NOAA's 2015 Hurricane Predictions

NOAA Forecast: A below-normal Atlantic Hurricane Season is likely this year

Good news if true, but bear in mind:

“A below-normal season doesn’t mean we’re off the hook. As we’ve seen before, below-normal seasons can still produce catastrophic impacts to communities,” said NOAA Administrator Kathryn Sullivan, Ph.D., referring to the 1992 season in which only seven named storms formed, yet the first was Andrew – a Category 5 Major Hurricane that devastated South Florida.

The prediction for a weak tropical storm system is based on the development of an El Nino in the Pacific, which traditionally suppresses tropical cyclones:

“The main factor expected to suppress the hurricane season this year is El Niño, which is already affecting wind and pressure patterns, and is forecast to last through the hurricane season,” said Gerry Bell, Ph.D., lead seasonal hurricane forecaster with NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center. “El Niño may also intensify as the season progresses, and is expected to have its greatest influence during the peak months of the season. We also expect sea surface temperatures in the tropical Atlantic to be close to normal, whereas warmer waters would have supported storm development.”

But just how precise and accurate are these predictions? Well the data is a little old but: NOAA’s seasonal hurricane forecasts: Do they have any predictive value?

The cells highlighted in green are those for which NOAA was in the money. The blue cells are those where NOAA over-predicted, and the red cells are those where NOAA under-predicted. All told, NOAA has made 39 testable predictions in their seasonal Atlantic Basin Hurricane Forecast over the past ten years (they did not predict ACE in 2001). For each of the years, NOAA’s prediction range is about equal to one standard deviation, which implies a 1/3 chance of being right provided it is near the mean. Thus, if they were going by chance, then they should have had 13 (39/3) correct; instead, they were right 16 times. Unfortunately, because of the small data set, we can only say that they are better than chance at about the 80% level. In addition, they under-predicted 10 times and over-predicted 13 times, so there is a very slight tendency to over-predict. With more data, that trend would probably disappear.

So I would say the predictions have decent accuracy,(the central tendency of many predictions is about on target), but poor precision (the actual likelihood of a given annual prediction being on target is not too much better than chance).

So take that prediction with a few grains of salt, and do whatever preparations you need to for hurricane season.

Clinton.com's Hidden Shell Corporation

Bill Clinton's Secret 'Pass-Through' Company Exposed

"Because the company, WJC, LLC, has no financial assets, Hillary Clinton's campaign was not obligated to report its existence in her recent financial disclosure report, officials with Bill Clinton's private office and the Clinton campaign said. They were responding to questions by The Associated Press, which reviewed corporate documents.

"The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to provide private details of the former president's finances on the record, said the entity was a 'pass-through' company designed to channel payments to the former president."

Indeed, as the report details, Clinton's work for the consulting company Teneo, formed by a former close aide to the ex-president, went through WJC, LLC.

WJC, LLC was also cited by Band in a June 2011 memo sent to State Department ethics officials asking for clearance to allow Bill Clinton to advise Band's international consulting company, Teneo Strategy LLC. Band's request said Teneo would use "consulting services provided by President Clinton through WJC, LLC." State Department officials approved the three-year contract between the two companies.
None of the proposals detailed how much Bill Clinton would be paid.

Band appears to be named after Douglas Band, a former Clinton adviser and one of the founding partners of Teneo:

Former U.S. President Bill Clinton and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair were paid advisers to Teneo. The New Republic described "the extent to which Teneo’s business model depend[ed] on [Band's] relationship with Clinton" as "striking". Clinton ended his relationship with Teneo on February 2012. Doug Band's longtime advisor relationship with Clinton ended in 2013 after concerns that Band had leveraged his ties with Clinton too much for his own business interests with Teneo.

During the latter half of 2012, Huma Abedin was working as a paid consultant for Teneo while also working as special government employee for U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton. In July 2013, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) initiated investigation of Abedin’s activities and pay.

All very cozy. And with Hillary trying to sell herself as the representative of the "little people."

Model Cries Wolf

Or rather, rape: Model’s rape claim falls apart after bogus pregnancy charge:

Actually, the pregnancy wasn't bogus, just the identity of the father:

A Manhattan model who once dated actor Gerard Butler brought rape charges against a fashion photographer — but the case fell apart when she claimed he got her pregnant and a DNA test proved he was not the father, The Post has learned.

Latvian-born stunner Alesia Riabenkova, who has done work for Guess and graced the covers of Glamour and Elle magazines, met the lensman at a Long Island City lounge in October to discuss her struggling career.

I've never heard a photographer called a lensman before. It hits my ears a bit odd, perhaps because as a teenager I was a keen reader of the "Lensman" series by E. E. "Doc" Smith.

The two chatted over champagne about a potential photo shoot and then went back to his condo in a nearby luxury high-rise.

About 45 minutes later, Riabenkova told a doorman she had been raped by the photographer and asked him to call 911, said his lawyer, Tom Kenniff.

Police arrested the lensman, and he spent a night behind bars. Prosecutors soon downgraded the charge to sexual misconduct because they found holes in her story and her rape kit tested inconclusive, Kenniff said.

It sounds like she might have lured him to the apartment for a "business" deal that he found not to his fancy.

Then, in January 2015, Riabenkova made a shocking claim — telling prosecutors she was impregnated during the alleged rape and wanted an abortion.

The DA’s Office told the clinic to preserve the biological material, and Kenniff immediately asked for a DNA test.

She forgot about DNA? Bummer. For her.

The results proved his client was not the father, and on May 15 the case was thrown out and sealed.

Riabenkova, 22, refused to talk to a Post reporter on Friday at her swanky Flatiron building, saying through a doorman that she was “sick.”

Sick of answering questions she doesn't have good answers for?

Asked whether his client would file a civil suit against the catwalk stunner, Kenniff said, “We are exploring all options.”

So she was preggers and decided she could use that fact of force a man who was not the father to care for it? Wouldn't be the first time.

Sometimes, pretty women are just too crazy to be worth the trouble.

Wombat-socho sends the master list "Rule 5 Sunday: Hot Times In Houston" from the road.

Sid Likes Food

Just not to eat.



I've never seen a dog with an eating disorder before.

5/26/15 Beach Report

What a difference a day makes! Saturday and Sunday the beach was literally jammed with people. Today it was nearly empty. Just a few beach goers and dog walkers.

 It looks like we have a "red" or "mahogany tide" getting going. The water was stained pretty uniformly a light reddish brown.  It's not bad yet, though.

We are still experiencing warm and windy weather, with South winds reaching 20+ knots.

Some of the few people on the beach, they saw me pick up a shark's tooth (one of very few) and inquired, so I showed them what I had and explained where they came from (they were expecting white, fresh teeth).

It's Flooding Down in Texas

All the telephone lines are down: Floodwaters rise in Houston; search goes on for 30 missing

Floodwaters kept rising Tuesday across much of Texas as storms dumped almost another foot of rain on the Houston area, stranding hundreds of motorists and inundating the famously congested highways that serve the nation's fourth-largest city.

Meanwhile, the number of people missing in flooding along the Blanco River rose to more than 40, including a group of people who disappeared after a vacation home was swept down the river and slammed into a bridge.

Several more fatalities were reported — two in Houston, another in a vehicle on Interstate 45 and one more in Central Texas. That brought to 16 the number of people killed by the holiday weekend storms in Texas and Oklahoma.

The water continued rising overnight as about 11 more inches of rain fell, much of it in a six-hour period.

Firefighters carried out more than 500 water rescues, most involving stranded motorists. And at least 2,500 vehicles were abandoned on the streets by drivers seeking higher ground, said Rick Flanagan, Houston's emergency management coordinator.

Of course, this is unprecedented, and indubitably due to Global Warming.

Song from 1958:



Stevie Ray stayed pretty close to the original.

7 Rescued in Chesapeake Bay

7 people rescued after boat capsizes in Whitehall Bay

A group of boaters out for a day of fishing Monday near Annapolis ended up being the ones plucked from the water.

Seven people were aboard a 21-foot boat in Whitehall Bay just south of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge when their boat ran aground on a sandbar. Then, suddenly, they were hit by a wave and the boat capsized.

I can see that happening pretty easily on our local sandbar, if the wave are up.

Candy Thomson, spokeswoman for the Maryland Natural Resources Police says some NRP officers were on their way back from a Memorial Day wreath-laying ceremony in Annapolis when they spotted the boaters in the water.

“Some of them were in the water, some of them were clinging to the boat, and we kind of swooped in and scooped them up.” Thomson explained.

Thomson says the group appeared shaken up by the experience, but there were no serious injuries. And initial reports indicate everyone had their life jackets on “which is the number one rule of safety” Thomson says.

Yep, as it should be, but it's a good thing that our water temperature is up in the 70s and is tolerable for an extended period.

The boat did suffer some damage, but Thomson says NRP officers were able to flip the boat right side up and tow it to Sandy Point State Park.

“We didn’t want it out there as a navigational hazard,” says Thomson.

It was the first time the owner of the boat had taken his craft out on the water.

An expensive first run. You should always know your local waters before you hit the throttles. The Bay is only 9 meters deep, on average, and we have lots of shallow water, with shifting sand bars, and the occasional log to worry about.

Need More Guns? Try Clinton.com!

Surprise: Most Clinton Foundation donors got larger weapons deals from Hillary’s State Department

Of 20 nations that donated to the Foundation, 17 had more robust weapons transactions in the three fiscal years that State was led by Hillary than in the last three years of the previous administration. How do you convince a president who got elected in 2008 on an anti-war platform repudiating warmongering cowboy George W. Bush to ramp up arms deals to unsavory regimes in the Middle East? Slipping a fat envelope into the Clinton slush fund’s collection box couldn’t hurt. And evidently didn’t.

Personally, I’m pretty excited to have every foreign-policy transaction the United States engages in through 2020, at a minimum, scrutinized after the fact to see just how much the president and her husband personally benefited from our partner’s largesse.

Under Clinton’s leadership, the State Department approved $165 billion worth of commercial arms sales to 20 nations whose governments have given money to the Clinton Foundation, according to an IBTimes analysis of State Department and foundation data. That figure — derived from the three full fiscal years of Clinton’s term as Secretary of State (from October 2010 to September 2012) — represented nearly double the value of American arms sales made to the those countries and approved by the State Department during the same period of President George W. Bush’s second term.
The Clinton-led State Department also authorized $151 billion of separate Pentagon-brokered deals for 16 of the countries that donated to the Clinton Foundation, resulting in a 143 percent increase in completed sales to those nations over the same time frame during the Bush administration. These extra sales were part of a broad increase in American military exports that accompanied Obama’s arrival in the White House.
American defense contractors also donated to the Clinton Foundation while Hillary Clinton was secretary of state and in some cases made personal payments to Bill Clinton for speaking engagements. Such firms and their subsidiaries were listed as contractors in $163 billion worth of Pentagon-negotiated deals that were authorized by the Clinton State Department between 2009 and 2012…
In all, governments and corporations involved in the arms deals approved by Clinton’s State Department have delivered between $54 million and $141 million to the Clinton Foundation as well as hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments to the Clinton family, according to foundation and State Department records. The Clinton Foundation publishes only a rough range of individual contributors’ donations, making a more precise accounting impossible. 

. . .But none of that proves or disproves that donations made to the Clinton Foundation and the weapons that followed were matters of correlation, not causation. On the contrary, foreign regimes arguably would have had more reason to slip Bill and Hillary an envelope if they had reason to believe Obama was planning to turn on the arms spigot during his first term. They might have gotten more weapons whether they donated or not, but that’s true of many bribes; they’re insurance that a course of action will be taken even if independent motives to take that action exist. And of course, however Team Hillary spins this, the sober fact remains for the left that their next nominee will have presided over an unprecedented spree of weapons dealing, including to brutal authoritarian regimes, which complicates the tried-and-true Democratic narrative that Republicans are the party of warmongers.

This sort of influence peddling doesn't even require any active participation by the Clintons. All it requires is a few henchpeople at State to know who is in favor with her Highness.

Post Memorial Day Obamacare Schadenfreude

The ever sensible Megan McArdle on the oncoming hikes in Obamacare coverage: Sticker Shock for Some Obamacare Customers

So the proposed 2016 Obamacare rates have been filed in many states, and in many states, the numbers are eye-popping. Market leaders are requesting double-digit increases in a lot of places. Some of the biggest are really double-digit: 51 percent in New Mexico, 36 percent in Tennessee, 30 percent in Maryland, 25 percent in Oregon. The reason? They say that with a full year of claims data under their belt for the first time since Obamacare went into effect, they're finding the insurance pool was considerably older and sicker than expected.

Don't panic, says Kevin Drum. This is just the opening bid in a regulatory dance that will end up somewhere very different: "A few months from now, the real rate increases — the ones approved by state and federal authorities — will begin to trickle out. They'll mostly be in single digits, with a few in the low teens. The average for the entire country will end up being something like 4-8 percent."

He's right, of course, that the proposed rates will not end up being the final rate. Regulators are going to push back on these rates as hard as they can, with some success.

But in the case of the companies cited by the Wall Street Journal, I'd bet they're not going to go down to 4-8 percent. As it turns out, the insurer filings are public information, available on state websites. And in the three cases where I could see supporting data about premium revenue and losses, those losses appear to be large. Moda of Oregon says that its claims were 139 percent of revenue, making for a margin of -61 percent. If I am reading their somewhat confusing table right, Health Service Corporation of New Mexico says it lost $23 million on revenue of $121 million. CareFirst of Maryland says that claims were 120 percent of revenue, which if we add in some money to pay for overhead, amounts to ... less than or equal to what they're asking from regulators. I can't find claims experience data for Tennessee, but that state told the Wall Street Journal that it lost $141 million on exchange plans last year.
. . .
I assume that these large insurers are willing to incur some losses in the market for exchange policies in order to stay on the good side of their state regulators and HHS, because overall, those policies are not a large part of their business. But getting those rates down to something more on the order of 10 percent would require some pretty big losses. How long, exactly, will they be willing to carry a product that loses that kind of money?

So insurance companies are taking it in the shorts on Obamacare coverage, and will be asked forced to further subsidize it in the years to come. Insurance companies either have the choice to take more from their other insurance (e.g. employer policies) or drop out.

Dem who voted to pass Obamacare calls it ‘deceptive’ and wants to lead charge to ‘fix’ the law

The Associated Press actually managed to report that the Affordable Care Act isn’t “affordable” and doesn’t even have much “care” without calling out the Dems who voted for it who now want to lead the charge to “fix” the law (read: throw a ton more money at it).

Rep. McDermott, who voted to pass the ACA, even admits that it’s deceptive:

After paying premiums, many low- and middle-income patients still face high costs when trying to use their coverage. There’s growing concern that the value of a health insurance card is being eaten away by rising deductibles, the amount of actual medical costs that patients pay each year before coverage kicks in.
“I think it’s going to be the next big problem,” said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., a congressional leader on health care.
“We’ve got some 17 million more people covered … but they can’t access the care they seem to be entitled to,” McDermott said. “It costs too much to use the care. That’s the deceptive part about it.”
Since virtually all U.S. residents are now required to have health insurance by President Barack Obama’s health care law, McDermott said Democrats have a responsibility to make sure coverage translates to meaningful benefits.

Short version: The Obamacare law doesn’t do any of what it was ostensibly supposed to do, so now we’ll have to throw another trillion dollars at it to make the law “work.” And by all means, let’s allow those who deceived us once to spend billions more to deceive us again (those paying attention weren’t deceived the first time but were unfortunately outnumbered by morons).

The NYT doubles down on stupid: Four Words That Imperil Health Care Law Were All a Mistake, Writers Now Say in an article that utterly fails to mention contemporaneous accounts of people involved in writing the bill who said it was left that way to encourage states to make their own exchanges.

They are only four words in a 900-page law: “established by the state.”
But it is in the ambiguity of those four words in the Affordable Care Act that opponents found a path to challenge the law, all the way to the Supreme Court.

How those words became the most contentious part of President Obama’s signature domestic accomplishment has been a mystery. Who wrote them, and why? Were they really intended, as the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell claim, to make the tax subsidies in the law available only in states that established their own health insurance marketplaces, and not in the three dozen states with federal exchanges?

The answer, from interviews with more than two dozen Democrats and Republicans involved in writing the law, is that the words were a product of shifting politics and a sloppy merging of different versions. Some described the words as “inadvertent,” “inartful” or “a drafting error.” But none supported the contention of the plaintiffs, who are from Virginia.

Let me help you with that:



But, now having broken health care, democrats will next run as the party to fix it:

Democrats see skimpy insurance as the next health care issue

A different health care issue has emerged for Democrats, in sync with the party's pitch to workers and middle-class voters ahead of next year's elections.

It's not the uninsured, but rather the problem of high out-of-pocket costs for people already covered.

Democrats call it "underinsurance."

After paying premiums, many low- and middle-income patients still face high costs when trying to use their coverage. There's growing concern that the value of a health insurance card is being eaten away by rising deductibles, the amount of actual medical costs that patients pay each year before coverage kicks in.

"I think it's going to be the next big problem," said Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., a congressional leader on health care.

"We've got some 17 million more people covered ... but they can't access the care they seem to be entitled to," McDermott said. "It costs too much to use the care. That's the deceptive part about it."

It was Cloward-Piven from the beginning:

The Cloward–Piven strategy is a political strategy outlined in 1966 by American sociologists and political activists Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven that called for overloading the U.S. public welfare system in order to precipitate a crisis that would lead to a replacement of the welfare system with a national system of "a guaranteed annual income and thus an end to poverty"

Rise and Shine Music - "Standing in My Shoes"

One more "While She Sleeps."



Macyn Taylor:

Cold Kills

A reminder from Watts Up With That: Winters not Summers Increase Mortality and Stress the Economy

Cold weather kills 20 times as many people as hot weather, according to an international study analyzing over 74 million deaths in 384 locations across 13 countries. The findings were published in The Lancet.

We collected data for 384 locations in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, UK, and USA.
…
We analysed 74 225 200 deaths in various periods between 1985 and 2012. In total, 7.71% (95% empirical CI 7.43–7.91) of mortality was attributable to non-optimum temperature in the selected countries within the study period, with substantial differences between countries, ranging from 3.37% (3.06 to 3.63) in Thailand to 11.00% (9.29 to 12.47) in China. The temperature percentile of minimum mortality varied from roughly the 60th percentile in tropical areas to about the 80–90th percentile in temperate regions. More temperature-attributable deaths were caused by cold (7.29%, 7.02–7.49) than by heat (0.42%, 0.39–0.44). Extreme cold and hot temperatures were responsible for 0.86% (0.84–0.87) of total mortality.
…
Most of the temperature-related mortality burden was attributable to the contribution of cold. The effect of days of extreme temperature was substantially less than that attributable to milder but non-optimum weather. This evidence has important implications for the planning of public-health interventions to minimize the health consequences of adverse temperatures, and for predictions of future effect in climate-change scenarios.

Even in the good old USA, cold weather causes substantially more deaths than warm weather:

Literally thousands more people die each day in colder times of the year compared to warmer times. Why do you think old farts move to Florida?

Opponents of global warming are literally rooting for more people to die.

Yes, summer in Maryland is hot and humid. But a few days of that in summer without air conditioning is a lot more survivable than a few days without heat in  winter.

Memorial Day 2015 at the Beach

Another pretty nice day here in slower Maryland. It's getting warmer, near 80, with perceptible, but not awful humidity under partly cloudy skies. A honkin' south wind kept it cool. It wasn't nearly as crowded as yesterday.

A better day for fossils than most, with over 30 sharks teeth, and three drums teeth, and some misc. stuff. Nothing big enough to make the top shelf though.

A small Mako shark's tooth. Maybe the smallest ever.

 A beach babe in patriotic beachwear.

 Truly an outboard motor.

The distaff side of a game of beach darts.

 Do we have to go back?

Republicans Ask IRS to Review Clinton.com Tax Status

Turn about should be fair play: Hillary Clinton Should Head IRS, Skilled With Charities, Transparency, Emails!

House Republicans formally asked the IRS to review whether the Clinton Foundation is complying with the rules governing its tax-exempt status. The letter was signed by Marsha Blackburn and 51 other House Republicans, and comes on the heels of a flurry of reports and speculation about the Foundation’s international fundraising. Blackburn asked the IRS to respond within 30 days.

But is the IRS going to take any action? It hardly seems likely. Besides, an IRS spokesman has already said that the IRS does not comment on individual tax cases. More broadly, there is no reason to believe that the IRS will probe much of anything. Lois Lerner ran the tax exempt organizations wing of the IRS, but she evidently focused on what she thought were bad conservative causes. The Clinton Foundation is a charity, but seems inextricably entwined with politics, State Department business personal emails, and speech-making. . .

The current standard for whether an organization can claim 501(c)(3) tax status, where donations may be deducted, is that the organization spend less than 50% of the money it takes in on political goals.

With the exception of the 10% of funds that the Clinton Foundation actually spends on charitable purposes, the rest of the funds seem to be devoted to maintaining an active staff of devotees and henchmen like Sid Blumenthal, to help Hillary stay active in the political arena after her husband's terms in office (as well as to provide some lifestyle support for the Clinton's, with airfare and parties workshops). This is clearly a violation of the tax status of the Clinton foundation.

The Million Dollar Turtle and the Glass Eyed Fish

Turtle gets a 3-D printed titanium jaw, now looks like a supervillain

In the latest heartwarming tale of animal prostheses, a Turkish turtle is the lucky recipient of a 3-D printed jaw. According to 3-D Printing Industry, the turtle -- who was injured by a boat's propeller and found nearly dead -- had to be hand-fed until his jaw and beak were replaced with medical-grade titanium.
. . .
The beak upgrade comes courtesy of a Turkish medical 3-D printing company called BTech. The company put the turtle's CT scans into a 3-D modeling program and designed a prosthetic that would fit into the missing piece of its beak. To ensure that the jaw would be just as powerful and functional as a natural beak, the company printed it in medical-grade titanium.

This rockfish was getting bullied for having one eye, so doctors gave it a prosthetic

An aging copper rockfish with cataracts had his left eye surgically removed two years ago at the Vancouver Aquarium. Then, the bullying began. Biologists at the aquarium suspected other fish started picking on the rockfish for only having one eye, so they gave it a prosthetic eye late last year.

Wait a minute. I had (and still have) a cataract, and removal of the eye was never considered a real option. An eye removed is blinder than an eye with a cataract.

Aquarium staff had a few options, including moving the rockfish to a new exhibit and hoping the new fish wouldn't notice the missing eye. Euthanasia was also a possibility. "You just don't want the fish to suffer," Haulena said.

Then, the aquarium team came up with an innovative idea: Outfitting the rockfish with the same kind of fake eye used by taxidermists.

I kind of see the point with the turtle. You have this exotic new technology, and you could test it on a human (and probably have) but along comes a nice story. However, unless it's a rare species, sea turtles aren't exactly uncommon, and saving the life (maybe) of one isn't going to make much difference anyway.

As for the fish? It's just a goddam fish, a popular recreational and commercial species and whether it lives or dies is of little consequence. The Copper Rockfish is predator, and has eaten countless smaller, equally worthy fish on its way to its current state, and for it to fall victim to another predator is just nature in action. Let the aquarium visitors see the truth.

If you really want to help victims, give your free time to the VA or something useful.

Sunday Beach Report 5/24/15

Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, and the beach is about as busy as we've ever seen it.

The previous owner of my new boat cruises by with some passengers.

 Seen through the zoom lens, you can really get the feel for how busy it is.

Although the temperature was a wonderful 70+, the stiff south wind worked up quit a chop beyond the protective jetties.

The water temperature is up to a tolerable 70 or so, and a few people are taking advantage of it. The sea nettles aren't due for another month or so.

I found this American Lady up in the sand dunes.

And this skipper, a Fiery Skipper, maybe, or Pecks. Darn skippers are hard to figure out.

Congress Threatens Ongoing Government Land Grab

My alternative title to this Washington Post article: Interior secretary: Hill funding divide could threaten national parks

The federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has been used for 50 years to acquire land deemed to have special historical or environmental significance. Although the fund is popular with lawmakers from both political parties, legislation needed to keep the program alive appears to have stalled.

The law that created the program is set to expire in September, putting at risk a primary source of revenue for the nation’s largest preserves as well as state parks and community playgrounds and ballfields. The money — capped at $900 million annually but substantially smaller in most years — comes not from tax revenue but from royalties paid by oil and gas companies for drilling rights in federal waters offshore.

“Absolutely, there’s a risk that this could go away,” Interior Secretary Sally Jewell said in an interview. Jewell said that although the program has traditionally drawn heavy bipartisan support — the law that created the fund in 1964 had only one dissenting vote — a bill that would reauthorize the fund faces significant opposition from lawmakers who either are ideologically opposed to federal land acquisition or have other ideas for using the money.

“Anything that looks like a chunk of money that you can use for your other projects, some will want to go for it,” she said.

In other words "Keep your hands off Our money."

Resistance to renewing the program comes from Republican lawmakers who argue that the federal government should get out of the land-acquisition business. Some senior Republicans have called for selling much of the federal government’s holdings to states or private entities. Others, including Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), say that the LWCF should be restructured as a maintenance fund to pay for repairs to parks.

“I strongly believe that conservation in the 21st century must include taking care of what we already have — what we chose to conserve first — instead of simply pretending that ‘more is always better,’ ” Murkowski said at an April Senate hearing.

At what point will the Federal government have enough land? It already owns a majority of the land in several western states.

Let's consider a minute the consequence of the feds buying a parcel and taking out of private hands for "protection". First, government spends the money on staff time to acquire to property (and trust me when I say that it will suck up way more time and effort than you can imagine) Then, suddenly, the parcel is no longer paying property taxes to the state and local governments. Any economic activity on the parcel stops, and to the extent that the government has to maintain or protect that property, it takes on a permanent cost. Will that cost come out to the funds used to acquire the property? I doubt it. It will just have to come from the general fund, money which on the margin due to the deficit, has to be payed for with borrowed money.

Out west, I would be in favor of large tracts of federal land being slowly sold off to private interests (if you do it too fast, you might depress land prices too much). More land in private hands would mean more state and local taxes, more jobs and more economic production.

Don't Like the Economic Data? Just Change it!

US Government to Review Mystery of Slow 1st Quarter Growth

There's something strange about the U.S. economy in the first three months of every year: It frequently grows at a much slower pace than in the other nine months.

And on Friday, the government agency charged with calculating the economy's growth rate said it would adjust its methods in an effort to resolve the problem.

The changes could paint a much different picture of the economy's recent performance. Concerns flared when the government said late last month that the economy expanded just 0.2 percent at an annual rate in the first quarter. But many economists have challenged the government's data, and some have argued the first-quarter figure should be as high as 1.8 percent instead.

At issue is a process known as "seasonal adjustment," which is not nearly as convoluted as it sounds. Many routine patterns affect the economy, such as the layoff of temporary retail employees after the winter holidays, or a spike in consumer spending around Easter. Seasonal adjustment attempts to factor out those patterns to get a clearer picture of how the economy is actually performing.

Yet what appears to be a seasonal pattern still exists. Alec Phillips, an economist at Goldman Sachs, noticed that from 2010 through 2014, growth in the first three months of the year has averaged 0.6 percent, while it has averaged 2.9 percent in the other three quarters.

And Macroeconomic Advisers, a forecasting firm, has found that the pattern goes back further: Since 1995, outside of recessions, the first quarter has grown at half the pace of the other three.

It has become traditional for the Obama administration to blame the slow first quarter on a cold winter, and then turn around and call for more restrictions on fossil fuels in an attempt to stop global warming, which has stopped itself for going onto 20 years now.

What to do, what to do? Well, when the models don't fit the data, change the models.

Researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco argued that under a different method of adjustment, first-quarter growth this year would have been 1.8 percent, rather than 0.2 percent. The government seasonally adjusts components of gross domestic product, the broadest measure of the economy, before adding them together. The researchers argued that the final, aggregate data should also be adjusted.

Other economists, including at the Federal Reserve in Washington, have concluded that the government's figures are largely accurate. The first-quarter weakness over the years may be due to harsh winter weather and "statistical noise," they concluded.

The Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis, which produces the figures, will have the last word. The agency says it "is working on a multi-pronged action plan to improve its estimates of gross domestic product."

But that means that for we consumers, the numbers that we receive on economic progress will be further jiggered to look better than it looked previously. Look! Progress!

Well, they only have one more year to fudge the data to make the economy seem completely rosie for the government prior to the next election.

The Naked News

Or the news that's fit to bare

It seems that getting naked in public is the "new" way to get attention. Others are just getting naked because of drugs, lack of drugs, or serious anger issues. A few recent examples:

May 21 - Topless protestors shut down Market Street in San Francisco: Women Go Topless To Protest Killings Of Unarmed Black Women By Police

The Bay Area protest was just one of at least 17 other movements taking place in other metropolitan areas, including Chicago, St. Louis, Washington, D.C., and New Orleans.

Chinerye Tutashinda, a founding member of the BlackOUT Collective, told BuzzFeed News that the decision to carry out the protest by exposing their bodies was a local one, and that she did not expect other demonstrations in other cities to follow suit.

She added that the reasons behind the bold choice ranged from ancestral homage to social critique. “We wanted to be able to say ‘enough is enough’ and draw on traditions from Nigeria, Gabon, Uganda, and South Africa, from women who bare their chests and other parts of their bodies in protest,” she said.

Because nothing says "No justice, no peace" like bare breasts.

Source

May 19 - 100 Students Participate in Topless Protests "Free the Nipple" Sit In at UCSD

A May 19 post to a Facebook account for Anni Ma read in part, “I can’t wait to share awkward, yet unforgettable moments with everyone during this social experiment…Let’s have compelling discussions and open our minds to new feelings, ideas, and experiences.”
. . .
Ma described her event as a “topless movement.” She told local ABC affiliate 10 News that it’s about “equality,” and that her purpose in exposing female chests is to make the world a “better place.” She said, “It felt, actually, really normal, and everyone just did it and it wasn’t a big deal, like, that’s how I felt.”

Bright college days, oh carefree days they fly
To thee we drink with our glasses raised on high!

May 21 - Man gets naked to protest overbooked flight in Charlotte

Travelers at North Carolina's Charlotte Douglas International Airport said a man stripped naked in the concourse because he was mad about an overbooked flight.

Witnesses said the man became angry when he was told his US Airways flight to Jamaica was overbooked Wednesday, leading him to strip nude and stand in the concourse without a stitch on his body for about 40 minutes.

One traveler, Sherry Ketchie, shared photos of the naked man standing among the passengers, which included children.

There's some suggestion he wasn't "quite right" as they often put it down south:

Police at the airport told NBC Charlotte on Thursday that the man was off his medication, was "having an episode", and was trying to collect his medicine from his luggage.

That reminds me, always take my meds while traveling.

May 20 -  3D hardcore porn film featuring explicit orgies, nudity and a transvestite prostitute sparks brawls at Cannes as desperate cinemagoers try to get into midnight screening

The crowds trying to gain entry for the midnight screening were so large that dozens of ticket-holders had to be turned away and arguments broke out outside the Grand Palais theatre.
. . .
'Like bad sex, (it) seems to go on forever with no climax or ending in sight,' tweeted Sophie Kaufman, of Little White Lies movie magazine.

Can the line between porn and fine art possibly get any blurrier? I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I'll know it when I see it.

May 20 - Latest twist on clothes-free relaxation? 'Nacations'

For some, staycations have evolved into "nacations" — and the nude recreation industry that the Wall Street Journal estimated had evolved into $400 million business a dozen years ago only keeps growing.

Serendipity Nudist Park has been around for more than 20 years, long before naked nature lovers coined the term "nacation." People here say guests have no hang-ups about body image, no judgments and no shame.

"Shame is something that must be learned; we're not born with it," said Stuart Antrim, who works at the park. "Once you get past 30 seconds of awkwardness, they realized that learned shame melts away."

May 19 - Naked, Machete-Wielding Man Threatens Long Island Costco Customers: Report

A naked, machete-wielding man was charged after he allegedly threatened bystanders and a police officer Monday on Long Island, according to a published report.

The man was waving the 20-inch machete at people in the parking lot of a Lake Grove Costco, Newsday reports.

Police found the man barricaded inside the cab of a tractor-trailer he operated for a New Jersey company, according to Newsday. He initially refused to get out of the truck, which contained clothes and a microwave, but later tried to get out with the machete as officers tried to contain him, the report said.

And maybe skip the meds before going to Costco?

He eventually tried to get out through a small truck window, and police subdued him. Officers allegedly found cocaine in the cab, according to Newsday.

May 11 - Naked Michigan State Sen Smith fought ex-wife before shooting

State Sen. Virgil Smith told police that opening fire at his ex-wife’s Mercedes-Benz with a rifle early Sunday morning was “the most stupid thing” in his life.

His ex-wife says she was met by a naked Smith at the front door of his home in the 18000 block of Wexford on the city’s east side and he beat her with his fists, chased her outside and shot at her four or five times as well as firing at her car.

The son of Chief Wayne County Circuit Judge Virgil Smith was being held by Detroit Police as they continue their investigation. Police Chief James Craig said police anticipated charges of aggravated assault with a gun and malicious destruction of property against Smith.

Shall we play a round of "name that party?"

And more from UCSD: May 10 - Naked Final Exam at UC San Diego Sparks Mom's Outrage

Arriving naked at a final exam is one of the most common nightmares for students, according to Psychology Today. At the University of California San Diego, however, the naked final exam is a requirement for a class in the visual arts department.

Students are required to perform “a gesture that traces, outlines or speaks about your ‘erotic self(s),'” according to the course syllabus. In the performance, all of the students are naked, along with the professor, Roberto Dominguez, who has taught the class for 11 years.

“It’s the standard canvas for performance art and body art,” Dominguez told local ABC News affiliate KGTV. “It is all very controlled…If they are uncomfortable with this gesture, they should not take the class.” He was defending the class after one mother spoke out, claiming the requirement was not clear and was a “perversion.”

To be fair, porn is one of California's only booming industries in the Obama economy and there are not a lot of good jobs out there in the arts, so it's probably a good thing they're getting their inhibitions lowered early.

May 8 - And there had to be a floron in the mix: Partially naked principal arrested with student in car

A Florida principal has been arrested after she was caught partially unclothed in a marijuana-filled car with a student.

Police say 45-year-old Krista Morton of Wellington was arrested Wednesday in Palm Springs. She is the principal at Mavericks High of Palm Springs, a charter school.

Authorities say they responded to a report of people involved in sexual activity in a car and found Morton with a high school senior. They say that when Morton opened the door, her shirt was unbuttoned, exposing part of her chest.

Police say Morton told them she had just met the teenager.

But police say the student said Morton was his principal. Officers report that they smelled marijuana inside the vehicle.

Was this an extra-credit assignment? Or a penalty for violating the "no dope" rule?

Unlike Instapundit, I don't blame the sense of female entitlement. I blame Florida. Have you ever been there? It's so hot it makes you want to rip off your shirt.

And finally, this helpful tip from one of the ONT's at Ace's: April 24 - Here’s Where It’s Legal for Women to Go Topless in the U.S.

These are only the state laws; local jurisdictions may have further restrictions on how you scare the horses. Shockingly Maryland is more prudish than West Virginia. Or we just like to have more laws.

Though green states indicate there is some degree of “topless freedom,” that does not mean it’s legal for women to go shirtless throughout the state. Local ordinances may ban or allow the practice in opposition to state law, and California is listed green despite the fight in Venice Beach. Orange states have “ambiguous laws;” in red states, female toplessness is illegal.

Picked up by Gatordoug at the DaleyGator in  "IT IS SUNDAY, SO GO READ THESE BLOGS." Wombat-socho sends the master list "Rule 5 Sunday: Hot Times In Houston" from the road.

Jogger Saves Sheep

Those horns looks like an accident waiting to happen.