"German squirrels are robots"/"Now that's Parkour!"

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"We have trees all over our front and backyards, thus we have a lot of squirrels. We love them, by the way."

"But every now and then they sound like they're crying. They sound so sad.
It is usually one lone squirrel that will sit and cry. It just breaks my heart. Are they crying? What happened to make them so sad? Can I help them in any way?"

Signed, A Squirrel Lover.

Does catnip affect squirrels?

We have catnip in the yard — for purely ornamental reasons. Not trying to drive any animals crazy. But we have a very crazy squirrel.

Correlation or causation?
	Correlation.
	Causation.
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"[A] 16-year-old boy shot the arrow, saying he was shooting at a squirrel."

The sheriff said...

(Here's where we talked about the little girl's injury.)

"[A]n innocent little girl pushing a doll stroller on a sidewalk on a Sunday afternoon... suddenly... almost mortally wounded by an arrow falling from the sky."

"Aryanna's condition has been upgraded to fair, said John Densmore, the pediatric surgeon who removed the arrow from Aryanna during a 2 1/2 hour surgery Sunday at Children's Hospital of Wisconsin."

If there had been a difference in the trajectory of the arrow by 2 centimeters, "there could have been a very bad outcome....

"She could best be described as a 7-year-old bundle of strength... She was composed, she was calm and she was quiet."

Aryanna suffered wounds to her left lung, diaphragm, spleen, stomach and liver. All of her organs were preserved, and she is expected to experience no permanent dysfunction, Densmore said.

They haven't found out who shot the arrow.

UPDATE: Arrest: "The sheriff said a 16-year-old boy shot the arrow, saying he was shooting at a squirrel.

Read more: http://www.wisn.com/news/south-east-wisconsin/ozaukee-washington/Arrest-made-in-arrow-shooting/-/10151118/14423842/-/14h4otoz/-/index.html#ixzz1wYvYJaZf."

Squirrel for lunch? Again?

It's the UW hawk cam. Happening now.

(It was almost precisely this time yesterday that momma hawk flew in with a fresh-killed squirrel.)

Lunch is squirrel!

Both hawks are with the babies now, and lunch is served... at the UW hawk cam.

"It can get a little gory, watching the parents tear up rabbits and squirrels, but that's nature."

"I just think it's been nice for us to be able to put it out there so a worldwide audience can watch these hawks."

"A squirrel, eating a rose!"

"Nice work, squirrels."

"Oh, and scientists."

Squirrel causes a power outage in the Meadhouse neighborhood, just as the Brewers game is about to begin.

Crazy! Meanwhile, squirrels have moved in on the St. Louis Cardinals:

Busch Stadium has been overrun by squirrels in the last two days. On Tuesday night, a critter scurried across the field and ran around in foul territory. His reasoning: “I’m cute. I have a fluffy tail. I am totally going to get picked up by a ball girl!” On Wednesday, either the same squirrel or an accomplice dashed right in front of the plate as Roy Oswalt delivered a pitch. Umpire Angel Hernandez called it a ball, and Oswalt complained that he was distracted by the squirrel. ...

Batter Skip Schumaker flied out, so the squirrel had no impact on the game, but Oswalt was still fuzzy about the rules concerning four-legged interlopers. “I was wondering what size animal it needed to be to not have a pitch,” Oswalt said after the game. “If it ran up the guy’s leg, would he have called the pitch for a strike?”

What's with the squirrels? I've had it with these %$!# squirrels. And these %$!# snakes!

Fortunately, the power is back. Watch the Brewers and the Diamondbacks with us here at desquirrelified Meadhouse. (And hang out for the Phillies and the Cardinals and whatever squirrels there be.)

UPDATE: In the words of Nyjer Morgan: "Fuck yeah! Fuck yeah!"

UPDATE 2: Nice to see the Cardinals win too. As Meade put it over at Trooper's:

Flyover America rules.

Kiss it, Coasties.

At the Glittering Water Café...

... you can sparkle all night.

ADDED: Chip Ahoy adds a Rocky touch...

Outside the Capitol today — a march, snow, and Peter Yarrow.

Meade wielded the Flip camera and I edited this. I also appear now and then as the blonde-haired photographer in the black coat, walking against the direction of the marchers. We begin with some women dressed as vegetables:



Other highlights:

1:01 — a man yawns.
1:10 — the WTF sign.
1:28 — doggie.
1:38 — "HITLER STALIN WALKER."
3:22 — "In the old days, we knew how to deal with peasants!... Burn you like marshmallows!"
4:18 — squirrel costume.
4:32 — "Is Cat Stevens here?"
5:05 — "That's Peter Yarrow."
5:32 — Toilet paper on the "Forward!" statue.
5:52 — The "Yin/Yang" sign.
6:27 — I get in the way of 2 ladies who are trying to take a picture of 3 guys in "Star Wars" costumes. Since they don't have a wide-angle lens, they need to stand way back, and feel entitled to a big stretch of empty sidewalk.
7:10 — "I've been fingered as a Walker supporter because I walked in front of her picture of the 'Star Wars' characters!"
7:41 — A woman dressed as the Statue of Liberty has duct tape on her mouth. Not on the video: I say to Meade, "I'd ask her why she has tape on her mouth, but she has tape on her mouth," and Meade says, "And if she didn't have tape on her mouth, and you asked her why don't you have tape on your mouth, she would remain silent."
8:00 — big Teamsters truck.
8:33 — Meade talks to the women with the "Obama, Where R U?" sign (which was the only reference to Obama we noticed today).
9:00 — Finally, a giant puppet!
9:12 — Meade gets a look into the soul of the puppet.

In the middle of writing about pessimism, David Rakoff finds out that the burning pain in his shoulder, that pinched nerve...

... is a tumor. Here he is — bald and hilarious — talking about his book. Watch for the reference to the Roberts Court...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
David Rakoff
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Rally to Restore Sanity

You can buy the book — "Half Empty" — here. I highly recommend the audio version. His reading style is very funny — and also easy to sleep to (which is 2/3 of the reason why I buy audiobooks).

I discovered that book after watching David Sedaris on "The Daily Show" and going off to buy "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" — which you can buy here. Again, the audiobook is highly recommended — but "Squirrel Seeks Chipmunk" isn't easy to sleep to because it's tricked up with a lot of music... and also actors read some of the stories and actors try so hard. It's wakefulness-provoking.

The end of the love grass...

Meade had to cut it down...



... to get to the places where he's planting allium bulbs. And look! In the love grass stubble: an acorn stuck right in:



A squirrel must have thought that would keep it for the winter. And I had Googled for solutions to the problem of the squirrels digging all those little acorn-holes in the new lawn. I was sitting on the stoop at the time, but I relocated to the incredibly soft — spongy! — new turf grass:

"How do I stop a squirrel ruining my lawn?... I’m in the u.k so i do not have access to guns or explosives before I get tons of killing suggestions."

... "The problem is not the squirrels. It is your attitude. I’m not trying to be mean.
Squirrels have just as much right to your yard as you do. Maybe more. The
animals of the world do not see property lines. They are doing what they need
to do in order to survive. The fact that you are upset by their behaviour only
makes you look self absorbed and petty. Please leave them alone. Take a
different approach and laugh at their antics. They are funny once you can let
it go. Chili powder might blind them. Do not use it."

Oh, I'm just out here on the front stoop, helping Meade with the gardening, by doing the part of the gardening that you can do on Google. Squirrels keep burying acorns in the otherwise lovely new lawn.

The Squirrel Rights Song.

"We didn't sign a release!"

"All programs on Discovery Health-TLC must stop encouraging the birth of any more parasitic human infants and the false heroics behind those actions."

"In those programs' places, programs encouraging human sterilization and infertility must be pushed. All former pro-birth programs must now push in the direction of stopping human birth, not encouraging it."

The hostage-takers manifesto.

ADDED: The guy seems pretty clearly crazy, and I hope no one dies and he gets the help he needs, because this manifesto — PDF —  is hilarious, but if anyone dies, it might be wrong to laugh.

Saving the environment and the remaning species diversity of the planet is now your mindset. Nothing is more important than saving them. The Lions, Tigers, Giraffes, Elephants, Froggies, Turtles, Apes, Raccoons, Beetles, Ants, Sharks, Bears, and, of course, the Squirrels.

Of course, the Squirrels. That's such a childish list of animals, and not just because of "Froggies." These are the animals in a children's picture book or Noah's Ark toy.

The humans? The planet does not need humans. You MUST KNOW the human population is behind all the pollution and problems in the world....

I disagree. Around my city, geese are crapping everything up. I notice that no birds got on Lee's list of favored creatures.

These are the demands and sayings of Lee.

How religion-y, and yet he hates religion:

Civilization must be exposed for the filth it is. That, and all its disgusting religious-cultural roots and greed. Broadcast this message until the pollution in the planet is reversed and the human population goes down! 

He hates everything that human beings have produced. It's all filth. Even the ideas. He gets his ideas from a gorilla:

The Discovery Channel and it's affiliate channels MUST have daily television programs at prime time slots based on Daniel Quinn's "My Ishmael" pages 207-212 where solutions to save the planet would be done in the same way as the Industrial Revolution was done, by people building on each other's inventive ideas.

Here's the book. A gorilla tells us what to do. Example from the pages cited:

We could pension off our teachers, close schools, and open up the city to our children. Let them learn anything they want. We could take that risk....

Quinn has been hyped by Oprah Winfrey: Here's an Oprah interview with  Quinn:

WINFREY: You say that y--hundreds of years from now, children will look back on our society and call us monsters. Why?

Mr. QUINN: I think so. Yeah, because we're g--we're--we continue to take and take and take and consume and consume and consume everything in sight. And in 100 years, if--if there are still people around to think about it, we're going to look back and say, `My God, these were terribly greedy people. What kind of people were they? They were hard to understand, who had no thought for us, for the future of--of the human race.'

WINFREY: How are we monsters? In what ways are we devouring the world?...

ADDED: The man was killed. The hostages all survived.

[T]he suspect had "metalic canisters" strapped to his chest and back. When Lee was struck by police bullets, one of the canisters "popped." Police have not confirmed if the canisters were a bomb, but Manger said the "device may have gone off" when he was shot.

Forget Mama Grizzly...

... here's Mama Squirrel!

At the Red Squirrel Café...

(Enlarge.)

... you can cringe... or scamper for your life.