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.

Why Science Matters, Edition #38940

Naked mole rats.

You Really Need To Carefully Read Those Stolen Emails

An iceberg reaches Macquarie Island, 930 miles southeast of Tasmania, Australia, on Nov. 16

Australian Antarctic Division / Eve Merfield / AP

This picture would have had to be Photoshopped at one time,  not any longer.

This Is The Institution That Is Directing Health Care In America?

How far we've fallen as a nation.

"I do not exaggerate," Roosa told MacDonald on Tuesday. "People have died waiting for this case to end."

Well, This Ought To Work

Yeah, that's the ticket. This creepy loser will not make the BCS smell any better. The BCS & the contrived way it crowns a champion actually deserves a dickward like Fleischer.

Two In A Row

Packers win.

Farve Wins

AGAIN! He threw 4 TD passes & is now 10-1.

Biggest University In Wisco Loses

Oh, well.

Amur Tiger Time

A happier post, I suppose. Pic is from the Nuremberg Zoo, via the L.A. Times.

Play On Words, My Ass

The Wall Street Journal has always been a paper of lies & deceit, of apology for the continuing excesses of capitalism. & the editorial page has long been a bastion for the supremacy of white men. The headline for a recent editorial proves, once again, just how far the paper will go in protecting the privileges of the wealthy, white, the thugs of America.

Amur Tiger Time

It's been awhile since I posted on my favorite animal, the Amur tiger. The new news is, of course, not good.  As much a fan I am of indigenous cultures, I have an increasingly difficult time accepting the murder of Amur tigers for health potions that do not work.

These “cures” have never been proven to be

Jesus On A Cracker, Indeed

Packers win, yes, they beat the Cowboys 17-7.

Favre Wins, Again

27-10.

45-24, Badgers

The college football team in Wisco looked good. Wonder how the professional team will look today?

Thanks In Advance

Ya'll really need to go here & sign the petition. Then, copy the link & send it to everybody you know, including Uncle Bubba. It appears Stupak (M-Moronville) & the rest of his Blue Dung Posse need to be led into the light & into salvation & away from their patronizing, women hating ways.

Just Absolute Bullshit

This is such a tortured argument that I wonder how much the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce may have paid this panel to come to the finding that what Gableman did is protected by the First Amendment, the notion that the lies Gableman told were objectively true. To use an expression Gableman & other stupid wingnuts use, this defies common sense.

More here.

I Told You So

Any caring person, interested in the health & vibrancy of urban life has every right to yell I told you so. This isn't just about the evil government taking private property, it's about corporations bullying local officials & then, after the dirty work has been done, walking away from the community.

Sean Duffy, Candidate For A Congressional Seat...In Milwaukee?

I guess those of us who know Sean Duffy best, his constituents in Ashland County, Wisco, refuse to fund his bogus campaign, so he must go elsewhere.

The candidate that Block is throwing the fundraiser for, Sean Duffy, is currently a District Attorney, so we can probably rule him out as the person to ask the important questions about the fundraiser. We can also rule Sean Duffy out because he is the same DA that passed the buck when One Wisconsin Now asked him to investigate Michael Gableman's apparent use of a state phone to raise campaign funds. Earlier this year OWN brought up an entirely new line of questions related to Duffy's refusal to investigate Gableman's calls. Naturally Duffy never answered or addressed any of those questions so we can't expect him to give any reliable answers regarding the fundraiser today.

Since the event is being held in Milwaukee, perhaps the Milwaukee County DA could render an opinion on the situation or perhaps the Milwaukee press could ask a few questions about whether any important lines are being crossed with this fundraiser.

The person throwing the fundraiser for Sean Duffy, Mark Block, fits right in with Duffy's other buddies. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has this bit of Block's biography.

Americans for Prosperity’s state director is Mark Block, a top fundraiser for President George W. Bush, who masterminded a plan to illegally funnel money into the 1997 reelection campaign of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Jon Wilcox from wealthy, out-of-state backers of school voucher programs. Block was fined $15,000 and banned from consulting and volunteering on state campaigns until 2004.

Sounds like he could have been sitting the the Ashland County, Wisco, DA's office the day that Sean Duffy refuses to talk about.  Now, that's the kind of man we need in Congress to replace Dave Obey.

Obey grew up as a Republican. However, he was so angered after seeing one of his teachers falsely branded a Communist by backers of Joseph McCarthy that he became a Democrat in the mid-1950s, sometime between the ages of 16 and 18.

Smart guy. My emphases.

Typical

The worst thing about this wounded deer is that the ReThug Pawlenty left before the search was over. I wonder if there is some sort of law or regulation in MN about fair chase? Pawlenty surely doesn't understand the concept, or morality, of fair chase, that's for sure. This episode is enough, IMNO, to eliminate him from any presidential talk. What a tool.

Where's Bob Dole When You Need Him?

I suppose they will fix it now.

Rump, But Not The Roast

Paul Krugman.

The point is that the takeover of the Republican Party by the irrational right is no laughing matter. Something unprecedented is happening here — and it’s very bad for America.

Bart Stupak, You Deserve This

This guy makes me ashamed to be living 30 west of the UP. What a moron. Anyway, I'm stealing, in totality, Tbogg's great post about Stupak, stupidity, sexism, & stupidity, there I've said it again.  Go do what Tbogg says, or the Basset Hounds will be loosed.

Bart Stupak, who is apparently a congressman from some horrible depressing dying part of Michigan, does not seem to understand that abortion is a legal medical procedure in the rest of America that isn’t horrible, depressing and dying. So he would like to eliminate the part of the public option that would cover this procedure for poor women, and if his plan also makes it tougher for not-poor women to get this legal medical procedure, well, that gives him a boner too.

Since the Democratic leadership won’t stand up to him (because they are the Democratic leadership, after all) please go make a donation to Planned Parenthood in Bart Stupak’s name here.

Also. Please have Planned Parenthood send a thank you card to Bart Stupak:

Congressman Bart Stupak
2268 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515

Any amount, no matter how small, will do.

Thank you.

Saturday Science

Wolves, really old wolves.

17.5%

Time for a great big stimulus for the regular folks in America. The banks had their day, now it's time for fixing up the national parks, the local waysides, historic buildings, the list is long, but all the things that need fixing are essential for a vibrant & strong America. The hell with Limbaugh, Hannity, O'Reilly, & Boner. Oh, & to hell with Stupak & the rest of the Blue Dogs if they want to continue to make their camp with the Rethugs & wingers. Stupak ought to know better, he's from the UP, after all. A day's drive from the bridge to Ironwood would be a case study in things that need to be fixed. We know how to create the jobs, what we need, apparently, is a President who cares enough to not worry about some fake bipartisanship. Those ReThugs don't give a damn about the country, they only believe in standing in the school house door.

Tweet, But Not Twitter

I sure hope we still have lots of room for people like William Belton to roam around this world.

Man, I Just Wish It Would Stop, Episode #340,987

Kudos to the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel for continuing to investigate the toxicity of BPA.

A new test conducted for Consumer Reports magazine found bisphenol A leaching into food from nearly all cans, including those marked "BPA-free" and "organic."

You can click the link in the Milwaukee paper's article, or click HERE to get to the Consumer's Reports study. &, of course, the governments, local*, state**, national***, will probably continue to dither around, giving the chemical industry a breaks & cover. Just sad & dangerous.

Now Consumer Reports' latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna, and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods we tested contain some BPA. The canned organic foods we tested did not always have lower BPA levels than nonorganic brands of similar foods analyzed. We even found the chemical in some products in cans that were labeled "BPA-free."

*Suffolk County, New York; Chicago have passed regulations banning the sale of baby bottles with BPA.
**Minnesota has banned baby bottles with BPA; Conneticut has banned it completely; Massachusetts has warned its citizens about the danger of BPA.
***Canada banned the baby bottles last year.
(At least the babies are protected in a few areas.)

Michael Gableman, Wisco's Great Disgrace

More on the moron, here.

No Snows Of Kilimanjaro

Hemingway's The Snows Of Kilimanjaro may soon be more than just a great short story, it may become an example of a sad history. The history of a species smart enough to finally understand global warming, but unable to act fast enough, decisively enough, to end the coming disaster. Those among us who deny the reality of global warming apparently value money over human life. So much for this biped species.

Eighty-five percent of the ice cover that was present in 1912 has vanished, the scientists said.

& let's not forget that it is easy to mess with the evidence, as the Austrians have done in this case. Given the fact, as pointed out by Lonnie Thompson, that the phenomenon of glacial ice melting in the mountains of the tropics is widespread, how can you suggest it is only a lack of moisture problem? &, with further research, it may well be found that the so-called lack of moisture is also a product of man-made global warming. My emphasis.  BTW, you can buy Hemingway's book here. Go buy it, for Christ's sake.

Febuary 17, 1993 (top photo)

February 23, 2000 (bottom photo)

Gableman Is A Crook?

"It would be irresponsible not to speculate." Of course, the Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce is now calling in its chits after electing Ziegler & Gableman to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. The Sheboygan paper has it right, as does the blog, the illusory tenant.

Science, Damnit, Science

A husband & wife team has discovered a new species of dinosaur.

(Credit: Illustration by William Parsons)

The new dinosaur, a species of ankylosaur, is documented in the October issue of the Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences. Ankylosaurs are the biological version of an army tank. They are protected by a plate-like armour with two sets of sharp spikes on each side of the head, and a skull so thick that even 'raptors' such as Deinonychus could leave barely more than a scratch.