Some Sunday Morning Schadenfreude

 With Stacy McCain: Trump Derangement Syndrome Reaches Terminal Stage as Democrats 

Are you tired of all this winning yet? If you were on X (née Twitter) Friday, you could see Democrats raging vehemently (and ignorantly) against the Virginia Supreme Court decision, which held that last month’s referendum to redraw the Commonwealth’s congressional districts violated the Virginia constitution. When I traveled to Louisa County for a “Vote No” rally, several of the state GOP people in attendance mentioned the unconstitutional nature of the process by which the General Assembly put the referendum on the ballot. This was not a secret, but many Democrats seemed to have paid no attention to these objections, so that Friday’s ruling took them by surprise. This idiot, for example:…

Palm Sunday

WINK, LaBelle palm farm devastated by winter freeze, drought slows recovery

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Maryland has Crabs

Just not as many as it used to. Bay Journal,  Chesapeake blue crab population drops 50%. The question is: 

The Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab population has declined by about 50% since 2010, a new study estimates, and while invasive blue catfish are responsible for some of that worrisome decline, the main cause or causes remain a mystery.

That’s the bottom line of a comprehensive stock assessment of the Bay’s crab population, which was launched in 2023 to figure out why numbers of the crustaceans have swooned in recent years, threatening the Chesapeake’s most valuable fishery.

Scientists from five different research institutions and fishery managers for Maryland, Virginia and the Potomac River pored over decades of harvest figures, survey data and dozens of reports and studies. They looked for changes in water quality or climate, among other things, and examined whether an influx of crab-eating fish could be responsible for depleting the population.

The basic problem, they agreed, is poor “recruitment,” meaning there aren’t enough young crabs surviving to produce the next generation. Their 281-page draft report concludes, though, that despite identifying some potential causes, they lacked the data to fully explain it.

“We suspect multiple causes, because the Chesapeake Bay is complex and the blue crab life cycle is complicated,” said Mike Wilberg, a fisheries scientist with the Chesapeake Biological Laboratory of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. He led the computer-driven assessment.

“There’s no smoking gun,” agreed Rom Lipcius a fisheries scientist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. 

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 This assessment finds little evidence that crabs are declining because of poor water quality, specifically the warm-weather condition known as hypoxia. Hypoxia occurs when nutrient pollution leads to oxygen-starved “dead zones” where fish struggle to survive. The scientists said there were no reports of mass crab die-offs in such conditions, and their analysis of water-quality data did not suggest it was a major factor.

They did find that blue catfish are contributing to the decline, as watermen have long contended — but the assessment ruled out the invasive fish as the leading culprit.

Introduced in a couple of Virginia rivers in the 1970s, blue catfish have spread to rivers all around the Bay region. As their population increased, the voracious finfish have consumed millions of juvenile crabs, according to the assessment. In 2023, the study estimated, blue catfish consumed roughly 8% of the little crabs that year.

“They’re not the primary cause,” Ogburn said. “There’s something five times bigger than that, and we’re not sure what it is.” 

Flotsam and Jetsam

 The morning readings:

At The Other McCain, the Wombat’s In The Mailbox: 05.08.26

357 Magnum  Friday Links - 8 May 

Rule 5 Saturday - April Cheryse

April Cheryse:

I'm April Cheryse. I've been a professional bikini and lingerie model based in Southern California for over a decade, modeling has truly been one of the greatest joys of my life.

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Virginia Supes Sink Spandamander

 Breaking news almost everywhere: Virginia Supreme Court Strikes Down Gerrymander, Dems to Take a Hit in the Midterms (Athena Thorne, PJM).

"On March 6, 2026, the General Assembly of Virginia submitted to Virginia voters a proposed constitutional amendment that authorizes partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts in the Commonwealth," wrote Justice D. Arthur Kelsey in his preamble to the court's opinion. "We hold that the legislative process employed to advance this proposal violated Article XII, Section 1 of the Constitution of Virginia. This constitutional violation incurably taints the resulting referendum vote and nullifies its legal efficacy."

So the court rejected it not because it was an unfair partisan  gerrymander, but because the way Democrats rammed it through violated the state constitution.

Ace just says lol, and gives it four flaming skulls and a pudding cup.

At Hat Hair, Dave Strom thinks Democrats Killed Themselves With the Virginia Redistricting Ploy. It certainly seems like it. Texas and California approximately offset each other. Virginia was hoped, by Democrats at least, to give Democrats a big lead. But in the wake of the recent Louisiana decision, a number of southern states, freed from court mandated restrictions on gerrymandering, are going ahead with partisan redrawing of the boundaries, and it looks like the GOP is likely to come out ahead after all.

As you might expect, Democrats are not taking it gracefully, Sister Toldja at RedState, Hot Takes: Hakeem Jeffries Implodes As Republicans Celebrate VA Supreme Court's Gerrymander Ruling.

Flotsam and Jetsam

 Eye is feeling slightly less stressed, but I’m still in head down mode, so, this morning’s news review courtesy of:

The Wombat’s In The Mailbox: 05.07.26

At Ace’s JJ Sefton’s The Morning Report — 5/ 8/26

Fish Pic Friday- Mallory Grace Potter

Mallory Grace Potter

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ASMFC Dithering Over Menhaden Cuts

Bay Journal, Interstate board delays decision to cut menhaden catch in Chesapeake Bay

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission has delayed moving ahead with a proposal to place new limits on the Chesapeake Bay harvest of menhaden by a Virginia fishing fleet.
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The Bay reduction fishery harvest is capped at 51,000 metric tons, but the commission’s Atlantic Menhaden Management Board agreed last October to consider multiple options for distributing that catch more evenly throughout the year or reducing it overall by up to 50%. They did so in response to claims that the Virginia fleet was depriving Maryland watermen of menhaden to catch for use as bait. Ocean Harvesters has disputed those claims, submitting a pair of studies to support its position.

Board members bogged down in debate over the options and decided to put off a vote on releasing them for public comment. Instead, the board established a workgroup to refine the draft and bring it back for consideration at their next meeting in August.

In the meantime, the commission has not yet received from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration the $2.5 million that Congress approved to study the Bay’s menhaden population. Bob Beal, commission executive director, said it was preparing to seek bids for the study once NOAA relays the money. The Science Center for Marine Fisheries, meanwhile, announced it is going ahead with its industry-backed research “roadmap” to study the Bay’s menhaden. Scientists will meet with Ocean Harvesters staff on May 12 to begin making plans for a menhaden tagging feasibility study.

A Menhaden tagging study? Good luck with that, the damn things die if you look at them crossly. 

Flotsam and Jetsam

 My eyeball still feels like someone put a rubber band around it. Anyway, today’s reading assignment:

The Wombat’s In The Mailbox: 05.06.26

JJ Sefton’s  The Morning Report — 5/ 7/26

A Thursday Tune - Far Beyond

Frozen Crown is an Italian power metal band formed in 2017 in Milan, Lombardy.

Flotsam and Jetsam

 Today’s reading assignment:

The Wombat’s In The Mailbox: 05.05.26

At Ace’s, JJ Sefton’s The Morning Report — 5/ 6/26

Army Awards James Island Contract

 Bay Journal, Army Corps awards contract for James Island restoration in Virginia

Preparations are beginning to rebuild James Island, all but lost years ago beneath the waves of the Chesapeake Bay. The Baltimore District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers awarded a $53.83 million contract in early April to a firm based in Gloucester, VA, for the first phase of the island’s restoration as a nature preserve.

With the award, C&C Joint Ventures LLC will conduct hydrographic surveys and begin building a dike in the water to form the perimeter of the restored island. The firm also is tasked with dredging to create a sand stockpile for use in future dike construction.

This phase is part of an overall $122 million base contract that calls for additional upland dike construction and seeding of the sand stockpile, according to the Corps.

James is one of two formerly inhabited islands offshore of Dorchester County, MD, that were abandoned years ago as waves eroded them. They are being rebuilt using sand and silt that must be regularly dredged from the Bay bottom to keep navigation channels open to the Port of Baltimore. They will be successors to Poplar Island off Talbot County, MD, the first eroded Bay island to be restored with dredged material. Now home to many shorebirds, waterfowl, terrapins and other wildlife, the Poplar project is expected to be finished by 2030.

The Mid-Bay Project, as the new restoration is known, calls for creating 2,072 acres of marsh, ponds and upland habitat on James Island and 72 acres on the smaller Barren Island. The federal government is to cover two-thirds of the cost, with the Maryland Port Authority picking up the rest.

Construction activities on James were expected to begin in late April, with plans to have it ready to receive dredged material by 2030.

That’s  quicker than I expected. Remember, this isn’t really about fixing James Island, it about having a place to dump sediment from Baltimore 

The Wednesday Wetness

Back to the Bubble

 An update on the eye situation. When last I posted we were expecting to have surgery on Tuesday, with the hope of being called in on Monday. So, I didn’t eat anything after dinner Sunday, and was gratified when Wilmer’s called early Monday morning and told me the had a slot for surgery at 3 PM, and to arrive about 1 for prep.

According to the plan, they would decide exactly what to do when they got in there and could see what was happening, anything from some lasering, a new gas bubble, an oil bubble or 1 rubber band, excuse me, silicone rubber buckle, around the eye to help press the eye against the retina. Before surgery, the doc informed me he had definitely decided on the gas bubble and buckle scenario, which would require more anesthesia.

When I woke up in recovery, he was explaining after care to Georgia. I was released a few minutes later, and we headed to a nearby hotel, where I crashed almost immediately and slept until 2AM, took a couple Tylenol, (it hurt pretty bad, as they warned it might), and we got up again at 6 to grab some breakfast and coffee, for the 9 am check in with the doc.

He pronounced himself happy with the surgery (he was last time, too), but admitted a second detachment happened in 15-20% of the cases. He said they found no additional tears in the retina, the detachment having been caused by scars which pulled on the tissue, causing it to come loose. I got a little more out of him about what to expect, mostly because I already had gone through this in the recent past. I have a follow up exam next Monday.

Pain from the rubber band, which is permanent, should fade over the next couple of days, and is largely relieved with acetaminophen. The bubble, I’m familiar with. I’m supposed to look down 55 minutes per hour for a week, sleep on my right side to keep the bubble pressed against to right area, and not bend over or lift more than 20 lbs for a couple weeks. And eye drops, a whole new round, although not quite as many as last time.

Because of the head down thing, I can’t use my PC much, and regular blogging will likely be light.

Tattoo Tuesday

The Monday Morning Stimulus

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