I scream, you scream, we all scream for …. 27 June 2008
Posted by marisacat in California / Pacific Coast, Inconvenient Voice of the Voter, San Francisco.trackback
… ice cream…
The San Francisco Chronicle has a good update on the colony collapse / honey bee problem… and Haagen Dazs over in Oakland is worried… what if there are no strawberries?
PDT Washington — Could strawberry ice cream disappear from our lives? What about vanilla Swiss almond?
The folks at Haagen-Dazs are worried enough that they and others have mounted a campaign to halt the shocking decline of honeybees and other pollinators of strawberry plants, almond trees and the rest of the roughly 90 percent of terrestrial plant life that needs pollination.
Officials of the Oakland company told Congress on Thursday that more than 40 percent of its product’s flavors, derived from fruits and nuts, depend on honeybees. Without bees, fruits and nuts cannot exist.
As for whether strawberry, raspberry or almond ice cream could disappear, Haagen-Dazs brand director Katty Pien said, “We hope not, but that’s why there is such a sense of urgency, so that the millions of people who love our strawberry ice cream can have it forever.”
Honeybees mysteriously began to abandon their colonies in 2006, destroying about a third of U.S. hives. The rate of decline is accelerating, reaching 36 percent last winter.
“How would our federal government respond if 1 out of every 3 cows was dying?” Maryann Frazier, a bee expert at the University of Pennsylvania, asked during testimony to the House subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture.
And this…
Federal research dollars are beginning to flow and will jump dramatically with the newly passed farm bill, but scientists remain baffled about the cause of pollinator decline. The problem extends not just to the commercialized honeybee imported from Europe 400 years ago but, etymologists say, to other native pollinators.
Those include native bees such as bumblebees that are also showing rapid declines, plus butterflies, moths, beetles, flies, hummingbirds and bats. Lack of data on these species hinders measurement.
When I first saw this bee laying motionless on its side, I wasn’t sure if it was dead or just sleeping, as I have seen solitary desert bees sleeping in flowers before. I took this photo and wandered off to take some more wildflower photos. When I came back, the bee was still there. I just had to know if it was alive or not, so I bumped the flower. The little fuzzy bee woke up and flew off to another Apache Plume flower, where I left the sleepy bee undisturbed this time. [Bee sleeping in a flower, from The Firefly Forest]
And a bit more…
Visalia beekeeper Steve Godlin said 1.3 million honeybee hives are trucked in each spring from around the country to pollinate the California almond crop, which is fast replacing cotton in the Central Valley. The collapse of honeybee hives and the enormous demand for almond pollination has sent its price soaring.
That will show up soon in grocery store prices, said committee Chairman Rep. Dennis Cardoza, D-Fresno. Haagen-Dazs’ Pien said the company is bracing for not just higher costs but a reduction in the supply of pollinated ingredients.
After a survey showed half the public is not even aware of the bee decline, the company awarded a $250,000 research grant to UC Davis and the University of Pennsylvania. It also opened a public education campaign, starting with a limited edition flavor called Vanilla Honey Bee and a goal to distribute 1 million flower seeds to consumers and community groups to aid native pollinators. A Web site, www.helpthehoneybees.com, provides information.
I think that 50% have heard of the problem with the honey bee is GOOD… more than I would have expected.
The article has several links to information about the collapse or what can be done with the plain old home garden to help…
The group, at www.pollinator.org, is issuing guides for each of 35 eco-regions of the country that can be used by farmers, public-land managers, corporations and consumers for choosing pollinator-friendly plants and practices.
“People who were afraid when they saw a bee are now afraid when they don’t see one,” Adams said.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Just saw this near the end of the previous thread…
We are the last “first” people. We forget that. We act big, misuse our land, ourselves. We lose our own primary.
–Charles Olson, Call Me Ishmael: A Study of Melville, 1947
spermaceti to petrol
1. Farewell to the Holocene
Our world, our old world that we have inhabited for the last 12,000 years, has ended, even if no newspaper in North America or Europe has yet printed its scientific obituary.
. . .This planetary deficit of opportunity and social justice is captured in the fact that more than one billion people, according to UN-Habitat, currently live in slums and that their number is expected to double by 2030. An equal number, or more, forage in the so-called informal sector (a first-world euphemism for mass unemployment). Sheer demographic momentum, meanwhile, will increase the world’s urban population by 3 billion people over the next 40 years (90% of them in poor cities), and no one — absolutely no one — has a clue how a planet of slums, with growing food and energy crises, will accommodate their biological survival, much less their inevitable aspirations to basic happiness and dignity.
If this seems unduly apocalyptic, consider that most climate models project impacts that will uncannily reinforce the present geography of inequality. One of the pioneer analysts of the economics of global warming, Petersen Institute fellow William R. Cline, recently published a country-by-country study of the likely effects of climate change on agriculture by the later decades of this century. Even in the most optimistic simulations, the agricultural systems of Pakistan (a 20% decrease from current farm output predicted) and Northwestern India (a 30% decrease) are likely to be devastated, along with much of the Middle East, the Maghreb, the Sahel belt, Southern Africa, the Caribbean, and Mexico. Twenty-nine developing countries will lose 20% or more of their current farm output to global warming, while agriculture in the already rich north is likely to receive, on average, an 8% boost.
In light of such studies, the current ruthless competition between energy and food markets, amplified by international speculation in commodities and agricultural land, is only a modest portent of the chaos that could soon grow exponentially from the convergence of resource depletion, intractable inequality, and climate change. The real danger is that human solidarity itself, like a West Antarctic ice shelf, will suddenly fracture and shatter into a thousand shards.
–Mike Davis, “Living on the Ice Shelf: Humanity’s Melt Down,” 26 June 2008
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Photo of Tatiana by Thomas Hawk, thomashawk.com
On Tatiana, the tiger at the SF Zoo:
Diet and Weight
Before she arrived in San Francisco, it appeared Tatiana was reaching her physical maturity. In the six months before she left Denver after steady growth as a cub, zoo records show her weight fluctuated only slightly, between 292 and 299 pounds, in the middle weight range for Siberian females.
But in San Francisco, her weight declined steadily, dropping into the 270s in her first year at the zoo in 2006, into the 260s the first half of last year, then into the 250s last fall. In her last live weighing last December, two weeks before the fatal attack, Tatiana weighed just 244. Her necropsy set her weight at death at 242 pounds, 50 pounds less than her zoo arrival weight as noted in the San Francisco Zoo’s “Individual Specimen Report.”
…
In Denver, she was being fed 42 pounds of meat a week: six pounds a day, seven days a week. The Denver Zoo says she was in good shape, and that there was no indication she was over-weight when she was sent to her new home.
But upon her arrival in San Francisco, zoo records show she was fed less, 36 pounds a week: six pounds six days a week, with the seventh day a “fast day” that is not uncommon in big cat zoo diets. Her weight records show Tatiana lost 20 pounds in her first month in San Francisco.
.. and this:
“Frantic for Food”
In the months that followed the return to the smaller diet, Tatiana’s keepers made note several times of her apparent hunger for more food in the log entries. From the zookeeper’s log of April 21, 2007: Tatiana “frantic for food.” From the log of June 1: Tatiana “frantic for food.” From the log of June 3: Tatiana “very hungry.” From a November 11 zookeeper report, noting Tatiana’s theft of part of a male tiger’s meal: “Animal got double her ration today. She acted like she wanted more.”
The San Francisco Zoo’s Jencek said the keepers’ notes were not unusual. “You want the animals to be excited about meal time. That’s the kind of response you want from them. I don’t want an animal being sluggish. I’d rather have an animal that’s active and enthusiastic.”
But some outside experts disagreed, saying zookeepers make note of the unusual, not of normal behavior. “You do want some eagerness to eat, but it sounds like this was on the other side of that,” said Richardson. “At least the keeper thought it was, or he wouldn’t have written that. You know maybe we’re not giving her enough. First thing that pops into my mind. That’s without seeing her, but that’s the most common reason a cat would be that hungry and act that hungry is that she’s not getting enough.”
Pat Derby, founder and president of PAWS (Performing Animal Welfare Society) and a veteran of 35 years working with tigers and other captive wildlife, said feeding behavior is important. “We instruct our keepers if the animals eat everything that you feed and they still display signs of hunger, if they’re snarly and they attack the meat, you want to increase their diet. Behavioral signs are critical to any diagnosis. You can’t just look at an animal and say they look thin or fat.”
Throw the zoo officials and any city officials involved into the tiger grotto. Every chapter of that Christmas day at the Zoo is a nightmare.
^^^^^^^^^^^
The Chron also has an report on local reaction to the ruling in Heller
[T]he National Rifle Association immediately said it would use the ruling for a new round of legal challenges to gun-control laws, including the ban on handgun possession in public housing in San Francisco.
…
San Francisco voters approved a broader prohibition on handgun possession by city residents in 2005, but it was overturned by state courts, which said it conflicted with California law.
Trigger-lock law threatened
A separate ordinance, passed by the Board of Supervisors in 2007, requires gun-owning residents to keep their weapons in locked boxes or to disable them with trigger locks. Cox said the NRA might challenge that law as well.
…
That restriction, the court said, “makes it impossible for citizens to use them for the core lawful purpose of self-defense.” One advantage of having a loaded handgun available, Scalia observed, is that “it can be pointed at a burglar with one hand while the other hand dials the police.”
San Francisco District Attorney Kamala Harris said both the Housing Authority ban and the local trigger-lock requirement appear to be vulnerable under the ruling.
The ruling “leaves open for dispute and interpretation some of the existing laws that we have restricting or regulating gun ownership and use,” said Harris, who was co-author of a brief signed by 18 prosecutors around the nation urging the court to rule narrowly and leave local regulations intact.
The courts will be busy
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Not only captive, but captive and starving.
That story is painful about Tatiana.
It would be so even if she had been an ugly creature, but she certainly wasnt.
Scrolling down without knowing a tiger would appear, all I saw at first was a gorgeous flash of amber and black beauty, just a snap before classifying it as “tiger” … Wow.
it was hard to find a picture of her to use… but that one, taken by an individual photographer, in the year before her death, in her cage, was what I wanted.
They should close the zoo. Really.
A couple of years ago I stumbled in a Cspan Wash Journal that spent a half hour on how badly managed, cruelly mismanaged (animals have died of neglect) the DC zoo is… and that it is under the authority of congress… DC being a colony, essentially. Geesh can we care for nothing.
Well… this should send a chill up anyone’s spine, tho entirely to be expected…. A financial advisor on ABC is suggesting strongly to get out of any investment linked to the American consumer. “Hard times are here” and “7.00 a gallon gas is being predicted”.
…Geesh can we care for nothing…
Well, as soon as Newt stages his comeback via FOX, we’ll hear all about it and then the Democrats will leap to action. Probably Obama will be on the scene, lecturing the animals about hope and passing out flag pins.
We have at least two colonies of bees at Chez Xeno. Both of them bumblebees. They apparently like to move into holes abandoned by burrowing small rodents. I see some of them at times disappearing into/emerging from a hole leading to the crawlspace below the house (we have no basement). I have huge clusters of spiderwort that brings them out in droves, because that perennial puts out brand new blooms every day for a month, even in part-shade.
Once again my head explodes at the hypocricy of rightwing orgs like the NRA. Haven’t they been whining for decades about how terribly litigious the left is, about how terrible it is for courts to overthrow “the will of the people” etc.
At least some of us will be heavily armed when the food riots hit. I’m sure that will work out great.
I bought a pot of these lilies last nite. (A splurge for me – a 10″ pot for $20). Just beautiful and they seem to be new around here. More info here.
I won’t have as much room as I thought for gardening here with the invasion of a trampoline and above-ground pool in the yard so I’ll be relegated to containers. There’s one main flower bed that the (anal-retentive, perfectionist) roomie is planting – flowers evenly spaced and colour-coordinated etc. Yeesh. Because we all know nature is perfect. She spelled out The Plan for me and I told her that she’d better plant her own little flowers. Dog forbid I should put a yellow one where a red one was supposed to go.
I see the big UNITY event is on today. I guess that means all will be right with the world again? (hehe)
Snake Oil: $2300/bottle. Send Money Now! We even have a convenient payment plan for you. Heal! (Heel!)
Talking head slobberation ensues with the main point being that they didn’t kill each other on stage so that’s a hopeful sign.
Yewknitty…
somewhere or other (think The Page) one attendee referred to the event at the Mayflower as ‘being sent to Aunt Ida who pinches your cheeks’. Considering how lecturing and pulpiteer one is, mean older sister the other is… I say BINGO.
Whatever makes them all happy so they kill each other and not us.
NYT’ headline to receive paraleipsis award du jour:
“Muslim Supporters Shouldn’t Be a Political Liability “
Arcturus…
I must be missing it at NYT, both FP and political page. hmm…
LOL ON the political page I do see a link to Greenwald in Salon about Obama’s secret plan to save the rule of law. Good choice of wording
LOL Maybe Richardson heard from a little bird he never was on the VP list (from Ben Smith).
here – it jumped off the google news page at me – actually in Letters to Ed – the headline, I’d assume, is by the NYT
Thanks Arcturus… in the meantime I had to reboot, off to read.
From the second letter at the link:
And i have a bridge to sell her, with the urgency of now. If you are constantly disappointed, across the spectrum of your people… get a clue, YOU ARE NOT INCLUDED.
re: yesterday’s talk about BO & the DP – no, it wasn’t news to those paying attention (good grief that woman on DN! this am) that he’s a longtime DP supporter – what IS shocking is the seemingly uncritical embrace of widening it to a whole ‘nother category of crimes where no one was killed, not merely another widening of ’special circumstances’ (i.e. murder w/in x feet of a church, of a LE officer, etc) – the only exceptions to that historical practice are treason & desertion – the system can’t adequately deal w/ the capital cases it already has – assuming only 1/3 of the child-rapists were to receive a death sentence, does he have any idea of the numbers that would be involved? the expense??? not to mention that once the door is opened to death sentences for a crime where no is killed, one can only imagine the drumbeats for more
well, it is the Ricky Ray Rector moment. Despite poor Dick Polman (who I read and often don’t disagree with) saying, at least O did not fry some convict.
Oh but he did.
The most cynical Dem run, of my life. And my life included some very fucked runs. The party knew that all people had left was celebrity pages and slap happy, die without it, “hope”.
Count me out.
36th levee in the midwest broke:
I wonder about the upcoming winter. Folsom Lake is nearly drained, like most CA reservoirs. We’ve had levee trouble in the past, w/ water managers wanting to hold back as much as they can during droughts, then getting overwhelmed by ‘pineapple express’ storms dumping unexpected amounts in short periods & finally releasing massive amounts too quickly.
During the night I caught a news report from Missouri, “levees like jellie”
– and primed to go.
I think it is three weeks now of flooding, several rivers and tributaries.
Kozloff at CP looks at another crumbling levee of Obama’s, School of the Americas.
Watch the water rise.
I came across some reference to Olberman bitching and moaning how fast some complained about Russert, he was not cold, not in his grave, etcetera!.
Well he must be cold and long long long in his grave cuz fruit of the ol’ Russert looms is shilling for a job at (as he put it) “the Peacock network”.
Grace a Larry King. LOL Someone should pee on the child peacock…
Again, I can recommend the archives at chicago Trib, Sun TImes, Chicago Reader, so stuff is not newzzzzzzzzzzz:
Page 1 of The Note with multiple links. The Chicago lawfirm ObamaRama was at for … 6 years I think, was the conduit resource for state and federal monies for all sorts of games. The Allison Davis mentoned above was a partner in the firm . Valerie Jarrett’s father was head of Chicago Housing Authority under FDR. And she has been around for the shenanigans. This ain’t your grandfather’s paternalism. Nor Eleanor’s maternalims.
I rather expect ObamaRama to make VJ his Chief of Staff. I’m so hoping he does. Shades of McClarty and Arkla.
Not sure if ya’ll have seen this:
Israel gives UN watchdog secret briefing on Iran
By Barak Ravid
Tags: IAEA, Aaron Abramovich
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/996713.html
I forgot to include the priceless comment on the Haaretz article:
Israel Signed the NPT?
Guy from NYC:
LOL why shoudl they sign? When were they held to anything?
“He better go back to the Internet,” said another person who was in the room.
Another one of the rebel children, talking out of turn after the Mayflower meeting.
Dodd praises Reid’s leadership on FISA. Greg Sargent serves the dish with drool and slobber. So appetizing.
oops! must go! Doug Kmeic is up on TNH, on the Roberts court. Beloved of Obama. Or the other way around.
Yup NRA filed suit against CCSF and SF Housing Authority over Heller…
I took catnip’s name in vain.
But Smithee started it. [pout]
BTW, was it catnip, Mcat, or somebody else who mentioned a treasure trove of Chicago press pieces somewhere that took a rather skeptical view of Obama’s community organizing career ? A cursory use of google brings up TNR, Saint Kristol, and hordes of confused Muslim-bashers.
Just wondering.
Wilmette Illinois suspends their handgun ban..
AND, just heard that NRA has filed suit against CCSF and SF Housing Authority, in the wake of Heller.
Keepin’ Cool w/Spam.
16. assuming only 1/3 of the child-rapists were to receive a death sentence, does he have any idea of the numbers that would be involved? the expense???
He’s only interested in the fierce urgency of getting elected. Don’t confuse him with facts.
(And what difference does it make if a murder is committed x number of feet from a church? That’s the first I’ve heard of that ridiculous exception.)
ms xeno, if you go to Chicago Trib, Sun-Times archives on Obama (there is a lot, not just on “comunity organsier) or to the Boston Globe today (see above comment 23 on The Note), they look at the dirty inner city workings of public housing cash for renovations to Rezko and then privatisation of maintenance and upkeep.
Also Chicago Reader, a local press that has several long articles on Obama in their archives. They headline that section: ObamaRama.
Really.
I noted during today’s Obamalama speech he said he was a community “leader” – not an “organizer”. That was new to me.
32. the degree of specificity for qualifying enhancements gets to be quite ridiculous in many states (& fed statutes) – & yes, they use “qualify” – worthy of a Carlin routine – congratulations! you’ve now QUALIFIED for a capital enhancement!
meanwhile, more gooberment by lawsuit – they’re so going to regret not settling this (think the screams about the medical receiver’s spending authority were loud?)
Ms_xeno #32
What’s that round thingy at the bottom of the ad? It Iooks ike a seal of some kind, a presdiemtial seal. Is it, could it be…
“The Obama Seal of Approval”
He claims successes with “Altgeld Homes” so adding that to your search may help.
I am sorry I try not to keep much anymore… but did have 30 + links on Obama background bookmarked on IE, which fell apart and was eating my computer the week after Baby died. I dumped IE wihout even thinking of the links.
**********
In other news, 14 y/o charged with capital murder in death of newborn. (thanks to moiv)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25401868/from/ET/
Thanks for the help, Mcat. But I have to leave now. CSTAR knows too much.
:p
Okay,
Between the bees and the tiger (WTF, they killed her???) I’m too depressed to care about politics.
I remember once someone released a study that said if insects were removed from the planet all life would cease to exist within five years. But if people were to disappear, life would flourish.
I don’t know if that’s factually correct or not but it sure sounds right to me. What a mess we make. How we survive ourselves? I don’t know if it’s possible.
I was searching for this thing about within X feet of a church warrants death penalty/Obama? Couldnt find anything, but did find this, a la FOX.
Audacity of Vengeance!
OBAMA, MCCAIN CONDEMN SUPREME COURT DECISION ON CHILD RAPE
40
Gayle sorry I did not reference the whole story of Tatiana… if you follow the link, there is a quick synopsis at the end. She was taunted Christmas day, night, really after nightfall. By three visotrs, males, who test showed were drunk and stoned. She cleared the dry moat and scaled the wall. She got one. AFAIC since she was killed, she could have gotten all three. I am nto for the supremacy of the human race.
It seems the one she did get might be the least culpable of taunting her but still was there, and was (iirc) also compromised as to being stoned., she attached the other two, he apparently tried to help his friends. The two who lived have the messiest personal records. One seems to be a professional shop lifter.
Just dicey. As the night unfolded and events since, the whole thing is a clusterfuck. Now this ticbit that she was edgey and underfed.
41
let me see what I can find NYCee… I read it at one fo the Chicago papers. Maybe it referenced a piece of legislation that died…
She looks thin in the photo, now that Ive taken a longer look.
Thanks, Mc.
That is just bald-faced looney.
Dow down to 11,346
added: NBC news jsut added that Dow lost 1100 pts this month, and could be the worst June in 50 years.
Marisacat,
I did know about the Christmas day attack. I thought they rebuilt the tiger exhibit to be more secure as a result. I did not know she was killed because of the attack, which is incredibly naive of me, I know.
I’m horrified when people kill mountain lions or bears in the wild for attacking people, too. When we’re not badgering them outright, we do get in their way by encroaching on their habitat, killing off their natural sources of food, etc.
“AFAIC since she was killed, she could have gotten all three. I am nto for the supremacy of the human race.”
Yes, and as far as I’m concerned, even if she had taken all three out, she shouldn’t have been put down. She’s a tiger for god’s sake. And, apparently, a tiger who was both hungry and taunted. Why blame her for their poor security?
Politicians sheer political positioning is often quite obvious in their death penalty “exceptions.”
I recall reading Dean’s wholly anti stance on the dp, which he changed for “exceptions” about a year before he ran. It which was so well worded before he mangled it – a concise, common sense statement about the death penalty’s lack of logic, morally speaking, and the lack of deterrence. Then he nipped away at its purity and tucked in an exception for those who killed cops and maybe another one, cant recall for what. Kerry also sullied his once wholly anti stand by making an exception for terrorists.
Obama wants to have it both ways. He apparently made it less easy to sentence the wrong person to death, thus narrowing the dp’s application (Im with you, doves. Aint no Texan!) but drops a few chunks of dripping red meat (For you, hawks! Aint no bleedin heart!) with his exceptions for the elderly and cop volunteers and child murderers. What a mess.
How ’bout that state’s rights thing, too. Leave it up to the states, says he. Hang em high, LA, if ya must (It was a case from LA that led to the SCOTUS call) Must endear him to the libertarians, that Colorado/out-west vote he covets… rugged independence… Leave us to do it our way, you do it yours… to kill or not to kill, chocolate or vanilla… it’s just a preference, really.
Ya know, I get especially upset when people are cruel to dogs and cats. Please, Mr Obama… can those folk get the death penalty too? Oh please please please! I need it.
Well even Kaine who professes to be a Great Catholic and (as afar as I have read) keeps his compromise simple, he is against it but will carry out the law. Jesus in his far back pocket.
But I also read that as soon as the SC ruled on death by injection, that VA ramped up. Minute one.
So……………………
I will hand it ot Mitterand for his many faults, he shut down DP in France as soon as he took office in 91. Saying that once it is simply not occurring the place it holds in the minds of people changes.
They used to poll at abut 15% regularly for it (as I recall) but with the rise of immigration issues, rise of the right, etc.. I don’t know about now. EU has a platform of being opposed, iirc. Think you cannot join EU if you have capital punishment.
No you cant (join Europe with it). Gawd, what a shame. People’s pet vengeance peeves get no “closure” without the ultimate punishment …
But that’s why I always say I prefer America to Europe. America, hands down, with it’s exciting, ever mutating patchwork of death penalties. A veritable Baskin Robbins of choices!
A black bear wandered into my burb for a fun day of bird feeder raiding and garbage tipping recently. Footprints showed the bear also paused to look into a screened porch. After a hysterical afternoon of fake bear sightings (bears are not at all common here), the creature was discovered up a tree just a few houses down from where he was first spotted.
The state environmental office tranquilized him, then determined he was doomed under the “three strikes and you’re out” rule. Euthanized. (He had been picked up two times previously — most recently, in a high traffic corridor 40 miles away — and just would not stay away from human habitation.) I can’t say they made the wrong decision.
Last winter, a couple of young deer jumped into my backyard (deep in suburbia, post-and-rail fenced). They were cute, probably from a wooded area a couple miles away, and probably looking for food because of the unusually deep snow cover. Now it’s high summer and they just keep coming back. In broad daylight. When people are around. I had to go out in my back yard and get 10 feet away from one and tell it to leave. The next time, I had to throw a pail in its general direction. What’s spooky is that they know what roads are. After fleeing across the backyards, they stop and look both ways!
47
she was shot that night, during the incident. I gather this is Zoo policy, not just SF Zoo… But there was such a paucity of proper infrastructure (and no security cameras either), no matter what, NOTHING was her fault.
from all reports she only went after the three who attacked her, but even tho a winter night, there were other people there. But yes, let’s get drunk stoned, drive to the beach and the zoo and taunt a big tiger. Brainless. As culpable as the City is, I hope the contributing circumstances whittle down any settlement. To nothing.
The unfold of the scene was a mess. In every way.
The bee on the white flower looks kind of like a tiny bunny.
25 – Amen. Israel, known rogue nuke state and proliferator (reportedly helped South Africa build a nuke, then helped them dismantle the program before Aparteid was dismantled).
No one even talks about the death penalty in politics. At least they talk about how no one (on the Dem side) talks about gun control anymore.
Liliana Segura
53
I thought that little bee was amazing, one reason I included the text from the site… and the site (one of several the photograher has) is wonderful.
The photog seemed to think it was not a ”honey bee”, but just a “fuzzy little bee” even a “bee mimic”. But, think of sleeping curled on a flower petal…
Horrible revelation in the tiger story, but glad the facts got out.
NYCee at 53 – Absolutely! Saw the sleepy bee as a bunny, too. Was relieved to read that it really was just napping in the bloom.
Just yesterday I caught the tail end of a local Fox News station story about a major swarm in western Massachusetts. Snippets from a Berkshire Eagle article below. But while checking Google News to find it, I saw that swarms are on the move and causing some havoc in the UK, Canada, and other places, too. Bummer for the humans who are stung to bits or death, here and there, but somewhat heartening to hear the bees aren’t just giving up the ghost completely . . . .
Bees Cause Buzz
hmm I just heard that last year thru the fire season we had 6900 fires. To date we have had 3900.
Yesterday I heard there were a thousand fires going,… Wednesday the air was bad, Thursday was TERRIBLE, today a bit better, but they have said it will be warmer this weekend, some increased moisture and we will possibly get the lightning again.
ugh.
SOME cos are not upgrading policies nor issuing new policies. No insurance company names given.. hmm.
57 – Reminds me of a Tasha Tudor illustration for Thumbelina.
And here’s something from Bloomberg – Wild Bee Swarms in New Jersey Spur Hope of Rebound.
Interesting that the SFChron story cites monoculture agriculture as a potential factor in the reduction of native pollinators. Makes sense.
Yeah, 50% awareness of anything is pretty damn good these days. With any luck, ordinary people with a backyard bee population will think twice about opting for chemical extermination.
Can’t say I’ve notice any decline in activity around here.
Yo catnip – Hope the new place suits, despite the regimental roomie.
That’s well said, the Liliana Segura on Obama’s death rattling.
O’Mighty needs to be seriously skewered with pointed, relentless questioning (a la Jeremy Paxman of the BBC’s NewsNight) over his supposed devotion to Jesus and his justification of the death penalty. And other issues as well.
These bee mounds are mindblowing! Remember hearing of some hiker who had to be rescued up high in the mountains… out west, I think. Was coated in angry, stinging bees…
Is very strange, the loss of bees… and unsettling. There was a show about it recently, to probe the reason. Didnt catch it… maybe Independent Lens?
First thing that comes to my mind is genetically engineered crops, but that just seems right… I have nothing Ive read to back it up… just remembering the Monarchs dying or something from the Monsanto crops.
If anyone wants is curious why Booman Tribune is known far and wide as the online butterfly net for idiots one only has to read this thread.
and don’t miss le petit caporal’s visual putdown of white working women.
oopsie. left out the tag end. one more time!
It’s a tiny version, but here’s Thumbelina in a rose petal canoe.
Talk about girly!
bay…from th thread. He is such a classic, but I would guess has gotten his hate on for women thru many posts and threads.
One thing I remember from Booberlicious Land was when he was casting aound for a FPer and thought he might want a woman. I watched two highly credible commenters, one with site, magazine and book experience behind her, but both signal that they did nto need to write on womens issues. :In fact, they said, Boober and Steven D did it so well, all they’d need to do was add their perspective. LOL
Oh and for brilliance to outshine the sun, elsewehre he declares that McCain will lose like Mondahl. which to be clear was 49/1
I thnk it will be a tough race.
I only own one book w/Tudor illustrations. It cost me a bundle (in ’80s dollars). But I’m glad to have it.
As for whether strawberry, raspberry or almond ice cream could disappear, Haagen-Dazs brand director Katty Pien said, “We hope not, but that’s why there is such a sense of urgency, so that the millions of people who love our strawberry ice cream can have it forever.”
Yep, that’s the only possible reason to be worried. Nothing else makes sense.
OTOH, that makes about as much sense as anything else I’ve read this week.
OK, bay, you lured me over to look at it, and now I want to puke.
All these years of Dems caving on anti judges while shacked up with DFLA, then Obama in bed with the god-botherers, and now I see women who know better posting bloody graphic threats of what will happen if we don’t coo that yes, yes, yes, it’s the best we’ve ever had.
Boober would do himself a favor to track the commentary leaking from the Big Donors get together at the Mayflower. I hve been very entertained.
I have no idea what he is bitching about, when apparently he said he would not vote for Hillary.
This has to be third or so nasty bitchy post I have caught there – about Clinton voters, and I don’ t go daily. Or weekly.
Karel on KGO is just slashing and burning his way thru R-e-l-i-g-i-o-n. LOL pretty funny…
And at the close of Moyers, one of thsoe non-ads from Moyers himself about How Important this Election Is. The Mostest Ever.
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im sure this is how he distances himself from his first two great blog successes, i.e. the promotion of larry johnson and susan hu.
remember folks, booman promoted them first. and not just kinda. lord he used to defend those two left and right.
73.
one of the self styled “sheroes” in that thread does know better, but self promotion heads the list. i would suppose its all about the “hope” of a meal ticket.
or something.
the very fact shes hanging out at booman illusrates how good her judgement is.
not very.
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Remember? How could we forget?
But there’s a new crop over there now, unburdened by the weight of institutional memory.
i don’t recall him having a problem voting for casey. do you? i mean whats a little nose holding to a democrat? i thought it was a requirement for the position.
but can’t we get a coathanger in that thread just for the senator from pennsylvania? it’s laughable the way the like to ignore the anti-woman monsters in their own closet isn’t it?
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All those clothes hanger graphics offend me to the core, but the one in the thread with blood spatter that says “a different kind of red, white and blue” is way over the line.
“Defend Roe,” my ass. Real women already are bleeding real blood, and have done for years, so sorry, but it’s not all some goddamn glib game to me.
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oh I noticed the Hangerites, as well. So glad to do their bit for Dem Party Retail Politics. LOL Party wimmens.
The BIG PROBLEM online/offline, people want things from the party, or party operatives or [online[ from Dkos. Big problem. THUGS.
‘Deep THoughts” and his other big subject is “I am so fatigued”.
80.
agree completely.
newer than new thread… LOL
LINK
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