Stale Link Dump

Yep, the old links have been building up in the digital fridge, and it's time to make room for some new ones.

Women are more selfish than men and more likely to bad-mouth friends -  Color me shocked...

Some of the signs of intelligence not confined to man - Clever tool use in parrots and crows
 
The Wall of Time  - A great visual representation of geologic time

New Technology Reveals Widespread Mislabeling of Fish  - Fish, unless you catch it, may not be what you think it is.

Another one of those knock me over with a feather studies. - Women BORN to be moody

Childhood diseases return as parents refuse vaccines - The anti-vaccine movement is dangerous, really

Israeli scientists find way to erase memories of drug addiction - This could really be a boon.

Look what we found — 9 newly discovered species
More gratuitous boobage in the service of advertising-  Club Orange Commercial

BOOBS, BREAST, BOULDERS, KNOCKERS, TITS, TA-TAs, TITTIES, FUNBAGS, SWEATER KITTENS  - A video of appreciation.

How to Eat a Cicada: Noisy Insect Sparks New Food Trend  - Not sure I want to try this.

Would a Dingo Really Eat Your Baby? - The short answer is "yes".

San Fascistco  - San Francisco moves to ban pet fish.

Why is there only one human species? - Did a super volcano wipe out all our near kin?

Romance novels can be as addictive as pron - Yep, and for all the same reasons.

YouTube - Cheeky baby  - A little one shows signs of precocious puberty. 

Experts spar over Gulf methane's fate - Scientists disagree over what happened to Gulf of Mexico methane

No Decline in Polar Bear Population - Global Warming or not, Polar Bears doing well 

Is Viagra a Treatment for Multiple Sclerosis - Happening Science, MS drug hope

Is taurine a hangover cure - The ultimate hangover cure?

Fishing - Meh...

I took off solo this afternoon to try a little fishing. Fishing was slow, so I tried something a little different, taking some short video, which I uploaded to Youtube

One of the first thing I ran into out on the bay was schools of menhaden swimming near the surface, and acting for all the world like something was attacking them.  If there was, I couldn't figure out how to catch it...



I tried all the usual places and didn't get too much. However, I did find a small school of deer grazing along the sea wall at the power plant.  There were three, but only one hung around for the photo shoot.

TMI!

So I thought I'd share it with you:


Florence Henderson caught crabs from John Lindsay:

This would have made an interesting episode of "The Brady Bunch."

Florence Henderson, the actress who played perky mom Carol Brady in the beloved family sitcom, says she once got crabs after a one-night-stand with career politician John Lindsay, who was the mayor of New York City at the time.

Henderson, now 77, recounts in her upcoming memoir that she was cheating on her husband during the 1960s, and gave in to her better judgment when her married and unattractive friend put the moves on her over drinks at the Beverly Hills Hotel.

"I was lonely. I knew it wasn't the right thing to do. So, what did I do? I did it," she writes in "Life is Not a Stage," set for publication in September.

Henderson went home later that night, and awoke to a grisly surprise the next day as she saw "little black things" crawling over her bed and body.

An urgent call to a doctor took care of the problem, known medically as pubic lice, and Lindsay sent her flowers and a note of apology.

 That lowered my opinion of Florence Henderson and raised my opinion of John Lindsay...

Cuts First!

Mickey Kaus has a great post on why deficit reduction should focus on spending cuts first, even though he, and most other moderate liberals (yes, they exist, and he is one), think that both tax increases and spending cuts will be necessary to close the budget gap:

Opponents of bloated government don’t trust politicians to make cuts if extra revenues are in the offing. Neither, sensibly, do many voters. But if you make dramatic cuts, demonstrate you’ve sweated out the fat–and there’s still a deficit, you’ve got a shot at getting a tax increase through. Cuts First! You could start with the Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

In any case. it’s inane to argue that every step on the road to deficit reduction has to be a balance of cuts and tax increases. That’s like saying you can’t take a piss unless you take a drink.

I couldn't have said it better, and I didn't.   Another great point:

It’s not as if a cuts-only deal to avert a debt-ceiling crisis would be the easy way out. Cuts are hard–arguably harder, at the national level, than even raising taxes, which is why, as now, adding revenues is so often the politicans’ path of less resistance. We are also up against the syllogism:

a) If you can’t cut the fat out of government during economic bad times, because, hey, we need the stimulus of government spending and

b) You can’t cut the fat out of government during economic good times, because,’ Hey, there’s plenty of tax revenue so why the sense of urgency?,’ then

c) When will you ever cut the fat out of government? Never, that’s when. Instead it will build up over the decades like sediment until we reach … the present circumstance.

Read the whole thing.

What's Up with Wisconsin?

The state seems to have gone crazy lately.  Or maybe it was always crazy, and the news coverage has just gotten better.  I would have thought that after the snow melted and the days got longer they'd get over the SAD.

You probably know most of the back story.  Wisconsin elected Scott Walker, a Republican, governor in the Nov. 2010 elections.  This did not sit well with the radicals in the state, who have had a long history there, and when he began efforts to control public pensions costs, they went apeshit crazy, having weeks of demonstrations in Madison, the state capitol, trying to prevent legislative actions, and committing acts of petty vandalism in the Capitol Building their to express their, what, sincerity?  Blog diva Ann Althouse, a Law Professor from Madison, reported on these extensively.

Then, in April came an election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.  Wisconsin in one of a few states where Supreme Court justices are elected and stand for re-election periodically.  David Prosser, considered a conservative, the incumbent, was facing a challenge from the distinctly left wing Joanne Kloppenburg.  At stake, among other things, were Walker's pension reform plans, since it was a closely divided court, and the pension reforms were working their way through the appeal system.  Kloppenburg had all but promised to rule them unconstitutional, and so had complete support of the radical faction.

The election came, and at first it appeared the Kloppenburg had won.  She went so far as to declare victory, and thank the voters of Wisconsin for their wisdom.  Then, the final returns came in, including a conservative county that had not been publicly accounted for, and the final ballot had Prosser winning by some 7,000 votes.  Kloppenburg demanded a recount, as was her right, given that the final tally was less the 0.5% apart, and the recount was duly and slowly carried out.  The final final tally was only about 300 votes different from the first, and Prosser was declared winner and remained in office.  OK, a little messy, but still only democracy at work, right?

Well, yesterday, a group called Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism, a group loosely associated with Wisconsin Public Radio (so they're non-partisan, right...), published an article claiming that in a heated argument in chambers, Justice Prosser had grabbed Justice Anne Bradley by the neck and attempted to choke her.  Allegedly, this incident came in a rather heated conference last week.

This was, of course, rapidly picked up in the media (especially the blogs, for who the deadline is always now).  Left-wing organizations like ThinkProgess demanded that Prosser resign.  As Altouse herself a generally pro-Prosser advocate said:

But sure. If Justice Prosser committed a criminal attack on another Justice, he shouldn't be on the court, even if he only lashed out after weeks or years of merciless bullying. And let's have the whole story. Maybe there are some other Justices who don't belong on the court. Clear out everyone who doesn't belong on the court. How will they be replaced? By appointment of the Governor — the formidable Scott Walker.

And now, today, it turns out there may be more to the story.  New reports suggest that Prosser may have put his hands up to protect himself as Justice Bradley came a him with "raised fists", and that while he may have made contract with her neck, it was incidental to his self-protection.

Justice Bradley's carefully worded response to these allegations does not explicitely deny that she attacked Prosser first:

“The facts are that I was demanding that he get out of my office and he put his hands around my neck in anger in a chokehold,” Bradley told the Journal Sentinel.

And in response to the conflicting interpretation offered by unnamed sources, that Prosser put up his hands defensively as she rushed toward him, Bradley told the paper: “You can try to spin those facts and try to make it sound like I ran up to him and threw my neck into his hands, but that’s only spin.”

She added: “Matters of abusive behavior in the workplace aren’t resolved by competing press releases. I’m confident the appropriate authorities will conduct a thorough investigation of this incident involving abusive behavior in the workplace.”

Well, we'll see, maybe.  But if it turns out that she did attack first, will ThinkProgress demand her resignation?  Incidentally, it is reported that Bradley is taller, heavier and seven years younger than Prosser.

Not surprisingly, Ann Althouse is all over this story...

I want to know not only what really happened at the time of the physical contact (if any) between the 2 justices, but also who gave the original story to the press. If Prosser really tried to choke a nonviolent Bradley, he should resign. But if the original account is a trumped-up charge intended to destroy Prosser and obstruct the democratic processes of government in Wisconsin, then whoever sent the report out in that form should be held responsible for what should be recognized as a truly evil attack.

I just want a bigger bag of popcorn.

Berries are Free at the Beach, Too

Another nice day at the beach.  A touch warmer than yesterday, but still nice, with a good breeze.  There were high clouds when we arrived, but they burned off soon.

A good day for kayak fishing...

Click the pictures to enlarge.

...or hunting ground hogs (unsuccessfully).  Poor Skye, she came home so tired, she is loosing control of her rear left leg.  But it didn't slow her down.

A Mimosa bloom. This tree is also called Persian Silk tree or just Silk Tree. Native to Asia, it's a common ornamental tree in this area, but has gone "native", and is considered by some to be an invasive species.

 Skye, Georgia and Joel got ahead of me while I was taking the flower picture.  This will be our last walk with Joel for a while; he'll be leaving for his annual pilgrimage to Bar Harbor, Maine, with his traveling dog Red sometime this week.  Check in once in a while, Joel!

Wineberries are ripening on the cliffside.  Wineberries (Rubus pheonicolasius) are an introduced species related to Raspberries.  They live in disturbed areas like roadsides, or recently cut forests; the continuously eroding cliffs are a good habitat for them.  They, too, are considered an invasive species, with the potential for out competing native blackberries and raspberries.

They are pretty edible, but not as good as blackberries and raspberries. 

A milkweed bush up by the parking lot was covered with butterflies, like this one...

... and this one.  I haven't tried to figure out what they are yet.  Maybe I'll try a little later.

Bad Kitty!

Now, go steal me a beer and we'll reconsider...

Good Dog!

Did the US Government Cause the Dakota Flooding?

The Purposeful Flooding of America's Heartland

Some sixty years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) began the process of taming the Missouri by constructing a series of six dams. The idea was simple: massive dams at the top moderating flow to the smaller dams below, generating electricity while providing desperately needed control of the river's devastating floods...

But after about thirty years of operation, as the environmentalist movement gained strength throughout the seventies and eighties, the Corps received a great deal of pressure to include some specific environmental concerns into their MWCM (Master Water Control Manual, the "bible" for the operation of the dam system). Preservation of habitat for at-risk bird and fish populations soon became a hot issue among the burgeoning environmental lobby. The pressure to satisfy the demands of these groups grew exponentially as politicians eagerly traded their common sense for "green" political support.

Things turned absurd from there. An idea to restore the nation's rivers to a natural (pre-dam) state swept through the environmental movement and their allies. Adherents enlisted the aid of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), asking for an updated "Biological Opinion" from the FWS that would make ecosystem restoration an "authorized purpose" of the dam system. The Clinton administration threw its support behind the change, officially shifting the priorities of the Missouri River dam system from flood control, facilitation of commercial traffic, and recreation to habitat restoration, wetlands preservation, and culturally sensitive and sustainable biodiversity.

The Corps "fixed" the rivers so that people could farm, and build cities, and use them as transport.  Then, at the whim of people who mostly live elsewhere, the Corps was told to undo parts of that protection, leaving the people at risk.  We are now seeing the consequences of that choice.

Greg Pavelka, a wildlife biologist with the Corps of Engineers in Yankton, SD, told the Seattle Times that this event will leave the river in a "much more natural state than it has seen in decades," describing the epic flooding as a "prolonged headache for small towns and farmers along its path, but a boon for endangered species." He went on to say, "The former function of the river is being restored in this one-year event. In the short term, it could be detrimental, but in the long term it could be very beneficial."

I know lots of people who talk like that.  Everything for the birds and bees and fish, and nothing left for man.  I'm waiting for the Fish and Wildlife Service to develop a plan to restore bear, wolves, cougars and elk to Manhattan Island.  I'd love to see the look on the faces of the New Yorker liberal elite as they try to build a coherent argument against it.

Read the whole thing.

Learn the Fracking Facts

The U.S. is in the midst of an energy revolution, and we don't mean solar panels or wind turbines. A new gusher of natural gas from shale has the potential to transform U.S. energy production—that is, unless politicians, greens and the industry mess it up...

 As they say, read the rest.

U2 Can Pay More Taxes...

But they choose not to:

U2 and its frontman Bono, known for their global poverty-fighting efforts, were accused of dodging taxes in Ireland by activists who crashed their performance at England's Glastonbury festival.

The anti-capitalist group Art Uncut inflated a 6-metre balloon emblazoned with the message "U Pay Your Tax 2." Security guards wrestled them to the ground before deflating the balloon and taking it away. About 30 people were involved in the angry clash. "I love U2 but I think everyone should pay their taxes. The campaigners have a right to voice their opinion," he said.

Art Uncut argues that while Bono campaigns against poverty in the developing world, his group has avoided paying Irish taxes at a time when his austerity-hit country desperately needs money.

Ireland, which has already accepted an international bailout, is suffering through deep spending cuts, tax hikes and rising unemployment as it tries to pull the debt-burdened economy back from brink of bankruptcy."...U2, the country's most successful band, was heavily criticised in 2006 for moving its corporate base from Ireland to the Netherlands, where royalties on music incur virtually no tax.

I'm of two minds here.  First of all, I believe in Freedom so I think Bono and U2 have the right to conduct their business affairs as they choose, provided they are within the law.  No one here is accusing them of doing anything illegal, merely working the system to their advantage.

What they are being accused of is an odd from of hypocrisy, where they are charged with not putting sufficient money back into the system, while they urge other people (mostly corporations and the rich) to donate more to the causes of their choosing.  They have also been criticized recently for the nature of their "charity:

U2: Great music in the service of dubious charity 

Last year, Bono's nonprofit ONE foundation was at the center of semi-scandal when it was revealed that in 2008 the organization raised $14,993,873 in public donations — of which only $184,732 (or just over ONE percent) was distributed to charities. Where did the rest go? Well, more than $8 million went to salaries for executives and employees at ONE. In response to the fusillade of criticism following these revelations, ONE spokesman Oliver Buston explained, "We don't provide programs on the ground. We're an advocacy and campaigning organization."

So, they get other rich people and businesses to donate the their charity, and spend that money advocating for their own personal causes.

A good gig, if you can get it.

Another Gorgeous Day at the Beach 6/25/11

Mostly sunny sky, a few puffy white clouds, a good breeze, temperatures in the mid-70s. What more could you ask for?

The Irony Meter Needle Wrapped Around the Right Hand Post

Home made irony meter

Woman dies of heart attack caused by shock of waking up at her own funeral

A woman died from a heart attack caused by shock after waking up to discover she had been declared dead - and was being prepared for burial.

As mourning relatives filed past her open coffin the supposedly dead woman suddenly woke up and started screaming as she realised where she was.

Fagilyu Mukhametzyanov, 49, had been wrongly declared deceased by doctors but died for real after hearing mourners saying prayers for her soul to be taken up to heaven in Kazan, Russia...

I can see where than might be disconcerting, but thinking of pranking  opportunities would keep me going.

They have socialized medicine in Russia, iirc.

Rule 5 Saturday - Katy Perry

"I started praying for [breasts] when I was, like, 11," the 26-year-old told Rolling Stone magazine in an interview for their June 24 issue. "And God answered that prayer above and beyond, by, like, 100 times, until I was like, 'Please, stop, God. I can't see my feet anymore. Please stop!'

Thank God, he didn't listen.

"Someone in sixth grade called me 'Over-the-shoulder boulder holder,'" Katy -- who graces the magazine's cover wearing a Hershey's Kisses-inspired bra top - added. "I didn't know I could use them. So, what I did was, I started taping them down... probably until I was about 19."

She seems to have gotten a pretty good grasp on how to use them by now...

But she does look better with makeup...

While Katy challenges her detractors to take a look at the facts, she said she's aware that her fluffy pop songs are just that - fluffy pop songs!

"I'm not a dummy -- I know 'California Gurls' isn't going to save the world," she explained, referencing her 2010 hit with Snoop Dogg. "But I got a lot of heart from my upbringing and I put a lot of heart in my songs."

A California girl, born Katherine Elizabeth Hudson near Santa Barbara in 1984 in a religious family, she recorded a gospel album under her birth name in 2001.  But, fortunately for the rest of us, she grew up, and discovered sex, or at least simulated sex, and pop history was made.

In addition to girls, she seems to have a thing for Muppets, with well known flirtations with Elmo from Sesame Street (is he even legal age?), and Charles Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons (he certainly is!).





Check out this parody

More Pics below the fold

It's Red Friday...

...Over at Theos's.  It's red wine (Old Vine Zinfandel) here...

Gay Marriage, Maybe Not Such a Good Thing After All - Gay Law Prof

Marriage Is a Mixed Blessing

While many in our community have worked hard to secure the right of same-sex couples to marry, others of us have been working equally hard to develop alternatives to marriage. For us, domestic partnerships and civil unions aren’t a consolation prize made available to lesbian and gay couples because we are barred from legally marrying. Rather, they have offered us an opportunity to order our lives in ways that have given us greater freedom than can be found in the one-size-fits-all rules of marriage.

It’s not that we’re antimarriage; rather, we think marriage ought to be one choice in a menu of options by which relationships can be recognized and gain security. Like New York City’s mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg, who has been in a relationship for over 10 years without marrying, one can be an ardent supporter of marriage rights for same-sex couples while also recognizing that serious, committed relationships can be formed outside of marriage.

Here’s why I’m worried: Winning the right to marry is one thing; being forced to marry is quite another. How’s that? If the rollout of marriage equality in other states, like Massachusetts, is any guide, lesbian and gay people who have obtained health and other benefits for their domestic partners will be required by both public and private employers to marry their partners in order to keep those rights. In other words, “winning” the right to marry may mean “losing” the rights we have now as domestic partners, as we’ll be folded into the all-or-nothing world of marriage.

Of course, this means we’ll be treated just as straight people are now. But this moment provides an opportunity to reconsider whether we ought to force people to marry — whether they be gay or straight — to have their committed relationships recognized and valued.

 It seems like she wants the name of marriage for relationships, but not the expectations.

Yep, if you want to get the "benefits" of marriage, we'll expect you to live with the downsides too; the permanence, the expectations of faithfulness, producing the next generation of citizens, you know, that kind of stuff.  Don't like it?  Don't get married.

Seen at Althouse.

This Strikes Me as Such a Bad Idea

Rare Sea Turtles to be Released into Chesapeake Bay

Rescued sea turtles heading for the Bay

Five endangered Kemp's ridley sea turtles nursed back to health by the National Aquarium are being returned to the wild on Sunday.

The rarest and smallest of all sea turtles, the five were found stranded last winter along Cape Cod suffering from cold stunning, not unlike hypothermia. They were shipped to Baltimore by the New England Aquarium, where they've spent the past six months rehabilitating in the local aquarium's marine animal rescue program.

At 11 a.m. on Sunday, the aquarium staff plan to release the turtles at Point Lookout State Park in southern Maryland, where the Potomac River meets the Chesapeake Bay. Kemp's ridley sea turtles are known to feed on jellyfish and other aquatic life in the bay during the summer. The public is invited to be on hand to observe the release. Directions are here.

If you can't make it, some of the turtles will be fitted with small satellite transmitters so their movements can be tracked. The aquarium plans to plot the animals' locations on a map on its website, which you can see here.

This is neat, but I wonder why they are releasing them into the Bay instead of driving them all the way down to the ocean, which is a far more common habitat for sea turtles?  Maybe it gives them a better chance to track them.  I guess we'll have lots of jellyfish for them to eat.

I've seen a few sea turtles out in the Bay; it's pretty eerie when a big loggerhead sticks his head out of the murk a few few feet from your boat. 

I hope they make it.

World Record Blue Catfish Caught

 A 143 lb Blue Catfish was caught last weekend at in Kerr Reservoir (aka Buggs Island Lake), on the North Carolina, Virginia Border.  The lake is an impoundment on the Roanoke River, which flows into Pamlico Sound, south of Chesapeake Bay.

Richard Nicholas Anderson caught the 143-pound, 57-inch fish near Goat Island after a 45-minute battle from a pontoon boat.

The fish, with a girth of 43.5 inches, was weighed at Mecklenburg Supply Inc. in Chase City with two representatives from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries observing.

The State Record Fish Committee of the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries is reviewing the application for a potential state record blue catfish. The previous state record blue catfish (109 pounds) was caught by Tony Milam in Buggs Island Lake near the confluence of the Dan and Roanoke rivers on March 17.

If the International Game Fish Association certifies the catch, Anderson's fish will easily top the new world mark of 130 pounds for a blue catfish caught in the Missouri River in 2010.

Much like their presence in some Chesapeake Bay tributaries, Blue Catfish are introduced species in the Roanoke. As is the Chesapeake, whether they are a benefit or a curse depends on the point of view of those you ask.  Some fisherman have made a fishery of targeting the big catfish and have made places where big Blue Cats can be found a destination for charter trips.  On the other hand, many fisheries scientists consider them to be a damaging invasive species; a voracious predator and a competitor potentially capable of pushing out the native catfish.

Another article suggests that nutrient pollution maybe responsible for growing the giant catfish:

Kerr Reservoir (aka Buggs Island Lake), like the James River, is an altered system. We humans have changed our waterways greatly in the past 100 years by increasing the nutrient load they carry.

"On Buggs Island, it's upstream agriculture," Greenlee said. "On the James, it's agriculture and municipal inputs that together are driving a very high level of productivity (i.e. total biomass). These systems are much, much more productive than they were if you went back to pre-colonial days."

The converse is true, too, he said. "Smith Mountain Lake is an example. Once you started cleaning up the municipal discharge, that productivity has dropped down as a result of the reduced nutrient levels."

On Buggs Island Lake, DGIF head fish biologist Gary Martel said "you have a combination of a new reservoir situation and a much more abundant food source. You see the highest probability of some of those records occurring in bodies of water where the (predator) populations have just become established."

No one knows for sure how they got there, but blue catfish showed up in Buggs Island Lake in the late 1980s. That's not a long time in fish years. Blue cats can live 25 years. So the first, longest-lived blues are just now beginning to turn over. And for the past quarter century, they've had the benefit of our increased nutrient input boosting populations of their favorite food: shad. It's been a 25-year buffet for blue catfish in Buggs Island Lake.

It's possible I suppose, but their native drainage, the Mississippi River system, is not exactly pristine either, so one would expect to see equally big catfish there as well, and indeed, previous records of nearly the same weight (124 lbs) have come from there.  I suspect rather, that it's just that the first major cohorts of catfish in the new waters are finally reaching their full size, and fishermen are just learning to target them.  Once fishermen learn to target the big ones more efficiently, the top to the size distribution will get knocked off, and it will be hard to catch another record.

My previous post on Blue Cats here, including my own not nearly so big Blue Catfish.

Michele Obama - "Do As I Say, Not As I Do"

Michelle Obama: 'I can't stop eating French fries. But eat your vegetables.'

During her visit to South Africa, First Lady Michelle Obama stopped by the University of Cape Town for an event with young people. ... But at the end of the session, one young person in the audience asked Mrs. Obama, who has devoted much of her time in the White House to promoting nutrition and healthy eating, what her favorite foods are.

"My favorite?" Obama said. "Oh, this is a tough one. "It is tough, you know, because if I say something not healthy, people will be, like, you aren't really committed to health. If I say something healthy, you know -- I do -- honestly, I like all kinds of foods."

Obama mentioned Indian food, and then Mexican food, and then said: "No, if I picked one favorite, favorite food, it's French fries." The audience began to laugh. "Okay? It's French fries," Obama continued. "I can't stop eating them." As the students laughed more, the First Lady quickly returned to her role as advocate of health eating. "But eat your vegetables," she said, to still more laughs. "And exercise."

It's not wrong to like French Fries.  I like 'em.  But it is wrong to eat them and tell other people not to.  Not exactly Caesar's wife, is she?