$20 Million Benefit Claimed from "Ghost" Crab Pot Removal

in Virginia alone: Study shows Bay watermen earned extra $20M from removal of ghost pots

A new study by researchers at William & Mary's Virginia Institute of Marine Science shows that a six-year program to remove derelict crab pots from lower Chesapeake Bay generated more than $20 million in harvest value for area watermen.

Lead author Andrew Scheld, an assistant professor at VIMS, says “it’s well known that derelict fishing gear can harm the environment and increase crab mortality, but the economic impacts of this ‘ghost fishing’ have rarely been quantified. Our study shows that VIMS’ collaborative efforts to remove ghost crab pots from the lower Bay led to an additional 13,504 metric tons in harvest valued at $21.3 million — a 27 percent increase above that which would have occurred had the pots stayed in place.”

Economic effects of derelict pot removals  Virginia blue crab harvest with (blue) and
without (red) the Virginia Marine Debris Location and Removal Program.
Bands are 95% confidence intervals. 

I have my doubts about those 95% confidence intervals. With all the estimates and partial measurements that go into that, I doubt the confidence intervals could be that precise.

The study, co-authored by VIMS professors Donna Bilkovic and Kirk Havens, appears in today's issue of Scientific Reports, an online, open-access journal from the publishers of Nature. The research was supported by NOAA’ s Marine Debris Program.

The effort to find and remove derelict crab pots from lower-Bay waters ran from 2008 to 2014. Led by Bilkovic and Havens, the program was unique in that it employed commercial crabbers to find and remove derelict gear during their winter closed-fishing seasons. Crabbers lose pots to storms, boat propellers, and other causes.

“All told,” says Havens, “the crabbers removed 34,408 derelict crab pots during the program’s six-year run. At the same time, harvests and gear efficiency were observed to increase dramatically.”

It's a good program, but if it's making the watermen that much money, they should be paying for it. I understand that "the tragedy of the commons" factor all but rules out crabbers looking for ghost pots on their own, but maybe a bounty system would work, where crab licenses are assessed a fee for each pot to be deployed, and a similar reward for each pot taken out of service, whether it was a recovered ghost or just reached the end of it's useful life. Kind of like a bottle deposit system.

Grandpa

When hanging around with old people as I seem to do more and more, the question often arises "Do have any grandchildren?"

"Not that I know of" I usually answer, only half in jest.

Alex and Kelly have now ruined that answer with the birth of a son:

Graham Robert arrived at 10:14 PM on 1/24. He's 6 lbs, 14 oz and 20 inches long. Mom and Dad are thrilled! He's also exactly 94 years apart from his great-grandpa Robert Mc Neill!

Congratulations and best wishes. I'm sure a trip to Canonsburg is in our near future.

Post Storm Cleanup at Clinton.com

A little soreness this morning, from twisting around to throw snow, but other than that, no ill effects from yesterdays exertions. A little more to do today, but it should be relatively quick. Meanwhile, back to the main question. What more could Hillary do and not be indicted? Shoot someone on Fifth Avenue?

It's becoming more and more clear that Hillary’s team copied intel off top-secret server to email.

The two systems — the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network (SIPRNet) and Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System (JWICS) — are not connected to the unclassified system, known as the Non-Classified Internet Protocol Router Network (NIPRNet). You cannot e-mail from one system to the other, though you can use NIPRNet to send ­e-mails outside the government.

Somehow, highly classified information from SIPRNet, as well as even the super-secure JWICS, jumped from those closed systems to the open system and turned up in at least 1,340 of Clinton’s home e-mails — including several the CIA earlier this month flagged as containing ultra-secret Sensitive Compartmented Information and Special Access Programs, a subset of SCI.

Who will be the first to crack, Huma or Cheryl? My guess is Huma, who's not protected by attorney client privilege. Demand for Hillary to be indicted keeps swelling,

Having worked for a few years with Jim Comey, and admiring his independence (and stubbornness); and having heard one thing and another about Loretta Lynch, although I don’t know her and haven’t met her; and having a sense for the way DOJ operates, I think the chances are better than 50% that Hillary gets indicted.

 but Clarence Page and John McLaughlin aren't convinced:

McLaughlin asked, “Forced prediction for the panel: the FBI will recommend that Hillary Clinton face prosecution for mishandling classified information? That’s the FBI. Yes or no?”

Page stated, “I’m going to say yes, but she won’t be indicted.

McLaughlin responded, “I’m with you.”

More details on process in HotAir's "What can the FBI do about Hillary Clinton without a grand jury?" We find some interesting facts. While the FBI can investigate all it want, it cannot accuse anyone of a crime without a Federal Grand Jury. Until the DOJ (aka, Loretta Lynch) decides to put a grand jury to work, Hillary can deny she's under investigation and be technically correct.

From Reason Hillary Clinton Email Scandal Keeps Getting Worse



Meanwhile, Hillary's feminist credentials are losing their shine. Suzanne Venker on How Hillary Clinton lost her feminist base (and her credibility)

. . . Americans cannot take seriously a person who talks out of both sides of her mouth. Make up your mind, Mrs. Clinton: Does “every survivor of sexual assault deserve to be heard, believed, and supported,” as you claim? Or does this only apply to women who aren’t Bill’s victims? Women who you believe are part of a “vast right-wing conspiracy”?

It’s not Bill’s womanizing that’s eroding Mrs. Clinton’s appeal. She’s doing that all by herself.

Leslie Wimes notes Hillary Clinton Is Not The Second Coming Of Harriet Tubman

Other than play the saxophone and have an office in Harlem, why do we love Bill, and other than being married to Bill, why do we love Hillary?

Jill Abramson yearns for some fire 'Hillary, can you excite us?': The trouble with Clinton and young women

Kara Lessen is a 23-year-old in her final year at Harvard who has volunteered for Sanders but was excited by Clinton eight years ago. “The ‘I’m a woman and it’s OK to vote with your uterus’ message is tired,” she said. . . . Her neo-liberal politics is pretty tired.”

Woman Confronts Hillary Clinton About Her Health

Hillary Clinton laughed off a question about her health today from a woman who said she'd heard on Fox News that the Democratic presidential candidate "was really not equipped to be in the White House" because she was ill.

Given that the woman mentioned Fox News, we can assume the question was planted.

In December 2012, Clinton fainted and fell at her home, sustaining a concussion. After a follow-up exam revealed a blood clot in her head, requiring blood thinners and another hospital stay, Clinton returned work Jan. 7, 2013. This past July, Clinton’s doctor released a medical statement saying the Democratic candidate has no lasting effects from the concussion.

Uh huh, just like those football players who get depressed and become aggressive for no reason.

Because We Definitely Need Some Warmth Today

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Nighthawks" up for viewing at The Other McCain.

I'm Jealous!

Enough Snow Already

OK, I am done with the snow removal du jour. So maybe now I'll hike into town and watch "The Revenant" to see what sort of hardships other real men endure? Naah. I'll be watching NFL Championship Football! And rooting hard for the Cardinals since I have an Ariens snowblower.

And speaking of my snowblower, I had a Donald Trump epiphany this morning. I bought the snowblower last winter, we had plenty of snow, and it is the Greatest Toy Ever, although I say that as a non-owner of a huge chainsaw. When I am out there with that thing roaring I am the King of Snow. Well, a guy running a giant plow down an Interstate at fifty MPH in a blinding storm is the King. Call me a prince. Hmm, but do I really outrank the guys with the riding snowblowers? OK, I am the Duke of Snow.

Moving on, this morning I could not get my Greatest Toy Ever started. It was gassed up and ready to go but... to start it one must adjust the choke to open (not closed), the electrical switch to on (not off) and the fuel line to open (not closed). Three binary settings, only eight possibilities, even an idiot could do this, right? Especially having done it many times only ten months ago.

Maybe! But I would like to blame my difficulties on an absence of idiots. The on/off switch, which when I was a kid would have been labelled (get ready) "On/Off", in fact included only a pictorial aid. One choice was indicated by an unlocked padlock and an upraised hand, palm forward. I took the hand to mean "Stop" and the padlock to mean "Unlocked". Mixed messages! The other possible setting was a locked padlock and a picture I still can't make out. And as a final hint, there was a larger graphic indicating that all the dials had two positions and to run the machine they all had to be turned to the correct position, although what that position might be was left unclear. Not helpful!
. . .
But my Donald Trump epiphany was this. I get globalization and international marketing and a more globally oriented America. But seriously, are "On" and "Off" that hard for people to grasp, even non-English speakers? What is with these useless padlock graphics that make no sense? And how many snowblowers are we selling to Mexico or Venezuela anyway?

Let's make America great again by finding the ON button and labeling it sensibly. Yeah.

He's got a snowblower!

Ted Cruz, Tea Party Shut Down Government Again!

FEDERAL OFFICES in the Washington, DC area are CLOSED. Emergency and telework-ready employees required to work must follow their agency's policies, including written telework agreements.

Wait. You mean the Obama administration shut down the government?

How will we ever recover?

Can the Broncos Stomp the Patriots?

I don't really have a druther for this one. Patriots decides to accept the first kick, and starts at the 20. First down to Edelman at the 35, flag on the play, holding Broncos, declined. No more progress, and Patriots must punt.

Should have called a fair catch, oof. Manning takes the ball at the 17. Incomplete. Another incomplete to Davis. Third pass caught by Sanders for a first down. Oops, loss of 1. Norwood catches one at the 40 for a first down. Anderson goes 2 on a run. 2 more for the Broncos on the ground.  Pass interference on the Patriots gets them a first down at the 37 of the Broncos. Caldwell catches a pass at the 20. Run play loses one. Touchdown pass to Daniels, kick is good, 7-0 Broncos.

Kick off goes through the end zone, Brady and the Patriots start at the 20. 7 yards, then an incomplete. Brady throws out of bounds, Ryan Allen punts.

Run out to about the 34. Gain of 5 then  loss of 1.  Punt.  Boring.

Patriots run it back out to the 40. Jackson gets 5 on the ground, but a personal foul gets them to 2nd and 20. Third and 14, Brady sacked for a loss of 1.  Punt collected at the 21. Flag on Patriots,

Goodbye El Ninsnowmaggedocapolypse, and Good Riddance!

The snow has stopped and the wind was letting off for the 11 PM dog walk last night, and early this morning Skye and I got out to see what the neighborhood looked like.

The road, which had been plowed once yesterday, had another 3 inches or so, and the only tracks in it were the ones that Skye and I had left the night before; oh, and one deer that crossed over.

The snow total was less, substantially less than we feared, in part because the midday yesterday has some sleet, which was denser and formed a heavy layer in the  middle. I think, if you found the right spot that wasn't affected by drifts or shadows, we might have had a little less than one foot. It was heavy, sticky snow, and not fun to shovel

I started digging out the driveway sometime after breakfast, took a break for lunch. I had about 1/3 left when our next door neighbor and her teenage son took mercy on me and helped me finish. Thanks Teresa and Noah.

Elites Fear Robots Will Take Their Place

Stop killer robots before it is too late, scientists tell Davos forum

The world must act quickly to avert a future in which autonomous robots with artificial intelligence roam the battlefields killing humans, scientists and arms experts warned at an elite gathering in the Swiss Alps.

Rules must be agreed to prevent the development of such weapons, they said at a January 19-23 meeting of billionaires, scientists and political leaders in the snow-covered ski resort of Davos.

It's pretty much the role of the elite to order people to "roam the battlefields killing humans", so I can see why they might feel threatened. I, For One, Welcome Our New Overlords. It's hard to imagine they could be worse.

Angela Kane, the German UN High Representative for Disarmament Affairs from 2012-2015, said the world had been slow to take pre-emptive measures to protect humanity from the lethal technology. "It may be too late," she told a debate in Davos.

"There are many countries and many representatives in the international community that really do not understand what is involved. This development is something that is limited to a certain number of advanced countries," Kane said.

The deployment of autonomous weapons would represent a dangerous new era in warfare, scientists said.

We already have robots doing the job of stockbrokers and investors; no reason to expect they

Arnold Schwarzenegger's "Terminator" movies popularised the idea that AI and killer ro …
"We are not talking about drones, where a human pilot is controlling the drone," said Stuart Russell, professor of computer science at University of California, Berkeley.

"We are talking about autonomous weapons, which means that there is no one behind it. AI: artificial intelligence weapons," he told a forum in Davos. "Very precisely, weapons that can locate and attack targets without human intervention."

Russell said he did not foresee a day in which robots fight the wars for humans and at the end of the day one side says: "OK you won, so you can have all our women."

Clearly, we need to make sure that the robots have nice women so that when we win, they're worth taking.  Plus, women are supposed to be more empathetic, and thus less likely to win.

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Nighthawks" up for viewing at The Other McCain.

So God Made a Dog

God made mine to bark at me and get me off my ass.

Still Waiting for the Blizzard Clinton.com News to Subside

Since we're respecting the governments wishes that we "shelter in place" for the duration of Winter Storm Jonas, aka El Ninsnowmaggedocoplypse, I might as well clear the Clinton.com bin while the snow falls and the wind blows.

El Ninsnowmaggedocoplypse even got into the email story as the State Department used the half day shutdown of the federal government in Washington due to the storm to plead for a one month extension on their deadline to produce the final batch of Hillary's State Department emails.

Fallout from the latest revelations from Hillary's Homebrew Email server continue. Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, joins chorus of people calling for criminal charges. Former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates agrees with my conclusion that it's a near certainty that Hillary's server was hacked by one or more unfriendly powers, mentioning Russia, China and Iran. My hope is that the Israelis will tell us what was really there. That's bad enough after recent revelations that the server hosted highly secret "Special Access Program" secrets, but yesterday we heard that the server also bore secrets pertaining to "human intelligence sources," aka spies. Curiously, the link to the original Fox News story by Catherine Herridge seems to have gone bad, but other articles have quotes from the article as it appeared.

At least one of the emails on Hillary Clinton's private server contained extremely sensitive information identified by an intelligence agency as "HCS-O," which is the code used for reporting on human intelligence sources in ongoing operations, according to two sources not authorized to speak on the record.

Both sources are familiar with the intelligence community inspector general’s January 14 letter to Congress, advising the Oversight committees that intelligence beyond Top Secret -- known as Special Access Program (SAP) -- was identified in the Clinton emails, as well the supporting documents from the affected agencies that owned the information and have final say on classification.

According to a December 2013 policy document released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence: “The HSC-0 compartment (Operations) is used to protect exceptionally fragile and unique IC (intelligence community) clandestine HUMINT operations and methods that are not intended for dissemination outside of the originating agency.”

Remember when liberals were so up in arms that Richard Armitage outed Valeria Plame that they put Scooter Libby in jail?  Good times!

The Observer observes that Women Won’t Save Hillary' It seems women don’t like pandering but Top Democrats, and a little bit of Hollywood, are rushing to Iowa to boost Hillary Clinton. But Hillary probably doesn't help her case much by giving a 5 minute speech to Iowans who waited around in the cornfields for her for hours. Actually, she was just the opening act for Demi Lovato. The Bern is steadily playing tortoise to her hare, having cut her lead in South Carolina in half. And after Clinton campaign surrogate David Brock excoriated the Sanders "Simon and Garfunkel" campaign ad for it's ineffable whiteness, Tommy Cristopher of Mediaite had the chutzpah to notice that Hillary Clinton’s Iowa Closing Argument Ad Is Also Mighty White.

I've Been Tagged!

Over at Althouse this morning was  a post about how Bernie Sanders tweeted:

"Any Supreme Court nominee of mine will make overturning Citizens United one of the first decisions.

The title of her post was  "Bernie Sanders lets us know that he has no idea how the Supreme Court works." and in the comments I noted that:

As a professional socialist, Sanders has pretty much made a career out of not knowing how things work.

Ann took that comment and promoted it into the body of the post, and gave me a tag (or already had one, I'm not sure). In the past, Althouse has made a point of trying not to add new tags, and jamming things into existing tags even if the fit is bit off. I suppose I'm honored to have my own tag, but it seems like it adds a bit too much responsibility to try and say intelligent things.

Another commenter made the point that you shouldn't judge someone entirely by their tweets:

Mark said...

Unknown, when limited to 144 characters on Twitter, you have an expectation that the reader understands the character limit.

Taking a single Tweet as a complete position statement is willful misunderstanding.

I bet Hillary made a similar statement about abortion rights and the SC, but these authors ignore that as they shill for Hill!

Which gets to my core objection to Twitter, typo and all.

That get to the core of my objection to Twitter; it basically forces thoughts to the be length of a wisecrack. Not that I have anything against wisecracks, I probably make too many myself, but it shouldn't be a primary method of discourse.

The bottom line is that if you're a presidential candidate, however serious, you need to be mindful of what you (or staff for you) tweet.

UPDATE: A second hand Instalaunch. . .

Reporting from the Heart of El Ninsnowmaggedocoplypse

The good news is that the power is still on, the house is warm, the dog has been out to romp in the snow already this morning, and the coffee is perking. There's something like a foot of snow on the ground, but it's blowing around so hard that there's not much of a difference between the ground and the sky, and the snow that's on the ground isn't very evenly distributed.

The bad news is that this isn't supposed to quit until around midnight tonight.

Rule 5 Saturday - Master Sleuthess Pamela Sue Martin

I was reminded of Pamela Sue Martin by this article on how CBS's next Nancy Drew will be anything but white: CBS' Nancy Drew Will Be Diverse

The character spawned a TV series — The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries — that ran for three seasons on ABC in the late 1970s starring Pamela Sue Martin (and later Janet Louise Johnson) as well as Shaun Cassidy and Parker Stevenson.

Is it even legal to saw you won't hire a person of a specific ethnicity for a particular job?  Must be an "equality" thing. Well, good enough for a Rule 5 post.

Born in Hartford, Connecticut, and growing up in nearby Westport, Martin began modeling at 17, and appeared in the The Poseidon Adventure (opposite Gene Hackman) at the age of 19. More films followed, including Our Time and Buster and Billie. Later, her work as TV's Nancy Drew made her something of a teen idol. Initially, the ABC program alternated each week between The Nancy Drew Mysteries and The Hardy Boys Mysteries. . . Martin appeared in a cover pictorial in the July 1978 issue of Playboy magazine, with the headline "TV's Nancy Drew Undraped" (NSFW link).

Martin portrayed feisty and spoiled heiress Fallon Carrington Colby on the ABC nighttime soap opera Dynasty from its debut in 1981 through the end of the fourth season in 1984. Martin left of her own accord and the character was "missing and presumed dead". . . 

GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE'S (225th Issue) Retro Tour will be stopping for a lunch break. During the break Julie Ege will entertain us with amazing wonderment. The Pirate's Cove links in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has the mega "Rule Five Sunday: The Two Faces Of India" and "FMJRA 2.0: Jetpack Blues" ready at the Other McCain.

The Dog Ate the IRS' Homework Again

Courtesy of Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox, 01.22.16" news that the IRS is still playing fast and loose with evidence, this time in Congressional investigation into the IRS hiring outside lawyers to carry out an investigation and suit of Microsoft: More IRS IT Data “Issues”

Some time ago, the IRS entered into a questionable $2.2 million contract with a law firm. The law firm was to assist with IRS audit activities – but had little experience in handling IRS audit data, and was very expensive ($1000/hour billing rate).

The contract was bad enough to draw Congressional interest – and could well have been both unnecessary and contrary to Federal law, which appears to restrict performance of IRS audit functions to government employees.

The matter apparently became the subject of some form of litigation or investigation. As a result, a Federal judge ordered the IRS to preserve the hard drive used on the personal PC of the IRS’s former director of transfer pricing operations at the IRS Large Business and International Division– and individual named Samuel Maruca. Mr. Maruca (or one of his subordinates) apparently oversaw or influenced the contract in question.

Do I really need to tell you what happened?

Yeah, you guessed it. Contrary to the judge’s order, the IRS wiped the drive – last April, well after the judge had ordered it preserved.

To me, it seems this means either the IRS’s IT folks are spectacularly incompetent – or someone is deliberately trying to hide something. I can’t see any other plausible explanation for a drive ordered preserved by a Federal judge being wiped after it had been ordered preserved.

But maybe that’s just me. Feel free to draw your own conclusions regarding why the IRS did this.

One would think that after the Lerner debacle, the IRS and it's head honcho Koskinen would be more careful to preserve the evidence in a Congressional investigation.

On second thought, you really wouldn't because they have not faced any serious consequences from the last time.

Where Are All the Aliens?

Killed by Global Warming, according to a new theory at Discovery: Why Can't We Find Aliens? Climate Change Killed Them

In new research published in the journal Astrobiology, astronomers of The Australian National University (ANU) pondered this scenario and realized that young habitable planets can become unstable very quickly. What once was a life-giving oasis becomes a hellish hothouse or frozen wasteland very quickly.

The sun is now about 30% brighter than it was after it was first born from a nebula. It will continue to slowly warm for several billion years before becoming a red giant. For the last 4 billion years or so, the Earth has been able to support liquid water, the primary requirement for life as we know it.

For decades we’ve been pondering our place in the universe and tried to theorize why we’ve uncovered no evidence for extraterrestrial intelligences. With all the stars and planets in our galaxy and all the water and prebiotic chemicals that are known to exist, there must be other intelligent lifeforms. But there’s no sign of them. This problem is known as the “Fermi Paradox.”

Chopra and Lineweaver suggest their new research provides some answer to this paradox and call it the “Gaian Bottleneck.” If life isn’t given a chance to stabilize its biosphere, then it’s doomed.

You know, it's a long way out there, so even at light speeds the time between stars would be prohibitively high, and the energetic costs extreme. Compared to the time life has existed on earth, the time a species that can even begin to contemplate moving between the stars has been an infinitesimal fraction. The chances of finding a nearby system in the same state are very low.

Earth was given this opportunity, and life emerged from the Gaian Bottleneck to help form the life-giving oasis we take for granted today. Earth and its complex interplay of feedback cycles created what can be seen as a superorganism, where all life on its biosphere has a role to play in its evolution. (This is known as the “Gaia Hypothesis”, a relatively controversial idea formulated by James Lovelock and Lynn Margulis in the 1970s.)

 Lovelock is a nut.

But now we have an intelligent lifeform that emerged as a dominant force, interrupting and exploiting our planet’s natural cycles. Humanity has inadvertently created a new bottleneck — let’s call it the “Industrial Bottleneck” — by causing irreversible changes to our delicate biosphere. Now, we’re seeing rapid impacts on our civilization as the balance in our climate is knocked off-kilter by the inexorable rise of greenhouse gases from industrial processes and energy needs.

Except that the climate hasn't changed in the last 18 years as the CO2 continues to climb.

I remember the good old days of the Cold War when Sci-Fi books promulgated the theory that aliens were not breaking down our doors either because they had been eliminated by their own atomic wars, or because we were in quarantine because of ours.

Wombat-socho has the mega "Rule Five Sunday: The Two Faces Of India"  ready at the Other McCain.

Reports from Clinton.com While the Snow Falls

The El Ninsnowmeggedocopolypse is well underway, with any surfaces on which Wednesday's dusting has melted or sublimed away already recoated with fresh snow. But there's still power, so I might as well try to take care of the accumulation of news on Clinton.com.

Yesterday we say that the IG needed to raise his security clearance to view the material in Hillary's private unsecured server, today we find that even Congress members need additional security clearance to view it.  A former CIA official says There Is "Zero Ambiguity," Hillary Clinton Broke the Law and the FBI Has No Other Choice But to Recommend a Criminal Grand Jury. I wouldn't think a CIA guy would be that naive. Another intel analyst claims  this is indeed a smoking gun. Exposure of SAP data should be enough to make anyone with a significant clearance “mess their pantsuit”: John Cornyn, Senate Majority Whip called for Ms. Clinton's indictment, although he expressed doubts that the Obama Administration would enforce the law. Now, where would he get that impression? Does Hillary's campaign’s response to latest email revelations reveal desperation? No, I think it reveals confidence in the omerta of the democratic party. No crime too great to cover up or, if revealed, to deny or delay justice for. Roger Simon wondered: What Happens if Hillary Isn't Indicted? I can help here: What Happens After Hillary Isn't Indicted?

. . . So now Dem thinkers can contemplate Hillary losing Iowa, losing New Hampshire, then facing a quashed indictment recommendation and major resignations at the FBI. Feeling the Bern?

In terms of timing, either the DoJ needs to tear off the band-aid like, yesterday, or risk creating a situation where Bernie Sanders has a straight path to the nomination and an establishment warhorse like Biden has no time left to get in the race. Or they can try to hold off on refusing an indictment until Hillary has won a few primaries somewhere, which may not be until March.

Well. The rules maven of the DNC will surely find a way to roll in Biden if Hillary's situation becomes sufficiently dire - surely the current rules allow for mid-course adjustments of a candidate has a disqualifying medical crisis, and those exceptions could probably extended to indictments or the threat thereof. One result will be a divided, dispirited party and a lot of disillusioned Sanders supporters.

At this point, very little would surprise me.

Bernie is gaining ground daily: CNN Poll: Sanders Beating Hillary by 8 Points in Iowa, in What Some are Calling "A Schlonging Lead" as Some Democrats fear Clinton's message is failing. Just six people greet Hillary in Texas — and she ignores them!



Slimy Clinton Hack David Brock Already Playing Race Card Against Sanders, of course.  Even the DNC has begun to wake up to the possibility that something may go awry with Hillary's petal strewn walk to the White House, and With Hillary slipping in the polls, DNC suddenly thinks another debate is a good idea. Really? Make them pick between Bernie and O'what's his name?

For your viewing pleasure, The Clintons' War on Women: How Hillary Strong-Armed Women into Accepting Sexual Assault http://www.pjtv.com/s/GM2DMNRV. And you're starting to see things like Why This Democrat Won’t Vote for Hillary Clinton referencing Juanita Brodderick and Bill's other sex crimes, and Hillary's complicity therein. Sorry, Hillary: Women care more about their president than his (or her) agenda. They also want someone qualified on her own merits.

Pew found big differences between how Democrats and Republicans viewed the sexes as potential political leaders. But before liberals start lamenting sexist conservatives’ “war on women,” Republicans didn’t see women as less capable, rather Republicans “are more inclined to say there isn’t any difference between men and women,” while “Democrats are significantly more likely than Republicans to say that women do a better job than men.” In other words, Republicans were more likely to truly see women and men as equals, while Democrats see one sex — men — as inferior.

Victor Davis Hanson on The Many Contradictions of Hillary Clinton

Hillary Clinton recently said she would go after offshore tax “schemes” in the Caribbean. That is a worthy endeavor, given the loss of billions of dollars in U.S. tax revenue. Yet her husband, Bill Clinton, reportedly made $10 million as an advisor and an occasional partner in the Yucaipa Global Partnership, a fund registered in the Cayman Islands.

Clinton is calling for “huge campaign-finance reform,” apparently to end the excessive and often pernicious role of big money in politics. But no candidate, Republican or Democrat, raised more than the $112 million that Clinton collected in 2015 for her primary campaign.

Clinton has also vowed to raise taxes on hedge-fund managers. Is that a way of expressing displeasure with her son-in-law, Marc Mezvinsky, who operates a $400 million hedge fund? 

For that matter, how did Clinton’s daughter, Chelsea, who worked for a consulting firm and a hedge fund despite having no background in finance — reportedly become worth an estimated $15 million?

Just to get started.

Ready for El Ninsnowmaggedocoplypse?

Or as Stephen Green at Instapundit is calling it, Snowzilla. I hope we are. The first flakes just fell;

We have bread, milk, toilet paper, and propane for the generator, although it would be nice not to have to use it. Also, a big warm dog to sleep with. Models still show us on the northeast side of the main bomb that's expected to go off over the the Potomac River area. I hope they're right.

Morning Music - "8 Miles Wide"

Yeah, that was rude, but funny:

Confirmed: Common Core is What You Suspected it Might Be

The codification of political correctness in primary and secondary education: Former Pearson Exec Reveals Anti-American Agenda in Common Core

A former marketing executive for textbook publishing giant Pearson Education reveals the anti-American agenda behind Common Core and the Advanced Placement U.S. History framework in the third video of a series produced by Project Veritas and focused on the corporate cronyism behind the education reform known as Common Core.

Kim Koerber, a former Pearson executive who now works as a sales consultant for National Geographic – another Gates Foundation-funded Common Core publisher – tells the Project Veritas undercover journalist that “conservative voters are afraid of everything,” and proceeds to say why Common Core is important in her view.

A few quotes so you can get the flavor of the thing:

“The dead white guys did not create this country,” Koerber says. “They [presumably conservatives] want to talk about those dead white guys.

“People who say they want to teach the Constitution, only want to teach the part of the Constitution that they like,” she tells the journalist, who then asks her about the Second Amendment.

“But yet they don’t want to teach all of it,” she replies. “Damn the Second Amendment.”

Miss Kitty and Marshall Dillon

And that’s the problem. You’re getting pushback, because there’s a bunch of Republican people, conservatives that don’t like being told what to do by people they don’t agree with. For example, in AP U.S. History a long time ago, Texas wanted to have U.S. History books, right? Pearson made them. And it talked about the Wild West and how there were prostitutes, right. And Texas was really upset. They didn’t want to mention…I’m like…You’re too young to… Did you watch Gun Smoke? It was a TV show, and you had Marshall Dillon and Ms. Kitty was his friend. She owned a bar and she was a prostitute. They never mentioned it but that’s what she was. It’s like who was Ms. Kitty? Who were these people who went out and serviced these men that went out in the world? That was real. The Wild West was not a nice place. And our kids need to know that that’s what it was like, you know.

And now, for a change of pace, an epic rant by Ace:  The Thing That Unites The Conservative Movement Isn't Actually Conservatism

The writer of the above-linked piece uses the quote to explain Trumpism, which I guess is a sort of nationalism plus temperamental conservatism without much actual conservative thought or specific policies attached to it. That is, it's conservative-sounding impulses (occasionally) that frequently conflict with the actual settled conservative policy consensus.

I don't think Trump knows enough about conservatism to even know there is a consensus among the thought leaders on a whole range of topics.

This makes him simultaneously infuriating, embarrassing, and exhilarating. It's embarrassing he didn't even bother to pick up three or four easy-reader books that would have sketched the main parameters of conservative thought, and it's infuriating he repudiates it all so breezily.

But, for anyone who think the conservative thought class has itself gotten too hidebound and dogmatic, it's exhilarating to see it all shaken up and so many things considered Beyond Question suddenly subject to question.

By the way, I don't say that the things Beyond Question should be discarded. Most of them are probably considered Beyond Question for a good reason. *

I just don't know if the greater mass of the party has ever really engaged in thinking about these things. Maybe people need a new round of debate and explaining -- even if this seems like repetitive work to those who've already thought all this through.

On the greater point, I think the piece is right. "Conservatives" aren't all actually conservative. I'm considered a sort of "hard rightwing conservative firebrand" or something, but in fact I'm really a pissed off liberal who's angry that self-claimed "liberals" claim a string of propositions, most of which I agree with, and then proceeds to violate all of these claims without any compunctions at all, in order to gain political power and pay off political constituents.

So I'm not sure that there's really a "conservative line of thought" that really animates the right.

I've also thought, for a long time, that the left is pretty coherent in goals, if not in philosophy. They do not have consistent philosophical reasons for their demands, but all of their demands are perfectly consistent in this sense: All of their demands boil down to using government power to take money or freedom from those outside the coalition in order to redistribute those goods to those within the coalition.

It's like a gang of thieves: They all might have different philosophical justifications for their thievery, but they all agree that at the end of the day you're getting fucking robbed.
What we call the "conservative movement" is simply a reaction to that. I don't want to use the word "reactionary" because it's considered a bad word but I think it's reactionary in the sense that the left attacks and steals, and then all the people they're running roughshod over have to band together defensively to oppose them.

And I don't know our movement has any actual agreed-to philosophy behind it except that we all agree we would like to stop being attacked and robbed by the left.

And that's just a taste of it. Read the whole thing. In fact, read them both.

Wombat-socho has the mega "Rule Five Sunday: The Two Faces Of India" and "FMJRA 2.0: Jetpack Blues" ready at the Other McCain.