ten billion butterfly sneezes

Finally, something a taser is effective in fighting: eight-foot-long albino Burmese pythons. A 47 year old Uniontown PA man was feeding a rat to the reptile, which belongs to his daughter, when it bit his hand and wrapped itself tightly around his left arm. The snake, according to Uniontown police officer Ray Miller, was eating the man’s hand. And then:

In an effort to free the man without permanently harming the snake, Miller said he shot the animal with his Taser, a gun that sends an electric shock through wired darts. The snake immediately went limp and released its grip.

Maybe the smaller the target, the more effective Tasers are. The man who was bitten is OK; all hands safe. And the snake was spared.

And then, in a non-funny Taser incident that makes one shake one’s head, in Jonesboro (GA I think, the link is to an Atlanta TV station), a sixth grader was Tasered by police following a playground incident. According to the article:

School officials confirm that an 11-year-old, 6th grade male was tasered by a school resource officer. They say the boy was physically assaulting a female 6th grader and refused to listen to verbal commands to stop. As a last resort the officer tasered the boy twice – once to get the students separated and a second time when the boy tried to attack the girl again.

Sixth graders? In my day, a visit to the principal’s office, a stern talking-to, an at-school ass whipping, definitely followed by another when the folks found out, would have put the kibosh on such shenanigans. But then ass whippings are cruel.

Times have changed.

-k-

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