Dave Bailey

They make great fertilizer. Wait for it...

A neighbour 2 blocks over just called to complain about my loud groaning.

I don't begrudge anyone having fun in the winter, but some of us have very good reasons for disliking it. Thanks to a run in with some bad water back around 1972 I have irritable bowel syndrome, and one of the many things that sets it off is my abdomen getting cold. I take Imodium like Smarties to keep some semblance of normality in my life, but it doesn't always help. But one of these days I may actually go ice fishing. I always used to think that it was nothing but beer, dirty jokes, and flatulence, but then it struck me - what's the downside of that?!

Howzabout some inspiration from Sonny Boy Williamson?

Daniel Ash and David J went on to become And how about a boating song from ?

Man, never thought I would find you guys are into some of the same weird stuff I love. Captain Beefheart was especially surprising. But ya wants weird? Here ya go!

Paranoia strikes deep... Now they are going to have a security guard there to give staff and customers peace of mind. What?! The suspect is in custody, the victim is dead, it's not as if there's going to be a sudden rash of crossbow assassinations at the Main Street library. I feel for those who were emotionally distraught at what transpired, but we don't need to baby them, they'll get through it. The human mind is a lot stronger than many of our 'leaders' give us credit for. I am very socially liberal, but I really hate this nanny state philosophy.

Were I a cat I would be deeply insulted, you're setting the bar pretty low.

You can learn to love them. The secret is in the sauce...

Domestic cats are the only organism on Earth with no evolutionary lineage, due to the fact that they are the spawn of Satan, wee bairns of the horned one himself, minions of the Dark Lord Lucifer. Right now our felid fuzzball is eyeing me, no doubt plotting my blood-soaked demise. So far I've been able to thwart her nefarious plans with nightly cuddles and scratches, but I'm sure it's only a matter of time...

If I recall correctly, pitchers and catchers report on February 13th.

And let's have some

Maybe the hamster needs feeding.

I read somewhere years ago that a bull shark had been caught as far up the Mississippi River as Alton, Illinois. That's one helluva distance from salt water.

Would be even better to see him playing here, and we need to replace Overbay!

No, they are an introduced species.

Maples, I love the syrup. And what classifies as being 'over run'? If cormorants had always been around here in the numbers they are now it would be considered normal. The fact is that the current range expansion is a natural event, species expand and contract their ranges all the time as environmental conditions change. And if you read my article carefully you would understand that I do not say that we should do nothing, but what I believe we should not do is a knee-jerk reaction. It should be obvious to anyone that something has changed to allow them to expand, so let's find out what it is. If we find out that they are chomping down on round gobies and the fry of asian carp, would you then still feel like exterminating them? And when P E T A comes calling, as they surely will, we may find ourselves fighting on three fronts - cormorants, P E T A, and public opinion.

And there are no benefits to having thousands of chipmunks, or garter snakes, or trilliums, or yellow warblers. What's your point?

That tree should be tested for steroids.

There's no way I would go with a ban on Great Lakes commercial fishing unless the science says that it's unsustainable. It has been going on for years and a lot of people and communities depend on it. For sport fishers to say that it is bad for us is selfish. Let's concentrate on cleaning up the ecosystem and doing some proper studies, I'm certain that commercial fishing can carry on.

If I recall correctly there is a charge called 'Criminal Trespass', which probably treats a different class of crime and carries a stiffer penalty. But I'm no lawyer...

As far as I know seals are not eating Atlantic cod, their primary food source is Arctic cod, which are not fished commercially. And if seals were the problem, why were the Grand Banks full of cod when Europeans first arrived, and nobody was bashing them over the heads then? One thing that seems apparent is that the present policy of culling seals and hoping that the cod stocks recover hasn't worked. Maybe the seals are eating something that competes with Atlantic cod for food or spawning beds, and giving the seals free rein to eat the competitor(s) might help the stocks recover. I would propose stopping the cull for a 10 year period, if the cod stocks recover, fine. If they don't we scratch our heads. If they plummet then we can blame the seals again and re-instate the hunt. As it is now we don't know. I think it's time to do some science.

So do I.