The More Things Change...

The creative writing book I'm reading tells me to avoid clichés, but sometimes they're just so handy! Anyway, the reason I wrote that particular one up there is because, yet again, I'm sick on New Years Day! My stomach is giving me fits. But let's try to get beyond that for now.
First, I'd like to let all of you in on an eHarmony success story! There's a local resident of whom we've grown quite fond. She's been pretty lonely, living all by herself in a fairly choice location. Occasionally, visitors have stopped in, and she'll hang out with them for a while, but then they always head on their way, leaving her to await the arrival of her soul mate. Well, it appears her wait is over; yesterday Shelly and I found out she's got a new 'friend', and things are looking good!

Yep, Penny, our resident female mallard, seen here with some transient Canadian geese, has a male admirer now! I'm sure Dr. Neil Clarke Warren wishes her all the best in her new relationship.

Now on to the next topic of conversation. Please read this following passage (it concerns the conflict between Ethiopia and Somalia), and see if anything strikes you amiss. The comment is by a member of the new ruling Somalian government:

"We need to end the impasse politically," Interior Minister Hussein Mohamed
Farah Aideed told reporters in the capital. "If we do not reconcile with them
then they will start an insurgency like in Iraq"

So, the radical Islamists are 'heading for the hills' in the face of superior military might, and the new moderate government wants to 'reconcile' with them when they come back from their rout. I'm guessing this guy won't be Minister of anything for very long. Islamists have about as much interest of peacefully coexisting with you as does a tumor. So, to take this line of thought to its logical conclusion: If, God forbid, a doctor ever has to give you that particular brand of bad news, tell him you'd like to reconcile with the cancer and find a way to coexist with it. That makes about as much sense, survival-wise.

And while we're discussing 'Insanity in Plain Sight", let me quote for you the back of a Christmas gift box for one of my nephews. The gift is a little plastic dinosaur made by Fisher Price:

Imagine...a primitive civilization of humans and dinosaurs, living in a lush,
green land. One side-the predators-are using up its natural resources, wiping
out everything and everyone that gets in their way. The other
side-the ecovores-want to preserve their land. And they're willing to fight to
make that happen. Will the predators succeed in destroying the land, causing
their own extinction? Or will the ecovores stop the destruction and make the
land a place where dinosaurs and humans can live together peacefully? In the
world of Imaginext®, anything is
possible!

I guess now that Darwinism is sufficiently ingrained into our children, we can move on and use dinosaurs as shills for the next big project, radical environmentalism! Would that one sweet, innocent little tyke would look up and say, "Teach, if there were no predators, wouldn't herbivores (or ecovores, if you will) become overpopulated, eat all the available food, and starve en mass?" Or maybe when he got older, and heard all about the evils of Big Oil and greenhouse gases, say "But if we stopped oil, coal, and nuclear, wouldn't whole segments of the population freeze or die of disease? And if we made all farming organic, wouldn't farmers have to farm three times as much land to compensate for increased crop destruction by insects, or otherwise just produce half the food?" But then again, critical thinking isn't overly emphasized these days either.

And on those happy notes, I bid you Happy New Years!