Category: Law

Ethical issues

Man uses snake to ward off seizures.

1.  Does this man have the right to use a service animal that will scare the shit out of a substantial fraction of the travelling public?  Somebody coming on him unawares might have a panic attack and collapse.  I was unable to find stats on ophidiophobia, but I personally know or knew three people who were very fearful of snakes, and I went to high school with a guy for whom a PICTURE of a snake triggered a panic attack.  Does his right to any lawful treatment for his medical condition include the potential for serious emotional damage to other people?

2.  How is a service animal currently defined – per jurisdiction – who gets to decide what a service animal can be?

3.  Is it possible this guy is making the whole thing up, and that the snake is not actually feeling the onset of a seizure?  I bet no.

4.  Has he inadvertently stumbled on a nice research study?

5.  If the snake can detect seizures, what is the snake detecting?

BCCLA update

The BC Civil Liberties Association, which, Darwin aid me, I gave money to last year, has requested through Freedom of Information to have the street closures for the Olympics publicly available.  They’ve requested three times and the Integrated Security Unit has told them to suck wind.

I AM FLEEING THE CITY FOR THE OLYMPICS.  Jeff, you can stay here if you want to, but this is boned.

London Cops is Dumb.

Drug addict shot at 19 times by one London ON cop…. do you suppose the cop hit him even once? But he managed to hit three houses!!! Cop should be suspended for failing to demonstrate firearms proficiency.

Reminds me of two London cop stories from my fabled youth.  In one story, a man wrestled a cop’s gun away from him and shot him in the head at point blank range.  The cop didn’t die; he went back on duty after he recovered.

The second story…. Cops are called to a ‘there is a man with a gun inside this house’ call.  They try to talk to him.  They lob tear gas in and storm the place.  There is no one in the house.

Not all London cop stories are bad.  If I can get permission from the participants, I may relate them.

Wonderful dream

I haven’t had a decent dream that I can remember in months, and I just had a splendid one.

I was living in a third storey walk up and got involved in a drug bust.  This is all because Jeff and I blasted through a couple of episodes of Homicide last night.  Man, that was a GREAT show.  The writing, the acting; and John Waters was the bartender in one episode, what more could you want?  Anyway, huge drug bust in one show, tiny drug bust in Allegra’s dream.

I swiped the evidence while my neighbour was being busted so of course they had to let him go (serves the cop right for busting the guy without backup) and then he came looking for me.  I just handed it back to him, so he was somewhat startled (it was only weed; I would hardly have helped the guy if it was something stronger).  My feelings of paranoia and discomfort while waiting for him to get back from the cop shop were NOT pleasant; nor was realizing he’d shaved off his dreads between the time he was busted in the time he got back so he got real close to me without me recognizing him.  Man, hair is a major disguise element.  Dreams are wild, hunh?  Anyway he was all happy and then I woke up.

Salt, sand and sunjuice (the day at Wreck)

Mike picked me up around 2:30 – wearing his kilt.  Ten minutes later we were at Suzanne’s; she was waiting downstairs after I called her to come on down, and you should have seen her mile wide grin as she saw Mike’s ride pull up.  They introduced themselves.  We had a gorgeous, rather warm ride in Mike’s Mustang convertible.  We spent about ten minutes gossiping about family members – neither of us being too pleased with the respective number two childer in our families, nuff said, and then dispensed with further whining for the rest of the day. Continue reading Salt, sand and sunjuice (the day at Wreck)

here comes the future

yech.

Miss Margot gets fixed on Friday.  It is possible this will affect my ability to go to Pondfilk, we’ll see.  Also, I have been invited to go to Hot Springs soon, and that may be interesting in terms of timing as well. I can’t put it off any longer, she could go into heat at any time.

The vet says Miss Margot will not grow substantially bigger than she is now.  This explains a lot.  Considering that she was born Dec 9, she’s tiny… she weighs in at 2.35 kilos.  So in addition to cute, smart and phlegmatic, she was bred to be pocket sized, thus her mother’s birthing difficulties and the breeder’s insistence she be spayed.

She advised us with regular bulletins on the way to the vet, one of which was actually Meow (she said meow, how odd) ’bout how very disturbed and unhappy she was about her mode of locomotion. After we got home I left the carrier out with the jailer’s peephole open and she jumped into it for fifteen minutes.  Gizmo watched with a look of disbelief and distaste.  Both the boys are learning to deal with her, as ignoring her is simply impossible.  Gizmo curled up on me the other day, only the third time that has ever happened.  Other cats make a big production of getting into your lap; Gizmo flows into your body heat like a furry puddle and evaporates with the same skill.

Jeff is steadily advancing his chief project “The Audio visual dungeon made of awesome” and the living room is now fit to sit in.

so many layers of wrongness

Take your kid to work day goes really wrong.

On the other hand, brute force and ugliness DOES work for some applications. Just ask any guy who fixes aircraft.

You’ve gotta be shittin’ me.  This is CANaDA? I just don’t remember Montreal being like this.  Trigger happy anti immigrant cops, sure, but this is ridiculous.  Okay, I’m definitely learning a cop brutality song. Pukka Orchestra’s Cherry Beach Express, here I come.