Faded Flowers

Stop SOPA/PIPA

2012-01-17T20:58:00.001-08:00

New recipe

2010-07-17T15:21:00.000-07:00

I haven't blogged in awhile, been too busy gardening and other stuff. But I thought I would share this recipe.

I started with this

http://www.marthastewart.com/recipe/braised-chicken-thighs

I didn't want to make it with peppers, and otherwise it looked a little too plain. So I substituted about 3/4 cup thinly sliced fennel bulb for the peppers, and also 1 1/2 tsp smoked paprika for the paprika. I used Castellano olives, which are brined green olives that are very fruity. I cut them off the pits and chopped them coarsely. For tomatoes, I always use these because they have no added salt and are very ripe and good quality. I also added a bit more water because I was using about 3 1/2 lbs of chicken. I thickened the sauce at the end with a little cornstarch in water and served it on a bed of whole-wheat pasta topped with braised chard. It was delicious.

Ramen

2009-07-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

This weekend, I will be making ingredients for ramen from scratch - namely, a good ramen stock, and cha siu. This is all part of my Tampopo-like search for the perfect bowl of ramen. Perhaps I will photoblog!

Rhubarb buttermilk cake or muffins

2009-07-02T18:24:00.000-07:00

1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup butter, softened to room temperature
1 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1/4 tsp. salt
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 egg
1 to 1 1/2 cup finely diced rhubarb

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Mix the flour and brown sugar. Using a pastry knife, cut in butter until the mixture is the consistency of coarse meal. In a small bowl, mix the baking powder through salt. Beat the egg and buttermilk together in another small bowl. Add the diced rhubarb to the flour mixture, and stir until blended. Sprinkle the spice and baking powder mixture over the top and mix. Pour the buttermilk mixture over the rhubarb, flour, and spice mixture, and stir just until blended (do not over mix, or the batter will not rise).

Transfer batter to a glass pie dish sprayed with nonstick coating, or if you prefer to greased muffin tins (makes about 12 larger muffins). Bake cake 40-50 minutes, muffins 18-22 minutes, until slightly browned and done.

Note: You can use slices of this cake, or the muffins, just like homemade shortcake. Cut each slice into two horizontally, place pieces side by side, cut side up, in a dish, and top with sliced fresh strawberries and whipped cream. It is yummy!

Bwahahaha!

2009-06-08T19:10:00.000-07:00

The BIAW are so screwed now!

Elected judges must disqualify themselves from cases involving people who spent exceptionally large sums to put them on the bench, the Supreme Court ruled on Monday in a 5-to-4 decision.

The BIAW have been messing with state politics for a long time, getting judges who are in their pockets stealthily elected to our highest courts. Now it looks like those judges will have to recuse themselves from ruling on BIAW cases. Whaaaa!

Just tell conservatives to go take a shower

2009-06-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

A report on studies linking the "ick factor" to conservatism:

People who squirm at the sight of bugs or are grossed out by blood and guts are more likely to be politically conservative, new studies find.

In particular, the squeamish are more apt to have conservative attitudes about gays and lesbians.

Lots of other research has tied politics to biology and behavior. Some quick background:

* A study last year found that when people feel physically clean, they are less judgmental.
* Another study found that political conservatives tend to be tidy, with organized offices, but liberals favor colorful, more stylish but cluttered spaces.
* Political views are driven by religion, culture and even biology, other research has shown.
* A large, global study in 2007 concluded that political preference is 50 percent genetic.

So, next time some conservative tells me they don't like gays, or abortions, I'm going to tell them they'll feel better about them if they can only get clean enough.

Consumer recall info

2009-03-18T11:56:00.000-07:00

I just found a great site for keeping up on recall information - really good if you want to know if there has been trouble with some big ticket item you might be interested in!

US Recall News

yum!

2008-12-25T15:58:00.000-08:00

I got a soup recipe off the internet, but it wasn't quite right. I made a couple of changes, and am reposting the altered recipe here. It's very tasty.

Sisters Soup

1 - large onion, chopped
1 to 3 chipotles in adobo sauce, seeded and finely chopped
3 to 3-1/2 lb butternut squash, cleaned, peeled, and cut into 1/2" cubes
1 - yellow crookneck or straightneck squash, cut into quarters lengthwise and cut into 1/2" chunks
1 - zucchini, cut similarly
2 - 14 oz cans northern beans, rinsed
1 - 14 oz can diced tomatoes
2 cups frozen corn
3-4 tsp Better Than Bullion Vegetable Base
3 Tblsp cilantro, chopped
1 to 2 tsp cumin
1 to 2 tsp oregano
juice of 1/2 lime

In a very large pot, add a few teaspoons of olive oil, and soften the onion over medium heat. Add the chipotles and squash, and stir to mix. Add the beans and tomatoes, then nearly fill the pot with water. Add the corn, cumin, oregano, and cilantro, and turn heat to high. Bring just to boiling, then turn down heat to simmer. Add bullion a teaspoon at a time, mixing and tasting after each. Simmer 20-30 minutes, until edges of butternut squash start to erode a bit (this will thicken the soup a little as well). Squeeze in lime juice and stir.

Serve hot in bowls, topped (if desired) with shredded Monterey Jack and tortilla chips, or cilantro and a wedge of lime.

snow blogging

2008-12-22T11:06:00.000-08:00

This is the scene out the back window this morning. After about 4 inches on Saturday, the snow started up again about 11 am on Sunday, and didn't quit until after 9 pm, leaving another 2-3 inches. I think we have 6 or 7 inches in all. The trees are all weighted down with snow, and we have icicles hanging from the house (see upper left corner).

travel kitties

2008-12-20T20:47:00.000-08:00

My parent's cats, Angus and Trouble, show how very stressful it is to travel.

Friday Cat Blogging

2008-12-19T19:55:00.001-08:00

Marv will fry you with his frickin' laser eyes!

And this is my parents' Scottish fold kitty, Angus:
Isn't he a cutie?

Friday Bird Blogging

2008-12-19T19:40:00.001-08:00

Meet Kianga: Kianga is a Congo African grey, hatched here in Washington in March of 1991.
"I'm eeeeeeevul!"

Meet Koga:

Koga is a wild caught, imported Timneh African grey. She is just as tame as a hand-raised bird, so we think she must have been caught very young, perhaps when she was still a chick in the nest, and had some hand-rearing before she was sent to the U.S. She has a USDA quarantine band that tells us she was legally imported. We got Koga at a pet store, she was being sold on consignment because the previous owner had just had a baby, and Koga and the baby were not compatible in the same house. I saw her in the store in early April 1991 when I was cage shopping for the Congo chick I was going to be getting in a few weeks. I asked if she was tame, and they said "Sure, you wanna see?" They put her on my hand, she ran up my arm onto my shoulder, and leaned over to give me a kiss. Sold! I've never regretted it; I hope she hasn't.

what?

2008-11-24T15:29:00.000-08:00

I know I have not been blogging regularly. I have been knitting and cooking a lot. And I have a broody parrot sitting on eggs. So sue me!

I'll try to do some knit blogging...I still have to show off how the "spank me" sweater turned out, and the felted mukluks and the felted bag. Sigh.

deep thought

2008-11-05T08:37:00.001-08:00

Dino Rossi is a sore looser WATB. That is all.

Tasty chili

2008-08-20T19:01:00.000-07:00

I was promising a good vegan chili recipe. This recipe was from my mom's Betty Crocker Cookbook she got when she first got married; I have modified it very slightly.

1 large onion, chopped
2 bell peppers, chopped into ~1" x 1" pieces
2 cans diced tomatoes (14 oz)
3 cans dark kidney beans (14 oz), rinsed and drained
dash paprika
2 bay leaves
3 tablespoons chili powder
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves, or to taste
dash salt

Soften onion in scant olive oil over medium heat. Add peppers and spices, stir and cook about 5-10 minutes more, until both onion and peppers are softened. Add tomatoes, and cook about 10 minutes. Add beans and simmer for about 1/2 hour, checking seasoning and adding water if needed. Serve hot with cornbread.

This approximately doubles the original recipe, but uses an extra can of beans to substitute for the pound of ground beef that the original called for. You can try it with beef if you want; or add reconstituted TVP along with the tomatoes if you wish.

imagine that

2008-08-08T14:48:00.000-07:00

I actually agree with an NYT editorial:

None of the investigators’ major assertions, however, have been tested in cross-examination or evaluated by outside specialists. It is imperative that federal officials make public all of their data so independent experts can judge whether the mailed anthrax was indeed identical to Dr. Ivins’s supply and only that supply.

It is also critical for officials to explain more fully how they eliminated the many other people with access to the material. (emphasis added)

and

Because Dr. Ivins killed himself before he could be indicted, there will be no opportunity for an adversarial testing of the F.B.I.’s conclusions. The bureau, unfortunately, has a history of building circumstantial cases that seem compelling at first but ultimately fall apart.

Hatfill had odious associations with white supremacists, and this was leaked out to cast aspersions on him when he was the main 'person of interest' in the case. So excuse me if I'm a little skeptical when many of the the first things to come out about Ivins are of a similar nature.

waiting

2008-08-06T13:13:00.000-07:00

Researcher Meryl Nass quotes CBS:

It is unclear how the FBI eliminated as suspects others in the lab who had access to the anthrax. It's not clear what, if any, evidence bolsters the theory that the attacks may have been a twisted effort to test a cure for the toxin. Investigators also can't place Ivins in Princeton, New Jersey, when the letters were mailed from a mailbox there.

If I have time, I'll wander over to the document dump at the DOJ and see if it looks convincing. I have an open mind on this, but after Hatfill I think we should all consider the evidence carefully.

insanity

2008-07-25T09:14:00.000-07:00

This is the kind of thing that makes me really mad:

In court documents, Ferguson argued that Zellmer was unemployed for the 88 days they were married and that she and Ashley's biological father were her parents in all ways.

Ferguson became Zellmer's fourth wife in September 2003. Three months later, Ashley drowned in the family pool at their home near Kent while she was in Zellmer's care.

Okay, mom left her girl in her new husband's care, even though they'd been married less than 3 months, and maybe she didn't know him as well as she thought. But then....

In June 2007, King County prosecutors charged him with first-degree murder when they learned he had taken out a $200,000 insurance policy on Ashley and that there were previous incidents where Ashley told her mother that he had thrown her down the stairs.

Wait a minute. Mom knew that her new husband was abusive towards her little girl, and still left her alone with him? Somebody needs to explain to me why this woman isn't also facing criminal charges?

awesome parrot news

2008-05-21T09:28:00.000-07:00

Yes, African greys really are this smart:

"I'm Mr. Yosuke Nakamura," the bird told the veterinarian, according to Uemura. The parrot also provided his full home address, down to the street number, and even entertained the hospital staff by singing songs.

I only wish they would recognize that we humans can't fly, so we wouldn't have to climb trees to rescue them when they get lost.

fwap!

2008-04-25T14:48:00.000-07:00

Darwin Award contestant:

The 19-year-old skateboarder was riding westbound on 45th in the street when he entered the intersection at University Way and slammed into the articulated bus, police spokeswoman Renee Witt said.

"The skateboarder ran into the side of the bus and then fell under the rear wheel," she said.

NB: Westbound through this intersection is downhill. He was probably going too fast to stop. The bus had a green light.

In other news:

Yikes!

A shark believed to be a great white killed a 66-year-old swimmer with a single, giant bite across both legs Friday as the man trained with a group of triathletes, authorities and witnesses said.

Dave Martin, a retired veterinarian from Solana Beach, was attacked at San Diego County's Tide Beach around 7 a.m., authorities and family friend Rob Hill said.

He was a veterinarian, so he probably loved animals. How ironic.

More animals!

Pierre was outfitted with the suit about six weeks ago. Since then, he has gained weight, grown back feathers on his hind parts and is again acting like his feisty, alpha-male self.

On a recent visit, Pierre waddled around the tank, taking brief dips and standing on a rock next to his mate. He blended in well, although he was the only penguin with a black tummy.

And do watch the video. Very cute!

actually this makes sense

2008-04-23T13:01:00.000-07:00

Having a hearty appetite, eating potassium-rich foods including bananas, and not skipping breakfast all seemed to raise the odds of having a boy.

The British research is billed as the first in humans to show a link between a woman's diet and whether she has a boy or girl.
...
Dr. Michael Lu, an associate professor of obstetrics, gynecology and public health at the University of California at Los Angeles, said the results "are certainly plausible from an evolutionary biology perspective."

In lean times, more females would be born; in good times, the sex ratio would be more nearly equal. Since males can fertilize more than one female, fewer males are strictly 'necessary', and indeed they might be a drain until resources are more plentiful.

some people never learn

2008-04-08T14:22:00.000-07:00

When are we gonna read the obit?

Babyshambles frontman Pete Doherty has been jailed for 14 weeks for violating his probation and for using drugs.
...
The punishment means Doherty has been forced to postpone a concert at the Royal Albert Hall in April.

The gig would have been his biggest solo show yet.
...
The star's record label said in a statement: "Peter was very much looking forward to the show and would like to offer his sincerest apologies to all his fans and to all those concerned."

I woulda had a great career, but then I got high
I woulda been a great big star, but I got high....

needlepoint

2008-04-04T20:10:00.000-07:00

Here are some needlepoint projects I have been working on. And on, and on, and on:

This first one will eventually be a neat little bag for when I go to the opera (hah!):
These are seasonal wall banners. I only got two seasons, though, because really, the Winter and Spring ones did not particularly move me:

more knit blogging

2008-04-04T20:08:00.000-07:00

Some socks I knitted for myself in September 2006, in progress:
I still wear these! And I still wear these, which I made in May 2007:

These are some socks I made in December as a Christmas present for a friend:

And these for my friend's husband (the color isn't quite right; these were really more maroon than coral):

even more knitting

2008-04-04T20:02:00.000-07:00

I knit these as a Christmas present last year for my ex-boyfriend:

knit blogging

2008-04-04T19:39:00.000-07:00

For anyone interested, here is some knit blogging. Here are some booties I did for a friend who had twins in September of 2007:

And here are some little sockies I knit for another friend who also had twins. These twins were just born in March of 2008:

figures

2008-03-31T10:53:00.000-07:00

Maybe this judge will take women's stories a little more seriously in the future:

A man who had argued with his estranged wife over the custody of their three children has confessed to drowning them in a hotel bathtub on the night they were to go back with their mother, police said Monday.
...
A temporary protective order was approved three days after the petition was filed, but Circuit Judge Joseph Dugan rejected a permanent order Jan. 10, 2007. In explaining his decision, Dugan wrote there was "no clear or convincing evidence that the alleged acts of abuse occurred."

..after she had told the judge that he had made threats to the effect that he would kill their kids just to get back at her.

Our society is deeply in denial over the extent of its sexism.

busy busy

2008-03-20T14:44:00.000-07:00

I have not been posting a lot lately, things are busy! At work I have been busy writing the various reports that are due this time of year on our marine mammal work, plus we are doing some interesting work on species for which there aren't many data, and a few of these might be worth a publication.

At home, things are going well, Kianga seems to be gearing up for Spring, which means there will probably be new egg blogging soon!

Happy Vernal Equinox!

OK, that was fun

2008-03-05T15:32:00.000-08:00

Last night at Drinking Liberally, Goldy asked if I wanted to participate in the podcast that they do, talking about current events. I can't help it, my curiosity gets the better of me every time, so I said 'OK, I guess so.'

You can find the resulting podcast here.

I don't sound totally idiotic, but you can tell I'm not used to talking for broadcast...too many longish pauses while I try to think of something coherent to say! But I have to admit, that was sort of fun. Though I'm glad McKenna was there too.

even Microsoft admits Vista sucks

2008-02-28T11:08:00.000-08:00

Don't tell me I didn't warn you. But it's all coming out in the lawsuit now.

Even some of Microsoft Corp.'s top officials struggled to make Windows Vista work smoothly when it was released, according to internal e-mails released Wednesday.

The messages, unsealed in a lawsuit against the company, show that Vista's early problems with hardware and software compatibility affected more than just average PC users. The e-mails also illustrate how the company will try to avoid such issues in the next Windows release.

...

One February 2007 exchange started with an e-mail to Ballmer from Microsoft board member Jon Shirley, who explained that he upgraded one of his computers to Vista only to find it was experiencing problems working with two of Microsoft's own MSN applications. Shirley wrote that he wasn't upgrading his other computer because of a lack of hardware drivers.

Which reminds me, how is that MacOS 10.5.2 upgrade going? Heh. (Note that I am still a happy Tiger user.)

more better Democrats!

2008-01-28T18:19:00.000-08:00

You know what to do!

translator

2008-01-23T15:39:00.000-08:00

So, I understand that on Monday, the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday, Mitt Romney was running around in a parade, pressing flesh and kissing babies, as politicians do.

Mitt Romney was greeted warmly by a largely African-American crowd at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Holiday Parade in Jacksonville. He shook hands with several dozen parade-goers and even hugged a few of them.
...
“Who let the dogs out?” he called out, as he stood there beaming in his shirt and tie. “Who! Who!”

I understand that he also referred to a little kid's necklace as "bling bling."

From the script of the 1980 movie Airplane, I declare that what Mitt needs is a "jive translator":

Jivemn2 : Mnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
Attndnt : Can I get you something?
Jivemn2 : S'mo fo butter layin' to the bone. Jackin' me up.
Tightly.
Attndnt : I'm sorry I don't understand.
Jivemn1 : Cutty say he cant hang.
Woman4 : Oh stewardess, I speak jive.
Attndnt : Ohhhh, good.
Woman4 : He said that he's in great pain and he wants to know if you can help him.
Attndnt : Would you tell him to just relax and I'll be back as soon as I can with some medicine.
Woman : Jus' hang loose blooood. She goonna catch up on the rebound a de medcide.
Jivemn2 : What it is big mamma, my mamma didn't raise no dummy, I dug her rap.
Woman4 : Cut me som' slac' jak! Chump don wan no help, chump don git no help. Jive ass dude don got no brains anyhow.

In this case, I think the "jive ass dude don got no brains" would be Willard.

Friday wildlife blogging

2008-01-18T16:21:00.000-08:00

Last Sunday, we went for a drive up the Skagit River to Rockport. At a park along the river, it is possible during the winter months to see many bald eagles awaiting the winter chum salmon run.

When we arrived, there was heavy fog, but it began to lift even before we got our jackets on.

After seeing some eagles from the nearby bridge, we went for a walk towards the west on the north side of the river. On the way, there was a fellow with a much better camera, attempting to get some photos of this magnificent bird:

This was such a huge bird, perhaps a female. She was facing away from me as I took this, alas.

A great day - it was sunny and brisk, we saw about 20 eagles during the day, as well as large flocks of snow geese and tundra swans while driving through the Skagit valley, many of them just south of Mount Vernon and not far off the freeway.

crap

2008-01-18T16:13:00.001-08:00

You know, I could go all week without reading crap like this.

Shorter superstitious idjit: Oh noes!!! Teh "elites" are hostile to my woo!!! Momeeeeee!!!!

Just kill me now, because the stupid is burning my eyeballs.

good one

2008-01-15T14:10:00.000-08:00

Robber shoots self while robbing convenience store:

Police say surveillance video shows the man shooting himself as he placed the gun in the waistband of his pants. The clerk wasn't injured.

A short time later, police found Derrick Kosch, 25, at a home with a gunshot wound to his right testicle and lower left leg.

He's one nut away from removing himself from the gene pool. Congratulations, Derrick!

happy new year

2007-12-29T18:14:00.001-08:00

Have not been blogging much lately... I guess I have been busy kicking troll ass on other blogs, among other things. There is one particular troll who won't even engage me anymore, no matter how much I taunt him - ever since I wrote that he should "keep your nose out of my vajayjay." I couldn't have offended him, could I?

I do hope so.

Anyways, I have a terrible head cold that has been kicking my ass for a couple of days now, and I'm trying to get better so I can at least go out for awhile to ring in the New Year. (I'm not dead yet!)

So, have a great '08, everyone! Let's all wish for a return to sanity this year.

why Willie is cool

2007-12-20T13:35:00.000-08:00

And it isn't just for writing all those songs...

Country music star Willie Nelson has donated $40,000 to Vancouver, the town where he sold some of his first records a half-century ago.

Vancouver received the $40,000 check three weeks ago. On Wednesday, the city turned over $15,000 each to the Humane Society of Washington and the Boys and Girls Club.

In addition to aiding local charities, Nelson's donation originally was intended to help defray the costs for the city's 150th anniversary of its incorporation.

video

2007-12-17T16:21:00.000-08:00

Just go watch this Faithless video.

And how about this one from Cake. Or this one. I really love Cake, but damn, John McCrea's face does not match his voice. He looks sort of like Edward Norton, but he sounds like Peter Murphy!

ha ha!

2007-12-17T16:15:00.000-08:00

I guess the OS must be Vista:

The downtown Seattle bus tunnel is closed because of a failure of the computer system that controls tunnel operations.
....

All of the systems in the tunnel — such as ventilation, lighting and signals — are controlled by a computer system installed during the recent retrofit of the tunnel. That computer system is currently down, and there was not yet an estimate of when it will be restored.

Update: After re-opening for a day, the tunnel was closed again on Wednesday (Dec. 19) and will remain closed at least through Friday. So far, the newspapers have not reported what "computer system problems" entails.

in the news

2007-12-07T14:25:00.000-08:00

An editorial about keeping NOAA's research vessels stationed at Lake Union in Seattle.

To be fair, I also understood that the Port of Everett was also in the running, and really, perhaps a lot of the businesses (and folks working at them) that service these ships would not mind so much moving to Everett, because housing is much cheaper and one could actually afford to live closer to work, something many of us in this traffic-congested region would love to be able to do.

In other news, they have opened I-5 at Chehalis finally. I feel badly for the poor folks having to clean the mud out of their homes (some of them for the second time in only 11 years) - just in time for the holidays. Give to local charities helping out if you can.

Friday parrot update

2007-10-19T12:54:00.000-07:00

Kianga is still sitting very tightly on her eggs. Once again, she stopped at two: the second one was laid about September 25 and was, as usual, smaller than the first. I am going to let her sit for 10-14 more days until she gets it out of her system. Fortunately, though she has been somewhat less interactive, she has not lost her sense of humor, as she still talks and laughs and makes rude noises at us, in the evenings especially. The rest of the time, however, she looks very serious and tries to make herself look as scary as possible to anyone trying to attend to "trivial" things like food, water, and cage cleaning!

indeedy

2007-10-19T12:46:00.000-07:00

Dr. Watson finds himself in deep doo-doo with other scientists:

There is wide agreement among researchers on intelligence that genetic inheritance influences mental acuity, but there is also wide agreement that life experiences, even in the womb, exert a powerful influence on brain structure. Further, there is wide disagreement about what intelligence consists of and how — or even if — it can be measured in the abstract.

For example, in “The Mismeasure of Man,” Stephen Jay Gould, the evolutionary biologist, dismissed “the I.Q. industry” as little more than an effort by men of European descent to maintain their prominence in the world.

Nevertheless, Dr. Watson, 79, is hardly the first eminent researcher to assert that inherited characteristics like skin color are correlated to intelligence and that people of African descent fall short. For example, William B. Shockley, a Nobel laureate for his work with transistors, in later life developed ideas of eugenics based on the supposed intellectual inferiority of blacks.

His ideas were greeted with scorn, and Dr. Watson is encountering a similar reaction. According to the BBC, the Science Museum of London canceled a speech Dr. Watson was to have given there today, saying that much as it supports robust discussion of controversial ideas, Dr. Watson’s assertions on race and intelligence are “beyond the point of acceptable debate.”

Henry Kelly, president of the Federation of American Scientists, a private group that works to bring science to policy making, said it was “tragic that one of the icons of modern science has cast such dishonor on the profession.” (emphasis added)

Dr. Kelly, I could not agree more.

Trip blogging

2007-10-03T12:07:00.001-07:00

I am visiting my parents and took a few photos when I went for a walk yesterday. I just walked around the "block" (which down here is about 2 1/2 miles).

Here is one of the ubiquitous ground beetles. I find them amusing, because they are always walking around with their hind-parts up in the air.

On the next lot west of my parents' I disturbed a cottontail from the spot it had been resting. It scrambled out and then stopped, waiting to see what I would do. I took a few pictures, but as soon as I started walking again, it ran off.

There were also a couple of jackrabbits, but they never stopped to let me take a picture. While I was walking I also noted an abundance of red ant mounds. These mounds can be found every several feet wherever the ground is soft enough for them to excavate. The opening to their nest if off to one side of this mound, which is made up of a very uniform size of gravel. I suppose every ant returns with a piece (several times larger than the ants are) periodically and adds it to the mound. Over time, they can get fairly large, like this one.

oh noes!!1!

2007-09-26T14:46:00.001-07:00

Here is a closeup of Kianga from Sunday morning:

She is looking very fierce because of:

Yes, kids, she laid again! She laid two in March, and I let her sit on them, and thought that was it for the year. The past few weeks she had been acting a bit hormonal, trying to feed my hand when I had her out, and getting very excited. When she made a pest of herself, I just put her back in her cage. I didn't think she would lay again this year. But Friday evening she was sitting on the bottom of her cage all evening, and when she got up on her perch, I saw this egg. She laid a second one Tuesday night, a longer delay than usual. Hopefully, she will sit on these and we won't have any problems - like her trying to lay more. The worst part is that I'm visiting my parents, so I can't keep an eye on her myself. I am getting reports from the homefront, however, and she has been eating and otherwise seems fine.

cat killer!

2007-09-20T16:10:00.000-07:00

Oh sweet Jeebus:

Hilmo was already in jail on drug, firearm and probation violation charges, Gwinnett County sheriff's spokeswoman Stacey Bourbonnais said.

The new warrant charges that Hilmo "did give injured live cats and kittens to his pit bull dogs and let the pit bulls kill the already injured cats and kittens. Hilmo would capture and injure neighborhood cats for this purpose."

Sorry to say this, but he looks like a hick cracker, too. I usually am not in favor of it, but in his case I would argue for chemical castration. He ought to be weeded out of the gene pool.

bunny snatcher!

2007-09-20T08:49:00.000-07:00

Someone snatched some poor kid's rabbit:

Someone stole a prize-winning rabbit from its cage at the Puyallup Fair.

The orange Netherlands Dwarf rabbit named "RJ" won a blue ribbon Friday for his owner, 13-year-old Stefan Johnson, a 4-H club member from Vancouver.

A police report says a witness saw a man leaving the fair barn Saturday with an orange rabbit.

I'm really sad to read this. This is the largest fair in the state, it's a really big deal. I enjoy it so much, I make a point of going several days each year over the fair's 3-week run, in order to see as many of the animals as possible. This year, I went on the 14th (rabbits, goats, cattle, horses)(this was the day RJ won his ribbon) and 17th (rabbits, goats, cattle, horses, llamas and alpacas), and am going again this Saturday the 22nd (cattle, horses, and chickens!). Probably my favorite thing about the fair is seeing all the 4-H kids and their animals. These kids work very hard for those ribbons - plus the fact that during this time, they are missing school and have to make up the work. After wandering barns all day, we usually head to the arena in the afternoon to watch the 4-H riding trials. We see the kids do some amazing things with their horses, and it is really obvious that some of them spend a lot of time working with their animals, who are ready to do anything the kids ask them to.

What is worst of all in this story, what do you want to bet that the asshole who took this little rabbit has no idea how to take care of it?

godwit migration

2007-09-11T12:27:00.000-07:00

The godwit migrates between New Zealand and Alaska, without even stopping to feed. The flight is over 7,000 miles. Simply amazing.

very sad

2007-09-10T13:26:00.000-07:00

Alex has died at 31:

But last week Alex, an African Grey parrot, died, apparently of natural causes, said Dr. Irene Pepperberg, a comparative psychologist at Brandeis University and Harvard who studied and worked with the parrot for most of its life and published reports of his progress in scientific journals. The parrot was 31.

Now, many parrots are kept under less than ideal conditions, and die prematurely. African Grey parrots in captivity should live twice as long. Alex always showed signs of being stressed, for example, his feather picking. As a wild-caught bird, I think Alex was less suited to being a research subject than perhaps the two domestic Greys Pepperberg has more recently been using.

I do hope I can avoid losing any of my Greys at this young an age - I certainly have the expectation that they would even outlive me. That said, Alex has done much to further our understanding of what birds are capable of cognitively speaking - between his language skills and the problem-solving abilities displayed by corvids, we have a whole new appreciation for "bird brains."

Be in peace, Alex.

Update: Reading more about Alex, it appears that he may have been a domestically bred bird after all, though I had read before that he was wild-caught. Still, hopefully birds Griffin and Wart will prove to be less stressed out as research subjects than Alex obviously was at times.

the naked crapenter

2007-09-10T09:29:00.000-07:00

What will we tell the children?

Honniball, 51, was arrested last year after he was spotted building cabinets in the buff at a home where he had been hired to work.

The carpenter has said he likes to work in the nude because it's more comfortable and it helps him keep his clothes clean.

I'm of the opinion that a loincloth would be both economical and prudent. It would only take one little 'accident' with a nail gun for him to reconsider his entire approach to carpentry.

alien!

2007-09-07T14:25:00.000-07:00

Something to think about when you're watching those Alien movies...it turns out there really are creatures with those double-jaws – and they're right here on Earth!

parrot update

2007-08-29T10:58:00.000-07:00

Since it has been awhile since I have posted one...

Aziza still seems to be doing well - she is showing normal energy and a good appetite. She has also been very affectionate. She has been molting, and so she has pinfeathers that she needs help with on her head and neck, and I'm happy to oblige her. She did lose some weight between her last two vet visits, and we are keeping an eye on that, but when I last weighed her she seemed to have gained some of that back.

She does have one problem resulting from her hernia, which is that she can no longer reach all the way back around to her rump when preening - when she has tried it, she has let out a squawk (sharp pain?). As new feathers have come in on her rump and tail, I have had to restrain her and remove the sheath myself, because they are very obviously bothering her. She doesn't like being held down, so I try to minimize it to when she's getting a hormone shot, when I have to restrain her anyway. I bought a bird restraining strap at the vet's office. This is a vinyl piece with three rows of velcro-tipped straps; you wrap the bird in a small towel, and fasten a strap around the towel at the bird's neck. The bird is usually distracted by the strap and chews on it, which lets you do what you need to do. It doesn't put pressure on the bird's chest and abdomen, so breathing isn't impaired.

This strap has made things much easier (on both bird and human) than the towel alone; injections and such can be done without the help of another person. While she takes out her frustration on the velcro, I use one hand to hold her legs, and have the other free to remove her overgrown feather sheaths, then give her her shot, which is done in the chest muscle. It's a very small needle, and the only time she's ever expressed any discomfort at all was once at the vet's office, when they had just drawn the (refrigerated) serum (so she got a cold shot). I make sure the syringe has a few minutes to get to room temperature before I give her her shot at home, and she always seems more pained about the restraint part of things. She is due for another shot this Saturday. So far they seem to be working, though she is acting a bit "nesty" again as the days grow shorter (why she should go into season in the fall rather than in spring is anyone's guess, but I guess it is not uncommon in parrots kept in the US, including Pionus and African greys).

We have settled into a morning routine now. She really has been enjoying time out of the cage, so I try to make sure she gets some every day. Every weekday morning when I come from the shower, I stop and open her cage door. She is usually waiting on her lower perch right in front of the door, and offers her head to be scratched. (If you aren't familiar with bird behavior, birds will solicit scratches by lowering their heads slightly and raising the feathers on their necks and cheeks.) She usually wants me to scratch her for several minutes before she is ready to step up onto my hand, when I take her to the headboard of the bed. She sits there and watches the other birds, sometimes chattering or displaying, while I get ready for work. I go to the kitchen and prepare the birds' breakfast, then dump out their dishes and feed them, then I will call her over to go back into her cage and eat, which she is usually eager to do.

Everyone is still enjoying their diet. Corn has been in season, so I have been adding fresh corn shaved off the cob to their bird bread mixture. Aziza especially enjoys this treat, along with chopped carrot. I have a mango I need to cut up; Kelele is fond of those. Kianga likes grapes best. Koga will eat just about everything, but she is a funny bird - she likes to sip Hansen's soda (which she doesn't get very often, because we just don't drink much soda). I am still trying to figure out what Ti'iki, my Pacific parrotlet, likes best of all, though he eats the bird bread and his pellets with plenty of gusto.

I will need to post some new photos soon, because Aziza looks so much better now. She had been rubbing off all the feathers around her ceres (nostrils), but these have molted back in, and so she now has the rust-colored patches next to her nostrils so distinctive in the dusky Pionus.

friday photo blogging

2007-08-10T15:10:00.000-07:00

Funny graffiti. It would be interesting to know where this is, how widespread it is.

it happens all the time....

2007-08-10T11:34:00.000-07:00

apparently:

A man accused of having sex with a goat has been charged with animal cruelty.

Charging papers say a witness saw 63-year-old Arthur Lawton having sex with a goat May 8 in a barn at Eatonville's Pioneer Farm Museum.

Goatf*ckers, take a little advice from me. Go buy a RealDoll - I assure you it is less creepy than sex with animals.

whoopsie!

2007-08-09T10:43:00.000-07:00

Let this be a warning to you!

A man was bitten by the decapitated head of a rattlesnake on his property near Prosser.

Fifty-three-year-old Danny Anderson and his son saw the five-foot snake Monday evening while feeding horses. They pinned it with a pipe and cut off its head with a shovel.

When Anderson reached down to pick it up he says the snake head twisted around and bit his index finger.

Maybe he should have waited a few minutes to make sure all biological activity, including possible reflex action, had ceased. And just why the hell did he feel the need to pick up the business end of the snake in the first place?

Yes, I'm tagging this as 'funny.' I have a nasty sense of humor.

losers unable to get laid

2007-07-30T10:08:00.000-07:00

Here we go again!

Three men who dug up a young woman's corpse to have sex with it after seeing her obituary photo cannot be charged with attempted sexual assault because Wisconsin has no law against necrophilia, an appeals court ruled Thursday.

A judge was correct to dismiss the charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 21, because lawmakers never intended to criminalize sex with a corpse, the District 4 Court of Appeals said in a 3-0 ruling.

Hmmm. Perhaps the Wisconsin state legislature might want to address this apparent oversight. Or they may be mocked for more than their cheesemaking.

The article has photos of the three losers involved. Poor, poor emo boys!

Friday bird blogging

2007-07-20T15:45:00.000-07:00

A seagull in Aberdeen, Scotland has taken to thievery in order to get his fix of Doritos. Go read and watch the video. Cheeky monkey!

well of course I am!

2007-07-16T11:51:00.000-07:00

My Liberal Identity:

You are a Reality-Based Intellectualist, also known as the liberal elite. You are a proud member of what’s known as the reality-based community, where science, reason, and non-Jesus-based thought reign supreme.

Take the quiz at www.FightConservatives.com

extinct...or maybe not

2007-07-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

Great news if true:

A species of egg-laying mammal, named after TV naturalist Sir David Attenborough, is not extinct as was previously thought, say scientists.

On a recent visit to Papua's Cyclops Mountains, researchers uncovered burrows and tracks made by the Attenborough's long-beaked echidna.

The species is only known to biologists through a specimen from 1961, which is housed in a museum in the Netherlands.

The team will return to Papua next year to find and photograph the creature.

The month-long expedition by scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) involved travelling to parts of the mountain range, covered by thick jungle, which had remained unexplored for more than 45 years.

I'm going to have to do some Googling, but it seems that this isn't the only species named after Sir David. However, it would be really cool to 'rediscover' this one within his lifetime.

no, no, no!

2007-07-09T16:22:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to explain it to these people: this

The theory offered by the economist, Rick Nevin, is that lead poisoning accounts for much of the variation in violent crime in the United States.[emphasis added]

is not equal to this

Lead exposure causes crime, economist says.

Go read echidne's take on this instead. She is exactly right. (Go to her blog, then scroll down to her July 8th entry - the permalink isn't working for some reason).

funny

2007-06-25T14:36:00.000-07:00

A funny video of two chickens breaking up a fight between two rabbits. They really put some whup-ass on those naughty bunnies.

As the chickens walk off at the end, it looks like they're saying "well, our work here is done."

hooray!

2007-06-25T13:43:00.000-07:00

Saturday, Aziza had her checkup to see how her respiratory illness is resolving. And guess what? The x-ray was totally clear! So she is off the terbenefine now.

She will still be getting hormone shots, so she doesn't make herself ill trying to make more eggs, but her lungs and air sacs are clear of fungal infiltrates. The vet did note that she seems to have some arthritis in her left knee, and I did notice around February that she was starting to rest more on her right leg...but I thought it was due to her hernia bothering her. Anyway, this s mostly very good news, now we just have to get her weight stabilized, but she has been acting much more like her old self recently. She's also molting in a whole bunch of new feathers, so she has been very affectionate, wanting help preening the feathers she can't reach on her head.

parrot update

2007-06-13T11:53:00.000-07:00

As far as the domestic front goes, Aziza is doing a lot better, though she still needs to put on some weight. I am covering her at night, and trying to figure out a schedule so that she only gets 10 hours of sunlight per day. On the 23rd, she gets another x-ray to see if her respiratory infection has resolved.

The other birds are good. Kianga has been cracking me up, exclaiming "woo!" at oh-so-appropriate moments. We are 3/5 done with the yearly project of dismantling and scrubbing down the birds' cages, toys and perches; the remaining two will be done as the weekend weather cooperates (it is no fun spraying bird shit on a cold day, let me tell you).

As has been usual now for the last 6 months, the birds have been eating well. Every morning and afternoon, they get several tablespoons of a mixture on top of a bed of Roudybush pellets. The mixture is bird bread, bean mix, chopped fruit, and a few teaspoons of Harrison's mash, all mixed together. The bird bread is a low-cal corn bread that includes edamame, corn, chopped spinach and diced peeled yam, sometimes with blueberries added. The bean mix is a dry chili mix purchased from the bulk section, soaked overnight and then cooked with split peas, brown rice, raisins, and date pieces. We crumble a piece of bird bread into a container, add a few spoons of bean mix, pop that in the microwave to warm it, add the mash and a few spoons of fruit, then mix it all up before dishing it out on top of the pellets. And yes, some of them actually even eat the pellets too. They also get Nutriberries (though not for long, as the vet has discouraged this, so I'm using up the last container), corn on the cob, and occasionally, some of what we're eating (cooked pasta or veggies). The fruit can include apples, oranges, kiwi, mango, papaya or grapes, depending on what is in season. I'm going to have the best fed parrots evah. The best thing is how excited the get when they are waiting to be fed, and the happy munching sounds that ensue.

giant birdlike dinosaurs found

2007-06-13T11:49:00.000-07:00

Now this would have been one scary bird:

The remains of a giant, birdlike dinosaur as tall as the formidable tyrannosaur have been found in China, a surprising discovery that indicates a more complicated evolutionary process for birds than originally thought, scientists said Wednesday.

Fossilized bones uncovered in the Erlian Basin of northern China's Inner Mongolia region show that the specimen was about 26 feet long, 16 feet tall and weighed 3,000 pounds, said Xu Xing, a paleontologist at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology & Paleoanthropology in Beijing.

Here, chickie chickie!

this makes me mad

2007-06-05T08:18:00.000-07:00

Fateful Voice of a Generation Still Drowns Out Real Science

Look. Real science tells us that even now, 35 years after DDT use was restricted in the US, we are still finding residues in marine animals that may be detrimental to their health (and we won't even talk about PCBs). We thoughtlessly sprayed persistent and extremely biologically active chemicals around with little thought to the consequences. If Rachel Carson provided a vision of what those consequences might look like if we continued our careless behavior, I have no problem with it. And if Tierney is worried that Carson's work was not scientifically written (sounds like he's going for the 'hysterical woman' angle that has always been used to criticize her), he need look no further than Our Stolen Future to get a similar message with plenty of real science to back it up. The old canard recently mentioned on the Senate floor, and even printed in newspapers, that the ban on DDT has killed millions of African children is just not true. DDT continues to be used in mosquito netting and even spraying to control malaria in many countries, though unfortunately, indiscriminate past usage has made many mosquitoes resistant.

Yes, Mr. Tierney, the chemicals we put into the environment have an effect on living systems that we depend on for our very existence on this planet. I am not anti-chemical, but the examples of DDT and antibiotics amply demonstrate that we humans don't tend to be very responsible about our use of chemicals. Insects have short life spans and quickly developed resistance to DDT, while birds, especially raptors, were unable to adapt to the profound hormonal effects and some (peregrine falcons, bald eagles) were nearly exterminated on this continent. With antibiotics, we have a similar story as now we have scary multi-drug-resistant strains of staph, tuberculosis, and other disease-causing organisms; the TB has been headline news, while at the same time resistant staph kills at least hundreds in this country every year (and why do we have to go to the BBC to read about this?).

It's pretty disappointing to see that the NYT would be joining in the PR pile-on that has been showing up around the anniversary of Rachel Carson's birth - and make no mistake, chemical industry PR is just what this is about.

merkin strikes again

2007-05-23T11:28:00.000-07:00

Eschaton commenter Merkin Patriot has struck again:

I have an appointment this afternoon with clients who are French. The wife has a sexy voice and may use her wily charms to turn me into a cheese-eating surrender monkey. How do I resist such temptation without losing their business?

OMG SORRY I GOT TO THIS LATE - DONT LOOK HER IN TEH EYE!!!! IF YOU DO YOULL TURN INTO A GORGONZOLA AT LEATS THATS WHAT GREEK MITHOLOGY SAYS AND YOU KNOW THEY DONT LIEK TO TEMPT FETA

So poetic. And cheesy.

I call bullshit!

2007-05-23T11:07:00.000-07:00

I don't for a minute believe this guy's story.

The family's statement said Schreck was beneath a log and covered with leaves for warmth. He suffered no serious injuries, they said. When deputies interviewed him about 1 a.m. Tuesday, he appeared in perfect health.

"No injuries, no bumps or bruises," Urquhart said.

The statement said Schreck "came to on Monday" and began working to get himself out. "Scrambling up the ravine, he filled his water bottle with muddy water and at around 2 p.m. began retracing his steps."

They searched for him, with dogs, all weekend long. He was gone for 3 and a half days, then just shows up; he claims he was out for three days, but doesn't go to a hospital, not even for dehydration. It's got hinky written all over it. Personally, I think he either spent the weekend with a lover or partying with hookers down on the SeaTac strip. LOOOSER.

Apparently he's had to have rescuers called out on him before, while skiing. I think maybe this guy should 1) not be allowed anywhere without a callphone and locator beacon and 2) have to pay for any future rescue operations himself.

hey parents....

2007-05-07T09:32:00.000-07:00

you're screwing up your kids:

One-fifth of infants and toddlers under age 2 have a television in their bedrooms, according to a new study that suggests saturation with media could affect brain development as more shows start to target America's youngest children.

If you aren't even willing to spend time with them, why have them? It isn't like birth control has been banned (yet). It really would be better for the planet if you didn't breed.

Friday bird blogging

2007-05-04T12:44:00.000-07:00

Not my birds, today....but I thought I would share this clip from David Attenborough's The Life of Birds.

This is a QuickTime clip of a lekking Superb Lyrebird, from Southern Australia. Lek describes a mating system in which males call and display their plumage in order to attract females, often in an arena scratched out on the ground, or sometimes perched in trees. Sometimes it is done competitively (lots of males within sight of each other), in other cases the males are solitary. Lots of different birds (and apparently even some mammals) use this mating system, from the grouse and peacock to the kakapo (a flightless parrot from New Zealand).

trifecta!

2007-05-04T12:40:00.000-07:00

Drunk, high, and talking on cell phone:

St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Josh Hancock was drunk and talking on his cell phone at the time of his fatal accident, and marijuana was found in the sport utility vehicle he was driving.

(Oh, and did I mention he was also speeding?)

This has been your Friday edition of Stupid Rich White Men.

parrot update

2007-05-03T10:22:00.000-07:00

Been a few weeks since I updated! Here's the latest from the world of parrots!

Aziza is responding well to her hCG treatment. Her last shot was last Saturday. Since about April 20, she's been acting much more like her old self, so much so that I've even started bathing her again. She's still getting terbenefine for her respiratory infection, and hopefully that is also resolving. She has two more months of treatment for that. Last week, she started molting - which seems to indicate that she's probably done making eggs for now (though we will probably keep her on hCG for awhile longer). She is gaining weight little by little, but she has a nice slimmed down profile now, like a normal bird. She isn't all heavy-looking around her abdomen, like she had been before, so I imagine her liver has shrunk back to normal size.

Everyone else is doing well. One funny thing. After I medicate Aziza in the evenings, I give her a treat so she can get the nasty taste out of her mouth. When she gets treats, the other birds want them too! Usually, Kelele will be on top of Koga's cage, which is next to Kianga's cage. Recently, Kelele has been sneaking up to my shoulder while I'm bending over to put treats in Kinaga's dish. A couple of times, he has tapped me on the shoulder with his beak. Once, I slowly turned and even got him to approach and give me a kiss. Bear in mind that Kelele was a wild-caught bird and has still not been hand-tamed. But he has become a lot more trusting of us, just as a result of daily interaction with him. Trusting to the point where he will initiate physical contact. That fairly amazes me, really.

Mike Reynolds

2007-04-17T16:34:00.000-07:00

Mike Reynolds, who was a founder of the World Parrot Trust, has died in Cornwall, England, at the age of 76.

Fortunately, he lived to see the enactment of a ban of importation of wild parrots and other birds into the EU, something we have had here in the US since the Wild Bird Conservation Act of 1996. Rest well, Mr. Reynolds.

another Tuesday parrot update

2007-04-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

For those who are following the parrot saga....

Aziza got her third shot on Saturday as scheduled, as soon as I got home from my conference. She seemed a bit sleepy, apparently, through Friday, and looked a bit run down on Saturday as well, though she was eating well. Since Sunday morning, however, she has been acting really different...more like the Aziza I used to know - a regular chatterbox of Pionus squeaks, flaring her tail, and offering her head for scritches. Don't know what's gotten into her. But the past few days she has seemed much better, though she is still too thin. She's also drinking an unusual volume of water, I'll have to ask the vet about that. So far, no more eggs (knock on wood). Her next injection is scheduled for this Saturday morning.

on yesterday's disaster

2007-04-17T13:39:00.000-07:00

I'm just going to say one thing about yesterday's tragedy in Virginia. It seems that some on the Right are already blaming the victims for not being "heroic" enough to stop the gunman.

Statements like this are not only vile and presumptuous, but they ignore the facts. We already have accounts of students, some of them already wounded, barricading doors to classrooms so that the gunman could not enter to do (further) damage. I also read that one of the professors, a Holocaust survivor, did the same and urged his students to escape, while he was killed for his efforts. An RA at the dorm where the first shootings took place was a victim because he tried to intervene in an argument the (same?) gunman was having with a girl there. Acting to help and save others is more heroic than some idiotic Steven Segal fantasy of taking out the gunman.

My heartfelt condolences go out to friends and families of all the victims of this tragedy.

today's parrot news

2007-04-12T12:08:00.000-07:00

Aziza seems to be recovering from her latest egginess. She still looks awfully sore, though, and there has been some intermittent blood in her droppings. None this morning, though, so we are just going to keep an eye on that. She has been eating well, and has been coming to her dish as soon as she is fed, so her appetite is good.

I will try to post up a pic or two of the latest egg this weekend...it is long and skinny, so it looks funny. The weather is supposed to clear up in a few days, it would be nice for Aziza if it were nice enough that I could give her a bath without worrying she'll catch a chill.

media overload

2007-04-12T12:00:00.000-07:00

For the most part, I don't check out the video clips now being posted on news sites. As poor as the editing is getting on news websites, I usually stick with reading - it's faster than waiting for a video to load. And then when I see a link like this:

Well, I'm thinking, What are they actually going to show here? A clip of a big grumpy croc? Been there, done that. I did watch Steve Irwin on Animal Planet. A clip of a big grumpy croc chomping off someone's arm? Eewww! No, THANKS!

Yes, Virginia, there is such a thing as too much information!

a step forwards, a step backwards

2007-04-11T08:55:00.000-07:00

So, just as I was posting my update yesterday about Aziza and her latest round of hormone treatments, she threw another wrench in the works! I got a call from home at about 1:30 in the afternoon: "Her vent looks really big!" To which I replied, "Yes, that happens when she's hormonal, she's looked that way for a few weeks." Actually, what was meant was: "Her vent is really red and inflamed, and she's pushing, and when she does, something white shows."

So, when I got home it took about 5 minutes to discern that she was, indeed, straining on an egg which was right there but which she could not push out on her own. After a panicked call to the vet, I packed her up and drove her back to the office. I should have known her awesome weight gain over the last three days was suspicious. The vet helped push the egg out, gave her a calcium shot, and I brought a much lighter Aziza and a 12-gram egg back home. She spent an hour or so looking sleepy, but later in the evening was eating and drinking. She looks sore, though!

This morning I put her on the headboard while I went to the kitchen to fix the birds' morning rations. She walked over to the far side to look out the window, as usual. As I was dishing the food out, she walked back over to be put on her perch - without any prompting - and started eating right away (usually, she isn't in that much of a hurry). So she was hungry this morning. Hopefully, she will keep this up, because she's down to about 215 g now, and remember, I would really like her to be around 240 g. She has been eating well the past few weeks, but has been putting all of that into making eggs!

My day yesterday: Drive to work. Drive back home, pack up bird. Drive bird to vet's office (which is actually not far from work). Drive bird back home. Drive back to work. Drive home at end of work day. Drive back to vet's office with egg-bound bird. Drive home with egg-relieved bird. Total: About 85 miles, a lot of asshats in traffic, one exhausted bird, one exhausted bird owner, and $105 in vet charges.

Tuesday parrot update

2007-04-10T12:59:00.000-07:00

Aziza has started on her series of shots. She got the first one on Saturday, and the second one today. I will give her the third one this Saturday, and then back to the vet the following Saturday! The shots are less expensive than the previous ones, which is good, but since she will have to have them more often, it runs a little more. I'm hoping she will calm down and them maybe not need them. I've ordered a cover for her cage, so we can regulate how many daylight hours she's getting, and that should help.

I will say that she seems to be less "put out" by these shots - the other ones left her looking a little peaked the following day, while these seem to make her hungry. She's been eating quite a lot since Saturday, and has packed on several grams between vet visits. I'd like to see her calmed down (not so hormonal) and getting fattened up (say, above 240 g) by her next vet visit. She has now been on the terbenifine for 3 months, so she's halfway done with that. It would be nice to get her to the stage where she isn't having to be medicated/poked and prodded all the time.

dead to me

2007-04-10T12:55:00.000-07:00

Comic Bill Maher, CBS News political analyst Jeff Greenfield and former Carter administration official Hamilton Jordan all appeared on “Imus in the Morning” today.

Anyone who continues to defend and enable this particular asshat should not expect me to buy their books or watch their shows. Remember the comments that got Howard Cosell fired? Ah, the good old days!

Wednesday wildlife blogging

2007-04-04T12:14:00.000-07:00

Just so you know things haven't been all doom and gloom, here are some neat pictures of critters we've seen recently around the place.

Here is a moth that was in the house, trying to blend in on a wall:

And here are a couple of photos of the pileated woodpecker that has been hanging around the past few months, working on a snag left after the mid-December storm:

The woodpecker is interesting to watch - he is perfectly aware that you are approaching, but he's big enough, I guess, that he doesn't seem too concerned about it, and he lets you get pretty close. He's really been excavating this snag, and finding ants and other insects to eat. As the excavation area widens, he strips the ivy down, out of his way.

parrot update early April

2007-04-04T11:42:00.000-07:00

On Friday, Kianga crushed her remaining egg. I had been noticing that she was starting to look a little bored with sitting anyway, so I cleaned everything up Friday evening and - voila! It was like flipping a switch. I have my parrot companion back. She's back to her normal smartass self, talking, making her usual rude noises (she loves to make belching sounds), and asking to come out in the evening so she can get into things and have head scritches.

Aziza, on the other hand, has been more of an issue. She was due for a hormone shot last Saturday, but on Monday and Tuesday was already acting the way she did in the week before she got eggbound. Oh no, not again! I called the vet and got her in for a shot last Wednesday, but apparently it was not enough. She was just beside herself all weekend, and Sunday night she kept waking me up with shredding and digging in her cage papers. Finally at 2 am I removed them, but she spent all night on the floor of her cage. The next day and night she did act more normally, and was on her perch most of the time, but Tuesday morning I woke up to find that during the night she had laid a soft-shelled egg off her perch. It was broken on the floor of the cage, but I had slept Soundly enough (being tired from the previous night, I guess) that I didn't hear a thing. (I was at least relieved that she had managed to pass her egg without needing intervention!) I cleaned up, and called the vet.

The next option is to try a different hormone (more expensive no doubt, and it has to be given more frequently, so I will have to administer the shots myself). I hope we can work the schedule out, because there are three injections during the first week, and it just so happens I have to be out of town for two days next week at the local SETAC meeting, presenting a poster. If we can do them Saturday, Wednesday or Thursday morning, and then Saturday or Sunday, it will work fine, but if one of the shots has to be on Friday, we may have to delay, because nobody will be around who can give her that shot. Matt will be feeding and watering the birds and giving Aziza her oral meds (we can put them on a treat that she will eat), but he is scared of needles, and probably couldn't administer a shot to a bird without some help anyway.

I'll see what the vet says when I take Aziza in on Saturday. She has been eating and seems like she is doing pretty well otherwise - she has been engaged and even feisty since Monday.

Friday parrot blogging

2007-03-23T15:55:00.000-07:00

Meet Kelele:

Kelele is a male, wild-caught timneh African grey. He was about 2 years old when I got him in 1992, so he's about 17 now. A breeder had purchased him out of quarantine, but he was too young, so she put and ad in the paper. I felt sorry for him - the breeder kept her birds in her garage, they got no natural sunlight, so I bought him. He was still so wild at that time, that he growled at us whenever we approached. Even after all this time, he's still wild enough that he isn't hand-tamed; however, he will take food from our hands, and the couple of times I have had to man-handle him, he's never tried to bite. He also is a good talker and makes a variety of lovely whistles and clicks, and loves the attention he gets. We named him 'Kelele' which is Swahili for "uproar" because of the way he would growl all the time when we first got him.

Here is a picture of Aziza in her favorite spot on the headboard of the bed. She is working her beak, trying to look as fierce as possible. If you look closely, you might be able to see that her under-tail coverts are missing - the were all plucked out for her surgery. You can't see her "bubble" though, in this photo.

knit blogging

2007-03-23T15:46:00.000-07:00

This is some knitting that I am working on. I am making a tiny pair of baby socks for our Mac IT guy at work, who is expecting a baby next month. Here is the first sock, finished:

Here is the second one too, just starting on the cuff.

I am now done with the gusset and have only a little more to do. Sort of a neat project, since they go so fast - just a few hours on each one. In addition to that, they don't need much yarn - I was able to use some superwash sock yard left over from making my mom a pair of socks last fall, and I even have enough left, I could probably make a baby cap from it. (There's an idea)

I'm also working on a pair of socks for myself. One sock is finished already, I'll try to post a picture soon.

mmmmmm.

2007-03-22T15:34:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, I have a fondness for smelly cheeses. I got it from my great-grandmother, back when the only thing available locally was a fairly innocuous imitation Limburger marketed by Borden. How things have changed with the global economy. I often buy exotic soft cheeses in the gourmet section of my local supermarket, just to try them. There are cheeses from all over the world, the real thing, not just domestic impersonations of them.

parrot update

2007-03-21T15:46:00.000-07:00

An update on the birds. Or for the birds, if you will.

Last Friday, while cleaning Kianga's cage, I was transferring her eggs back to her little makeshift nestbox - and accidentally dropped one. I felt like such a bad mom, even though I was able to confirm that no, it wasn't fertile (so any suspicions that she and Kelele, the male timneh, were doing the nasty with cage bars in between were quashed). Fortunately, she's sitting quite happily on the remaining egg and has been very good about eating and such. She's been very responsive and fairly talkative and isn't losing enough weight for me to worry about.

Aziza seems more her old self, though she still seems on the thin side, and she tires out earlier than the grays. She still has that 'bubble' in her abdomen just in front of her vent. She's had this since I got her back from her surgery; the vet said it was probably air under the skin from a small air sac that may have been ruptured; however, it hasn't gone away as it should have, I'm beginning to wonder if she didn't give herself a hernia with all that straining. I'll ask the vet about it when she goes in next weekend; I would think this would require yet another surgery. :-(

one time's a lark...

2007-03-21T15:30:00.000-07:00

...but two times, and we're beginning to see a disturbing pattern here:

He was found guilty in April 2005 of felony mistreatment of an animal after he killed a horse with the intention of having sex with it. He was sentenced to 18 months in jail and two years of extended supervision on that charge as well as six years of probation for taking and driving a vehicle without the owner's consent.

Hathaway pleaded no contest earlier this month to misdemeanor mistreatment of an animal for the incident involving the deer. He was sentenced Tuesday in Douglas County Circuit Court.

Um....isn't cruelty to / messing with animals one of the signs of an incipient serial killer? I hope this guy gets some serious help.

Honestly, though, look at this again - you might argue that he almost got a stiffer sentence for the auto theft charge than for the felony mistreatment charge in 2005. But he can't even have been out of jail all that long, and he's right back to trying to sexually assault something. You know, I'm not much in favor of civil commitment laws, but sheesh, maybe we can call three strikes on this guy, and keep him from hurting Nellie or Bambi or, you know, somebody's daughter.

the last honest republicans

2007-03-13T09:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, there are still a few:

CHIP SOMODEVILLA / GETTY IMAGES

Fired attorneys, left to right, Carol Lam, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of California; David Iglesias, former U.S. Attorney for the District of New Mexico, Daniel Bogden, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Nevada; Paul Carlton, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Arizona, H.E. "Bud" Cummins, former U.S. Attorney for the District of Arkansas, and John McKay, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, are all sworn in before testifying to the U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Capitol Hill last week.

McKay doesn't know if Republican unhappiness over his handling of the 2004 election cost him his job as U.S. Attorney for Western Washington, but the new revelations contained in a Washington Post story are sure to reignite questions about McKay's dismissal and whether it was connected to Washington state's hotly contested governor's race.

Um, ya think?

Oh, I still remember when Bush the Younger was sworn in. Shortly afterwards, we all got an email memo stating that the highest ethical standards were going to be expected of all federal employees, and that we should take our positions of public trust seriously, etc. At the time, knowing something of Bush's history, I just snorted at this and thought it was pretty amusing of him to presume to lecture me on ethics. Now, I no longer think it's amusing. I think it's obscene.

Update: Did you ever believe it was possible to have an Attorney General so stinking rotten that John Ashcroft would look good in comparison?

on the occaision of PZ's birthday

2007-03-09T15:08:00.000-08:00

Today is PZ Meyers' 50th Birthday. He asked for poetry....this isn't much, but it does rhyme, and contains all matter of evolutionarily-relevant invertebrates:

The squids are on parade
And the cuttlefishes too
The nudibranchs are twirling
Like shawls in the Deep Blue

Drosophila are buzzing
'Round Hovind's empty zoo
All because it's PZ's Birthday
And poetry is his due

Happy Birthday, PZ! Arrrgh!

a little music video for today

2007-03-08T15:42:00.000-08:00

Künstliche Welten. It isn't what I picture when I hear the song, but hey. The singer looks a little Simon LeBon, doesn't he?

I also like their song 'Once in a Lifetime' (no, it just has the same title as a Talking Heads song).

In parrot updates, Kianga laid her second egg (finally) at 5:40 pm on Tuesday. She is sitting on them, but has been climbing up to her dish to eat, which is something I had trouble convincing her to do in the past. So maybe the food is now good enough to be worth it?

parrots!

2007-03-05T15:32:00.000-08:00

Aziza had her stitches out on Saturday, and another hormone shot to keep her from producing any more eggs. The vet said she appears to be doing well, and she does seem to be a lot more energetic now that she is off all medications except the terbenefine. I think the antibiotic she had been on was affecting her somewhat, as I've always noticed that she seems to lose weight while she's on them. She was back down to 211 g on Saturday, but the vet didn't seem too worried about it (she's weighed less). I'd like to see her back where she was (~238 g) so I'm hoping she will start gaining the weight back now. But she is healing well from her surgery, so that is good. I don't know how long it will be before the feathers they removed will come back in - the poor thing is going to itch, though, when they do.

As for Kianga, no second egg yet, though she acts like she might lay another. I don't mind if she has one more (she always stopped at two before), but I will be keeping an eye on her to make sure she doesn't have any trouble. She has been in good spirits, however - making funny noises and comments (I swear she has a sense of humor).

parrot and egg blogging

2007-03-02T18:36:00.000-08:00

I am not sure if I have posted any picture of Aziza yet, but here is a decent one from this last summer:

I got the chance to pull both eggs, and photograph them next to each other to compare sizes:

I was actually really surprised - the eggs are actually pretty proportional to the weights of the birds. Kianga's egg looks to be about twice the size of Aziza's.

Friday parrot blogging: egg edition

2007-03-02T08:47:00.000-08:00

We still have a few stray snowflakes drifting around this morning, but spring must be on the way. I had quite a surprise last night....

Now that Aziza is slowly on the mend from her eggbinding, Kianga, my Congo African grey (who will be sweet 16 on March 31), decided to get in on the egg act as well. When I turned out the lights for bed, she climbed down off her perch to the bottom of the cage. I knew something was up. "Kianga, whatcha doin'?" I asked a couple of times, but she was quiet. After about twenty minutes, though, I heard it - a familiar sound since Aziza's egg-binding incident - the sound of a parrot pushing on an egg. I was thinking, "oh no, this is just what I need - another egg-bound hen having to go to the emergency vet." But it didn't sound like the stressed pushing that Aziza had been doing, so I just listened. She pushed and grunted a few more times, at several minute intervals, and after about ten minutes, I heard the sound of something hitting the metal tray on the floor of her cage. "Kianga! Are you done already?!" I got up and turned on the light, and sure enough, there she was, looking at the egg and starting to pull it underneath her.

I got a box top and put some paper in, then the egg, and turned the lights back out. She eventually got in the makeshift nest and started sitting. This morning, she was looking pretty proud of herself:

If I get the opportunity, I'm going to put her egg side-by-side with Aziza's and get a picture. I think Aziza's egg is almost as large as Kianga's. (Aziza weighs about a half pound, Kianga about a pound.)

It seems so odd that I never heard Kianga laying any of her previous four eggs, but I do hear her laying this one, and right after having gone through hearing Aziza try and try to lay hers. I guess I know now what normal and abnormal sound like. (And I'm extremely thankful that Kianga didn't have any problems.)

so call me a killjoy

2007-03-01T15:48:00.000-08:00

...but dammit, I have to agree with this:

The new version of Jacobsen’s bill would allow leashed dogs in outdoor areas of restaurants, such as patios—better than everywhere, I guess, but still the top of a long, slippery slope that could end up screwing over those of us who don’t want your dog jumping in our laps while we try to enjoy a burger at Linda’s

And that goes for your snot-nosed, coughing, out-of-control kids too.

I know I sound like a "hey you kids - get off my lawn!" oldster, so let me clarify. I don't have a problem with dogs or kids (and I don't blame them for their owners' or parents' boorish behavior). What I have a problem with is YOU letting them JUMP UP ON ME when I have no idea WHO the f*** you ARE. Boundaries, people, boundaries. Has no one ever taught you what is and what is not an appropriate way to behave?

egg blogging

2007-03-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

As promised, here is the photo of Aziza's egg, next to a ruler so you can get an idea of the size. For those of you who always wondered what a parrot egg looks like. Specifically, this is the egg of a dusky Pionus:

I tried to get a photo of her x-ray showing the egg, but that didn't work too well; I didn't have time to try scanning it.

winter wonderland

2007-03-01T09:06:00.000-08:00

This is what we woke up to this morning:

Technically, it is still winter, but sheesh, this is getting ridiculous!

parrot blogging

2007-02-27T15:41:00.000-08:00

Okay, here is an update, and why I've been busy!

We were going along, treating Aziza for her respiratory infection....the vet mentioned that she was probably not helping things by being so hormonal, so we started her on hormone injections to help calm things down. I took her in for her second injection right at the scheduled interval on February 17th, and informed them that she hadn't been acting herself the preceding few days, so they took a blood sample to see if there was something else going on.

During the day, she wasn't voiding any stool, only some urates, and this had me worried, and then in the evening, she appeared to be straining to pass something - she had these bouts where she looked like she was pushing, accompanied by a wheezing noise, followed by panting. I put her to bed at 9 pm, hoping this would induce her to sleep and stop whatever it was she was doing (I wasn't sure what it was about at that point).

I woke up around 11:30 pm, and there she was, making that wheezing sound every 3-5 minutes. I wrung my hands for an hour, and then decided that there had to be some kind of obstruction keeping her from voiding, so it was time to take her to the emergency vet.

Turns out, she was trying to lay an egg! It must have been forming even as she got her second hormone shot. The vet at the emergency care gave her some meds to help her form and pass the egg, which still had not happened by the next afternoon. But she was comfortable enough to bring home. The next day, she still had not laid the egg, so I called my regular vet, and took her in that afternoon. The vet then spent two days and evenings trying to coax the egg out of her, all with no luck. So...she had to have it surgically removed on Wednesday the 21st, which fortunately went well.

I got her back on Thursday morning, and she did well until Friday afternoon, when she started to look not-so-hot; the vet suggested a stronger painkiller, since nothing else adverse seemed to be going on. So we tried that, and that seemed to do the trick. The last few days she has been fighting more and more against being medicated, and today seems to be acting more like herself in other ways as well. Her appetite has been good throughout, so I am hoping we can get her weight back up to normal fairly soon.

Her sutures come out on Saturday, and she'll be getting another hormone shot as well - we may double up for awhile, just to make sure she doesn't try to make another egg.

I guess I'm not completely surprised I didn't recognize her symptoms at the time, though it's a bit of a "d'oh!" monent in retrospect. Though my grey Kianga laid eggs twice (in 2003 and 2006), she hasn't had any trouble with it - she sits on the bottom of her cage, and in the morning there is an egg; I haven't heard so much as a grunt out of her!

The vet gave me Aziza's egg to put in her cage, so she can see it there, so she won't think it was lost and needs to be replaced. I took some pictures of it, so maybe I'll post one later.

Also, because the surgeon said that Aziza's oviduct looked like she wasn't getting enough viatmin A, I'm playing with diets again, trying to make what I feed my birds more varied, fresh, interesting, and nutritious, and adding what supplements I can. I had been feeding them a bean and rice mix in the mornings, then an amended corn bread in the evenings, always with pellets underneath. But they mostly ignored the pellets, and a lot of the bird bread would be discarded because they would pick out the "good stuff." Now, I am mixing the mashed up bread with bean mix, adding some chopped fruit, and mixing that all up with some mash-style parrot food. I may start baking the pellets in with the cornbread too. This mix is more uniform; it may be a little less interesting (but I'm thinking maybe not, since the reaction to it has been very favorable), but hopefully they will eat more of the different components and get a better balance of nutrients. I don't want Kianga to go through this problem if she decides to lay this year, since I have changed their diets a lot in the past 8 months.

ha ha hahaha!

2007-02-27T15:32:00.000-08:00

OK, I'm laughing so hard I'm out of breath. I really shouldn't even send any traffic to her post, but this

in the same way Delta Zeta resorted to active exclusion as a recruitment strategy, mainstream feminists rely on passive exclusionary tactics to keep the movement “pure.”

is the silliest thing I've seen in quite some time. Honey, maybe you should shut up and listen to some of those women who are telling you that you don't know everything. It would be in your best interests, really.

dumber than dirt

2007-02-16T08:34:00.000-08:00

Honestly, I'd really like to know who votes for these people:

“Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion,” reads the letter that went out under Bridges' name. “This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia.”

Count 'em! Three!Three!Three slanders in one! (They got in slams against Jews, science and secularism all at the same time!) That has to take the prize for the new millennium for the greatest amount of ignorance in one short paragraph (though I'm sure this will be surpassed, unfortunately).

That anyone, in the 21st Century, who espouses views such as this (quite modern for, say the 14th Century), gets elected to any position of decision-making in this country is disheartening, to say the least. As the old saying goes, 'I wouldn't elect him as dog-catcher!'

oh please

2007-01-23T12:45:00.000-08:00

Some parents:

"The flight was already delayed 15 minutes and in fairness to the other 112 passengers on the plane, the crew made an operational decision to remove the family," AirTran spokeswoman Judy Graham-Weaver said.

...

She was removed because "she was climbing under the seat and hitting the parents and wouldn't get in her seat" during boarding, Graham-Weaver said.

They got their tickets refunded and were also offered tickets to anywhere the airline flies. I really don't know how they could complain. The FAA has safety rules, parents ought to know them before they fly with their kids.

The kid was being a brat, yet these people expected everyone else to wait while they attempted to get control of their child. How long was everyone else expected to wait, I wonder, according to these parents? Look, I know parenting is hard work, I know that kids don't always behave perfectly, but did they even give a thought to the fact that everyone else was being inconvenienced by this? Not just on that flight, but the whole airport schedule? Really, they should have just said "this isn't working out, sorry to inconvenience you all" and got off the plane.

and an update

2007-01-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

Haven't been posting much recently, due to a bunch of things:

1. Got a nasty cold ~mid-December (the 12th specifically), which I made worse by doing too much over the holidays and not getting enough rest.

2. Nasty windstorm on December 14, which took out some trees in/near driveway and part of our fence.

3. Snowstorms which kept me holed up for days at a time, first in late November, then again on January 10, and yet again on January 15/16. This winter has really sucked, weather-wise.

4. A second nasty cold which commenced on January 5th. This time I did get enough rest.

5. Aziza relapsed with a respiratory problem on January 8th, and has needed some time-consuming care over the last 10 days. Back to the vet tomorrow for her recheck, but she does seem to be recovering. She is going to need medication for about six months - but at least we are done with the really hard part.

sweet jeebus

2007-01-19T14:33:00.000-08:00

This is just bizarre:

Officials at the charter school in Chino Valley, about 90 miles northwest of Phoenix, told deputies that papers the "grandfather" presented appeared to be fake and that "boy" looked much older than 12.

Stiffler and Robert James Snow, 43, "were very upset when the detectives told them they had been having a sexual relationship with a 29-year-old man and not a pre-teen boy," Quayle said.

WTF is wrong with these people?!