Categories
Environment Weather

Tales of Ike, and lessons about offshore drilling

We know that Hurricane Ike is going to be the worst when the National Weather Service issues warnings about getting out or face certain death. The winds are a problem, but the real issue is storm surge, and it looks to be unstoppable.

We, in Missouri, are now under a flood watch, because we’ll be finishing with the remnants of Lowell from the Pacific, just as we begin to get hit with Ike from the Gulf. Still, the risk we face is minimal, nothing, compared to what Texans are facing, and Cuba and Haiti have faced earlier.

The oil platforms along the Texas coast have been abandoned, and the refineries closed down. Congress has also had to close so the representatives from Texas and other Gulf states could head home to help. This before the debate on the new “plan” to allow off shore oil drilling.

In the midst of the sadness and despair of the damage this storm has brought, and will continue to bring, we’re faced with the ultimate irony of discontinuing the debate on allowing drilling for oil along the Atlantic coast, because we’re in the middle of a hurricane that has closed down oil drilling along the Gulf coast.

Political irony aside, I hope that the storm surge is not as high, the winds lighter, the walls are stronger, the rain gentle rather than driving. And a reminder that the Red Cross needs volunteers, blood, and money, and not just in Dallas. If you want to help the Haitians and Cubans, the Catholic Relief Services is providing help for both. Unfortunately, that’s all we can do to help Cuba.


I just got a call from my roommate that gas prices are shooting up at least a dollar per gallon this afternoon, and they’re already over $5.00 a gallon across the River from us.

Categories
Critters

Thank goodness for giant squid

Because otherwise, I would go mad.

Categories
Insects Photography

At the Gardens

I have not been a frequent visitor to the Missouri Botanical Gardens this summer. I don’t care for the crowds the Gardens attracts during the “tourist season”. Though the number of people was still a healthy size yesterday, they also reflect the more easy going nature of the “off-season regulars”.

The Gardens seem especially nice this year. Everything was healthy, lush, and the proper color, most likely due to this being the wettest year on record (to date) for St. Louis.

Mum

bee on mum

It’s too early for the Monarchs; we should be seeing them in the next couple of weeks. However, there were plenty of Cabbage Whites and Painted Ladies.

Painted Lady

The only reason I knew the name of the small, white (and very hard to photograph) Cabbage White is because of an excellent resource for butterfly identification: Butterflies and Moths of North America. You can look up your state, see what butterflies have been spotted in what county and then click through for pictures and more detailed identification information.

Returning to the Garden, the water lilies are in full bloom, which means, of course, dragonflies.

Dragonfly on water lily

dragonfly on lily

Categories
Critters

Squid Friday

Lots out of Australia about squid this week:

From ABC:

New Zealand’s mysterious colossal squid, the largest of the feared and legendary species ever caught, was not the T-Rex of the oceans but a lethargic blob, new research suggests.

At least it’s not a costume filled with possum road kill.

To answer last week’s question, as to why the giant squid is a reasonable proof there is no bigfoot:

The giant squid exists in a world alien from ours, 3000 feet below the surface of the water, with ammonia rather than blood running through its veins. Our world is as deadly to it, as its world is deadly to us. Yet we have several specimens to study, and have for over a hundred years.

Bigfoot, on the other hand, is supposed to live in communal groups, stand 7 or 8 feet tall, is practically our next door neighbor…and we have no actual physical proof of their existence.

Uh huh. Right.

Categories
Critters

No squid, Bigfoot!

No Squid Friday this week, as I’m bringing you all the latest on Bigfoot. Or I should say, the press conference held by the slickest Georgians to ever hit California.

I wasn’t going to point you to one of the *techs covering the story for more detail, as they are little more than cryptozoologists-come-lately. I’ll point you, instead, to coverage by Loren Coleman, probably one of the most well known cryptozoologists. Of this find, he writes:

Others would have you call this thing by a name that is tied to the egos of the alleged discoverers’ names. Perhaps it should be called Biscardi’s Folly now, but I wanted a sillier name for this. Why? Because this body has little to do with Bigfoot and everything to do with a Sasquatch costume that someone developed after watching too many gorilla movies. The nares/nostrils are modeled on a gorilla and the mouth on the mask looks more human-like, while the teeth that seem to have been placed in the mouth could be my late mother’s false teeth.

This about sums up most people’s reactions on seeing the “body”. To me, the real mystery is how CNN could actually allow itself to be so taken in that it televised the Bigfoot press conference.

This Georgia peach of a hairy story is not the only Bigfoot tale on the loose today: Pink Tentacle reports that a group of Japanese explorers is on a two month quest to Nepal searching for the ever elusive Yeti.

With all due respect to the Japanese researchers and Mr. Coleman—who I’ve chatted with in the past and is both interesting and genuinely skeptical of claims like those of our Georgia boys—there is no Bigfoot, and I doubt there is a Yeti, as we would think of Yeti. My reasons for my disbelief are related to the giant squid, so I guess this story is apropos for Squid Friday, after all. However, since it’s late and I’m tired, I’ll leave you to figure out why the proof of existence of the giant squid would also make a reasonable proof that there is no Bigfoot.

*However, the comments at Techcrunch are rather entertaining.