur next year. The library would need continued city funding until after the first year it could collect the tax, which would be 2007.

The council is also expected to resume discussion of the proposed $143 million Transportation Improvement Program next year, which is proposed to be funded with a 1 cent sales tax, which would require raising Fayetteville’s sales tax back to 2 percent.

The problem, according to some spokesman on the local news last night, is that tax revenues are down. Gee, how does that happen in a decidedly business-unfriendly city?

I wonder.

Miers Withdraws

Fox News (tv) just reported Harriet Miers is withdrawing. The AP is reporting the same.

You knew that was coming, right?

Prescription For Trouble

A alleged schizophrenic sex offender was arrested in Jacksonville on capital murder charges for allegedly suffocating a 5 yr. old girl. (registration req'd) Go read the details, but basically it appears he had a psychotic break while visiting his brother, attacked another guest and took two children hostage. Which is bad enough, but check this out.

The newspaper obtained, through FOIA, a copy of his recent psychiatric admission records.

When Neal was discharged from the hospital July 19, 2004, the doctor prescribed two medications for Neal.

The second drug listed on the discharge recommendations for the registered sex offender was Viagra. [emphasis mine]

May I just inquire WTF? I should think Viagra is the last thing a schizophrenic sex offender with a predilection for pre-pubescent little girls needs. I understand that anti-psychotic drugs often have what is delicately termed 'sexual side effects', but come on.

As Mike said, in this case that's a feature not a bug.

Not Another Bomb

According to Reuters, bomb components have been found in someone's carry-on at the San Diego airport.

A department spokesman said the screeners found "all components of an IED" (improvised explosive device) in a piece of luggage at around 7:45 a.m. (10:45 a.m. EDT)

They then evacuated the commuter terminal of the airport and bomb specialists began to investigate, the spokesman said.

Good thing they did too. Here's what they found.

The bomb squad was called and technicians examined the item and found it to be harmless – a child's toy with a cookie attached to it, Peppin said.

A little jumpy, are we?

Six Bits

Took WildChild to get a haircut yesterday, and he was surprisingly good. He has this thing about people touching his hair, even when he was a baby. To wash his hair is a major ordeal, replete with screaming, crying, fighting....almost every time. The other night I got him to agree to let me wash his hair without a fight by telling him that he had so many leaves in his hair (from playing in a big leaf pile earlier), he looked like a tree. He didn't want tree hair, he said, and actually let me wash it without complaint.

Getting a haircut usually isn't much different. But the last time, he'd wanted to get his hair cut like his dad's, so he didn't put up much of a fuss. And he agreed yesterday he needed a trim, so away we went. But he started to whimper when the stylist made the first pass with the clippers, and I thought oh crap here we go. The stylist explained that she wasn't going to hurt him and showed him how the clippers just cut his hair. He settled down and she started cutting again. Then he started to giggle. "Hey Ma! I like this! I like getting my haircut!"

Yes! Finally! He started chattering away to the stylist as she cut his hair, happy as a clam. She got called away to the phone and I was trying to keep him entertained & in the chair (yeah thanks so much for that lady). Suddenly he got quiet for a few minutes and then said "Ma? You gonna be all right?"

"Yes," I replied solemnly. "I think I am."

"Me too," he said. "I like getting my hair cut."

We were sitting in McDonald's later (his reward for being good), and this little girl started flirting with him. "Ma, why is that little girl talking to me?" he asked.

"Oh I don't know, maybe she likes your face," I told him.

"Naw," he said confidently. "She likes my new haircut."

I think he's starting to figure it out.

P-p-p-piglet Saved?

The workplace Piglet ban is being reviewed. (Link via Fark)

Councillor Pat Martin told a full council meeting: "I fully support the actions by management to respond to the concerns from colleagues following established and approved procedures.

"In Dudley we rightly pride ourselves on being fair and reasonable employers but we will not accept extreme forms of political correctness."

Urgent reviews are what Tiggers like best!

The whole thing's a bit silly, isn't it? I mean, if you removed everything from the workplace that offended someone, we'd all be working from home.

And how about all those Muslim foreign exchange students at the U of A....home of the Razorbacks. If pigs are so offensive, why are they there?

Moral Equivalency

If this was so reprehensible, where's the outrage over this?

The Telegraph said two of the contractors who had not been killed in the attack were dragged alive from their vehicle and forced to kneel in the road before being killed.

The paper said, "Killing one of the men with a rifle round fired into the back of his head, they doused the other with petrol and set him alight." It said, "Barefoot children, yelping in delight, piled straw on to the screaming man's body to stoke the flames." The crowd then "dragged their corpses through the street, chanting anti-U.S. slogans," the newspaper reported.

*crickets*

Yeah, I'll not be holding my breath waiting for it.

What's In a Name?

When we stopped to pick up WildChild yesterday, he came running across the lawn yelling "Yay! Ma is here! My Ma is here! Ma AND Pa are here!" He stopped on the sidewalk beside my car, bouncing up & down impatiently. Mike opened the car door, held out both arms and said "Come give me a big hug, dang it!"

WildChild ran over, gave Mike a big, big hug and said disdainfully "Pa, my name is WildChild."

I about fell out of the car laughing.

Time Warp

Watched this interesting documentary on Terry Wallis last night. Terry, as you may remember, is the guy who came out of a coma after 19 yrs. And he's from down around where I grew up, so I knew him from before he had the accident.

The show follows him through several examinations by specialists in New Jersey and NYC. One thing they discovered is that his speech & language part of his brain was normal & undamaged. It had apparently lain dormant all those years after the accident until something, no one knows what, triggered it to start working again....as if something suddenly 'rebooted' his brain and things started working again.

Fascinating, as Spock would say.

It will air again on Oct. 26 & 27, so check your local listings and give it a gander.

True Colors

Whatever else one can say about the Duggars having their 16th child, it sure has shown some people's true colors. (link via The Corner)

It's wrong to be this judgmental. Wrong to suggest that it is exactly this kind of weird pathological protofamily breeding-happy gluttony that's making the world groan and cry and recoil, contributing to vicious overpopulation rates and unrepentant economic strain and a bitter moral warpage resulting from a massive viral outbreak of homophobic neo-Christians across our troubled and Bush-ravaged land. Or is it?

Apparently not.

Let us be clear: I don't care what sort of God you believe in, it's a safe bet that hysterical breeding does not top her list of desirables. God does not want more children per acre than there are ants or mice or garter snakes or repressed pedophilic priests. We already have three billion humans on the planet who subsist on less than two dollars a day. Every other child in the world (one billion of them) lives in abject poverty. We are burning through the planet's resources faster than a Republican can eat an endangered caribou stew. Note to Michelle Duggar: If God wanted you to have a massive pile of children, she'd have given your uterus a hydraulic pump and a revolving door. Stop it now.

Mmmmm, endangered caribou stew. It's what's for dinner! Obviously he is unfamiliar with that whole 'go forth and multiply' thing. Or with the biological fact that women are configured to have a kid every year or two. To borrow the old Microsoft slogan, 'It's a feature, not a bug!'

And so what if the Duggars choose to have a whole truckload of kids? What about that whole 'right to choose' thing liberals are always preaching? Or does that only apply to killing babies, not having them?

As long as they can afford to raise them, I don't see what the big deal is. Of course, I come from a true 'live & let live' culture in which, until recently, large families were the norm....and in which children are still valued. And unlike this writer, I'm not afraid they're going to take over the world.

Where is, in other words, the funky tattooed intellectual poetess who, along with her genius anarchist husband, is popping out 16 funky progressive intellectually curious fashion-forward pagan offspring to answer the Duggar's squad of über-white future Wal-Mart shoppers? Where is the liberal, spiritualized, pro-sex flip side? Verily I say unto thee, it ain't lookin' good.

No, because Sunshine Rainbow is too focused on exploring her inner child to be bothered with having one. And that my friend, ain't nothing but the truth. I mean, can you imagine the logistics of taking 16 kids to a 'Save the Endangered Spotted Possum' rally?

Why it would take days just to make enough signs for them to carry.

You Might Be an Arkansawyer If....

Every one of these is true for me, including #6. Of course it was their best 'Sunday-go-to-meeting' overalls, but overalls nonetheless.

At least it wasn't a tube top.

1. You can properly pronounce Ouachita.

2. You think people who complain about the heat in their
states are sissies.

3. A tornado warning siren is your signal to go out in the
yard and look for a funnel.

4. You know that the true value of a parking space is not
determined by the distance to the door, but by the
availability of shade.

5. Stores don't have bags, they have sacks.

6. You've seen people wear bib overalls at funerals.

7. You think everyone from a bigger city has an accent.

8. You measure distance in minutes.

9. You go to the lake because you think it is like going
to the ocean.

10. You listen to the weather forecast before picking out an
outfit.

11. You know cowpies are not made of beef.

12. Someone you know has used a football schedule plan their
wedding date.

13. You have known someone who has a belt buckle bigger than
your fist.

14. You aren't surprised to find movie rental, ammunition,
beer, and bait all in the same store.

15. A Mercedes Benz isn't a status symbol. A Chevy Silverado
Extended Bed Crew Cab is

16. You know everything goes better with 'Ranch'.

17. You learned how to shoot a gun before you learned how to
multiply.

18. You actually get these jokes and are "fixin' " to send
them to your friends.

Finally:

19. You are 100% Arkie if you have ever had this
conversation: "You wanna coke?" "Yeah." "What kind?" "Dr
Pepper

Shot Through the What?

Took the dogs & the kitten to the vet this morning. Trying to manage two leased & excited dogs plus a cat carrier was quite the experience, though everyone was much better behaved than I expected. They're all current on their shots now, and the kitten goes back in two weeks to be neutered. My carpet will be so happy.

Now it's my turn. I have to go back to my doctor in a little bit to get another flu shot. Since I'd had that allergic reaction to the B12 shot, I was a little leery of taking a flu shot this year since they both contain the same preservative, which the doctor said was the most likely cause of my allergic reaction. But he recommended that I get 1/2 dosage of the flu shot, wait a couple of days to see if I had a reaction and then take the rest. No reaction, thank goodness (I hateses being itchy!), so today I'll get the remainder.

Oh, and the vet confirmed what I suspected. Smokey is a Russian Blue. How cool is that?

What's My Monster Name?

Your Monster Profile

Blood Thirsty Lunatic You Feast On: Starbucks You Lurk Around In: Candy Factories You Especially Like to Torment: Emo Kids

Big Excitement in Big Flat

A small plane crashed north of Big Flat, and the passenger used text messaging to direct rescuers to the crash site. (Registration req'd)

Brittney Cozart of Maumelle was a passenger in the single-engine plane that went down Sunday in a remote area of the forest in Baxter County. Despite being hurt, she sent a text message to her mother in central Arkansas.

Cozart and the pilot, Adam Young, 22, of North Little Rock were injured when the private plane plummeted into a ravine in the rugged Leatherwood Wilderness Area north of Big Flat. The couple had just left a popular resort area in Baxter County and were returning to North Little Rock.

They were lucky. I'm familiar with that area, used to live in Big Flat, and have hunted in and around Leatherwood. That's some wild-assed country. If I were to give directions, they would be something like 'go to BFE and take a left. Go past 10 miles past The Middle of Nowhere, and take the next right.'

“The terrain was so rugged and so overgrown down in the national forest that the wreckage could not be seen from the air, and that hampered the search,” the sheriff said.

“We were actually in the area and knew we were close, but the terrain was just so rugged that not even four-wheelers could be used at that time.”

The pilot was eventually able to text message his coordinates to his dad, who relayed them to the searchers. He also made his way to a clearing and used his shirt to signal the searchers who were flying overhead.

Just think. If not for their cell phones, those people would probably never have been found....or at least not that quickly. Though frankly, knowing that area, I'm surprised they were able to get a sufficiently strong signal to even send a text message.

A couple of very lucky people.

I noticed in the article that the Searcy Co. Search & Rescue team were helping with the search. Hell, I can't even type that without laughing. My sis tells me that the 'team' is composed of many of the same people who are also First Responders. And many of them are complete and total....well, goobers. My kids' dad (or 'biological male progenitor' as we like to call him) is one of them. Here's why I can't keep from laughing every time someone mentions them.

Years ago, back when the First Responders first got started, one of the local cops wiped out during a pursuit and slid up against the gas pumps at the White Oak Station. The First Responders arrived promptly at the scene and start working feverishly to extricate the cop because the driver's side door was jammed. My ex, for some reason no one understands, took a knife and cut the valve stem off of every tire on the vehicle. The others were using the Jaws of Life in an attempt to peel the roof off the vehicle. Another cop, I believe it was, arrived on the scene.....and pointed out that the passenger's side door was open. D'oh!

Yeah. I'm not kidding. They pretty much demolished the car trying to get the driver out when the passenger's side door was standing open.

That cracks me up every time I think about it.

Kewl

I'm J.C.

Borrowed from BloodSpite.

Things Aren't Always What They Seem

Hehe. (link via fark)

Weekend of Discovery

--We discovered a great deal on a swing set for WildChild....a demo for dirt cheap so we got it for him. He will be so tickled when he sees it this weekend. Maybe now it won't be so difficult to pry him away from the computer to go play outside.

--We also discovered it's a really bad idea to take a pug into the basement. Sollie wanted to go while Mike was doing some work down there (Sassy & Smokey were already down there poking around), but he's afraid of the stairs. So I got the bright idea to carry him down there. Bad idea. He was so excited by it all that he refused to come back up the stairs....or he would've if he could've found them. I was at the top of the stairs calling him, and he promptly went underneath the stairs and sat looking up trying to find me. The dog is dumb, what can I say? It took both of us to corner him & drag him back up the stairs. Sheesh. We'll not be doing that again.

--While we were in the basement, we discovered why our bedroom hadn't been cooling properly. The ductwork had gotten disconnected somehow. A little beating & banging, a little tape and wow. It was amazing how much better it worked when it was actually, you know, connected. D'oh.

--Finally, I discovered there's a good chance the new kitty is one of these. He's starting to look exactly like the first cat pictured there, and meets almost all the criteria of the breed standard. His eyes are not a 'vivid green', at least not yet, and he has a tiny little patch of white on his tummy. But otherwise, that's our kitty. The coolest thing about him is his coat. It's so soft & plush it's almost like petting a velveteen rabbit. And it doesn't trigger my cat allergy, so far anyway. If he is really a Russian Blue, that would explain his penchant for sitting on my shoulders, apparently that's a breed characteristic. He does it so often that Mike says he's a pirate cat and we should've named him Polly.

But my favorite thing about him is the way he purrs when he's excited or very happy. He sounds like the world's smallest idling Evinrude. It's this really fast rrrrrr-rrrrrr-rrrrrr-MurpMurp-MurpMurp. Cracks me up.

Can you tell I'm getting really attached to the little stinker?

I've some recent photos of him that I'll post if I can ever find one of the memory card readers....which are still in a box somewhere.

Yes, that's right. There's still a pile of unpacked boxes in the living room. And yes, it's driving me crazy.

They are going somewhere today. I'm not sure where yet, but they're going.

Another Bomb

This time, in Fort Smith.....in a burglarized home of all things.

The homeowners called police after discovering their home was burglarized. During an inspection of the house, a backpack was uncovered -- and they found an explosive device inside it.

"We came out and did what we call a render-safe procedure on it," said Fort Smith Fire Department spokesman Capt. Terry Graves.

WTH? What's with all the freaking explosives lately? Did someone declare October to be "Blow Up Your Backpack" month or what?

Sheesh.

Good Weekend

With the UofA/Auburn football game and all the crap craft fairs going on, this looks like a good weekend to stay home.

The Arkansas State Police expect this weekend’s 10 craft fairs, the Razorback football game and the Chile Pepper Cross Country Festival in Fayetteville to draw hundreds of thousands of visitors to Northwest Arkansas.

Tourism figures are difficult to determine, but business leaders in the region estimated between 350, 000 and 600, 000 visitors will travel to Northwest Arkansas for the weekend.

If you do have to go out, leave early and drive carefully. If you get stuck in traffic, try some visualization exercises to stay calm. One of my favorites is deciding whether a second round from an RPG would be necessary to clear the debris from the asshat's vehicle that just cut me off so I could drive on unimpeded.

What's one of your favorites?

Good Home Needed

Miss Vicky is looking for a good home for a momma & a couple of sweet kitties. If you're interested, drop by & let her know.

If we hadn't already gotten HellKitty, I'd be sorely tempted. But he's about all I want to deal with right now. He's starting to feel the testosterone, and he & our other cat are having some epic battles to see who's going to be HeadCat. (He'd better enjoy it while it lasts. I'm stopping by my vet's today to schedule a couple of appointments....one for a checkup & shots, the other for you know, snip snip.)

OTOH, they're starting to spend more time like yesterday morning. They'd gotten very quiet, and I checked in on them to see what they were up to. Each was curled placidly on opposing corners of our bed, asleep. And when I came into the room, each looked up at me like "WTH do you want? Can't you see we're sleeping?"

That's cats for you.

15 Not Enough

A local idiot just got 15 days for animal cruelty....when what he should've gotten was horsewhipped & dragged behind his truck. Sound harsh? Not nearly as harsh as what he did to a little 10-month old colt.

In order to teach him to lead or to punish him for biting the guy's daughter, depending on which story he's telling at the time, this budding genius horsewhisperer tied that little feller behind his truck & drove around at 35-40 mph for over an hour. The result?

Deputy Prosecutor Drew Ledbetter said during trial police measured a trail of blood behind the colt stretching 1,460 feet -- 511 of those were on gravel.

"The colt was severely dehydrated -- even the dehydration was life-threatening ... it had scrapes and abrasions on its leg and back," Ledbetter said. "The hooves of each leg were worn completely off, with the raw coffin bone exposed on each hoof ... meat was hanging off."

That's right. He dragged that little guy around until the road abraded his little hooves down to the bone. And the jury only gave him a 15 day jail sentence.

At least the judge got it right.

Benton County Circuit Judge Tom Keith refused work release for McKinley, saying, "This jury has been generous with you. I've always said, for those who abuse the innocent there's a reservation in the hottest places in hell."

Indeed.

Come Join the Joyride

Updates on this week's weirdness:

--Daniel Andrew Wolcott, of Buford, Georgia, has been arrested for taking that jet on a little joyride from St. Augustine to Georgia. Bet that's going to turn out to be one of his better "Hey Bubba hold m'beer 'n watch this moments"....complete with Federal charges.

--Oklahoma congressman Tom Cole says the FBI have found no terrorist connections in the OU student bombing. So far anyway.

--And a Georgia Tech student has apparently confessed to making the bombs found in the courtyard. Why? Dunno. Maybe it just seemed like a good idea at the time. Stupid freshmen.

There now, don't we all feel better?

Yeah, me neither.

Happy B-versary To Me!

I just realized that Monday was my 3rd blog-o-versary. Thanks for hanging around youse guys!

You're the bestest!

Another Strange One

Authorities are trying to determine how a jet was stolen from St. Augustine, Florida, and ended up in Georgia.

There is no evidence that there were weapons or drugs on the plane, Moloney said.

"We've ruled out anything diabolical or sinister," he said. "We didn't find anything threatening on the plane." The FBI is also investigating although the theft does not appear to be linked to terrorism, said Lisa Ray, spokeswoman at the Georgia Office of Homeland Security.

The plane was discovered when the airport opened Monday morning.

Even stranger, it belongs to Pinnacle Air of Springdale, Arkansas. Haven't seen anything in the local news yet, but then they're often a little slow on the uptake.

This has been a week for the weird, hasn't it? A'course it is coming up on a full moon, you know.

It may get a whole lot weirder.

Judy's Got a Gun

OMG! Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers once owned.....a handgun!

Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers, who once owned a .45-caliber revolver, is not licensed to carry a concealed handgun in Texas. State officials refused Monday to reveal whether she has ever been licensed.

Miers' brother gave her the Smith & Wesson handgun when he was worried about her living alone in Dallas. Judge Nathan Hecht of the Texas Supreme Court, a longtime friend of Miers', has said she kept the gun for a long time.

The horror! She owned a handgun without a concealed carry permit, which is apparently perfectly legal in Texas. (As it is in Arkansas as long as you don't, you know, carry it concealed. Duh.) Hells bells people, if I lived by myself in Dallas I'd own a .45 too....maybe 2.....and a shotgun for backup.

This whole thing is rapidly devolving from the theater of the absurd into the 'she's a witch' scene from Monty Python's Holy Grail.

Colleges New Targets?

Last week we had the OU bomber, today there's been 'explosive devices' found on the Georgia Tech campus AND at UCLA. No word yet on whether these are truly acts of terrorism or just some jackass students.

But it makes me wonder if we shouldn't take our own alleged U of A jihadi a little more seriously.

It's a Critter!

Folks down around Ozark have been seeing a strange critter that no one seems to be able to identify.

“Like nothing I’ve ever seen,” says Harley Edtin, a local business owner who has seen the animal. “I know that it has a cat's tail that's 16-18 inches long, in that neighborhood, and it's not long enough for the mountain lion and too long for the bobcat. It's colored similar to a bobcat but doesn't look like anything.”

My best guess is that it's a ringtail cat, a/k/a miner's cat. They're not really cats, but are members of the raccoon family. They come up out of Texas occasionally. My parents had one hanging around for a while a couple of years ago, and I remember seeing one as roadkill when I was a kid.

Nothing mysterious about them, just another tourist.

What's All the Hubbub, Bub?

I've been vaguely following all the uproar about the Miers nomination with a great deal of amusement. The biggest complaint seems to be ulitimately based in the fact that she was on no one's list of potential nominees. Welcome to the real world, blog pundits....where you can *gasp* occasionally be wrong. Sit down & enjoy a nice steaming cup of Get Over Yourself.

Personally, I'll withhold judgment until we know more about her. So far, one of the biggest criticisms seems to be she's not Ivy League educated....as if there are no capable legal minds among us who were not. Puh-lease. Don't be such an elitist snot.

The other big criticism seems to be that she's never been a judge. Big deal. Neither were what, about half the other Justices? In fact, I seem to remember one in particular who had neither an Ivy League type education nor judicial experience prior to his appointment, and he seemed to have done all right for himself during his Supreme Court tenure.

There is one commonality shared by both appointees however. And now there's a few pundits starting to catch on.

"Bush does not really care about conservatism or shifting the court in any direction - he only cares about war. He has a litmus test alright, but it's not "Will (s)he overturn Roe?" (as everybody assumes) but rather "Will (s)he set Jose Padilla loose?"

Give the man a button....though I don't know that I'd go so far to say that the President doesn't care about the direction of the court. I think he does, it's just that he believes the war is more important. Can't say that I disagree. If we lose the war, there's no question as to the direction the court will take. Can we say 'sharia'? Yes, but I'd really rather not.

All in all, Miers is looking like a reasonable choice so far. Not much record for the Dems to nitpick. Politically correct gender. Presumably the President knows her views well, thereby avoiding a potential Souter sandbag. (Though I still say you never absolutely know what someone will do after they get on the bench.) She seems to be agreeable to the Dems so little political capital expended. And why expend it unnecessarily just to satisfy those who want to continue to rub the Dems collective noses in their presidential election loss?

Now Miers may turn out to be one of the worst jurists to ever grace the Supreme Court....but then again maybe not. Bottom line is, confirmation hearings nonwithstanding, no one knows for sure until she actually gets there. The best the President can do is make his choice based on what information he has. Picking a Supreme Court nominee is just like most other things.

At some point, you pays your money and takes your chances.

Predators & Prey

Arrests have been made in the brutal Georgia trailer park murders.

The crime spree last week left six workers dead, either shot or bludgeoned with baseball bats. Four other workers were injured and a woman raped.

Stacy Bernard Sims, 19, and Jamie Underwood, 22, are accused of shooting and beating a Hispanic man at a Norman Park trailer park and then raping his wife.

This illustrates a growing ancillary problem with illegals that we're seeing here in NWArkansas....the predators who inevitably show up to take advantage of them. For example, there's recently been a string of armed muggings in Rogers against Hispanic victims, 7 or so at last count. And that's just the reported ones. Illegals are understandably reluctant to report crimes, both from a fear of INS and a fear of law enforcement in general.

That, coupled with their tendency to carry large amounts of cash because they either don't trust banks or lack the necessary i.d. to open an account, makes them a perfect victim for every con artist, gansta thug and thief around. Easy pickin's you might say.

I don't know what the answer is, or even if there is one, except maybe education. But I do know it's a growing problem in any community which has an illegal population of any size....a problem which soon bleeds over into the entire community.

Criminals aren't generally all that smart but they are greedy.

Not Just a Firecracker

One of the local papers has more details on the firecracker in the courtroom story (registration req'd). Maybe it wasn't such an overreaction after all. The device was the same as one the defendant had been arrested for possessing.

The Koster trial involved an event in October of 2003 when U. S. Highway 62 was blocked for a time, several persons around Green Forest Auto Body were evacuated and the bomb squad exploded a device found in the body shop along with methamphetamine and guns.

The attorney allegedly hadn't made arrangements with the court to introduce the explosive as evidence. And after all the excitement, the judge had to declare a mistrial....which the prosecutor claimed was the attorney's intent all along. The attorney has denied that was the case. There's more, go read the rest.

The whole thing makes a lot more sense now.

Move It On Over

Today's the last day of the move, which is a good thing since we're both about ready to drop in our tracks. My stepson's been helping us with the heavy stuff when he's not working. Bless his little pointy head, I don't know what we would've done without him. A good kid, that one is.

I will be so glad when we get finished and life gets back to normal. The animals are all adjusting fairly well to the new place, except for one goldfish which didn't survive the trip. I gave it the traditional burial at sea, complete with a salute and an "Alas poor Yorrick! I knew him well, Horatio." Now I just have to remember to replace it before WildChild comes back....one of the reasons I switched our big tank to goldfish is that they're fairly fungible. And cheap too.

Tomorrow's my 45th birthday, which I plan to celebrate in true old lady fashion by a visit to my internal medicine doctor, and unpacking more boxes here at home. Woo-hoo, doesn't that sound like a party in your pants?

Actually, I'm looking forward to a nice, quiet evening at home after a home-cooked meal....assuming I ever find the rest of our cookware and get enough boxes put away so we can sit in our new living room.

A little peace & quiet is all I want for this birthday.

Welcome Back!

Our favorite neighbor Miss Vicky is blogging again, at Oddfellows Rest, Genu-Reflections from a New Orleans Expat. Great stuff, as always, so drop by & give her a read.

Good to have you back, Miss Vicky!