Winter has been coming for 16 FUCKING YEARS

Not a Good Way to Avoid Unnecessary Stress

I've made it pretty clear in many places that I am aiming for a stress-free pregnancy. Or, at the very least  since I can't have that, a pregnancy free of avoidable stress. This has meant taking such small measures as filtering extended family's political rants on Facebook all the way up to extreme measures of "oh, I'm sorry, I'm hormonal and you're pissing me off right now so I'll tell you how I really feel." Because, after all, every time I feel the desire to beat the crap out of someone out of anger and I do the civilized thing by not causing actual harm, it raises my stress level.

At this point I'm actually quite blessed in the fact that the only in-laws I can't stand are the ones who refuse to talk to us at this point anyway. But anyhoo...

Avoiding excess stress and anger is good. But sometimes it's just not possible.

Chris and I have been adopted by a black, tail-less kitten. Honestly, Chris is far more adopted than I am, this kitten is almost glued to him. Glued in a loving, purring, kneading, chewing, won't leave him alone kind of way. That's fair, because the other stray cat is far more attached to me.

Obviously this kitten is well-socialized, raised around humans, housebroken, etc. She also hasn't shown any real indication of wanting to go outside...

Which given that when I went outside to investigate the wailing we think I scared off a trio of coyotes that had been hunting her...

Leads me to all sorts of not-good ideas as to where she came from.

Let's see, if we add up all the evidence:
1. Underweight and eating every hour on the hour and has increased her body weight by 25% in 24 hours.
2. Had recent food when she was found (as evidenced by potty habits) but evidently not enough food to keep her at a proper weight.
3. Dehydrated, and we live on freshwater lakefront.
3. Hadn't contracted a giardia infection as of yet, which according to the vet never happens with animals that are strays for long in this area (rampant in local agricultural water and Badger was suffering from the infection when he found us).
4. Used to have a tail but the stub is healed over (but not handled by a local vet because I checked with all of those).
5. Showed palpable relief when shown a litter box.
6. Shows no interest in going outside.
7. No ads listing a lost kitten of her description, even if I just limit it to "female and black".
8. No ads for the past three months matching a litter of the right age within 50 miles.
9. Lots of ads on craigslist that start "please help I found a litter of abandoned kittens."
10. Second stray cat that has "found" us in the past 4 months.
11. Increase in animals abandoned at shelters.
12. Increase in animals just plain abandoned outside of shelters, in foreclosed homes, on the side of the road, etc.

Yeah, this is not helping with the not being stressed or angry...

Like the obviously human-raised black and grey tabby who now holds court over our top floor, I'm pretty sure this loving little kitten and formerly indoor-only cat was abandoned in "a farming area".  After all, our house rests on what used to be a farm, there's a hay field within sight, and once you get past the few "suburban" streets it's almost all small farms and ranches.

Lest the term lull you into a false sense of security, I must point out one additional piece of information; our "farming area" has active coyote and wolf packs. And bobcats. And badgers. And large raptors, including bald eagles. And an occasional black bear or mountain lion. This is why when we moved we didn't get cats.

Abandoning a cat is bad enough, abandoning a cat in an area with known predators is worse, and abandoning a defenseless kitten is worse still.

As for why we keep attracting stray cats I've narrowed it down to six important factors:
1. We almost always have a light on of some kind in the garage and in the house and there's no street lighting. This is rare on this street, most houses turn EVERYTHING off at night.
2. We almost always have at least one window open so we can usually hear what is going on outside. This is true even in winter as our fireplace is usually too effective.
3. We almost always have at least one source of sound on in the house that can be heard through an open window.
4. Our yard is one of the few fenced yards on the block. If the cat can get into the yard (as Badger did) it's relatively safe from coyotes, wolves, and angry moose (seriously, moose use the yards to either side to reach the water).
5. Said yard is patrolled by three large domestic dogs, therefore it only smells of domestic dog and the occasional rodent or small bird. The doggies also discourage the local coyotes from getting too close to the fence line.
6. Our garage/ parking area (outside the fence) has motion-activated flood lights. This also discourages the coyotes and I'm pretty sure me tripping them (intentionally) contributed to the decision to leave the property, especially as I heard distinct crashing in the underbrush to the pitch black side of the lighted area.

As for why we keep ending up with the cats we attract... we'll attribute that to situational awareness, listening to the dogs' signals, and a willingness to walk out into the darkness with a handgun.

I'm pretty sure a goodly portion of the loving behavior shown to us by both cats is a reaction to being picked up by a "safe" human and carried to food, water, and safety.

Now if only I could find the people who keep abandoning their pets here, tie them up, leave them in the darkness without food, water, or a weapon, and then let them see how it feels to be hunted by coyotes and wolves... yeah that's a fantasy I'm better off not indulging in.

The mental picture does dramatically lower my blood pressure though, so it's not all bad.

Mel

Too sad... disgusted... angry... for commentary

I should be clear... I'm not upset the shuttle is gone...

I'm angry there's no replacement yet.

Failure to Train

Lebanon - 1983 - 241 (307)

Riyadh - 1996 - 19

Aden - 2000 - 17

Arlington - 2001 - 55 (254)

Killeen - 2009 - 12 (13)

We, the American people, and in particular our military leadership, have experienced a failure to train.

In 26 years, we have had five mass casualty events, perpetrated by Muslim terrorists, on service members in supposedly safe and secure facilities, outside of declared combat zones.

Soldiers, sailors, airmen, and marines have been killed in their quarters, and their recreation spaces.

In most cases, this occurred while we were unarmed... or rather, disarmed by the policies of our leadership.

I speak of being disarmed both literally, and figuratively. We know who perpetrates terrorist attacks. We know how to deal with them... largely we know how to prevent the most common vectors.

We are not allowed to do so, for reasons of politics.

In 26 years, we have not had a mass casualty event that was NOT perpetrated by muslims (most of whom have been arabs). This does not, in any way, mean that all muslims, or all arabs, are terrorists, or that all terrorists are muslims (or arabs).

I'm Irish by ethnicity. My father is Irish born and raised. I know better.

But we are not allowed to say such things, because of politics.

There are many commentaries around the net today, and for the past few days, on the terrorist mass murder at Ft. Hood. They are full of those things that people say after such an event. They recognize the heroism. They mourn the dead. They ask "why?".

I'm not going to do that. Oh I honor our dead, and our heroes, and I mourn... but I don't need to join the chorus.

Other people can do that. They're good at it. I've got something just as important to do... something that maybe not everyone has the stomach for.

I choose instead to castigate, because we know the answer to that last question.

We know why. We know why he did it (why they did it in fact). We know why it was successful. We know why it was a mass casualty event, rather than a quick "suicide by soldier".

We even know how to prevent it... at least much of the time; and certainly we know how to end such things quickly.

I was serving in the Air Force (stateside) during the Khobar attacks. I remember. Though I did not know any of those who died personally, THEY KILLED MY BROTHERS.

I remember what our leadership did about it (and more importantly, what they did not).

I remember what we were not, under any circumstances, ALLOWED to do about it.

It has happened three times since. By the same perpetrators. With the same indicators. Allowed, because of the same policies.

We have failed to train.

Today, most American service members, in most American military facilities around the world, go about their days; not UN-armed, but DIS-armed.

Disarmed, both physically, and mentally.

Disarmed by politics, and political correctness.

Today, our service members cannot, in most places, carry weapons to defend themselves; though I am free to do so as a retired service member in most places... one notable exception being military installations.

Today, we are not able to use the most effective techniques to stop terrorism: including psychological and sociological profiling, taking consideration of ethnic, religious, and national background.

It can be, in fact, a crime to do so, in both cases.

The Israelis think we are mad.

Hell, the Saudis think we are mad...

The whole world does.

Yes, political correctness is all well and good for the papers and the public; but when it comes to soldiers defending themselves... Hypocrisy has it's uses after all. The world of realpolitik knows that... we pretend otherwise.

Already, the drumbeats have not only begun, but are in full force: "This is not about islam", "Armed soldiers couldn't have prevented this", "We can't use profiling", "It's racist to even think about that", "there could have been even more casualties with stray shots" etc... etc...

As it happens, I agree with that IN PART; in that this appears to not be a case of organized Islamicist terrorism.

But to say Islam has nothing to do with this, is simply blinding ones self, for the purposes of political correctness... or to make one feel less "racist", or whatever you want to call it (islam is not a race).

Simply put, were this terrorist a christian caucasian, he would have been stopped long before it ever went this far. We've become good at weeding out the bad ones... unless they are "minorities" in which case we are forced by political correctness to ignore the fact that they ARE bad ones, irrespective of their minority status.

Even if he hadn't been stopped before he started; if soldiers were allowed to go armed for self defense, his spree would have been stopped in the first minute.

We have failed to train.

There is verse in the bible (Romans 6:23) which says in part "The wages of sin is death".

The military has a variant on that... I call it the Sergeants maxim "The wages of stupidity is to be fucked up beyond all recognition".

In the Air Force, when you fail to train, you're done. You can't play, if you don't learn from your mistakes, if you don't learn to do the job, if you don't keep giving everything you've got.

You can't play if you quit; and if you fail to train, you have simply quit, passive aggressively.

If we intend to keep playing this game, we can no longer fail to train.