I think gunblogger Tam just about nails it, with one caveat: “Yes, we know that Ted Kennedy (aka “The Evel Kneivel of Chappaquidick”) is a pusillanimous toad who killed a woman with his total lack of backbone, and that his car has killed more women than Dick’s pansy little 28 gauge shotgun has “Yes, we …
Leaping To Conclusions
As reported by Reuters today, scientists claim, “Cane toads in Australia have developed longer legs to enable them to invade more territory.” That’s quite a leap. I am always interested to see this line of reasoning suggested in the findings of biological studies: Animals evolved Trait X in order to achieve Goal Y. I don’t …
Something Completely Silly
Pluvialis found it first.: a site in which you can portray yourself a la South Park. Looks rather like her, complete with Camel (cigarette not mammal). Then Peculiar picked it up from her. How appropriate: an angry Crusader with a Tuareg (or is it Ninja?) turban and a chainsaw: So of course I had to …
Mammoth Tracks
I got my January issue of American Antiquity in today’s mail and it has a very interesting article entitled “Late Pleistocene Horse Hunting at the Wally’s Beach Site (DhPg-8), Canada.” It’s written by B. Kooyman, L.V. Hills, P. NcNeil and S. Tolman and describes a Clovis age (11,300 – 11,000 BP) site on a riverbank …
“Carnigan”?
That’s what NM falconer and longdog man calls attendees at a feast where all the dishes are meat. This atricle from the Christian Scence Monitor suggests that most Argentinians deserve the label. “Half an hour later, he lays on the small intestine (chinchulin), and later the sweet breads (molleja), maybe a kidney. These are the …
Great Bear
Walter Hingley has sent in links here (good background) and here to the new (and new kind of ) national park in British Columbia which will contain an incredible quarter of the world’s last remaining temperate rain forests and an estimated 20% of the wild Pacific salmon. Everyone gave a little, everyone gained. Now let’s …
Real Dogs
Prairie Mary sent us to this good Times article by Ted Kerasote on overbred dogs. I only wish he hadn’t given even accidental credence to H$U$ on the way, but I expect his book, due out next year, will be well worth reading. Mary says: “l like this article very much. I’m hearing something similar …
Bennion’s Birds
I have been too busy and not all with good things– have been devoting entirely too much time to the coursing crisis–see below– while attempting not to become obsessed with it. But I have also been reviewing books (for money, hooray!), writing about fine Victorian guns (ditto) and chatting with Pluvialis about bird art, about …
Assassin Spiders and Science Writers
In a story dovetailing with recent collecting expeditions into New Guinea and into caves closer to home, biologists report the discovery of nine new species of assassin spiders from Madagascar. Unfortunately no photos are provided in the story, but journalist Alicia Chang (AP Science Writer!) offers some colorful descriptions of the spiders, as, variously, “grotesque-looking,” …
People Watching Orcas
I’ve given up trying to link to the Santa Barbara News Press, but I have borrowed these pictures from them that accompanied a short report on a pod of five orcas sighted in the Santa Barbara Channel earlier this week. The sightings were made and these pictures taken on a local whale-watching tour boat, the …