Rod:
Speaking as somebody who has a fair amount of experience with handling venomous reptiles (and bitten once), I'm not too surprised at U.S. Marines forgetting that all Aussie snakes other than pythons are venomous. As far as venomous reptiles are concerned Australia has a truly nasty situation in which the only ones that made it over where all Elapids and pythons. And I'm not at all surprised that U.S. soldiers did get bitten they don't have the deep cultural conditioning Aussies have had ingrained into them about all snakes are poisonous. In fact most Australian elapids are superficially similar to non poisonous colubrids which are far more familiar to Americans which means that it is all to easy for most Yankees to forget that just because it looks like a harmless U.S. snake in Australia it will be venomous reptile with a neurotoxic venom. Particularly if you bear in mind that most poisonous reptiles in the Americas are very easily distinguished from their non poisonous counterparts as most are pit vipers which have a pretty distinctive appearance and coral snakes with their very distinctive coloration.
Side note...
B.A. as far as I can see the current chairholder in the Whitehouse has pretty much well continued many of his predecessors policies take a look at Glenn Reynolds long running series of posts on instapundit along the lines of "They told me if I voted for McCain they warned me that this"would happen" and they were right. He's also managed to do some major messups of his own look at what a fiasco the entire green energy issue has become with the Solyndra fiasco coming to mind. Also both political parties are pretty much in bed with assorted special interests and as far as corporate handouts both parties elder statesmen have a long standing and cozy relationship with corporations. Take a hard look at just how badly screwed up copyright law is due to the fact that certain senior figures in certain committess in both parties are honest politicians (as in the only honest politician is the one that stays bought)...
--Werehawk--
My mom's brief take on upcoming Guatemalan Elections "In last throes of preelection activities. Much loudspeaker vote pleading."
Speaking as somebody who has a fair amount of experience with handling venomous reptiles (and bitten once), I'm not too surprised at U.S. Marines forgetting that all Aussie snakes other than pythons are venomous. As far as venomous reptiles are concerned Australia has a truly nasty situation in which the only ones that made it over where all Elapids and pythons. And I'm not at all surprised that U.S. soldiers did get bitten they don't have the deep cultural conditioning Aussies have had ingrained into them about all snakes are poisonous. In fact most Australian elapids are superficially similar to non poisonous colubrids which are far more familiar to Americans which means that it is all to easy for most Yankees to forget that just because it looks like a harmless U.S. snake in Australia it will be venomous reptile with a neurotoxic venom. Particularly if you bear in mind that most poisonous reptiles in the Americas are very easily distinguished from their non poisonous counterparts as most are pit vipers which have a pretty distinctive appearance and coral snakes with their very distinctive coloration.
Side note...
B.A. as far as I can see the current chairholder in the Whitehouse has pretty much well continued many of his predecessors policies take a look at Glenn Reynolds long running series of posts on instapundit along the lines of "They told me if I voted for McCain they warned me that this"would happen" and they were right. He's also managed to do some major messups of his own look at what a fiasco the entire green energy issue has become with the Solyndra fiasco coming to mind. Also both political parties are pretty much in bed with assorted special interests and as far as corporate handouts both parties elder statesmen have a long standing and cozy relationship with corporations. Take a hard look at just how badly screwed up copyright law is due to the fact that certain senior figures in certain committess in both parties are honest politicians (as in the only honest politician is the one that stays bought)...
--Werehawk--
My mom's brief take on upcoming Guatemalan Elections "In last throes of preelection activities. Much loudspeaker vote pleading."