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As we’re off to Denver shortly for a tour of the … what do you call the area … the Southwestern States? The Mountain States? Well, anyway, we’re probably going to be taking in bits of Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona.

A couple of years ago two black bears ran right past us as we sat picnicking in the Shenandoah National Park, Virginia.

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And a few years earlier, I think we very nearly came across a mountain lion (cougar) when we climbed up to a fire watch tower in the Sierra Nevada, California:

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On the first part of the walk, before we started climbing up the rocks to the fire tower, we walked along a sandy path between the fir trees; on the way back down, there were large cat-paw prints in the sand that hadn’t been there before.

So, bears and a cougar on previous visits to the States. I’m wondering what we might encounter this time. Colorado’s a pretty wild State so I’m breaking the list up by category. First off, the Serpentes.

Venomous Snakes

Osage Copperhead

Western Rattlesnake

Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnake

Western Pygmy Rattlesnake

Non-venomous snakes

New Mexican Blind Snake

Glossy Snake

E. Yellow Bellied Racer

Prairie Ringneck Snake

Great Plains Ratsnake

Plains Hognose Snake

Texas Nightsnake

Common Kingsnake

Milk Snake

Green Snake

W. Coachwhip

Northern Watersnake

Bullsnake/Gophersnake

Texas Longnose Snake

W. Ground Snake

S.W. Black-headed Snake

W. Blackneck Garter Snake

Texas Brown Snake

Lined Snake

Rubber Boa

“Anyone trying to destroy Israel will find France blocking the way.” One is tempted to observe Israel will now be safe from attacks from the rear

Ghost of a Flea, Touchable

Most of these improvements would have been held up, if not outright prevented, by referendums. Democracy doesn’t mean having unlimited confidence in citizens. Sometimes the big picture is in better hands when politicians are running it, and a big picture takes time.

Der Spiegel reported by Samizdata: The German sense of humour

Blair, in Chicago:

No one in the West who has seen what is happening in Kosovo can doubt that NATO’s military action is justified. Bismarck famously said the Balkans were not worth the bones of one Pomeranian Grenadier. Anyone who has seen the tear stained faces of the hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming across the border, heard their heart-rending tales of cruelty or contemplated the unknown fates of those left behind, knows that Bismarck was wrong.

This is a just war, based not on any territorial ambitions but on values. We cannot let the evil of ethnic cleansing stand. We must not rest until it is reversed. We have learned twice before in this century that appeasement does not work. If we let an evil dictator range unchallenged, we will have to spill infinitely more blood and treasure to stop him later.

Courtesy of Norm.

Should these conditions continue to prevail, the legitimacy of the election outcomes would be in question.

UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon

Often the corpses are hidden, but occasionally the killers like to display their handiwork as a warning. Chokuse Muphango was murdered in Buhera South last week. His killers put his body on the back of a truck and drove it through town announcing: “We have killed the dog.”

Thanks, Ban Ki-moon

Nice is independent, and not primarily a rationing mechanism: it sanctions any drug with good evidence for effectiveness.

Polly Toynbee, The public deserves protection from the false hope of ‘wonder drugs’

So I’ve been recently diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. Research demonstrates that the very best initial treatment for me would be a combination therapy such as a DMARD – for example Methotrexate – with an anti-Tumour Necrosis Factor-alpha drug. My consultant agrees that this would be the best initial treatment.

Nice does not allow this course of treatment because of the relatively high cost of the anti-TNF drug.

There ya go, Polly, you lying, smug cow.

My GP is not available between 12:30 and 1:30. Fair enough, the man has to eat. However, the entire GP Practice is unavailable for that hour. No GP is available, no nurse is available, no receptionist is available.

It reminds me very much of travelling around rural France and Spain and finding everything closed for a three-hour lunch. I think that’s what we used to call derogatorily Spanish Practises.

‘Pinky’, another flower photo by Helen

Mr Ahern is the first senior figure from the Irish government to admit that it looked like the treaty had failed.

“It looks like this will be a No vote,” Mr Ahern said on live television. “At the end of the day, for a myriad of reasons, the people have spoken.”

He said it looked like other EU countries would ratify the treaty, so an Irish No vote would leave the EU in “unchartered waters”.

The BBC, Irish minister says EU vote lost

Duane Hanson (Wikipedia, Duane Hanson) was an American artist known for his hyperrealistic sculptures – you can see a few of them in the Saatchi gallery, London. I found them irresistible from the first time I saw them; irresistible but slightly unsettling, which might have something to to with the Uncanny Valley, that sudden revulsion we’re supposed to feel as non-human but human-like simulacra approach but don’t quite achieve realism.

Now Helen’s started taking photos that look like Duane Hanson’s spooky figures: