Bird Brained

The Next Chapter in Joys of Foothill Living....

You know about our kitty, Trixie; the 140-ish pound tawny colored mountain lion. You've read about the dogs and the Deer Treat they found. You've heard of the Eau du Skunk the dogs have worn home from being "out on the hill". Now comes the Thunking of the Bird.

Sitting watching TV yesterday afternoon--windows open, fresh air streaming into the house (yes, at the beginning of February)--I see a brown streak, well, streaking through the air. Coming at the house. It disappears from my field of vision and I hear a loud THUNK! from the bedroom. Karl asked, "What was that? A bird?" Yep. A bird.

I git up and go out to make sure the bird is all right. I see nothing from the porch. So I creep down the stairs toward the bedroom windows. Expecting to see a bird flopping around, dazed, on the ground. Nothing. No movement.

As I creep closer to the window, I see a bird, feet up lying in the dirt. Deader'n a doornail. "This is an Ex-Bird!" And I start to giggle. Yep, despite the tragic and sudden unexpected death of a living, breathing, flying thing, I'm giggling. Something about a bird smacking itself into a window and killing itself has struck me funny.... Poor bird.

We take the bird out to the edge of the hill and, uh, recycle it. (Ok, we toss it down the hill so it can become food for something else and not stink up our garbage can.)

And still today I'm tittering about the damn stupid bird which brained itself on the bedroom window.... Poor stupid bird....

Muslims and Cartoons of their Prophet

Ya know, even though I'm not at all religous I'm pretty much all for people having their beliefs and all so long as they don't try to impose their will on other folks. "Believe what you want but don't try to convert me..."

That said, the Islamic world simply is NOT helping their worldwide image holding up signs that call for the death and destruction of people who mock their prophet. (Granted, newspapers and wire services and media doesn't help much either by publishing images such as This One from AFP. Since I believe the link will someday go dead, the signs read, "Kill those who insult Islam", "Exterminate those who slander [not visible, probably Islam]", and "Europe is the cancer Islam the answer".) I believe that most people are inherrently nice folks who just want to go about their business and not be bothered. But when you show the entire world that you can't handle someone else's opinion (such as a Danish newspaper's, for example) and then start fucking rioting because they published a drawing of someone---well, that's just over-reacting.

Muslims: You try to convince the world that your religion is a peaceful one then turn around and do shit like this. I still believe that most of you muslims are peaceful but this is NOT helping your image at all!!! STOP IT!

(To see the offending cartoons, check http://michellemalkin.com/archives/004413.htm . That link may also go dead at some point, but not anytime soon, I'd wager...)