In Other News

[Proteus_MST]

This sounds fishy

[Uncle Sparky]

Well, it's all water under the bridge now... and on the street... and in the lobby...

[Dinner]

Maybe the food bank wants the frozen fish?

[Broken_Erika]

P-22, Hollywood's celebrity mountain lion, ends his reign

It was late at night in Los Angeles, and artist Corie Mattie had indulged in a glass or two of wine when she heard something outside her home.

At first she thought her brother's Labrador retriever had got out, so she went to let him in.

It was not a chocolate lab.

"It was a [expletive] mountain lion," Ms Mattie said.

And not just any mountain lion - but the most famous mountain lion in Hollywood, and arguably the world.

His name is P-22 and the March encounter left an indelible mark, Ms Mattie said.

His green eyes glowed straight at her. She stared back. She took a quick video before hiding inside, and P-22 lingered until dawn, when he quietly made his exit over a lattice fence.

"He touched my soul. He could have destroyed me, and he didn't," she said. "It escalated quickly to my spirit animal. It went from zero to one hundred, really quick."

Ms Mattie was not the first Angeleno P-22 had bewitched, but residents can no longer look forward to magical encounters with the mysterious beast.

On Saturday, the hearts of P-22's fans were shattered when the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced that, due to his old age and a host of serious heath issues, the legendary feline was humanely put to sleep. Officials called it "the most difficult, but compassionate choice."

He has had the city in his thrall since 2012, when he somehow managed to get across two deadly freeways and take up residence in Griffith Park, a 4,200-acre mountain in the heart of one of the world's biggest concrete jungles.

Since then, his charisma and curious choice of city habitat have made him a local folk hero. His plight - trapped in an urban island with no possibility of finding a mate - also made him the face of a movement to protect the threatened species.

Though he will no longer prowl through the heart of Los Angeles, his decade-long reign has cemented his status as a Hollywood star as bright as any on the big screen.

A star is born

Griffith Park is minuscule compared to a mountain lion's typical average range of 150 sq miles. Yet like many city-dwellers, P-22 was willing to sacrifice space for a prime location.

He was first discovered in February 2012, when Miguel Ordeñana, a biologist who had set up camera traps in the park, was checking overnight footage.

"All of a sudden this massive puma butt comes across my computer screen!" Mr Ordeñana recalled.

At first he could not believe it, but a subsequent photo confirmed that the park had an exciting new resident.

By August, P-22 got his first profile in the LA Times.

The big cat captured the imagination of famed nature photographer Steve Winter, who set up a camera trap beneath the Hollywood sign. He waited over a year before P-22 sauntered into the frame.

The photo got a spread in National Geographic, and a star was born.

"It gave people hope, because they're living in this big urban area, and they have this park they walk into that was actually wild with a California cougar," Mr Winter said. "He became a celebrity in the city of celebrities."

A decade of P-22 escapades ensued. He gave a repairman a fright in 2015 when he hid in a crawl space below a Los Feliz home. He was occasionally spotted on doorbell and park cameras, looking regal, even cute, as he feasted on a deer he'd just slaughtered. The city loved him so much that they forgave him when he (probably) killed a koala at the LA Zoo. Los Angeles has declared 22 October "P-22 Day".

But he also came to symbolise a much darker reality for California's mountain lions.

Local prey - coyotes, raccoons, and other small animals - are laced with the rat poison that has become ubiquitous around Los Angeles.

In 2014, camera traps spotted P-22 looking ill and officials hauled him in for treatment. A mugshot of P-22 looking grizzled and bemused quickly went viral, but the cause was no joke. He was found to be full of rat poison and consumed by mange - conditions that kill most mountain lions.

The specie's habitats have been choked off by California's freeways. Though as many as 6,000 mountain lions live in California, researchers believe the population in the Santa Monica Mountains, where P-22 was probably born, could die out in 50 years as the cats have resorted to inbreeding, weakening their genetic pool.

The great slashes of asphalt also make journeys to new homes potentially deadly. In September, a pregnant mountain lion was struck and killed when she tried to cross a Malibu highway, which bisects a key swathe of habitat. She and her four unborn cubs all had traces of rat poison in their systems.

Once, Mr Ordeñana captured a video of P-22 making plaintive mating calls. They would never be answered; the freeways and development surrounding Griffith Park guaranteed he was walled off from any potential females and would never reproduce.

The lion king's reign has ended

His presence among the humans who loved him brought about his downfall. At the advanced age of 12, he started spending more time acting erratically in the urban areas around the park. Recently, he killed a chihuahua, one of Los Angeles' less endangered but highly protected species. The final straw came after he attacked a resident walking their dog.

When officials cornered him in a backyard on 12 December, P-22 was underweight, full of mange and suffering from an eye injury that likely came from a vehicle collision, said the National Park Services' Jeff Sikich, a biologist who spent more time with P-22 than any other. It was revealed at a press conference the next day that he was unlikely to be released back into the wild.

On 17 December, wildlife officials announced that after a thorough health evaluation revealed kidney disease, a heart condition, and other serious ailments, veterinarians had recommended a humane euthanasia.

"I told him I was so sorry that we did not make the world a safer place for him," said Beth Pratt of the National Wildlife Federation, who was present for P-22's final moments.

As tragic as his end has been, his loyal fans say that his legacy as an LA icon is secure.

"He survived out here against all odds," said Ms Mattie, who was inspired to paint a large mural of P-22 and get involved in conservation campaigns. "A lot of people can relate to him. It's not easy, LA will chew you up and spit you out," she said - but he endured.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64006005

[BeBMan]

He will be always remembered as P-22

[Uncle Sparky]

Could be the best headline of 2022:

[BeBMan]

I found out that 2022 is soon replaced with 2023?!?

[Uncle Sparky]

Without the backing of the NRA, would the GOP be able to repeatedly shoot itself in the foot?

[Broken_Erika]

'We've got a two-legged fox on the lawn'

'We've got a two-legged fox on the lawn'

A family were stunned to find a fox with just two legs in their garden.
Phil and Jane Carter, from Ilkeston in Derbyshire, often get visited by foxes and this one stayed for about 45 minutes.
Mr Carter said: "My wife shouted, 'quick, grab your phone, we've got a two-legged fox on the lawn'.
"We had about five minutes of it going around the lawn smelling and picking up some meat and then off it went like a rocket."
A spokesperson for Derbyshire Wildlife Trust said: "We've never seen anything like this in the wild before but the animal looks relatively healthy and appears to have adapted to life on two legs."

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-england-derbyshire-64165953

[SlowwHand]

[Broken_Erika]

Why this congressman is using Superman comic for swearing-in


Incoming US congressman Robert Garcia will be sworn in using the US Constitution - and a Superman comic.

In a tweet on Tuesday, he said it is one of three items he will use that "mean a lot to me personally".

The other two are a photo of his parents, who he said were lost to Covid-19, and his citizenship certificate.

Mr Garcia is still waiting to take the oath of office, however, after Republicans failed to elect a speaker.

A Democrat from Long Beach, California, and the city's former mayor before being elected to the House of Representatives, he has a record of sharing his graphic novel fandom on Twitter.

"Anyone who understands comics knows that comics are an essential part of American fiction," he tweeted in November. "And the lessons learned are invaluable."

Mr Garcia - who will take the oath using a vintage Superman comic from 1939 - cites lessons that are distinctive to his upbringing as both an immigrant and a member of the LGBT community.

The congressman-elect was brought to the US from Peru by his mother when he was five years old. He is openly gay and married.

In 2021, after DC Comics announced the new Superman would be bisexual, Mr Garcia tweeted: "I became a Superman fan as a kid because I related to him. An immigrant, a sense of justice, and a secret identity."

Although using the Superman comic may be a bit unorthodox when taking the oath of office, technically it's not illegal, per Article IV of the US Constitution. The Article states, in part, that "no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States".

As a result, "there is no required text upon which an incoming officeholder must take their oath", said Jane Campbell, president of the United States Capitol Historical Society.

Throughout history, Ms Campbell said, newly elected members of Congress have used different texts, including Hebrew Scripture, Jewish religious texts, copies of the Quran and the Bhagavad Gita (the Hindu sacred text).

In 2007, Democrat Keith Ellison from Minnesota, the first Muslim elected to Congress, took the oath using a Quran once owned by Thomas Jefferson.

Many of the mementos, like Jefferson's Quran and the Superman comic, are loaned by the Library of Congress for this occasion. Other props loaned by the Library for a ceremonial swearing-in include Rosa Park's pocket Bible and the Biblia Hebraica, the first complete Hebrew Bible published in America.

But no comic books, yet.

As the vote for speaker of the House concludes its sixth fruitless round, the world may have to wait a little longer before Superman and Mr Garcia can break the congressional record books.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-64167015

[Uncle Sparky]

Tee Hee

[BeBMan]

Lol...who knew it would be so difficult to become the new Satan

[My Wife Hates CIV]

makes you wonder how on earth did the republicans take the house from the dems.

[PLATO]

makes you wonder how on earth did the republicans take the house from the dems.

Choice between "Do you hate democracy" or "Do you hate being poor?" ?????????????

[pchang]

Apparently, they answered Yes and then No.

[Uncle Sparky]