Mar 262013
 

On the one hand, it’s hard to be hard on Mark Kelly for becoming an anti-gun-nut. His wife was plugged in the noggin by a wacky leftist schizophrenic, after all… that’s gotta mess you up. But then, as he goes publicity seeking a few weeks ago, he wound up buying an Evil Black AR-15 Assault Murder Weapon *and* a .45 1911-style pistol (had Jared Laughner had one of those instead of a weenie 9mm, Gabbie would *not* have survived her gunshot):

Gabby Giffords’yHusband Buys AR-15

But then yesterday, whatever plans he had for his AR-15, whether plinking, home defense or political theater, turned into garbage when the gun store cancelled the sale and gave him his money back:

Gun store rescinds Mark Kelly’s rifle purchase, questions his ‘intent’

And while Mark Kelly and Gabby Giffords await the launch of the USS Gabby Giffords, a brand-new Independence class littoral combat ship (continuing the long, proud tradition of cynically naming Naval vessels after *living* politicians), Mark Kelly and his daughter wander down to the California seashore for a relaxing day at the beach… where they lose control of their High Capacity Assault Dog, and it goes and kills a defenseless baby sea lion:

Giffords’ husband pulls dog off sea lion in Calif.

(If you must, HERE is the YouTube video of the incident. Note that there is definite NSFW language, plus rather disturbing footage of a dog killing a baby sea lion. Lots of blood, and an abandoned baby sea lion carcass sadly floating out to sea.).

Note that in California, killing a sea lion is Bad Legal News. Will Kelly and/or his daughter be hauled up on charges like your average schmoe with an Assault Dog would be? It seems not. Also note, the way the headline is written makes it sound at first like Mark Kelly tried heroically to save the sea lion from the dog, when in fact the dog was apparently his (or at least his daughters) responsibility.

 Posted by at 2:12 am
Feb 252013
 

On the one hand: whales are intelligent (as non-humans go) and have been massively over-hunted. Japan has no need to kill them for food; their claims that this is done for research is patently ridiculous. Japan should stop.

On the other hand: Sea Shepherd opposes Japan’s whaling fleet; but they are a bunch of irritating ineffectual self-important hippie dipwads. They like to pose as pirates (even adopting a cliche pirate symbol as their own) yet turn into whiners when they are seriously opposed, physically or legally.

Watching Sea Shepherd tangle with the Japanese whaling fleet is kinda like watching a rabid skunk taking on a gangbanger: you just want them to both roll into the sewer drain and never be seen again. Still, you’ve got to kinda chuckle when the whalers decide that Enough Is Enough and actually fight back against the hippies:

Dramatic collision in Southern Ocean leaves anti-whaling boat damaged

[youtube KEVUEQ3SDyU]

The Sea Shepherd tub Bob Barker got itself good and tweaked by inserting itself between two *massively* bigger ships. Well… duh. Regardless of “right and wrong” and “legal and illegal,” if you ignore “physics,” you will likely get a very harsh lesson very fast.

[youtube ssw3xG1wH1s]

Sea Shepherd complaining about the whalers ramming their ship is kinda funny, given that their leader made a habit of ramming Japanese ships early on.

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 Posted by at 5:33 pm
Feb 222013
 

As I’ve babbled previously, this winter has been a *real* winter. A fair deal of snow, lots of cold. Last winter was warm and dry; summer was *hot* and dry. As a consequence, the plants that grow in the mountains and provide winter food for the critters were pretty badly stunted. As a consequence of *that,*critters are going further afield and changing their strategies.

Around here deer pop up from time to time, but you hardly ever see them in daytime. But this winter they’ve been bolder than usual, and are shoplifting hay meant for horses… including the hay in my back yard. If only there was a way to commercialize deer poop, I’d have it made.

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 Posted by at 6:59 pm
Feb 132013
 

Add “mollusc” to the list of animal phyla that can fly.

Japanese researchers confirm squid can fly as fast as Usain Bolt

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Scientists Confirm That Neon Flying Squid Can Fly, Announce Speed

Basically, they are jet propelled; this is not really news as their underwater propulsion is basically jet propulsion, but Ommastrephes bartramii uses that to burst out of the water and fly about thirty meters in about 3 seconds. More interestingly, rather than being simple bullets in the air, they use the large fins on their mantle as canards, and spread out their arms – with membrane webbing – to form wings. They seem to have the ability to not simply glide, but to be able to control their glide. Their airspeed was clocked at 11.2 meters per second (25 miles per hour).

 Posted by at 12:28 am
Jan 242013
 

Here’s an idea I doubt would have worked: a rocket powered war cat from the 1585 German manuscript “Feuer Buech,” kept in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library of the University of Pennsylvania.

No, I don’t think that would’ve worked at all. I don’t even know what the goal was here (it’s a book on blowin’ stuff up, so I guess these were to be rocket-powered Kamikazicritters), but there’s no chance that a rocket powered cat or bird would’ve gone in anything like a straight line. If, instead, these are just *bombs* drawn kinda strangely… nope. I’m not sure what the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow is, but I do know that no little cheep-cheep bird is going to be able to carry a gunpowder bomb worth the effort of cobbling together.

Rocket powered cats will just have to wait.

 Posted by at 11:22 pm
Jan 222013
 

Here’s a heck of a thing. A recent video of some divers at night off Hawaii observing manta rays, when a bottlenose dolphin swims up to them. it had a fishing hook in its left pectoral fin, and a bunch of fishing line wrapped around that fin and into its mouth reducing range of motion. It swam directly up to one of the divers who proceeded to remove the fishing line with a multi-tool. The dolphin tolerated the procedure, then swam away.

It’s always unwise to anthropomorphize non-human critters, but this sure does look like the dolphin came to humans for help. Luckily for the dolphin, it found the right humans.

[youtube CCXx2bNk6UA]

 Posted by at 12:39 am