Sure beats a truckload of shit.

Ha!

Today is dragging like it's hauling a dead body into an event horizon.

OMG is it a universal time-space continuum thing, and not just "We've secretly switched her real coffee with something that tastes remarkably like, but with completely inert caffeine molecules."

Dear universe: I noticed.

The IRA has declared it will cease using violence as a tool. [link]

I wonder if the London bombings had anything to do with it. Maybe they realized they were in danger of being lumped in with Al Qaeda, or maybe it was "Well, this is dumb, we are all Christians here" (though I wonder how the IRA justified possibly offing Jews and Buddhists and whomever). Maybe it was a bit of Anglo-Saxon-Celt unity.

Baby opossums are so cute!

And adult opossums are so not.

This is probably true of many animals, but it's been brought home to me by the many opossums that have wandered through my parents' yard over the years.

Here's a catchy headline (whitefonted just to add to the fun): When a Man Dies in a Sex Act with a Horse -- What's a Reporter to Do?

As I took her out for her walk at 6 this morning, what did I see in the yard but an opossum with two babies on her back! All so very cute and fluffy and staring right at us with bright black eyes.

I saw one of those on the stairs of the building in Brookline where I was living in a basement apartment (there were two down stairs flanking a front entrance - it was on the other set of downstairs). Freaked me right out because I couldn't figure out what the hell it was. I ticked off the list - not a skunk, no; rattish tail, but the face is all wrong; not a racoon with that tail, nope. Finally I realized.

Wait. What? I would have figured that most men having sex with animals were pitching, not catching. (Re: Joe's dead guy, not the various possums.)

I had the same reaction, Jesse. Then I just figured that the urge to bestiality was too far beyond my ken for me to really have expectations of what would be going on.

The most realistic (eta: human-looking) robot ever: [link]

Japanese scientists have unveiled the most human-looking robot yet devised - a "female" android called Repliee Q1.

She has flexible silicone for skin rather than hard plastic, and a number of sensors and motors to allow her to turn and react in a human-like manner.

She can flutter her eyelids and move her hands like a human. She even appears to breathe.

...

Professor Ishiguro believes that it may prove possible to build an android that could pass for a human, if only for a brief period.

"An android could get away with it for a short time, 5-10 seconds. However, if we carefully select the situation, we could extend that, to perhaps 10 minutes," he said.

"More importantly, we have found that people forget she is an android while interacting with her. Consciously, it is easy to see that she is an android, but unconsciously, we react to the android as if she were a woman."

That would be... freaky.

Well, "hung like a horse" is supposed to be good, no?

I'm concerned about this:

Police are still making sure that sex was not forced on the smaller, weaker animals, thus constituting animal cruelty

So ... in WA, it's okay to boff animals of a certain size or strength? Or if the smaller animals make the first move, it's okay too?

They need to publish guidelines.