I suddenly have the urge to voluntarily hurl…

Check out NewsBusters “Weekend Captionfest II” featuring Katie Couric and Michael Richards (photo circa March 25, 1998). Funny stuff.

The Humane Society of the United States has posted their recommendations for solving problems with squirrels.

Squirrels generally rank as the top problem-makers among all species of urban wildlife. Paradoxically, these charming, bushy-tailed creatures are also consistently judged “Most Popular” among our wild neighbors. It seems we want them and we don’t want them–depending on what they’re up to at any given moment. Either way, squirrels are undisputedly one of the most successful mammals in human-altered environments.

The first approach to dealing with squirrels is to establish limits of tolerance. If they need to be excluded from an attic or prevented from stealing bird food, make sure it is done in a manner that does them and their young no harm.

They also offer advice on removing squirrels from your chimney…

Hang a long, 3/4-inch diameter rope down the chimney, and drape it over the side of the house to allow them to climb out. Afterwards, install a chimney cap.

Read the full article here.

Nice work from Katie and the rest of the evening news world…

Keeping her charm in check, Katie Couric made her first foray overseas yesterday as anchor of the CBS Evening News, hosting the show from Amman, Jordan.

President Bush was to have held a summit there with Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, but the meeting was unexpectedly postponed for a day, leaving Couric and her competitors at NBC and ABC scrambling to fill their broadcasts and Bush cooling his heels. The CBS anchor was plainly primed to deflate criticism that her performance has been overly chatty since she assumed the anchor position at CBS on Sept. 5.

With a backdrop of Amman minarets that was almost identical to those of NBC’s Brian Williams and ABC’s Charles Gibson, Couric whipped through several earnest interviews with the U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, and three of the network’s correspondents. During her interview with Khalilzad, she awkwardly jabbed her notebook, her head tilted to one side as she asked a question.

All three evening news shows covered the same story as the main feature — the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled the violence in their homeland and have settled, at least temporarily, in neighboring Jordan.

Read the rest of the article in The Baltimore Sun.

You have got to be kidding me…

In a recent interview with an Iraqi leader, CBS News Anchor Katie Couric asked an Iraqi woman if she missed Saddam Hussein.

In all seriousness, at the end of her two minute interview with Executive Director of the American Islamic Congress Zainab Al-Suwaij Couric asked Zainab, “Do you ever long for the days of Saddam Hussein?”

Zainab immediately said “No.”

Couric paused, waiting for Zainab to explain. After taking a breath Zainab emphasized “no” again and “we hope for a better Iraq.”

The other two questions in the brief spot Couric asked were “As an Iraqi woman, do you feel hopeful or hopeless?” and “from your experience do they [Iraqis] want US troops to leave that country?”

Zainab said she was hopeful that Iraq would have a better future and said Iraqis do want to Americans leave the region, but not anytime soon. She said if U.S. troops were to leave Iraq today, it would be “disaster”

[via Human Events]

This picture is amusing, though not for the faint of heart.

From On the Patio…

Here is a really big squirrel shot in Magnolia, TX.

It ate two local children in the parking lot of Brookshire Brothers.

Two Marines on Thanksgiving leave shot it. God Bless them.

Check out the picture of the albino squirrel and then check out the story below.

Park Slopers may be furious about the recent raccoon invasion, but the neighborhood famous for its peaceniks and organic produce consumption loves its albino squirrel.

Yes, even as raccoons continue to pester the locals, a bright white squirrel has become so beloved that at least one Sloper broke the law — the law of Nature, certainly, but also city and federal law — to save the critter from becoming another animal’s lunch in the Ninth Street playground last week.

“My husband was in the park with our son, and [the squirrel] came very close to being captured by a hawk,” one woman notified her neighbors, via the Park Slope Parents Web site.

“The squirrel probably would have been caught had the parents not thrown things at the hawk to drive it away.”

The woman admitted that she was “upset” at the people who challenged the natural order of things — and many others weighed in against the squirrel-huggers.

But the woman who saved Al the Albino didn’t shy away from a fight: “I was the parent throwing things at the hawk,” said the woman, who identified herself only by her nom de guerre, Suzanne.

Bowing to the neighborhood’s non-violent creed, she quickly added that she fired just “one small twig that never made it anywhere near [the hawk].” But then, her defiance continued: “I did not want to see that lovely and unusual squirrel swooped away. So many enjoy seeing the squirrel, including children who would not give a grey squirrel a second look. The hawk was certainly amazing, but looked plump and not in need of snacking on this particular squirrel.”

Another person added that Parks Department rules state that no person shall “molest, chase, wound, trap, hunt, shoot, throw missiles at … any animal.” That missive was signed, “Geoff, who thinks the squirrels are cute, but also enjoys seeing the red-tailed hawks do what they do best (catching squirrels).”

Still, Suzanne defended her turf: “My twig toss was meant only to distract, not to harm or harass,” she said, signing off by referring to the hottest of the hot buttons in Park Slope: last winter’s “boy’s hat” discussion.

[read the rest of the story at The Brooklyn Papers]