Completely Unnecessary

Oh, hurrah.

New Senator-elect Mark Beigch has defeated Ted Stevens, bringing the total number of Democrats in the new Senate to 58 (at least once the NYT updates its map).

The Anchorage mayor currently leads by 3724 votes, more than the 2500 left to count. (And it’s more than Stevens lead at the end of Election Night.)

And we’re keeping Lieberman, so if Franken and Martin manage to win their recount and runoff, respectively, Democrats will have a filibuster-proof majority in the Senate.

Does that make Ted Stevens happy?

[I'll have you know I uploaded that damn thing to YouTube, realizing that it might be my last chance to use it.]

[Actually, I will never tire of that one second clip.]

Um, in other news, I finished my marking - a task made all the more difficult by the fact that this exists.

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The conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo has killed well over 5 million people.

Sporadic, ad hoc reporting that emphasizes an ‘ancient ethnic conflict’ meme is just one of the problems with the media’s reaction to crises in African countries, this one in particular.

Such reporting, however, looks downright charming compared with this anonymously authored gem from the BBC today about imprisoned Congolese goats:

The beasts were due to appear in court, charged with being sold illegally by the roadside.

The minister said many police had serious gaps in their knowledge and they would be sent for retraining.

This would be a good story to file under the ‘inescapable African incompetence’ category of reporting, were it not for this line at the end:

BBC Africa analyst Mary Harper says that given the grim state of prisons in Congo, the goats will doubtless be relieved about being spared a trial.

Zing! It’s… hilarious?… how awful the conditions are for thousands of imprisoned Congolese.

This isn’t quite up there with British reporting in the early days of the Rwandan genocide that detailed the escape of a ‘war hero’ poodle, but it’s close.

[By the way, I'm aware that the link above is also from the BBC; it's a bit better (and authored) though it still contains this awesome line: "And because DR Congo's population is large...it's a worse humanitarian crisis even than that caused by other African wars." Even worse than other crazy African wars? Whoa.]

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No, no, no, no!

I live, what, 500 metres from the Melbourne Museum (ah, but in which direction, stalker-types?), and I missed the public dissection of the giant squid?

Oh, had I but seen The Dark Knight at the IMAX, I might have seen the announcement. I blame Avi.

I also blame you, Gus Steph, for no reason more compelling than that you should have known knew about this.

I also blame the annoying people living above me who are either hammering or repeatedly dropping something at 10:30 at night. I’m giving blogging a go, since reading about Alaskan Jews (pretty sure I can be describing only one book here) is becoming difficult through the red mist of rage.

I also blame Itunes, which is on a Green Day kick. 6400 songs in my Itunes, 20 of them Green Day. Second one in 30 minutes. Shuffle, my ass. And now onto the second Unicorns song in the same time period. Seriously.

But back to the squid.

First, the researchers learned that it was a girl. And then I learned that I do not want to be reincarnated as a female squid:

Male giant squids have a penis of one-and-a-half metres, which they use like a nail gun, with the sperm placed under the skin of the females in their tentacles and head, Dr Norman said.

I’m tolerant, but that is a dating no-no in my book.

Also the multiple locations implies several different… nailings. I imagine female giant squid must be even more dubious than female lions. (And that’s the kind of knowledge a childhood of PBS nature shows yields.)

I feel like, “I have a headache,” probably doesn’t adequately cover the desire not to have sperm injected into your head.

So, in lieu of squid dissection, the most exciting part of my day was learning that the sushi place next to Sinbad’s will make you salmon handrolls without mayonnaise.

Actually, that information is probably more vital than anything I would have learned at the Museum. I don’t know what it is, but I find Vegemite is preferable to the mayonnaise here.

To sum up - see what distractions do to my writing (and thought process)?

Link:
Giant Squid a Huge Attraction [The Age]

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A squirrel has its own webpage.

And not just any squirrel, but the trained squirrel of a former USO pinup girl/country singer in Boca Raton, FL, dressed up in tiny, often shiny outfits. Sometimes with guns.

I feel that tells you about everything you need to know.

Other than the fact that the squirrel is apparently a bit right wing. You have to scroll down just about a third of the way for the really amazing stuff. And then there’s lots more scrolling.

Also, if you have suggestion for what Sugar Bush Squirrel should do next, a handy form is here. The pictures obviously took a great deal of effort (and careful stitching), but I adore this apparently free-association list of possible squirrel outfits:

• Gandalf the White
• Harry Potter again
• Dale Earnhart Jr.
• Madonna
• Wearing a Cheese Hat
• A Rockette

Those are good (damn, you Cheeseheads), but this is the section that blows my tiny mind:

• Margaret Thatcher (former GB Prime Minister)
• Pole Dancer
• Marilyn Monroe
• Jack the Ripper
• A Registered Nurse
• Liam Niesson

Firstly, Maggie would be pissed that she had to be identified so explicitly. And second…

Liam Niesson?

Who would want to see a squirrel dressed as a random actor, and, more importantly, how would you know! He’s just a person. Is she going to put the squirrel in jeans with a cigarette? Or on the set of Schindler’s List?

Liam Niesson’s primary defining characteristics are that he’s tall and Irish, neither of which is going to be adequately conveyed by a squirrel in an outfit.

Obviously, I voted for Liam Niesson.

h/t: CuteOverload

(more…)

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They both like water.

As if I haven’t had far more specious links between things I wanted to talk about. These two are both animals and, as previously stated, enjoy a dip.

First up! Time to look at the colossal squid found last year!!! [Ed. note - people totally jones for squid. Not a day goes by that someone doesn't come by my blog looking for large squids.]

Paul Brewer from the museum said there were some fears the huge animal would collapse when it finally thawed, because it lack of a backbone.

To try to unfreeze the specimen successfully, it will be removed from its freezer and placed in a specially-designed tank filled with salty water.

Because salt water freezes at a lower temperature than fresh water, it is hoped the squid can be kept at or below zero degrees celsius while the fresh water block of ice surrounding it is melted.

It is expected the thawing process will begin the night before scientists want to examine the animal, but the defrosting could take three to four days to complete.

This AAP writer is clearly missing the excitement of day; the audacious boringness of this prose is completely inappropriate. Curse the writer that does not appreciate the squid beat.

(Actually, the entire story reads like, “Um, I am just writing down what they told me because I don’t know the first thing about squid defrosting’).

Secondly, poor Knut! He really likes people and he cries because he’s too big to play with and no one likes him because he’s not a baby anymore.

And his handler doesn’t want to hug him anymore because he’s enormous and potentially deadly in his love.

He needs to learn a party trick like Mike, the polar bear at Lincoln Park Zoo when I was growing up. He used to bounce off the walls. It was charming at the time, though now I realize it was a repetitive coping behavior caused by crushing boredom.

A different LPZ polar bear seems to have kids on the menu. Maybe Knut should try rage… He is a teen, after all.

I went looking for a cougar update, but got bored with the Trib’s foolish website. It’s at the Field Museum and various people are poking at it. The story I read the other day only had two authors and not nearly enough breathless wonder for my cougar-article-tastes.

Links:
Scientists finally get close squiz at colossal squid [The Age]
Grown Knut ‘cries out’ [Chicago Tribune]

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I still kind of wish I’d been a zookeeper:

[Via Jezebel]

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Chicago police killed a cougar in my neighborhood Monday.

I was reading along, scrolling down to see where on the northside the animal had been found. Little did I expect to see:

The animal was shot by police shortly before 6 p.m. Monday in the 3400 block of North Hoyne Avenue, police said.

That’s five blocks from my house!

My guess is that the cougar was en route to my mother’s for hugs from me, but didn’t realize that I don’t home until July. Poor bunny.

What did my loquacious mayor have to say about the incident?

“Now, I just want to tell you, if the cougar attacked a child, they’d sue the city because the police officer didn’t do their job,” Daley said”I didn’t see a neighbor run out and grab it and say, ‘Oh I love you’ and bring it in the house.”

I repeat, I don’t come home until July.

And, boy, it must have been a slow news day at the Tribune. The front page is currently rocking a photo of police covering the dead animal with a cloth. The story is an absurd 1,050 words long, and has two reporters on the byline, as well as third contributor. Which I guess you need to write that much cougar copy.

Dear lord. You’d think it was the story about the coyote walking into a West Loop sandwich shop and climbing in the drinks fridge. (Which happened right near my old work, actually. Animals love me.)

Update: There is also the most amazing/absurd photo gallery of the cougar’s crime scene. 2,4,6 are the best - the captions are incredible. And 14 would get a big tick in the ‘images of metacoverage’ box on my research coding schedule.

Link:
Cougar killed on North Side may have wandered from Black Hills [Chicago Tribune]

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This is the text I just sent to my housemates:

Beware the couch. It is alive with ants - a problem for which I have no immediate solution.

I vacuumed, but I don’t think that’s going to cut it.

I feel itchy now.

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‘Questions’ is a misleading title, when really I have only one:

How many channels are there on Japanese television?

Because it seems as though there is an entire show devoted to balancing things your pet would like to eat on your actual pet.

Pay special attention to the droolings of the first puppy - poor pup:

Via CuteOverload

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Sure Huckabee won in Iowa tonight, but don’t think he didn’t leave havoc in his bread-eating wake.

On the way to the caucus, I ran into a patch of (no doubt) Huckabee-laid black ice. This isn’t such a problem if you’re going straight. If, however, you’re going downhill as three deer cross the road it’s nearly impossible to stop.

What is it with deer!?! The last one in line sauntered jauntily across the road as death careened slowly toward it. I wasn’t going fast at all - about fifteen miles an hour. And yet downhill, so not stopping either. All I could imagine as we slid toward the final deer was the collision with its body simply causing the car to cease moving. And perhaps a small bounce.

Instead, while I rode the anti-locks and grabbed the emergency brake, we came within three feet of the Huckadeer. How he missed the right fender is beyond me.

Utterly terrifying. Similar, in fact, to the thought of a Huckabee presidency.

And yet, surprisingly, a Huckabee candidacy would be awesome. I want to hear more about his dog-hangin’, porn-lovin’ sons over 10 months of totally not running negative ads whilst politely asking that the media air them for free.

See this rambling? This is what happens when Mike Huckabee steals all the good bread and you’re forced to eat inferior Subway bread.

It’s all in the carbs.

And on that weird note, I’ll blog about the caucus itself tomorrow, but leave you with Jenny’s sage wisdom:

Me: So! What’d we learn about the caucus?
Jenny: It takes forever and there’s not nearly enough eye candy.

Now there is an Iowan.

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