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August 04, 2005

Suspicious Parcel In France Contains Elephant Poop

They made a big production out of it, but to be fair to the French police, elephant poop is suspicious. I mean, what the hell do you do with it? I can't imagine it's part of a potpourri.

[No link, I was just sent the article in full, without a URL.]

Envelope containing elephant poo sparks alarm

CERGY, France, Aug 4 (AFP) - An envelope leaking a strange pinkish powder sparked an alert in a Paris suburban post office, but tests revealed the substance to be nothing more than desiccated elephant dung, police said Thursday.
With France on high terrorism alert following the London bombings last month, postal workers in a sorting centre in the northwestern suburb of Bonneuil-en-France took no chance when they noticed the strange envelope from Sri Lanka with the powder inside.

After police were called in, six employees who had been exposed to the powder were subjected to medical examinations.

..

Police said the envelope was addressed to a Paris-based immigrant from Sri Lanka who apparently used the pachydermal poo for traditional religious rites.

Traditional religious rites? Okay, whatever. Who knows.

But pink? What sort of elephant was this?

Thanks to Greg.

posted by Ace at 01:43 PM

Comments

holy merde!

Posted by: Dave in Texas on August 4, 2005 01:49 PM

Probably intended for some artist who wanted to throw it at a picture of President Bush or Pope Benedict or something.

Posted by: Slublog on August 4, 2005 02:02 PM

poop? you couldn't have said dung, or crap, or maybe even shit? lame.

Posted by: trey on August 4, 2005 02:02 PM

Anybody see that video where some poor Indian elephant keeper is tending to the rear foot of an elephant, and the beast actually sits down on him? The poor guy's head went right up the pachy's...exit chute. Only quick thinking by another tender saved the guy from getting squished entirely.

I bet that poor sucker had to leave town after that little episode -- he'd never be able to show his face in public again.

Posted by: Monty on August 4, 2005 02:05 PM

Trey:

It's a well-known fact that poop is one of the more comical-sounding euphemisms for excrement, with turd being an excellent substitute in certain situations.

That is all.

Posted by: Monty on August 4, 2005 02:06 PM

Perhaps this is the latest masterpiece from that cheap Nigerian hustler who made fools of the art "intelligencia" at the Brooklyn museum with his crude painting of a Madonna with real elephant dung on it. And someday, the 20th century will be known as by far the lowest point in the history of art (unless it manages to get even worse). The notion that only those select few who are educated in art and appreciate the beauty of modern creation will be revealed for what it is: a titanic fraud perpetrated upon the world by Leftists. Surely many artists feed into the idea that they are making great creations that many in the masses simply cannot understand, as great a self-delusion as any Liberal every enjoyed. But the Emperor cannot waltz around with no clothes forever, and sooner or later the people will see it for the doshit that it really is. And the people who so ardently championed it will be revealed for the fools that they really are.

Posted by: 72 Art Hustlers on August 4, 2005 02:57 PM

This isn't what they've been making all of that colored powder out of that they throw around on Holi, is it?

Posted by: Dave Munger on August 4, 2005 06:30 PM

"But pink? What sort of elephant was this?"

A mascot for the Log Cabin Republicans.

Posted by: blood parasites on August 4, 2005 07:35 PM

Doesn't poop trigger a false positive on explosives sniffers?

Posted by: John Nowak on August 5, 2005 09:35 AM

Elephant poo in a envelope who would send something like this through the mail?

Posted by: mad heron on August 7, 2005 04:06 PM

I lived in Washington, DC in 1985-87. One evening I got on a subway car heading downtown. As the doors closed behind me I became aware of this smell.

I was raised on a farm, so I recognized the smell as that of the droppings of a large herbivorous mammal, but I could not identify the species. I looked around the car as it began to move. It was a bit less than half full. Every passenger except me had a large, transparent plastic bag half-full of what was presumably the source of the smell.

I stood with my back pressed against the closed doors, remaining very still. I hoped that no one would notice me, that there would be no cry of "Hey! He doesn't have a bag of crap! Get him!"

At the next stop, I quickly exited the subway car and got on the next one, after a quick visual and olfactory examination. As I was reading my subscription copy of the Washington Post that night, I ran across a one-paragraph article. It said that the circus was in town, and that free elephant manure would be available to gardeners.

That is all I have to say.

Posted by: Bob Hawkins on August 8, 2005 10:41 AM

"I stood with my back pressed against the closed doors, remaining very still. I hoped that no one would notice me, that there would be no cry of "Hey! He doesn't have a bag of crap! Get him!""

Rofl!

Posted by: BrewFan on August 8, 2005 11:09 AM

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In more marketing for Project Hail Mary, scientists say they've found the biosigns indicating life growing on an alien planet. It's not proof, just signatures of chemicals that are produced by biological metabolism, and it could be nothing, but scientists think it's a strong sign that this planet is inhabited by something.

In a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, a team of scientists announced the detection of dimethyl sulfide (along with a similar detection of dimethyl disulfide) in the atmosphere of an exoplanet called K2-18b. This is actually the second detection of dimethyl sulfide made on this planet, following a tentative detection in 2023.
Tons of chemicals are detected in the atmospheres of celestial objects every day. But dimethyl sulfide is different, because on Earth, it's only produced by living organisms.
"It is a shock to the system," Nikku Madhusudhan, first author on the paper, told the New York Times. "We spent an enormous amount of time just trying to get rid of the signal."

He means they tried to prove the signal was caused by things other than dimethyl sulfide but they could not.

Artemis moon shot a go, scheduled for 6:24 Eastern time tonight
Great marketing arranged by Amazon to promote Project Hail Mary. Okay not really but it does work out that way.

TJM talks John Boorman, director of Excalibur

Good rickroll

What? Skeleton of the most famous Musketeer, D'Artagnan, possibly discovered in Dutch church closet.
Dumas picked four names of real musketeers out of a history book, D'Artagnan, Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. So there was an actual D'Artagnan, though he made most of the story up. (Or, you know, all of it.)*

Charles de Batz de Castelmore, known as d'Artagnan, the famous musketeer of Kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV, spent his life in the service of the French crown.
The Gascon nobleman inspired Alexandre Dumas's hero in "The Three Musketeers" in the 19th century, a character now known worldwide thanks to the novel and numerous film adaptations.
D'Artagnan was killed during the siege of Maastricht in 1673, and there is a statue honoring the musketeer in the city. His final resting place has remained a mystery ever since.

A lot of Dumas's stories are based on bits of real history. The plot of the >Three Musketeers, about trying to recover lost diamonds from the queen's necklace, was cribbed from the then-almost-contemporaneous Affair of the Queen's Necklace. And the Man in the Iron Mask is based on real accounts of a prisoner forced to wear a mask (though I think it was a velvet mask).
* Oh, I should mention, Dumas says all this, about finding the names in an old book, in the prologue to his novel. But authors lie a lot. They frequently present fictions as based on historic fact. The twist is, he was actually telling the truth here. At least about these four musketeers having actually existed and served under Louis XIV.
Fun fact: You know the beginning of A Fistful of Dollars where the local gunslingers make fun of Clint Eastwood's donkey and Eastwood demands they apologize to the donkey? That's lifted from The Three Musketeers. Rochefort mocks D'Artagnan's old, brokedown farm horse and D'Artagnan is incensed.

A commenter asked which should be read first, The Hobbit of LOTR?
Easy, no question -- read The Hobbit first. It's actually the start of the story and comes first chronologically. It sets up some major characters and major pieces in play in LOTR.
Also, the Hobbit is Beginner-Friendly, which LOTR isn't. The Hobbit really is a delightful book, and a fast read. It's chatty, it's casual, it's exciting, and it's funny. In that dry cheeky British humor way. I love that the narrator is constantly making little asides and commentary, like he's just sitting next to you telling you this story as it occurs to him.
LOTR is a very long story. Fifteen hundred pages or so. The Hobbit is relatively short and very punchy and easy to read. If you don't like The Hobbit, you can skip out on LOTR. If you do like it, you'll be primed to read LOTR.
Oh, I should say: The Hobbit is written as if it's for children, but one of those smart children's stories that are also for adults. Don't worry, there's also real fighting and violence and horror in it, too.
LOTR is written for adults. (It's said that Tolkien wrote both for his children, but LOTR was written 17 years later, when his children were adults.) Some might not like The Hobbit due to its sometimes frivolous tone. Me, I love it. I find it constantly amusing. Both are really good but there is a starkly different tone to both. LOTR is epic, grand, and serious, about a world war, The Hobbit is light and breezy, and about a heist. Though a heist that culminates in a war for the spoils.

The Hobbit Challenge: Read two more chapters. I didn't have much time. Bilbo got the ring.
I noticed a continuity problem. Maybe. Now, as of the time of The Hobbit, it was unknown that this magic ring was in fact a Ring of Power, and it was doubly unknown that it was the Ring of Power, the Master Ring that controlled the others.
But the narrator -- who we will learn in LOTR was none of than Bilbo himself, who wrote the book as "There and Back Again" -- says this about Gollum's ring:
"But who knows how Gollum had come by that present [the Ring], ages ago in the old days when such rings were still at large in the world? Perhaps even the Master who ruled them could not have said."
In another passage, the ring is identified as a "ring of power."
I don't know, I always thought there was a distinction between mere magic rings and the Rings of Power created by Sauron. But this suggests that Bilbo knew this was a ring of power created by Sauron.
Now I don't remember when Bilbo wrote the Hobbit. In the movie, he shows Frodo the book in Rivendell, and I guess he wrote it after he left the Shire. I guess he might have added in the part about the ring being a ring of power created by "the Master" after Gandalf appraised him of his research into the ring.
I never noticed this before. I know Tolkien re-wrote this chapter while he was writing LOTR to make the ring important from the start. And also to make Gollum more sinister and evil, and also to remove the part where Gollum actually offers Bilbo the ring as a "present" -- Bilbo had already found it on his own, but Gollum was wiling to give it away, which obviously is not something the rewritten Gollum would ever do.
But I had no memory of the ring being suggested to be The Ring so early in the tale.

Finish the job, Mr. President!
Melanie Phillips lays out the case for the total destruction of the Iranian government and armed forces. [CBD]

TJM acts like he knows anything about John Wick and screenwriting. It's embarrassing, really.

Podcast: Sefton and CBD talk about how would a peace treaty with Iran work, Democrats defending murderers and rapists, The GOP vs. Dem bench for 2028, composting bodies? And more!

Oh, I forgot to mention this quote from Pete Hegseth, reported by Roger Kimball: "We are sharing the ocean with the Iranian Navy. We're giving them the bottom half."

Batman fires The Batman
Batman is disgusted by the Joachim Phoenix version of Joker
Batman tries to fire Superman
Batman is still workshopping his Bat-Voice

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click: Red Leather Suit and Sweatband Edition
And I was here to please
I'm even on knees
Makin' love to whoever I please
I gotta do it my way
Or no way at all

Tomorrow is March 25th, "Tolkien Reading Day," because March 25th is the day when the Ring is destroyed in the book. I think I'm going to start the Hobbit tomorrow and read all four books this time.
The only bad part of the trilogy are the Frodo/Sam chapters in The Two Towers. They're repetitive, slow, and mostly about the weather and terrain. But most everything else is good. Weirdly, the Frodo-Sam chapters in Return of the King are exciting and action-packed and among the best in the trilogy. (Though the chapters with everyone else in Return of the King get pretty slow again. Mostly people talking about marching towards war, and then marching towards war.)

Sec. Army recognizes ODU Army ROTC cadets for their bravery and sacrifice in private ceremony
[Hat Tip: Diogenes] [CBD]

TJM gives you a brief tour of his movie collection.

Forgotten 80s Mystery Click
One day I'm gonna write a poem in a letter
One day I'm gonna get that faculty together
Remember that everybody has to wait in line
Oh, [Song Title], look out world, oh, you know I've got mine

US decimation of Iran's ICBM forces is due to Space Force's instant detection of launches -- and the launchers' hiding places -- and rapid counter-attack via missiles
AI is doing a lot of the work in analyzing images to find the exact hiding place of the launchers. Counter-strikes are now coming in four hours after a launch, whereas previously it might have taken days for humans to go over the imagery and data.

Robert Mueller, Former Special Counsel Who Probed Trump, Dies

“robert mueller just died,” trump wrote in a truth social post on march 21. “good, i’m glad he’s dead. he can no longer hurt innocent people! president donald j. trump.”

TJM has thoughts on Superheros and Iconography