I’m posting this one today for…  Well, let’s just say the definition is the reason.

faute de mieux (faute de mieux): / foht duh MYΠ/ (always italicized)
adverb

(1) for lack of or want for something better

[From French faute de mieux meaning “lack of better.”]

Usage: I hate it when people say they voted for Dubya faute de mieux.

As you’ve no doubt already heard, Saddam Hussein was put to death by hanging last night.

I am not going to debate the validity of his guilt.  The man was a monster by any definition of the word.  There has never been a doubt that he practiced genocide, turned his own state’s weapons against its own people, used nonconventional weapons against neighboring states and those he called enemies, utilized torture and horrible acts of cruelty to squelch dissent, and generally worked to make his life one in which Hitler himself would have been proud.

I am not going to debate the death penalty.  It is a barbaric practice that teaches vengeance instead of justice, provides no opportunity for rehabilitation or remorse, generates nothing akin to closure (and what a disgusting thought it is when people say that), demonstrates murder isn’t wrong like we tell children but is instead a useful tool when we call it justice (and what a horrible offense to real justice it is to call killing someone by that name), and ultimately serves no purpose in society (if it did, why do people still commit capital offenses?).  Likewise, state-sponsored murder has taken the lives of far too many innocent people.  Because of its finality, there is no hope for those put to death for crimes they did not commit since proving their innocence will not free them from their punishment.  Besides, I think Mahatma Gandhi had it right when he said, “An eye for an eye – and the whole world goes blind.”

But those aren’t the points of this post.

What I will debate is the horrific and inhumane jubilation I’ve seen across the blogosphere today in response to his death.

I cannot believe the large number of people who have posted celebratory entries regarding this event.  In fact, some people were posting brutish nastiness as early as last night as their spite and malice welled up on a foundation of joy based solely on the death of a human being.  Vitriolic and venomous, all of these people have demonstrated their troglodyte natures and desire to inflict suffering on others when it suits their covet for ending life.

Several blogs have already been removed from my blog list because of this.  It is one thing to feel the death penalty is right and to feel justice has been served by seeing Hussein put to death.  On those points we can disagree.

It’s something else entirely to delight with primitive glee the enactment of capital punishment on anyone for any reason.  To stand and declare how thrilling it is to know a man has been hanged is to rend open your chest to show the world the empty cavity where a heart should have been.

For all of you who have found this a reason to party, may your inhumanity come back to haunt you a thousandfold.  You deserve no place among those of us who cherish mercy and love above death and destruction.  What you celebrate is your own heartlessness, your own bathing in the blood of others, an act in which you find excessive enjoyment only because you are callous, cruel, pitiless, unkind, and vicious brutes who find wonder in your own inhuman existences.  You are pathetic and gross.

Check out Friday Ark #119 throughout the weekend for plenty of animal action.

Weekend Cat Blogging #82 is the New Year’s Edition.  Don’t miss all the great cat photos and stories.

This just pisses me off.  “According to this press release from PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility), Bush White House appointees are suppressing real science in order to promote creationism. Specifically, at the Grand Canyon National Park, a book is on sale that says the canyon was formed in Noah’s flood. Also, guides at the park are not allowed to answer questions about how old the canyon is, despite scientists’ incredibly detailed and intricate knowledge of the formation mechanism, scheme, and history of the canyon (hint: some of the oldest rocks in the canyon are two billion years old).”  How’s that for separation of church and state?  Dubya has forced our national parks to betray science in favor of mythology.  Pathetic.  And the administration has promised to review this policy for three years yet has done no such thing.  See correction here.

A massive ice shelf has collapsed in Canada.  “Scientists have discovered that an enormous ice shelf broke off an island in the Canadian Arctic last year, in what could be sign of global warming. It is said to be the largest break in 25 years, casting an ice floe with an area of 66 sq km (25 square miles). It occurred in August 2005 but was only recently detected on satellite images. The chunk of ice bigger than Manhattan could wreak havoc if it moves into oil drilling regions and shipping lanes next summer, scientists warned.”  Ah, but Michael Crichton says global warming is a hoax.  I suppose all the birds not migrating for winter this year are in on the joke, along with the bears who are not hibernating, and the polar bears dying out because so little ice exists from which they can hunt, and the list goes on.  All these things must be part of the master plot to pull the wool over our eyes about climate change, right?

You absolutely must go see these photos of a golden eagle fighting a fox over a carcass.  They’re spectacular, and they demonstrate how big eagles will readily take on large mammals if the stakes are high enough—as in food.  Be sure to click on each of the photos for a larger version.  What a show!  But wait; there’s more!  Go here to see a video of another eagle attacking a fox (the video is in Spanish, but you don’t need to understand what’s being said to appreciate the visual).  It’s disturbing yet fascinating.  You can’t tell who wins because it ends before the battle is through, yet it looks as though both animals inflict harm on each other.  It’s certainly an interesting clarification of what these large predatory birds are capable of and willing to do even with regards to large animals they can’t possible carry away.  [via Stranger Fruit]

For the most part we humans live with the false impression of security and a feeling of being at home in a seemingly trustworthy physical and human environment. But when the expected course of everyday life is interrupted, we are like shipwrecked people on a miserable plank in the open sea, having forgotten where they came from and not knowing whither they are drifting. But once we fully accept this, life becomes easier and there is no longer any disappointment.

— Albert Einstein