BillyCreek

Monday, April 30, 2007

Interesting

It's a whole new definition of handjob. Although the right-wing nutcases are probably going - evolve this:

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But with absolutely no respect, there's no way to have this dick evolve.

On a day when I saw my first ever wild Canvasback duck, a large, healthy drake - & of course, me without my camera. Where the hell was Shutterwi when I needed him? Probably doing something positive like fixing the extension cord that I separated using my chain saw. Anyway, this drake canvasback was sitting at the end of a very short breakwater. He was magnificent & as I approached he took off low & strong into a very brisk northeast wind. For those of you who aren't familiar with the big lake, a northeast wind is one hard, cold wind & any duck that can take off & fly like he did is some lovely duck. The canvasback is a great eating duck, but they are so rare that we are allowed to shot only one a day during our 60 day duck season. Since I have never even seen one before, although I did hear of one being shot a few years ago, I figure that the one bird per day is sort of a gift that is supposed to lift our spirits, & not something that is actually linked to reality. Here is a pic of a Canvasback.

While I am still excited about the Canvasback sighting, I read in today's Times-Picayune from New Orleans this story about what Katrina did to the duck population in Lousiana. This information is being discovered a year & a half after that awful storm.

Some 30,000 ducks and birds used to winter in the marshes of the Bayou Sauvage National Wildlife Refuge -- indeed, their well-being was a principal reason that the vast refuge in eastern New Orleans was set up. But a glimpse at the area today makes clear why waterfowl populations have been down by 75 percent since Hurricane Katrina.

The storm robbed the refuge of more than 1,700 acres of marsh, and higher salinity levels have slowed the growth of vegetation and other edibles favored by the birds. The occasional cypress tree, left behind by loggers generations ago, is about all that stands in some marshy areas.

"The plants and food supply the ducks would normally find are not there," said Supervisory Park Ranger Byron Fortier. "One of the primary reasons why the refuge was created was as a wintering area for waterfowl."

I Sometimes Wonder

Bu$hCo rejects help for Katrina victims. Way to go W., you idiot.

Federal agencies used only a small fraction of the more than $800 million in Hurricane Katrina assistance offered by foreign governments, according to documents released Sunday by a private watchdog group.

The rejected offers included medical teams, search-and-rescue units, body bags, bottled water, food, fuel and even specially trained rescue dogs from Poland, according to documents obtained by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. Also turned down or stalled by bureaucratic delays were offers of two cruise ships by the Greek government for use as medical facilities and to house workers and displaced residents.

My emphasis.

Tommy Newsom, R.I.P.

Some of us remember the days of turning on the teevee & getting three channels, one for every network. & watching Johnny Carson was de rigeur, even for us barbarian Packer fans in the far north. Story here. Obit here.

Via Raw Story.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

This Is A Stitch

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Complete Thievery

Well, it's Sunday morning & I'm finishing up putting my new table saw together & I'm too lazy to come up with my own post so I just going to completely steal Tbogg's post. No one could do any better than this, anyway. The 2 YouTubes are more reasons why I'm a socialist.

No Competence

None, zero, zilch. When will the 28% that still think Bu$hCo is a thinking, feeling human, finally see what pretty much the rest of the world sees?

In a troubling sign for the American-financed rebuilding program in Iraq, inspectors for a federal oversight agency have found that in a sampling of eight projects that the United States had declared successes, seven were no longer operating as designed because of plumbing and electrical failures, lack of proper maintenance, apparent looting and expensive equipment that lay idle.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

More ReThug Family Values

The lawbreaking & apparent lawbreaking by Bu$hCo just continues right along. When will the ReThugs finally realize what a corrupt bunch of morong they all are.

Randall Tobias, the deputy secretary of state responsible for foreign aid, abruptly resigned Friday after he was asked about an upscale escort service allegedly involved in prostitution, U.S. government sources said.

Another Twist In The U.S. Attorney Scandal

Overt racism? It seems fairly clear to me.

He noted that five of the eight U.S. attorneys who were fired had served on a subcommittee that works on American Indian issues; Heffelfinger had chaired the group.

....

Of the dozen or so "subject matter committees" the U.S. attorneys have formed, the only one that never had a seat at the attorney general's table during in the Bush administration was the Native Americans issues subcommittee, Heffelfinger said. "And I thought that was inappropriate."

Feeling Safer Yet?

Bu$hCo can't protect us from major terrorist attacks. He can't protect us from inchoherence. & now, her can't protect us from food contamination. The tainted pet food scare, which has swelled into a serious crisis for animal lovers, now has spread to humans.

California officials have revealed that the contamination got into the food chain: About 45 state residents ate pork from hogs that consumed animal feed laced with melamine from China. Melamine is used to make plastics, but it also artificially boosts the protein level—and thus the price—of the glutens that go into food.

It was already fatal for some pets: 17 cats and dogs are confirmed dead, more have likely died without being reported, thousands have suffered kidney problems, and 57 brands of cat food and 83 of dog food have been recalled. On top of that, roughly 6,000 hogs will be destroyed because they ate tainted feed.

Bu$hCo has claimed that his No. 1 priority is protecting America. If that's the case, why did he do this?

The federal agency that's been front and center in warning the public about tainted spinach and contaminated peanut butter is conducting just half the food safety inspections it did three years ago.

The cuts by the Food and Drug Administration come despite a barrage of high-profile food recalls.

"We have a food safety crisis on the horizon," said Michael Doyle, director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia.

Between 2003 and 2006, FDA food safety inspections dropped 47 percent, according to a database analysis of federal records by The Associated Press.

That's not all that's dropping at the FDA in terms of food safety. The analysis also shows:

-There are 12 percent fewer FDA employees in field offices who concentrate on food issues.

- Safety tests for U.S.-produced food have dropped nearly 75 percent, from 9,748 in 2003 to 2,455 last year, according to the agency's own statistics.

- After the Sept. 11 attacks, the FDA, at the urging of Congress, increased the number of food inspectors and inspections amid fears that the nation's food system was vulnerable to terrorists. Inspectors and inspections spiked in 2003, but now both have fallen enough to erase the gains.

My emphasis.

So, ReThugs, are you feeling safer yet? Or are you just feeling the freedom of less regulation?

Friday, April 27, 2007

Sign The Bill & Bring Our Troops Home

Via Crooks and Liars.

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Symbolic, But About Time

Good for the Democrats. Now, let the frat boy veto this support for the troops.

A defiant Democratic-controlled Senate passed legislation today that would require the start of troop withdrawals from Iraq by Oct. 1, propelling Congress toward a historic veto showdown with President Bush on the war.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

More International Progress

This must really piss of the man in the red shoes.

City lawmakers voted Tuesday to legalize abortion in this capital during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy, an action supporters say will serve as a landmark for women's rights in Latin America.

The legislation could result in thousands of Mexican women traveling to the capital for legal abortions. Roman Catholic activists and the leaders of the conservative National Action Party, or PAN, have promised to challenge the law in court.

"Women have self-determination over their bodies," Deputy Daniel Ordoñez said as he formally introduced the bill in the city's Legislative Assembly. "They have the right to decide whether to enter into motherhood. It is a basic right and an exclusive right of women."

My emphasis.

Good for these progressive politicians.

A Fungus Among Us

Cell phones, genetically altered food crops, & now fungus gets the blame.

A fungus that caused widespread loss of bee colonies in Europe and Asia may be playing a crucial role in the mysterious phenomenon known as Colony Collapse Disorder that is now wiping out bees across the U.S., University of California, San Francisco researchers said Wednesday.

Researchers have been struggling for months without success to explain the disorder, and the new findings represent the first solid evidence pointing to a potential cause.

But the results are "highly preliminary" and are from only a few hives from Le Grand in California's Merced County, UCSF biochemist Joe DeRisi said. "We don't want to give anybody the impression that this thing has been solved."

Other researchers said Wednesday that they too had found the fungus, a single-celled parasite called Nosema ceranae, in affected hives from around the country -- as well as in some hives that have continued to survive and live. Those researchers also have found two other fungi and a half-dozen viruses in the dead bees.

My emphasis.

It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, we need to fund research, not war.

What An Ass

There's nothing I can really say about this, except Jesus Christ on a cold bagel.