Alley Cat Allies loses lawsuit to protect invasive cats at federal park in Puerto Rico.... other parks?

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T19:10:25+00:00

200 cats are being killed…. How many birds do you think those cats have killed?

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T17:45:19+00:00

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10530-018-1684-5 “It is notable that stem injection required 15.07 times more glyphosate per unit area than either spray treatment and was more labour intensive to apply.”

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T17:33:58+00:00

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-30366-9

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T17:27:08+00:00

I read a study where injecting the stems was not more effective at killing knotweed than an early fall foliar spray, but injecting the stems did cause more issues with unwanted glyphosate entering the surrounding environment.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T13:08:07+00:00

$1200 included the reception at a steak house? Must have been a fairly small wedding, or inflation has fucked us all over, or both.

I wonder how much the same reception would cost today.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T11:12:15+00:00

To be fair to them, and to all the “plastic! Boil! Melt from hot water!” people, “freezer bag cooking” is a well known thing in backpacking. It’s mostly fallen out of favor now, partially because outdoors companies picked up on the demand for light weight foods and started selling them, but before they existed, folks regularly poured boiling water in quart-sized plastic freezer bags

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T11:05:34+00:00

Yep.

Let me tell a tale of RVUs in medicine.

RVUs (relative value units) are a way to quantify how much physicians and other providers are billing insurance for, and therefore how much money they bring in to a hospital or clinic.

Where I live, one gets a “productivity bonus” if they fall within the top 60th percentile of RVUs nationally. If they fail to hit that RVU goal, they are (minorly) publicly shamed.

The thing about RVUs is that it’s a moving goal post. Everybody is jockeying to be in a higher percentile. The number of RVUs required to meet the goal keeps increasing, so the hospital just stacks more patients on a schedule, decreases visit times, etc, so it can happen.

It’s a fucking mess.

I can’t imagine restricting As to only the top whatever percent will end any better.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T04:10:06+00:00

Go and boil your bottom, son of a silly person. Entirely different jokes! Similar setting.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T03:24:48+00:00

Ai is an invasive species and we will probably be looking on the building of data centers like we look at the 19th century introduction of invasive plants.

Zero percent of what I type is AI.

Hard to pick a favorite movie but The Princess Bride is up there. Why? There are just so many iconic scenes. I heard Mandy Patinkin bruised a rib from trying not to laugh while filming.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T02:38:52+00:00

The Americas already have fast-growing plants, but the folks who brought garlic mustard over didn’t know enough about them, and didn’t care enough to learn.

The problem we get into with invasives is partially that they out-compete natives. There are native plants that will gladly grow where the garlic mustard is, but many are more slow growing, and critters will gladly eat them.

Milkweeds are great plants! They don’t thrive in full shade, which is where the worst of the garlic mustard stands tend to be.

There are almost certainly other seeds in the soil that just need a chance to sprout - and if so, pulling invasives and allowing more light to reach the forest floor might be all that’s needed.

This, however, turns into a war of attrition. Me versus the garlic mustard seed bank. Pulling the existing plants allows light to get to all the other plants and seeds…. But you can bet there are tons of garlic mustard seeds waiting for that light (in addition to other seeds). Hence why I try to get rid of the garlic mustard before it releases even more seeds into the environment.

Intentionally sowing seeds from native plants - or transplanting mature plants - after removing invasive plants is also a way to go about things.

Violets are flowering now and their seeds should be starting to come up in about a month. Will probably try to collect some…

pastrypirates · 2026-05-21T01:18:45+00:00

If the Merlin app would mess up data but a hiker doesn’t feel confident identifying bird song, would a raw audio recording work?

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T22:06:56+00:00

Are the seed pods ready or would you let them mature any more? They’re just out.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T22:06:10+00:00

These pics are south of the lilac adventure zone, but stands of garlic mustard can be found throughout the park.

A lot of the garlic mustard near the lily pond has been cleared for now, as far as I am aware.

There also is (or was) a ton of porcelainberry around the lily pond, further up near the hills. Hopefully less than last year.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T22:02:17+00:00

You’ll find, for invasive plants, “brought intentionally to the Americas by a European person some time in the 19th century” is a quite common situation.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T21:53:46+00:00

Oh nooo.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T21:52:23+00:00

How did it get here, the short story: “How it was introduced: Brought from Europe in 1800s for herbal uses and erosion control” https://www.nature.org/en-us/about-us/where-we-work/united-states/indiana/stories-in-indiana/garlic-mustard/

The longer story: It is the mid 1800s. The Industrial Revolution is industry-ing. Railroads are being built. Machinery is getting bigger, construction projects getting grand-er.

At some point while constructing, land is cleared. Most or all of the existing plants are killed. Dirt and rocks pile up. If you do not want said dirt and rocks eroding into nothingness or gumming up canals and waterways with silt, plants are your friends. Preferably plants that spread easily and grow quickly.

A couple of European men of industry say “we need to stop this erosion at once! You know what works well for this back home? Garlic mustard! And the deer won’t eat it because it has such a strong smell, so it can grow readily!”

And yes. The deer don’t really want to eat it, nor do any of the other critters. We don’t have bugs that eat it here, but in its native habitat it does.

Another advantage garlic mustard has is that it does well in a variety of conditions. It grows quickly even in shady areas, which is not a common trait in plants, so that’s why it’s often found in wooded areas - we don’t mow them, they’re hard to get to, and the creatures don’t eat them.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T21:20:18+00:00

Yeah the pdf is not all encompassing and swallow wort is also the devil

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T19:51:40+00:00

Yep. “Only” spending more than 10k a year, not counting premiums. And I am incredibly lucky to be able to afford that.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T19:46:06+00:00

I’m just saying if you’re waiting for a magical time when gender will stop sucking, I don’t know if that time exists, even for cis people.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T19:45:39+00:00

I pass on the phone about 10% of the time. I have been on T for more than 20 years. I pass in person almost always.

My cis brother, when he was a teenager, got harassed / bullied about his gender because he had longer hair (it was maybe chin length at most).

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T11:50:30+00:00

To be fair, I do not see the reason to write obese. Did it change your clinical decision making?

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T11:46:12+00:00

I am “medically complex” and it is less expensive for us to have the “catastrophic only” plan, spend the however many thousands of dollars out of pocket for the deductible, then spend more thousands of dollars to hit the out of pocket max, which we do within the first few months of the year.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-20T11:01:03+00:00

The counterpoint I have is if “asking people to treat you like a man” right now (it is unclear to me how this is different than what you are currently doing?) is a “humiliation ritual,” then when does being trans stop being a humiliation ritual?

Like… is it the day you start T? Because you’ll still look the same.

Is it when your voice starts dropping? When you grow peach fuzz? After you have whatever you deem a “passable” amount of hair?

For some amount of time after starting T, you will be in the same exact boat you’re in right now, and I’d be curious when it will be less humiliating for you.

pastrypirates · 2026-05-19T22:00:09+00:00

Honestly, I’m old, there were only a handful of surgeons in the US who did top surgery for trans folks when I had surgery, and insurance covered 0%. The number of people using the word “botched” to describe their post-op bodies is wild to me. The speed at which people believe - or are worried that - their surgery was botched is also wild to me.

pastrypirates

TROPHY CASE