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They say that Louis XIV had the inscription Ultima Ratio Regum cast into all the cannon of the French Army. It means “The Ultimate Argument of Kings,” and that always struck me as one of the most honest and up-front things any ruler or would-be ruler ever said. “We can dress it up prettier than this, but when it comes down to the unvarnished truth this is what it’s about: You’ll do as I say or I’ll send my goons to kill you.”
I thought about that for a long time. If there’s an ultimate argument, it seems only logical that there must be an ultimate answer. For years I thought the ultimate answer must be the bullets in my rifle, but it never seemed quite right. I’ve got bullets – he’s got frigging Cannon Balls. I mean, if there were three hundred million rifles throwing bullets at him, then maybe. But we all know that’s not going to happen. So if there’s an ultimate answer to his ultimate argument, it sure as hell ain’t bullets.
It finally came to me – and that’s when I abandoned the city and most of my stuff, and gave all that was behind me a good stiff Randian Shrug.
The ultimate answer to kings is not a bullet, but a belly laugh.
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Previous OPSEC Violations
Karate Crow!
Upon arrival at its destination, the crow was taken into custody by federal agents for bypassing TSA security procedures.
Any chance socialists use the crow as their symbol?
Oh, hell no. Socialists are conformists, crows are iconoclasts. Look which big bird this one chose to exploit.
Cute. I don’t buy it. Watch little birdies drive away the bigger guys by disrupting their lift. I’m thinking that pair of love birds would drop like a feathered stone. I could be wrong…
No, he’s not actually catching a ride. I’ve seen ravens do things like this frequently to hawks and eagles; they’ll dive-bomb them, fly-by and yank feathers, even deliberately collide with them. Crows and ravens hate raptors and other predators and they’re not afraid to bring it. And they’ll keep it up for as long as it takes for the raptor to give it up and go away, and then they’ll keep it up some more. The bigger birds seem helpless against it, they can’t catch their tormentors and I’ve never seen one try to very hard.
Click the cat, when she went outside, was more concerned about ravens than anything else. If she had to cross open ground she did it at a good clip with her eye on the sky.
“Crows and ravens…not afraid to bring it”
Yeah, I like crows. They got moxie.
Smart cat.
I’ve watched ravens and hawks go at it pretty often – always interesting. That picture looks more like a painting than a photo to these eyes – fwiw. I’ve seen smaller birds harass ravens – phoebes and cactus wren usually. They’ll dive from above and go for the eyes. Sometimes they’ll ‘tree’ a raven and a pair might dive bomb it every few seconds – mostly to move it out of their nesting territory. I once saw a raven grounded by a pair of phoebes – he was out in the open on a hot day and having a miserable time of it – couldn’t manage to get a take-off stride with their harassment. Ravens are baby and egg stealers to the smaller birds – they don’t like them at all once they pay attention to something at ground level within their territory. Hawks don’t usually get the same attention – they’re more likely to be hunting quail and dove so the smaller birds are less affected… I suppose.
By the way, Joel – sometimes hawks as part of courtship will ‘joust’ and even lock talons for a bit of free-fall. Keep your eye to the sky! Never know what you might see.
Here – about three weeks ago – the clean-up crew returned. The turkey vultures are back again. No one seems to mind them too much unless they’re they think they’re part of the clean-up crew too. Amazing sense of smell with those birds – the tiniest little whiff can bring one or many in.