Honeybees - Not Yet Dead

Another wannabe environmental disaster which failed to live up to its hype: Call off the bee-pocalypse: U.S. honeybee colonies hit a 20-year high

You've heard the news about honeybees. "Beepocalypse," they've called it. Beemageddon. America's honeybees are dying, putting honey production and $15 billion worth of pollinated food crops in jeopardy.

The situation has become so dire that earlier this year the White House put forth the first National Strategy to Promote the Health of Honey Bees and Other Pollinators, a 64-page policy framework for saving the nation's bees, butterflies and other pollinating animals.

The trouble all began in 2006 or so, when beekeepers first began noticing mysterious die-offs. It was soon christened "colony collapse disorder," and has been responsible for the loss of 20 to 40 percent of managed honeybee colonies each winter over the past decade.

The math says that if you lose 30 percent of your bee colonies every year for a few years, you rapidly end up with close to 0 colonies left. But get a load of this data on the number of active bee colonies in the U.S. since 1987. Pay particular attention to the period after 2006, when CCD was first documented.

So what happened to the beetastrophe?

. . . One word: Beekeepers.

A 2012 working paper by Randal R. Tucker and Walter N. Thurman, a pair of agricultural economists, explains that seasonal die-offs have always been a part of beekeeping: they report that before CCD, American beekeepers would typically lose 14 percent of their colonies a year, on average.

So beekeepers have devised two main ways to replenish their stock. The first method involves splitting one healthy colony into two separate colonies: put half the bees into a new beehive, order them a new queen online (retail price: $25 or so), and voila: two healthy hives.

The other method involves simply buying a bunch of bees to replace the ones you lost. You can buy 3 pounds of "packaged" bees, plus a queen, for about $100 or so.

Will the people who have been agitating against Monsanto for their role in making pesticides and GMO organisms as causes for the beecapolypse be mollified? I doubt it.

Incidentally, Honeybees are not native to the Western Hemisphere, and if we didn't like them (and their honey) they would be considered an invasive species for the way they've pushed aside so many of the native bee species that act as pollinators.

For the last several years here, I have indeed noticed an almost complete absence of Honeybees. However, our flowers are visited by a steady stream of a wide variety of native bees, wasps, and butterflies.

Rain Tax Fails A Court Challenge

I had pretty much given up hope for more news out the rain tax after Gov. Hogan was elected mostly on the promise to repeal it, a promise that he and the Democratic legislature of the state, to my surprise, actually carried out. It was, however, still acceptable for counties to keep the rain tax as their chose method to raise money for storm water abatement, and several, including Montgomery chose to.  This may be in jeopardy, as a judge has ruled the "Rain Tax" unfair:

Montgomery lawsuit raises questions about Baltimore area stormwater fees

The so-called rain tax is being debated again — this time in court.

A Montgomery County circuit judge has declared the county's stormwater management fee invalid, saying it violates a state law passed this year to reform the controversial environmental charge. Though the ruling only applies in Montgomery for now, it's creating ripples of anxiety in Baltimore area communities that still levy such fees to pay for reducing the polluted runoff fouling local streams and the Chesapeake Bay.

"My concern is that we may be in a similar situation," said Vincent J. Gardina, director of environmental protection and sustainability in Baltimore County.
. . .
Hit with an $11,000 stormwater fee, the owner of a 34-acre commercial development in Gaithersburg sued Montgomery County, contending he shouldn't have to pay anything because he had put in ponds that collect all the runoff from his property as well as from neighboring tracts. Judge Nelson W. Rupp Jr. agreed last week, saying the fee should be limited to what it costs the county to treat runoff from the owner's property.

In any case, the judge added, the landowner ought to get a pass if he's taking care of the runoff from his property.

It was always my contention that in the relatively urban areas in which it was imposed, the tax was deliberately designed to unfairly target the suburban and even rural residents with larger areas of impermeable surfaces, but even larger surfaces of natural land, such that less stormwater was created. I feel vindicated that a judge agrees with me on that, but I'm not convinced that the ruling will stand further review.

Don't They Know Shark Week is Over?

Caught this week in a pound net near Cove Point, a few miles south of us, a big Bull Shark:

Drip, Drip, Drip at Clinton.com

This is interesting. I knew no love was wasted between the Obama and the Clinton camps but this put a whole new light on it:

Hillary faces dangerous enemy in the Obama administration

The news that two inspectors general from the Obama administration want the Justice Department to investigate her handling of classified material is a potential game changer. For many Democrats, it will serve as final proof she is ­fatally flawed.

Her standing will further erode, turning her coronation plans into a long, hot summer. The drip, drip, drip of details will produce new polls showing a bleeding of support, which will entice other candidates into the race. Look for Vice President Joe Biden to jump in soon, and lefty Sen. Elizabeth Warren might also take the leap.

Meanwhile, Clinton must play ­defense against her former colleagues in the State Department and intelligence agencies.

Actually, it’s worse. She’s almost certainly up against the White House.

Somebody very high in the food chain leaked the memos requesting the probe. The New York Times, which broke the story, identified its source only as “a senior government official.”  My money is on Valerie Jarrett, the Obamas’ Rasputin, who is known to despise Clinton. If it was Jarrett, she would not do this against the president’s wishes.

That also would be true for any “senior government official” who leaked the memos. Targets don’t get any bigger than Hillary Clinton, so this was not a rogue operation. This was an approved hit.

ValJ huh? If you're going to make enemies, make good ones.


Watchdogs: Clinton emails 'never' should’ve been sent on private system

Two government watchdogs at the center of an investigation over Hillary Clinton’s personal email server say she shouldn’t have sent classified information over her private system while serving as secretary of State.

“This classified information should never have been transmitted via an unclassified personal system,” the inspectors general for the State Department and intelligence community said in a joint statement on Friday.

On Thursday, the inspector general of the intelligence community told Congress in a letter that at least four emails out of a small sampling of 40 from Clinton’s server should have been classified as "secret."

That has been my contention from the beginning. Whether or not "secret" emails traveled through Clinton.coms "secret" server, it should never have been used to conduct her email activity. It's simply too fat a target for espionage, and the knowing all the traffic going through her office would simply be irresistible to foreign spies.

Rand Paul: "Clintons think they live above the law"

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul said Sunday that the latest questions surrounding Hillary Clinton's email habits while serving as secretary of state show that "the Clintons think they live above the law."

The Justice Department confirmed Friday it had received a request to investigate Clinton's email account after a report by the inspectors general of the State Department and the Intelligence Community found that her private email account "hundreds of potentially classified emails" in it.

In an interview on "Face the Nation" Sunday, Paul said, "This isn't a bunch of Republicans making a political point, this is President Obama's government saying she may have released classified information."

Sadly, so far the evidence supports the Clinton's belief. As long as the Obama Justice Department continues to block any efforts at real investigation and prosecution, it's likely they will get away with it in the the legal sense, even if she pays a political price.

Hillary: capitalism needs a “reset”

As the Wall Street Journal reports, this is far more about window dressing and hitting the right buzzwords than any sort of startling new ideas about reform.

Campaign advisers say Mrs. Clinton’s goal is chiefly to change investor behavior, not to address income inequality or to raise money for the federal Treasury. The campaign had no estimate on how much money her changes would generate.

That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. Clinton is still worried about losing the Elizabeth Warren wing of her party to upstarts like Bernie Sanders and she knows she needs to sneak in all the right buzz phrases. Income inequality and sticking it to the fat cats on Wall Street is the red meat the base is craving so she’s going to serve it up. (Which is rather hilarious considering Clinton’s long and well documented history of cronyism and tight ties to the investment banking community.)

You think she would be more careful with the word "reset" after her wildly unsuccessful effort to mend American Russian relations with a "reset" button.

DNC speaks to EMPTY College Democrat event...

Emphasizing the importance of Millennial voters in upcoming elections, progressive activists spoke to a nearly empty auditorium at the College Democrats of America annual conference on Friday.

Despite offering a full day of activities, speakers like Julian Castro, and campaigning advice from top political operatives, the College Democrats of America were barely able to fill the first couple rows with young attendees.

No one interested in 'Young Americans for Hillary' party...

Every party has a party pooper and judging by this flyer, it’s Hillary Clinton.

Here’s an untouched flyer advertising a “Young Americans for Hillary”event for students, indicating there isn’t much energy for Hillary Clinton’s campaign among the youth in New Hampshire.

A photo of a flyer was posted on Twitter Friday for the party in Manchester, New Hampshire today. . .

Hence the need to get as many illegal immigrants voting as possible. 

I Kind of See Their Point

The People That Live On This Island Kill Anyone Who Tries To Come Ashore

North Sentinel Island is located in the Bay of Bengal off of the coast of India. It is well away from landlocked earth, and while it is officially administered by India, no one has been able to make contact with the native inhabitants. The island is one of the last remaining uncivilized areas of the earth, existing in a rare state of conceded sovereignty.

An indigenous tribe has lived on North Sentinel Island with extremely limited contact with outsiders. Anyone who has attempted to explore the island has been attacked or outright killed. North Sentinel is so dangerous for outsiders that India’s government has established a three-mile exclusion zone in an effort to prevent more violence.

On January 26, 2006, two fishermen were killed by Sentinelese when their boat drifted near the island. The bodies were tossed into shallow graves. An Indian coastguard helicopter attempted to retrieve the fishermen’s bodies, but was prevented from landing when it was greeted with a volley of arrows from the tribesmen.

Skipping past multiple acts of violence against outsiders attempting to land on North Sentinel.

Believed to number anywhere from 50 to 400, the Sentinelese have lived in isolation on the island for 60,000 years.

It's hard to imagine that such a small population could be stable for such a long time. Only 40,000 years ago, the glaciers stood tall over most of North America and Europe, and our ancestors were consorting with Neandertals and Denisovans.

If true, they would be of extreme interest Anthropological geneticists that hang around Dienekes'. I rather suspect that if they ever get there safely and get a sample, it will turn out that they are of much more recent origin, or at least have a strong admixture of more modern blood.

The deep tree canopy makes it difficult to observe the Sentinelese from the air, but based on limited observational data it is assumed that they are hunter-gatherers; agriculture does not appear to be known to them.

They have managed to create metal-tipped arrows by carving out pieces from the hulls of wrecked shops. If not for this practice, the Sentinelese would be described as Stone Age people.

 I hear Obama is trying to get them all green cards.

The Sentinelese violence is almost certainly simply related to self-preservation, and they have been successful while other indigenous tribes have been wiped out. For now, the Indian government seems content to allow the native people to preserve their isolation, at least partially for fear that bacterial contamination may cause their extinction. So the people of North Sentinel Island continue to live in isolation, unaware and uncaring of the evolution of the world around them, on a tiny island in the great wide ocean.

I wish them well, and hope they can come to some accommodation with the modern world.  Now, the obligatory jungle girl:

Dueling Theories on American Indian Origins

Dienekes' Blog has a post on two papers on American Indian origins, published in two premier journals, which are somewhat at odds in their implications:

Paleoamericans galore

Two new papers in Nature and Science add to the debate on Native American origins. The first study (in Nature) detects that some Amazonians have a few percent ancestry from a group related to Australasians, which suggests that early native Americans were not homogeneous but came in two flavors: the main one found all over the Americans and the Australasian-related one. The second study (in Science) looks at ancient "Paleoamerican"-postulated populations and finds that they don't have any particular relationship to Australasians. Thus, whatever population brought the "Paleoamerican" admixture into the Amazon, it remains to be found.

Is it possible the Australasian strain allegedly detected in the Amazonian branch came across the Pacific in a canoe, in a kind of reverse Kon Tiki?:

The Kon-Tiki expedition was a 1947 journey by raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands, led by Norwegian explorer and writer Thor Heyerdahl. . . Heyerdahl believed that people from South America could have settled Polynesia in pre-Columbian times. Although most anthropologists as of 2010 had come to the conclusion they did not, in 2011, new genetic evidence was uncovered by Erik Thorsby that Easter Island inhabitants do have some South American DNA, lending credence to at least some of Heyerdahl's theses. 

If South American DNA made it to Easter Island, it seems possible that the exchange went both directions. The Polynesians were incredible sailors, given the technology at their disposal. And certainly, they've been receptive to travelers in the past.

Midnite Music - Mime Through Time

Patapsco Collision Kills Two, Injures Six

Maryland Natural Resources Police

NRP is investigating a double-fatal boating accident that occurred about 3 a.m. on the Patapsco River just south of Key Bridge.

A 37-foot recreational boat with eight people on board hit a large cement abutment (called a dolphin), one of four that stand about 50 yards from the bridge at the edges of the shipping channel to guard the span from boat strikes.

Two women were thrown from the boat and died. Both bodies were recovered, one at about 8:20 a.m and the other shortly after 1 p.m.

Both victims were taken to the state Medical Examiner's office in Baltimore for autopsies. The injured were treated at Baltimore hospitals.

The rescue and recovery effort was handled by NRP, Baltimore County Police and Fire, Baltimore City Fire, Anne Arundel County Fire, Maryland Transportation Authority Police, U.S. Coast Guard and Maryland State Police.

The two deaths are the 13th and 14th boating fatalities in Maryland this year. There were 12 all last year in the state.

There are no excuses for hitting a large object at night. It is the captain/operator's responsibility to keep a watch.

The Swallowtails are Out in the Garden

Our butterfly bush is in full bloom, and attracting lots of butterflies,

First, the Eastern Swallowtail, the most common of the swallowtails, in the boring old yellow color that all males, and about half the females take on

And the melanistic female Eastern Tiger Swallowtails:

The Spicebush Swallowtail. Both male and female are black, but the "blue/green" blush on hind wings is greener in the males than the females. Also note the yellow markings on the body. While we do see them on the butterfly bush, they seem to favor other plants more (in this case, a verbena)

The Zebra Swallowtail. It was very common a few days ago, but seems to be declining. Butterflies don't live that long, only a week or two in summer, so the "flights" of butterflies (more or less synchronized emergence of a group from their chrysalis') tends to make a batch of butterflies of a particlar species very common for a short while

Hot Water at Hillary.com

It's a big one, so lets just get started.

IG to Congress: Hillary sent at least 4 classified e-mails through her server

When the New York Times published its scoop on the Inspectors General request for a criminal probe by the Department of Justice into Hillary Clinton’s e-mail system, the spin at first was that this was either (a) just focused on the FOIA releases or (b) regarding ex post facto classification. A letter obtained by the Wall Street Journal from the intelligence community IG dashes both of those scenarios. The letter, directed to Congress, accuses Hillary Clinton of sending material classified at the time through her private and unsecured e-mail server on at least four occasions, violating the law:

An internal government review found that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent at least four emails from her personal account containing classified information during her time heading the State Department.
In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community concluded that Mrs. Clinton’s email contains material from the intelligence community that should have been considered “secret” at the time it was sent, the second-highest level of classification. A copy of the letter to Congress was provided to The Wall Street Journal by a spokeswoman for the Inspector General.
The four emails in question “were classified when they were sent and are classified now,” said Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for the inspector general. The inspector general reviewed just a small sample totaling about 40 emails in Mrs. Clinton’s inbox—meaning that many more in the trove of more than 30,000 may contain potentially secret or top-secret information.

That’s a failure rate of … ten percent. The sample of 40 e-mails indicates that there may have been massive amounts of classified material sent in the 33,000 e-mails that Hillary Clinton actually produced. One has to wonder how many of the other 30,000-plus e-mails that Hillary claimed were personal in nature might have even more sensitive material.

At some level, all this worry about whether specific emails that crossed Hillary's desk were classified is irrelevant. Surely, to be able to read and process all of Hillary's a Secretary of State email would be a tremendous coup for any foreign intelligence agency. Even the unclassified would be examined to help form patterns. That's what intelligence analysts do. Do you think they wait around for classified material to drop in their laps? By putting all her email on an unsecured server Hillary basically guaranteed that all her email was monitored. I would be shocked to find that the Chinese were not monitoring all traffic through the Clinton.com server.

Todd: Hillary lost any high ground when she refused to turn over the server

Todd’s correct … as far as he goes. Let’s play this out along a couple of lines of assumption. First, we’ll assume that the e-mail server issue is entirely innocent. We’d have to believe that the Clintons — one of the most politically astute teams in modern American history — fumbled such an easy call by opting for stonewalling over transparency when transparency would have acquitted Hillary. After 23 years in Washington DC and more than a decade prior to that in Arkansas politics at the highest levels, does anyone believe that the Clintons would have made that kind of mistake — especially with the presidency on the line?

If you were Hillary Clinton, You'd Already be in Jail: Sailor faces 30 years in prison for keeping pics of classified submarine equipment

Since the issue of classification has emerged in the past day or so again, it’s worth remembering just how important it is for national security. This news item from the Hartford Courant in Connecticut demonstrates just how seriously officials are supposed to protect classified material and systems. The Department of Justice has charged a former Navy submariner with multiple crimes involving his retention of cell-phone pictures of classified systems on his boat. Former machinist’s mate Kristian Saucier faces up to 30 years in prison after serving five years in the Navy (via ChuckJ on Twitter):

The FBI says a sailor took illegal photographs of classified systems on the U.S. Navy’s Groton-based, nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Alexandria and later tried to destroy the evidence when he learned that the Navy and FBI were investigating.
The Navy was alerted to the security breach when the town dump foreman in Hampton found a cellular telephone in a Dumpster and decided to keep it to replace his own. When he noticed that the phone contained photographs, he showed them to a retired Navy chief, who called the Naval Criminal Investigative Service.
U.S. Attorney Deirdre M. Daly said Friday that a federal grand jury has charged Kristian Saucier, 28, of Arlington, Vt., with unlawfully retaining photos taken inside restricted areas of a nuclear attack submarine, and obstructing an investigation. …
Naval and FBI investigators said in court filings that Saucier’s telephone contained photographs of the ship’s reactor, reactor compartment and maneuvering compartment, where the nuclear power, steam and electrical systems of the submarine are operated and monitored through control panels.
The investigators said that photographs of the control panels were of such clarity that gauges could easily be read, revealing the Alexandria’s position at the time of the photograph, as well as its maximum speed, which is classified. An engineer reading the photos could “determine significant design characteristics of a U.S. nuclear submarine, including its reactor plant,” the investigators said.
The obstruction charge relates to Saucier’s actions after getting questioned by the FBI. In what seems like an interesting parallel to the Hillary Clinton e-mail scandal, the FBI accuses Saucier of trying to destroy his laptop and dump it on his grandfather’s farm. Saucier told his grandfather that he’d used it for target practice, according to the Courant.

Clintons' charities got £50million of British aid cash: UK government accused of trying to buy influence with US power family

Tens of millions of pounds of UK aid money has been siphoned through charities linked to Hillary Clinton, it emerged last night.
British politicians – including Gordon Brown – stand accused of diverting huge amounts of cash through the organisations after falling under the spell of the US presidential candidate and her husband Bill.

At least £50 million of taxpayer-funded foreign aid money has gone to Clinton charities, which are at the centre of allegations in the US that foreign governments used donations to buy influence.

The UK is one of the biggest donors, handing over more than £20 million last year alone to the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI), an organisation chaired by former President Bill, 68, and whose board includes the couple's daughter Chelsea, 35. Since 2011, a total of £48.9 million has gone into the coffers of this charity alone.
. . .
But critics are concerned that waste at CHAI is so high that British taxpayers may end up paying millions of pounds of management charges – money which they say would be much better spent on front-line disaster relief.

Given that Clinton.com only pays out 10-15%  of donations in actual "good deeds", with the rest being consumed in salaries to Clinton hacks like Sidney "Vicious" Blumenthal, and plane fare for the Clintons and their crew, that seems a pretty solid objection.

Remember when Juan Williams was (temporarily) outcast from polite liberal society for saying the sight of a person in Arab clothes on an airplane frightened him? Good Times!

Clinton: Sight Of Black Man With Hoodie Creates 'Fear' Among Open-Minded White People



Admit it, Dems: Hillary Could Strangle a Puppy on Live TV, and You’d Still Back Her (UPDATED: It's worse than you think)

A quick recap: Hillary Clinton, as Secretary of State, violated guidelines from the National Archives and her own State Department by using her own private email server for professional correspondence, and then destroying whatever messages she deemed destructible.

At first Clinton claimed that she needed a single non-governmental email account for "convenience," because she only had one phone. That claim turned out to be provably false. Next, she claimed that it didn’t matter much, because "The vast majority of my work emails went to government employees at their government addresses, which meant they were captured and preserved immediately on the system at the State Department." The latter half of that claim turned out to be provably false, too. She further insisted that none of the emails contained classified information, a claim that many people with intimate knowledge of such things—such as a former senior State Department official—described with phrases like "hard to imagine." And her assertion in a CNN interview this month that she went "above and beyond" the email disclosure requirements was—wait for it—false.

In sum, the Democratic Party's 2016 presidential frontrunner brazenly violated government transparency policy, made a mockery of the Freedom of Information Act, placed her sensitive communications above the law, and then just lied about it, again and again. Now comes word that, unsurprisingly, two inspectors general are recommending that the Department of Justice open a criminal inquiry into the matter. One of their findings was that the private server, contrary to Clinton's repeated claims, contained "hundreds of potentially classified emails."

So how much do Democrats value basic transparency, accountability, and honesty in their presidential candidates? Not bloody much, if you go by the handy polls over at RealClearPolitics. The six national polls taken this January and February, before the email scandal first broke, averaged out to a whopping 43 percentage-point lead for Hillary Clinton. How about the next six, in March and April? Plus 50. The 11 polls in May and June, when Berniementum first started sweeping the country, came in at +48, and the most recent five in July stand at +41.

It's astonishing to me, and I don't think it bodes well for the future of our republic that half of the polity is willing to overlook such up front criminality in their front runner.

Scientists Continue to Excavate Paleolithic German Porn Stash

one fragment of new Hohle Fel's find

Fragments of a new female figurine from Hohle Fels Cave

Archaeologists, Prof. Nicholas Conard and his team member Maria Malina, present the discovery of two fragments of a new female figurine in today's edition of the journal: Archäologische Ausgrabungen Baden-Württemberg. The figurine shows similarities with the well-known Venus from Hohle Fels that Prof. Conard published in 2009.

Theee views of the original Hohle Fel's figurine

The two pieces of carved mammoth ivory fit together to form a find with dimensions of 23 x 22 x 13 mm. The find does not appear to be part of a depiction of an animal or lionman, both frequent motifs from the caves of the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany. Instead, the find shows strong affinities with the only other female figurine known from the region. The find will be exhibited as part of a small research exhibit at the Museum of Prehistory in Blaubeuren.

The original Hohle Fells figurine presents, shall we say, a rather stylized view of a woman, with ginormous  breasts, and vulva, and no head and rudimentary limbs. The little bump where the head would be is actually a carved loop where a string or cord could be attached, for use as a necklace or talisman. A bit like a Franzetta cave girl, except even more exaggerated.

The female depictions from Hohle Fels date to 40,000 years ago are the oldest depictions of humans thus far recovered. While the new find is modest compared to the "Venus of Hohle Fels," its form and the engravings on the surface show strong similarities with the more complete Venus. The new fragment, which represents a breast and part of the stomach, comes from a sculpture that appears to be slightly larger than the ca. 6 cm high discovery from 2008. Both female figurines come from the Aurignacian period during which modern humans rapidly spread across Europe, displacing the indigenous Neanderthals.

It was in this era that a few percent Neandertal genes snuck into the human genome.

Prof. Conard remarks:" The new discovery indicates that the female depictions are not as rare in the Aurignacian as previously thought, and that concerns about human sexuality, reproduction and fertility in general have a very long and rich history dating to the Ice Age."

Proving once again that men will be men. . .

Beach Report 7/25/15

The heat and humidity are starting to return after a couple of shockingly nice days of weather. About 85 F, a little sticky and partly cloudy when we went to the beach this afternoon. There was a stiff south breeze that doesn't show behind the jetty.

Someone is coming into the harbor a bit fast.

 Cooling off.

The Ospreys were out hunting.

 As were the dragon flies.

The gulls seemed to be waiting around for something to happen.

Don't hook anybody!

Vermont Dying to be Green

Vermont Struggles With Renewables

Along with the shuttering of the state’s largest generating station came dreams of windmills, solar collectors, and other “clean and green” options that would soon be taking its place. Like many other states and nations, Like many other states and nations, Vermont has assumed that passing laws mandating renewable energy quotas will solve the problem. The state has set a goal for itself of 55 percent renewables by 2017, 75 percent by 2032 and 90 percent by 2050. The figure now is 17 percent.

But like most other players, the Green Mountain State is finding that those goals must be tempered and sometimes outright abandoned. To date the most widespread initiative for switching to renewable energy has been importing hydropower from Quebec. The Canadians are proposing two cables that will run beneath Lake Champlain, one to southern New England and the other to New York City. Burlington and other Vermont cities would probably feed off of this.
. . .
Other attempts to go green have met with indifferent success. Several proposals to put windmills atop the Green Mountains – the obvious place for them – have been shouted down or stalled by local objections. An early attempt to put a new wood-burning plant right across the Massachusetts border was also quickly defeated – it would create air pollution. The project was also dampened by a Massachusetts study which concluded that burning trees for energy would soon exhaust the state’s forest resources.
. . .
Ironically, while some environmentalists have been developing small dams, others have been campaigning to tear down small dams around the state. The Newport 11 dam was recently removed from the Clyde River and other small dams are under fire. The strategy resembles one pursued for years by the Sierra Club, which favors small dams globally but campaigns to tear them down locally. Warshow developed three other small dams around the state.

As for wind power, the BED states as follows: “A small wind turbine is located at the Pine Street offices of BED and serves as a demonstration project designed to determine how much electricity can be generated from the Wind at the lake-front site.” BED does contract for wind electricity generated in other parts of the country. Finally, the BED admits employing “gas turbines [of] up to 25 MW, primarily used as a peaking unit and in emergencies.” The progress of solar energy has been slow. Burlington put solar collectors on the roof of is airport terminal and Rutland has built a 2 MW solar farm on an abandoned landfill.

Vermont is small enough that "Not In My BackYard" translates to "Not In My State." Which is OK, I guess if you produce enough goods and services for other people willing to tolerate the aesthetic and moral assaults of producing power. But if your economy is dependent on tourism, cutting down the forests periodically  to run the boilers hardly seems a winning strategy.

IRS Scandal Update

This has been percolating around for a few days (of course, you'll never see it on CBS, MSNBC or NPR), a new revelation about how the IRS targeted conservatives. According to documents finally pried out of the IRS by Judicial Watch, the IRS used donor lists they forced out of conservative 501(c)(4) organizations to target their donors for tax audits, and attempted to make some of them pay "gift taxes" which not only had not been used in years, but which had been overturned by the Supreme Court:

In 2010, after receiving Baucus’s letter, the IRS considered the issue of auditing donors to 501(c)(4) organizations, alleging that a 35 percent gift tax would be due on donations in excess of $13,000. The documents show that the IRS wanted to cross-check donor lists from 501(c)(4) organizations against gift tax filings and commence audits against taxpayers based on this information.

A gift tax on contributions to 501(c)(4)’s was considered by most to be a dead letter since the IRS had never enforced the rule after the Supreme Court ruled that such taxes violated the First Amendment. The documents show that the IRS had not enforced the gift tax since 1982.

But then, in February 2011, at least five donors of an unnamed organization were audited.

The documents show that Crossroads GPS, associated with Republican Karl Rove, was specifically referenced by IRS officials in the context of applying the gift tax.

Seemingly in response to the Crossroads focus, on April 20, IRS attorney Lorraine Gardner emails a 501(c)(4) donor list to former Branch Chief in the IRS’ Office of the Chief Counsel James Hogan. Later, this information is apparently shared with IRS Estate Gift and Policy Manager Lisa Piehl while Gardner seeks “information about any of the donors.”

Under Obama the IRS treated the administration's enemies in ways Dick Nixon could only have dreamed of.

It is really long past time for major reform at the IRS. One would be a much flatter,easier to administer tax system, to take some of the power out of their hands, a good idea for other reasons as well.

My own personal favorite is what I like to call my "modest proposal" for IRS reform:

What I propose is affirmative action with regard to politics. Congress must pass a law that stipulates that the new hiring for any agency must consist of liberals, conservatives, libertarians and communist in proportion to their representation in the voting population of the country (not the region the federal jobs occur in, which would tend to also be very liberal). Thus, in time, conservatives could expect to claim approximately half of the federal jobs in the county.
. . .
Thus, with a diversity of opinion reflecting the countries split on important issues, the few "rogue" liberal agents in the IRS (and other agencies with a political diversity issue; EPA and Education likely have similar issues), would be balanced by conservatives who would scotch any attempts to twist the agencies goal to a liberal line. Similarly, liberals would tend to be sensitive to and resentful of conservative attempts to do the same.

Rule 5 Saturday - Camille Rowe

This Rule 5 Saturday special post features Camille Rowe because:

A. Everybody loves a pretty girl

oh, and because . . .

B. Mind the MEGO factor
C. Sex sells
D. Feminism sucks

Camille Rowe-Pourcheresse (born January 7, 1990) is a French-American model and occasional actress. Rowe was born in Paris to an American mother, who was a model and dancer at Le Lido club, and a French father, whose family is in the restaurant business. Her childhood was split between Paris, Brooklyn, and California.

Rowe was spotted in 2008 in a café in Le Marais in Paris while studying at university. She has appeared in campaigns forDior Homme (alongside Robert Pattinson),. . . . 

blah, blah, blah

In 2010, Rowe appeared in the French film Our Day Will Come alongside Vincent Cassel. . . .

Some NSFW material: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

For GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (200th Issue), the GOODDUDE  features Barbara Bach, the James Bond chick. Plus, some far out space stuff! Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup." Wombat-socho snuck in under the wire with "Rule 5 Sunday: Fightin’ Words" after a bout with trolls.

Now on the updated "Canonical List of Rule 5 Posts."

Are Plastics Killing the Bay?

While I hate to see my beach covered with trash washed down from farther north (as I have documented on occasion), I think it's mostly a cosmetic problem. However, some worriers fear otherwise.

The Chesapeake Bay Is Turning Into Plastic Soup

The presence of microplastics—from broken-up containers to ingredients in bathroom products—has been established in four Bay tributaries by researchers at the University of Maryland, NOAA, and elsewhere. “Microplastics were found in all but one of 60 samples, with concentrations ranging over 3 orders of magnitude (<1.0 to >560 g/km2),” they write in Environmental Science and Technology. “Concentrations demonstrated statistically significant positive correlations with population density and proportion of urban/suburban development within watersheds.”

According to my primitive math, if the Bay averages 10 meters in depth (the commonly bandied number) a km2 is, get this, ten million cubic meters, or 10 billion liters.  At the high concentration of 560 g/km2, that's a concentration of 5 parts in 10 billion or 0.5 parts per billion (ppb, ug/l, whatever). About the concentration of say, copper (which really is poison).

One can deduce that with more growth around Baltimore and Washington, D.C., we can expect to see yet more microplastics. See, and maybe eat, too, as scientists recently discovered the stuff’s being consumed by plankton and passed up the food chain. That’s bad news for marine animals, which can starve on the nutrientless substances or die of stomach obstructions, and possibly for humans, as plastics leach chemicals into fish with unknown impacts on our health. (They might also affect that treasured Chesapeake delicacy, blue crabs, as crabs both eat and breathe in microplastics.)

The Chesapeake Bay Program interviewed the study’s lead author, the University of Maryland’s Lance Yonkos, to determine the sources and ramifications of microplastics. Here’s an excerpt:

“We have many of the prime sources for creating and introducing microplastics to aquatic environments,” Yonkos said. Roads are a main contributor because they promote physical degradation of plastics and provide easy transport via storm drains to Bay tributaries. Yonkos listed wastewater treatment plant effluent and substantial shipping traffic.

As plastic fragments become smaller, a greater number of animals are able to swallow them—as exemplified by the recent case of a whale killed by a shard from a DVD case. When these materials break down enough reach the level of microplastics, even filter feeders like oysters can consume them….

But, the science isn’t clear yet on whether microplastics represent a serious environmental or human health concern.

But plastics are notoriously inert chemically. Most break down very slowly in sunlight. We don't worry much about kids eating plastic, except when it presents a possible choking hazards. As for microplastics presenting a choking hazard to filter feeding animals, have you ever seen some of the bizarre, spiked shapes that many marine algae have? Certainly if filter feeders can avoid, or even better yet successfully consume such items, a few small pieces of plastic mixed in will be no great threat.

Another Chesapeake Manatee?

Though it seems Delaware may get the credit: Manatee Spotted in Chesapeake and Delaware Canal

Delaware wildlife officials are warning boaters to keep a lookout for a manatee that was spotted in the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.

Cpl. John McDerby of the Division of Fish and Wildlife Natural Resources Police says a 7-foot manatee was spotted at the Summit North Marina in Bear on Thursday afternoon.

McDerby says it's rare for the creature, a native of Florida, to travel this far north.
McDerby says boaters who spot a manatee should slow down their vessel and keep a safe distance away from the manatee.

Earlier this month a manatee was spotted near Ocean City, Md., and in the Chesapeake Bay. Officials say they are not sure if each sighting is of the same manatee, or if there are several of them in the area.

We recently saw that one was spotted in the lower Potomac River. I doubt they are the same individual, as that would be a quick swim at the usual speed of Manatee

I wonder if they would take a fly designed to look like sea grass. That would be a hell of a fight.

Clinton.com Email Back in the News

Quite a bit of activity on the "Clinton.com" front as two inspectors general ask the Justice Department to open an inquiry into Hillary's email issues. It will be instructive to see Attorney General Lynch's response. . ..

Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account

Two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state, senior government officials said Thursday.

The request follows an assessment in a June 29 memo by the inspectors general for the State Department and the intelligence agencies that Mrs. Clinton’s private account contained “hundreds of potentially classified emails.” The memo was written to Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management.

It is not clear if any of the information in the emails was marked as classified by the State Department when Mrs. Clinton sent or received them.

However, see below.

But since her use of a private email account for official State Department business was revealed in March, she has repeatedly said that she had no classified information on the account.

Hillary Clinton Sent Classified Information Over Email While at State Department, Review Finds

An internal government review found that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sent at least four emails from her personal account containing classified information during her time heading the State Department.

In a letter to members of Congress on Thursday, the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community concluded that Mrs. Clinton’s email contains material from the intelligence community that should have been considered “secret” at the time it was sent, the second-highest level of classification. A copy of the letter to Congress was provided to The Wall Street Journal by a spokeswoman for the Inspector General.

The four emails in question “were classified when they were sent and are classified now,” said Andrea Williams, a spokeswoman for the inspector general. The inspector general reviewed just a small sample totaling about 40 emails in Mrs. Clinton’s inbox—meaning that many more in the trove of more than 30,000 may contain potentially confidential, secret or top-secret information.

New York Times alters Clinton email story

The New York Times made small but significant changes to an exclusive report about a potential criminal investigation into Hillary Clinton's State Department email account late Thursday night, but provided no notification of or explanation for of the changes.

The paper initially reported that two inspectors general have asked the Justice Department to open a criminal investigation "into whether Hillary Rodham Clinton mishandled sensitive government information on a private email account she used as secretary of state."

That clause, which cast Clinton as the target of the potential criminal probe, was later changed: the inspectors general now were asking for an inquiry "into whether sensitive government information was mishandled in connection with the personal email account Hillary Rodham Clinton used as secretary of state."

The Times also changed the headline of the story, from "Criminal Inquiry Sought in Hillary Clinton’s Use of Email" to "Criminal Inquiry Is Sought in Clinton Email Account," reflecting a similar recasting of Clinton's possible role. The article's URL was also changed to reflect the new headline.
. . .
One of the reporters of the story, Michael Schmidt, explained early Friday that the Clinton campaign had complained about the story to the Times.

All the democratic ass that's fit to cover.

Clinton's Conspiracy of Secrecy Worthy of Criminal Probe

When she's not blaming the media, Republicans, bureaucrats, and technology—everything and anything, except the dog who ate her email—Clinton is destroying her credibility.

"There is no classified material," she said. Wrong.

"Everything I did was permitted," she said. Wrong.

"People should and do trust me," she said. Wrong and wrong. A majority of people don't trust Clinton, because a majority of people aren't blindly loyal to her or on her payroll.

Most people can sift through the spin, the lies, and the parsing to see the bottom line: She secreted and deleted her email for reasons we may never know. And she's blaming everybody but the only person responsible for this mess, the only person who can clean it up: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Boehner to Hillary: 'Immediately' Turn Over Email Server

Speaker of the House John Boehner is calling on Hillary Clinton to turn over her private email server "immediately."

“Two inspector generals appointed by President Obama have now called on the Justice Department to investigate Secretary Clinton’s mishandling of classified email. If Secretary Clinton truly has nothing to hide, she can prove it by immediately turning over her server to the proper authorities and allowing them to examine the complete record," Boehner says in a statement to the press.

“What these reports demonstrate is the inherent risk of conducting our nation’s diplomacy and foreign policy on your home email and personal server. Secretary Clinton has repeatedly claimed that the work-related emails on her private home server did not include classified information, but we know that is not true. She has claimed she is well-aware of what matters are classified and what are not, and yet she set up a personal email server to discuss matters of national security despite guidance to the contrary from both her State Department and the White House. Her poor judgement has undermined our national security and it is time for her to finally do the right thing.”

Will we be shocked when she turns over a few pounds of shredded server?

Has the aura of inevitability begun to dim? Poll: Clinton trails top Republicans in battleground states

Hillary Clinton trails three top Republican presidential candidates in head-to-head matchups in Colorado, Iowa and Virginia, a new survey shows.

The latest Quinnipiac University swing state polling released Wednesday shows the Democratic frontrunner trailing former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in each of those states.
. . .
The results offered more indications that Clinton has a problem: Voters say they don't trust her. . .

And why would they?

Dem fears over Clinton’s strength grow after new poll

Democrats are seeing warning signs after a new poll showed Hillary Clinton losing three swing states and deep in negative territory on questions of character.

One Democratic strategist who spoke on condition of anonymity described the poll results as “the canary in the coal mine.”
. . .
Hank Sheinkopf, a New York-based Democratic consultant who has worked with Clinton in the past but is not involved with her current campaign, described the findings as “absolutely dangerous” for the party.

“The electorate is very volatile. They are not happy about anybody [in politics], and this is just another indication of that.”

Hillary Clinton: Of Course I'm Not Asking People To Vote For Me Because I'm a Woman. I'm Asking Them To Vote For Me On the Merits. And My Merits Are, I'm a Woman.

No really it's close enough to that that it might as well be that.

"Clearly I'm not asking people to vote for me simply because I'm a woman. I'm asking people to vote for me on the merits. And I think one of the merits is I am a woman and I can bring those views and perspectives to the White House."

You can watch this old drunken cow say these words on video at the link, if you can take it.

And of course she's defending the Planned Parenthood Organ Harvesting Combines, because of course she is.

It continues to astonish me that she continues to get such support.

And a late update via Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox, 07.23.15"


Hillary’s campaign focused on bringing down Wall Street by accepting as much of their money as possible

Hypocrisy, “for the children”:

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s economic agenda targets companies that focus on short-term profits and high-speed trading instead of investing in workers. The Democratic presidential candidate’s finance operation is going after their executives for another purpose — donations.
A day after proposing higher capital gains taxes on short-term investors, Clinton raised at least $450,000 Tuesday night at the Chicago home of Raj Fernando, a longtime donor. His firm, Chopper Trading, specializes in high-frequency transactions and was recently purchased by Chicago-based competitor DRW.
Clinton’s son-in-law the hedge fund manager approves of her fight against Wall Street.