The animal in the picture is definitely a crocodile (slender snout, pronounced curvature of the mouth). I was not aware that there even WAS a North American species of crocodile (only N. American alligators and S. American camians); one learns something new every day!

Amazing reconstructive surgery! Crocs have unbelievably efficient immune systems, so the chances of infection are lower than they'd be in most other animals with such an injury. However, this also means that its body might manage to expel the screws & rods before the healing has progressed far enough for removal. Hopefully the vets will be able to manage this interesting case.

I wonder if crocs have enough brain to remember "Street bad" after surviving an accident like this..?

Great composition in that photograph --- it looks like My Little Pony is devouring a human being whole (feet dangling from mouth).

All the digestive-tract jokes aside, that's actually pretty darn funny! They MUST keep the X-ray, and the "Tale of the Swallowed Engagement Ring" MUST become one of the family stories to be (okay, here it comes) PASSED on to future generations.

(And, by the way, if that's real gold & diamond, it cleaned up just fine.)

The "Americar" sounds like really awful New York to me. (Actually, most New Yorkers I've encountered are actually from various European countries; the "typical" accents must be endemic to smaller neighborhoods without much influx from outside.)

The "A"s spoken through the nose are very New Jersey; I just cringe every time I hear that!

I caught some very "round" "O"s that sound very Wisconsin or Minnesota. Since my parents are from Milwaukee, I grew up with a slight Midwestern accent despite having lived my whole life in New Jersey (I do an excellent Mr. Rogers impression). I NEVER say my "A"s through my nose! My students often assume that I must, therefore, be Canadian. If I lived in Wisconsin, students there would assume otherwise, since they'd actually know some Canadian accents (and they'd probably perceive me as a surprisingly intelligible New Jerseyan, assuming they had any idea of New Jersey accents).

Anyway, Miss Grace's "American" accent is difficult to pin down to one specific location, just as mine is. She could easily fool most Brits with it, I think, and probably many United Statesians --- but nobody would be able to hear her and say, "Hey, you must be from Minnesota, enso?" because it contains elements from widely disparate regions.

I love when an occasional student feels they've mastered "the" British accent (oh, there's just one?) and decide to try to trick the entire class into thinking that they're actually British and have been using "the" American accent (oh, there's just one?) all this time. When it's really time to get back to work and they won't let it rest, I'll pop their bubble by saying, "British, ay? What's the last letter of the alphabet?"

In the immortal words of Sgt. Bilko, "Don't think of it as losing; think of it as a learning experience."

And to think that you saw it on Mulberry Street!

(Sorry; I teach, and March is Dr. Seuss Month. I just couldn't resist.)

I should have tried that! Years ago, I lived a few km away from a very old (90+) lady who constantly needed people to open jars, rake leaves, etc. One time she was interviewed by a local cable station. It took a lot of explaining afterward to get her to understand that, since neither she nor her friends (nor I) had cable TV, we couldn't watch her interview as it was broadcast. But they would give her a videotape of the interview. This resulted in me explaining videotape to her, then driving her to a store so we could shop for a VCR. (I picked out one that was very basic, with a simple remote control.) I hooked everything up for her, showed her how it worked, and wrote simple directions with pictures.

Not simple enough! She'd click random buttons without looking, not have any idea how to turn things on/off/down, and I'd get calls from her in which I could hear deafening static roaring in the background. Then I tried painting circles around the buttons, but since she insisted on looking at the TV while poking buttons it did no good. I got a really simple universal remote for her --- still no improvement.

Eventually she got tired of watching her one videotape (Not being a movie person, the concept of renting videos was anathema to her) and decided the VCR was more trouble than it was worth, since I seemed to be the only person she knew who could get it to work properly. So she had me unplug it, wrap it in a bag, put it in another bag... wait! It turned out she didn't want anyone to know she was throwing away a VCR, because they might take it, plug it in and watch her! Although she could use an audio-cassette recorder/player just fine, I could not explain that the VCR worked on the same principle --- unless the cassette is in the machine, nobody can watch her interview. Anyway, my family acquired a rather bare-bones "new" VCR that day.

To her credit, I must add (because it really sounds like I'm bad-mouthing her although I'm just relating a humorous anecdote about "future shock"), she spoke five languages fluently and at one time had run a service whereby one could learn a foreign language over the telephone. We all have our strengths & weaknesses!

That's the ghost of the kid who was squashed when it tipped over onto him.

This may lead to something like the "neural gel-packs" that comprised the ship's computer on "Star Trek: Voyager" - an interesting premise that never really got explored on the series except in one episode where an organic virus infected the computer. (I think the neural gel was supposed to be an advantage over a purely electronic circuit; some script-writer may also have been fascinated by the sci-fi concept of "living starships".)

It may also need a combination of arsenic and an electric fence to take it off-line.

Laugh it up, fuzzball!

Wow! (How else does one respond to a palindrome like that?)

For some reason it reminds me of Dutch Schulz' dying rant.

By the way, the very first conversation consisted entirely of palindromes. Adam wakes up to find Eve beside him, and introduces himself: "Madam, I'm Adam." Eve is kind of shy and just gives her name: "Eve."

Actually, it seems to be the norm for crooks to complain or try to lay blame elsewhere to "justify" their actions. (Case in point: the burglar who got himself trapped in a garage for a week and had to subsist on dog food until the owners returned - he tried to sue for damages! There are lots more cases like this, usually involving crooks who get stuck, injured or locked in via their own darn fault.)

I think a "rules do not apply to me" mentality is a prerequisite for becoming a criminal.

Geez Louise, what's up with all the flaming? Evolution is now even provable in the lab, and is therefore a moot point. Yeah, there are some holes to be filled, but denying its existence is like insisting that the Earth is flat just because it looks that way.

At any rate, the reason Ambulocetus is considered a whale ancestor is because of its skeletal morphology and dentition. It was, like hippos and crocodiles, a land animal that spent a great deal of time in the water. Some of its decendants probably resembled manatees & dugongs --- one could, I guess, call them "intermediate" species in that they are neither land animals nor as streamlined as cetaceans. However, palaeontology does not actually designate species as "intermediate." "Intermediate" implies that a species is working toward some goal, which is not the case.

Teeth are very useful for linking one species to another in the fossil record, simply because they don't change as "quickly" as bones do. This is why modern humans have problems with wisdom teeth. Ambulocetus has teeth rather similar to that of Basilosaurus, which was initially mistaken for a marine reptile (hence the name) until its own teeth were seen to be similar to today's orcas.

Eventually some of Ambulocetus' decendants found it difficult to get onto land to give birth. Those who tended to have "breech births" were more likely to have offspring who survived being born, and thus their genes were perpetuated. A condition that usually proves a liability on land can be an advantage in the water. (An example of a human problem that can be a boon is sickle-cell anemia. It can make one weak, but it can help one survive a case of malaria.

Yes! then again, I'm not a Wall Street idiot, so of course it seems like a reasonable suggestion.

I'm just a college graduate who spent three years of the Bush I administration unemployed despite filling out an average of 10 job application forms per day, spent the Clinton administration years working hard, saving money and investing until I had $16,000 in mutual funds and $10,000 in bank accounts --- and lost every penny of it in the first five years of the Bush II administration through no fault of my own. I live frugally, work seven days a week and do not use drugs (except for a cup of tea in the morning and the occasional Alleve pill for migraine). Currently, my entire income is going toward paying Bank of America, which decided to raise interest rates, lower credit limits and gouge me for $39,000 that I never borrowed. So what do I know?

If I were king, Wall Street idiots would consider themselves very lucky to have their salaries capped. A fairer penalty would involve paying back everything they took that was not theirs to take.

The vast majority of popular songs (and folk songs) use only three chords. The simple practice of adding a fourth chord at the right point adds an edge of pathos, or at least makes the song sound a little less generic. People who study music know all about this, and of course "classical" music has a tendency to be much more complex than four chords.

It is just me, or does "Ceiling Cat" look like it was banished to the Phantom Zone? "Guilty..."