They Fight Crime!

you can't make this shit up: Sea mammals are best line of defense against sea attacks, U.S. Navy says.

Animal rights activists are resisting Navy plans to ship the dolphins and sea lions to Washington state. They worry that waters in the region, which are about 10 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees Celsius) cooler than in San Diego Harbor, could put stress on the animals. They also are concerned diseases could be transmitted to the area's native orca population.

"There are no bottlenose dolphins in these waters for a reason and I would say it's because it's too darn cold," said Seattle-area marine biologist Toni Frohoff.

Protesters showed up at public meetings held by the Navy in the Seattle area to discuss the Navy's plan. Several of them knitted woolly hats and sailor uniforms for the animals as a way of drawing attention to the issue -- costumes that could never actually be worn.

"People contributed some handsome hats, and there's talk of mittens," said Knitting for Dolphins member Janet Bailey.

but the very, very best quote:

"We have never trained any Navy marine mammals to do any harming, attacking or stabbing," Navy spokesman Tom LaPuzza said. "We have never done anything like that, and we never will."

Vonnegut's fucking with our reality from the grave, isn't he?

in other surreal or otherwise peculiar news:

• other fightin' marine mammals include Nibbles the rogue elephant seal
  
• Black Eyed Peas' Fergie sends Alanis Morissette a butt-shaped cake (sorry, tongodeon, not goatse-themed)
  
• ever woken up feeling like a a rat crawled into your mouth and died?
  
• man arrested for spray-painting three goats' balls orange. evidently, two of the goats also became ill after eating some porn he left behind in the barn.

and just for fun, here's a great picture of a crocodile with a guy's arm in its mouth. just the arm. (not for the squeamish)

interesting stuff

some of you know i've been tossing around the idea of sudden-onset ice age scenarios in the back of my head for ages. it's something i've thought about as a setting for an RPG campaign, but it's pretty interesting just to think about -- how many people would it kill? how would it change the way (and where) people live? how would it affect technology? what tech would be abandoned, what tech would develop? what might be the effect on different cultures? how does a person go about getting polar bear pants, anyway?

so while i was eating lunch i poked around on the net a bit today and stumbled across An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security. very interesting stuff. i couldn't say how far from reality the authors have strayed, but if you're intrigued by this kind of scenario, it might be worth a read.