The Watering Hole: February 17 – Revival?

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I mentioned in an old post or comment that the GD had a special spot in her heart for Monarch Butterflies. Her efforts may be bearing fruit. The Monarch population may be in rebound. I could not locate that particular entry.

We can only hope that an endangered population is on the rebound.

This is our Open Thread. Please feel free to present your thoughts on any topic that comes to mind.

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164 thoughts on “The Watering Hole: February 17 – Revival?”

  1. Plant lots of milkweed and provide food for the larva and there will be many Monarchs. A friend of mine collects the larva on the milkweed that she finds growing along the roadside. She has a special cage where she raises Monarchs. Once the Monarchs emerge from their cocoon and have eaten from fresh flowers, she sets them free. She uses this as a teaching tool for children.

  2. I’m off to the north country for work today but have heard from PamperoFirpo about yesterday in Madison. Several interesting points. Numbers under estimated. They aren’t done yet. The protests are continuing today. On the corner down the block from my house there are already a dozen people with signs and there is a rally planned to start at 10 at the local campus.

    Best sign spotted: “Screw us and we multiply!”

    One last note: Damn you, frugal. :)

  6. FACEPALM:

    Mike Beard, a Republican state representative from Minnesota, recently argued that coal mining should resume in the Land of 10,000 Lakes, in part because he believes God has created an earth that will provide unlimited natural resources.

    “God is not capricious. He’s given us a creation that is dynamically stable,” Beard told MinnPost. “We are not going to run out of anything.”

    Beard is currently in the midst of drafting legislation that would overturn Minnesota’s moratorium on coal-fired power plants, an effort that he backs due to his religious belief that God will provide limitless resources while ensuring that humans don’t destroy the planet trying to get them.

    • OMG, these christianists are like children who believe the cookie jar will always be full. :roll:

      I’m off to school…in the damn snow.

  7. My thermos keeps hot things hot and cold things cold.

    You can’t explain that.

    Why do Republicans bother getting into government at all?

  8. Anyone here that likes to hear ‘Brunch With Bernie’ on the Thom Hartmann show, it’s today instead of tomorrow, in just about an hour from now.

    When not in use for his live show, the Ustream player at thomhartman.com has the previous day’s show, all three hours, available without login. The other player is for his RT America show, The Big Picture, which is also at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheBigPictureRT
    where you can access past shows and selected segments of shows.

  13. By the bye, some attention is being cast in the direction of the writer/thinker Gene Sharp for the roll his publications have played in non-violent actions in the Middle-East and elsewhere:
    http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/world/middleeast/17sharp.html?_r=1&ref=global-home

    Many of Sharp’s publications can be freely downloaded from the Albert Einstein institution: http://www.aeinstein.org/

    These texts are in the form of .PDF files, and as such are readable on pretty much any e-Reader as well (of course) as any computer.

    If political action is something folks are interested in, these are a good place to start. (I would add Plivens and King to the list as well. But here you generally have to pony up a few bucks.)

  16. OMG, these christianists are like children who believe the cookie jar will always be full.

    Or my kid and her magic bank account. “What do you mean there’s no money? I still have checks.”

    “God is not capricious. He’s given us a creation that is dynamically stable,” Beard told MinnPost. “We are not going to run out of anything.”

    Tell that to the cod.

  17. “God is not capricious. He’s given us a creation that is dynamically stable,” Beard told MinnPost. “We are not going to run out of anything.”

    It is, of course, an ennumerated sin to be so vain as to take God’s name to one’s self (i.e., legislate what God thinks, will or will not do, must or must not do, etc.) Funny how these cockroaches never manage to remember that part of the bible.

  18. “Tell that to the cod.

    So Mike Beard, what’s the story on the species of life that have vanished from the earth? Did God just get tired of churning them out on his assembly line? Did they outlive his usefulness?

    But what if God starts to think those thoughts about humans? Oh wait, I see the master plan here — God has installed a self-destruct gene in human DNA and we’re gumming up our own assembly line.

  20. Thanks for the link on Ray McGovern, floresjc.
    I’ll have to agree with Mr. Govern regarding his observations of Sect. Clinton.

    To be fair, she may have lost the nomination due to her stance on the war(s),
    however President Obama isn’t any different in action…

  21. I have hopes for the continued survival of some of life’s multitude of species on Earth, but any revival will only be for those that are able to adapt to the environmental havoc wreaked by humans as they continue to consume resources.
    Humans themselves are an endangered specie on a finite world.

    A recent study has these results…

  23. Whitehouse statement on the House’s Continuing Resolution Bill:

    (T)he Administration does not support deep cuts that will undermine our ability to out-educate, out-build, and out-innovate the rest of the world. The bill proposes cuts that would sharply undermine core government functions and investments key to economic growth and job creation, and would reduce funding for the Department of Defense to a level that would leave the Department without the resources and flexibility needed to meet vital military requirements. If the President is presented with a bill that undermines critical priorities or national security through funding levels or restrictions, contains earmarks, or curtails the drivers of long-term economic growth and job creation while continuing to burden future generations with deficits, the President will veto the bill. (original emphasis.)

    http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/legislative/sap/112/saphr1h_20110215.pdf

  26. Perhaps I’m really off kilter – isn’t this budget for the 2012 fiscal year?
    If so – Raven isn’t that funding already there for your ‘summer job’?

  27. Ebb, the Continuing Resolution is for FY2011 through September 30. The 2012 budget doesn’t need a Continuing Resolution…yet!

  28. What bothers me more than anything else is cutting educational spending and the near refusal to go after that sacred cash cow, the military. It should be the other way around entirely: cut the goddamned military enough to be able to significantly ADD to education expenditures!

    But here’s the thing: ain’t no money in education, but a state of war can and does make people (most of whom are probably otherwise quite useless) very rich very quickly.

  31. No, this is a continuing resolution of the same continuing resolution the government has been operating under since September 2010, when Congress is supposed to have passed the fiscal year 2011 budget.
    President Obama just presented his 2012 budget recently, which will be due for passage in September of this year. Which undoubtedly won’t, and they’ll have to continually resolve to continually resolve.
    I get confused too.

  32. zxbe…I work in the National Forests as a trails crew foreman… clearing trails, rebuilding neglected infrastructure, with a little bit of wildland firefighting on the side.

  33. Raven, that sounds like a very cool summer job. Of course now I understand why you have so many cool nature photos. You’re out in nature a lot. :)

  34. What bothers me is that the government won’t tax the rich and allows off shore tax havens to continue and allows tax breaks for off shoring jobs. In the meantime, the middle class and the poor get screwed.

    BTW… I forgot to mention, I resigned my position as Democratic Committee woman for my voting precinct. I feel relieved.

  36. Stewardship of public lands suffered tremendously during the Bush years, between the cuts in spending for operations and maintenance; and letting mining, oil and gas interests run amok.
    While Emperor Codpiece had to have his fantasy of being a war president.

  38. The situation in Wisconsin is getting quite serious. Democratic lawmakers are fleeing the state to prevent a quorum, and the governor is sending the state police to track them down.

  39. Auburn Oak Trees Poisoned.

    AUBURN, Ala. — Auburn University says someone deliberately poisoned trees at Toomer’s Corner, where fans have long celebrated big wins and hundreds gathered after the Tigers won the football national championship on Jan. 10.

    The university said in a statement Wednesday that a herbicide commonly used to kill trees was applied “in lethal amounts” to the soil around the two trees, and that they likely can’t be saved.

    Auburn discovered the poisoning after taking soil samples on Jan. 28, a day after a man called a syndicated radio show based in Birmingham saying he had used the herbicide on the trees.

    “The weekend after the Iron Bowl, I went to Auburn, Ala., because I live 30 miles away, and I poisoned the Toomer’s trees,” the caller told The Paul Finebaum Radio Show, saying he was at the Iron Bowl.

    Calling himself “Al from Dadeville,” he said he used Spike 80DF, also known as tebuthiuron, and the trees “definitely will die.” The caller signed off with, “Roll Damn Tide.”

  40. I’m not going to give anything away (am still reading) – the reader is drawn in from page one!

    Frugal – good going!

  42. That’s just sick. I want to beat them, every year, but I don’t begrudge anybody their traditions.

    Look at the bottom of Zxbe’s link, the related story says they caught the guy the next day.

  45. Raven: “Stewardship of public lands suffered tremendously during the Bush years …”

    Raven, we spent the summer of ’08 running the dining room at Hannagan Meadow Lodge in AZ, not far as the crow flies from where you are. That area is one of the most serenely gorgeous corners of the Southwest and is laced with hiking trails. That summer, the Apache-Sitgreaves USFS staff was so reduced that they quite literally didn’t have the manpower to do anything with the trails in the vicinity. A Boy Scout troop from somewhere in AZ spent a week or more working on a two mile stretch of trail that runs through deep forest from the Hannagan Meadow campground (USFS) to Butterfly Cienega and managed to clean up a lot of it, but the task was too daunting for them to finish it in the time they had. And the USFS apparently didn’t have the staff to finish the job. That seemed to be the rule, period.

    It’s tragic, the officially mandated neglect of our natural treasures. Got enough money to wage two useless fucking wars on the other side of the globe, but funding domestic maintenance of public lands? Nope, sorry, ain’t got no money to waste on that shit.

    I’d have liked to take Dubsy deep into the Blue Primitive then sneak off and leave him there. He’d still be there. Wolf food. About the only completely honorable function the creep could ever serve.

  46. Thanks, Ebb, sounds like you’re enjoying it. The further I got into it the more ‘fun’ (if that’s the word) the writing became — hope it works like that for the reader as well.

  47. Raven, I’ve a question for a professional camper (albeit my question and issue puts things closer to the same category of “roughing it” as the Holiday Inn.)

    (Also, it occurs to me that this question isn’t just for Raven … )

    I’m almost certainly going to have to move this summer, as part of the necessary steps of destroying my father’s estate so that he can go on medicaid for his long-term care (dementia). I’ve friends in Illinois who are eager to ensure that I have a place to land, but we keep running into problems.

    Sorry to go all scatalogical, but one of the solutions we’re looking at is a travel trailer with a septic tank (extending the sewer lines is looking to be prohibitively difficult and expensive, whereas water and electric hook-up is fairly trivial.) I’m needing info on how the septic tanks are properly managed: how long between servicing, are the tanks detachable or must the servicer come to you, etc? Are there sources of info that you can direct me to w/o simply asking google how to take care of my shit?

  48. I do know a percolation test is required here, to verify the soil absorption rate is high enough to get a permit to use a septic tank.

  49. The tanks are part of the trailer itself. Not every travel trailer is equipped with its own tank, but this option is specifically aimed at those that are. This is not a major install, but a park and use.

    They have a quite sizable pole-barn garage, so one of the options would be to park it inside (reducing the cost of heating and cooling.)

  50. The situation in Wisconsin is getting quite serious. Democratic lawmakers are fleeing the state to prevent a quorum, and the governor is sending the state police to track them down.

    Except the governor can’t, because they have no jurisdiction outside Wisconsin.

  51. The most immediate results of my own searching suggests that the proper term for what I’m looking at is not “septic tank” but “holding tank.”

    • Gary, maybe you’d be able to hire a guy with a septic truck to suck out the tanks as necessary. They suck out port-a-potties, so why not travel trailer tanks?

  54. Some years back the Governor of TX (illegally) used the Federal Marshall service to track down the Dem.’s when they pulled a similar move. This was under the Shrub admin, so nobody cavilled over things like legality, or US taxpayers ponying up the bill for TX screw-ups.

  55. Of course Fox’s “spin” on this. So it’s not that the governor and Republican legislature are trying to cram through a hugely unpopular bill, resulting in large protests at the capital. No. It’s about the Democrats letting down their state.

    Truant Democrats Skip Out on State

    Fourteen Democratic senators reportedly leave Wisconsin after skipping a vote on a controversial bill requiring …

    • I love it, Gary.

      Ed Schultz will be doing his show from Madison this evening. He is really staying on this story, and rightly pointed out on last night’s show that no national Democrat has bothered to stand with the WI protesters. That doesn’t look good at all for the Dems.

  60. Finally back. Northern Wi has a bad case of the clouds walking. Maybe they are trying to hide the fleeing senators.

    Gary, a holding tank on an RV or trailer sadly doesn’t hold a whole lot. Many parks and campgrounds have services for emptying them but that requires being there. Septic tank pumpers would probably be willing to do it, providing a hook up can be made but the frequency would end up being expensive.

  61. “Stop the Cuts, Tax the Rich”

    In the broad sense, why should we be sending Warren Buffet a social security check?

  63. Frugal, you don’t need to worry. You done real good. Chapter 9 is almost history and I’m lovin it. You tend to be more verbose than most writers I usually read but you do it well and keep it interesting. Sort of minded of Clavell.

  67. My thoughts are with the trees in Alabama

    The Mighty Oak Lord of Truth

    King of the Greenwood; King of the Grove,
    Lord of Truth is the Mighty Oak,
    Conveying the words of Jupiter,

    Worshipped by Vikings, Druids and Celts,
    Door to the Three Worlds of Shaman wise,
    Sacred Tree, the Mighty Hammer of Thor
    And raging powers of Zeus, Oak defies.

    Ancient spiritual link, steadfast and strong,
    Home of Herne the Hunter, giving shad,
    Leading the way to truth and inner strength,
    Sheltering Beltane couples’ romps in the glade.

  68. Jim DeMint: President Barack Obama Is Not The Nation’s Leader

    “It’s pretty clear this President is not going to lead,” DeMint explained to his audience. “We’ve got to replace this President.”

    Americans are “on our knees in front of China for credit,” DeMint told the mostly conservative attendees feasting on fried rice and fortune cookies at Tony Chang’s restaurant in the Chinatown section of D.C. “We’re on our knees in front of OPEC nations” for energy, DeMint said.

    {{headhitskeyboard}}

  71. I’m not sure if it is possible to “opt out” of receiving Social Security. I do know that Medicare is compulsory. I am against means testing for Social Security because that would give reason for the Republicans to dismantle Social Security. An opt out of receiving benefits would be a better idea. Even Buffet can only collect the maximum monthly payout which is roughly $2300.00/month.

    Stop the cuts, reduce the deficit, tax the rich.

  72. “Why don’t they just let these losers (i.e. Joe the Plunger & the Quitter) fade away?”

    Because it is all they have got. Being nothing but a swarm of vapid, vacuous losers themselves, the only option for them is to valorize vapid, vacuous losers.

    I suddenly feel like watching V For Vendetta again …

  74. Thanks Hooda. Chapter 9 already, eh? Took me and the keyboard a bit longer to get that far. ;) But you’re near the top of the upward climb. It’s mostly downhill from now on, although the trail is winding and not smoothly paved. You mentioned Clavell who has long been one of my favorite writers (along with Michener and Wouk). I suspect my word usage patterns may well be, in other words, a subtle derivative of the top shelf of yon bookcase.

  75. Frugal, I love to write but I have realized I just ain’t in your class. I’m a pulp hack and am proud to know a master. As well as enjoying your book more than any I have read in a number of years.

  76. Cheese curds make your teeth squeak when chewed.

    Looks like you got the answers to your sanitation situation Gary, hoodathunk @ 2:46 put it most succinctly.

  77. Gary…If you want to go outlaw, take a 55 gallon drum, perforate the bottom third with 1/2 inch holes, fill it 1/3 full of pea gravel and bury it out back. Plan ahead for where you will eventually put another barrel down, at least 30 to 50 feet away. Depending on the soil type and how it percs, this can do for one or two people for some time.
    (you can wait to put the pea gravel in after putting the barrel down in the ground…)
    Run a flexible “sanitary” hose to the barrel, through a removable cover, and you’re good for awhile… throw some masons lime on top of the stew from time to time.
    Understand, this is not legal, and I’m not suggesting you do this, I’m just telling you how…

  79. Excellent article, Gary, thanks. As you can see, it is a more efficient setup.
    I ran across these systems in northern lower Michigan at summer cottages.
    The soil was all sand and gravel and they worked well.
    If you’re going to be in a rural or semi-rural location this could work well for you.
    Follow the three S’s: Study-Shovel-Shut up.

  82. I like that Gary…
    Acknowledging that I modified my three S’s from a more commonly used expression used to deal with problem canines.

  83. This is something I need to do a post on my blog about but I’ll do a Cliff Notes version here.

    Americans don’t know shit.

    With the advent of flushing toilets and disposable diapers, Americans have managed to shove the nasty reality of shit out of their lives. Air fresheners have helped.

  84. Combine that with not knowing that hamburger come from cows, and the ignorance quotient goes off the scale.

  89. Taoism: Shit happens

    Buddhism: If shit happens, is it really shit?

    Zen: What is the sound of shit happening?

    Hinduism: This shit has happened before

    Islam: If shit happens, take a hostage

    Protestantism: Let shit happen to someone else

    Catholicism: If shit happens, you deserve it

    Agnoticism: We don’t know shit

    Atheism: I don’t believe this shit!

    Unitarianism: What is this shit?

    Judaism: Why does this shit always have to happen to us?

    Jehovah’s Witness: Let me in your house and I’ll tell you why shit happens

    Seventh Day Adventist: Shit happens-on Saturdays

    Rastafarianism: Let’s smoke this shit

  91. I sent a polite e-mail to my administration today, informing them they had my zip code wrong, and asking a simple question as to when they wanted certain forms faxed.
    I received a terse reply that told me to re-read my forms carefully, which included two typos in one sentence: a misspelling and a word completely out of context.

    • Raven sez:
      I received a terse reply that told me to re-read my forms carefully…

      Isn’t it funny how the stupid always think everyone is stupid?

  99. Zooey sez:
    “Isn’t it funny how the stupid always think everyone is stupid?”

    I have some compassion for the case worker, in that she had to deal with two successive errors from my immediate supervisor, who shunted to the business manager who said it can’t be done… I’m the lowly temporary employee who has to coach them along and correct their errors.

  102. O’Donnell allowed the Coulterbeast on his show. His ratings will go even lower now.

  104. Fascism:
    A select few of us own all the shit, and the rest of you are going to eat, sleep and drink it and be happy about it, OK?

  112. And if I can add this…

    Michele Bachmann and “she who must not be named” are such MALICIOUS, dumb, stupid, self-interested, freaking idiots..

    Whew!! I feel much better. :-)

  116. Walt, I’m uncertain if the East Coast is doing this for their Monarch studies – it’s very interesting:
    tagging, yes tagging the butterflies!

  117. hmmm, I’m guessing the Blue Dasher no longer has access to the internet (perhaps it was tied to his cable that he gave up).
    Highly unusual for the dragonfly not to be lured by beautiful butterfly photos.
    Not to mention that lovely wedge of cheese ;>

  118. What vile troll got ‘disappeared’ on the EPA thread?
    When one becomes a

    Guest Today 01:48 PM
    Comment removed.

    They must’ve been completely off the rails.

    Generally it has the trolls name:

    pvbflorida
    This comment was flagged for review.

  120. Ebb,
    GD came across a pair of Monarchs about 4-5 years ago (She will be 10 in May.). One was a male who was really in bad shape, the other was a female apparently impressed with his prowess. The male had about 1/2 of wings remaining and looked quite ragged. Apparently he had had quite a trip either from Mexico or the south.
    GD had a love affair with the Monarchs for about two seasons and switched to ant lions and lady bugs. She is still into science and calls ‘Poppa’ when her mom gets stuck. Her Dad is studying law and is in school many evenings.

  122. Walt, that is great that she still has scientific interests!

    Every time I see a ladybug it reminds of a niece, at the age of three, had one crawling up her arm- she promptly popped it in her mouth and declared it ‘good’!
    She is now going for her Masters in Biology at Univ. of CO/Denver.

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