Hump Day Humor

Sheep! Lights, camera, action, sheep!

Funny

A squirrel pauses at attention as it tries to take some of the material from a U.S. flag Thursday Nov 6, 2008 in Omaha, Neb.
(AP Photo/Dave Weaver)

Real, or CGI?

Telegraph: A green-crowned hummingbird feeds on a heliconia flower Photo: GETTY

Real!

Telegraph (uk):
Costa Rica: on cloud nine with the most exotic birds
Monteverde, in the heart of Costa Rica, is home to some of our brightest feathered friends, says Barbara Noe.

Peek-a-Boo Panda

Too cute. Pictures from The Daily Mail (uk)

Out Here in the Wilderness

Chester H. Hall III of Royalston displays what he believes is a wild Russian boar that was hit by a vehicle Wednesday morning on Route 2 in Shirley.

Big local news:

Worcester Telegram: Wild boar struck and killed on Rt. 2

Chester H. Hall III of Royalston was contacted to take away the carcass. Mr. Hall is known locally as a coyote hunter. He said he was offered what he was told was a pig for coyote bait.

“I went to pick up a wild pig and there was a full-blown Russian boar,” he said.

The boar was about 200 pounds, dark brown and slightly reddish in color. Mr. Hall said it looked to him like the classic image of a werewolf with a hump on its back and a long snout. The animal had tusks but they were barely visible because they were broken.

Mr. Hall said he was surprised because wild boars are not supposed to be found in Massachusetts.

“I spoke to a biologist and he said it’s only the third time he has heard of one in Massachusetts,” he said.

Mr. Hall said it is unclear where the boar may have come from. He said it might have been living in the Oxbow Wildlife area not far from where it was killed.

There are wild boar populations in New Hampshire, Vermont and Pennsylvania, but the animals are rarely seen in other parts of the Northeast.

Russian wild boars were introduced to New Hampshire in the 1890s at the 20,000-acre Corbin wild game preserve. Mr. Hall said some escaped when a fence was blown down during a hurricane.

New Defenders of WIldlife Ad: "Polar Bears"

From Defenders Action Fund:

Rather than working to save our polar bears, Governor Sarah Palin has launched an all-out effort to block protections for them. According to the Anchorage Daily News, Palin covered up evidence from her own scientists showing the need for polar bear protections. Now shes doing the bidding of the oil companies and trophy hunters in a lawsuit to prevent the government from listing of our polar bears as a threatened species. As governor, Sarah Palin has been a disaster for polar bears, wolves and other wildlife. A heartbeat away from the presidency, she could do even worse.

One Fish, Two Fish

Red fish, blue fish. The classic Dr. Seuss book for children. Simple! Unfortunately, it's complicated buying fish these days. Today Dr. Seuss would have to add "good fish, bad fish" to his rhymes.

salon.com: Drop that salmon!
With the days of indiscriminate fish consumption long gone, food writer Taras Grescoe explains how to eat seafood ethically. (Hint: Order mussels; skip shrimp.) (You have to watch an ad to read; questions are in bold)

OK, so we can eat sardines, anchovies ...

Oysters, pollock -- it's got a terrible name, but that's the stuff that goes into [McDonald's] Filet-O-Fish sandwiches. It's very abundant. There's trout, which isn't a bad fish. Sablefish and Arctic char are currently quite abundant. I love herring, and there's herring off the Pacific Coast as well. Try to the best of your ability to buy things locally.

And which big fish are we supposed to stay away from?

Avoid big predator fish -- shark, swordfish, Chilean sea bass, tuna, with the exception of skipjack, which is pretty abundant light tuna. Avoid farmed carnivorous species like shrimp, salmon and bluefin tuna. Avoid imported farmed seafood because domestic standards are a lot higher. The exception to that is [domestically farmed] salmon, which is terrible.

Can you explain what's so bad about salmon farms?

Salmon from these farms tends to be full of persistent organic pollutants, [some of which] are highly carcinogenic. Salmon farmers grind up smaller fish like anchovies, sardines and anchoveta to make the pellets -- all of which should be going to feed humans, not making deluxe fish, especially in the context of food riots -- and salmon farms have been proven to spread disease and parasites like sea lice to wild fish populations, among them sea trout in Ireland and wild salmon in British Columbia.

Some farmed fish aren't so bad: trout and Arctic char, which are raised inland so there's no risk of spreading parasites to wild fish; tilapia and carp, which are herbivorous species; and of course oysters and mussels, which actually help clean the oceans of their excess plankton.

So is there a way we can safely enjoy salmon?

If you want to make a canned salmon sandwich or something like that, look for any can that has Alaska stamped on it. They should be all over. It's fantastic for you, and it's really clean protein. Don't buy Atlantic salmon. That's definitely farmed, because Atlantic salmon is commercially extinct right now. Those that appear in streams and rivers are actually escaped fish from salmon farms. Chinook and certain runs of salmon in California and Oregon are doing really badly this year. Nobody's quite sure what's going on -- it could be dams, fertilizer, ocean conditions. In British Columbia, they're not doing as well either, but Alaskan stocks are pretty good. And there's organic farmed salmon. I want to give those guys some credit. If you go to a restaurant and the menu says "organic farmed salmon," then the fish was raised under higher standards and it's probably better for you. The question is whether the fish are still spreading parasites to other fish. You can eat that in sort of "half-conscience." It's important to realize that right now about 45 percent of the seafood we get is farmed. And this is having a huge impact on the livelihood and well-being of people in other cultures. In the book I talk about how salmon farms affect native people in British Columbia and people who are affected by shrimp farms in India.

A-Rod: Stay Out of Our House

Alexa Rodriguez was in the upper deck behind home plate, where the tour was being seated. The hawk swooped down as the student was getting ready to leave.
(John Tlumacki/Globe Staff)

A middle school teenage girl on a tour of Fenway Park -- whose nickname is A-Rod -- was attacked by a red-tail hawk in the stands behind home plate. The hawk had a nest in front of the press box overhead, with one egg in it. The hawk scratched the girl's head, and she was taken to the hospital, treated and released. After the attack the hawk's nest was removed:

This spring the raptor used a brown-knit cap and twigs from trees on Yawkee Way to build a nest on a green overhang near the press booth above home plate. She laid a brown-speckled egg last week, but it rolled off the nest, wasn't properly incubated, and was no longer viable, French said.

Wildlife officials removed the egg and the nest yesterday after the hawk lashed out at Alexa.

Obviously the hawk struck out because the girl's name was A-Rod. For all we know, she was in the park on July 24, 2004, during the famous fight where Varitek took A-Rod by the throat.

The hawk wasn't just protecting her nest. She was protecting our house.

The Boston Globe article used above contains a hilarious typo. "Yawkee Way" is actually "Yawkey Way". The writer must have been thinking about the Yankees, not the Yawkeys. Just like the hawk; a little confused, but heart in the right place.

Boston Globe: Teen finds fowl territory at Fenway

Boston Globe Photo Gallery: Hawk attack at Fenway Park

Boston Globe: An omen? Hawk attacks girl with a familiar-sounding name at Fenway

July 24, 2004

Next Time They Hand You a Plastic Bag

Independent (uk): A scavenger in a dugout canoe paddles through a sea of garbage along a Manila waterway

Think of the plastic soup, the huge floating plastic garbagebergs in the Pacific Ocean that are twice the size of the United States.

Independent (uk): The world's rubbish dump: a garbage tip that stretches from Hawaii to Japan

A "plastic soup" of waste floating in the Pacific Ocean is growing at an alarming rate and now covers an area twice the size of the continental United States, scientists have said.

The vast expanse of debris – in effect the world's largest rubbish dump – is held in place by swirling underwater currents. This drifting "soup" stretches from about 500 nautical miles off the Californian coast, across the northern Pacific, past Hawaii and almost as far as Japan.

Charles Moore, an American oceanographer who discovered the "Great Pacific Garbage Patch" or "trash vortex", believes that about 100 million tons of flotsam are circulating in the region. Marcus Eriksen, a research director of the US-based Algalita Marine Research Foundation, which Mr Moore founded, said yesterday: "The original idea that people had was that it was an island of plastic garbage that you could almost walk on. It is not quite like that. It is almost like a plastic soup. It is endless for an area that is maybe twice the size as continental United States."

Curtis Ebbesmeyer, an oceanographer and leading authority on flotsam, has tracked the build-up of plastics in the seas for more than 15 years and compares the trash vortex to a living entity: "It moves around like a big animal without a leash." When that animal comes close to land, as it does at the Hawaiian archipelago, the results are dramatic. "The garbage patch barfs, and you get a beach covered with this confetti of plastic," he added.

Independent (uk): Steve Connor: Why plastic is the scourge of sea life

Daily Mail (uk): Rubbish dump found floating in Pacific Ocean is twice the size of America

Daily News & Analysis (India): Pacific Ocean could turn into a 'Plastic Ocean'

Environment in Peril

Library of Congress: Totem Bight Community House, Mud Bight Village, North Tongass Highway, Ketchikan vicinity, Ketchikan Gateway Borough, AK

This will be a light posting day as I am busy, busy: here are the things that jumped out at me on the web today:

Guardian (uk): Bush opens 3m acres of Alaskan forest to logging
· Environmentalists say region will be devastated
· Supporters claim plan will revive timber industry

The US government has announced plans to open more than 3m acres (about 5,000 square miles) of Alaskan wilderness to logging, mining and road building, angering environmental campaigners who say it will devastate the region. Supporters say the plan for the Tongass National Forest, a refuge for grizzly and black bears, wolves, eagles and wild salmon, will revive the state's timber industry.

The Bush administration plan for the forest, the largest in the US at nearly 17m acres, would open 3.4m acres to logging, road building and other development, including about 2.4m acres that are currently remote and without roads. About 663,000 acres are in areas considered most valuable for timber production.

The move, the latest in a long-running saga over the Tongass forest, effectively reverses the "Roadless Rule" protection given to the area by President Clinton.

ClimateProgress: Bush SOTU: Decreasing Energy Security and Fronting for Climate Change

Lets see. After 7 years:

* Record oil imports. Check.
* Record oil prices. Check.
* Record trade deficit in oil. Check.
* Endless war in the Persian Gulf. Check.
* Iraqi oil exports below pre-war levels. Check.

Now that’s what the White House calls “Increasing Energy Security.” I’d hate to imagine what it would take for the White House to say we were Decreasing Energy Security.

And don’t get me started on “Confronting Climate Change.” The thing to always bear in mind:

President George W. Bush doesn’t just fiddle while the planet burns, he actively fans the flames and thwarts the fire-fighters.

Thank goodness this is the last Bush SOTU we’ll have to endure.

AFP: 2005 a deadly year for Caribbean coral

PARIS (AFP) - The Caribbean's fragile coral reefs were devastated in 2005 by a doubly whammy of record-high temperatures and 13 full-on hurricanes, according to a UN-sponsored report released Monday.

During the last 50 years many Caribbean reefs have lost up to 80 percent of their coral cover, damaging or destroying the main source of livelihood for hundreds of thousands of people, said the report, prepared by a team of scientists and experts at the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.

The study was jointly sponsored by UNESCO and the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission.

Coral-based ecosystems are extremely sensitive to temperature increases, which have led over the last 50 years to massive bleaching -- affecting up to 95 percent of the reefs around some islands, including the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Cuba, and the French West Indies.

2005 was the warmest year since records were first kept in 1880, and global warming is likely to increase in years to come, climate scientists have warned.

Flake

BBC: Germany's new polar bear celebrity sleeps at Nuremberg Zoo. The female cub was named Flocke (Flake) following a worldwide poll in which 50,000 people sent in suggestions.

Huckleberry Huckabee Stoops, Again

wikipedia
Huckabee wraps himself in the Confederate Flag. What, squirrel frying didn't cement the South Carolina redneck vote? His statement on the South Carolina flag also appeals to his homophobic base. A twofer from the candidate of the last century. I place him squarely in the 1920s, frying squirrel before donning his white hood.

“You don’t like people from outside the state coming in and telling you what to do with your flag,” Mr. Huckabee, a former governor of Arkansas, told supporters in Myrtle Beach, according to The Associated Press.

“In fact,” he said, “if somebody came to Arkansas and told us what to do with our flag, we’d tell them what to do with the pole; that’s what we’d do.”

Check out this hilarious dailykos diary: Huckabee Attacked by Disgruntled Squirrel over Views on Confederate Flag

Massachusetts Eagle Count: 71

Wildlife officials counted 71 bald eagles across the state yesterday, including this one in Amesbury. (DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF)

Boston Herald: State to conduct annual census of bald eagle population

BOSTON - Wildlife officials and volunteers have spotted 71 bald eagles along state waterways during the annual count of the once-endangered birds.

That’s up from 48 birds counted in Massachusetts a year ago during the one-day, nationwide survey.

The state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife says the sighting of 27 juvenile bald eagles Wednesday is a good sign.

The biggest number of eagles, 36, were seen during a helicopter survey of the Quabbin Reservoir in Belchertown. Other sites surveyed include the Merrimack River in Newburyport and two ponds in Lakeville.

Wildlife officials say the state’s all-time high was 76 eagles counted in 1998. Only eight eagles were spotted during the first statewide survey in 1979. The population had fallen because of habitat loss, bounty hunting and reproductive failure linked to pesticides.

Boston Globe: Eagles soaring across Bay State

Bush to Whales: Drop Dead (Updated, below)

Conservationists criticized President Bush's decision to exempt the Navy from an environmental law so that it can keep using sonar in its training in California, a practice they say harms whales and other marine mammals.
Photo Credit: By Reed Saxon -- Associated Press

The Bush Administration is pressing to overturn the federal court's ban on the Navy's use of sonar, which kills whales and other marine life in violation of several federal laws. It doesn't sound like Bush has a legal leg to stand on, but that hasn't stopped him in the past.

The whales, and the US, must survive another 368 days being ruled by the House of Bush.

Los Angeles Times: Bush sides with Navy in sonar battle
He cites national security in aiming to override a judge's injunction aimed at protecting marine mammals off Southern California. An environmental group promises to fight his move.

President Bush on Wednesday moved to exempt Navy sonar training missions off Southern California from complying with key environmental laws, an effort designed to free the military from court-ordered restrictions aimed at protecting whales and dolphins.

The president's directive was designed to short-circuit a long-running battle in which environmental groups have won court victories that frustrated the Navy's preparations for nine training missions over the next year, the first one set to begin next week.

[]

Some legal scholars Wednesday questioned what they called the administration's self-manufactured emergency, noting that it had not surfaced as a legal argument until after nearly a year of litigation.

If the Navy had complied with the National Environmental Policy Act to begin with, it wouldn't be in an emergency situation, said Daniel P. Selmi, an environmental law professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles.

At the same time, he said, he was impressed with the "full-court press" of the White House, the Pentagon and federal agencies, including the filing of a classified affidavit by Navy admirals that can be seen only by the judges.

"The federal government is pitching it as a full-blown matter of national security," Selmi said. "That puts an enormous pressure on judges to defer to the government."

[]

Citing the Navy's own studies, [Federal District Judge] Cooper concluded that planned exercises off Southern California "will cause widespread harm to nearly 30 species of marine mammals, including five species of endangered whales and may cause permanent injury and death."

Mid-frequency active sonar, first developed in the later days of World War II, has grown more powerful and has been used increasingly in coastal waters, the habitat of most marine mammals.

NYTimes: White House Exempts Navy From Sonar Ban, Angering Environmental Groups

WaPo: Navy Wins Exemption From Bush to Continue Sonar Exercises in Calif.
President Cites National Security in Order

Looks like I wasn't the only blogger (and not the first, sorry) channeling the New York Daily News:

Lawyers, Guns & Money: Bush to Whales: Drop Dead

And the Ford to City: Drop Dead formulation is popular throughout the media:

salon.com: Bush to Arab world: Drop dead

The Nation: Bush to Children: Drop Dead

Counterpunch: Bush to New Orleans: Drop Dead

Will Durst, CommonDreams: Bush to Poor: Drop Dead

TomPaine.com: Bush To Earth: Drop Dead

There are many more of these.

Huckabee Brags About Eating Fried Squirrel

Does he think this will endear him to South Carolina voters? Is there a big constituency in South Carolina for fried squirrel eaters? Every time I hear this clip played on TV I think of Sharon Stone's description of Dwight Yoakum: "A dirt sandwich." And this joker won the Iowa primary? Watch and be amazed.

Everybody To Get From Street

Slaty-backed gull: The Superior Waters Project
The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!

Boston Globe: Flock's foray from Siberia inspires local delight

A group of Russians landed unnoticed on the Massachusetts coast recently, saying little as they scouted the area for a possible occupation. But with their bright pink legs and distinctive wing markings, the slaty-backed gulls could not maintain their cover.

The local bird-watching community is atwitter over the first known Massachusetts sightings of the species, which usually nests on Russia's frigid eastern coast and winters in northeast Asia.

David Sibley of Concord was the first to spot the gull, at Jodrey State Fish Pier in Gloucester on Dec. 23.

"It's always a thrill to find a bird that rare," said Sibley, an artist who has written several authoritative bird books. "There's something really special about that feeling of discovery."

Wayne Petersen of the Massachusetts Audubon Society sighted a second gull on Coast Guard Beach in Eastham an hour later. Later, others sighted a third slaty-backed gull in Gloucester.

Sibley said the gull stands out from local species because of its leg color, an extra bit of white on its wing tips, its slate-gray back, and brown streaking on its head. Petersen said the bird has been sighted in the last two decades across the United States, as far southeast as Florida. The gulls may be looking for property; gull populations, in general, have been on the rise.

Sibley said more slaty-backed gulls could visit in the future. "This could be the beginning of the invasion," he said.

Birders Document Global Warming Changes

Thomas McDonald for The New York Times
A saw-whet owl in an evergreen tree.
A story from last week's New York Times on the Audubon Society's annual Christmas bird count and how global warming has effected where birds are wintering:

NYTimes: The Binocular Brigade

John Flicker, president of the National Audubon Society, has called birds “the canary in the coal mine — a sign that something is going on” in terms of environmental change.

National Audubon recently issued its WatchList 2007, a periodic synthesis of data for the United States that takes into account current species’ population size, population trends, range size of a species and threats to a spread of populations. According to Dr. Greg Butcher, National Audubon’s director of bird conservation, there are 10 regional species on the WatchList’s urgent list and some 37 regional species on the cautionary list.

“The worst of it is definitely in the future,” Dr. Butcher said. Among other things, “we’re worried about the coastal species in 50 to 100 years.”

Geoffrey S. LeBaron, national director of the bird count, elaborated. Should ocean levels rise in coming decades, he said, the already endangered piping plover that nests on Jones Beach and elsewhere, for one, would be particularly vulnerable.

Mr. LeBaron calls forest species the future’s “wild card.” Common, adaptable species with habitats near the human population will probably be relatively unaffected, he said.

For now, there is unease, if not panic, among the New York region’s birders.

Julian Sproule, president of the Saugatuck Valley Audubon Society, in Wilton, Conn., also serves on birding boards at the state level and has a broader perspective on how climate change affects the region. He points to a study led by Alan Hitch, a wildlife expert at Auburn University, that clearly documents a northward trend among certain species. The familiar northern cardinal, Mr. Sproule said, and the Carolina wren are wintering here.

Scott Heth, president of the Sharon Audubon Society in Connecticut, said, “We’re pretty sure that has to do with climate change.” Green herons are atypically wintering in Orient. Mockingbirds, Baltimore orioles, egrets and some hummingbirds are wintering around New York.

Moreover, some birdwatchers lament the loss of habitat throughout the area. It is considered “at least as important as climate change” to species depletion, said Lawrence Trachtenberg, who watches from Westchester.

Dr. Butcher said that habitat loss, caused by “the tremendous growth of the megalopolis” around New York, has already caused the demise of the northern bobwhite, and “has had a pretty dramatic effect” on kestrel populations as well as other species here.

High School Kid Discovers 65 Million-year-old Duckbilled Dinosaur

WaPo: Scientists Get Rare Look at Dinosaur Soft Tissue

Fossil May Shed New Light on the Creatures

A high school student hunting fossils in the badlands of his native North Dakota discovered an extremely rare mummified dinosaur that includes not just bones but also seldom seen fossilized soft tissue such as skin and muscles, scientists will announce today.

The 25-foot-long hadrosaur found by Tyler Lyson in an ancient river flood plain in the dinosaur-rich Hell Creek Formation is apparently the most complete and best preserved of the half-dozen mummified dinosaurs unearthed since early in the last century, they said.

The pictures are great, too:

Gallery: Unearthing a Dinosaur Mummy

Turkeys Everywhere

Boston Globe: Turkeys take to cities, towns

I saw a turkey on my daily walk yesterday, along with a circling redtail hawk, a kingfisher, and plenty of crows. The turkey had just drunk from the Wachusett Reservoir and was hurrying back to a copse of trees as I came along the path.

Action Alert: Oppose Navy Use of Sonar

No more beached whales

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has released a Proposed Rule, Number 062206A. This proposed rule would allow the Navy to use Low Frequency Active (LFA) Sonar in most oceans for the next five years.

LFA is bad stuff. The sounds of sonar travel thousands of miles in the ocean and harm the things that live there. For more information, click on the Fact-Esque link at the bottom of this post.

Only 15 days were allowed for comments, and today is the last day. So please send a comment opposing LFA!

Send an email to this address: PR1.062306A@noaa.gov

You can copy the comment I sent:

To the National Marine Fisheries Service:

I am writing this email in opposition to Proposed Rule Number 062206A.

I oppose the use of Low Frequency Active (LFA) Sonar for the following reasons:

(1) LFA sound can travel at levels that are harmful to the marine environment for thousands of miles underwater.

(2) LFA causes mass strandings and deaths of marine mammals.

(3) Our oceans are already under pressure from pollution and global warming. Adding LFA will just further harm ocean inhabitants.

(4) The NMFS is supposed to protect fish, not harm them. This rule does not further your agency's goals and is not congruent with the latest scientific research on LFA.

(5) I agree with the following groups that have opposed the use of LFA: the Scientific Committee of the International Whaling Commission, the United Nations Law of the Sea deliberations, the European Union Parliament, and the IUCN-World Conservation Union.

Please do not approve proposed rule number 062206A.

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.

Sincerely,

hat tip to Fact-Esque, which I saw on Newsfare

Fact-esque: Very Easy Anti-Sonar Action - Deadline for Public Comments TODAY