Sickle Vs. Rabid Bobcat - - Sickle Wins

Grandma calls on druid heritage to drive off a rabid bobcat.

Elsie Dabrowski went out to her chicken coop Sunday night as she does every night around dusk, closed up the coop and bent down to cut weeds with a sickle, said her son, Gene Dabrowski.

The animal lunged at Elsie, bit her left cheek, scratched her throat and bit her back.

“I kept thinking why? Why is it attacking me? It attacked me for no reason. I thought, ‘Why, why,’” said Elsie, a former Marine, on Monday evening.

Elsie beat the cat off her with the sickle, and Gene’s five dogs chased it under a nearby porch. He lives only 300 feet away in a separate house, heard the commotion, rushed to the scene and killed the animal with two blasts of a shotgun.

The Return of Count Spirochete*

"Syphilis cases in England reach highest level since 1949."

*bonus points for getting the reference in the blog post title.

Thus Explaining the Knights Who Say "Ni!"

"Israeli researchers discover shrub that can treat diabetes."

Israeli researchers have found that a plant that grows in Israel, as well as in other parts of the Middle East, is effective in treating diabetes.

Dr. Jonathan Gorelick of the Judea Research and Development Center will present the results of his study of Chiliadenus iphionoides (sharp varthemia), an aromatic shrub that grows in Israel and throughout the Middle East, at the 25th Judea and Samaria Research Studies Conference in Ariel University on Thursday.

Dr. Gorelick and his team, who published the results of their study of sharp varthemia in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology in October 2011, found that consumption of the yellow-flowering plant increased sugar absorption in skeletal muscle and fat cells and reduced blood sugar levels in animals.

*Checks the Loads In the Super Blackhawk*

Drudge is trying to scare us here locally:

It'd be funny to start a Twitter account named "Ebola Man" along the lines of "Florida Man" and "Florida Woman."

Vets At Twice The Risk For Lou Gehrig's Disease

Veterans are at twice the risk of the general public to develop Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, commonly called "Lou Gehrig's Disease" after the Baseball Hall of Fame Yankees player.

And they don't know why, but suspect it has to do with the physical fitness regimen practiced by military personnel, similar to that practiced by professional athletes.

Click the link to read the story. The Veteran's Administration recognizes ALS as a service-related illness.

Yer Green Grocery Bags Are Making Us Sick

Researchers at the University of Arizona sampled 84 reusable bags from shoppers in Los Angeles, the most recent major municipality to ban plastic bags, and two additional bag-outlawed cities. The findings were stunning: just over half were contaminated with some form of harmful bacteria while at least twelve percent contained traces of fecal matter. When the contaminated bags were housed in car trunks for two hours, scientists found the number of bacteria was boosted ten-fold.

So the next time that you're sitting on the toilet with a bucket in your hands, simultaneously squirting and puking, you can blame it on a hippie.

Oh, That's Why No School Today

It's National White Guilt Over Exposing American Aborigines To Death and Slavery Day, formerly known as Columbus Day.

Let's Play "Carnak!"

As you know, Carnak can discern the contents of a sealed envelope just by holding it against his head. Ready, Carnak?

"A Permanent Drippy Faucet."

A. Permanent. Drippy. Faucet.

*Carnak gives us a withering glance, then rips the end of the envelope, blows into it, pulls out the message, and reads:*

"What do you get when the last effective drugs for treatment of gonorrhea stop working?"

Thank you, Carnak.

One of Them Assault Microbes

In Sharon, Pennsylvania, a robbery suspect used the threat of disease to try to get a cashier to hand over money.

Online court records don't list an attorney for 41-year-old Fred Parker, of Coolspring Township.

Police say he walked into Lucky's Internet Cafe in Sharon on Monday night and began touching the walls and gambling machines, claiming he has MRSA - a serious staph infection that resists antibiotics.

Sharon police Chief Mike Menster says Parker then threatened to infect the cashier if he didn't give Parker money. The chief tells The Herald newspaper of Sharon, "It's our first case of robbery by threat of an infectious disease."

I have sad memories of MRSA, because it led to my mother's premature death last year of pneumonia.

A Permanently Drippy Faucet

Gonorrhea is becoming resistant to the few remaining antibiotics that are used to treat it.

Lede Sentence of the Day

"The next time you see a raccoon pictured with a park ranger's hat, imagine it instead with the robe and scythe of the grim reaper."

Whoa! That got my attention! Let's read on:

Bellingham resident Jon Shaughnessy learned about the downside of raccoons soon after he found some of their potentially deadly droppings beneath his porch.

"I said, 'Whoa, this is serious stuff,'" he said. "People die from it."

He's right. Read on, but the story isn't pretty.

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Many raccoons have roundworms called Baylisascaris in their intestines. The roundworms produce millions of eggs, which are passed on in the raccoon's feces. Those hardy eggs can take hold inside people and can cause fatal brain infections.

It's been out there all this time, and I never knew!

WHAT'S THE PROBLEM?

Many raccoons have roundworms called Baylisascaris in their intestines. The roundworms produce millions of eggs, which are passed on in the raccoon's feces. Those hardy eggs can take hold inside people and can cause fatal brain infections.

WHERE IS THE PROBLEM?

Infected raccoons have been found throughout the country. The critters often defecate in woodpiles; beneath porches; by and on trees; on decks, roofs and garages; and on flat surfaces, such as logs, stumps and large rocks.

When researchers inspected the backyards of 119 suburban Chicago homes, they found raccoon latrines in 61 of them. Fourteen of the latrines had roundworm eggs.

Raccoon feces, by the way, are generally dark, tubular and blunt in shape, strong-smelling, and often full of seeds and other food debris.

HOW DO PEOPLE BECAME SICK?

People who ingest the eggs risk illness and death. Once inside your intestines, the eggs hatch into larvae, which can travel to the brain, liver, spinal cord and other parts of your body.

Victims often are children who have put infected dirt, objects or water in their mouth.

Okay, so you have to eat it. I don't know anyone who eats raccoon shit. Wait a minute - - "infected dirt, objects or water in their mouth." Damn, that means you can get it just from drinking water in the wild. Yet another reason to never go camping!

Gah. Even the Boy Scouts never warned us about raccoon shit. Maybe they need to add that to their manual, give out a Merit Badge for identifying and cleaning up raccoon shit safely.

SPREAD THE WORD! IT'S OUT THERE! IT COULD BE IN YOUR YARD!

Meanwhile, In Aberdeen, North Carolina...

...what was probably a rabid red fox made the mistake of attacking 11-year-old Talon Thomas.

Talon Thomas, 11, said he was bitten and scratched by the fox while walking home from school Tuesday.

“He bit me on my leg, and then I just picked him up, and I just hit his head against the road and he started kicking me in my head," he said.

Talon said he kept the fox pinned down and tried to keep him quiet so he wouldn't alert other foxes.

“He kept kicking his legs up and I thought his whole family was going to come after me,” he said.

Talon caught the fox and took him to his parents. It's not yet known if the fox was rabid but Talon received a series of rabies shots as a precaution.

And a day before this occurred, another fox, and possibly the same one, attacked 22-year-old Taylor Dees, who fended off the attack with his bicycle.

This is why it's good advice to carry a walking stick with you when you're out in the woods.

h/t Confederate Yankee.

The Things Jimmy Carter Does Well...

...tend to be overshadowed by the things he does poorly, but his humanitarian work in poor countries is performed quite well indeed, especially his work to eradicate Guinea Worm Disease.

There's an accompanying slideshow, but I'd not recommend clicking on it if you have a weak stomach.

A Fungus Among Us

A deadly fungus. As in fatal. As in kill your ass.

For those of you who don't believe stories you read on Fox News (and you know who you are), you can go here instead.

The Weather Is Beautiful, You've Got VD

In Brazil, you can send a sex partner an e-postcard informing them of that little microbe or virus you passed on to them.

That one's just begging for a country song.