Good golly, Miss Molly, I have spent so much time talking about my problems lately that I have a browser positively swamped with cool share-able content to unload today.

Like, how about this completely awesome picture?

Oh. The huge manatee.

A little girl encounters a truly alien life form, and so does the manatee. I love this pic all the more because it looks, to me, like it was cropped from a larger picture. That, to me, just shows that someone understands that the essence of the picture is the frame, at least in photography. There is the picture, and then there is knowing where the picture in that picture is. Some clearly knew that in this picture. So they framed it. Beautiful.

Meanwhile, in the less lovely layer of reality, the Quebec student protestors are being legislated off the streets in a move that is both predictable and troubling.

After all, these protests passed their 100th day recently, and there is only so long Somebody Needs To Do Something About This can go on before it turns into Somebody Had To Do Something About It.

The article is irritatingly vague on what, exactly, is in this Bill 78, but it is no doubt one of those knee jerk reaction bills that is dubious on moral and legal and Constitutional grounds, but the politicians do not care because by the time the law is struck down, it will have already had the effect intended, namely to shut down the protests.

Ideally, the protestors would simply adapt their tactics to the legislation and keep going, but sadly, they are passionate French-Canadians and unlikely to be quite so rational about it.

It is really like having our own miniature France in North America, isn’t it? Storm the Bastille now, kids. You may not get another chance.

Over in Europe, the Catholic Church has yet another scandal to deal with, namely a bunch of Vatican insider communication being leaked to the public.

Nothing that should be surprising to anyone with a basic understanding of human nature. Power struggles, interpersonal bitterness, people questioning each other’s motives, all the sort of thing that happens everywhere human beings are in an organization together. It is only a scandal because the Vatican, like Disneyland, tries to project this air of being a place where that sort of thing does not happen.

Given the choice, I will take Disneyland.

Moving along, we have this simply eye boggling and brilliant effect by Nathan Barnatt :

[Get More Funny Pics At AlmostE.com]

And the thing is, execution wise, it is pretty simple. Just some clothes, something to keep them on the wall, and some creative editing. And yet, the effect is simply phenomenal. That, to me, is where genius lies. It lies in doing something amazing with simple, ordinary ingredients. That is what takes vision and imagination and daring. And obviously, one fun sense of humour.

It would be great if changing outfits was that easy and fun, wouldn’t it?

In a slightly grimmer vein, how about this sign of the coming zombie apocalypse?

In (of course) Florida, police recently shot a naked man who was eating someone’s face.

Here is the skinny on that :

The officer…approached and saw that the naked man was actually chewing the other man’s head, according to witnesses. The officer ordered the naked man to back away, and when he continued the assault, the officer shot him.

The attacker continued to eat the man, despite being shot, forcing the officer to continue firing. Witnesses said they heard at least a half dozen shots.

Sounds like a zombie to me! And worse than a mere zombie… obviously a toothless nudist zombie. Clearly, the old people in Florida no longer find Republicanism a sufficient sop to their desire for evil and have gone feral in order to begin feasting upon the flesh of the young directly.

Look for the Rush Limbaugh/Fox News talking points blitz defending the deceased and decrying the heavy hand of government for taking this poor innocent man’s life just because he was exercise his God-given, Constitutional right to feed upon succulent face flesh.

Of course, the real people on TV to cover this should be CSI : Miami.

Looks like these two gentlemen... *sunglasses* had a face-off.

And speaking of the media, how is this for a headline : Honors Student Sent To Jail For Missing School.

Sounds horrible, right? Instant knee-jerk outrage. They sent some smart kid to jail just for missing school? How dare they? What kind of jackbooted thugs are they?

But here is the real deal : the kid was working two jobs while still in high school, and as a result, falling asleep in class all the time and missing a ton of days of school.

She had already been warned by the judge not to miss any more school. So it is not like this was some random thing that came out of the blue. And it was just 24 hours in jail, plus a fine.

But the real story is, apparently this kid is working a part time job and a full time job because her parents divorced and they both moved away, leaving the girl, Diane Tran, on her own.

How the fuck is that even legal? Sure, the girl is 17, but still, in most places, a 17 year old girl is still a child and a ward of her parents, and leaving her on her own without apparently any means of support, so she has to work a job and a half just to survive, strikes me as super freaking illegal, not to mention all kinds of wrong.

I mean, what the hell, Mister and Misses Tran?

The poor thing probably could use 24 hours rest from what must be a hellish life, honestly. The judge needs to track down those parents and haul their asses back to town and force them to support their little girl at least financially.

And then put them in jail. I mean, what de FUCK man.

Full disclosure : I was an honors student who missed tons of classes in high school.

That is enough linkage for now, I guess. More tomorrow!