Blame it on Cowboy Blob.


Special powers?  Why, any red-blooded villain worth his salt--and probably some female villains, too--would pay to get smacked down by such a one as her.

I'd like to see what I could come up with if I had the paid-for version.

That was a fun way to waste an hour.

Created at Hero Machine.

Strange animals, or strange news, take your pick.  Since I'm already sort of on that topic, I noticed several odd bits of news regarding animals this week.

In Sudbury, PA, an apparently mentally disturbed woman brandished several venomous snakes at police who were trying to take her into custody.

In Bulls Gap, TN, a woman assaulted restaurant employees with her catfish dinner after said employees had the temerity to insist that she pay for her meal.  "Henry wasn't hurt, but the $7.99 catfish dinner was ruined."  Heh.

In Fon Du Lac, WI, a man told police he was a werewolf after being arrested for breaking into someone's apartment.  This is actually a form of psychosis that has been fairly well documented through the ages.  I read a book about it, once.

In Calcutta, India, a farmer has discovered that his chickens are not being eaten by jackals or dogs, but by one of his own cows that has apparently gone carnivore.

In Siloam Springs, AR, a woman has sued a hotel because she claims she's suffering horrible nightmares after sleeping in one of their bug-infested beds.

And finally, in Omaha, NE, retired Air Force pilot Randy Gurchin revived Lucy, his pet dog, by performing mouth-to-mouth resuscitation after she nearly drowned.  Pretty good, Randy.

Loren Coleman of Cryptomundo has posted his Top 10 Cryptozoology Stories of 2006:

1. Darlings of Cryptozoology Videotaped: Coelacanth and Giant Squid
2. Lost Worlds Revealed
3. New European Mammal and Others Discovered
4. Discoveries Debated: Ivory-billed Woodpecker and Kouprey
5. Africa Explored: Mokele-mbembe Quest, Gambia Expedition, and SEALs’ Secret Mission
6. Lake Monsters Photographed: Champ and Nahuelito
7. Canid Capered: Maine Mutant, Montana Creature, and Nebraska Cryptid
8. Cryptids Televised: Mothman, Monsters, and More
9. Thylacine Remembered: Steve Irwin’s Search, New Photo, and National Thylacine Day
10. Cryptozoology and Art Exhibited: A First

Read all the details at Cryptomundo.  He also has some cool pictures and links to further information.

Even if you are not into cryptozoology, as a reader of his blog you might find interesting how the MSM gets a lot of cryptozoo news wrong, for example:

The grey mouse, found in Cyprus by French scientist Thomas Cucchi, was announced in October 2006, to be an entirely new species and, according to the media, overturns the widespread assumption that Europe had no mammals left to be discovered. The species, named Mus cypriacus, or the Cypriot mouse, has a larger head, ears, eyes and teeth than previously known examples. Again, the media said that it is “the first new mammal found in Europe in a 100 years.” Of course, this is poppycock as Darren Naish points out in his blog, for this mouse is the 33rd mammal found in Europe in the last 100 years!

This post is somewhat related to religion, so if you're not interested, skip it.

The congregation where I attend worship service has someone who, for lack of anyone else, essentially became the full-time song leader. After we began attending there, there were two of us and I get the opportunity to lead singing quite often.

Last night I got a phone call that he was going to be stuck in Houston today, and wanted to know if I could cover for him.  I'm always glad to do so.  The only thing was, my wife had to work today and I didn't have anyone to keep an eye on the kids while I was occupied with my duties.  So I sat them right on the front row, said a little prayer, and took a chance on them not causing too much of a ruckus.  They sat quietly and even tried to follow along in the song book during the song service.  They made me really proud today, and I told them so.

Of course, when they got outside after services they were running around like a couple of psychotic squirrel monkeys, but I let them run.  They earned it.

A commentary by Robert Levy and Gene Healy of the Cato Institute that's worth reading.  From The Washington Times:

Enter the National Rifle Association, a Hatch supporter (and vice versa), the organization most closely associated with vindicating gun-owners' rights. Now it gets really convoluted, because the facts suggest Mr. Hatch and the NRA are doing everything they can to prevent the Supreme Court from upholding the Second Amendment. Here's the untold story behind the Hatch bill: It was concocted by the NRA to head off a pending lawsuit, Parker vs. District of Columbia, which challenges the D.C. gun ban on Second Amendment grounds.

In February, joined by two other attorneys, we filed the Parker case, a civil lawsuit in federal court on behalf of six D.C. residents who want to be able to defend themselves with a handgun in their own homes. When we informed the NRA of our intent, we were advised to abandon the effort. Surprisingly, the expressed reason was that the case was too good. It could succeed in the lower courts then move up to the Supreme Court where, according to the NRA, it might receive a hostile reception.

Maybe so. But with a Republican president filling vacancies, one might expect the court's composition to improve by the time our case was reviewed. More important, if a good case doesn't reach the nine justices, a bad one will. Spurred by Attorney General John Ashcroft's endorsement of an individual right to bear arms, public defenders across the country are invoking the Second Amendment as a defense to prosecution. How long before the high court gets one of those cases, with a crack dealer as the Second Amendment's poster child?

Maybe the NRA is just afraid that if there's too much good news, the fires will flicker lower and contributions will begin to disappear.

Commit this to memory, folks:  "if a good case doesn't reach the nine justices, a bad one will."  And when the anti-freedom goons get their hands on a bad case, they aren't going to hesitate for one instant.

Read the whole thing, there's more in there that's worse than what I quoted.  See also Banning the Ban by Gene Healy.

Via The Agitator.

I've been meaning to set the switch to "public" on this blog for a while so it would show up in the blogroll, but I kept forgetting.  Recently they posted this captivating pic:


Follow the link to see larger format versions.  An interesting photoblog, even though it seems to be done by a permanent tourist.  How anyone can describe the west side as "scenic" is beyond me.  I would be more prone to describe it as a "rabid pit bull-infested garbage dump," but that's just me.  I guess just driving through on one of the more major streets doesn't really give you the dirt's eye view that I've had on foot.  No offense, anyone, but man, are garbage cans not available on the west side, or what?

My view may be colored by the experiences I've had there dealing with loose pit bulls.  I've kept them from actually biting me by continually throwing beer bottles at them.  Where do I get all the beer bottles?  Why, they're just lying all over the sides of the streets, of course.

But I digress.  San Antonio Daily Photo is still an interesting photoblog, and one that I usually catch up with on weekends when I have more time to look at photos.

Someone came here after searching "lovecraft poem ought to crawl."  This phrase is not from a poem, but from the short story The Festival.  The full sentence is, "Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."  It's supposed to be a passage from the Necronomicon.

The entire passage is:  "The nethermost caverns," wrote the mad Arab, "are not for the fathoming of eyes that see; for their marvels are strange and terrific. Cursed the ground where dead thoughts live new and oddly bodied, and evil the mind that is held by no head. Wisely did Ibn Schacabao say, that happy is the tomb where no wizard hath lain, and happy the town at night whose wizards are all ashes. For it is of old rumour that the soul of the devil-bought hastes not from his charnel clay, but fats and instructs the very worm that gnaws; till out of corruption horrid life springs, and the dull scavengers of earth wax crafty to vex it and swell monstrous to plague it. Great holes secretly are digged where earth's pores ought to suffice, and things have learnt to walk that ought to crawl."

Try not to shudder doubly.