… must come down.

Doctors are trying to save the life of an Albuquerque baby shot in the head by a bullet that fell from the sky Monday night. The bullet was likely fired into the air during a July 4th celebration.

Just because its the fourth of July doesn’t give people a license to behave recklessly.

HT: Epistolary.

I don’t quite understand how the President can say he’s serious about homeland security. I don’t understand how when, in a time of supposed war, this nation can afford tax cuts that could be used, for among other things, increased port security through a coast guard fleet that isn’t having a record year for mechanical failures.

Key members of Congress, maritime security experts and a former top Homeland Security Department official say that the fleet is failing and that plans to replace the Coast Guard’s 88 aging cutters and 186 aircraft over the next 20 years should be accelerated.

“This nation must understand the dire situation in which the Coast Guard now finds itself,” says Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, chairwoman of a Senate Coast Guard subcommittee. She favors replacing the Coast Guard’s “deepwater” fleet — the ships and aircraft capable of operating far offshore — over 10 to 15 years.

The Bush administration wants to increase the amount of time it will take to replace a fleet that’s among the oldest on the globe — older even than fleets owned by nations such as Algeria and Pakistan. The “deepwater” replacement program, conceived in 1998 as a $20 billion, 20-year plan to replace the fleet, could be increased to 25 years under a White House plan.

The strategy would save the government money in the short term. The White House budget office declined to comment.

Snowe calls the idea a “violation of common sense” amid mounting concern that terrorists will try to sneak weapons of mass destruction into the USA through a port.

Hey, why defend ports from terrorists when you can give tax breaks to your best campaign contributors, right?

So I mentioned the cats have fleas.

They first got fleas about three years ago. On my vet’s advice, I treated them with Frontline, then did a thorough cleaning job of my apartment - every surface got cloroxed then a wipe down. The carpet, cushions, and mattress got hit with the vacuum. I even used some off-the-shelf flea spray to help in my efforts.

I don’t think the cleaning or the vacuuming played as much a role in keeping the fleas away as the Frontline did. Frontline is a great medication which spreads across your pet’s body and kills fleas on contact. When fleas want to feed, they’ve got to get on your cat (or dog) … and when they do - poof! They’re dead!

Well, in looking up Frontline on-line (it’s close to one hundred dollars for a six month supply at the vets, but nearly half-that at this online site) I also heard about something called “DE” or “Diatomaceous Earth.”

I have to admit that at first I thought it was similar to those commericals you see on late night tv - y’know, “Organic compounds destined to make you live longer!” What’s the one - I think it was for some sort of coral powder that if you drank it made you Superman overnight? They commercial — y’know, the hour long one — was in the format of a talk-show, and the host is the same guy who always does these things. “Wow! This is so incredible!” Bleh.

Anyway, turns out D.E. is an ingredient in flea powder. So, after spending Monday walking around my apartment in socks and sneakers because I was getting bit to hell when I didn’t, I went down to the PetCo on York Road Tuesday morning and bought two containers of flea powder. I worked all day — which was a nice relief from the fleas — and upon return I moved as much stuff as I could off the carpet, moved as much furniture as I could, and coated as much carpet with flea powder as possible.

The instructions say to leave the powder on the floor for 24 hours, then vacuum it up. It also has a nice wintergreen scent that resembles that of the cheapest air freshener you can possibly buy — truthfully, my apartment now smells like a bleached hospital room.

I also found some left-over Frontline from the fall, tucked into the rear of the junk drawer (under the revolver, oddly enough) and applied it to both felines. This should tide me over until the resupply arrives - I ordered a 6 mos. supply from an online vet pharamacy. Hey, it’s the same medication … just forty-bucks cheaper. The flea powder seemed to kick in pretty quickly too, as I was able to walk around my apartment in my bare feet last night and not get bitten … at all.

Today and tomorrow afternoons (between work) I’m going to be hitting every surface I can think of with clorox. I’m going to pay particular attention to the surfaces the cats enjoy … namely, the window ledges. Also, the rear of this computer monitor, because I’ve found Tippy and Guy both slumped lazily overtop, various body parts dropping in front of the screen and blocking my view. Stupid felines.

I was, for a while, concerned about how the cats got their fleas. Even the first time, I was very surprised. Where the eff do these fleas come from? I asked. Then I had a revelation - they come from me. Well, duh. Every day at work I deliver to multiple residential addresses, most of whom have either a dog or a cat. Many of the dogs are allowed outdoors. And most of those dogs love to run up to me and try to see if if they can knock me over. I most likely picked up the fleas from them, and then brought them home with me. Stupid — !

Tippy is responding to Frontline very well. Then again, she generally doesn’t like to groom herself in front of me, so it could all just be a big show. Guy meanwhile has continued his routine of heavy scratching, and while I’d attributed that to the heat earlier in the spring/summer, I’m wondering if maybe he didn’t have these fuckers before they became … uh … invasive. I’m also worried that I misapplied the Frontline, as he doesn’t seem to have experienced a drop in what I assume is flea-related scratching. (On the other hand, he is a bigger cat).

(Okay, Tippy just got up from lying down on the window ledge and is now … grooming herself, which just goes to show I’ve got no idea what I’m talking about.)

I’m probably going to take the cats in for a bath at some point in the near future. I don’t think I’ve ever had them bathed (they do a good job on their own, and every now and then one of ‘em will get too curious and fall into the bathtub as I’m showering*), but I think a bath and a fresh application of the Frontline medication will, once and for all, rid them of the dreaded flea. (And really, I’m just tired of feeling scabs on Guy).

*This leads me to conclude that my cats, plus water, equal me getting scratched to hell, which discouraged me from bathing them, as both felines are in full possession of their natural weapons (read: not declawed) and willing to use force to achieve what they desire. So I’ll take ‘em to the vets and some poor vet-assistant can get clawed in my place.

PS - I’m also considering flea-bombing the apartment while the cats are at the vets getting bathed. However, I’m not sure if I will do this because a.) I don’t know how effective a flea bomb is over flea powder, b.) I understand the after-effects are a bitch to clean, c.) my windows don’t open fully, and I’m worried about ventilating my apartment after the bombing.

Want to move to Federal Hill but think half a million for a 12′ by 30′ foot row home is ridiculous? Be glad you didn’t live in California where you’d pay TWICE THAT to live in a TRAILER PARK.