Being Honest

When Laurie picked me up from work this afternoon, she asked whether I had heard the big news.  I do have ear protection, an industrial strength set with radio (albeit the only choices I get between a) the building and b) the area we're in is talk radio and the station that thinks variety is playing Led Zep, Pink Floyd, and AC/DC at least twice each in an 8-hour period), but today was far too chaotic to turn the radio on.

Then she told me what I'm sure you already know- another nutbag with a gun decided to kill a bunch of people he never met in order to release some problem of his that could have just as easily been handled by jumping off a cliff.  As she told me what she knew, I heard the following:

-people dead
-shooter dead
-military base.

Unlike the liberal media (see the woman anchor on CNN), I don't have a problem recalling Fort Hood, or seeing it for what it was.   Thus, the first thing out of my mouth was:

"If this is another Muslim soldier/sailor killing people for his fathead god, we need to throw every one of those (I'm sure you know what to insert here) out of the military."

Of course I was talking based on as clear a grasp on the facts as Henry Winkler had when he told twitter that he HAVE to break out the anti-gun legislation to stop someone who brought a weapon incognito onto a gun-free area and obviously really cared that it was illegal.  Sure, the Fonz was an idiot, but so was I.

Shooter wasn't a current soldier... in fact, got in on a fake ID, supposedly.
Nobody knows yet what, if any, motive the fathead had (at this writing).
At least one person claims the shooter was a "devout" Buddhist.  Whatever happened to just setting yourself on fire?

But what if he was a Muslim?  What if he HAD been up there shouting "Allah Akbar" or similar nonsense as he murdered innocents?  Was I wrong?

A Wall Street Journal article of November 2009 said that the Pentagon estimated 3,409 Muslims according to the number who disclosed religious preference, but officials said that there may be as many as 10,000 like Hassan who marked the "no preference" box.  That works out to between 0.2 and 0.7 of active military based on recent stats.  And yet it only took one of them to kill 13.

And it took one apparently non-Muslim to kill 13.  Hmmm...


In other news, it's picture time!

I've been seeing this kind of scene around the river and canal a couple of times... finally figured out what it was...

Turtle shells!  I wasn't sure if these babies hatched or not- judging by the turd in the hole (see above picture) this has as much of a chance being a happy birthday as a raccoon breakfast.

The new footbridge at the south end isn't officially open yet, but is crossable.

Nice to see something still blooming...

Dragonfly actually left me touch him, take a picture... then he left.

Scrappy had been sniffing something that kept making him back off nervously... even jump when I said, "Boo!"  It was this tiny turtle, seemingly a victim of the cooler weather.  I thought this was pretty clever of Scrappy- he must be remembering his encounter with a much larger turtle this summer.

That is, until he did the same thing with an empty bottle of Bud Light...

I keep telling the Ft Wayne trail people- by the time they get the trail connected to Shoaf park, the river will have dis-connected it...

Black Cherry head-to-toe bleeding sap.