It’s spring birding season in Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. WC and Mrs. WC spent a few days over there seeing what birds had arrived. Here are some photos. The White-faced Ibis arrive every year. Much less common were the pair of American Bitttern along Center Patrol Road. Some of the migrating passerines had arrived as…
WC has written before about Guy Christopher Mannino, a sleaze ball WC had to deal with who finally had his karma catch up to him. Mannino was convicted of a series of crimes involving his plans to murder a large number folks who he felt had done him wrong. Mannino appealed his conviction to the…
WC has been accused of posting photos of boring birds. While there are no boring birds, it’s true that some have broader appeal than others. So here’s a lot of folks’ candidate for the most beautiful bird in the Western Hemisphere, the Resplendant Quetzal. The bird is about 15 inches long, plus about 26 inches…
Commentary / Law / Politics
That’s not a typo. WC is talking about the convicts who are running as Republican candidates for office. Ronald Regan’s law and order party has come to this: a criminal conviction is no longer an obstacle to a successful Republican candidacy. Without further ado, WC presents the cons. Joe Arpaio, is the former Maricopa County…
Commentary / Hypocrisy / Law
Alex Jones, wacko conspiracy theorist only loosely in touch with reality, is starting to receive a schooling in the consequences of calling the parents of victims of the Sandy Hook mass shooting liars. For more than five years now, Jones has claimed the December 2012 Sandy Hook shooting didn’t happen, that the parents of the…
The United States has had 44 different persons serve as president.1 You can only say these things about one of them: At the date he was sworn in to office, he was a defendant in a massive criminal and civil fraud case; three, in fact. Two class action cases and one case brought by the…
It’s National Tax Day. It seems appropriate to write about the deficit. As long as WC has been paying attention to politics – more than 50 years now – a cornerstone of Republican economic policy has been the size of the federal deficit. Back in 2009, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell decried the $787 billion stimulus…
WC has written before about the two mysteries confronting astrophysics: dark matter and dark energy. It turns out that visible matter – the stuff we can detect with existing astronomy equipment – accounts for only about 5% of the apparent mass of the universe. The other, missing mass is a mix of dark matter –…
It’s been a while since we got seriously nerdy and talked about intellectual property and patent trolls. The issue arises because Bloomberg is reporting that patent troll VirnetX Holding Corp. won $502.6 million against Apple Inc. A federal jury in Texas said Apple was infringing patents for secure communications. Why does WC call VirnetX a patent troll?…
There are a staggering, bewildering number of birds in the Neotropics that eat bugs. Hundreds of species of flycatchers, alone. One of the more spectacular is the Long-tailed Tyrant. Long-tailed Tyrants feed exclusively on flying insects, especially stingless bees. Insects are captured by making quick aerial sallies from a high exposed snag or branch. Not coincidentally, that perching…
Walt Kelly, for readers too young to remember (or too old to remember) was the creator and cartoonist for Pogo, a daily cartoon which ran from 1948 to 1975. WC has celebrated Kelly’s extraordinary work in past posts.1 But, since this is Friday the 13th and paraskevidekatriaphobia — a neologism derived from the combination of the Greek words…
Paul Ryan has announced he is retiring. He won’t be standing for re-election. Another rat deserting the sinking ship of the Trump presidency. House Speaker Paul Ryan. The number three man in the federal government. The excuse? He wants to spend more time with his wife and family. That one doesn’t pass the red face…
