Woke up about an hour ago, had a bowl of creamy mushroom soup and went outside to start shoveling. The snow had turned to sleet by the time I got out there. A good 5 inches of the mix, mostly loose snow, was on the ground.

I got some pictures of one of the dark-eyed juncos that have been hanging around yesterday, but the sun had went down too far to get good exposures. I'm going to try again Monday. Without my birding camera, I have to be sneaky to get close enough for a good shot. Sneaky in this case means feeding them on fenceless fenceposts near the window.

There were some somewhat shriveled grape tomatoes in the refrigerator. Still technically edible, but too shriveled for purpleglitter to eat and I detest eating tomatoes whole.

I know there are plenty of animals around that would love them, so I went out to the fence at the end of the driveway and threw them into the backyard sometime after 2am. I didn't throw them all at once so as not to make a loud noise.

After one throw that reached the trees near the back fence, I heard high pitched yellings and hissings of complaint. I'm guessing the opossum I've previously seen skulking about was in the brush and got nailed by a tomatoe. Grape tomatoes are small and are unlikely to have actually injured the opossum, so the interaction was simply humorous. Maybe eating the tomatoes will make up for getting nailed.

I haven't posted a picture of me in a while...


photo by purpleglitter

British sailors and marines were blindfolded and kept in isolation from each other during most of their 13-day detention in Iran, members of the naval crew said Friday in their first public comments since being released. Six of the 15 captured crew held a news conference at Royal Marine Base Chivenor a day after they arrived back in Britain. "The pressures we were subjected to were quite diverse. It was mainly psychological and emotional," said Lieut. Felix Carman. "We were blindfolded at all times and kept in isolation from each other." ... Carman said when they first arrived at the Tehran prison, they were blindfolded and ordered to stand against a wall with their hands bound as "people were cocking weapons in the background." That experience was "an extremely nerve-racking occasion," said Carman. "There were lots of tactics like that that were employed." At one point, the lone female sailor, Faye Turney, was told the other 14 sailors and marines had been sent back to Britain and that she was left alone, they said. full article

The British sailors were treated badly in Iranian hands. But, they are lucky the weren't captured by the Bush regime and sent to Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. The ordeal these sailors endured was nothing compared to what the Bush administration has been promoting as standards of prisoner treatment and interrogation.

This sore of psychological and emotional abuse of prisoners is not acceptable, but Bush's long term unapologetic abuse of prisoners have made it virtually impossible for any United States ally to effectively speak out against this kind of mistreatment, and that goes doubly for the Bush's closest friend and enabler: Tony Blair.

I just spent several hours trying to get these pictures to upload. Very frustrated with LiveJournal and Semagic. Will, of course, get over it.


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