Tropical storm Beryl has formed, 160 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras. There’s a forecast track here.
Archive for July 18th, 2006
I for one welcome our new insect overlords
To the bafflement of insect experts, gigantic yellow jacket nests have started turning up in old barns, unoccupied houses, cars and underground cavities across the southern two-thirds of Alabama.
Specialists say it could be the result of a mild winter and drought conditions, or multiple queens forcing worker yellow jackets to enlarge their quarters so the queens will be in separate areas. But experts haven’t determined exactly what’s behind the surprisingly large nests.
There’s some WTVM news footage featuring the car above at the bottom of this story, and some other giant nest images are hosted at the Alabama Cooperative Extension blog.
Huge yellow jacket nests are not quite as uncommon as the breathless news coverage might suggest. Giant nests, especially those at ground level, turn up fairly regularly. Here’s one in South Carolina, one in Atlanta, and another from Alabama. Several others from South Florida can be seen here, including one weighing in at 110 pounds.
Like some other members of the Hymenoptera, yellow jackets orient themselves by flying in a spiral pattern after leaving the nest, marking the location of the nest in relation to the landmarks around it. Though more or less impossible, and likely dangerous, with the large aerial nests, it’s easy to see this behaviour if you can locate a smallish underground nest.
Once located, a brave/foolish soul can cause the returning yellow jackets to temporarily lose their way by removing or altering the position of some of the more obvious reference points (sticks, rocks, plants) close by the nest. Try to avoid disturbing the guards, obviously. The newly-lost workers will fly around in a fairly pissed off manner for a few seconds before re-locating the nest.
Note: Should you accidentally crush a yellow jacket during your observations, either by accident or after being stung, run like hell, as the newly-dead body releases an alarm pheromone* that will trigger a defensive reaction in other members of the colony.
*N-3-methylbutylacetamide, of course.
261 bottles of it are going on sale. Expected price: 2000 pounds a bottle.
Despite its price tag, the 41.3 per cent ABV drink is likely to attract a high level of interest from whisky lovers, according to Andre Dang, Harrods food spokesman.
“There is a demand for it simply because there are a number of connoisseurs who love collecting something very rare and very prestigious - and then there are the people who actually drink it. This will probably be extremely popular,” he said.
There are some tricks in choosing the mating foods, the wrong mating causes you the symptoms of diarrhea and bellyache. Especially for the men fond of beer, most will call their friends for the party in the special season that the people can taste the fat crabs, which offends the taboo of “don’t drink beer, when people eat crabs”, because both contain the high purin which will causes you gouty.
This is their fourth stop for a recent Saturday afternoon meeting of the Hash House Harriers. At each bar, the drill’s the same: Enjoy a beer while everyone gathers, then magot, who’s leading the run, sneaks away. After 15 minutes of lead time, they chase him, using his drawn-in-chalk clues and trying to avoid the decoys.
If they catch him, he loses his pants.
It’s a fine idea, but who wants to run drunk?
Wine drinkiers will outlive beer drinkers, but they won’t enjoy doing it.
They found that wine buyers bought more olives, fruit and vegetables, poultry, cooking oil, and low fat cheese, milk, and meat than beer buyers. Beer buyers bought more ready cooked dishes, sugar, cold cuts, chips, pork, butter or margarine, sausages, lamb, and soft drinks than wine buyers.
In praise of the bluefish.
Still, some anglers prefer to take on the tough blue over the elegant striper. “Pound for pound, they’re a much better fighter,” says Wayne Bergeron, who runs a charter fishing boat out of Sesuit Harbor in East Dennis for deep-water anglers. “If bluefish ever got as big as bass,” he says, “you’d have to have a whole different set of gear, because they’re so feisty.” Webby agrees. “Bass, if you give them one good run,” he says, “they’re pretty much pooped out.
The wreck site of the ironclad USS Monitor is being remapped.
In addition to producing a new overall view of the 173-foot-long ship, the expedition hopes to document the changes that have occurred since its propeller, steam engine and groundbreaking gun turret were recovered by Navy divers and the sanctuary scientists during a series of expeditions between 1998 and 2002.
The expedition’s website is here, and a live web feed can be viewed here.
we’ll drink, and drink,
and drink, and drink,
and drink, and drink and fight!
“Irish Drinking Song” - Flogging Molly
Hillary is wondering why Democrats keep picking fights with the Republican grass-roots.
Without mentioning specific subjects like gay marriage, Mrs. Clinton said: “We do things that are controversial. We do things that try to inflame their base.”
“We are wasting time,” the senator told a group of Democratic women here, on part of a two-day swing through a state that could provide an alternate hub to New York if she starts a national political campaign.
Imagine the Democrats and Republicans as students from high schools that are bitter sports rivals, or, if you’re European, as soccer fans. For most fans of either team, winning the contests between them is enough, but for a certain minority, winning is simply not enough. Not only must their side prevail in the main event, but they need to beat the crap out of the other side’s fans in the parking lot before the game, and in the bars afterwards. They’re hooligans–fine in their place, but dangerous when they gain the upper hand.
It’s when they begin to believe that they are paladins, white knights, that they are true & sainted warriors whose God given mission is to bloody anyone challenging — a mission to keep purity when things turn ugly. They fight for racial purity, doctrinal purity, moral purity — any purity they define as being the reason they can pound & intimidate challenging voices into silence.
For hooligans, the game not just a game, it’s a war, and what is best in war?
Conan: “To crush your enemies, to see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women.”
Traditionally, Hooliganism in soccer has been associated with fans that travel to games, i.e., those that leave the relatively safe confines of their home ground and travel into “enemy” territory. It may be that the experience of seeing oneself as being in enemy territory fuels hooliganism, as the extra stress associated with being on unfamiliar and dangerous ground re-enforces the rage driving the behaviour.
For 6 years, Democrats have been blue people forced to live in a red country. It shouldn’t come as a surprise that many of the most partisan among them have begun acting out in ways detrimental to their party’s long-term interests. For many of them, it’s no longer about winning. It’s about administering a beating.
Update: Media Matters argues that Hillary’s been misquoted. Mickey Kaus: Hillary’s most dramatic statement of centrist independence turns out to be a case of crappy syntax. …
Sorry for not posting more frequently of late, but I’ve been busy and the Tour de France has been languishing in the flats. I’m not much for the flat stages. The sprinters typically contest the flat stages and there are typically lengthy breakaways, but there usually isn’t much excitement in the general classification standings and I’m a big GC fan.
Today the excitement returned as the Tour started climbing again. Today the riders entered the Alps, where it’s likely that the race for the maillot jaune will be decided. It may have even been decided today as Floyd Landis outclimbed his closest competitors on the slopes of L’Alpe d’Huez and finished the day wearing yellow again.
Come to think of it, the race for both the yellow and green jerseys may have been decided today as green jersey-wearer Robbie McEwen’s closest competitor, Tom Boonen, abandoned on the climb up the Col du Lautaret. That leaves McEwen 50 points ahead of Oscar Freire.
Landis finished fourth on the day, but put time into all his chief competitors minus T-Mobile’s Andreas Kloden. Kloden crossed the finish line right behind Landis and the two provided the best fireworks of the stage. After they dropped Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov, Landis attacked Kloden but couldn’t ride away. Kloden countered and found he couldn’t escape either.
Landis doesn’t really need to attack Kloden at this point, but Kloden has to continue attacking if he has any hope of wearing yellow in this tour. He sits two minutes, twenty-nine seconds behind Landis at this point. That’s good enough for 6th overall. Tomorrow may be Kloden’s last chance to make up that time. Tomorrow’s stage begins on the slopes of the “beyond category” (steep) Col du Galibier and ends atop a mountain after three more tough climbs. Kloden will have to at least match Landis and try to pull away on one of the climbs.
I’m not betting he can do that. Landis continues to look uncrackable in spite of his dead hip. He has easily matched every attack and his attacks have left even the strongest riders gasping for breath. Cadel Evans and Denis Menchov, two men I picked for the podium late last week, may have ridden themselves off of it today. Neither could keep pace and Menchov seemed to be in some considerable pain on the final climb. He managed to hold on to fourth overall but lost time to both Kloden and Carlos Sastre…two men whom I will now officially curse by putting them on the podium instead of Evans and Menchov.
Okay, I’m probably pulling the trigger on rearranging my podium predictions a little prematurely. Tomorrow’s another day and could see a resurgence of Evans or Menchov or both. Sastre and Kloden seemed to be the stronger riders today, however. I’m going to be wishy-washy and arrange the final podium thusly: Landis, Kloden and Sastre. Sastre didn’t lose a whole lot of time to Kloden today but, all else being equal, Kloden is the better time-trialist and Saturday sees the final time-trial of the Tour. Give me Menchov and Evans to finish just off the podium in fourth and fifth.
Of course, these predictions will be updated tomorrow I’m sure. I feel bad knocking Menchov off the podium. He is also a decent time-trialist and, even if he loses ground to Sastre tomorrow, could make it up on the final trial. So give me Landis, Kloden and Menchov.
Unless Sastre puts a lot of time on Menchov tomorrow.
I can’t make up my mind but I will put those riders in the top four. Evans may surprise, but he struggled today. Everyone else is two minutes or more behind these riders and will have to attack pretty early in order to rearrange the top of the leaderboard.
That being said, I’m looking for Georg Totschnig to be in the break tomorrow. Why? Because I like his name and my psychic powers tell me so. He also seems to be part of a breakaway about this time of the race every year. Gay-org. Totch-nig. Just rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?
Note: Live audio of Le Tour can indeed be found on Eurosport.com. It isn’t Paul Sherwin and Phil Liggett, but it is better than waiting for text updates. Sounds like a couple of Irish blokes.