Interesting

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

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

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Long Gone Ducks?

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."

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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.

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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.

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This Is A Stitch

DAVID LETTERMAM INTERVIEWS FRANK CALIENDO AS GEORGE W. BUSH ON 'THE LATE SHOW' | Send To Friends | Flash Cartoon Movies at JibJab

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.

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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.

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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."

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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?

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Sign The Bill & Bring Our Troops Home

Via Crooks and Liars.

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.

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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.

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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.

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What An Ass

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

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Another Drowning Victim

Bu$hCo has less compassion than a tree stump. A tree stump, at minimum, nutures the area around it by adding nutrients to the soil as it rots. Bu$hco, already rotting, is destroying the country I live in.

But the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, charged with overseeing workplace safety, reacted with far less urgency. It did not step up plant inspections or mandate safety standards for businesses, even as more workers became ill.



On Tuesday, the top official at the agency told lawmakers at a Congressional hearing that it would prepare a safety bulletin and plan to inspect a few dozen of the thousands of food plants that use the additive.



That response reflects OSHA’s practices under the Bush administration, which vowed to limit new rules and roll back what it considered cumbersome regulations that imposed unnecessary costs on businesses and consumers. Across Washington, political appointees — often former officials of the industries they now oversee — have eased regulations or weakened enforcement of rules on issues like driving hours for truckers, logging in forests and corporate mergers.



Since George W. Bush became president, OSHA has issued the fewest significant standards in its history, public health experts say. It has imposed only one major safety rule. The only significant health standard it issued was ordered by a federal court.



The agency has killed dozens of existing and proposed regulations and delayed adopting others. For example, OSHA has repeatedly identified silica dust, which can cause lung cancer, and construction site noise as health hazards that warrant new safeguards for nearly three million workers, but it has yet to require them.

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Work

So I've been working hard today on housing issues down here along the Mississippi River. I just finished a very good piece of dead cow, all red in the center, at Piggy's. It was rough work, but someone has to do it. I also spent some time analyzing potential meeting venues, like this:

I also checked out the literary landscape here:



I must say that I abhor spending anytime in places like this:

& anyone who claims I did spend anytime here is a damned liar, or, more precisely, a photographer.

So I learned a lot today about land trusts & leadership. I also met a woman who babysat for my aunt 25 years ago. & had a 5 minute massage from a woman from Butternut, WI, for crying out loud.

Bad

Amur leopards appear headed for sure extinction. You know, I like humans a lot. I like their sexy, electric brains & firm tissue. I like their lips against my skin & mine against theirs, but, goddamnit, I also like Amur leopards, among other things. One more example for future investigators of our disregard, not only for other creatures, but for ourselves.

Worm Brain

What will the wing-nuts tell their children?

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The Man In The Golden Underwear

TBogg has the story on Underwear Man's family of non-combatants.

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Happy Earth Day

On a bit of a vacay. It's really warm where I'm at, that would be Minneapolis, MN. It's a brief stopover seeing The Twins. Anyway, happy pile of dirt day.

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Department Of I Told You So

Many of us were pissed with President Carter for hiring Alfred Kahn. Here's why.

Her electric bill, which used to be about $800 a month, has jumped to $1,800. She's shut down a large freezer of frozen treats and now closes the store an hour early to cut costs but fears she still may have to raise prices and lay off some workers.

P.S. President Carter has distinguished himself in many ways & I like the guy. The beginning of deregulation was not a distinguished moment.

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Fog Of War

This post references posts from awhile back. A friend & I got into a bit of a heated argument about what happened at Haditha. This report illuminates the issue.

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More Wisco Shame

As all four of my loyal readers already know, Wisco has been implicated in the US Attorney scandal. The US Attorney, Steve Biskupic, who brought a corruption indictment against Ms. Thompson, a civil servant & won a conviction had his ass handed to by a three judge panel - they heard testimony in the morning & then at 1 p.m. dropped the conviction of the civil servant because of what the panel said was "beyond thin evidence." Well, today he had his balls handed to him as well. I'll bet he's a sorry sight in the shower.

Today, the court released (pdf) its written opinion on the case. And it wasn't any more sparing than the verbal remarks (e.g. that the evidence was "beyond thin") of the judges when they made the ruling.



The prosecution was based on a reading of the law by which "simple violations of administrative rules [by bureaucrats] would become crimes," the judges wrote. By that interpretation, "it is a federal crime for any official in state or local government to take account of political considerations when deciding how to spend public money" -- a "preposterous" idea, they wrote.

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coldH2O's Friday Night Music Club

Because everyhoppingbody is doing it. Diana Krall is wonderful & she & Elvis just had twin boys. I want to introduce them, at some appropriate age, to the cutest Twins in the history of the world. You want evidence? You talking to me? OK, then.

Here's the lovely Ms. Krall.

Just Too Cool

Please, watch to the end. You'll be happy. Via Firedoglake.

White Men Can't Think

Good for Louise Erdrich for refusing this honor. Bad for Charles Kupchella, the president of the university for being such a dumb shit.

Kupchella expressed surprise and disappointment Thursday night, saying Erdrich's nomination came from some of the faculty members in Indian programs. He defends the logo as a beautiful symbol designed by a respected Indian artist. The university uses the name Fighting Sioux with "consummate respect" and the nearest Sioux tribe has given written permission, he has said.

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This Would Hurt

If the bastards had any conscious at all. NYT editorial titled Gonzales v. Gonzales.

If Attorney General Alberto Gonzales had gone to the Senate yesterday to convince the world that he ought to be fired, it’s hard to imagine how he could have done a better job, short of simply admitting the obvious: that the firing of eight United States attorneys was a partisan purge.



Mr. Gonzales came across as a dull-witted apparatchik incapable of running one of the most important departments in the executive branch.

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Freedom Of The Press

NOT! Mr.Froomkin hits one out of the park. The most disturbing quote is when Cooper compares himself to Nelson Mandela. Nelson Mandela? Jesus Fucking Christ. How can a reporter, a reporter who helped Bu$hCo out a CIA employee, an employee, BTW, who was working on WMD, a reporter who knew the lies & did not report on those lies, compare himself to Nelson Mandela?

Former Time reporter Matthew Cooper writes in his new magazine about his own personal travails as a witness in the Scooter Libby case.



He evidently sees himself as quite the martyr. (At one point, describing his thinking about the possibility of going to jail to protect sources Libby and Rove, he writes: "I could do the full Mandela.")



Cooper describes all sorts of tensions involved in being a celebrity reporter for a corporate behemoth, caught between a special prosecutor and promises of confidentiality to top presidential aides.



But he doesn't seem to have been the least bit troubled by his failure to do his job -- if you consider the job of a journalist to inform the public, or at the very least not willfully misinform the public.



There is no sense in this piece that Cooper ever felt the urge to report his way out of his bind -- and find some way to tell the public what really happened. By contrast, in this October 2003 story, for instance, his magazine reported: "White House spokesman Scott McClellan said accusations of Rove's peddling information are 'ridiculous.' Says McClellan: 'There is simply no truth to that suggestion.'"



Cooper (along with at least two of his fellow contributors to that story) knew that to be an utter falsehood. But they printed it anyway, without any context or -- as far as I know -- any qualms.

My emphasis.

This was Nelson Mandela's cell in the infamous Robben Island prison.

This ought to be Mr. Cooper's cell, if there is any supernatural justice.

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More On Bees

The disappearance of honeybees is getting the exposure it needs. The bloggers are becoming aware of this unfolding disaster. This post offers some more anecdotal evidence. None of the evidence so far presented needs to be somehow verified. The paucity of bee research in America is quite appalling. Anyone with even a passing interest in how food gets into our stomachs knows how important bees are to that process.

“We have suspicions about pesticides,” he said. “We noticed most of the dead hives are close to cornfields. … And when we asked other beekeepers what was the principle crop near their hives, they said corn, corn, corn.”

....

Many farmers in the United States and around the world rely on genetically engineered corn to survive the assault of crop-killing insects. The seeds are coated with a systemic pesticide that is essentially built into the corn as it grows.



One of the chief chemicals used is a neurotoxin called imidacloprid, which is manufactured by the German company Bayer CropScience. Imidacloprid works by blocking a pathway in insect brains that results in an accumulation of a neurotransmitter which, in insects, leads to paralysis and death.



At sublethal doses, however, imidacloprid is toxic to honeybees.

The original piece is here. Via Suburban Guerrilla.



My emphasis.

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Bought & Paid For Justice

Wisco's newly elected Supreme Court Justice apparently does have ethics problems. This is what happens when extreme right wing groups like the WMC are allowed to dump millions of dollars into electoral politics. The WMC has absolutely no interest in what benefits the state at large - schools, children, the environment, workers rights. It only cares about the elite, wealthy owners of business concerns. Ziegler's ethics problems are no surprise to anyone who followed the recent election, but the WMC & the huge amount of money they dumped into the election, were able to cover this up. Wisco is going to be much, much poorer for this.

The state Ethics Board filed a complaint Wednesday against Supreme Court Justice-elect Annette Ziegler, saying she improperly decided five cases as a Washington County circuit judge that involved the bank for which her husband is a director.



The complaint came just two days before the state Judicial Commission will decide whether to investigate those cases, as well as ones involving companies in which she owned more than $50,000 in stock.

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Strange Evolution

Gordon Setter gives birth to hedgehog. Crazy stuff up here in northern Wisco. Hey Oz, you sunny CA dog, can you match this?

Amur Tiger Time

True family values.

Bonus video. Pretty cool views of Amur tigers.

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Man, Oh, Man

More really bad news from Iraq. I'm not sure how the wingnuts can spin this into how it's a sign of positive change. Jesus Christ.

A string of bombings killed at least 127 people across Baghdad today, as bloodshed spiked two months into a U.S.-led crackdown meant to placate the Iraqi capital.



The carnage underscored the profound insecurity that continues to plague the nation, where additional American soldiers are being deployed in an attempt to curb sectarian violence.

My emphasis.

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Medical Care Now Decided By Supreme Court

This is not a good thing. I hope NARAL, no link to this awful organization, is happy. Their support of Lieberman led directly to this ruling. They, both the 5 Supremes & NARAL ought to be ashamed of themselves.

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Jeez Louise

Tommy just making us Cheeseheads proud.

Republican presidential candidate Tommy Thompson told a Jewish group Monday that earning money is "part of the Jewish tradition,"....

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Progress

Well, this should help quite a bit.

The political bloc of firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday said it is quitting the Iraqi government, as a wave of bombings left another 43 people dead in Baghdad.

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Joke Writing, I Mean Finishing

Pretty funny. Read the rest.

A song about eels in which each measure ends, ‘That’s a Moray!’

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There has been a noticeable shortage of posts around here lately. I've been looking for them but can't find any, therefore I must be dumber than a post, plus I have one helacious head cold & I've been blowing my brains out into bandanas for the last week. I've been eating enough Vitamin C to start a factory of my own, what with the human body only able to use so much. I hate these early spring or, in my case, late winter colds. Plus, there's this

Amur Tiger Time

Take a good look.

We're Winning?

Just great security you've established in Iraq, Mr. Bu$hCo. Yes, yes, we must give it another Friedman or two. How many more will die?

A suicide bomber killed eight people in the Iraqi parliament on Thursday, brazenly penetrating to the heart of Baghdad's Green Zone to launch the deadliest strike yet in the heavily fortified compound.



Defying a two-month-old U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown, the bomber slipped through multiple armed checkpoints to reach the heart of the zone, a 10 sq. km (4 sq. miles) area housing parliament, government offices and many embassies.

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Moron,Evil Moron

First the guy gets us into a war under false pretenses, now he screws (I know, I know, but I spent the day with 3rd graders so give me a break) up the cushy job he was rewarded with for all that war success.

World Bank president Paul Wolfowitz Thursday confessed to errors over a pay scandal surrounding his girlfriend but still faced an open revolt from staff members agitating for his resignation.



"I made a mistake, for which I am sorry," Wolfowitz told a news conference, as uproar deepened over an employment package worth nearly 200,000 dollars given by the World Bank to his Libyan-born partner, Shaha Riza.



The association representing the World Bank's 10,000 staff said the embattled Wolfowitz had "destroyed" the trust of employees and should quit.



"He must act honorably and resign," the de facto union said in a letter to staff, according to contents confirmed to AFP.



"The president must acknowledge that his conduct has compromised the integrity and effectiveness of the World Bank Group and has destroyed the staff trust in his leadership," the staff association said.

Sounds like that "de facto union" ought to send the same message to Wolfowitz's old boss, the boy king Bu$hCo. 

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Kurt Vonnegut, R.I.P.

Obit here.

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Imus #2

So MSNBC has decided to dump Don Imus after his awful remarks about the Rutger's women's b-ball team. The remarks were nothing more than he has spouted over & over on his program. Right now I am watching MSNBC's hardball with guest host David Gregory. Mr. Gregory has appeared many times on Imus' show. Right now Mr. Gregory looks completely uncomfortable, which isn't surprising since Mr. Gregory is trying real hard to defend Imus' racism & not doing a very good job of it. These media elites really don't get it, they really don't understand how awful they are. Makes my head hurt.

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Imus

I hope he gets fired. Here is a good post from The General. With photos. Go read.

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Bad News For Us Locals

First is was the pics of low/no water in the lake by Shutterwi, now it appears that we are in for more trouble.

Lake Superior has been warming even faster than the climate around it since the late 1970s. Its ice cover could completely vanish by the winter of 2040, according to a study by professors at the University of Minnesota Duluth. A popular tourist spot,it is the largest freshwater lake in the world by surface area.



Summer surface temperatures on this famously cold lake have increased about 4.5 degrees since 1979, compared with about a 2.7-degree increase in the region's annual average air temperature, the researchers found. The lake's "summer season" is now beginning about two weeks earlier than it did 27 years ago.



"It's a remarkably rapid rate of change," Jay Austin, an assistant professor with the Minnesota Duluth.university's Large Lakes Observatory and Department of Physics, said. The study is based on data collected by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoys on the lake and on 102 years' worth of daily temperature readings at a hydroelectric plant near Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan. Austin said a trend toward warmer winters would mean less winter ice cover. That would in turn lead to more solar radiation of the lake and continued warming.



The lake loses more water to evaporation in a winter without ice cover than it does during the summer. As a result water levels could drop sharply. In recent months, the lake's level has been lower than at any equivalent time since 1926.

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Justice?

The Justice Department scandal hits home. First, the bogus prosecution of civil servant Georgia L. Thompson, but now we find out the upstanding citizen who wanted more voter fraud prosecutions turns out to be none other than Rick Wiley, who, at the time, was the executive director of the state of Wisconsin GOP/ReThug Party. Just for a refresher on Ms. Thompson's prosecution:

Federal judges Thursday ruled that former state purchasing supervisor Georgia L. Thompson was wrongly convicted of making sure a state travel contract went to a firm linked to Gov. Jim Doyle's re-election campaign and freed her from an Illinois prison.



The three-judge panel in Chicago acted with unusual speed, ruling after oral arguments by Thompson's attorney and the U.S. attorney's office.



During 26 minutes of oral arguments, all three judges assailed the government's case, with Judge Diane Wood saying at one point that "the evidence is beyond thin."

Emphasis added, although it's beside the point.



& a bit more on Mr. Wiley:

The state Republican Party went straight to the top in its efforts to make voter fraud an issue in Wisconsin.



Sources tell No Quarter that Rick Wiley, then the executive director of the state GOP, directed a staffer in 2005 to prepare a 30-page report on election abuses in Wisconsin so Wiley could pass it along to a top White House official.



That document, entitled "Fraud in Wisconsin 2004: A Timeline/Summary," turned up last week in the horde of White House and U.S. Justice Department records released by the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the firing of eight U.S. attorneys.



"The report was prepared for Karl Rove" said a source with knowledge of the situation. "Rick wanted it so he could give it to Karl Rove."

Again, emphasis added, but Karl Rove's sick mind is behind all of this, as any person with a pulse clearly understands.

#1 on democracy's wish-list.

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Progress?

Because of the vagueness of human reproduction, I don't have to live in the conditions this man lives in. These days, however, thinking of Bu$hCo & Cheney (lurking in the background), I sometimes feel the desolation that I hear in this man's words. It's hard to keep it up, both my mood & the occasional erection.

"We got rid of a tyrant and tyranny. But we were surprised that after one thief had left, another 40 replaced him," said Jubouri, who is a Shiite Muslim. "Now, we regret that Saddam Hussein is gone, no matter how much we hated him."

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Frank Boyle Rules

Via a new internets' friend, hizzoner, we get a good story that hasn't received much local press. I wonder why?

Frank Boyle, an Assemblyman from Superior Wisconsin is introducing a bill in the state Legislature to impeach President Bush.....

Go read the whole piece.

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More On Missing Bees

I was listening to a radio show discussing what's happening to the beekeeping industry. Here's an article about it. What pisses me off is that we are spending billions & billions on Bu$hCo's vanity war, while bees are dying. Don't take that as misplaced or deranged concern, bees are essential to our agriculture, part of our food chain. I know that cereal grains don't need bees, but just about everything else does. This is a big story that seems to be flying, heh, heh, under the radar.

The mass abandonment of beehives throughout the country is, officially, a mystery.

What's a mystery is why it's a mystery.

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Happy Easter

& here are some pics of The Twins, who are celebrating their first Easter.

Marigny

Marigny

Lucy

Lucy, After Changing Outfits

One Sad Easter Robin

Sad Tale

This is another in a long list of reasons to despise the Roman Catholic Church &, frankly, a country that allows this to continue.

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More ReThug Corruption

Boy, that Bu$hCo sure classed up the Executive Branch, eh?

The federal Education Department said this afternoon that it had placed a senior official on leave, following disclosures on Thursday that he held stock in a student loan company, even as he had helped oversee lenders in the federal student loan program.



The official, Matteo Fontana, is general manager in a unit of the Office of Federal Student Aid and has been an employee of the office since November 2002. A prospectus for a 2003 stock offering for the Education Lending Group, a student loan company, showed that Mr. Fontana held and planned to sell shares in the company valued at about $100,000 in the offering.

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OK, I'll Just Quit

Religiously & morally corrupt Monica Goodling has resigned from the Justice Department. Remember, she's the one who didn't exercise her constitutional right not to incriminate herself, but said she'd do it if called by the Congress to testify about Abu Al Gonzales & the purge of U.S. Attorneys.

Monica Goodling, the Justice Department official who helped coordinate the firings of eight United States attorneys, an episode that has jeopardized the position of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, resigned today.

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I Warned You Oklahoma

UPDATE: DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING-DING

This is the 3000th post of BillyCreek. I started this blog a couple of years ago without a lot of knowledge of blogs, but a great interest in getting rid of Bu$hCo & in keeping my sanity. I've learned a lot in the last couple of years. I've had my brushes with fame, e.g., mentioned by skippy, the bush kangaroo. skippy also mentioned & linked to my grandbabies' blog, The Twins. I've now put skippy on my blogroll & am proud to do it. I've also been linked to by Atrios, & got a few hundred hits that day. But the grandbabies are the tops right now. They are why I still blog for justice, why I am still a dirty, fucking hippie who is a non-serious lefty. Or so "they" say. It's been fun in blogtopia, yes, skippy coined that, & I'm looking forward to more fun & more outrage & more fatigue & more happiness & more popcorn (watching all of Bu$hCo being frogmarched & convicted) & more joy with The Twins.

But did you listen? Noooooo, you reelected James Imhofe (R-DumbestofDumbasses). Well, thanks a lot Oklahoma, future filming site of Okies II, Revenge Of The Peacock Bass.

A new global warming report issued today by the United Nations paints a near-apocalyptic vision of the Earth's future if temperatures continue to rise unabated: more than a billion people in desperate need of water, extreme food shortages in Africa and elsewhere, a blighted landscape ravaged by fires and floods, and millions of species sentenced to extinction.



The devastating effects will strike all regions of the world and all levels of society, but it will be those without the resources to adapt to the coming changes who will suffer the greatest impact, the report said.



"It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit," said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which issued the report today in Brussels.

Emphasis added.

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Darryl Stingley, R.I.P.

& Jack Tatum never apologized. Obit here.

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Impeach The Bastard

Sam Fox donates $50,000 to the Swift Boat bitches & claims the Sgt. Schultz defense. He gets called on it during a Senate hearing. Bu$hCo withdrew Fox's nomination, the result of realizing that Fox would not gain support from the new Senate. So what does the dickhead-in-chief do? He makes a recess appointment. Way to work in an honest, bipartisan manner, Bu$hCo. This sets another good example for the young people of America. Say one thing & do another. What an asshole.

Democrats find the recess appointment -- a common maneuver by presidents whose nominees stand little chance of getting through the standard confirmation process -- particularly egregious since Fox's nomination wasn't even pending. The White House withdrew the nomination last week, anticipating it didn't have enough votes for approval.

....

"It is outrageous that the president has sought to stealthily appoint Sam Fox to the position of ambassador to Belgium when the president formally requested that the Fox nomination be withdrawn from the Senate because it was facing certain defeat in the Foreign Relations Committee last week," Dodd said. "I seriously question the legality of the President's use of the recess appointment authority in this instance."

Emphasis added.

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Rare Easter Bunny

Well, at least no one ate the critter. One of the highlights of my sorry life was preparing rabbit for an Easter dinner one year. Everything was going fine until I sort of screwed the pooch by announcing to the three kids at the table that we were eating the Easter Bunny. I'm still living so I guess all this proves is that the family isn't religious or that the kids, now all adults, will need years of therapy. Who knows. Anyway, here's a pic of the rare bunny.

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Dickhead-In-Chief

This is how a bully works & ultimately fails. Via Dan Froomkin.

He [Bu$hCo, ed.] ridiculed lawmakers for leaving without finishing their war-spending legislation, but he opted not to use his power to call them back or to give up his own break."

& Harry Reid said this in reply to Bu$hCo:

"'He is president of the United States, not king of the United States,'...."

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J.B. Van Hollen Just Loves Him Some Corporate Ass

J.B. Van Hollen doesn't kick any corporate ass in this case. This tidbit is from Hoffman Construction's website.

The company grew from $25 million in revenue in 1984 to over $150 million in 2004.

You'd think J.B. Van Hollen, Wisco's ReThug Attorney General, could've made these dorks pay a little more than .000015% of their 2004 revenues. I'm assuming that they are making even more today. Way to show those destroyers of the environment that you really mean business, J.B. Oh, that's exactly what you mean, isn't it?

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Son-of-a-bitch Bu$hCo

The bastards knew about the contamination for three weeks, three weeks! I suppose the FDA didn't want to be too disruptive of business. Fuckers.

The FDA was notified by Menu Foods on March 8th, but did not issue their recall until March 30th. How many pets died because that information hadn't been released? And given how slow they've reacted, how can we be sure that the gluten has not made it into human food?

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We Got Fooled Again

I'd take a pic & post it of the absolutely crappy weather that's going on outside right now, but what's the point? It's snowing heavy, wet snow & it's blowing off the lake, that would be Lake Superior for those of you who don't understand what is said when we say "the lake." I spent my early a.m. chainsawing a pile of slabs into furnace sized pieces. Yeah, yeah, life in the woods is just fucking great. So my mood is low & I even took my meds. To perk my self up I made dinner plans with a young friend & her boyfriend, Mrs. coldH2O, & any hangers on that I can find between now & 5:30 p.m. CDT. That helped a bit. Then I decided to stream WWOZ & that is helping a lot. A somewhat contrary DJ is playing Derek and the Dominos & The Allman Brothers Band. Like I said, a lot. The snow continues to fall, however, so I must reach for something new, something seven or so months old, something grand-daughter like, so here it is, The Twins, just hanging around in the woods, a woods without snow.

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What A Roo

skippy, the bush kangaroo is by far, by all means measurable, the tops. Oh, & appears to be a fine judge of cuteness. The Twins are so excited that they are gorging on organic California avocados.

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Reason #4873 To Despise Capitalism

It kills your cat. I've posted on this debacle before, but this is a good primer on what's wrong. I'm all for value & work, but they're right when they claim China, among others, is financing Bu$hCo's illegal war in Iraq.

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Only The Finns

You really, really need to know the/a Finn to get the true gist of this, but it is funny on its own as well. What a way to start a Sunday morning. Via echidne via Atrios.