What to my surprise should appear but this guy! Perched on our fence! How cool!
The wife was not overly thrilled with the photo, but I have to say, possums are not so bad. They're not puppy-cute, but they are kind of cute, in a ratty sort of way.
Needless to say, all the household animals will be getting caught up on their shots, tout suite.
This is from a contributor at Free Republic:
Who said? "How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!"WINSTON CHURCHILL IN A SPEECH IN 1899! -- 107 years ago:
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!
Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy.
The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live.
A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property, either as a child, a wife, or a concubine, must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men.
Individual Moslems may show splendid qualities, but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it.
No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilization of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilization of ancient Rome."
Sir Winston Churchill (The River War, first edition, Vol. II, pages 248-50 (London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1899).
Deja vu, I know, but if we can follow American Idol we should be able to make room in our brains for the following:
Dubai, 12 Sept. (AKI) - Osama bin Laden is planning to carry out new, more destructive attacks inside the United States, and there is someone working on this terror plot currently in the US, according to Hamid Mir, the famed Pakistani journalist who obtained the only post-9/11 interviews with Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri...Mir also said that bin Laden has assigned a man named Adnan Al-Shukri Juma to carry out a new attack within the US which is intended to be larger than the 11 September, 2001 attacks. According to Mir, Adnan Jumaa has smuggled explosives and nuclear materials into the US through the Mexican border over the last two years and is hiding somewhere in America where the FBI has not been able to locate him.
The Pakistani journalist also gave a brief background on Adnan Jumaa. Born in Saudi Arabia, he moved to the US where he met a group of a Al-Qaeda members in the Al-Farouq mosque in New York in 2000. He then traveled to an Arab state and from there to Pakistan then Afghanistan. He left there two years ago and since then has smuggled nuclear material from Mexico to the US. Jumaa has earned the nickname "Al-Qaeda nuclear whizz" and is tagged to play the same role in a future attack as Mohammed Atta did in the 9/11 attacks.
In a way the succession of new dire threats since 9-11 may be lulling some of us into complacency since nothing ever happens, but by the same token it should have inspired many to have their various cupboards filled to the brim.
As you have likely figured out this blog is on semi-hiatus for a while. When it comes back it will be with a vengeance, rest assured of that. There are just a lot of things happening in the personal life and I have managed to appropriate a commitment too far... a few "memberships" too many. I'm in the process of trying to shed them now. Those of you who know me, know where else I can be found if you wish to stay current on my bad, bad self.
One by one, we're nailing them.
They don't cause a lot of deaths, from what I learned during my time in Florida:
The creatures are not aggressive and injury usually occurs when a swimmer or diver accidentally steps on one.
All the time I'm thinking: "AND WHERE ARE YOUR FEET, MAN!!! WHAT IN GOD'S NAME ARE YOU STANDING IN?"
Hundred of episodes of watching this guy established him in my mind as the exemplar of "Man against nature: man always wins...as long as MAN HAS THE BALLS TO WILL IT."
And just think that most of his shows were taped in Australia, where there are someting like 150 species of DUST fatal to man. Not to mention the centipedes. So many times when I've been out in the yard and walked into a spiderweb or some such and felt the soul-shuddering sense of disgust "Uugggghh" - I've caught myself and picked myself up by the bootstraps via a quick reminiscence of the Croc Hunter.
"Spiderwebs?" he'd probably say, "Crikey mate, I floss with 'em!"
Whether the Croc Hunter's death shows us the limits of machismo or that we may as well keep plunging into every black swamp because it might be the friggin' BEACH that kills us anyway, Steve Irwin brought the man vs nature conflict into sharp detail, with the brave coming out on top, no less, for a generation of Animal Planet-watching kids. And also for at least one white bread Harry Homeowner who is no longer reticent about venturing into the forbidding dark places under the deck.
