Another one of those little things we probably don't have to worry about (cont'd)

An avian flu that jumps from birds to mammals is killing New England's baby seals

Based on full genome sequencing and phylogenetic analysis, seal H3N8 descended from an avian strain that has been circulating in North American waterfowl since 2002, which implies recent transmission from wild birds to seals.
...

Given these findings along with the long history of the spread of avian influenza to humans—most notably H1N1 and H5N1—seal H3N8 could pose a threat to public health.
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Which animal is hating America today?

Good question! I was about to guess the beady-eyed, weasely wolverine, but it is in fact our frenemy the moose that is stabbing us in the back this time by linking antlers with the YOOOGE global warming HOAX Machine.

"As ruminants, moose have a complicated digestion system that affects their ability to self-cool, and their internal thermostats are triggered with even the smallest temperature shifts."

"Waaah - it's too hot out" ... ya gonna cry now?
~

Now even plants and animals have joined in on YOOOOGE global warming FRAUD...

... or, perpetrators of most elaborate hoax ever going to ever more elaborate lengths (like moving plants and animals) to perpetrate hoax (cont'd)

From the current issue of Science and Shit:

"On average, the team finds, creatures move both up mountains and farther away from the equator at a speed that keeps pace with the rate of climate change and at a pace that is far faster than previously predicted."

That's it, run away, Chicken Littles... ya gonna cry now?

Animals phokking with hyooomans big time

Animals harbour a deadly time bomb

Human affection for animals - wild and domestic - has a darker side. It is estimated that 75 per cent of emerging infectious diseases in people - many of them fatal - originate in animals.

Hyooooomans phokking with animals

Ultimate Dog Tease
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It's not enough to ban bestiality - we must ban inter-species marriage as well

The act of bestiality is a step closer to becoming illegal in Florida now that a Senate committee voted to slap a third-degree felony charge on anyone who has sex with animals.

Florida is one of only 16 states that still permit bestiality -– a fact that animal-rights activist and Sunrise Sen. Nan Rich learned to her horror when a Panhandle man three years ago was suspected of accidentally asphyxiating a family goat with which he was copulating.
. . .

Rich's proposal was amended to target only those who derived or helped others derive "sexual gratification" from an animal. The amendment specified that conventional dog-judging contests and animal-husbandry practices are permissible.

That last provision tripped up Miami Democratic Sen. Larcenia Bullard.

"People are taking these animals as their husbands? What’s husbandry?" she asked. Some senators stifled their laughter as Chairman Charlie Dean explained that husbandry was the rearing and caring of animals.

Bullard didn't get it.

"So that maybe have been the reason the lady was so upset about that monkey?" Bullard asked, referring to a Connecticut case where a woman’s suburban chimpanzee want mad and was shot...

Obama transition: the sucking begins

Two problems today. We'll dispense with the easy one first: there's no such thing as a hypoallergenic dog. You would think a nerdy, Mister Science, I-can-pronounce-nuclear smartypants would have known that already.

The second one is more complicated. An eight team playoff? That would leave out a 12-0 Ball State, who is around the mid-teens in the polls now and would probably be around 12th by the end of the year if they stay undefeated. Can you really leave out the undefeated champion of a Division 1-A conference? Wouldn't that sort of defeat the point of a playoff?

There are 11 Division 1-A (or FBS or whatever-the-phokk they're calling it now) conferences. A fair playoff would have to take them all, and would still leave room for five at-large whiners. Of course, you still have the controversy between the fifth at-large whiner and the sixth at-large whiner, just like you have controversies among the 64th-65th-66th-67th teams in basketball. No getting around that.

With a 16-team field, you could play the eight first-round games on January 1st to preserve some of the tradition of New Year's Day. If everyone who feels entitled to a payout is feeling cooperative enough, they might even preserve some of the Bowl names and sponsorships. Over the rest of January, play rounds two and three, and set up the championship game for the Saturday of Super Bowl weekend for a two-day football and snack food frenzy. What could possibly go wrong?

mammals schmammals - what have they ever done for us (besides being quite delicious)?

News item - Field Museum expert: One in four mammals threatened with extinction

And man are they delicious! A little ketchup, french fries, dat's good eatin'!

Palin on WILSH (Wolves I'd Like to Shoot from a Helicopter)

Probably quite delicious with a few french fries...

Palin offered a $150 bounty for wolves to entice hunters to kill more wolves in certain parts of the state, with hunters having to present a wolf's foreleg to collect the bounty.

Also heavily into drilling.
~

no squirrel for her

Photo: Palin poses with caribou she shot

A plan to kill endangered animals and help starving refugees - why is that a problem?

"Regarding the Congressman's desire to hunt wildebeest and distribute the cured meat to refugees, wildebeest are not present in Chad." (Damn! If it's not one thing it's another... Ed.)

what has the Yangtze river dolphin ever done for us anyway?, or, there is literally nothing to see out here in the wilderness

News item: Endangered species may become extinct 100 times faster than previously thought, scientists warned today, in a bleak re-assessment of the threat to global biodiversity.

See them while you can! This offer won't be repeated!

Now endangered, polar bears a bigger draw in Churchill, Canada

intercourse the penguins

Penguin tale tops list of 'challenged' books

when did 'humanely destroyed' become 'euthanized,' and when can we have 'humanely destroyed' back?

there is probably an icky story behind that

News item: N.Y. bans anal electrocution of fur-bearing animals

What have bison, wolves, kokanee, pygmy rabbits, jaguars, ocelots, and Sonoran pronghorns ever done for us?

BushCo., not content enough with their contempt of the human race, don't care much for animals either...

Oh, Give Me A Home, Where The Buffalo Roam…Die

“There has never been a slaughter like this of the bison since the 1800s in this country, and it’s disgusting,” said Mike Mease of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a group seeking to stop the slaughter program for good.

can bear meat be made into fuel?

Judge orders U.S. government to decide polar bear listing

(AP) ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A federal judge has ordered the Interior Department to decide within 16 days whether polar bears should be listed as a threatened species because of global warming...

A decision to list polar bears due to global warming could trigger a recovery plan with consequences beyond Alaska. Opponents fear it would subject new power plants and other development projects to federal review (i.e., communism -- ed.) if they generate greenhouse gasses that add to warming in the Arctic (why do polar bears hate our freedom? -- ed.)...

In response to the petition filed in 2005, the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in December 2006 that polar bears be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act because of the loss of their primary habitat, Arctic sea ice.

Summer sea ice shrank last year to a record low, about 1.65 million square miles in September, nearly 40 percent less ice than the long-term average between 1979 and 2000. Some climate models have predicted the Arctic will be free of summer sea ice by 2030.

A U.S. Geological Survey study generated in response to the listing petition predicted that polar bears in Alaska could be wiped out by 2050...

Look, we all know there won't be any more polar bears in a few decades, so why should we sacrifice our economic growth to a doomed effort to save them?

chicken pie house of horrors revisited

You see it, don't you? The sinister subtext practically leaps off the screen!

The granny cannibal—the Grannibal—offers up her grandkids baked into a pie. "Hello, weary traveler. Come in, come in. Can I get you someone—that is to say, something to eat?" Her eagerness lends a pathetic note to her treachery...