Sappy Cat Blogging

Today’s sappy cat is Menderu, a six-month old Maylayan tiger cub, stalking a pumpkin stuffed with meat at the San Diego Zoo.  Don’t forget to vote for the Rainbow Connection Animal Foundation HERE:

A Bleg

According to Strategypage, the Greek Cypriot national guard is selling off some old mil-surp stuff, including Mk IV Lee-Enfields and Mk-III STENs.  If anyone knows how to lay hands on them, please let me know in the comments.

It IS Nice To Be Asked

In the middle of a very busy week–It’s not good for the teacher to be late for class, BTW–It was nice to be asked to do some more applicant interviews.  My uni has an Oral Surgery residency program, the applicants are all already IN dental school, but they do rotations as medical students and get a dual MD/DDS program.  They’re all already well qualified, but we do need to check, to avoid letting Dr. Swango (or Dr. Scrivello) into the medical school. And the person asking did say “you know what you’re doing.”  This may have been flattery to fill a slot in the schedule, but it worked, and it made me feel good.

Speaking of knowing what one is doing, I recently had an applicant who interruped me in the middle of the interview and told me “You’re doing it wrong.”  I briefly wondered if I’d wandered into a LOLCAT universe:But, no.  This individual was serious.  We weren’t talking enough about this person’s magnificence.  O-kay.  It’s licit to guide the interviewer.  You want to make sure that you’re good points are mentioned at some point.  ANTAGONIZING the interviewer, though is really not such a hot idea.  These interviews take around 45 minutes to an hour, this one felt like it took a year.

It was good to know, that this person isn’t what we’re looking for.  I’ve been in this situation before.  I’d applied for an MPH program at Yale once, and when I met the gentleman who would be doing most of the teaching it was obvious within the first five minutes that 1. we weren’t getting along, 2. we wouldn’t be getting along, and 3. he wouldn’t be accepting me, and 4. I would be withdrawing my application.  The efficieny was great, but it was a long time before we could both get back to our lives.

In both situations, I really wanted to say “Well, since this isn’t working out, shall we go do something productive?”  It would have been inappropriate in either situation, so it never escaped the mental filter.  It’s really rather a pity, as I was quite curious to know what the heck the other person was thinking in both situations, and why they thought this was a good idea.  Oh well.

There IS More Wildlife Around

than there used to be, or perhaps I’m noticing it more.  I was at the Koehn’s Christmas House (which soon will be open all year) scoping it out.  Their property backs up onto a tributary of Euclid Creek, and there are parklands there.  A nice six-point buck wandered past.  Now, this house is in South Euclid.  It’s URBAN.  There were farms there at one point, but that point ended around, oh, 1950. 

Coming back by the Shaker Lakes, I ran across a red-tail that had taken a squirrel like this one:  This isn’t MY image, it is from a gentleman in Georgia who does falconry.  His hawk is wearing jesses (the leather things around the legs).  The red-tail I saw was a juvenile, and was having difficulty with a big squirrel getting altitude (getting out of the street, actually)

Either I’m seeing more deer and wildlife lately, or I’m percieving them better.  Just the other day six deer were on the corner of Coventry and South Park.  It was during rush hour, and I’m glad nothing untoward happened.

I Strangled My Students on Friday

It was an educator’s dream, really.

This was the asphyxia lecture, covering hanging, strangulation, choke holds, refrigerators, and carbon monoxide.  So now, of course, they know who both Jack Ketch and Albert Peirrepoint, the difference between humans and horses, and why you should never try to hide from the police in a Good Humor truck.   They also know the difference between hanging and ligature strangling, which I demonstrated.  They can also differentiate between the carotid sleeper hold and the bar-arm choke hold.  They were much less eager to volunteer after the first experience.  They also know all about manual strangulation, and why you never check BOTH carotid pulses at the SAME time.

That was slightly frightening, but all their tutition is paid up, so the university is satisfied.

We Have a Winner

This week’s limerick contest winner is BRIGID, with her historical one,

It’s times to test the arms race
we’ll have the first monkeys in space
with just a banana
a slice of Americana
Abel and Baker came back to Air Base.

Able died in surgery, but Baker lived til 1984.

Brigid, you know the drill.

Sappy Cat Blogging

This week’s sappy cat blogging, hat tip, Liza, goes to the guy who rigged up a method to turn on his blender to keep his cat off the kitchen counters. Thereby combining computer sciences, animal learning, and way too much free time.

You can see it here, Blender Defender

Orson Scott Card Tells It Like it Is

In THIS article.

Key grafs:

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that’s what honorable people do.  Honest people tell the truth even when they don’t like the probable consequences.  That’s what honesty means .  That’s how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one.  He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards’s own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all?  Do you even know what honesty means?

Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women.  Who listens to NOW anymore?  We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

Mr. Card and I disagree on a lot of things, but two men of good will may hold different opinions and still disagree. He’s right in this instance. It is quite obvious that Barack Obama has not had to undergo critical scrutiny. That’s condescending and does HIM a disservice. If his ideals and ideas cannot hold up to critical scrutiny, there’s a problem. If you won’t give them critical scrutiny because of his ethnic background? You’re condescending, patronizing, and racist.

We’ve gone so far in this country, that a person of colour can be a legitimate candidate for president. If you’re not willing to look beyond his colour at his policies and his character? You’re in the tank, and shouldn’t pretend to be objective.

As Card pointed out in Ender’s Game, we all get manipulated. It’s the human condition. I want to be manipulated by people who care about me and have my best interests at heart. I trust my family. I DON’T trust the media.

Hemochromatosis

A genetic disease, of iron overload, treated by phelbotomy, aka “Bronze diabetes.”

And the docs of MDOD have way too much free time:

I nearly laughed up a lung.

Absentee Ballot

I voted today.  Ohio has a generous absentee policy, and I know I will be in the morgue come election day, so that frees up a spot in line for someone else.

The “bailout” got me rather annoyed.  I’m thinking that a bailout might not be a bad idea, but it didn’t go far enough.  Most of us have to live on planet budget.  If you want your company bailed out, to protect the economy, fine, but I do think public execution of the morons who permitted it is the LEAST they could do to make amends.

There are issues that are important to me, particularly health care, fiscal responsibility, and the second amendment.  There are also people I want to vote against.  I think it’s really quite shameful how low the turnout is in elections, particularly during  non-presidential election years.

The secret ballot was invented in the 1800s in Australia, so people could vote their conscience.  In Appenzell, Switzerland, the men carry the family swords with them as they vote, as a symbol of how they earned and keep the franchise.  3,155 Union men at Gettysburg are dead.  6,825 Americans died on Iwo Jima.  2,836 Americans died at the Chosin Reservoir.  One of the reasons they gave their lives was for us to vote in free elections.

You can have my place in line on 4th November.  Polls open at 0730.