Odds and Ends
Getting Those Damn Rats Out of Alaska
No, not those kind of rats. And not really the whole state…but still, it’s a victory. I’m talking about actual four-legged, snaggle-toothed, beady-eyed, bird-killin’ varmints. The ignominiously named “Rat Island” appears to now be completely rat free. I’ve been following this story for a while, so I was glad to hear that the latest news was good. The down side to the rat eradication is that the poisoned pellets used to kill them also killed gulls and bald eagles in the process.
Since Rat Island has been infested with rats for 230 years, it’s difficult to know exactly what its ecosystem was like before the rodent invasion. With no trees for nesting, and no other land-based mammals, the unwelcome rat refugees ate their way through the eggs and chicks of the ground-nesting seabirds.
Neighboring rat-free islands in the Aleutians have a more abundant and diverse seabird population, said Vernon Byrd, a senior biologist at the refuge. Those other islands have about a half-dozen more types of burrow-nesting seabirds, including horned puffins, Leach’s storm petrels and whiskered auklets.
Rats, particularly those of the Norway variety, have invaded an estimated 90 percent of islands worldwide. They may be responsible for an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of all recorded bird and reptile extinctions on islands, according to Island Conservation, a California-based group that partnered with The Nature Conservancy and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to rid Rat Island of its namesake inhabitants.
Vernon Byrd? That’s almost poetic. All we need is a biologist with a competing view named Maynard Ratt, and we’d have a children’s book. Now about those other rats…
What Else??
OK, Alaska’s got earthquakes, volcanoes, melting ice, endangered polar bears, coastal erosion, collapsing fisheries, and now this.
Now, a marine scientist says the state’s marine waters are turning acidic from absorbing greenhouse gases faster than tropical waters, potentially endangering Alaska’s $4.6 billion fishing industry.The same things that make Alaska’s marine waters among the most productive in the world — cold, shallow depths and abundant marine life — make them the most vulnerable to acidification, said Jeremy Mathis, a chemical oceanographer at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.
“Ecosystems in Alaska are going to take a hit from ocean acidification,” he said. “Right now, we don’t know how they are going to respond.”
Great.
Escape from the Mudflats!
Before Ocean Depression really sinks in, there’s actually an endangered ocean animal stranded on the mudflats story with a happy ending!
About 20 beluga whales that became stranded in mud during a low tide over the weekend have apparently freed themselves, bringing relief to biologists who have been closely monitoring their plight.
“We saw a lot of alive belugas but we did not see any dead, floating or beached whales,” said Barbara Mahoney, a National Marine Fisheries Service biologist who went looking for the whales Monday morning.
The whales were spotted by a pilot Saturday afternoon wallowing in a large mud hole. They were spotted again, still stuck, a couple of hours later.
Pictures taken on Saturday indicated the whales dug a hole in the mud when they got stranded on mud flats off the Birchwood area north of Anchorage, Mahoney said. All the whales were in the mud hole, except one that was lying on hard mud.
The stranding occurred during an abnormally low tide. Mahoney thinks the whales were likely stuck for several hours or more.
Mahoney said it looks like the whales wiggled around in the mud before all the water was gone and were able to create a small pool for themselves. The water helps keep the animals cool, she said.
Oh, Dear God…
Yes, Palinbots….all this can be yours. For a mere $549, you can have Sarah Palin’s face plastered on your…posterior. As you walk, her eyes will alternately wink when the folds of the jeans… oh, never mind. You can read HERE for all the details.
Just a note of warning. If you do decide to part with the cash and pick yourself up a pair of these, do not be surprised if you acquire a following of little waddling over-50 conservative men who trail behind you like ducklings. So, if you’re into that, this may work for you.
A New Possibility for 2012???
What could possibly be more horrifying than Palin jeans? Palin – Prejean, of course. It seems as though the vapid beauty queen has an interest in politics, and so does the former Miss California.
“I don’t need to be Miss USA. I’m not going to little ribbon cuttings and things that aren’t meaningful to me,” she said. Prejean, who was the first runner-up at the 2008 Miss USA pageant, was later stripped of her state crown for reportedly failing to attend officially sanctioned Miss California USA events. Whatever God’s plan for Carrie Prejean may be, it apparently is politically focused. “I definitely have a high interest in politics,” she said on Saturday. “I love Sarah Palin. I think she’s amazing.”
Apparently that “I don’t need a title” thing appealed to her too.
Wow, a Sarah Palin-butt-face jean? That has to be the most appropriate use of her visage yet discovered. Being the “butt of a joke” has new meaning forevermore.
We haven’t seen her down in the lower 48 making all those speeches for all that big money…wha happen? She can’t make speeches with only a one-liner every 2 weeks, and absolutely foolish/ghoulish one-liners at that.
She’s found a friend in Glenn Beck now, promoting his show on her facebook…2 haters fall in hate with each other and call it love?
The mess with the oil companies in AK kinda leaves one wondering…what did Sarah Palin do FOR AK while in office? Nada apparently.
We can only hope the crazies will try to out wing nut each other during the campaign.
Does this mean SP is a crackhead???
Does this mean SP is a crack head????
Prejean and Palin are two peas in a pod. There is the ‘dream team’ for 2012—one with fake boobs and the other with a fake brain. Waiting for someone to design toilet paper with Sarah Palin’s face so I can laugh every time I wipe!
That last line. Wow. A truly hard hitting one.
Kajo I was going to say there were other types of pants with different faces etc on them and did not have the link so thanks.I think it is just someone trying to make a killing off of palin especially and they went from there. I loved the duck pair.Who would pay that much,not even palins supporters would I don’t think .Would be kind of funny if they did LOL.
Rats hate um I lived in an old farm house and they lived in the Barn and eventually got into the walls of the house,I found that out cause I caught one in a trap.Boy did I move fast.I could hear them scratching in the walls and couldn’t sleep for days on end till I moved.But yes I would have thought environmentalist would have come up with something better
I’d love a pair of those jeans. I’d wear them every time I had bad gas. Take that sarah.
And yes, those jeans DO make her b*tt look fat!
Some of the reactions here on the Palin buttface jeans are so funny, why not repeat them over at the comment section AKM linked to?
Mine was “Somehow, sitting on Sarah Palin’s face seems both kinky, and appropriate… “
Quittypants, Miss California and Michelle Bachmann= The Unholy Trinity!!
great! now you can fart on SP’s face..priceless..
Gah! Can’t you just see Bill Kristol parading around in those jeans???
“NOTHING comes between me and my Sarahs.”
‘scuse me, I have to go bleach my eyeballs now.
Why would someone ever consider paying $549 for jeans? You can buy an iron- on patch of SP and stick it where-ever you like.
I guess this is a way of collecting funds for her campaign contribution. Which needs to be reported!! I hope that she is keeping track of the contributions.
Prejean? When did she become significant?
***alaska sisu when try your e-mail it wouldn’t go through. i don’t have ‘outlook’
*******dear alaska sisu go to the forum look under events and meetings then click nyc mudstock then find where i have commented and you see a little button on the left that says p m. that’s how i do it.
Wow – Palin and Prejean could be soulmates – if they had souls.
bubbles – How do I pm you? My email is [email protected].
*************** hey! mona lisa is my name*******yes it probably will get into the soil and ground water but ‘the rats will be gone’ as well as every other living critter but there will no more rats on RAT ISLAND…. please pm me. miri sent photos of you and they are gorgeous…b
@phoebe: It’s an island. There is nowhere to drive them to.
It’s really a no brainer. There was a lot of freeway work in our city & we had a bit of a rat envasion. Couldn’t use bait bause of all the other critters. There are alternatives. Weird that they let the problem get so bad in the first place. Vibration & sound can drive them away. Surely they could have come up with something else.
I can’t imagine that even Sarah herself could be pleased with those jeans! But in her case, I guess you never know.
Rat eats poison, eagle eats rat (and gull eats just about anything, including poisoned rat-stuffed eagle)…
I wonder whether the poison used will get into the soil/groundwater?
Regarding Rat Island. Yes, it is amazing they put out all that bait. It’s kind of the …we had to destroy the village to save it… type of thinking. So irresponsible & so irreversible.
Palin & Prejean= serious cat fight.
I always wondered what a pit bull would look like stuck to someone’s butt! Now we know…Oh miss quittywinkypants, you’ve outdone yourself this time.
Suitable for “dry” doggy-style… or some “oral”… oops did I say that?
Fortunately, I think that the Palin face was a photoshop of the original product photo. However, the website does say they will work with you on your own design… urg.
Wow.. Prejean is interested in politics. Those former beauty queens sure don’t play with reality much, do they? There must be something about pagent work that gives them a sense of entitlement.
Gosh…I can walk in high heels while wearing a bikini….that must mean I can be President!!! I am sure the Dept of Law up there in the White House would agree with me.
But she will strip down to the bare necessities and have photo’s taken. THEN complain that the photographer (who she knows owns the photo’s) publishes them. I have ZERO respect for this bimbo. And those that are jumping on her bimbobandwagon are all idiots. Sorry, I don’t agree with stripping for Jesus.
Lilybart – I can answer that by referring to that age old question:
If a tree falls in the forest,
and no one is around to hear it,
are these 3 combined still dumber then a box of rocks?
If Miss Wasilla, the de-throned Miss California and Michele Bachman ran together, would they make one whole brain? Or would there still be much missing/
Linda – that’s hilarious…Sarah’s face on Levis! The price for the jeans seems kinda steep…I could paint the eyes for $25 bucks and you supply the jeans. By the way I’m pretty sure the winking jeans only work if you got junk in the trunk!!!
Growing up in the south, I’ve seen tacky. But those jeans are going in my top ten.
My momma used to say that some people have taste only in their mouth.
Re: Rat Island. A long time ago, I was married to a herpetologist. We hunted S. Florida in the cane fields along the dikes until US Sugar decided to poison for rodents. Soon after that we and the caneworkers were the only live animals out there. No snakes, frogs, birds, nothing. Really scary.
A possible caption for the picture, “Sarah’s face on Levis” …. no… bad taste? Sorry it is reallllyyyy early and coffee not done.
I’m surprised that the scientists were surprised that Bald Eagles died from the bait. Let’s see, finding food takes energy. If a species finds food that is easily available, less energy is used and better for the animal. Except, of course, if it’s laced with poison.
What did they expect? It would be nice if people thought things through. Oh, yeah, that doesn’t seem to be in our species.
Well, Grace is wanting her belly scritched. Must obey the Newfoundland dogs.
Just think, if you were the proud owner of a pair of those jeans you could just sit of that smug, winky face anytime you wanted.
for once i might be speechless… not
you have got to be kidding me?
those pants are a joke right? amazing
i have a gay friend who would love to sit on palins face all day…..
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again:
Palin/Prejean 2012…Dumb and Dumber!
Brilliant post! It helps so much to put it all into perspective for us “aliens”
Sarah Palin’s face is just where it belongs. Yes!!!
http://www.oceana.org/
A friend of mine works for Oceana. If you are interested to join or read their info on the Oceans…..
what an appropriate place for palin’s smug mug
Are ALL the crazy over-the-top religious fanatics throwing their hat in the ring? If I didn’t know better (maybe I don’t) I’d say their trying to take over the world…as we know it. Yikes! God help us. yes, I said God. What the crazies don’t understand is that you DON’T have to be fanatical to believe.
get it? got it? good!
The beluga whale story is a welcome read – I used to see them along Turnagain Arm when I lived up north and it was magical to watch them.
Sarah, continuing her mission to be the Butt of All Jokes.
PS Nothing like having Sarah’s nose up your *ss. Oh yeah, been there done that.
Ocean acidification = loss of pink salmon first and the crab will take a huge hit due to shell softening. The Arctic is the canary in the coal mine so much so that this is ground zero for oceanic research. Then there is the decadal oscillation, which led to my rants about the Yukon situation. There is a huge amount of nastiness happening in our Bering Sea, so much so that people in fisheries are hastily rethinking their careers. This is only the beginning…….
Well, I heard about Rat Island the other day on NPR, and the ocean acidification problem. But those jeans. Holy cow!
And Miss Prejean is in need of a reality check if she thinks she could run for anything. Well, she might win, but then she’d actually have to do the job and it might include showing up at some events that she doesn’t find appealing.
Women like Palin and Prejean are not doing anything to further the chances for other women.
oops…didn’t quite capture all that link. Try this one. If this doesn’t work just google Rat Island and you can find it.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=did-the-rat-island-restoration-effo-2009-06-12
Lol at all the comments on the “jeans”. Ms. Palin must be in a turmoil about them! I wonder if she has royalty rights…..?
As for the Rat Island odds and ends, I was curious about the whole thing. It seemed horrible that they would just go in and indiscriminately poison a whole island. Here is a link I found regarding the effect on Bald Eagles. I hope someone did a study on the plants and the water. Surely this poison leached into the ocean and island fresh water supply. Where were the environmentalists on this? I agree with AKM….there had to be a better way. Dare I ask why not just let the rats prevail on that 10 sq. mile island? They weren’t going anywhere.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/60-second-science/post.cfm?id=did-the-rat-island-restoration
oops. I went into moderation with my VanFlea proposal. I will try again, removing the name of a certain child:
VanFlea: “You will cease and desist from desecrating the iconic image of my client at once! You will remove her beautiful likeness, of which everyone is jealous, OFF of the rear of your jeans, OR ELSE: We will sue! Where do you want us to serve you? At the kindergarten class where the wingnut moms are wearing the jeans, OR at your factory? In the name of a special needs baby and our Troops, cease production immediately!”
VanFlea: “You will cease and desist from desecrating the iconic image of my client at once! You will remove her beautiful likeness, of which everyone is jealous, OFF of the rear end of your jeans, OR ELSE: We will sue! Where do you want us to serve you? At the kindergarten class where the wingnut moms are wearing the jeans, OR at your factory? In the name of baby Trig and our Troops, cease production immediately!”
Oh.my.goodness! Unbelievable. LOL…I hope I don’t have nightmares tonight after seeing those jeans.
Those jeans are so many levels of wrong, I don’t even know what to say. I am, however, going to stock up on eye/brain bleach just in case I actually have the misfortune to see anyone wearing them.
Oh boy! We are having a great time discussing what comes out of the body in the area of her mouth on those jeans and laughing so hard we can hardly speak. Thanks for the great pic!
Does Prejean think she can show up for work? She already got fired for not following the terms of her contract. Who’d vote for her for any elective office? I think she’ll have to move to a locale of horny men. Oh wait, the military bases of San Diego…
Do we want to have a “propose the wording” contest for Van Flein’s letter to the jeans maker? I don’t think there’s a legal precedent for this!
If somebody has an “accident” and pees their pants, will it look like Sarah is crying? If the “accident” is worse, will it look like she spent too much time in her tanning bed?
What is next, talking Sarah shoes? When you walk, they screech insane gibberish and when you walk through a puddle, they expound about dead fish swimming upstream?
I am picturing Todd in a pair of those jeans.
Those jeans are too funny for words! Did everyone watch the Youtube at the site? Disappointing to not see the $P jeans in action.
Oh Dear God is right. I am laughing my a$$ off looking at those jeans.
Also too, love comment no 10.
Palin Jeans:
Misdemeanor?
No, felony for sure!
As for ocean acidification – hey, we’ll just spend lots of money to deny the problem exists, like the declining belugas and the polar bears.
Onward Christian soldiers, onward into development we go . . . .
Stranded belugas in Alaska swim free
http://my.earthlink.net/article/us?guid=20090824/4a921e50_3421_1334520090824-53647726
ANCHORAGE, Alaska – About 20 beluga whales that became stranded in mud during a low tide over the weekend have apparently freed themselves, bringing relief to biologists who have been closely monitoring their plight.
Two federal biologists flew over the area Monday and found no sign of stranded or dead whales, but quite a few of the whales swimming freely. [snipped]
Doh! I was going to put that in there too and forgot…. will do it now. Better late than never! Thanks for the reminder! 🙂 AKM
I just have no words for this.
I have just been informed that he may have been a WHOLE lot older…that may explain it…
every once in awhile the jeans emit bad breath too.
I am sad to say, I think it was a Washingtonian who invented those…unless there is an other? Oh no! Supposedly, a 60 something year old guy thought he saw winking going on on some pants a woman was wearing (really, you don’t say). There wasn’t. And, an idea was born.
This is priceless! We’ve all known for some time that Sarah Palin was talking through her **shole; now for a mere $549, her doting Republican Palinbots can have Sarah talk through theirs! Poetic justice, somehow.
How Funny…ex gov is definetly a horses ^ss..BIG belly laugh here…
Jeans and Prejean…you can’t make this stuff up. (Headed back to the ball game; I don’t need to be seeing those pants in my dreams- yike.)
Wow! Between the rat poisoning of Rat Island and the ocean acidification, sounds like the environment in Alaska needs some help. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad the rats are gone, but you have to wonder how much poison it took to completely eradicate them and how many other species were affected. I kind of like rats (I had to work with them a lot in my labs back in the day). In a captive situation, they are a lot like cats and can be quite affectionate. I’m sure they would not be pleasant as the dominant species of an island. 🙁
Oh well, on to the jeans and Perjean. All I can say to that is LMAO! Two peas in a pod, and as for the jeans….never was a face so well graced. 😉
700 pounds of poison pellets. There has to be a better way. AKM
It’s time for a scientific symposium…
No politicos, no committees, no industry experts, no none but all those who measure , count, and watch the ocean off our coast…
Time to quit fooling around about fish and get serious…
I laughed until I cried when I saw those jeans. How appropriate for her face to be on the back of jeans; she is such an a$$. Everytime I look at the picture I laugh out loud.
Thanks, AKM. I needed that tonight.
Seeing someone in those Quittercup jeans would make me vomit!
DD
Wow….nothing ceases to amaze in this day and age.