Over the years, I’ve noticed some inflation in the amount requested by people begging on the street. Not too many years a go the standard request was: Spare change?
. Spare a dollar?
appeared five or so years ago and evolved into Couple bucks?
a couple years ago. But today, I was approached by a possibly homeless individual and asked, Do you have six bucks I can have?
.
SIX BUCKS!
The nice thing about not ever carrying cash is that I can honestly say, Don’t have anything.
TANKS ‘BREAK JAIL WALLS’
British forces using around 10 tanks have broken down the walls of Basra jail to free two service personnel arrested for firing on Iraqi policemen.
Witnesses said about 150 Iraqi prisoners fled the jail as well.
The Ministry of Defence would not comment on the report.
Violence erupted earlier in the city after the two men were arrested for allegedly shooting dead one policeman and wounding another.
The MoD refused to comment after officials said that they were undercover officers dressed as Arabs.
How exactly is this upholding the Rule of Law?
Scout (1995-2005)
On Saturday at little after 3PM, Aly and I lost Scout to her kidney disease. Despite being very weak, Scout was able to show a bit of her normal personality at the end by hissing at the Vet.
Scout was originally diagnosed with kidney disease last October, shortly before the Election. We were very fortunate to have nursed Scout back to health for the holidays and her 10th birthday. But over the summer she began losing weight and we both knew that the end was approaching.
Despite knowing for nearly a year that this was going to happen, both of us have been hit hard. Scout has been with us for as long as we’ve been together so everything seems different — many of the little quirks of our home behavior have a connection to Scout. There is definitely a hole in our family now.
Chloe was a bit panicked yesterday and today, but seems to finally be calming down. She doesn’t seem be to aware, but she hasn’t come to the full realization of her new situation. During the week she will quickly discover the meaning of the word “Diet” that we have been telling her about. And since she won’t be able to binge on Scout’s food, she is in for a rude awakening.
Despite the pain now, I will always fondly remember Scout. From the tiny crack-baby that we had to chase down and hold until she calmed down. To the bitchy adolescent that drew blood on my Mom who didn’t believe that she was not all hiss and no claws and teeth. Then the adult that loved to sun herself in the south facing windows. And finally, the dignified elder watching the neighborhood through the front window.
See ya Scout, you’re in charge till I get there.
One question I am hearing more and more often about the distaster in New Orleans is, “Why weren’t the levees built to sustain a Category 5 huricane?” At first blush, this seems to be a reasonable question, since it has long been known that New Orleans could face a huricane of that size. But if you put just a tiny amount of thought into the problem, you find that building the levees to survive a Category 5 would have been moronic.
If Katrina’s full wrath had hit New Orleans instead of Mississipi, the strength of the levees would have been irrelevant. The storm surge of 15-28 feet would have easily topped any levee and would have flooded New Orleans to the high of the levee system (which would be higher than the standard water level that is in New Orleans now). If this were to happen then, the levee system would have be breached after the huricane to let water out. New Orleans would not have been in any better condition and the false sense of security that a Category 5 levee might promote would have been all the more fatal. Imagine if 75% of New Orleans population had been in the city when it flooded — the chaos, horror, and death would have been much, much worse.