One Legged Birds Eat Dead Bugs

I've had two fairly bizarre experiences over the last few days that had nothing to do with me other than the fact that I observed them.

The first begins with miscommunication. My wife needs a job, so we are applying everywhere we can think of. I have a friend who is a manager at the local Barnes and Noble, so I asked him at church on Sunday if he might be able to help us out. He told me we should come by when he was working the next day between 7am and 3pm. I have a class at 9:40am, so in the interest of getting to class on time and looking eager, we decided to go around 7 (my wife can't drive a standard, so she can't drive my car -- yet). Luckily I set the alarm wrong and we didn't get up until after 7, because my friend forgot to mention that, even though he starts work at 7, the store doesn't open until 9. So we got there around 8:30 and waited. While we were waiting I saw a bird swoop down and peck some kind of a beetle. After it had mortally wounded the bug (legs flew off) it grabbed it in its beak and hopped away. While it was hopping I noticed it appeared to be only on one leg, and I wondered if a one-legged dance was some strange victory dance for this species. Then it turned so its back was to me and I realized that it was hopping on one leg because it, in fact, only had one leg. Or rather it had only one foot and a stump leg that ended around the knee. I saw a one-legged bird eating a beetle. That was weird.

The other incident happened while I was walking to work yesterday. As I passed the business school two 30 or 40 something year old men came out and walked right in front of me. The part of their conversation I overheard went something like this:
Man 1: ...and cut the martyr complex right out.
Man 2: Speaking of church problems, did you hear about the PC USA...
Man 1: oh, did they have their convention already?
Man 2: I think that its just about to start, they're getting ready for it. Anyway, I heard that they started, not mandating, but accepting alternative descriptions of the trinity...
Man 1: < groans >
Man 2: the Parent, the Child, and...
Man 1: oh no
Man 2: yeah! And the Womb!
Man 1: What?
Man 2: Yeah, the Womb for the Holy Ghost!
Man 1: < shakes head as they walk away >

I was waiting for Redhurt's Jesus to come talk to them, but he never showed up (before I walked away from them, anyway). Besides the bizarreness of calling the Holy Spirit the Womb, that exchange was really funny to me because they were so... annoyed and condescending about the whole thing. But given the recentness of Redhurt's post I felt like it was rather ironic.

John Kerry: Still in Denial

John Kerry proposed a plan to pull US troops out of Iraq. The Senate overwhelmingly rejected his plan -- 86-13. Kerry called it a "dramatic step forward." Now, either he sees his defeat as a step in the right direction, or he has reached a very low point. When getting 13 out of 100 votes is a dramatic step its time to rethink your game plan. That's not even half of the democrats in the Senate. What I see here is Kerry trying not to look like a complete loser after being so completely defeated and, as usual, failing. Perhaps he was also referencing a plan put forth by Senator Levin which was defeated only 60-39. I guess going from 13 to 39 is a pretty dramatic step, but its still not even everyone in his own party. In reference to these two votes, ostensibly, Ted Kennedy said "'Democrats have sent a clear message.'" The only clear message I see here is that the Democrats are in big trouble and unless their leadership comes up with something new they can expect to continue in that trouble for another election cycle.

Zarqawi Killed

I don't know why this isn't bigger in the news, but apparently a US airstrike killed Abu Musa'ab al-Zarqawi earlier this week. Here are some links:
link 1
link 2
This is huge news. Zarqawi was probably second only to Bin-Laden on the US most wanted terrorists list. He was in charge of al Qaida in Iraq and hopefully his death will mean a quicker victory against that group. There are probably only a dozen or so people in the world whose death would have the potential to change events so greatly as Zarqawi's.

Honeymoon

I'm on my honeymoon right now, so I probably won't be posting anything real for another week or two.