Sharp Testimony

Tip of the hat to Anil for this good one:

If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp as this policeman. He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the policeman’s credibility.

Q: “Officer — did you see my client fleeing the scene?"

A: “No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away."

Q: “Officer — who provided this description?"

A: “The officer who responded to the scene."

Q: “A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?"

A: “Yes, sir. With my life."

Q: “With your life? Let me ask you this then, officer. Do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?"

A: “Yes sir, we do."

Q: “And do you have a locker in the room?"

A: “Yes sir, I do."

Q: “And do you have a lock on your locker?"

A: “Yes sir."

Q: “Now why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same officers?"

A: “You see, sir — we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room."

Gift Idea

Oh, my.

I can think of a few liberal politicians that are clearly in desperate need of this product. And also in dire need of the related facial tissue version.

Oh, my.

Tip of my hat to our friend Dr. B. (aka the “Merchant of Pain” — how fitting!).

Ivan and the Eland

This is a followup to yesterday’s post about our photo safari at the San Diego Wild Animal Park. Josie (our driver) commented on our post, and asked for pictures of Ivan and the eland. Ask, Josie, and ye shall receive!

Ivan is the rather large male giraffe in the photos at right, and the eland (a Patterson’s Eland) is the roughly one ton antelope that Ivan is bullying. Yup, Ivan’s a big old bully. He just herded that poor eland around wherever he wanted it to go. I’m sure the eland isn’t used to such bullying, as he’s rather big and bad himself — but what are you going to do when you have Ivan after you? I know that if I had Ivan’s big, bony head swinging at me like a spiked wrecking ball, I’d probably get all humble, too. And then there’s those monster hooves, which Jeanne (our guide) told us can go whizzing around at very high speed, doing lots of damage to things like rib cages, skulls, and tank armor (I added that last category myself after seeing one of Ivan’s hooves up close and personal).

What is a little hard to absorb from these photos is the scale of the tussle going on. In motion, we saw two rather ponderous beasts dancing in slow motion; ponderous really only because of their size. In some of the other photos (in my original post), you can see Ivan’s head as he feeds from Debbie’s hands — it is enormous! Now look in the photos at right, and even though Ivan’s head is bigger than the eland’s head, that eland is still darned big. It’s the size of a fairly large cow — and look how Ivan towers over him. That poor eland couldn’t poke Ivan in the ribs no matter how hard he tried…

As usual, click on the small photos at right to get a larger version…