This bulletin from Southwest Florida (via WINK News) is alarming:
Biologists are trying hard to clean up a massive python problem in southwest Florida, according to WINK News.
Ian Bartoszek, a wildlife biologist with the Conservancy of Southwest Florida’s Environmental Science Department, told WINK that 10,000 pounds of snakes have been captured within a 40-mile area during the last five breeding seasons…
These pythons are hurting the food chain of southwest Florida, Bartoszek said.
“One python had the remains of a possum and a bobcat, many others are deer and fawn,” Bartoszek told WINK. “They are definitely eating all the way up the food chain and that’s very worrisome, because if they are impacting deer, that’s panther food.”
I’m 100% in favor of saving the critically endangered Florida panther, but I’ll admit that my first thought wasn’t that the giant pythons were encroaching on the panther’s food supply; it was that giant snakes are going to start gobbling pets and small humans…if they haven’t already.
Some expert advice:
Experts ask that if you see a python in the wild, don’t approach it, but try and take a photo and report its location.
Don’t worry — I sure as hell won’t approach it, though I may trample any humans or panthers in my path as I flee in terror. If I manage to snap a photo, it will damn sure be shot with a telephoto lens. Possibly from Georgia.
Open thread!
The Midnight Lurker
First comment! Whoo-hoo! I have nothing to say.
The Midnight Lurker
Hi Betty, I’m a fan in Texas!
trollhattan
Unless there are hundred-pound mongoose available somewhere this is a permanent infestation. Which sucks yugely.
ThresherK
I’m waiting for the first Florida Man incident from this. I’m guessing by sundown, perhaps.
MattF
@ThresherK: Florida Man has disagreement with Florida Snake.
Snarki, child of Loki
The problem isn’t that Florida has too many snakes.
It’s that Mar-a-Lago has too few.
I’m betting that Trump isn’t too quick on his feet, also, too.
Nicole
That was really interesting! I wish they’d gone into how they think said invasive species became invasive. I saw that the guy in the video had a poster behind him about not turning a snake loose, so I’m assuming, between that (and the pythons mentioned being Burmese pythons), that the problem is people getting bored with a pet (or the pet being improperly secured in the home). Burmese pythons are pretty docile, as pythons go, but they can escape as easily as any other snake.
I used to work at a zoo and we had problems with people trying to sneak turtles and other animals they didn’t want anymore into the zoo to “set them free.” Sigh. Also, I got to handle Burmese pythons. I like them, but not as an invasive species. Don’t set your pet free!
lapassionara
@trollhattan: What is the plural of mongoose? Mongeese? Mongooses?
Tom Levenson
@lapassionara: Mongoosi.
Chris
Giant snakes in the Everglades have been a thing basically forever, I’m told. Nice to know they’re doing something about it.
Chris
@Nicole:
I suppose my question here isn’t so much “why would you set your pet free?” but rather “why would you have a python as a pet in the first place?”
Betty Cracker
@The Midnight Lurker: Got snakes?
@Chris: They’re moving north.
trollhattan
@Chris:
Manly-man pet. Stupid reason, but there it is.
SFAW
I’m thinking the only person who can save up from pythons harming the environment is someone who specializes in Environmental Protection. Preferably someone with “law enforcement” experience. And, so that he’s semi-familiar with Florida’s geography and topography, he should be from a panhandle state. OK? And this guy should keep his “security detail” — if he has one, that is — at home, because he’s JUST THAT TOUGH! Why, I bet he could wrassle that python into submission in less time than it takes for Shitgibbon to make his first intentionally-true statement.
Now, if only there were someone who fit those parameters ….
trollhattan
@lapassionara: @Tom Levenson:
I was holding out for mongaggle.
SFAW
@lapassionara:
“A shitload”
Roger Moore
@Chris:
Some people just want exotic pets. They think a big snake would be really cool, and it is until they realize it’s boring most of the time and more work than they want. Then they prove what dim bulbs they are by just letting the thing go instead of finding another owner for it or a Burmese Python rescue group.
OnkelFritze
Don’t worry about it. When Florida drowns in the ocean, that should take care of the snakes.
Jonny Scrum-half
How many snakes is “10,000 pounds” of snakes? Why not just say how many snakes have been captured?
lapassionara
@trollhattan: That does pose a related question: what is a group of mongoosi called? As in, pod of whales, murder of crows, etc.
Thanks, Tom.
gvg
20 years ago when I had time for snorkeling we started seeing non native species of marine fish in the keys. Aquarium keepers releasing fish they were bored with. Tended to be very beautiful fish but a problem possibly to food chains and research showed it was also introducing non native diseases into eco systems. Aquarium fish from all over the world would pass each others versions of colds to each other then one released to the wild would introduce a whole bunch of new colds to that local water. In turn it could turn out that the local fish were very suseptible to cold #3 and it could wipe out a bunch very fast. Sort of like certain European diseases wiped out the native Americans.
SFAW
@Snarki, child of Loki:
I have it on good authority — the BEST Authority!!! — that Shitgibbon is faster than Usain Bolt in a sprint, and Meb Keflezighi for distance. Also, those
tentspants just MAKE him look fat, because he doesn’t want people to be shamed by his svelteitude — his BMI is really 20.3SFAW
@lapassionara:
“A bigger shitload”
germy
People who own pythons. Great commentary from Ms. Jones.
Chet Murthy
ISTR that when lionfish started becoming a problem (in the Caribbean?) some folks started popularizing the meat, and it caught on? I wonder why this hasn’t happened with pythons? I mean, you’d think that a small bounty would be enough to get ’em all kilt? Like that contest they have every year to collect the most rattlers …. I forget where.
Immanentize
I always thought the Trump Presidency was biblical. Can’t wait for the Florida frogs and boils.
SFAW
@Chet Murthy:
Because Robert Shaw, Roy Scheider, and Steve Irwin are gone.
raven
What do you think of the new kickoff rule?
germy
There was a documentary on my local PBS station about a group of vets, most suffering from PTSD, who hunt the big snakes. They call themselves the Swamp Apes.
http://www.swampapes.org
gene108
@Nicole:
Believe one of the hurricanes, in the 1990’s, destroyed the store (?) or home (?) of someone having Burmese pythons, so they slithered away into the swamp to basically take over the state.
What I wonder is why the alligators aren’t eating the pythons? Alligators should be the top of the food chain, in Florida.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
You’d think people could find “exotic” pets that aren’t cartoonishly dangerous. Some kind of bird, or some kind of fish, or maybe a platypus.
Immanentize
@SFAW: that authority would be the suck-up doctor trying to become the head of the VA?
Also, I love that Trump is using the short stairs on airforce one coming out of the belly of the plane. It looks like he is being pooped out…
Chris
@gene108:
There was a report years ago that either an alligator had eaten a python, or a python had eaten an alligator, can’t remember which, but whichever it was, the eater’s stomach was so full after the event that it just burst.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
A lady I went to school with pops up occasionally in my awareness in publication. Most recently it was when my wife handed me a book in a bookstore she thought I might be interested in and I pointed to the first author’s name: “Hey, I know her!”
Apparently she’s a fairly well-known author on animals.
Apropos of your story, on a previous occasion some years ago, it was a small newspaper article about her as she was on her way to or from a village in India IIRC, to photograph a tiger who had been preying on humans.
Roger Moore
@lapassionara:
A group of mongooses is apparently called a pack or mob.
delk
My dog Gav zonked out on pain meds. He actually likes the blow-up collar. We should have the results of his liver biopsy sometime next week.
SFAW
@Immanentize:
Him, too.
But the recounting of amazing feats came straight from the horse’s
assmouth, i.e., Lying Littledick himself.raven
@germy: Boonie Rats
SiubhanDuinne
@lapassionara:
I assume only the female of the species is a mongoose. The male would be a mongander, surely.
:: Don’t call me Shirley! ::
Yutsano
FYI: If you need to get a hold of the IRS today…good luck there. All of our systems are pretty much ungestuppt. To make this even better: it’s affecting electronic filing. On the last day. WHEE!!!!
gene108
@raven:
Just another step in the march to eliminate the kick return. I am not really for or against. I can see wanting to minimize injury, but others maybe against such a change because it goes against tradition.
raven
@delk: Sweet pup.
JCJ
@gene108: @Chris:
Here ya go
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/10/1006_051006_pythoneatsgator.html
Betty Cracker
@raven: I’ll be interested to see how it changes things. Definitely in favor of making the game safer, and from what I’ve read, a lot of injuries occur during kickoffs. What do you think?
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Were you sauced when you wrote that?
zhena gogolia
@delk:
Praying for Gav. He is such a sweetie.
Chris
@JCJ:
Ah, thank you.
SFAW
@Yutsano:
Thanks, Obama!
lapassionara
@Roger Moore: Mob of mongoosi has a certain ring to it. Thanks
Duane
@Jonny Scrum-half: There’s so many they don’t bother to count. Just weigh them by the pound. Or the ton, apparently.
Chris
@Yutsano:
This year, I did an extraordinary thing, and actually filed my taxes a couple months ago instead of waiting until the last possible day, as I usually do.
I am now congratulating myself for that.
germy
Anybody recognize him?
gvg
@Yutsano: Front page of the WaPo is the IRS web crashed from tax day. I looked at filing online but it’s all private companies who then store your return etc. not comfortable with that. I’d rather just do it direct on an IRS site. Seems like they are trying to hard not to kill the business of tax preparer.
lapassionara
@SiubhanDuinne: LOL!
Roger Moore
@raven:
Just give the ball to the other team at the 25. That’s the direction they’re heading; they might as well skip all the intermediate steps and go straight to the endpoint.
Gin & Tonic
@Yutsano: Luckily I tried to e-file last night, and found out I couldn’t, because my wife got some sort of stupid adjustment-type W-2 from a job she last worked about three years ago, and it showed income of $8.11 and tax withheld of $8.11, and you can’t e-file if your tax withheld is 50% or greater of your earnings. So that left me with time to print the goddamn Federal and State returns and get to the post office today. If I’d left the filing until tonight, I’d have been screwed.
And all for a fucking $8 W-2, for money she didn’t actually get. I wanted to ignore it and pretend I’d never received it, but somehow I couldn’t bring myself to doing that.
Elizabelle
@delk: Hope Gav is just fine, and on his way back to wellness.
Roger Moore
@Chris:
The danger is part of their allure. Having a pet that can kill you proves what a manly man you are.
satby
@delk: poor Gav. Hope the results aren’t anything serious.
Mathguy
One thing that hasn’t been mentioned is that a Burmese python can reach 18 feet. When they get around 12, they aren’t easy to handle, and I suspect a lot of morons dumped them when the damn things outgrew their cages.
The snake groupies are a strange bunch–lots of responsible owners that take excellent care of them, and then a small subset that have to have the biggest or the baddest. I knew of a guy that had a spitting cobra as a pet, which is akin to playing Russian roulette every day.
dexwood
@germy:
It’s Willem Defoe!
Mandalay
@Chris:
I thought the exact opposite was true, and forty years ago there weren’t any Burmese pythons in the Everglades. The reason there are so many now is that they have no natural enemies when fully grown apart from crocodiles.
the wesson
@trollhattan: Hmm, wolverines vs boas? Could get ugly.
JCJ
@raven:
Mixed. It seems that the kickoff may be eliminated eventually. I love a great kickoff return, but if this can reduce injuries I’ll take it. I just think of Desmond Howard in the Super Bowl for the Packers essentially sealing the win with that touchdown return after the Patriots had scored. Also David Gilreath for the Badgers returning the opening kickoff for a touchdown in a night game against Ohio State was electrifying. If the new rule is a way to still allow returns while reducing the possibility of injury it would be a good compromise
And it would be too bad to miss the next Devin Hester
SRW1
Does that advisory also apply to the snakes in Congress?
hitchhiker
Just checking in to say that I’m on my 3rd day sans Twitter.
So far, so good. If I’d been on yesterday I’d have spent hours and hours watching the Hannity ‘splosion, and tho’ that would have been fun, it was also fun to play the TRMS podcast and live it through Rachel’s lens.
Thing about twitter as I use/abused it … it’s like skittering endlessly across the surface of things waiting for the ripple that will turn out to be the movement of a giant fish — which would make sense if it were the only way to ever learn about the fish. It’s not.
I read Tara Westover’s book, Educated, in the last few days. It’s pretty damn astonishing. It was a thing for me, realizing that I don’t have to keep flicking around but can actually just focus.
Anyhoo, that’s the update. It’s interesting that both Twitter and Facebook give you this 30-day window to reconsider when you ask to have your account zorked for good. It’s like they know a lot of people will take a break and come back, just as they do with addictive substances, over and over.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
What do they call the place where chipmunks live?
.
.
.
(Wait for it….)
.
.
A CHIPMUNESTERY!!
Immanentize
@Gin & Tonic: The big pain in my butt this year was that my son wanted to sell some of his old, but rare Lego sets. Ok, Dad does it…. This results in a W-2 from PayPal. Then I had to find out the MSRP for the sets and the postage that I paid. Huge hassle for 600 bucks.
SiubhanDuinne
@germy:
Kay said in the early morning thread that no matter what the picture looked like, we should all just say it’s DJTJunior.
?
Catherine D.
@delk:
Laparoscopic biopsy or standard incision? I couldn’t afford the former, so my dog had the latter. Really pain in the butt place for drainage! He wore vet wrap belly bands for ages and then spent longer in an elastic bandage to repair a hernia. Surprisingly, he didn’t mind.
Mandalay
@germy:
Yep. Could be either of these hoodlums: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Da_wrzdV4AAZN1h.jpg
Immanentize
@Mathguy:
And some are fundamentalists in Eat Texas.
Immanentize
@raven: I think I agree with all the others’ mixed reviews, but I do love me an on-sides kick play. So I would hate to see the ball just start at the opposite 25.
Wayne
I read somewhere the other day that these snakes are responsible for eating about 150,000 small animals.
This from a national geo article “Raccoon observations dropped by 99.3 percent, opossum by 98.9 percent, and bobcat by 87.5 percent. The scientists saw no rabbits or foxes at all during their surveys.”
Elizabelle
From Betty’s link: the best python hunter is — an undercover python:
Way to go, Argo. I wish they were doing this all over Florida, with as many undercover pythons as they can use.
And — snark — they always go with the white male.
germy
@dexwood: It’s White Jesus.
delk
@Catherine D.: Gav had an Exploratory Laparotomy. Looks like he has 8 sutures.
Mel
@SiubhanDuinne: ?
raven
@JCJ: Tod Gurley had a couple for the Dawgs.
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
Why would rodents live in a … what is that supposed to be, anyway? A monastery? Are those rodents in some sort of cult?
I don’t get it.
raven
@gene108: I think that’s it, the GA football blog has lots of “wussified” the game crap. They better do something or it’s going to be all soccer all the time. I watched some go the Atlanta MLS game this weekend and they have a nutso following.
Calouste
@SiubhanDuinne: Just like a man from Michigan is a Michigander, and a woman from Michigan is a Michigoose?
eclare
@delk: Hope Gav is ok, such a cutie!
rikyrah
Espy and Hyde-Smith Running Even In Mississippi
April 17, 2018 at 12:07 pm EDT
A new Triumph Campaigns poll in Mississippi finds Mike Espy (D) and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS) neck and neck in the special election to replace Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), 33% to 33%. They are followed by Chris McDaniel (R) at 13% and Jason Shelton (D) at 6%.
The special election will not have party primaries and is likely to go to a runoff.
In head-to-head matchups, Hyde-Smith leads Espy, 42% to 36%, while Espy leads McDaniel, 43% to 24%.
https://www.clarionledger.com/story/news/politics/2018/04/16/poll-cindy-hyde-smith-mike-espy-neck-and-neck-mcdaniel-distant-third-senate-race/520331002/
rikyrah
@delk:
sending GAV positive thoughts
germy
@Calouste: mishigas
Elizabelle
WRT Everglades Python: do not eat: Outside magazine, 2012:
Florida Officals: Don’t Eat Python Meat
Dangerously high in mercury
How strange. Maybe there’s an industrial use for pythons, but keep those fuckers out of Florida. Give mammals and birds a chance.
Researching a little further; I’d thought another problem with pythons was parasites. It would be marvelous if they had a food use, but …
Johnny Gentle (famous crooner)
@Chris:
They haven’t been a problem forever, maybe the last 10 years or so. But it’s getting worse, and all the well-publicized python hunts aren’t going to control the problem. And considering they’re apex predators (or close to it), it’s not like there’s some other species that can be introduced to wipe them out.
I feel like snakes are the pet-owner equivalent of guns. They make for shitty pets, but they’re scary and cool and threatening and make the wusses nervous. So thanks to that, now they’re out in the wild, destroying a unique ecosystem.
Chris
@Mandalay:
Forty years ago is basically forever, if you combine my hyperbole and my millennial “the Gulf War is ancient history” status.
Chris
@Johnny Gentle (famous crooner):
Good analogy. That sounds exactly right.
JWR
@JCJ: Even though I think I remember seeing that… wow! And from your National Geographic link, there’s this:
“Clearly if [pythons] can kill an alligator, they can kill other species,” Frank Mazzotti, a University of Florida wildlife professor, told the Associated Press. “There had been some hope that alligators can control Burmese pythons. … This [event] indicates to me it’s going to be an even draw.”
Brachiator
Apparently, the Monty python will tickle you and make you laugh before it crushes you.
Chris
@Brachiator:
Not a bad way to go. Helps you look on the bright side of life.
SiubhanDuinne
@Calouste:
Exactly!
Theron Ware
Snakes, it had to be snakes.
Spanky
@germy: Am I the only one who thought “Geraldo!” ?
germy
@Spanky: Most folks are saying Tom Brady.
Calouste
@gene108: The NFL is not going to eliminate the kickoff. Look at it this way: you got a touchdown, then you get a commercial break, you get 30 seconds of play with the conversion, then you get a commercial break, then you get 30 seconds of play with the kickoff, then you get a commercial break. Advertiser heaven.
germy
@Elizabelle:
They’re alive and insane.
noncarborundum
@lapassionara: And is a male mongoose a mongander?
ETA: late to the party, as usual.
The Moar You Know
@hitchhiker: I’m on my third week without Facebook. Lot of my friends and family are not happy about that; to me it seems like they’re begging me to rejoin a cult. Hey, they have my phone number and email. That’s not good enough, apparently, but I’m fucking done with social media bullshit.
I feel nothing but an overwhelming sense of relief, and realize I want out of all of it.
Including here, but this place will be last. Best news source out there. But the end goal is to be entirely off the internet. It ruins lives. Including my own. Nothing specific, but it’s a quality of life issue. The internet adds nothing and subtracts a great deal. I have a dog that needs snuggles, a house that needs fixing and gigs to play. The internet does nothing but take time away from all of those things.
raven
@Calouste: We’re not talking about the NFL.
John Revolta
@Immanentize: Who did you sell them through (if you don’t mind saying)? Mrs. R. hasn’t heard about this and she does this stuff. We never got a W-2………….?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
I have had it with these motherf**king snakes on this motherf**king state!!!!
Leto
@Nicole: United States Dept of Agriculture Invasive Species Profile: Burmese Python
National Park Service: Burmese Python
Reptile Knowledge: Burmese Pythons in Florida
Wiki: Burmese pythons in Florida
Edit: quick synopsis
Nicole
@Chris: I love snakes, but I agree with you. I am fairly conservative on what animals I think make for good pets, and that’s mostly limited to domesticated ones (dogs, cats, horses, pigs, etc, although obviously large domestic animals are limited to places where people have the space for them). I’m even kind of iffy on parrots, even though I’ve owned and loved parakeets in my life. A wild animal is still a wild animal, and doesn’t necessarily adapt well to a life where it is expected to interact with humans.
Mind you, I’m generally okay with a well-regulated zoo (AZA accredited, that kind of thing), other than a few species I think just don’t do well in any kind of captivity (large marine mammals, elephants). And people who specialize in it (falconers and whatever), but they generally have a decent background in what they’re doing.
But, you know, people want to look cool. And I fully admit, I found handling snakes to be pretty relaxing.
Spanky
@germy: Hmmmmm. I could see that ….
The Moar You Know
On topic: I had friends who owned one of these goddamn pythons. Now, do not get me wrong. I like reptiles, especially snakes. Our school had a tame pet rosy boa in the library. But a rosy boa can’t do much to hurt you, and a Burmese python assuredly can.
Their house stank of reptile. That was fucking nasty. Bit my friend in the throat once. That was scary and, of course, you gotta go to the ER and get every type of antibiotic known to man if that happens. People shouldn’t own these. Like tigers, they’re wild animals and should stay that way.
Mandalay
@Chris: Ah, I got whoooshed. My bad.
low-tech cyclist
There are reasons why I don’t go too far south of the I-4 corridor when I’m in Florida.
Nicole
@gene108: That’s really interesting. I’m going to google that. I find the “how” of invasive species arrivals interesting. Also interesting- it has to be due to human intervention for it to be considered “invasive.” There was an incident some years back of a lizard species showing up on an island (a new species can be devastating to an island ecology due to the lack of anyplace to go), but as the lizard was determined to have arrived by hitching a ride on a branch floating in the sea, it was left alone.
Elizabelle
@Johnny Gentle (famous crooner):
Really perceptive comment. And some of the snake owners (and releasers) might not have ever thought about why the pythons appeal to them.
Nicole
@The Moar You Know: I lived with two other young women (back in the 1990s) and we took care of an albino Burmese python for a guy the one woman worked for (he took the snake to parties and things like that- it was part of his business). Very mellow snake; I used to drape him around my neck while I’d clean the apartment, and let him doze off on my stomach when I stretched out on the couch. And then I went to work for a zoo and discovered what a fucking stupid thing that was to do.
My roommate started feeding him live rats because she thought it was more entertaining for him. She got bitten on the nose once (snake lunged for the rat and missed) and we’re all lucky none of the rats ever bit the snake. Zoos only feed dead prey to snakes because if a mouse or rat gets a bite in on the snake, a resulting infection can kill the snake. Happens in the wild all the time.
So yeah, a sweet, gentle snake who, thankfully, survived the ministrations of the ignorant idiots who were taking care of him.
Spanky
@germy: Of course, Stormy would have recognized Brady, because not only is she a fan, he’s a client! (j/k)
BroD
@Jonny Scrum-half:
“
Ok–six snakes.
germy
germy
different-church-lady
@The Moar You Know:
This really gets to the heart of why Facebook is corrosive; it claims to provide connectedness. But what it actually does is provide the illusion of connection. Facebook is not a conversation, or an interaction, it’s a multitude of monologs running in parallel. The “interactions”, such as they are, are very shallow. Facebook allows you to “interact” while never actually interacting — it’s a blind you can hide behind so that you don’t have to face the pressure of actual human sociability.
Phonecalls and e-mail are far too direct; you’d have to actually listen to the other person, actually care about what that person is saying; in the case of a phone call actually express that attention in real time. Facebook makes it easy for it to be all about me instead of us. Because, apparently, us has become far too much for anyone to handle nowadays.
eclare
@germy: That is great to hear!
germy
@eclare: I’d like to see it in every state.
eclare
@different-church-lady: I have the same attitude, you have my phone number and email, that should suffice. I used to have a FB account years ago to keep up with a friend who lives out of town with kids, but I have morphed into a attitude of “if you want me to see pictures of your kids, send an email.” Hell, have twenty email addresses in the email so you only send one, I don’t care, but I am not doing FB.
different-church-lady
@eclare: I think, maybe, deep down inside, my real problem with Facebook is I never want to see pictures of anyone’s kids, ever.
Elizabelle
I’ve been looking for Burmese python cuisine tips for you guyssss, but some of the photos are absolutely gagworthy. (Check out the delicacies here — no, don’t. From Hiking Mastery blog: EDIBLE SNAKES: HOW TO KNOW WHICH ONES YOU CAN EAT ) This article makes some insane claims: with the “Medical Advantages of Edible Snake”: if snakes really are that helpful for treating impotence and enhancing sexual vitality, wouldn’t you think they’d be just about extinct by now? Skimming the text: not from English.
One problem with python cuisine is the presentation: it’s not that appetizing to see a pile of smoked meat coiled up like a snake. (Or a large intestine, frankly.) Uh, no thank you.
One reader comment: “sell them to the Chinese — they’ll eat anything.” (The link above does include Chinese delicacies, although still recognizably snake.)
I wonder if someone could come up with python chips, something thin and crunchy and smoked. If they can get rid of the mercury. (One article mentioned tuna meat includes selenium which helps mitigate the mercury; apparently not so for python.)
And, of course, the Straight Dope has something to say on this topic. At very end of the post is a recipe for Python Chile Verde.
raven
@different-church-lady: Jesus, it’s just a fucking tool. People are such candy asses.
different-church-lady
@Elizabelle:
The ones in the supermarket are usually safe.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@The Moar You Know: I’ve been on a Facebook hiatus for several weeks now as well. It’s been great. Not sure if I will ever go back…
different-church-lady
@raven: Sure. And nicotine is just a chemical.
eclare
@different-church-lady: Hahaha…it’s not like I’m dying to see them, but they are part of her life. The one that creeps me out is that I have a relative who sends out Christmas cards with ONLY the son’s picture on it.
Steve in the ATL
@Immanentize: not a fan of the new, easier to recover onside kick. Do love the Devin Hester/Dave Meggett/Billy “White Shoes” Johnson returns though.
Anotherlurker
@gvg: IMHO, after living in Fla. for 2 years, is that the State is the invasive species capital of the world.
Armored Catfish and Tilapia are the most abundant fish in my apt. complex’s pond.
The biggest problem in the Lionfish, an Indo-Pacific species.
Steve in the ATL
@eclare: you’re awfully young to be such a curmudgeon! Clearly raven and efgoldman have a lot to answer for.
rikyrah
Automatic voter registration expands its reach even further
04/17/18 03:03 PM
By Steve Benen
It was only a matter of time before automatic voter registration reached another state, though I thought it’d take more than a week.
The news comes just five days after Maryland also adopted AVR. New Jersey and Maryland join (in alphabetical order) Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, District of Columbia, Georgia, Illinois, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia.
germy
An independent?
eclare
@Steve in the ATL: I started young with encouragement from my parents!
SiubhanDuinne
Now this makes me sad. One of the icons of public broadcasting, the legendary Carl Kassel, has died. R.I.P., Carl. May your voice forever be on answering machines.
hitchhiker
@The Moar You Know:
Yeah I did facebook amputation first (about a month ago) but hardly missed it. Twitter is different … something about the way it keeps delivering those bite-sized hits is just not good for me.
I’m old, so have clear memories of the pre-internet days and how it felt to just not track every damn thing in real time. Recently I listened to Elizabeth Drew’s book about Watergate (Washington Journal) and was just — I dunno, blown away at the memory of how s l o w l y that news unfolded. Everyone waited for the evening news, period, unless they were reporters or those being reported on. I find that I think I can be okay with that, and I want to try. As you said, there are things right in front of me to attend to.
Duane
Missouri Attorney General (R) says Governor Greitens (R-Grifter) is guilty of a felony for campaign violations. Seems Mr. Navy Seal used a veteran’s charity mailing list without permission to solicit donations. He founded the charity. The story of Fifty Shades of Greitens goes on.
Brachiator
@SiubhanDuinne:
He seemed like a lovely man. Passed away at age 84. A good, long life.
Love how the NPR piece on him also has clips of some of his wonderful answering machine messages.
RIP
SFAW
@Duane:
Much though I hope for a guilty verdict (at some point), I think it’s the jury that decides those things.
Mandalay
Nikki Haley got thrown under the bus yesterday when Trump changed his policy on Russian sanctions, leaving her looking like a dumbass even though it wasn’t remotely her fault. In further good news today, Trump decided to reverse the bus and run over her mangled corpse again, just for giggles:
She’s certainly a fraud, and in way over her head as Ambassador to the UN, but even so it must be really galling for her to be put in her place by Larry Fuckwit Kudlow. Long may it continue.
Formerly disgruntled in Oregon
@Duane: Maybe Sen. Claire can figure out a way to secretly convince Greitans to keep fighting, keeping this distraction going through the Nov election…
SFAW
@SiubhanDuinne:
I was fortunate enough to see “Wait, Wait” at Tanglewood a few summers ago, and what made it especially great was a guest appearance by Carl — who was “Scorekeeper Emeritus” by that time — and whose autograph I was lucky enough to get.
@Brachiator:
The announcement I heard did not have those. Damn.
I will miss him.
The Simp in the Suit
Is eating “small humans” ALL bad?
A panther is probably too smart to eat Jeff Sessions. But a python…
Chris
@Mandalay:
I’m sorry, I know how puerile this is, but I will never get enough of watching Trump humiliate those long-standing Republican stooges who chose to go work for him. You made your bed, assholes.
Elizabelle
Ah, I see you all are no longer fascinated by pythons. But still: there were plans in 2005 to train a beagle puppy to sniff out pythons. From The Guardian:
I don’t know why we can’t just shoot the damned things. We seem to shoot everything else. Stand your swamp.
Emphasis is on humane capture, though, and having them gently euthanized. Small comfort to all the mammals and birds who were inhumanely eaten by these awful things. I am appalled by the toll they’ve taken. It took years to ban importation.
SiubhanDuinne
@SFAW:
Go to the link at my #135. Scroll down; there are four or five samples you can listen to.
Ruckus
@SFAW:
You telling me there’s two of him, both in that one pair of way oversized pants?
Just thinking about this is making me sick to my stomach
Duane
@Formerly disgruntled in Oregon: At first I wanted him out. Now the carinival he’s created is so bizzare I bought more popcorn. Still want him walked out of the mansion in handcuffs. Then he can go back to destroying the state Republican party. He’s such a sociopath, maybe he’ll take out the whole party.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Fox News has vowed unconditional support for Hanitry so I suppose that means the Death Watch has offically begun.
As the Good Book says, live by the plastic spork, die by the plastic spork.
The Midnight Lurker
@Betty Cracker: It’s still a little cool for snakes here. I’m sure in the next month I will encounter the odd Copperhead or rattler out at my wife’s rental house. BTW – I miss the little wine foil animals.
Betty Cracker
@The Midnight Lurker: I don’t think I’ve done a wine foil sculpture since my Imperial Walker. Kinda hard to top that, you know?
AM in NC
This article from The New Yorker a few years back is a great peek into the insane number of invasive species in Florida, and how we are losing the battle to contain them. Pretty cray.
JustRuss
I’m sure I speak for the whole class when I say “Thank you, Betty, for living in Florida so we don’t have to.”
I’d also like to invoke Pierce’s bromide to stay above the snake line, but, well: Florida.
J R in WV
I think Florida should work out a way to pay a good bounty on pythons, like $50 for little ones (1-4 feet), $100 for medium ones (4’1″ to 6′) and then another $100 a foot for every foot over 6. Use funds from some other fee or permit to fund the python bounty, like beach rental fees.
I mean, I know beach fee would never fly… maybe a small fee to collect shells? I’m trying to think of a fee visitors would pay. Small enough for it to be painless, but lots of people paying it to fund all the bounties they need to pay…
$50 bounty nearly made some critters extinct, but they didn’t live in the swamps, they lived in beautiful wooded mountains.
TenguPhule
@gene108:
Pythons eat the young alligators.
MattF
@SiubhanDuinne: I must note that the offspring of a mongoose and a mongander would be mongoslings.
Roger Moore
@MattF:
So where do Mon Calamari fit into the picture?
Elizabelle
@AM in NC: Great article. Thanks much. From “Swamp Things”, your New Yorker link.
catclub
@trollhattan:
actually, that depends. There are mongoose in India and they keep down the cobras, but they don’t get them all. If they got them all, presumably the mongoose would die. Similarly, if you are glad you have snakes that eat the rats in your barn, if there were zero rats there would also be zero snakes,
so presumably the snakes do not wipe out ALL the rats. By analogy, even with 100lb mongoose, not all the pythons will get killed off.
cain
What? Not a single python language joke? I’m disappointed.
Perhaps, if python meat is on the table? We could easily eat our way out of this problem. It’s time for the top predator to kick some ass.
catclub
@Elizabelle:
I was impressed by the reporting that Anacondas will outcompete the pythons ( which outcompete the boas).
TenguPhule
@cain:
Upthread was a report that the damn things are slithering mercury hazards and unfit for human or animal consumption.
TenguPhule
@Roger Moore: Squid.
JAFD
Anyway, on the topic of mongeese
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/280/991/5bb.jpg
And in the words of John and/or Elizabeth Hess; “What’s sauce for the improper goose,
is sauce for the impropaganda.”
MomSense
I was just in Southwest Florida last month and learned about the python problem when we were in the Everglades. I didn’t see one fortunately. It’s hard to imagine a creature capable of taking down a six foot alligator.
TenguPhule
@MomSense:
12 foot long python.
John Revolta
@cain:
I live to serve.
TenguPhule
@John Revolta:
Upgraded.
Ksmiami
@Roger Moore: like GOP rally attendees?
cope
Even as a (reluctant) Florida resident, I don’t expect to have to deal with invasive pythons here in central Florida. However, on a daily basis I see invasive brown anoles, Cuban tree frogs, Australian pines, kudzu and have stalked lion fish while snorkeling in the keys. I know for a fact I am missing many, many more but my attitude has become that, meh, they’re here now so the question is moot. Darwin will sort it out.
Zuma
@Wayne: you are correct in what you wrote. Unfortunately, the federal government won’t allow pythons to be hunted on land the federal government controls; my understanding is that pythons can only be pursued on lands controlled by the state of Florida; unfortunately the feds are in charge of most of the everglades and in the eastern and central parts of the everglades most native species of animals are non-existent due to the invasion of the pythons. It is sad. I think the feds should get out of the way and allow hunters to go in and hunt pythons. If python purses, belts and boots became popular; the python would be hunted out in 15 or 20 years.
EthylEster
@Mandalay:
You are correct.
They did an Everglades wildlife census about 5 years ago. Zero rabbits. Just another way Florida is fucked. The snakes aren’t going anywhere.