The day after

I woke up remembering how it felt to hold Gaila. I don't know what I dreamed about, but they weren't bad dreams.

When I got up, as usual, the first thing I did was sit down at my computer, check my downloads and read news. Dad had made fried potatoes and bacon and started on scrambled eggs with green onions. When the eggs were done, I poured myself some orange juice and sat down to enjoy breakfast with him. Mom, Hairy, and Mac got up and went outside. Like last night, Hairy had some trouble getting up the stairs on his way back in, but this time he made it.

Fox News is still talking about that girl who went missing in Aruba. Dad always has Fox News on, so we half-watched it while eating breakfast. When the weather came on, I noticed that their 3D graphic showed stars behind the Earth, and I wondered aloud whether or not the constellations were correct. Dad took that and ran with it: "It'll be a huge expose on MSNBC! Those constellations were in the wrong place, which proves that the map they were using was at least two days old!"

After breakfast, I came back to my computer to write this post and put up some links. So here they are:

Kenyan grandfather, 73, kills leopard with hands

Peasant farmer Daniel M'Mburugu was tending to his potato and bean crops in a rural area near Mount Kenya when the leopard charged out of the long grass and leapt on him.

M'Mburugu had a machete in one hand but dropped that to thrust his fist down the leopard's mouth. He gradually managed to pull out the animal's tongue, leaving it in its death-throes.

Remember how metal stuff was sticking out of guard rails in Japan, and they thought it was sabotage? Turns out it was just caused by cars crashing into the railings. Oddly, I actually thought of that recently--the 13th Street Bridge over the Savannah River has metal fragments sticking out of it in places that I have never been able to figure out, and it made me wonder if cars crashed there and left pieces. And that made me wonder about the Japan stuff.

In any case, Yahoo! and Asahi both have the story.

In other news, apparently the police at Musashino Police Station in Tokyo are fingerprinting the homeless and keeping that information in a database. Why? Japan Today says,

Deputy chief officer Kiyonobu Yuge said the police fingerprinted the homeless for the purpose of confirming their identities in the case it became necessary in the future.

Mainichi has a much longer story:

Tokyo's Metropolitan Police Department has for decades kept photographic, fingerprint and documentary records of homeless people living on Kichijoji streets, the Mainichi has learned.

Anybody working at the Musashino Police Station has access to the records, which the station has been keeping on file since 1984.

"We use them because (the homeless) don't have registered addresses. It's not great to go around gathering fingerprints, but if we don't do that, there's no way we can identify anybody," station deputy chief Kiyonobu Yuge said. "We've got the permission of the individuals, so there's no problem. I can't tell you how many people we have on record."

Naturally, people are upset by this.

Did you see what Charles Jenkins said about Kim Jong Il during his weeklong trip to the US? From Japan Today:

Jenkins said Kim is an "evil man" who lives a "luxury life...with sports cars, 200,000 American movie" videos and other things that his people do not have.

Jenkins said he had expected that American people would criticize him for deserting and going to North Korea, and said he regrets it as "I let down the American soldiers, the U.S. Army and the American people" and made it "difficult" for his family in the United States.

But he said he is "sure" that people would understand after learning of the "very difficult" time he went through in North Korea, which he had thought he would never be able to leave.

"The first 15 years were very difficult" with North Korea trying to "brainwash" him, Jenkins said. But he stressed, "I was never brainwashed."

Apparently he's writing a book about his life. It sounds like it'd be an interesting read. (I wonder if he's writing it in English, Japanese, or both? Does he speak Japanese?)

So apparently the Tube is hotter than Miami now. Really hot. (Apologies for that website--when I loaded it, a big flash ad that looked like a list of news stories completely covered the actual article. There is a close button on the top right. Stupid flash ads...)

Heatwave conditions - and trains that are already packed - mean the " apparent temperature" has soared above 40C on many routes.

The apparent temperature is an index produced by scientists to show how hot it feels, taking into effect air temperature and humidity.

Its results raise serious concerns about the safety of Tube passengers, with medical experts warning they face dehydration as a result of travelling on stifling carriages.

Thankfully, they found a couple of people to state the obvious:

Ted Collard, 45, a business consultant from Mitcham, said: "It's bloody hot down here. Every day it is the same. They should put air conditioning in the stations."

[...]

And American tourist Claudia Nie, 52, a manager at chemical firm in Ohio, said: "I am surprised it is so hot down here.

"It doesn't even get this hot in Ohio. Why don't they have air conditioning or something?