This cat knows how to get home! If you live on the second floor and the cat wants to come inside, any feline worth its fur would expect no less than to be carried upstairs. This video shows just such a feline. [via Funny Pets]
It’s Oh So Cute: Another cat video, but this one is set to a Bjork song and offers a charming view of fur people being themselves. Delightful indeed!
I want this clock. I realize admitting that solidifies my standing as a total and complete nerd, but there you have it nonetheless. I want one.
Finally! “A federal judge struck down parts of America’s top anti-terror law as unconstitutional Thursday, saying courts must be allowed to supervise cases where the government orders Internet providers to turn over records without telling customers. U.S. District Judge Victor Marrero said the government orders must be subject to meaningful judicial review and that the recently rewritten USA Patriot Act ‘offends the fundamental constitutional principles of checks and balances and separation of powers.'”
As I already pointed out: “Most of the webs that made national news are gone in Lake Tawakoni State Park — washed and blown away by the storms that hit Hunt County on Friday.” That would be the Friday before the Sunday when I visited. As I’ve mentioned and as is also noted in the article, however, the spiders are furiously rebuilding the web complex.
Revolting and pathetic! “Nearly two-thirds of all fish caught commercially in Britain are rejected and thrown back into the ocean dead, a British government study said Monday. The study said 63 percent of the 186 million fish caught by commercial fishing vessels — 117 million fish weighing 24,500 tons — are thrown back into the English Channel and other British seaways because they are found to be too small or the wrong species.” And people wonder why the entire oceanic food chain is collapsing at an alarming rate. [via 10,000 Birds]
And finally what I see as one of the most heartrending and understated tragedies of our time:
Two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will be killed off by 2050 — and the entire population gone from Alaska — because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.
[. . .]
Polar bears have walked the planet for at least 40,000 years.
No political commentary needed save this: The time has long since passed for all governments to respond to climate change, and to take definitive and decisive steps to stem greenhouse gas emissions. We as a species are not solely responsible for what’s happening, but we’re certainly exacerbating the problem.