(graphic via SBS U Texas)

This sounds like a horror movie. Only in Texas, my friends:

Pesky Ants Becoming Zombies That Die

Some researchers in Texas are trying an unusual approach to combat fire ants -- parasitic flies that turn the pesky insects into zombies whose heads fall off. "It's a tool. They're not going to completely wipe out the fire ant, but it's a way to control their population," said Scott Ludwig, an integrated pest management specialist with Texas A&M's AgriLife Extension Service in Overton, in East Texas. The tool is the tiny phorid fly, native to a region of South America where the fire ants in Texas originated. Researchers have learned that as many as 23 phorid species along with pathogens attack fire ants to keep their population and movements under control.

So far, four phorid species have been introduced in Texas, where fire ants cost the economy about $1 billion annually by damaging circuit breakers and other electrical equipment, according to a Texas A&M study. They can also threaten young calves. The flies "dive-bomb" the fire ants and lay eggs, and then the maggot that hatches inside the ant eats away at the brain. Later, the ant gets up and starts wandering for about two weeks, said Rob Plowes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin...read on

Emailer Tom writes: Hi John, I can't help but think there is a connection to Washington in here somewhere.

There's a lot of places I could go with this one, but I'll leave it up to you.

The Mahablog: Who's the meanie?

Common Cause Blog: What kind of impact do Clean Elections have on participants in democracy? A big one.

Princess Sparkle Pony's Photo Blog: Condi meets...Kiss?

American Street: South Korea doesn't want our beef

The Opinion Mill: It's the Weasel Boy Special vs. the Straight Talk Express! Should Republican sleaze weasels be rewarded for telling the truth after the fact? Should presidential candidates be rewarded for retooling themselves along the lines of the people they ought to despise? Only the Opinion Mill's Sunday Bookchat dares to ask!

ANNALS OF JOURNALISM: The jerk at the podium..."What liberal media?" department...Press corpse getting Iraq war wrong all over again...What does the decay of journalism have to do with our appetite for celebrity gossip?...It took years, but our press finally noticed the frightful surge in Iraq vet suicides...Killing your customers is a bad business model...Find out what the world thinks about US...WSJ bizarrely claim surge's "success" means troops must stay

(click for a larger calendar) Attention all bloggers and those who read 'em:

Iraq War Blogswarm is Wednesday...how-to's, list of participants, etc. here .

Blog Against Theocracy is next weekend, how-to's and details (participants will be linked at the site throughout the weekend) here.

Open Thread below....

For years, the White House has chosen to put the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on the backburner. Actually, that’s probably overly generous — the Bush gang has preferred to ignore the problem altogether.

The good news is, the administration is now poised to hold a major Middle East peace conference. The bad news is, no one seems to have any idea who’s coming, when they’ll meet, or what they’ll do.

[N]o conference date has been set. No invitations have been issued. And no one really agrees on what the participants will actually talk about once they arrive at the Naval Academy for the meeting, which is intended to relaunch Bush’s stillborn “road map” plan to create a Palestinian state.

“No one seems to know what is happening,” one senior Arab envoy said last week, speaking on condition of anonymity to avoid appearing out of the loop. “I am completely lost.”

A senior administration official, described by the WaPo as being “deeply involved in the preparations” for the conference, conceded that he or she “can’t connect the dots myself.”

To be sure, brokering Mideast peace is exceedingly difficult. But if the Bush administration could at least maintain the appearance of competence, it might instill a little more confidence.

Greetings and salutations, minxes and mondains. Melissa McEwan, aka The Pink Petulance, coming to you from Superblogger Headquarters, where SuperKos is delegating responsibilities before taking off for Planet Newsweekia. It's busy busy busy at Superblogger HQ, and I've just been told that Captain Atrios needs to discuss staff rotation at Battlestation Alpha with me, so I haven't much time. Down to business:
Scout Prime takes stock of NOLA, two years after Katrina: On America, progress, empty lots and empty promises.

Coturnix has everything you ever wanted to know about Nigersaurus, the Mesozoic Cow, a fossil soon to be unveiled at the National Geographic in Washington, D.C.—and an "open access" dinosaur!

John Rogers contemplates life under robot overlords. Steven Perez, for one, welcomes them.

PSoTD has some advice for Comcast email users, which got me thinking: What's more annoying—spam, or the "arrogant and invasive" deterrence of it?

In the War on Christmas: Adorable Girlfriend reports that Lowe's has apologized for referring to Christmas trees in its holiday catalog as "family trees." Oh, the horror! Meanwhile, there's not going to be anything left for secular heathens to do if Christian hawkers of tacky shit continue to cheapen Christmas with garbage like Treetop Jesus.

Glenn Greenwald has the goods on what was an important day for FISA and telecom amnesty. Also, Jane. Libby would like to be encouraged, but is still searching for style over substance.

And some Quick Hits: 9/11 Tourette's: A Case Study … You're Not Terminated, F---ker … To Hell With Tiny Pants … and Nice Guys Redux.

Seeya tomorrow! If you've got any hot tips, email me at shakespeares_sister at Comcast dot net.

SteveAudio here at the mic on Thursday, let's see what's on the set list tonight:

Can't go on, everything I had is gone, stormy weather. . . The IPCC just received a Nobel Prize and with it a seal of approval on global warming. But what if it's worse than they said? And what would GWBush say about it (actually, Will Ferrell).
Twisted truth and half the news, can't hide it in your eyes. . . Harry Ried keeps saying "we need 60 Votes". Ed Schultz calls bulls**t! Ahmad Chalabi, the con man who milked the U.S. for millions, lied us into the war is back like the Energizer Bunny. They tighten up the tethers and they shackle your feet. . . Think our government wouldn't suppress our right to peacefully protest? Think again! And is the conservative movement is foreordained to remain in its current debased form?
And you never ask questions, when God's on your side.. . . Will Catholics swing Right or Left in '08? And does God hate the Westboro Baptist Church? And does GWBush have a holy aura around him?

I fought the law and the law won. . . Remember the dry-cleaning pants lawsuit-losing judge? He's looking for a new gig. And since the Supreme Court keeps re-interpreting laws, do you think law schools should keep up to date? Nah.

We have a new break song tonight, rockin' it old school. We'll play some dope jams and bangin' hitz tomorrow. Send any tips or song requests to steveaudio at earthlink dot net, with Blog Round Up as the title

See ya later, we're here all week, and I just heard there's no soap in the men's rest room. Not that it matters.

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Blogging Banquet Hall. Your waiter today is once again Steven at The Opinion Mill, and he's ready with a list of today's specials:

The thick redneck line: Rick Perlstein traces the racist strain from today's conservatives to their allegedly enlightened forebears.

Wanna read about the Iraq movie that's gonna have the wingers and warwhores in full-froth mode later this month? Get your preview right here .

Who would you support: snakes or real estate developers? You need time to think about it? Joey Novick understands .

What becomes a legend most? When you're talking about the Divine Mr. R. it's the GOP presidential nomination, of course. Saucy thing!

Watch what you say, or AT&T will take away your Internets.

Family values versus valuing families: which president stacks up the best? Like we need to ask?

James Fallows says what needed to be said: Frog really don't sit still while the water around them gets heated to boiling. Several decades of political arguments and analogies have now been rendered inoperable. If you have any (scientifically accurate) replacement metaphors, send them to Mr. Fallows here.

BOOK NOOK: Trey Ellis offers whiny-ass memoir author Clarence Thomas some job advice. As a public service, the author of 211 Things a Bright Boy Can Do demonstrates the proper technique for removing one's underwear without taking off one's pants -- Justice Thomas will no doubt want to try this when things get slow during those Supreme Court sessions. And American master Louis Auchincloss shows why he's considered the literary heir of Henry James and Edith Wharton: "I just think the Bushes are a big family of shits." 

Color of Change:  Pushing the Jena 6 letter-writing campaign over the top...  (h/t My Little Tribe)

Mother Jones/Mark Fiore:  Cheney-in-Chief, Fireside Chat #2.

Bush in 30 Seconds Blog:  Suddenly surrounded by idiots?

Workaday Liberal:  Will the US even accept a political solution in Iraq?

And don't miss Adbusters's conversation with Seymour Hersh. But don't get me started about Condi and the Pope.

Guest blogged by Blue Gal, who wishes her colleague Sandy Underpants a belated happy birthday as wonderful as his own self.

From my colleague Sandy Underpants at The Aristocrats:

White House budget item flagged by GAO: 122(c). Military Grade Happy Face Stickers -- $27.4 billion

 Many Thanks to Richard Roeper for exposing the wingnut fool known as Ted Nugent (contact info) for being the coward during the Vietnam war that he was:

Download | play Download | play (h/t C&ler for the vid)

So Ted Nugent roams a concert stage while toting automatic weapons, calls Barack Obama "a piece of -----" and says he told Obama to suck on one of his machine-guns. He also calls Hillary Clinton a "worthless bitch" and Dianne Feinstein a "worthless whore."

That Nugent, he's a man's man. He talks the talk and walks the walk, right?

Except when it was time to register for the draft during the Vietnam era. By his own admission, Nugent stopped all forms of personal hygiene for a month and showed up for his draft board physical in pants caked with his own urine and feces, winning a deferment. Creative!...read on

When he had a chance to actually arm himself with a machine gun he cowered in his own excrement. That's Hannity's man alright. And Roeper makes a great point about the Dixie Chicks. (h/t Peer)