JERUSALEM (AP) — Former President Carter said Monday that Hamas — the Islamic militant group that has called for the destruction of Israel — is prepared to accept the right of the Jewish state to "live as a neighbor next door in peace."

Give me a break. This is Hamas’ official stance for quote some time now. The only catch is that they demand that Israel recognizes Palestine as a state as well. And that’s where the noose ends. That’s why Israel is stepping up its actions (the Gaza ghetto) to grab as much land as possible, because they don’t have much more time. 

Regarding Jin’s comments in one post ago, it holds some truth regarding some (para)government entity - look at my licence plate. Someone has a sense for irony. The emblem has a star of David and the Muslim moon thingy. Whoever is responsible for this - very funny.

Moulting is a critical time for all animals. This is the time where they shed part of their old skin (a lot of it reabsorbs and is used again to build the new shell) and expose their soft sides. This is the ideal time for predators to strike and hence, animals tend to hide. They also lose their usual coloration (see pictures) which usually makes them more visible. This is also the time where interspecific "confrontations" often take place. If you are growing crickets and it’s too crowded and/or limited supply of food and water, the animals will tend to eat each other during moults, less frequently when fully armorned (personal observation).

Luckily for me, there are also weirdos out there, and here is one of them. I keep a tiny grass stem in the terrarium where I keep the crickets, and one thought this would be a great spot to moult. In the pictures below, you can see the (pale) coloration (or the lack of), the exuvium (moult) and a fully grown cricket. It takes at least 10-20 minutes for them to attain their full coloration. I don’t know how long it takes for the shell to reach terminal hardness (I’m not fond of poking animals). Perhaps it correlates with the color?

Adult males and females have wing, and males use them to produce a high pitch sounds, also audible to us, but especially to their females. The females (not pictured) have a long hard ovipositor protruding from the terminal end of their abdomen. They use it to deposit eggs deep into the soil, where they have more favorable constant conditions (temperature, humidity) to develop.

But Bush in an interview with a US-controlled Farsi-language radio station said Iran has declared it wants nuclear weapons "to destroy people."

But the scam fails and:

The White House on Friday sought to back pedal on comments by President George W. Bush accusing Iran of having said it was seeking a nuclear bomb.

But at least Bush knows (hopefully) that having nuclear power is their right, according to the NPT:

Bush told Radio Farda, which broadcasts from Europe to Iran, that he supported Iran developing a civilian nuclear power program.

"It’s in their right to have it," Bush said, according to a White House transcript of the interview made on Wednesday.

 

More at Yahoo news. 

A lot of new species awaits us in the ocean deeps, the forrest darks and mountain colds, but even more new knowledge is stored within and between them.

A woman from South California was calling 911 when someone shot her dead. She was calling for help when someone was trying to break into her house. I guess she was right.

link

A small fence has been erected yesterday that will prevent animals from crossing the road. Volunteers will be picking moving them across the road daily. The project is also about identifying and counting individuals, which will give us a clearer picture of which sections are "hot spots" for crossing animals.