Beautiful Sky Over Band Shell

I stopped during today's morning commute to snap this photo. Picture is unedited & un-cropped, exactly as it came out of the camera.

Osteosarcoma

It has been a very long, hard 9 months here at The Comedian household.

Last April (2012) Mrs. The Comedian was diagnosed with osteosarcoma. She will live, but she goes on now having lost her right leg below the knee.

After spending 29 days in the hospital as part of seven different hospitalizations, first to salvage her limb, then to fight infection (community, so far as anyone can tell), attempt again to salvage her shin and again to fight another infection, Mrs. The Comedian decided late last year to switch course and pursue an amputation.

She underwent a trans tibial amputation earlier this month, eight months to the day after her first surgery. Hopefully they will be able to begin fitting her for a prosthetic within the next month or so, the process being delayed by needing to be sure that the last of her infection(s) has been dealt with.

Anyway, not that anybody was asking, but that is where I've been for the better part of a year.

In hell, trying to comfort a kind lady who has had to make a seemingly never-ending series of impossible decisions.

Browns

Guy goes shopping, parks his car and leaves two Cleveland Browns season tickets on his dashboard hoping someone would steal them.

Goes into the mall, comes out and finds four more season tickets on the dash.

Pope Pi-us

Pi-ed Pi-per

Andre the Piant, Pi Pi Rodriguez & Pi-Pi Longstocking

A little lunchtime photoshop silliness for "Pi Day".

Bonus - Toyota Pi-us

From the "I had no idea" department: A pack of Feral swine are apparently running around the North Country, having escaped from hunting ranches and bred like, well, like feral pigs.

At least the state isn't holding back on a possible solution.

DEC on feral pig hunting

In New York, people with a small game license may shoot and keep feral swine at any time and in any number.

Marketing Unit Doesn't Get Units

Unit fail

Q: How much torque does the Nissan LEAF™ have?

A: 207 lbs per foot. And it has 100% torque available at 0 RPM!

Pounds per foot? What is that in hogshead per fortnight?

I've heard of volunteer firefighters, but volunteer Federal gun crimes prosecutors?

SPECIAL ASSISTANT UNITED STATES ATTORNEY UNCOMPENSATED

About the Office: The Office of the United States Attorney for the District of Connecticut is seeking applications from attorneys who are willing to accept an unpaid temporary position that offers a valuable opportunity to gain exposure to the office while also obtaining litigation experience and conducting trials. Successful applicant will serve as Special Assistant U.S. Attorney (SAUSA) with responsibilities that include researching legal issues, drafting briefs, conducting hearings and trials, and attending judicial proceedings. This position may continue for up to one year. The SAUSA will not be hired by this office as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the conclusion of their SAUSA term. However, they may apply for AUSA positions in the office after completing their service as a SAUSA.

...

Number of Positions/Location: One

Criminal Division, Hartford, CT - Firearms Prosecutions

Qualifications: Applicants must be a U.S. citizen, possess a J.D. degree from a law school approved by the American Bar Association, and be an active member of the bar (any U.S. jurisdiction).

Salary: Position is without compensation. Note that employees of the Department of Justice, including uncompensated SAUSAs, may not engage in the compensated practice of law outside of the office.

...

Well, I suppose that is one way to keep the Federal budget down. I wonder if folks in this program drop out of unemployment numbers? How will their law schools report their employment status?

Though this isn't titled as an "internship", it seems like they expect folks who graduated from law school to work as prosecutors, for free, for up to a year.

I never knew such a practice existed.

If our government were run for profit, I suppose the DoL would be investigating the DoJ for such practices.

Wrong Akbar

Akbar of Akbar & Jeff from "Life is Hell" paying tribute to a certain Admiral.

Fantastic article on manufacturing rifle barrels

The Making of a Rifled Barrel, FirearmsID.com

Originally from 1995.  Not sure it is up to date, but it is fascinating.

(I found it looking for info on old Pratt machine tools.)

Bo can stay, B.O. must go.

http://legalinsurrection.com/2012/02/he-can-stay/

My favorite comment:

Getting on these skates are hard, keeping up on these is moderately difficult, and braking is a little demanding, but telling your parents you're gay is probably the hardest part about Orbit Wheeling.

VD Teleflora Screw Up

From Consumerist.

Pope Barry

President Obama has crossed a line and become a middle ages Pope.

Only he doesn't call his indulgences indulgences.

He calls them accommodations.

Holy Pay Scale!

US Government hiring Catholic Priest(s) at up to $48.32 per hour.

http://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/308175300

When the fuck did it become OK to...

I've heard of no-knock warrants using battering rams, crowbars, kicking in doors, getting keys from landlords and the like, but...

When the fuck did it become OK to serve a search warrant by chainsawing through an apartment's door?

The FBI takes the isolated incident into horror-film territory.

[Isolated incident is a sarcastic Radley Balko reference to just how commonly police make truly epic militarized mistakes in serving warrants.]

From a comment by "Jim March" at the same link:

There are very, very few things in this world that would cause me to shoot through my own front door at parties unknown.

Coming through it with a chainsaw? Yeah, that’s pretty much RIGHT AT THE TOP OF THE GODDAMN LIST!!!

Oh, and not to bury the lede too badly, but IT WAS THE WRONG GODDAMN APARTMENT!

Wisdom from unlikely places

In a discussion at Fark.com about a 19 year old babysitter that allegedly had a sexual relationship with a 14 year old boy she was watching (and maybe more), poster Julie Cochrane offered this great advice about how to teach your kids to avoid the draw of dating inappropriately older folks.

The way I explained "older guys" to my daughter, when I talked to her about older guys who come around as boyfriends of high school girls, and they've got cars and money to buy the girls stuff, and they're in college or out working a job:

I told her to think of the boys who were the bottom of the barrel losers in her grade. Think of the 5 skeeziest, creepiest boys. The ones that make the hair on her neck stand up. Yeah them, I told her. Those are the guys who are going to end up cruising the high schools looking to date high school girls.

"When you date the older guys who cruise the high schools, you're dating another grade's rejects. What's wrong with them that none of the girls their own age will date them?"

She shuddered.

She got the point.

Why you don't just go along with robbers

Police: Man Gives Money To Robber, Gets Shot Anyway

Police are looking for a robber who they said shot a pedestrian even though he handed over his money.

The hold-up happened about 11 p.m. Monday as the pedestrian was walking on Spring Street toward Campbell Avenue, according to a press release from police. A masked man confronted him, pointing a dark-colored handgun at his face.

The robber demanded money, which the pedestrian handed over. The gunman shot him anyway, police said. The pedestrian survived the gunshot wound on his arm.

Paramedics revive a 24 week gestational infant

From the UCONN Hospital newsletter comes this story that sounds like a ready made Lifetime movie of the week.

Paramedics from a small town ambulance service revive a 24 week gestational baby born at home that was delivered by a police officer first responder.

24 weeks! Born at home!

Simsbury Ambulance paramedics Barbara Carter and Karin Stewart have a great working relationship. Each usually comes in an half hour before crew change to relieve the other. One Monday evening last month shortly after Carter arrived to relieve Stewart a call came in for “vaginal bleeding.” Stewart accompanied Carter in the fly car to see if an extra hand was needed and to be able to return the fly car to the base should Carter need to accompany the ambulance crew to the hospital. Both their hearts raced when, just before their arrival on scene, came the update “baby born.”

When they entered the house, Simsbury Police Department officer and first responder Tim May handed Carter a profoundly premature dusky 24-week gestational infant. The baby, who weighed only 0.77 kilograms, wasn’t much longer than Carter’s outstretched hand. Call it training, call it education, or call it grace under pressure, Carter and Stewart, mothers themselves, did what EMS responders do. They went to work. They wrapped the child in a towel, used a bulb syringe to clear secretions from its airway, assisted the baby’s struggling ventilations and cut the umbilical chord. While Simsbury EMTs Chris Collins and Erin Komidar stayed to care for the mother with Granby Ambulance responding to the scene as mutual aid, Stewart and Carter quickly moved the child to the Simsbury ambulance and EMT Donna Anderson began the urgent transport to John Dempsey Hospital.

The baby’s oxygen saturation (the SPO2 sensor wrapped around its foot) was in the 80’s. The child was sluggish and cyanotic. Carter noticed its heart rate falling, down to 80, then 76, 72… She began chest compressions with a single finger on the baby’s sternum. Stewart continued ventilating with a neonatal bag-valve mask. Neither paramedic was certain the child was even big enough to be viable, but they were cheered as “the fighter kid,” as Stewart came to refer to the baby, seemed to clench its fists. The duskiness slowly turned to pink.

The crew, who provided crucial early notification to John Dempsey Hospital of the premature birth, arrived at JDH to find an open ED door and the hospital’s NICU team and ED staffs awaiting their precious patient. The efforts of the Simsbury crew ensured the child was kept viable long enough that the team was able to successfully resuscitate and stabilize the child, who now with confirmed pulse and blood pressure, was rushed to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). The child survived the critical first 24 hours and continues to grow and make progress.

R.N. Beth Thompson, a member of the NICU team called the EMS crew’s response “remarkable.” John Dempsey EMS Director Richard Kamin cited the crew’s hard work and diligence that paid off when it counted most. “This is what EMS is all about,” he said. Both medics had effusive praise for the hospital response. “I was so impressed with the staff and equipment that was waiting for us when we arrived,” Carter said. “They were great!” said Stewart.

Chevy Logo too much like cross?

An Egyptian sheikh has declared Chevrolet products forbidden because "the Chevrolet bowtie logo looks too similar to a cross."

I don't see it, absent some photoshop magic.

One can only hope that hardliners also find that airplanes look too much like crosses and then boycott flying.

Shame

A man who spent two years in solitary confinement after getting arrested for DWI was awarded $22 million for suffering inhumane treatment in New Mexico's Dona Ana County Jail.

I spent a summer in law school working for a NYS Court of Claims judge. I worked on all manner of prisoner Pro Se claims against NY prisons and learned that many, if not most prisoner complaints are marginal at best.

Man arrested, put in county jail & left there for 2 years with no trial, no medical care, and often left completely inside his solitary cell for months at a time.

Before this judgment came down I don't know if I would have believed such a thing possible in the United States. I'd certainly never heard of anything like this in the U.S. before, and I hope it never happens again.

Evil people did this, whether they wears labels of incompetence or sadism, they are pure evil.

Via Clayton Cramer

Regulation vs Equality

"The easiest way to get everybody on the same level is with a steamroller." -- Me

Refuses to quit!

Stop Pippa too!

Did my part to fight for online freedom

Well, I did my part.

I didn't take a shower this morning.

You know, to help Stop SOAP!