Pot luck

Delicious forgotten words... we need to start using them now!

The mystery of Skeleton Lake in India.

The graph that shows what the US owes to everybody.

SEE!!  I told you raccoons were clever!

Eating at home v eating out.

Thank god my family and I live in California.

Anna Holmes and Jezebel.

Nate Silver's predictions for the Republicans.  Waving the Confederate flag at the most inappropriate time.

How Christopher McCandless (Into the Wild) probably died.

Could Boehner be playing to win?

Malala asks Obama to end drone strikes.

Neil DeGrasse Tyson critiques the film Gravity.  And we've been SuperNova'ed!

Finally!  Another planet we could call home, just in time, too!  We've really wrecked up this one!

Terrorists at the White House!

Anyone check the terrorists for bombs or bugs?:

President Obama mocked the Washington area's Defcon 1 response to a few snowflakes last week. Let's see how the flinty Chicagoan does with the latest living-in-Washington challenge: critters.

With permission from the Secret Service, the National Park Service has been in hot pursuit of a pack of raccoons spotted roaming the manicured grounds near the White House, a spokesman said.

(h/t to Mahakal of Cannablog)

But the worst terrorist is one hatched on our own soil and newly jobless, Dick Cheney.



Keith Olbermann:

"I think there's a high probability of such an attempt. Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States."

"The Bush System," as John Yoo so aptly re-christened it the other day. Start the wrong war, detain the wrong people, employ the wrong methods, pursue the wrong leads, utilize the wrong emotions. Beat up first, ask questions later. You know, just like Al-Qaeda does, or Iran. Save this nation from terrorists by doing the terrorists' work for them, Mr. Cheney. To your credit, sir, you have added a new monster under a new bed, to try to continue to foment a national policy of panic. It's the Terrorists-on-our-streets ploy.

It's when not if for another terrorist attack, Mr. Cheney. But it won't be President Obama's fault when it does happen. In your eight horrible long years in office you've made more people become terrorists than Bin Laden could ever have wished for. But your love of secret shadow governments and rendition and torture is all your own and very un-American. Besides, it's not very subtle but you're almost begging al-Qaeda to attack on Obama's watch just to prove a point, that your style of 'governing' is better than his.

So kindly slink back into the shadows. Even the New York Times editorial board wishes you would go away:

In an interview published today by the website Politico, the (thankfully) former vice president let loose a stream of disinformation and attacks on Mr. Obama that were breathtaking even by the standards of a man who set new lows for meanness and dissembling.

For example:

– Mr. Obama is making it more likely terrorists will launch a catastrophic nuclear or biological attack on the United States — because he doesn’t want to torture prisoners, violate the Geneva Conventions, and ignore the Constitution and federal law.

Mr. Cheney’s evidence? None whatsoever. It was just yet another way for him to justify the repugnant policies he helped put in place for the treatment of detainees after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

– Mr. Obama is “more concerned about reading the rights to an al Qaeda terrorist” than “with protecting the United States against people who are absolutely committed to do anything they can to kill Americans.”

Once again, this is nonsense — just the sort of bald propaganda Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush used to frighten Congress into voting for appalling pieces of legislation like the Military Commissions Act of 2006, the Patriot Act and warrantless wiretapping.

Cheney's list goes on, but the article finishes with this fervent wish:

After reading the interview, we found ourselves wishing Mr. Cheney would simply retire and stay out of the public eye — to a great extent.

Maybe you could hang out with the raccoons in their secure undisclosed location.

More proof that squirrels are plotting terroristic terrorism stuff!!

Be afraid!

More animals in Germany go ... bonkers:

BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- An unusually aggressive squirrel attacked three people in a German town before its last victim finished it off with a crutch, police said Wednesday.

The rodent jumped through a living-room window in Passau, on the Austrian border, on Tuesday and bit its first victim. With the squirrel hanging on by its teeth, the woman ran out into the street, where she managed to shake the animal off.

The squirrel then bit a builder before fleeing into a nearby garden, where it bit a 72-year-old man who eventually killed it with his crutch, police said.

The dead animal was to be tested for rabies.

Germany is obviously the first strike area by super rats , raccoons, and now squirrels. Expect invasion by a small fur military any day now. They are expecting flowers and candy.



Update: obviously I was so concerned about the squirrels I didn't read the rest of the report:

Separately Wednesday, Berlin commuters found themselves sharing the road with escapees from a local zoo -- six horses, three camels, two goats and a llama.

The animals escaped from a small petting zoo in the east of the capital and appeared shortly before 7 a.m. (0500 GMT) at a busy roundabout a few hundred meters (yards) away, police said.

The animals' excursion, which led to minor disruption but no injuries, was ended swiftly. The horses were caught in a nearby park and the llama at a cemetery, police said. Their comrades also were apprehended.

It was not immediately clear how the animals escaped.

A jail break on top of all the rest! They need to Gitmo those animals NOW!! What do they know and .... how do they know it!!

91 year old German man sticks self to roof while tarring it.

BERLIN (AP) - A 91-year-old German man was rescued by police and fire crews Tuesday from a sticky situation.

The retiree from the eastern city of Magdeburg had been taking advantage of good spring weather to re-tar the roof of his garden house when he slipped and became glued to the structure.

Rescuers were able to free the man, whose name was not released, by prying him loose - bit by bit - from the gooey mess.

Authorities said the man was unharmed, but his clothes were a write-off.

No one could say if he was fleeing from raccoons ......

Racoons invade Germany

The war has begun....

It's an invasion that has many in Germany up in arms. Literally. The raccoon population is exploding in the country -- as witnessed by the rapidly increasing numbers of them being shot by German hunters -- and nature lovers are not happy. Worse, the furry interlopers have no natural predators here and are therefore free to breed at their leisure.

They are not making themselves popular. Wine-makers in the region of Annenwalde in the state of Brandenburg have taken to protecting their vines from raccoons with electric fences and guard dogs, while cherry farmers in Witzenhausen in Hesse state complain that the 'coons steal their fruit.

[snip]

Like many animals considered pests, raccoons share several characteristics with humans. They are clever, adaptable omnivores, equipped with thumbs which allow them to, among other things, wash their food -- a habit which earned them their name in German, Waschbären ("wash bears").

Meanwhile the wily raccoons have realised they will probably prosper better in urban areas, far from hunters' guns. "There are now significantly more raccoons living in cities than in the countryside," says Michler.

Update: They are probably the advance guard or a decoy! The squirrels will probably catapult in by air.
Two spies caught passing military plans:

Update: I think this explains their move to Germany:

HIBERNIA, Ind., March 12 After a four-year hiatus the official raccoon cook for the Community Building fundraiser in Hibernia, Ind., has returned.

LaVeran Lorenz, 86, has once again agreed cook raccoon, with some help with the cleaning, for the March 24 event, the Indianapolis Star reported.

It's not like cleaning a chicken, I'll tell you that, said Dina Woods, one of those helping to clean raccoons for cooking. Hunters have caught about 103 so far.

When they told us, we'd already caught 40, said hunter Allus Franklin. Lorenz had been the main raccoon cook for every fundraiser since the early 1950s but she stepped down in 2002. Since then, the 21 members of the Owen Township Homemakers have prepared chili and ham and beans for fundraisers, the Star said.