Snake no longer in the grass

Ranking right up there with terrorists running lemonade stands on the corner near the public elementary school, comes this story:

The snake dangles 49 feet off the ground, tail entwined around a branch. Suddenly, the animal rears up and launches, flinging its body toward the forest floor.

In other reptiles, the leap would be suicidal, or at least an invitation for broken bones. But the snake in question is a Chrysopelea paradisi, one of five related species of tree-dwelling snakes from Southeast and South Asia. When these snakes leap, it's not to nosedive; it's to glide from tree to tree, a feat they can accomplish at distances of at least 79 feet.

Perhaps you read through that. That distance was at least 79 feet. 79 FEET. Let me make that more clear to you. That's about three first downs in football. That's an NBA three-point shot PLUS

What no one knows is exactly how these reptiles manage to fly so far without wings. Now, a new study finds that the snakes' amazing aerial abilities may all be in the way they move.

FLYING SNAKES?
Not snakes on a plane. FLYING SNAKES.

If I found out snakes were credit thieves I couldn't be more scared. If I found out snakes were capable of mimicking me, I couldn't be more terrified. If I found out snakes were capable of opening back doors, coming down the hallway and without switching on the bedroom lights, capable of sneaking into our freaking beds without once waking us, well, I couldn't be more HORRIFIED.

FLYING SNAKES, the story reads.

F-L-Y-I-N-G S--N--A--K--E--S.
Snakes that fly.

So one of my few escape routes from a snake excursion, climbing the nearest tree, no longer is viable. The dang snake can just FLY up and be waiting for me.

The Bible says God told that slimy, rotton, snake-smelling, belt-looking snake,"Because you've done this, you're cursed, cursed beyond all cattle and wild animals, cursed to slink on your belly and eat dirt all your life. I'm declaring war between you and the Woman, between your offspring and hers. He'll wound your head, you'll wound his heel."

Unless, of course, THEY'RE FLYING around hurting your HEAD.

The changes this could wrought in our world are astronomical. What's next, deep-water swimming giraffes? Desert-dwelling catfish?

What's the world coming to?

The story goes on to say that these snakes are smart enough to LEAP, to plan to LEAP, to come up with a reason to FLY that doesn't include taking a bag.

But there's nothing really to worry about in the long run. By the time the U.S. Government gets ahold of these things, puts a full-body scanner over them or pats them down, the snakes will have forgotten why they wanted to fly in the first place.

The Bible says of this, The ground will sprout thorns and weeds, you'll get your food the hard way, planting and tilling and harvesting, sweating in the fields from dawn to dusk, until you return to that ground yourself, dead and buried; you started out as dirt, you'll end up dirt."

That's the Bible's take on our future...getting food the hard way, working the fields, harvesting, sweating in the field from dawn to dusk until you return to the ground yourself. You end up as dirt after beginning as dirt.

Flying?
More like groveling; that's been my experience, anyway.