Posted on 04/07/2011 8:17:49 AM PDT by ConservativeStatement
A flock of ten flamingoes have met a brutal end at a zoo in Eskilstuna in eastern Sweden after a curious anteater broke into their compound and clawed them to death, leaving a further five birds nursing injuries.
(Excerpt) Read more at thelocal.se ...
Yeah, only reason to go through would be ‘temporary assignment for joint training with..’
Wish Tonk were still around.
He’d have loved this.
Yup. Tomorrow is about two time zones east of here, which means I need to be heading to bed soon but not as early as originally expected because Air France accomplished what Delta could not -- allowing me to check in online despite a relatively common peculiarity in my official name. I do not need to be at the airport to check in before 7:30 AM (hotel is in the airport so it won't take long to get there), and can wait until 8:30 or so.
I think I have fixed the name/chec-kin issue going forward as regards Delta, but then I booked a flight with AirTran (didn't want to, but corporate booking policies left me little room) and it turns out their website programmers are the most clueless, unaware of Western naming conventions, or just simply stupid or uncaring...
But forget all that. I had a mostly delightful day in sunny Paris (good for the camera, bad for me) today. I was planning to process photos tomorrow for posting online, but discovered I do not have, nor can I get, a seat with enough space forward to open up the laptop.
I might rejoin you tomorrow afternoon (PDT), but please understand if my body clock complains that it's past midnight and I'll be even less coherent than usual.
Again, Happy Birthday (tomorrow), 'Face!
I hope it all goes well for you. It’s raining here again. The girls’ swim practice ended early because of thunder.
I’m sure he can appreciate it somehow.
Good night (it’s almost 11 PM here). I’ll be back maybe tomorrow afternoon your time — or not.
I know.
Still, there’s a hole in the forum where he once was.
Yes, that’s true.
I’ve been poking through the bars at a prophecy enthusiast. Did you know our current drought (?) and the spawning of the 13-year cicadas indicate the end of the world? But honestly, it’s not that fun because they’re in such a fog.
Thanks!
Not so. Darks and I are conversant with all end-of-the-world scenarios, having been instrumental in developing them, and this isn't one of them.
As a budding prophecy enthusiast myself, being an erstwhile science fiction writer, I would posit that many unbelievable things still have to come to fruition, in the "dogs and cats living together" type of situation.
F'r'instance, do you imagine that all sexual deviancy that is currently viewed as unthinkable, unimaginable, and unlikely has yet been invented? Not by a long shot.
For guidance, consider that most taboos have a modicum of science behind them; practical reasons for the stern suggestions of what denotes proper behavior. Once that science has developed, and the basis for the taboo understood, the reason for its continued existence becomes moot.
So, any taboos you're not particularly fond of? They could be heading for the ash-heap.
Larry Niven is the prophet here, having suggested Rishathra as a means of currency. Obviously far-seeing. In a modern society, with the ability to replicate almost anything for almost nothing, novelty is the only item worth something.
And besides that, we're still waiting for our flying cars, anti-gravity, and electrical energy too cheap to meter.
There are Easter Eggs out there, like super-conductivity, lasers, blue LEDs, electronic kissing (to keep it polite), and others I'm not allowed to mention because of the Time Police scrutiny.
We haven't found all of them yet.
It’s going to be a fascinating future, I see. Someday, your books will be like historical novels instead of science fiction.
It’s interesting how the past looks different from the future. For example, in novels from the 18th and 19th centuries, fatal disease is a pervasive element. Everyone is terrified of cholera, tuberculosis, and typhoid. In modern historical novels about the period, it’s rare to find a whole slew of protagonists wiped out by disease. Well, except for “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
I just love your descriptions of places and people Sion!
Happy travels, get home safe!
I’ve heard that one of their biggest worries was where they would put all the horse manure, in the future.
I guess that shows how futile our worries are.
Actually, what shows how futile our worries are, is remembering back to a year ago, in one of everyone's gripe sessions, concerning whatever it was they were griping about.
Then trying to remember what happened to those gripes.
You see, what happens is that someone found a way to deal with the problem, or someone who was a problem went somewhere else, or maybe we just learned to accommodate, as other things surfaced to become the problem du jour.
And that's after only a year.
Imagine if you take steps by generations, or lifetimes!
One of my favorite games is to consider what my great-grandfather might say about us, as we go through our daily lives, and give voice to our problems.
He'd probably be convinced that the world is full of crybaby pantywaists, who've got the world at their feet, and they don't even appreciate it.
I mentioned replicators. Have you heard of copying machines? Xerox Company?
I'll bet you've got a copier not very far from where you are right now. Most computer printers have that as an ancillary function.
Remember what Thomas Jefferson had to do to have a copy of his correspondence that he was sending out?
It's hard to realize that there was a time when it used to be someone's job to help you make telephone connections through the labyrinthine mazes criss-crossing even the smallest towns.
Or in a time before that, you had to send a runner with a message to or from the telegraph office, or on horseback.
But obviously the direction of our progress is clear. In the future, no one need ever be out of touch with the entire world, and all of its knowledge. That's a powerful change.
And what will we do with it? Why, we'll keep our friends informed of every occasion that we choose to clip our toenails, or when we find lint in our pockets.
Didn’t Jefferson invent the duplo-pen on a strut to simultaneously write what he was writing? I can’t think it would work all that well. He could have employed a stenographer, except he was always in debt up to his topknot.
It was invented by an Englishman, John Hawkins. But Jefferson used it and adapted it to suit his needs.
It’s interesting how the past looks different from the future. For example, in novels from the 18th and 19th centuries, fatal disease is a pervasive element. Everyone is terrified of cholera, tuberculosis, and typhoid. In modern historical novels about the period, it’s rare to find a whole slew of protagonists wiped out by disease. Well, except for “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies.”
Not to be a pessimist, but I'd say "present" and not "future." I remember the big hoopla over the Salk Sabin polio virus (and 50 years later last summer visited the school where I received the sugar cube). But... the warnings over the waning efficacy of our antibiotics are worrisome.
Thanks, fanfan! Maybe after I'm back I can write about my experience of eating in a Mexican restaurant in Germany -- the food was NOT like an American/Canadian Mexican restaurant. (And that's what I wanted to know: eating in "American" restaurants in Finland was an eye-opener.)
Which brings its own problems -- how to sort through it. I had booked the hotel I'm in right now weeks ago, but it was only yesterday morning (in the previous hotel) that I found the information about exactly where it is in this airport, and it's not the "short" walk to my terminal previous information suggested. I have to take a shuttle.
"See" y'all after I arrive in North America...
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