It's A Really Mad World

And I don't refer to the 1963 star-studded movie.

I haven't weighed in with a political opinion of late; I'm not going for now, since I tend to run askance in my philosophy to some of my regularly-visited bloggers. But I am going to say that the current cycle of violence in the Middle East is having far-reaching, ripple effects beyond just our world.

The animals have taken note.

Not that animals weren't well versed on the cycle of violence, long before the old king of predators (Tyrannosaurus Rex and like critters) gave way to another predator of even more innovative stripe (homo sapien). Predators of all species have existed for millennia, having taken (and continuing to in many cases) their respective tolls on the preyed-upon in Nature's vast buffet line of evolution and consumption. All that evolving predators and prey lacked was the ability to develop, produce and deploy, vastly more sophisticated methods of attack and defense.

No more. Thanks to cable and satellite TV, not only do our nation's enemies know what we're doing and thinking; so now do the animals. No doubt fueled by PETA and other animal rights groups, a new arms race is underway.

Photos can speak volumes*. 'Nuff said.

* photos from www.metacafe.com, and taken no doubt at great personal risk, by human photographers risking all to tell it like it is or maybe isn't (with CNN and the NYT, who knows anymore); no footnotes (or other body parts) were provided to indicate that photos were posed, or if bribery with sufficient trail mix/bird seed/kangaroo stuff was required to keep the animo-terrorists from firing instead of posing.