My Shortest Written Opinion Ever

This could quite possibly be the shortest commentary that I have ever had on just about anything. AND the most remarkable part about it is that I think I have a point of view that's kind of hard to disagree with. Then again, I think that about a lot of things. What do I know? Now, mind you, I didn't read this entire article. I came up with my opinion based solely on the title. I realize that I'm giving a lot of credence to the person who wrote the title and I'm really hoping that it's accurate. If it's not accurate, I might have to rethink my position, but I don't think that it would alter it by much.

Here we go...Over there at the Huffington Post is an article with the following title: "Sex With Animals Can Lead To Penis Cancer: Study".

My response to the aforementioned study? Good.

The end.

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It's Dead And It's Funny

This one speaks for itself. It's a little girl whose dog has just killed a squirrel. Or, as she says it, a squeel. Yep. Cute kid playing with a dead rodent. Try not to crack up right around 1:30 when she starts making the dead creature's head bob up and down. Apparently, there are people out there (ie, on the Innerwebs) who are freaking out that this guy would let his daughter play with a dead animal. Hey, kids need to strengthen their immune systems. I'm not saying that they should always go about it by toting around furry animal carcasses, but a few germs are only going to help them in the long run. It wasn't foaming at the mouth or anything. She'll be fine. And if she isn't, then all of the people who were freaking out about it can say "I told you so", which really seems to be what they want, more than anything for some odd reason. Anyway, here's a cute little girl playing with a dead squirrel. Enjoy!

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Almost An Alpaca

Just so you know, Taylor Lautner of sparkly vampire fame, looks an awful lot like an alpaca.

My thanks go out to BuzzFeed for pointing out this stellar similarity. Seriously, who knew? Granted, who cared? But who knew?!

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Bully For You

I'm not going to pretend to understand bullfighting. I don't understand why in the world anyone would want to participate in it and I certainly don't understand why in the world anyone would want to watch it. I see it as a publicly sanctioned event in which the torture of an animal is wildly cheered on by the masses. I find it strange. I think what I find even more strange is that there aren't more unhappy endings for the bullfighter. And I use the term "unhappy" only in regard to what the bullfighter must be thinking when he gets gored by a bull. (It's probably what he's thinking right after "Holy hell! That effing hurts!!") My opinion? The bullfighter has whatever he gets coming to him.

All of that being said, it still didn't stop me from actually saying, "Holy S!" (though I did use the elongated version) when I saw pictures of a one Julio Aparicio being gored by a bull during something called the Festival of Saint Isidro that takes place somewhere in Spain. Apparently, that is like the most important event in the bullfighting calendar. I guess it's like the Super Bowl of bullfighting. Super Bull, if you will. (Or if you won't. That was pretty bad.) It takes place at something called the Plaza de Toros las Ventas bullring. I tried to get The Google magical translate tool to translate that into English. It didn't go so well. It would translate Plaza de Toros into bullring and it would translate las Ventas into sales. Bullring Sales? That can't be right. Whatever it means, it's freaking huge. Up to 24,000 can get in there to watch this madness. And yesterday when they went to madness watch, this is what they saw. Behold!

Holy. Crap. That bull stuck that big 'ol horn right on through ol' Julio there. No bueno. It looks like it enters underneath his chin and exits right out of his mouth. Good Lord, man. According to the Huffington Post via something called AFP one of the medics who worked on Julio said, "It went through the tongue and penetrated the roof of the mouth, fracturing the jawbone." Went through the tongue? Through. The tongue. Again, I say Oh. My. God.

Now, below is a picture right before el Bull did all of the goring and tongue piercing and what not. Can you honestly say that you blame the bull? Look at him! (I'm assuming it's a him based solely on that huge dingus that he has hanging from his nether region.) He's covered in his own blood. I'd be a little pissed off too if someone was constantly riling me up and stabbing me with something as I ran by.

While that's not a little bit of blood, that's an awfully big animal. And look at that stabbing instrument that Julio is using there. That looks like nothing more than a skewer for shishkabobs! How long does it take him to kill the animal using his specially formulated Ginsu knife there? I'm guessing quite a while! But back to the blood. That blood is all from the bull. That has to hurt. No, I know it hurts. Why do you think the bull was so angry? Because someone was slowly torturing him to death, that is correct. According to the Chicago Sun-Times blog Sports Pros(e) "Aparicio fell during the part of the match where the matador uses his cape and sword to entertain the crowd before delivering the death blow." Uh-huh. How...entertaining? Really? Whatever. Good for the bull.

I'm guessing that it doesn't matter that the bull won. I'm guessing that he will still be killed at some future fight. I wish they had some sort of rule that if the bull wins, he gets to go free. Then again, in order to do that, they'd have to come up with what constitutes a "win". But I'd guess that having the bull's horn go in under your chin and come out of your mouth would be a pretty simple baseline to establish what a "win" is. I'm totally on the bull's side with this one. Sorry, Julio. That's what you get. Am I saying that I'm glad he was gored? Not necessarily. Am I saying that I'm sad he was gored? Not necessarily. All I'm saying is what did he expect?

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Lion Burgers, Anyone?

I don't understand the whole exotic game animal meat for consumption dealio. Buffalo burgers, ostrich burgers, stuff like that. Does it make it any more of a meal because you're eating something that you wouldn't normally eat? I don't know that it does. And does it really taste SO much better than a regular beef burger or a regular turkey burger? Different? I'd buy that. But better? I don't know. But now I'm afraid that the whole exotic burger deal is trying to one-up itself with an item on the menu at a Sacramento establishment. That's right. The Flaming Grill (which sounds like it would be more apt to be a gay bar than it would a bar and grill) is serving up lion burgers. Wait. What now?

Correct. Lion burgers. Well, not just lion burgers. Because that would be weird. No, they're lion AND antelope burgers. Mostly antelope. So, that should help, right? No. No, it kinda doesn't. Look, I'm not saying that they're disgusting or anything like that. I really don't know. I've never had a lion/antelope burger. (What would that be? Like a lintelope? Sounds fuzzy.) I just don't know that it's necessary, you know? According to KTXL in Sacramento "There are rules and regulations for this type of thing, but the Flaming Grill says it's not breaking any. The business tells FOX40 it can't serve a burger with all lion meat, and it's supply is not imported from another country." Wait. What?

It's not imported from another country? Where, exactly, in the United States do we have all of these lions roaming around that are fit for eating? I was unaware of the lion-as-food populace in this country. Not imported? How is that possible? And even if it is possible, when did this start? You know, all of the extra lions.

Upon further investigation of the Flaming Grill (OK, I went to Yelp) I discovered that the lintelope burger is not all that they serve that would be classified under the weird exotic menu. No, they have other things as well. For example, the yak burger. Made just for those of you with a hankerin' for some yak. Lemme guess. Is that meat not imported from another country either? Just a little Yellowstone poaching, perhaps?

Then there's the alligator burger. I want to know what's the difference between alligator meat and crocodile meat. They seem like they're cousins, yet I never hear of crocodile being on a menu anywhere. And if it was going to be anywhere, I'd have to guess that this place would be it.

There's your buffalo burger. Buffalo, the cousin of the yak. Still edible. Still odd. But it's not as odd as, of course, the llama burger. Behold!

Llama? Who would even think of eating a llama? Why would you want to? They're the spitters, right? Yeah, I don't want spit-laden meat. Llamas look like they're half camel, half ostrich. I'm surprised those aren't on the menu at the Flaming Grill as well! But according to the Yelp-sters, there is kangaroo available on some occasions. (Now, I KNOW that isn't from this country! Explain the kangaroo!)

I'm not bagging on the Flaming Grill, but I really take issue with the whole "exotic food" concept. Most of the time, foods that are considered to be "exotic" were only eaten in the first place because the people who were eating them were starving to death at the time! They would have eaten each other if they could have! It's not like they were looking to do the "exotic" thing at the time. They ate what they could. But when you can eat things that are more plentiful (and normal), shouldn't we just stick with those? Do we really need to be eating llamas? I'm not so sure.

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Flaw and Order

Recently, here in the fine, fine state of California, some asshat Senator (said asshat being California Senate Majority Leader Dean Florez) introduced a bill that would, according to a story at Fox News (and they're fair and balanced, don't you know?), "...establish a registry of names -- similar to widely used sex offender databases -- to track and make public the identities of people convicted of felony animal abuse." Now, really, how I feel about that isn't exactly what this post is about, but I'm going to tell you what I think anyway.

And what I think is that if they're going to do this, someone is going to have to tell me where it's going to end. What I mean is that I think that sex offender databases are a good thing. I like to know where the perverts are. (Have you blue-dotted your neighborhood today?) But I'm thinking I'd also like to know where all of the folks convicted of assault are at. Add to that the folks convicted of theft, vandalism, burglary, or armed anything. All I'm saying is that it's going to have to stop somewhere and I think it needs to be contained to sex offenders. Otherwise, I think we run the risk of becoming a little too Big Brother-ish for my comfort level.

But I digress. The point here is that the folks in California (at least one of them, anyway) think that animal abuse is such a horrific crime (and it is) that those who perpetrate it and are convicted of it should be entered into some sort of statewide database. That view seems to be radically different from at least one judge in West Virginia. The judge in mention would be a one Kanawha Circuit Judge James Stucky. Let's learn more about him, shall we?

Judge Stucky presided over the sentencing of a one 18-year old (and old enough to know better) Charles Wiant. Mr. Wiant was being sentenced after pleading guilty for killing his neighbor's German shepherd with a bow and arrow. Clearly, Mr. Wiant is an asshat. That much seems cut and dried. What's not so clear is what is wrong with Judge Stucky.

Judge Stucky sentenced Mr. Wiant to spend four weekends in jail and "...serve 50 volunteer hours at the Kanawha-Charleston Animal Shelter, pay $1,000 to the dog's owners and spend a year on unsupervised probation." Hmmm. Now, the article in the Charleston Daily Mail says that the Judge " ...imposed a sentence that was suggested by the victims and recommended by prosecutors in exchange for a guilty plea." Now, while I don't know what the sentencing parameters for something like shooting a German shepherd with a bow and arrow, I know that it doesn't seem unreasonable at all. I don't know that it seems like one would need to make any concessions to such a sentence. I, however, am not Judge Stucky. And Judge Stucky "...agreed to a sentencing arrangement that will allow him to attend the Hank Williams Jr. concert at the Charleston Civic Center on April 2. Wiant's lawyer, Bill Forbes, explained that Wiant's girlfriend already has spent a lot of money on the tickets." Wait. What?

Correct. This convicted and, apparently, admitted (he pled guilty) dog murderer whose weapon of choice was a bow and arrow, will be allowed to go to a Hank Williams Jr. concert because his girlfriend already spent a lot of money on the tickets. Are you freaking kidding me?!

I think that crimes against animals are in some ways more reprehensible than crimes against humans. Regardless though, it's hard for me to be really objective on this one when I'm an animal lover. I definitely do not think that four weekends in jail is any sort of a just sentence. But it is what it is. And it's a sentence. And I don't think that it needs to be altered. And animal lover or not, I certainly don't give a fat rat's ass how much money the convicted's girlfriend spent on concert tickets. Too bad. Maybe she should have chosen a better boyfriend. Perhaps one who wouldn't get his ass thrown in jail for shooting a German shepherd with a bow and arrow and killing it? THAT might be the kind of boyfriend to have. You know, one who doesn't do stuff like that!

Just remember, kids! If you're going to be sentenced to jail in Judge Stucky's courtroom and think that you may be needing a break from the doldrums of prison life once you're in there, make sure that you purchase some pricey concert tickets ahead of time so that the Judge will let you attend! Make it a country music concert just to be on the safe side. Plan ahead!

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Is That a Snake or Are You Happy to See Me?

I understand why people smuggle drugs. It's because there's enough money to be made that the rewards outweigh the risks. I mean, that's the kind of sense that it makes to the people who actually smuggle drugs. To me, the very real possibility of going to prison for eons does outweigh the rewards. That's the number one reason that I'm not a drug mule. (Well, that and the fact that I prefer to think of my sphincter as 'exit only'.) But while I understand the drug smuggling trade, I do not understand the creature smuggling trade.

And there are some pretty strict laws in place against smuggling animals of many sorts into a variety of countries. I don't think I'd be exaggerating if I surmised that the United States probably is more vigilant against people smuggling exotic animals into this country than they are against people smuggling other people into this country. (Oh! What am I saying?! Silly me, this country barely enforces the borders that it has! There's no need to smuggle! Just wander on over! Come on! Hola!)

I don't know how I would smuggle animals if I were to go into that line of work. I'd want to smuggle something cute, though. Like kittens or bunnies or puppies. Especially if I had to smuggle the creatures on my person. The cuter, the better if I'm doing that. I would absolutely NOT smuggle live royal pythons taped to my chest which, of course, means that I would also absolutely NOT smuggle live geckos taped to my legs. I especially wouldn't do this in Norway and if I did I surely wouldn't forget about the tarantula in my bag that would tip off the officials to my sinister scheme. I would NOT do any of that. But this guy would. Behold!

OH, what the hell is that? According to a section in the L.A. Times called L.A. Unleashed-all things animals in Southern California and beyond (doncha know?) THAT is a guy who was discovered "...during a routine customs check of passengers who had just arrived via ferry into Kristiansand." (By the way, Kristiansand is apparently in Norway. He was travelling from Denmark, if that's of any assistance to you.) Yeah, see, in each one of those little socks is a baby royal python and there's fourteen of the suckers! Behold!

Good Lord, I think I'm gonna be sick. Fourteen snakes. But wait! There's more! Behold!

::: whimper ::: What the hell is that, you ask? THAT would be ten, yes ten, ten cans of baby geckos! Bwah-ah-ahhhhh! (I feel like the Count from Sesame Street.) And, why yes, they are taped to his legs! What is wrong with people?! I don't know either, but here are the geckos. ::: sigh ::: Behold.

Well, according to The Sun, the guy claimed that "...he was a collector and had bought the creatures legally in Denmark." Um, I've known a lot of people that "collect" a lot of things, but that doesn't make it necessarily legal or anything. The ones that do "collect" things and are doing so legally certainly don't feel the need to tape them to any spare space that they may have and may not be using upon their body! Ever think you'll see a stamp collector do that? How about weird, still lives at home in the basement, baseball card collector guy? (Granted, he'll do weird stuff, but none of it will involve taping his baseball cards to his body. Yet.) By the way, just to give you some sort of an idea as to how many geckos this actually is (other than the number 12 I've already provided you), I've taken the liberty to Photoshop twelve geckos onto this man's legs. It's disgusting. Behold!

But I guess it doesn't matter if he bought them legally or what kind of a "collector" he is, importing reptiles into Norway (ie, taping them to your body and hoppin' on a ferry) is against the law. And while all of this is weird, here's the part that I really don't get. You wouldn't think I'd have to ask you to guess how they figured this out, would you? Seems pretty obvious how they figured it out, doesn't it? Well, it didn't quite happen that way.

No, see, they found a tarantula in his bag and that's when they decided that they'd give him a little full body search as well. Wait. What?

Correct. They found a tarantula in his bag. THAT is what tipped them off. The tarantula. In his bag. What in the world was this man wearing? The world's biggest parka? How can you not know that there are fourteen snakes and twelve geckos taped to someone's body? Are they not moving around? And look at that picture. It's not like they don't stick out a fair amount! You're telling me that if it weren't for that spider crawling around in his bag that he would have made it through customs with the reptile cage of the zoo strapped to himself? Are we supposed to be happy about that? I don't think I am. I just don't think I am.

So let's put all of this together, shall we? We've got the guy with the geckos and the pythons who gets caught smuggling all of these creatures on his person because of the inexplicable ONE tarantula in his bag. We've seen what the geckos all look like if they were just taped onto him instead of stuffed into what appear to be Skoal tins. Now let's see how many snakes that looks like, courtesy of yours truly here and Photoshop. Behold!

And they couldn't have figured this out without the tarantula in the bag?! I find that hard to believe. You're telling me they couldn't find THIS:

But THIS they caught onto right away:
OK, then. Good luck with that, Norway. Gooooooood luck with that.

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17...18...19?

Are you familiar with the Duggar family? They're the folks over in Arkansas who have a rather large family. We're not talking Brady Bunch or Eight is Enough or anything that amateurish. No, the Duggars would be more like Eighteen is Enough. Only it isn't. Enough, that is.

Meet Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar. Jim Bob, 44, and Michelle, 43, live in Arkansas and are the parents of eighteen children. On purpose. I don't know why exactly. Something about blessings and gifts from God or something like that. I don't quite get how being the host to an alien creature living in your body for nine months before it forcefully expels itself through your uterus in a process akin to that of shoving a pot roast through your nostril can be called "a blessing", but to each their own? I guess? (Why are God's "gifts" always children? Why can't God's "gifts" be regular gifts? Like iPods and Playstation 3s?)

While I can't imagine that it's the best thing in the world to have a family that large, I can't imagine it's the worst thing in the world, either. On top of that, the Duggars are totally self sufficient and do not rely on any sort of assistance from any governmental or charitable entity. And while I may hate to admit it, aside from the prairie-dress fashion that they seem to sport, they seem rather normal. As normal as you can be when you're living a life that's quite similar to that of being permanently assigned to a dorm or barrack, that is.

So Michelle gave birth to Jordyn-Grace on December 18, 2008, an appropriate date for the eighteenth child of the family. (Eighteen. Good Lord.) Most people who have heard of these folks had probably just barely started to wrap their head around THAT concept when BAM! Next thing you know, number 19 is on the way. Wait. What?

Correct. Michelle Duggar is now pregnant with number 19, now a mere 9 months after shooting out number 18. She is apparently due in March of 2010 (which is the next time that I go to the dentist. See the difference here? Yeah.) OK, so...let's see...had the 18th in December....due in March....9 months gestation...subtract the 2...carry the one....June! They did it in June! SIX months after giving birth, she's pregnant again. AND is happy about it. Most folks? Ready to hurl themselves off of a cliff, that would be correct. But not these folks. Nope. Happy. Go figure.

Man, Jim Bob must have sperm that are like the Michael Phelps of the reproductive world. (Why, yes, I do picture them with little goggles and swim caps. Why?) And Michelle's eggs must make for easy targets. As big as barn doors from the perspective of the begoggled spermatozoas, that is.

The Duggars have two sets of twins in that mix: 19-year olds Jana and John-David and 10-year olds Jedidiah and Jeremiah. (Did I mention that all 18 of the kids have names that start with the letter "J"? I didn't? They do. All of them. Joshua, 21; Jill, 18; Jessa, 16; Jinger, 15; Joseph, 14; Josiah, 13; Joy-Anna, 11; Jason, 9; James, 8; Justin, 6; Jackson, 5; Johanna, 3; Jennifer, 2, and Jordyn-Grace, 8 months.) So that means that with the 18 kids, she's only been pregnant 14 times. That's a total of 126 months!

That's twelve and a half years!

Holy canoli! That's a ridiculously long time to be pregnant! But then I started thinking about it and what if Michelle Duggar wasn't human (and after 19 pregnancies, I realize that one could actually wonder, but we have to assume that she is). And with a little help from MSN Encarta, I've realized it would be a frightening, not to mention crowded, scenario. But if she were the right kind of animal, it could definitely free up some space over there.

A few of the animals that have much longer gestation periods than humans are the the Asian elephant (645 days), the sperm whale (490 days), the giraffe (430 days), and the Bactrian camel (410 days). So she'd only have about 6 Asian elephant children right now and around 8 sperm whale children not to mention about 9 giraffe kids and 9 Bactrian camels. Get that woman an ark! NOW!

But the problem would arise if she were an animal with a much, much, MUCH shorter gestation period than the nine months that humans have. What if she were a finch? A finch has a gestation period of only ELEVEN days. ELEVEN! That's not even TWO weeks! The Olympics lasts longer than a finch pregnancy! You can't even get through the song "The 12 Days of Christmas" if you're a pregnant finch! You would have NO drummers drumming!

A cryin' shame that would be. It would also be about 415 finches! It would be almost an equal number of opossums as well, as their gestation period is 12 days. Mice incubate other mice for between 19 and 21 days, which would produce 228 mice, almost 13 for every Duggar child. And that same amount of time could see the production of 218 chipmunks, 152 rabbits, 130 squirrels and 108 kangaroos! (Kangaroos only have a 42 day pregnancy. 42 days! I'm guessing it has something to do with the pouch, but I'm not sure what exactly. Maybe after 42 days just the head pokes out and the rest keeps on growing in the pouch? Yes, I'm totally speculating! I know nothing!) There could also be 72 raccoons, 71 wolves, 65 mink and 51 pumas. You're gonna need another ark.

All I can say really is that as long as the Duggars can support themselves, so be it. Enjoy! Have a good time! I can't remember what it is exactly that they do for their money, but they seem to have enough of it to raise their 18 kids. Maybe they need some sort of a family business. Something all of the kids could participate in. Maybe like a Starbucks or something. First, they're going to need a location with a lot of traffic. Hey, I know! Michelle's uterus.

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