A Snake or Attorney General ?

It’s Friday and time for our almost weekly shoot the shit. I hope you all had a productive and uneventful week. For our new readers, a shoot the shit is a social event where we present topics that are either humorous, outrageous or informative. As readers, you don’t need to know a thing about the topic and you’re free to make totally uninformed comments without any support, you can also use uncensored profanity, insult anyone you wish or change the subject altogether. This is precisely what a psychologist charges you $150+ per hour; we on the other hand offer the same at no charge and we don’t care if you are in denial. So let’s get started.

It’s been an interesting week.

For starters, we saw New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman step down amidst allegations of sexual abuse. Apparently, Mr. Schneiderman was a slapper, spitter, choker, abuser and sex slave master.

One of the women that came forward, Tanya Selvaratnam, a Sri Lankan woman who used to date Schneiderman, would slap her during sex until she called him “Master.” KINCKY! Reportedly he was consumed by threesome fantasies and would ask his ladies to line another woman up for some playtime!

A psychologist or psychiatrist (a psychologist who at least made it through medical school) would immediately look at Mr. Schneiderman as “having a small man complex.” LOL!

Mr. Schneiderman resigned 24 hours after the New Yorker published the allegations. Governor Cuomo, who has higher political aspirations, may have had a come to Jesus meeting with AG Schneiderman resulting in his resignation. Eric Schneiderman denied all allegations at first.

On a more serious note about three weeks ago I ran into a small rattler that decided to bite me in the foot. Well, that was the last time he’ll be biting anything including himself. So, it inspired me to tell you a couple of things about venoms. The picture below is about two weeks after the fact.

That reptilian sleazebag bit through the tongue of my shoe. I felt the hit and after dispatching the snake so I could take it to the doctor, I irrigated the wound with ammonia. What does ammonia do?

Proteins have characteristic conformations (read shape), which define how the protein functions. If you disrupt that conformation you damage the protein so that it no longer functions. You’ll often hear that proteins may have primary, secondary, tertiary and even quaternary conformations; a typical structure is shown below.

What ammonia does is attack the hydrogen bonds that interact to give the protein its conformation – it’s what holds the folds together. When those bonds are broken the protein is in essence destroyed or in scientific parlance denatured.

You will still have an immune systems response and in my case I had puffiness and a dark area surrounding the bite, but knock on wood the bite was shallow enough that the ammonia took care of the problem. Ammonia also works very well with ant bites. Ants inject formic acid and ammonia will zap it.

For reasons that escape me, you can’t get ammonia at your local CVS or Walgreen, I believe since it’s used in explosive production it was taken off the shelves. You’ll need to find a source but it’s worth having a small bottle in your pack for things like this.

Last but not least, I have a short rant with regards to Gina Haspel’s confirmation hearing. She was asked if she had moral objection to enhanced interrogation techniques. The people asking those questions have spent their entire lives living by selective morality. I wonder how immoral EITs are when weighed against the prospect of hundreds or even thousands of lives. Give me a break!

Feel free to comment, and have a relaxing and safe weekend. Spend some quality time with your buds and family.