Stefan Pastis does it again! Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
I sense a business opportunity here. I still have farmer friends in South Africa who aren't far from major inland rivers, complete with Nile crocodiles. How many crocodiles per yard of moat, do you think? Given enough wetbacks moatbacks, they wouldn't require much feeding, either!
The BBC has the fascinating story of how a girl who'd been missing for six years was finally traced and rescued. It's too long to cite everything here, but this excerpt gives you some idea of the care and attention to detail involved.
Squire and his team could see, from the type of light sockets and electrical outlets visible in the images, that Lucy was in North America. But that was about it.
They contacted Facebook, which at the time dominated the social media landscape, asking for help scouring uploaded family photos - to see if Lucy was in any of them. But Facebook, despite having facial recognition technology, said it "did not have the tools" to help.
So Squire and his colleagues analysed everything they could see in Lucy's room: the bedspread, her outfits, her stuffed toys. Looking for any element which might help.
And then they had a minor breakthrough. The team discovered that a sofa seen in some of the images was only sold regionally, not nationally, and therefore had a more limited customer base.
But that still amounted to about 40,000 people.
"At that point in the investigation, we're [still] looking at 29 states here in the US. I mean, you're talking about tens of thousands of addresses, and that's a very, very daunting task," says Squire.
The team looked for more clues. And that is when they realised something as mundane as the exposed brick wall in Lucy's bedroom could give them a lead.
"So, I started just Googling bricks and it wasn't too many searches [before] I found the Brick Industry Association," says Squire.
"And the woman on the phone was awesome. She was like, 'how can the brick industry help?'"
She offered to share the photo with brick experts all over the country. The response was almost immediate, he says.
One of the people who got in touch was John Harp, who had been working in brick sales since 1981.
"I noticed that the brick was a very pink-cast brick, and it had a little bit of a charcoal overlay on it. It was a modular eight-inch brick and it was square-edged," he says. "When I saw that, I knew exactly what the brick was," he adds.
It was, he told Squire, a "Flaming Alamo".
"[Our company] made that brick from the late 60s through about the middle part of the 80s, and I had sold millions of bricks from that plant."
Initially Squire was ecstatic, expecting they could access a digitised customer list. But Harp broke the news that the sales records were just a "pile of notes" that went back decades.
He did however reveal a key detail about bricks, Squire says.
"He goes: 'Bricks are heavy.' And he said: 'So heavy bricks don't go very far.'"
This changed everything. The team returned to the sofa customer list and narrowed that down to just those clients who lived within a 100-mile radius of Harp's brick factory in the US south-west.
There's much more at the link. It's well worth reading in full, to give you some idea of the difficulties involved in tracing missing children.
The horrifying part of the story, to me at any rate, is that when police finally raided the house and rescued the girl, they learned she'd been raped by a sexual predator for six years. Six years - and she was 12 years old when rescued. That means she'd been missing and abused for half her life. She was a child, with no resources to call on, no parent to lean on, nobody to help at all. How she survived such abuse is something I can't comprehend. Now in her 20's, she has a few things to say in the article about her experiences.
There are literally hundreds of thousands of missing children in our country. Many of them were sent here by human traffickers, sold on to predators and abusers across the country. It's heartbreaking to think that Lucy is only one such person. If only we were all more alert to the warning signs, we might be able to help so many more . . .
Peter
This cartoon is a fun reminder of the early stages of relationships, when one is still finding out about the other's haps and mishaps, mistakes and corrections. Click the image to be taken to a larger view on the "Foxes In Love" Web page.
Ah, memories . . . !
Peter
Fellow blogger Eaton Rapids Joe mentioned Republic Ammunition in a recent post, particularly their low-cost primers. I took a look at their product line, and was intrigued to find this.
Er... um...
I can understand wanting to give your better half (?) a Valentine's Day gift that expresses your love.
However...
Is it wise to give your (current) better half a Valentine's Day gift that he/she can use against you if they (or you) decide that he/she/you is no longer their/your better half?
Not the sort of "target market" in which I'd like to participate!
Peter
Well, with a news report like this:
... what other common expression could I possibly use to headline this post?
(Those understanding artillery and/or explosive terminology can doubtless provide other useful terms to describe the situation. Being a family-friendly blog, at least some of the time, I shall refrain - but with difficulty...)
Peter
I do enjoy the "Foxes In Love" comic strip. The author/artist gets so much right about human relationships. Here's his entry for December 17th: click the image to be taken to a larger view at the comic's Web page.
I would say "heartwarming", but I think "footwarming" is more the pursuer's intention!
Peter
I had to laugh at a review of a new book, "The Regency Guide to Seduction: Love Advice for Modern Heroines", by Lady Bennet-Down (an obvious nom de plume, but also witty).
The review says that the book "reveals how to introduce a soupçon of Regency romance into your search for a happily ever after". Some highlights:
Here, in extracts from the book, the fictional author Lady Bennet-Down gives her tips on how to tackle the most modern of problems with all the grace of Austen heroines Emma Woodhouse, Elizabeth Bennet and Elinor Dashwood.
First impressions
We’ve been chatting on the apps, and things were going well, but they’ve just sent me a d--k pic. What’s my next move?
The proper response depends on your sensibilities. Has this impromptu artwork left you thoroughly appalled? Perhaps a light quip or a sharp rebuke is in order. For example, “Thank you for that kind reminder to pick up some baby carrots.” Or how about a tactful silence?
Don’t be drawn into judgement too quickly
The time it takes to sip one sherry is not nearly enough to fully know a person or their suitability as a partner.
Dance like no one’s watching
If dancing isn’t your strength, remember: enthusiasm (and a shot of tequila) goes a long way.
There's much more at the link. Entertaining stuff, particularly if you know your Regency period.
Peter
Hopefully, yours is going better than Stephan Pastis'. Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
That's the opinion of Michael Deacon, a columnist for the Telegraph newspaper in the UK.
Young, single, Left-wing women across the US are so angry about the result of the election, they’ve embarked on a “sex strike”. That is: they’ve turned celibate, in order to punish men for Donald Trump’s win.
“For the next four years, I am going to abstain from sex with men,” declared one young woman on Tiktok.
“All I have to say [to men] is: ‘Good luck getting laid’,” sniffed another.
“Hope you thought that through, you guys,” jeered a third.
On the face of it, this may sound like bad news for the young men of America. Personally, though, I think they should applaud the strike, and urge its participants to keep going.
This is because any young woman who responds in such a comically petulant manner to the result of a democratic election is clearly an insufferable, spoilt, whiny, immature, narcissistic, attention-seeking, pathologically self-righteous brat. Thanks to the sex strike, therefore, young American men will be spared the tedium of going on a date with someone so mind-bendingly tiresome. Instead, their country’s dating pool will now consist exclusively of women who are sane, and who realise that there is no more unattractive a trait, in either sex, than an all-consuming fixation with politics.
That, however, is not the only reason why young male Trump voters should welcome the strike. There’s another. Because, if the sex strike lasts long enough, these Left-wing women will never reproduce.
Which means that, in future, there will be fewer Left-wing voters, and more conservative victories.
Hard to argue with his logic, isn't it?
Peter
On a day when everybody's going to be blathering on about elections and voting and partisanship, I figured we could all do with something completely different. Well, here it is! From the Telegraph in London, UK:
Wrapped up against the gusting Scottish wind, a man is strolling slowly along the jagged shoreline with his lolloping puppy. Anyone passing on the road above would notice him bending over the water, pushing apart the thick brown fronds of rock weed – and then being taken aback to see the “pup” sinuously dive beneath the surface and emerge with a crab in its jaws.
“At a distance it’s easy to mistake Molly for a dog,” says Billy Mail. “Otters are so shy and elusive it just doesn’t seem plausible that one would be voluntarily going for a walk with a human in broad daylight.”
Implausible but obviously not impossible, which is why the remarkable relationship between Billy and Molly, the orphaned otter he rescued from certain death in the Shetland Islands, is so heartwarming.
. . .
Such is the emotional heft of the story that it caught the eye of an award-winning National Geographic photographer and cinematographer. The resulting documentary, Billy & Molly: An Otter Love Story is set against the backdrop of wide skies, glittering sea and the austere, elemental beauty of the land.
. . .
“I was looking out the window and I saw this otter fishing in the sea,” says Billy. “I wondered how close I could get, so I hurried down to the pontoon while she was underwater, phone in hand, in case she came close enough. Then she popped up right in front of me and started to eat the crab she had caught. Then halfway through she turned and looked me straight in the eye.
“I immediately knew something was very badly wrong because there’s no way a healthy otter would remain so close. And then I saw how emaciated she was.”
Bedraggled and skinny, her bones jutting out, Molly was around nine months old and too young to fend for herself. It was clear she was orphaned – later the couple learned that a female otter had been found dead on the road some time earlier
Billy fed her fish, dropping haddock on the ground, which she seized and dragged away to eat. He made her a bed from coiled rope under an upturned boat, so she had somewhere dry to sleep.
There's more at the link.
I won't spoil the article by reproducing more of it here, but it goes into a lot more detail about how the bond was established between Billy and Molly, and how it's grown to where, today, he watches her raise her young, teaching them to play in the tiny house he built for her. It's a heartwarming story.
I've embedded the documentary below. If that doesn't work, or stops working, you can find it here on YouTube.
Much more entertaining than non-stop electioneering!
Peter
From Stephan Pastis. Click the image to be taken to a larger view at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
Swipe in any direction except left?
Peter
Courtesy of a link at Task & Purpose, we find this leave request from 1967. Click the image below for a larger view.
I'd say that's a pretty good reason to apply for leave, wouldn't you?
Peter
I'm disgusted and angry by complaints that the cancellation of a camp for "minor-attracted persons" (in other words, those of pedophile inclination) is somehow "oppression" or "discrimination". On the contrary - I'm sure almost all parents reading this (and many others too) will regard it as sound common sense. Why put our kids in proximity to a real and present danger to their well-being?
After local outcry canceled a camp for “minor-attracted persons” set for last weekend in Vermont, several organizations are publicly defending those who declare a sexual attraction to children.
MAP Union, or MU, which represents itself as “an international organization representing the interests of minor-attracted people and their allies,” sent a statement to local reporter Guy Page protesting the camp cancelation as “bullying” and violence against “society’s most oppressed minority group.”
. . .
The person calling himself “Percy” also told Bean, “We hope to provide a more balanced approach to MAP advocacy than groups like NAMBLA have been able to in the past.” NAMBLA is the North American Man-Boy Love Association, which effectively disintegrated after a series of FBI stings jailed members for abusing children and trafficking in illegal abuse images.
People sexually attracted to children are typically pornography addicts who often get sent to jail for trafficking in illegal abuse images. Porn businesses are complicit ... as they “deliberately insert transgender partners, children, and opposite-sex partners into pornography aimed at children and heterosexuals, in order to ‘see if you can convert somebody, right?'” a senior script writer for a Pornhub company disclosed in 2023.
. . .
“We do understand the alarm among local parents, but we are extremely unhappy about non-violent MAP community members being labeled as dangerous to children,” Brian Ribbon, a cofounder of MAP Union, said in a statement to The National Desk. “The idea that these people would for some reason try to attack children at the local school is outrageous and deeply offensive.”
There's more at the link, including some very unsavory ideals indeed (vulva-shaped chocolates? Really?).
Here's a rule of thumb. Any person or organization seeking to defend pedophiles - whether active, or only with that orientation - is defined by that action as being an immediate, clear and present danger to the safety of our children and the health of our communities. That's the bottom line. There is absolutely no excuse for such orientation. Forget the complaint that "we were born that way - it's not our fault!" What they're saying is that their tendency to exploit, manipulate, entice and coerce children into relationships they can't understand and to which they're not old enough to give consent, is "not their fault", but somehow OK.
I also flatly don't believe those who claim that their sexual orientation towards "minors" is an attitude only, and not one that leads to actual physical relationships with them. Are you trying to tell me that such persons never look at a kid walking down the sidewalk and fantasize about doing sexual things with/to them? Is that OK with you? If it is, I suggest you have a problem almost as large as the "minor-attracted person" themselves - particularly if you have kids of your own, and want to protect them from as they grow up.
Just "No!" There is no place for pedophiles or "minor-attracted persons" in any normal, healthy society. End of discussion. (And well done to the people who canceled that camp!)
Peter
Labels:
Children,
Crime,
Disgust,
Grrr,
Moonbattery,
Political Correctness,
Relationships
A month ago I put up a cartoon from Stephan Pastis about how those who've died are still with us in so many ways. I know many of you enjoyed it.
He's just posted another cartoon that in many ways follows on from the first. Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the "Pearls Before Swine" Web page.
Nothing to add, indeed! For those of us who believe in God and the afterlife, there's an added element, of course, but the above (plus the previous comic I mentioned) still brings real comfort.
Peter
I'd never heard of this until I came across it on X the other day. It made me laugh out loud, so I thought I'd share it with you.
WARNING: This is absolutely full of the F-word and its derivatives. If you're sensitive to that, you really don't want to follow the link below!
Some of you may be wondering why the entire bureaucratic caste of the USA is completely obsessed with weird sex stuff.
Sure, we can all have good fun ranting about how insane this cult is, and watching them melt down when we leave skid marks on their sacred icons, but sooner or later, you gotta ask... why.
It's the toaster-****** problem. Some of you may be familiar. Goes like this, and I quote:
There's much more at the link.
Do not click over there if foul language bothers you! Despite that, I found it very amusing.
Peter
The BBC reports that pineapples are now love-apples, so to speak - or, at least, want-love-apples.
In recent days, many single Spaniards have been drawn to branches of supermarket chain Mercadona between 7pm-8pm by claims they can find romance at that time, particularly if they put a pineapple upside down in their shopping trolley.
The phenomenon seems to have been driven in great part by the actor and humourist Vivy Lin, who posted a video on TikTok of her pushing a trolley around a Mercadona store talking about the supposed window.
“The time to hook up in Mercadona is 7pm to 8pm,” she said.
. . .
The pineapple manoeuvre is reportedly completed by pushing your trolley into the wine section of the store and hoping that a person you find attractive responds positively.
As the story has gone viral, it has led to some unusual and sometimes disorderly sights.
In Madrid there have been reports of groups of teenagers pushing trolleys around stores in the evening, without buying products.
One man was dressed as a giant pineapple by his friends inside a store as part of his bachelor party celebrations.
. . .
While the latest use of the fruit may have proved popular with some, there have been reports that the pineapple mania has not found favour with many Mercadona employees who are left to clear up unpurchased goods.
One video showed a worker pushing boxes of the fruit away from shelves and towards a storeroom as 7pm approached.
There's more at the link.
I can't think it's any worse than swiping left or right on a hook-up app like Tinder . . . at least you get some fruit out of it! Is that what they mean by sex ap-peel?
Peter
I've just spent a while talking with a friend who recently suffered a bereavement. I hope I was able to offer some comfort: but I also sent him this "Pearls Before Swine" cartoon by Stephan Pastis. Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the comic's Web page.
So, for those of us who've lost loved ones, a non-theological but very moving reassurance.
Peter
Now and then a news report pops up that gives one furiously to think. For example:
It appears the tourist was high on marijuana, stripped off, and entered the animal's pasture to do the deed - only to meet up with, not just the cow, but also the bull, which registered its feelings about the matter by horning in on proceedings (you should pardon the expression). There are some remarkable pictures at the link illustrating the depths of the bull's feelings on the matter. I daresay the tourist now knows exactly what the song means when it assures us, "Love hurts"!
One presumes the tourist will be charged with dis-udderly conduct?
Peter
... according to Jennie Breeden and her "The Devil's Panties" comic strip. Click the image to be taken to a larger version at her Web page.
"Renewed our vows". Gigglesnort!
Peter
Click over to this tweet by Flappr and watch the brief video provided (it's just over a minute long).
Dang, it got dusty in here all of a sudden . . .
Peter