Friday, September 26, 2014

Two triggers in time.

Stumbled across this gun while working in the back.  Strange, god knows how long ago some boy lost his prized cap gun.  He might even be dead now.  And then I turn on TCM and there's George C. Scott as Patton, wearing his pearl-handled revolvers.



Tuesday, September 9, 2014

Joan Rivers was silenced by the Puerarchy



They finally succeeded in shutting up Joan Rivers.
That's the way I look at it: come on, they were climbing down her throat, literally, performing an Endoscopy, or whatever.
There is now an investigation underway to determine if there was malpractice involved.  She was under general anesthesia.  Lots of clinics perform procedures like Endoscopies, Colonoscopies, Arthroscopic surgery, and wisdom teeth extraction, under general anesthesia, with very little regulation.
Meanwhile, 26 states have passed ALL kinds of onerous regulations designed to shut down abortion clinics.  It's all about priorities: she's dead, when maybe we could have benefited from her humor for decades more, because asshole republican males in state legislatures are more interested in regulating women's wombs!

Wednesday, September 3, 2014

Some of my favorite bugs of Summer.

Two Wheel Bugs (Arilus cristatus) mating.  These fabulous predators are HUGE, and they attack all kinds of nasty pests, including tomato hornworms and Japanese Beetles.  Don't ever handle them, though: they have a piercing mouthpart, which is basically a 1/4 long hypodermic syringe, and they won't hesitate to use it in defending themselves!

And look where they are: beside a mural of the winged Maat!




This is a Cicada emerging from it's larval skin.  It has spent the past year underground, sucking sap from tree roots and managing to evade moles, and other predators.



You usually will come across their discarded exoskeletons: clinging to the final earthbound perch, before they launch to spend the Summer days singing and wooing and dodging Bluejays and mating.



They also have to worry about these insects:

Cicada Killers:


Those ants are 1/4 inch long, OK?  If you've ever seen one of these take down a Cicada it's a big noisy battle.  Once on the ground, and the Cicada has been stung and paralyzed, the CK has a herculean task:  it will drag the victim to a shrub, climb to a suitable height, and then launch, furiously buzzing and trying to gain altitude.  The hapless Cicada, just like the poor bastards who got cocooned in "Aliens", is stuffed in a burrow, with an egg laid on it, to serve as junior's room service.