Category: Not-politics

Extinct bird actually non-extinct. (pause) So, does that mean we can eat them?

What?  Why is everybody looking at me like that?

Extinct boobies return from the dead

IT HAPPENED to Mark Twain, now it has happened to an enigmatic species of gannet: reports of its death, it seems, are greatly exaggerated.

The Tasman booby (Sula dactylatra tasmani) was first described in 1988 from fossils found on Lord Howe and Norfolk Islands, off the east coast of Australia, but went extinct in the late 18th century after being eaten by European sailors.

Now, a team of geneticists, palaeontologists and naturalists has declared the bird very much alive. It is living among its fossil ancestors on both islands, and also on New Zealand’s Kermadec Islands to the east (Biology Letters, DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2009.0478).

I’m not saying that we should eat them all: but I figure that anything that we hunted to apparent extinction probably tastes pretty good. I’m given to understand that passenger pigeon pie was pretty tasty, for example; it’s a shame that there aren’t any more.

Again, I’m perfectly willing to keep up a viable breeding population, yes.  Sheesh.

Moe Lane

(Via AoSHQ Headlines)

Actually, ‘bacon-flavored beer’ is not in itself a selling point for me. However…

…after reading what’s to be done in a Brooklyn brewery that with a bunch of malt that has already taken on the marvelous odor of bacon:

[Brewmaster Garrett Oliver] plans to brew about 15 gallons of barleywine with that malt. In the meantime, he’s been infusing a brown ale with the flavor of Benton’s bacon fat through a technique known as “fat washing.” (Nick Fauchald described the process in this profile of the bartender Eben Freeman.) Oh, and the bacon-fat-infused ale was also aged in bourbon barrels, because bourbon and bacon go together like, um, beer and bacon.

Eventually, the barleywine with the bacon-smoked malt and the bourbon-aged, bacon-fat-infused ale would be blended to create one monstrously bizarre beer.

“One of two things will happen,” Mr. Oliver predicted. “Either this will be the most amazingly disgusting thing you’ve ever tasted in your life. Or I shall rule the earth.”

Well.  Yeah.  I’ll drink to that.  At least once.

Via Instapundit.

Moe Lane

Sex offender beaten with own gun.

Today’s near-Darwin experience comes to us courtesy of Vincent Goff, accused rapist – and current survivor of a savage beating involving his own firearm.

Goff allegedly approached a man and woman last Thursday afternoon on an isolated logging road in Harrison County and forced them into the woods with a rifle, Sheriff’s Maj. Ron Pullen said Wednesday.

They were forced to strip off their clothes and told to perform sexual acts when the male victim, described as a physically fit member of the military in his mid-30s, wrestled the gun away.

“He beat him until the stock broke over his head and then continued to beat him until he thought he had him incapacitated,” Pullen said.

Actually, no, the guy shouldn’t have finished the job. Goff’s wanted for a bunch of these crimes, and now that they have him in custody, they can more easily do the research that might link him to them. Plus any that he might have done that the cops don’t know about.  Gotta look at the bigger picture…

Moe Lane

“Tethered: A Novel.”

Jules Crittenden thinks that Tethered: A Novel is the bee’s knees, and while he may be matrimonially biased it did get some good reviews.  It’s not my standard fare – as far as I can tell, there isn’t a single exploding starship, implausible zeppelin, angels with rocket launchers, and/or allohistorical map anywhere in the book – but I figure that Jules wouldn’t steer me wrong.  Besides, it’s kind of interesting to see how the rest of the world impinges on the world of political blogging.

OK, so I’m weird that way.