res ipsa loquitur

It was spring, and the grass in back yard was a little long. I let the dogs out for their morning romp, but when I called them back in, Piccolo stayed where she was, lying on the ground. Not even the promise of a dog treat would get her to come. Worried, I went over to her, and found her curled protectively around a nest of baby rabbits in the grass!

Recently I was talking with our good friend Carl Schwartzman when the recent death of Don Adams, who of course played Maxwell "Agent 86" Smart in Get Smart, came up. Carl mentioned that since Adams's death, the number 86 kept popping up for him.

Of course any numerological topic brings to my mind the the Law Of Fives. And I quickly realized that 8 + 6 = 14, and 1 + 4 = 5. Law of Fives, front and center. What else would you expect from a show where the heroes are trying to fight "KAOS", but often end up making more trouble than their opponents? No question, Max was a Knight Of The Five-Sided Temple.

Honda's W.O.W. concept car has built-in dog crates, washable roll-out flooring, and wide sliding doors. The article notes that in Japan, demand is growing for cars that cater to dogs and their people.

I noticed during my first visit (I'm going to get to go back in a few weeks) that Japan seemed a dog-friendly country, it seemed more common for people to have their dogs out with them in Kobe than in Baltimore. Also more older dogs, it seems they rarely put dogs down just because they get old.

The Guardian reports - and they don't seem to be making this up - that three dozen armed dolphins may have been set loose in the Gulf of Mexico when their compound, believed to be near Lake Pontchartrain, was breached by Hurricane Katrina.

Experts familiar with the U.S. navy's program believe that the military trained the dolphins to shoot underwater terrorists with dart guns. The Navy has refused to confirm that any of its cetacean agents are AWOL.

Thanks to Brooklyn borough president Marty Markowitz, motorists leaving Brooklyn via the Williamsburg Bridge into Manhattan now see a sign proclaiming "Leaving Brooklyn Oy vey!".

I like it. But if Brooklyn can have "Oy Vey", why can't we have "Welcome to Baltimore, Hon" on the BW Parkway?

This story was pointed out to me by our good friend Mike Gurklis, who notes, "There's nothing better than things that are both beautiful and strange."

NAIROBI (AFP) - A baby hippopotamus that survived the tsunami waves on the Kenyan coast has formed a strong bond with a giant male century-old tortoise, in an animal facility in the port city of Mombassa, officials said.

...

"After it was swept and lost its mother, the hippo was traumatized. It had to look for something to be a surrogate mother. Fortunately, it landed on the tortoise and established a strong bond. They swim, eat and sleep together," the ecologist added.

I'm just enough of a comics fan to get some laughs from the bizarre covers and outrageous outtakes at Superdickery.com. In their discussion of propaganda in comics, they linked to a contemporary bizarre right-wing comic:

It is the year 2021, tomorrow is the 20th anniversary of 9/11. It is up to an underground group of bio-mechanically enhanced conservatives led by Sean Hannity, G. Gordon Liddy and Oliver North to thwart Ambassador Usama Bin Laden's plans to nuke New York City ...And wake the world from an Orwellian nightmare of United Nations-dominated ultra-liberalism.

Ironically juxtaposed against the death of Lenny Bruce's ex-wife, Honey Bruce Friedman, comes this story from the New York Times on the "psychology of swearing":

In fact, said Guy Deutscher, a linguist at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands and the author of "The Unfolding of Language: An Evolutionary Tour of Mankind's Greatest Invention," the earliest writings, which date from 5,000 years ago, include their share of off-color descriptions of the human form and its ever-colorful functions. And the written record is merely a reflection of an oral tradition that Dr. Deutscher and many other psychologists and evolutionary linguists suspect dates from the rise of the human larynx, if not before.

Rolling Stone has more on the death of, and memorial service for, Hunter S. Thompson:

"Fuck you, Hunter," [Johnny Depp] joked one afternoon not long after Hunter died. "You want a Gonzo Cannon? We'll give you a Gonzo Cannon."

Following Hunter's thirty-year-old blueprints, the Colonel commissioned a construction crew to build the cannon. Cost was not a factor. So what if the price tag was $2 million or $3 million? Depp's recent hits Pirates of the Caribbean and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory were financial grand slams, earning the forty-two-year-old actor enough money to buy his own island near the Bahamas. Doing it right for Hunter was all that mattered. "I loved him and wanted to make sure his last wish was fulfilled," Depp says. "It's that simple." He galvanized Hunter's inner circle to share his vision of building the most spectacularly weird monument ever erected for a writer.

Ok, this is just funny:

If you witness a crime, it is your civic duty to report the crime to the police.

When a crime is committed, you have the right and responsibility to make a "Citizen's Arrest".

Thus, if YOU commit a crime, it would be extremely helpful (and provide a savings of tax dollars) for you to perform a Citizen's Self-Arrest