Sunday, November 27, 2005

Weekend Blog Blogging

Over at Bootstrap Analysis last week, there was an interesting post titled "sudden oak death = fewer birds." It's about the effects of the sudden oak death pathogen (Phytophthora ramorum) on birds that rely on oak trees for food and shelter.

The Inside Dope blogged about "Jacobs rides to the rescue on Asian carp eradication," which features a critique of the proposed plan to fund the creation of a market for processed carp in Illinois (blogged at the ISW earlier this month). It also features an image of a man riding a carp. Weird.

The Taming of the Band-Aid posted a photo of a peacock, but it's not in a zoo - it's perched on what looks like a concrete cylinder, somewhere in the wilds of Florida.

Update: thingfish23 of Taming of the Band-Aid responds:

I photographed that peacock in mid-November. Hurricane Wilma destroyed the fence that was keeping it (and the two other peacocks that live there - another male and a female) on the property. I have seen them in the street many times since the storm.
Read the comments under this post for more.

1 comment:

The Inside Dope said...

To clear up your apparent confusion about the graphic of a man riding a carp, if you had read the post you'd see that it is our local State Senator Mike Jacobs. The post is about his proposal to give $900,000 to a private fisheries company in his district to ... well.. just give it to them.

The rationale is that it would help eradicate the invasive Asian Carp and create jobs, but the fact is that this company is already processing the carp and it's my contention that they could easily finance any further expansion by normal means without taxpayers footing the bill.

They have several products they are hoping to create as by-products of these invasive carp, including selling the mean to asian markets.

It's a unique situtation where a commercial interest is actually in the position to greatly help with the environmental threat posed by an invastive species while also expanding it's market, it's product range, providing jobs, and making a healthy profit.

But they don't need nearly a half million dollar tax gift to do so.

Hope that provides a little background and clears up your confusion.

Much more info is in the post you linked to.