Badgers Win Bowl Game

Defeat Miami.

Sad Story

The so-called health reform bill wouldn't have helped this man to live. That's the tragedy of the almost worthless bill President Obama is going to be proud about signing. Maybe hell will freeze & Mr. Obama will pull a Bu$hCo, & implement a humane, single-payer system that allows all Americans to NOT worry about health care bills ever again. Yeah, I know....

Hadn't Thought Of The Kon-Tiki Lately

The last crew member who crossed the Pacific in the balsa wood/bamboo raft is dead.

Playoffs!

Packers win.

John Aravosis Speaks

Go read. Here's a taste.

But the fact remains that we the people handed this President and this Congress control of the White House, the US House of Representatives, and filibuster-proof control of the US Senate. We handed them a GOP that was in tatters, and a populace that desperately wanted change. And they blew it. They gave us weakness and cowardice and fear in return. The President went back on his promises from almost day one, and then stayed out of the entire debate until - well - he's still not really involved in the debate, other than to occasionally have his staff secretly try undercut his own campaign promises.

My emphasis.

Sorry Joe, Sorry Barb, But 'Da Bears Suck

21-14.

Good For A Few Smart People From Texas

Whooping cranes are Canada's most endangered species, with a population of fewer than 300. All of them nest in Wood Buffalo National Park.

The Aransas Project alleges birds starved to death because of diversions for industrial and municipal water use from the Guadalupe River, allowed by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality.

The group says those diversions raised the salinity in the bays and estuaries around the Aransas National Wildlife Refuge — the whooping cranes' only winter feeding grounds. As a result, two critical components in the crane's diet — blue crabs and wolfberries — are less common, a release from the organization said.

"We had birds staggering around and starving to death and falling down in front of people. And that's absolutely intolerable. That should be intolerable from the point of view of both countries," said Ron Outen, regional director for the Aransas Project.

America needs more people like the Texans with brains who are taking on the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. (Now that is an oxymoron, since Texas & environmental quality just do not seem to go together. Legal murder, George Bu$hCo, & Texas, now that makes sense.) It appears that I am bashing Texas, well, I am bashing Texas. I've been there a couple of times. They have tanks, not lakes. Their whitetail deer are the size of Scottish Wolfhounds. (Those would be the normal deer, not the obscenely large antlered deer who are basically fed stuff to make the antlers grow. If you've every watched a hunting show on the teevee that has a Texas whitetail hunt, you know what I mean when I use the word obscenely.) & the worst of all, for the second biggest state in America, there is almost no public land. Texas is one example of the free market & private enterprise & private property run completely amok. Anyway, I'm glad that Texas may, I stress may, be held accountable for the horror of the starving whooping cranes. This story, & the sad news from Indiana, make me despair for America's ability to actually right the horrible wrongs we have committed.

Identified by her leg band, the bird shot was the mother of “Wild-1″, the only Whooping Crane chick successfully hatched and migrated from captivity in 2006.

My emphases.

Pinochet, The Murderer

The murderer Pinochet is exposed once again.

There is no doubt that Pinochet ordered this murder,” Álvaro Varela, a lawyer for the Frei family, said in an interview on Monday.

Henry Kissinger, a fervent supporter of the killer Pinochet, ought to be convicted of crimes against humanity. Prosecutors could use this document in the trial.

Kissinger made clear how much he backed Pinochet, saying, "In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here.

My emphases.

Sports Beat - National Football League

Farve loses. Real ugly.

Packers win 27-14.

Well, Well, Looks Like Winter May Well Be Here To Stay, & I Still Have Horse Fence Issues

The following is from our local NOAA office, in Duluth, MN.

...LAKE EFFECT SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CST
THIS EVENING...

...WINTER STORM WARNING IN EFFECT FROM NOON TUESDAY TO 6 AM CST
THURSDAY...

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN DULUTH HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORM WARNING FOR HEAVY SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM NOON TUESDAY TO 6 AM CST THURSDAY. THE WINTER STORM WATCH IS NO LONGER IN EFFECT. A LAKE EFFECT SNOW ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 7 PM CST THIS EVENING.

* ACCUMULATING LAKE EFFECT SNOW WILL CONTINUE THIS EVENING ALONG THE SOUTH SHORE OF LAKE SUPERIOR...INCLUDING THE GOGEBIC RANGE. LAKE EFFECT SNOW WILL DIMINISH THIS EVENING WITH THE NEXT ROUND OF ACCUMULATING SNOW EXPECTED TO BEGIN TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING AFFECTING ASHLAND AND HURLEY.

* TOTAL SNOW ACCUMULATION FROM 3 TO 6 INCHES IS EXPECTED BY THIS EVENING OVER THE GOGEBIC RANGE...ROUGHLY ALONG THE HIGHWAY 77 CORRIDOR FROM MELLEN TO HURLEY. IT WILL ALSO IMPACT AREAS OF HIGHWAY 2. STORM TOTAL SNOW AMOUNTS WITH THE SECOND STORM ARE EXPECTED TO BE AT LEAST 8 TO 12 INCHES...WITH SOME LOCAL AMOUNTS UP TO 16 INCHES...FROM TUESDAY NIGHT INTO WEDNESDAY NIGHT.

* NORTHEAST TO NORTH WINDS WILL INCREASE TO 20 TO 30 MPH WITH HIGHER GUSTS TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY. THE WINDS WILL CAUSE WIDESPREAD BLOWING AND DRIFTING SNOW THAT COULD CREATE WHITEOUT CONDITIONS.

* ROAD CONDITIONS TODAY ARE EXPECTED TO BE SNOW COVERED AND SLIPPERY. TRAVEL AND ROAD CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED TO DETERIORATE RAPIDLY TUESDAY AFTERNOON AND EVENING...DUE TO SNOW AND BLOWING SNOW. DANGEROUS ROAD AND TRAVEL CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED LATE TUESDAY NIGHT AND WEDNESDAY.

* STRONG WINDS MAY BLOW DOWN SOME TREE LIMBS THAT MAY AFFECT SOME POWER LINES AND AREA ROADS. IN ADDITION...COLD ARCTIC AIR WILL SPREAD ACROSS THE REGION AS THE STORM DEPARTS... WITH WIND CHILL VALUES DROPPING INTO THE TEENS AND 20S BELOW ZERO WEDNESDAY NIGHT AND THURSDAY.

Teens & 20s below? WTF? Yes, my loyal four readers, you may begin to feel sorry for me tomorrow afternoon.

They Must Pay These Big Colleges A Lot Of Money To Fly All The Way To Hawaiʻi

Too bad the kids don't get a share of the take. 51-10

This Could Be Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, Very, BAD

Asian carp.

Environmental officials in Illinois plan to dump a toxic chemical into a stretch of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal Wednesday night hoping to keep Lake Michigan safe from a species of massive and voracious fish called Asian carp. The fish, which can grow to 4 feet long and weigh 100 pounds, are known for their ability to leap up to 8 feet out of the water as motor boats speed by, injuring fishermen. Scientists fear that the fish, which can eat the equivalent of 40 percent of their body weight every day, could damage the ecosystem of the Great Lakes, which is the largest body of fresh water in the world.

There is also this, oh, complete understatement in the same article:

For now, officials say there's nothing to do but kill them.

UPDATE:
The nothing, er, poisoning begins. My emphasis. Hat tip to shutterwi.

This Is Really Scary

Go watch this graphic. Then sit down with a beer or something & think about what President Obama said about about creating jobs for unemployed Americans. Quite a disconnect, I think.

“I want to be clear: While I believe the government has a critical role in creating the conditions for economic growth, ultimately true economic recovery is only going to come from the private sector,” he told his audience,....

I would venture to guess that this is the same private sector that got us into the economic meltdown to begin win. The same private sector that continues to give its employees disgustingly huge bonuses. What the hell is wrong with President Obama? He apparently has completely forgotten how President FDR brought the country out of the Great Depression. I suppose there would be a bit more money if President Obama hadn't betrayed the very people who worked so hard to get him elected last year. Just fucking awful.

...President Obama’s decision to send 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan,....

Thanks to da Mayor for the link to the cool graphic on the particularly uncool rise in unemployment.