Dead baby mice to be dropped, one by one, by hand, from U.S. military helicopters in Guam.

"U.S. government scientists have been perfecting the mice-drop strategy for more than a decade with support from the Department of Defense and the Department of the Interior."

To keep the mice bait from dropping all the way to the ground, where it could be eaten by other animals or attract insects as they rot, researchers have developed a flotation device with streamers designed to catch in the branches of the forest foliage, where the [brown tree] snakes live and feed.

So, they spent more than a decade... doing what? Designing parachutes for dead mice? (Paging Senator Paul.)

"Stimulants will help anyone focus better. And a lot of young people like or value that feeling..."

"... especially those who are driven and have ambitions. We have to realize that these are potential addicts — drug addicts don’t look like they used to."

What's going on with prescriptions for Adderal?

"The snake, not in any way, shape or form, had intended to eat the baby — it was trying to have a group hug."

"So in the dark, they’re going to see a baby as this warm spot."

This dog whistle whistles both ways.

"New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd set the Jewish political community on fire [Sunday] with a column about the Republican ticket's foreign policy proposals that, according to her critics, peddled anti-Semitic imagery," reports Politico.

You know all the racist things Republicans are always saying, as seen by Democrats? It's like that.

"Maureen may not know this, but she is peddling an old stereotype, that gentile leaders are dolts unable to resist the machinations and manipulations of clever and snake-like Jews," Jeffrey Goldberg, the Atlantic columnist and leading journalist on Israeli issues, wrote.

Snake-like... because the title of the article is "Neocons Slither Back." Dowd may not write the headline, and though she does use the word "slither" in her text, she's quoting Paul Wolfowitz, and he was saying that Obama shouldn't be allowed to "slither through" without having to take — Dowd's words here — "a clear position on liberals."

Dowd proceeds to say "Republicans are bananas on this one." Of course, if a Republican said Obama was bananas, that Republican would probably be accused of racism, because bananas remind us of monkeys, and the monkey is an animal that is associated with some racist iconography, and it's assumed that anything you say about the President is said while thinking about his race — which makes it conveniently/absurdly dangerous to criticize the President.



You can see why those who support Romney are tempted to scare his critics the same way. I'd recommend resisting this temptation. At some point, there really is anti-Semitism even where the text never says "Jewish." (I still think the Michael Moore movie "Capitalism: A Love Story" was trading in anti-Semitism.) Call it when you really see it, but be careful. You want to preserve your credibility — if not for its own sake — at least for the purpose of calling out your opponents when they cry racism (or some other unaccepted ism) and you think it's not there. The other option is to say "racism," "anti-Semism," etc. so often that no one cares about any analysis in that category anymore.

And by the way, if we're going to look at Dowd's imagery, we should look at all of it. She says "[Dan] Senor got out over his skis before Romney’s speech in Jerusalem..." I had to check Wikipedia to be sure that Senor is Jewish. He is. But skiing? Isn't the stereotype about Jews that they don't ski? I did my Google research on this. (Google is a wonderful way to check for the existence of a stereotype. Go ahead and try it to see what's been said about Jews and snakes or black people and monkeys.) Weeding out the articles about Jewish names ending in -ski, I found many references to the stereotype that Jews don't ski. The Ski Channel has an item titled "Yes, Jews Do Ski, Thank You":

I’m continuing my desire to rid the world of skiing stereotypes. Growing up, I always asked my parents why we didn’t take more ski trips. My mother always had a few excuses, but there’s one that stuck with me. “Well, honey, skiing isn’t a very Jewish sport.”.Hmm? I’m sorry? What is a Jewish sport? Bobbing for Matzoh balls?

And here's a Buddy Hackett routine on the Jews-don't-ski theme. ("I told her, 'Jews don't ski. Jews play pinochle and say, 'Helen, bring fruit.'") You know a stereotype is in place, when it's used as a basis for jokes like that.

Some things aren't funny at all, and some comedy is used to mask pain and anger, but let's calm down, be discerning, and keep some humor as we try to slither through the complicated problems strewn in our path by some obvious enemies who can't even think of laughing off that inept "Innocence of the Muslims" YouTube video.

At the Big Rock Café...

... watch out for the snakes.

"Sorry. No Snakes — Or Snake-Based Drinks."

A sign.



At the Frozen Custard stand.

"Serpent-handling pastor profiled earlier in Washington Post dies from rattlesnake bite."

WaPo reports:

Mark Randall “Mack” Wolford was known all over Appalachia as a daring man of conviction. He believed that the Bible mandates that Christians handle serpents to test their faith in God — and that, if they are bitten, they trust in God alone to heal them....

The son of a serpent handler who himself died in 1983 after being bitten, Wolford was trying to keep the practice alive, both in West Virginia, where it is legal, and in neighboring states where it is not....

And so they were gathered at this evangelistic hootenanny of Christian praise and worship. About 30 minutes into the service, his sister said, Wolford passed a yellow timber rattlesnake to a church member and his mother.

“He laid it on the ground,” she said, “and he sat down next to the snake, and it bit him on the thigh.”...

“I promised the Lord I’d do everything in my power to keep the faith going,” he said in October. “I spend a lot of time going a lot of places that handle serpents to keep them motivated. I’m trying to get anybody I can get involved.”

Man at Walmart — buying mulch for his marijuana plants — is bitten by a rattlesnake.

BBC reports:

Mica Craig... said the serpent attacked as he reached down to brush away what he thought was a stick from a bag of mulch.

The purchase was intended for his marijuana plants, which Mr Craig said he was licensed to grow for medical reasons.

"Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?"

That's the fifth most "liked" quote on the topic of "sin" at goodreads. It's from Chuck Palahniuk, Diary (which is a novel, not a diary). The forth most liked also involves poor old Adam. It's by Mark Twain:

Adam was but human—this explains it all. He did not want the apple for the apple's sake, he wanted it only because it was forbidden. The mistake was in not forbidding the serpent; then he would have eaten the serpent.

But I've heard snake is tough, tougher than dog (and less crunchy than grasshopper).

Sorry for the gratuitous Obama-eats-dog/snake punchline. It was not my motivation to look up quotes. I was actually searching for a quote about boredom, something like the only sin is being boring. Interestingly, the most-liked goodreads quotes on the topic of "boredom" are boring. Seriously, how many ways are there to say If you're bored, it's because you are boring? And now I've lost track of what somebody said that made me what that sin-of-boringness quote, which might not even exist.

“Life is for living and working at. If you find anything or anybody a bore, the fault is in yourself.”
― Elizabeth I

Am I boring you? You must be boring.

IN THE COMMENTS: Sweetbriar and Jody both point me to the answer: Christopher Hitchens, in his memoir, "Hitch-22." Page 13. His mother used to say:  "The one unforgivable sin is to be boring."

And I think what got me looking in the first place was a comment by Patrick over in the "Predictable Althouse Is Predictable" post:

Honestly, when I first came to this blog, back in the day, I assumed that you, a law professor especially at Madison, would be a typical lefty law professor. In fact, I likely put off reading the blog for awhile because I assumed it would be the same old boring lefty stuff. This is a very interesting blog, and your political opinions or votes are part of that, but really, there's a lot more to it. Vote for Ron Paul for all I care, or Dennis Kucinich. Just don't be boring about it!

Non-native pythons and anacondas are eating all the native mammals in the southern part of the Everglades.

WaPo reports:

The snakes are literally fighting with alligators to sit atop the swamp’s food chain. In October, a 16-foot python was found resting after devouring a deer.

“There aren’t many native mammals that pythons can’t choke down,” said Robert N. Reed, a research wildlife biologist at the U.S. Geologial Survey’s Fort Collins Science Center....

The snakes were released by pet owners into the Everglades, where they started to breed....

The Obama administration recently banned the import and interstate commerce of Burmese python, two species of African pythons, and the yellow anaconda. But under pressure from the U.S. Association of Reptile Keepers, trade of the world’s longest snake, the reticulated python, and the boa constrictor were allowed to continue....

What's the point? Is the solution to ban pet snakes or not? If you don't have the political will to do it, why do it part way? But if the real problem is the idiots who release pets into the wild, why not punish them severely enough to get some deterrence? And yet, the problem is already out there. The swamp is full of snakes that are lunching on everything and breeding like mad.

I love the last line of the article. It's like the ending of a 1950s monster movie:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service predicted that a new generations of Burmese pythons on the edge of their non-native range can adapt and “expand to colder climates.”

And now... they're coming for you!

IN THE COMMENTS: ~N. quoting the article — "The snakes are literally fighting with alligators to sit atop the swamp’s food chain" — said:

Yeah. They made a movie about this.

Ah, yes! I found the fabulous trailer:

"It was the scent of rodents (on the wood clippings) that we hoped would bring her out."

The Egyptian cobra has been lured back into captivity.

A big mix of stuff from the protests today.

Meade shot, I edited:



0:00 — Meade acquires a flag
0:20 — "No snakes?... So service snakes are allowed?"
2:00 — The "Union/Power" chant ends and Meade starts the National Anthem
3:00 — Flash forward to a second Meade-led National Anthem that took place later in the day (with Meade appearing on screen)
3:15 — Back to the morning National Anthem
3:53 — A speaker wants to "Stop Scott Walker and his minions"
4:45 — A man in shorts holds a "yucky face" sign
5:04 — "They used duct tape"... "That was us."
5:38 — "Go Packers"
5:58 — Dog wearing a sign "I'm smarter than Scott Walker... and once I ran straight into a post"
6:17 — Meade encounters the one guy who might be with the Tea Party doing cleanup
6:48 — "I'll go see if I can shake things up"
6:50 — "Working people of the world revolt"
7:37 — "I just got drafted into the Army of Davids"
7:57 — The thing that Meade resents more than anything
9:21 — Meade disses MSM to a citizen of Wisconsin
10:43 — A child does what many children are doing when brought in by adults see the demonstration: gazes up into the dome
10:48 — George, the St. Bernard
11:13 — A protest song praising the fleebaggers for "sneaking 'cross the border." (Can you believe this guy is wearing a red sweatshirt with white letters that don't say "WISCONSIN" but "NEBRASKA"? Nebraska!)
12:36 — Criticizing Walker because "he's not really one of us"
13:19 — Palm tree!
13:31 — "Stop the Imperial Walker"
13:14 — Drummer boy

"Pwease Don't Twead on Me."

Hazy Dave tweaks his Gadsden flag design. (For all the Gadsden redesigns, click here.)

Another "civility flag."

That one is from Hazy Dave, who says he "fooled around with putting a baby rattle on the tail a bit, but didn't think the complication was necessary."

"It's okay to tread on me now. I have health insurance."

You remember my challenge to redesign the Gadsden flag to reflect the new civility. That one is from Chip Cannon.

I've got more to come, and I'm still accepting entries. The idea is that the old threatening snake is inappropriate and must be toned down, lest unstable individuals take it the wrong way. You can go off the civility message, however. Just use the Gadsden flag and be interesting or amusing or something.

Another reimagining of the Gadsden flag snake.

Another entry in the "For civility's sake, let's change 'Don't Tread on Me'" challenge. This one, from Mateo, reworks the snake into the 2 snakes of the caduceus and changes the phrase into the physician's precept.

Here's a discussion point for the comments: Is "First, do no harm" a good conservative principle, making this flag something other than mockery of the liberal's call to civility? Or does the presentation of government as medicine work as a critique of liberalism?

Now, let's dance!

Chip Ahoy gives us another entry in the "For civility's sake, let's change 'Don't Tread on Me'" challenge.

All we are saying...

is...



Another entry in the "For civility's sake, let's change 'Don't Tread on Me'" challenge. This one is from WestVirginiaRebel.

For civility's sake, let's change "Don't Tread on Me"... Part 3.

Awesome Printer takes up my challenge to make the snake friendlier and adopts my rewrite of "Don't Tread on Me":



And Henry (the commenter) comes up with these variations:

For civility's sake, let's change "Don't Tread on Me"... Part 2.

Chip Ahoy responds to my request for a redesigned Gadsden flag: