Maryland, My Maryland

From the Balmer Banner, Musician Billie Eilish donates $11,000 to Howard County Conservancy climate program

As Billie Eilish called out billionaires to give away their money, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter donated $11.5 million to various climate crisis organizations, including one in Howard County.The Howard County Conservancy’s Youth Climate Institute received $11,000 from Eilish.

At the Wall Street Journal Magazine Innovator Awards last week, late night talk show host Stephen Colbert announced on Eilish’s behalf that the musician is donating $11.5 million from her “Hit Me Hard and Soft” concert tour revenue to organizations and projects focused on food equity, combating the climate crisis, and more.

When accepting the magazine’s Music Innovator Award, according to CNN, Eilish closed out her speech saying: “If you’re a billionaire, why are you a billionaire? No hate, but yeah, give your money away, shorties.”

The Howard County Conservancy founded the Youth Climate Institute, a high school program, in 2020. The program helps students “become effective environmental stewards, pursue green jobs and combat the climate crisis,” according to a news release.

“Billie Eilish’s commitment to climate action and amplifying youth voices aligns perfectly with our goals. Our student ambassadors are elated to have their work recognized by Billie, who uses her platform for climate justice and sustainability,” said Meg Boyd, the Youth Climate Institute’s executive director, in a statement.

$11k isn't a lot of money as these things go, but I suppose she could have made worse choices, like giving it directly to Democrats. 

She sure has that surly teenager look down pat.

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Young Girls & Old Trucks garnering clicks at The Other McCain.

Oregon, My Oregon

Da Mail,  Portland's hapless mayor sends groveling email for voters to hand over their belongings to fix homeless crisis

The Mayor of Portland issued a mass email to residents asking them to hand over their time, money and household items to combat homelessness. Keith Wilson, a Democrat, warned locals that they would need to chip in over fears that President Donald Trump would turn his attention to cleaning up the beleaguered city. The unusual message came in the form of an email sent to 17,000 recipients on the City Hall email list.

It said: 'I need your help. We're delivering real change to Portland, and if you can contribute a bag of snacks, an hour of your time as an artist, teacher, or builder, or even a small show of financial support to our emergency shelter system, I want to connect. Recent events in Washington, D.C. show us what will happen to Portland if we don't move with speed, purpose, and compassion to address the humanitarian crisis on our streets. The federal administration deploys bulldozers and mass arrests by masked agents, the opposite of our outreach worker and emergency shelter strategy. Let's work together by volunteering and donating, and prove the administration's heavy-handed tactics are not needed in our city.'

Donations listed include household items like phone charges, chairs, tables, clothing, blankets and food.

According to Google AI, his salary is  $175,000. I wonder how much he contributed.

The Great Conowingo Snakehead Giveaway

Northern Snakehead

Also, Blue and Flathead Catfish. From Chesapeake Bay Mag, Invasive Fish Pulled from Conowingo Lift Go to Md. Food Banks

More than 1,000 pounds of invasive catfish and snakeheads—intercepted at the Conowingo—have been processed and given to food banks providing healthy meals to Maryland families. And some are going to scientific research.

The Conowingo Dam uses fish lifts to help migrating fish species reach their spawning grounds up the Susquehanna River. But unwanted fish wind up in the lifts, too. Exelon has been operating a “trap and transport” program on one of the fish lifts to reduce the number of destructive species moving through the watershed.

Blue Catfish (I think)

The lift on the west side of the dam consists of a series of gates and channels of water, designed specifically to attract and trap fish in a tank-like ‘hopper’ that is lifted into the air and over a sorting tank. The water and fish are then released into the tank and biologists, contracted by Exelon, manually sort the fish, picking out shad and river herring. Those fish are put in holding tanks, then trucked in portable tanks upstream. As they’re sorting, workers pull out snakeheads along with blue and flathead catfish, holding them in a refrigerated trailer until they are transported offsite.

It’s a public-private partnership between the Maryland Department of Resources (DNR), dam owner Exelon Corp., the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDA), and local seafood wholesaler, JJ McDonnell and Co.,

Flathead Catfish

With large numbers of northern snakeheads drawn from the dam’s west fish lift, DNR coordinated with MDA and local seafood wholesaler JJ McDonnell to process the unwelcomed fish.

“MDA’s seafood marketing program, Maryland’s Best Seafood, continues to market, advertise, and grow our state’s iconic seafood industry,” MDA Secretary Joe Bartenfelder said. “We are happy to be a part of this innovative public-private partnership that helps tackle so many issues at once: controlling populations of invasive species in the watershed, protecting our environment, supporting a local seafood company, and, most importantly, feeding hungry Marylanders.”

Much of the processed fish is going to the Maryland Food Bank and Maryland United Way. Some of the northern snakehead and flathead catfish are also being used for several research projects that will provide information to help manage these invasives going forward.

The Wombat has Rule Five Sunday: She Comes From A Land Down Underpublished on time an under budget at The Other McCain.

Hayek Takes on Toilets

Former Rule 5 victim winner, Mexican actress, and marriage lottery winner Salma Hayek Empowering Women Through Decent Toilets.

Since joining social media just this year, Salma Hayek has focused her attention on doing good for the world by way of call to action Tweets. It’s not an easy job, but it’s how Jesus would be attending to the needy if he didn’t necessarily want to leave his yacht parked off the coast of Cannes.

Hayek’s latest push is for WASH, an acronym international organizations use to describe politely getting third world people to stop drinking poo water out of the Port-A-Potty basins. If you’re not fortunate enough to have amazing tits (NSFW link) and marry the billionaire who owns Gucci and Yves Saint Laurent, potable water might not just come to your table with a cucumber slice and giggle filled bubbles. You’re going to need to ask somebody to help you dig a decent ditch separate but equal to the shit ditch running down your village main street. Hayek is here to help.

But if you've lived in Mexico at all, or visited the country anywhere but in a tourist Meccas, you would know that it desperately needs help with toilets. And the reason it needs toilets is to keep its fairly limited water supply potable.

She’s endorsing Global Citizen, an organization which gives you points for re-Tweeting important social and political messages and enters you into sweepstakes to win concert tickets or get into Twitter heaven when the time comes. The Peace Corps is passé. Think of how much good you can do retweeting Salma Hayek. If we could do Vietnam War protests all over again, we’d be hitting send at Starbucks while earning cool prizes. Why does my latte suddenly taste like human waste?

Georgia and I visited Baja California back in the '80s with a Mexican friend of mine from graduate school, Katsuo Nishikawa (it's a long story, and I think I've told it before).  After a stay with his family in Ensenada and a quick plane ride to Santa Rosalia, we took a long truck ride down to La Paz, and then the long truck ride back to Ensenada.



At Katsuo's instruction we were very good about drinking only bottled liquids, but somewhere on the way back (we think it was a diner in San Quintin) we think we ate salad washed in the local water, and got Montezuma's Revenge in a horrible way. The next day we passed a bottle of Pepto-Bismol back and forth on our way through a search in customs at the border, and all the way back to my parents house in Los Angeles.

Linked at Pirate's Cove in "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has the big "Rule 5 Sunday: Roll Tide!"  post up at the The Other McCain.

Clinton.com: "I Don't Know, I Just Work Here"

Bill Clinton on Foundation Troubles

At a Clinton Global Initiative event in Marrakesh, former President Bill Clinton was asked why he isn't defending the Clinton Foundation from increased scrutiny. "I just work here," Clinton replied. "I don't know."

Would any self-respecting billionaire give millions of dollars to a "charity" which actually spends less than 10% of it's gifts on it's programs, and "wastes" the remainder on air fare for the Clintons, and salaries for their hit persons, if he weren't getting some benefit out of it?

If he were really interested in giving money for programs, he could give it to his "useless" daughter (his words) to create a charity to spend it on the things he believed in (if that's anything at all besides himself).

Merry Xmas!

The whole lot doesn't come close to the cost of the Google Glasses he used to film it. Still a nice gesture.