At The Beach You Can...

Surf the Sky

Surf the Waves

Build a Sand Castle

Walk Your Dogs

Fly Your Kite

Walk with the crowds

Sun Bathe

Jump for Joy

For the "Better Late Than Never" Files

S&P Also Downgrades Freddie and Fannie:

On Aug. 5, 2011, Standard & Poor's lowered its long-term sovereign credit rating on the United States of America to 'AA+' from 'AAA'.
As a result, we have also lowered the long-term issuer credit ratings and related issue ratings on select government-related entities (GREs) to 'AA+' from 'AAA'.
The issuer credit ratings of these financial institutions and their relevant debt issues are removed from CreditWatch, where they were placed July 15, 2011.
The outlooks for all 12 FHLBs, and the issue level ratings for Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHLB System, and the Farm Credit System are negative.

Maybe if they'd done this a few years ago, some recent unpleasantness would have been averted.

Pismo Foggy Morning

Being on EST in my head still, I was wide awake at 6 AM, and went for a walk on the beach to wait for the resort breakfast to open. mornings in summer in Pismo Beach, the fog is thick.  With a little luck it will burn off later:

I'll add photos as a I edit them.

The 105 steps up to the Sea Crest, as seen from the beach.  No, I didn't count them.  One of the kids told me he did.

There were hordes of Sea Gulls down at the beach.  The most common was this one, Heermann's Gull (this one in adult, non breeding colors).  This gull is characterized in adult plumages by the red bill with the black tip.  They're pretty tame and will allow you to walk up quite close.  Theses were out gleaning in the edge of the surf.

The sole sandpiper type bird I found out there this morning.  I don't know what it is, so though the file name "willet" is just a guess, but it looks pretty close.

And look who sat down at the next table for breakfast, Mr (or Mrs.) Western Gull (well, probably).  I didn't share, as they are rather pushy, especially once they've determined you're willing to share.

New Day, New Beach

After a grueling day of travel, Georgia and I made to Pismo Beach by about 6 PM PDT.  Here's a picture of the classic rock that sits between the two sides of Highway 101, as seen from the parking lot of our motel/resort.

A view from the back porch, looking south towards the rest of Pismo Beach.  The resort is on the cliffs, 110 steps above the beach.

Looking off the cliff to the beach.

A mass of Sooty Shearwaters, Brown Pelicans and a few different seagulls dive bombing a school of fish just off shore of the cliffs

 

My brother Mark, his wife Brigitte, Georgia and I went into town to buy ribs and chickens for the masses (13 to feed), and after a family dinner on the back deck, we talked until way past dark.

Light Blogging Alert

We're on our way to the family reunion in Pismo Beach.  Hopefully I'll have some pretty pictures to post now and then.

Stale Link Dump!

Whew! That smell, that's the old links getting green and slimy.

Seeing flag influences voters, study shows  - It makes them more Republican. Hence the reason Democrats are "Flagophobic."

Water’s Edge Ancestors - How coastal living may have helped humans evolve

The Amazing, Regenerating Dolphin - How Dolphins can regenerate new tissue into huge wounds.

Ancient black hole contains 100,000 Suns worth of water - Well, not really inside.

Dim polar light drove humans to evolve larger eyes   - Bigger to see you, dear!

Dolphins' Electroreception, Electric Fields and Dolphins| - Dolphins have an electrical sense like some fish. Handy if you live in an electrically conductive medium that is often murky.

Breast screening has had little to do with falling breast cancer deaths - But try to tell that to a woman who had a breast cancer discovered early.

‪Why Batteries Are Primitive‬‏ - YouTube - They just don't have the energy density to do what we want done.

Learning by experiment is all in a day's play - Scientists are childlike; what else can I say?

Tipping points and beliefs – the 10% solution - You can't food all the people all the time, but if you can get 10% of them, you can probably get most of the rest.

Sifting through the risks and benefits of coffee  - As usual, the science is muddled, it's both good and bad. Take your pick while I have another cup.

Boy Scout Leader Jailed for Bullet in Fanny Pack - A classic tale of over-reaction and zero tolerance.

Strength in numbers - How modern man overwhelmed Neandertal Man with sheer numbers.

Two never-finished Navy ships head to scrap heap  - Stuff like this can make you mad, but when you follow along, it's easy to see how it happens

Studies of studies show that we get things wrong  - Yep, science gets things wrong a lot, before it gets it right.

How "Super Sand" Could Provide Drinking Water To Millions Of People - A simple thing that could improve so many lives.

Removal of High-Level Predators Can Have Disastrous Effects - Haven't we known this since the first Roosevelt administration?
 
Neptune begins to give up its secrets : Nature News - Neptune finishes it's first orbit around the sun since being discovered. Scientists try to find something important to say about it.

Biomarkers in feces could replace colonoscopies - FierceBiomarkers - Anything to reduce the need for colonoscopies has to be a good thing.

Among The Costs Of War: Billions A Year In A.C.? : NPR - A moron claims air conditioning costs billions in the war in Afghansistan - NPR trumpets his bogus claims, then backs off.

Cheating runs in the family  - Yes, but is it nature or nurture?

Women have better gaydar when ovulating  - When its more important not to waste the effort, evolution lends a helping hand.

Taking a dinosaur's temperature with its teeth  - And how did you expect to do it?

Dawn of agriculture took toll on health - After humans adopted agriculture, we got smaller and sicker. Of course, there were a lot more of us too.

Well, that should help some...

PSA: How to Treat a Jellyfish Sting

Not that we have jellyfish this year...



Thanks to the Classical Liberal for the link!

Partly Cloudy at the Beach

Pretty nice day at the beach.  Warm, but not too warm, with a breeze picking up to match the increasing heat.  Lots of fair weather cumulus clouds gave a little relief from the sun once in a while.

I found this nice Cow Shark tooth.  These are pretty rare; this is the third one we have found for the year.

 Birds were attacking a load of fish in the water.  It was too far away to see splashes on the water, but whenever I try to catch fish out of a ball of birds working like this, I find small Striped Bass or Bluefish eating small bait, usually Bay Anchovy or Menhaden.

Skye had to get her exercise in today.  We're leaving for California in the morning and Skye will have to go to Megan's doggy spa this afternoon.

Caught in mid shake.

Ahhhh, that's much better.

"Some People Make Too Much Money"

The parties just keep coming for birthday-boy Barack Obama. After a Chicago fund-raiser the night before he turned 50 and a White House party on the big day, a third event is now planned for New York.This time it is high-powered movie mogul Harvey Weinstein who will host the
president at his Big Apple home, reports the New York Post.

And despite being described as "a small dinner and discussion" on the invitation, it will raise $2 million for the president's reelection campaign and the Democratic National Committee. According to the NYP, the cost per couple to chow down is $71,600.

 Of course the quote really comes from this article on Eric Cantor:

Somewhat surprisingly, Mr. Cantor was in fact prepared to bargain on about $20 billion in higher taxes on "the shiny balls of the millionaires, billionaires, jet owners and oil companies" that Mr. Obama so often mentioned in public. "If they wanted to be able to claim the win on that," Mr. Cantor says, he wanted net revenue neutrality in return, by lowering the corporate income tax rate or perhaps enacting an even larger tax reform. In effect, he was calling Mr. Obama's bluff on "cheap politics."

In private, however, the debate always returned to the status of the top marginal rate for individuals earning over $200,000 and $250,000 for couples—aka the Bush tax cuts for people who do not own private aircraft. Mr. Cantor argued that some large portion of the income that flows through the top bracket comes from "pass-through entities"—that is, businesses—and "to me, that strikes at the core of what I believe should be the policy, and that is to provide incentives for entrepreneurs to grow."

By contrast, he says, "Never was there ever an underlying economic argument" from Democrats. "It was all about social justice. Honestly, one of them said to me, 'Some people just make too much money.'"

Obligitory US Debt Downgrade Post

Unless you came for the Great Tits post, it quite likely you're already aware that the S&P downgraded the US Sovereign Debt rating from AAA to AA+ so I'll keep this brief.  Chief among the factors the S&P mentioned in its decision were:

– The downgrade reflects our opinion that the fiscal consolidation plan that Congress and the Administration recently agreed to falls short of what, in our view, would be necessary to stabilize the government’s medium-term debt dynamics.

Point to the Tea Party.  Everyone recognizes that the US debt has achieved unimaginable numbers, and among the political parties only the Republicans (reluctantly pushed along by the Tea Party "Terrorists") have shown any recent interest in controlling the deficit, let alone actually paying any of it down.

– More broadly, the downgrade reflects our view that the effectiveness, stability, and predictability of American policymaking and political institutions have weakened at a time of ongoing fiscal and economic challenges to a degree more than we envisioned when we assigned a negative outlook to the rating on April 18, 2011.

The Democrats will point to this as proof that if the Republicans had gone meekly along with the Democrats plan to raise the debt, and continue spending madly on domestic programs, nobody would have notice the accumulating debt, and everything thing would have been hunky and dory.  Already WAPO has published it's first article on the debt downgrade, by first highlighting the partisan disagreement as the reason for the downgrade:

Lowering the nation’s rating to one notch below AAA, the credit rating company said “political brinkmanship” in the debate over the debt had made the U.S. government’s ability to manage its finances “less stable, less effective and less predictable.” It said the bipartisan agreement reached this week to find at least $2.1 trillion in budget savings “fell short” of what was necessary to tame the nation’s debt over time and predicted that leaders would not be likely to achieve more savings in the future.

The Obama administration rushed in advance to say that S&P has miscounted the problem by a couple of trillion dollars (that trillion with a "T"), which is entirely possible, I suppose, given the number of fuzzy calculations involved:

The unprecedented move came after several hours of high-stakes drama. It began in the morning, when word leaked that a downgrade was imminent and stocks tumbled. Around 1:30 p.m., S&P officials notified the Treasury Department that they planned to downgrade U.S. debt and presented the government with their findings. Treasury officials noticed a $2 trillion error in S&P's math that delayed an announcement for several hours. S&P officials decided to move ahead, and after 8 p.m. they made their downgrade official.

A trillion here, a trillion there, what's the difference? 

S&P is the first of the three major credit agencies to down grade the US debt.  Fitch and Moodies are still bitterly clinging to the AAA rating, although a lesser rating agency, Egan-Jones (no I had never heard of them before either) recently did so.  Unless something dramatic happens, I find it hard to image Fitch and Moodies will hold out for long.

Just for reference, S&Ps ratings by country, before the downgrade...

Carnivorous Plant Swallows Great Tits

Great Tit in Pitcher Plant

Killer plant 'eats' Great Tit at Somerset nursery

Nurseryman Nigel Hewitt-Cooper, from West Pennard, was inspecting his tropical garden when he discovered one of his pitcher plants had trapped the bird.

He said he was "absolutely staggered" to find it had caught the creature.

It is believed to be only the second time such a carnivorous plant has been documented eating a bird anywhere in the world.

Great Tit out of Pitcher Plant

"I've got a friend who's studied these particular plants extensively in the wild and he's never found evidence of any of them having caught birds," said Mr Hewitt-Cooper.

"The other documented time was in Germany a few years ago and that was in cultivation, not in the wild.

So technically speaking, that was a Great Tit, not Great Tits, but it doesn't sound quite as nice.  And if it could eat one, it could eat two.  Previous Great Tits post here...

 Speaking of Great Tits:

Rule 5 Saturday - Thank You for Not Breeding!

The inspiration for this Rule 5 post came from this article in the New York Post on women who have made the decision to forgo children in favor of careers and other pursuits.

TV news anchor Tamsen Fadal, 40, has a successful marriage and, so far, no children. In addition to her early-morning spot on local station WPIX, she’s written two books and runs a matchmaking business with her husband. The word “kids” does float around in their household sometimes, she says, “and we’re like, ‘We need to talk about this, but first — let’s order dinner.’ ”

That's deep...

“You don’t move to New York when you’re 23 years old with $500 in your suitcase because you want to live in the suburbs, meet a nice guy and have two kids,” says Maureen Taran, a 41-year-old creative executive at a cable network. Although she was at one point planning to get married and assumed she’d be having children with her husband-to-be, that relationship ended — and so did her immediate plans for motherhood. Now, she’s got a killer job and a great boyfriend. But kids — that’s a big question mark.
“I’m so career-driven, and I have to do yoga four times a week, and get my nails done — my boyfriend doesn’t see where I’m fitting a kid into all this,” she says with a laugh.

I'll bet you could do yoga at home; and who knows, maybe the kids would like to do it with you.

“People here are more on the go. There are a lot of movers and shakers,” says Kambri Crews, 40, author of the forthcoming memoir “Burn Down the Ground.” In her book, she chronicles one of the main reasons she and her husband, 38-year-old comedian Christian Finnegan, decided not to have kids: “Our collective gene pool,” Crews says, explaining that they have both psychological and physical disorders in their respective families. Her father is currently in prison for attempted murder.

“It would be risky for us to reproduce,” she says.

Yeah, you pretty much deserve to wash out of the gene pool.

But while childless women may be “invisible,” childless celebrities are increasingly out and proud. Cameron Diaz has remarked that “having children changes your life drastically, and I really love my life.”

No doubt about it.  Kids are a pain in the ass.  They tie you down, they get hurt, they have problems, they give you problems.  I sure as hell wouldn't want to see that happen to anyone as good looking and prefect as you.

A 2008 Newsweek report found parents to be about 7 percent less happy than the childless, and a related study said “no group of parents reported significantly greater emotional well-being than people who never had children.”

Yep, kids'll drive you crazy.

“And yet,” ... “the culture batters them all the time with this message that, really, the only thing that is worth paying attention to is having some big, ridiculous destination wedding and then starting to breed.”

Poor girls, having to live with other peoples expectations. I'm glad I don't have to live like that.

“The task of mothering is a very important function. It’s more than just an issue of personal preference,” says Glenn Stanton, director of Family Formation Studies for the Colorado-based organization Focus on the Family.

“We all have a social responsibility to reproduce ourselves and make sure that we’re giving the future of our world good promise . . . There are real consequences to these things. The next generation of teachers, inventors, leaders — those people all started out as babies. The act of mothering is a very important social function.”

You know what I look for in a mother?  A transparent top!  Yes, really...

This argument doesn’t get much traction with childless women.

“It’s not as if the world needs any more kids!” says Lisa. “The best thing we could all do for the planet is stop breeding.”

 Thank you for not breeding!

I thank the Classical Liberal for picking up this link; now go see his! And as always, the Rule 5 Wombat at the Other McCain's for his promoting the Rule 5 list..

Fatal Polar Bear Attack in Norway

Polar bear kills Eton school boy and savages four companion

Horatio Chapple, 17, an aspiring medical student, was killed when the animal rampaged into the tent in which he and his friends were sleeping on a glacier in Svalbard, Norway. His friends, Patrick Flinders, 16, and Scott Smith, 17, were injured fighting off the bear, as were the expedition guides, Michael Reid, 29, and Andrew Ruck, 27.

Patrick is said to have punched the bear on the nose before it was shot dead by other members of the group. Horatio’s grandfather, Sir John Chapple, 80, was the head of the Army from 1989 to 1992, the former governor of Gibraltar and the former president of the British Schools Exploring Society, which organised the trip.

Horatio’s father, David, a spinal surgeon from Salisbury, Wilts, and his mother Susan, were too upset to comment. Edward Watson, the BSES chairman, said of Horatio: “By all accounts he would have made an excellent doctor.”

The 7ft, 40-stone bear rampaged through their tented camp, ignoring traps designed to keep it at bay. By the time it was shot, Horatio, was dead and Patrick, from Jersey, and Scott, along with their two guides, were seriously injured.

Police, who arrived by helicopter, found the group in shock, the bloody carcase of the bear still lying among the tents, the dead and the injured.

Svalbard, is the far northern archipelago that belongs to Norway.  This was also the home of the talking armored Polar Bears in the book and movie "Golden Compass".  In Svalbard it's illegal to go out of town without a gun due to the threat of Polar Bears.

Then came rifle training. As it is illegal to go out of town unarmed, we all had to learn how to handle the rifles. i've used smaller rifles and shotguns, but many in our group had never shot a firearm of any sort. We learned to half load, to shoot from three different positions, how to handle the flare gun, and where to aim on a polar bear. Guns are a last resort and ONLY for self defense.

Go Back!  It's cold here, there's nothing for you, and I might have to eat you.

Ooops!

I'd never do anything like that...  Stolen from Theo's.

Does Warmth Follow CO2 or Does CO2 Follow Warmth?

Australian Climate Scientist Says Warmth Raises CO2, and Claims to Have Proof

Professor Murry Salby, chair of climate at Macquarie University, has unleashed on global warming alarmism in a lecture this week to the Sydney Institute.

Salby has worked at leading research institutions, including the US National Center for Atmospheric Research, Princeton University, and the University of Colorado, and is the author of Fundamentals of Atmospheric Physics, and Physics of the Atmosphere and Climate, due out in 2011.

Salby’s argument is that the usual evidence given for the rise in CO2 being man-made is mistaken. It’s usually taken to be the fact that as carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere increase, the 1 per cent of CO2 that’s the heavier carbon isotope ratio c13 declines in proportion. Plants, which produced our coal and oil, prefer the lighter c12 isotope. Hence, it must be our gasses that caused this relative decline.

But that conclusion holds true only if there are no other sources of c12 increases which are not human caused. Salby says there are - the huge increases in carbon dioxide concentrations caused by such things as spells of warming and El Ninos, which cause concentration levels to increase independently of human emissions. He suggests that its warmth which tends to produce more CO2, rather than vice versa - which, incidentally is the story of the past recoveries from ice ages.

You can listen to the lecture he gave here.

This is a real significant threat to anthropogenic global warming orthodoxy.  The author is a serious climate scientist, the results are coming out in a peer reviewed journal, and other serious climate scientists have evaluated his arguments and have been unable to find the flaw.

If you're interested, I urge you to listen to the pod cast.  The man is a decent speaker, and makes his argument quite well.  Some of it is a bit technical (how the carbon isotopic ratios were used to untangle the relative magnitude of the source of anthropogenic CO2 and CO2 increases brought on by warming from other sources), but it's worth the time.  It's too bad this hasn't come out on YouTube, it would be better with the graphs he's referring to.  If this holds up, it's basically the death of anthropogenic global warming.

Found at Watts Up With That.

Monster Rare Earth Deposit Discovered in Nebraska

Nebraska mine find to challenge China’s dominance of vital rare minerals

Elk Creek, Neb. (population 112), may not be so tiny much longer. Reports suggest that the southeastern Nebraska hamlet may be sitting on the world’s largest untapped deposit of “rare earth” minerals, which have proved to be indispensable to a slew of high-tech and military applications such as laser pointers, stadium lighting, electric car batteries and sophisticated missile-guidance systems.

Canada-based Quantum Rare Earths Developments Corp. last week received preliminary results from test drilling in the area, showing “significant” proportions of “rare earth” minerals and niobium.

Lack of significant rare earth deposits in the US, and the necessity to rely on the Chinese for them in the manufacture of high-tech gear, including military equipment, has been a significant strategic weakness.  The US must allow this deposit to be developed.  I don't even care much if we exploit it heavily, but the notion that we could will keep the prices down, and prevent supply extortion by the Chinese.  Not to mention that it would be good for the economy.

But will the Obama administration permit this development?  Traditionally, the administration has not been the best friend of extractive industries, and has tended to favor the concerns of extreme environmentalists at the expense of industry:

Environmental groups have remained silent on the Quantum project in Nebraska, but rare earths are used in many aspects of “green” technology, including hybrid-engine cars and wind turbines. The Sierra Club of Nebraska has declined to comment on the mine until production begins.

Said Brian McManus, a spokesman for the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality, “The project is still in early stages, so we don’t have a lot of detail on it.” He added that the permits the company has obtained will help to make sure they stay environmentally cautious.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency did not return requests for comment.

Although studies have shown the U.S. has 13 million metric tons of rare-earth minerals, National Mining Association spokeswoman Carol Raulston said it does not mine any of it - partly as a result of the difficulty of obtaining permits.

“One of the key problems that investors tell us about is that the permitting regime in this country is so complicated and time-consuming that it has hurt investments here in the United States,” Ms. Raulston said.

Incidentally, "rare-earth" elements aren't really that rare, they're widely present in most rocks and soils, but they are rarely found at concentrations that permit economical extraction

New York Counties Threaten to Sue Over Bay Pollution Diet

Santulli launches fight against unfair EPA regulations

Chemung County Executive Tom Santulli is seeking the support of leaders from 16 counties in New York that are part of the Chesapeake Bay Watershed to take legal action against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Santulli is proposing litigation in response to pending EPA regulations developed to clean up the polluted Chesapeake Bay. Even the EPA has admitted that if the other five states that feed the Chesapeake Bay met New York State wastewater quality standards, the Chesapeake Bay would not be polluted, he said.

"This is probably one of the greatest outrages that I've ever had to deal with as long as I've been in this office," he said during a press conference Thursday.

The cost of the upgrades to the wastewater treatment plants in Chemung County alone would be more than $30 million, with annual operating and maintenance costs estimated at $1.8 million, according to Santulli. The cost for the 16 counties in New York to meet the standards is estimated between $2 and $4 billion, he said.

This was the single most popular story in the "Bay News" today, picked up by seven different papers (a testament to the power of environmentalism by press release, I'm sure).  Needless to say, the bay is a long way downstream from the New York Counties that ultimately drain into the Bay, and it's difficult to convince the counties to pay for further improvements that are likely to have little influence on their standard of living.

So it looks like the Bay "Czar" may get his fight.

The Day after the Crash

The Washington Post manages to publish 5 front page articles on the economy without ever mentioning President Obama:

Steep market drop stokes fears of sustained economic downturn

Asian, European markets plummet, extending concerns about global economy

Markets plummet on global economic fears

Stabilizing into a crisis

Low growth drags down euro-zone prospects

Happy Birthday, Mr. President! Not on the front page...

Too Horrible to Contemplate, Pit Bull vs. Cat

Your Friday Monkey Dacker Puppeteer

A little NSFW; the monkey has a potty mouth.

How Soon Can I Get a Fishing License?

Saltwater on Mars?

Summertime on Mars is bringing water to the planet's surface, suggest NASA scientists who on Wednesday unveiled pictures of slender carvings in the sun-facing sides of crater walls on Mars that are believed to be etched by flowing briny water.

"Mars is salty so any water that flows in or on the surface would be salty as well," lead researcher Alfred McEwen, with the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, told Discovery News.

Salts also would suppress the water's freezing point, making it plausible that the dark, finger-like features were carved by liquid. The streaks range from 0.5 yards to 5 yards wide and stretch hundreds of feet, far smaller than previously detected gullies. They are concentrated on rocky, equator-facing slopes.

The streaks also are highly seasonal, some growing by more than 600 feet over two Earth months, said University of Arizona researcher Lujendra Ojha, who was an undergraduate at the time and who is credited with the find. The features appear in the late spring to early fall, suggesting a material that disappears fairly quickly is involved.

But what would live on such a dry, salty world to fish for?  Sandworms of course! Gonna take some heavy tackle to land old Shai-Hulud.






Credit to DJones for the fishing license idea.

The Fresh Prince Does Gershwin

Teenage Ninja Turtle

Actually, I don't know that it's a teenager...

Did the US Govt Allow Cocaine Shipments in the US?

Feds allegedly allowed Sinaloa cartel to move cocaine into U.S. for information

U.S. federal agents allegedly allowed the Sinaloa drug cartel to traffic several tons of cocaine into the United States in exchange for information about rival cartels, according to court documents filed in a U.S. federal court.

The allegations are part of the defense of Vicente Zambada-Niebla, who was extradited to the United States to face drug-trafficking charges in Chicago. He is also a top lieutenant of drug kingpin Joaquin "Chapo" Guzman and the son of Ismael "Mayo" Zambada-Garcia, believed to be the brains behind the Sinaloa cartel.

The case could prove to be a bombshell on par with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives' "Operation Fast and Furious," except that instead of U.S. guns being allowed to walk across the border, the Sinaloa cartel was allowed to bring drugs into the United States. Zambada-Niebla claims he was permitted to smuggle drugs from 2004 until his arrest in 2009...

If true, this should result in the mass arrest and trial of DEA and Justice Dept. officials, up as high as necessary to get everyone who had any knowledge of these practices.  It does not escape my attention that these allegations go back to the Bush and Clinton administrations.

Also, in recognition of their own potential complicity in their crimes, the Justice Dept. should move to have all Federal convictions on cocaine possession and trafficking charges set aside.

Bay Czar Promises to Win Fight For Control of Bay

Bay czar: 'We will win this one'

The Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay restoration strategy can stand up to court challenges by farm and development groups, the agency's senior bay adviser said yesterday.

"If you want to challenge the bay restoration effort, that's fine. Because we've got the science, we've got the modeling, we've got the legal backing. We will win this one," EPA adviser Jeff Corbin said. "The tricky part is going to be where is the money going to come from."

Well, that's why both sides will have lawyers, because the matter is in dispute. The government may well win, have it's way, and still not be able to solve the Bay's problems.  In fact, that's where my money would be, based on previous experience.

The EPA adviser appeared at the panel discussion along with Robert Summers, secretary of the Maryland Department of the Environment; Will Baker, president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation; and Ann Pesiri Swanson, executive director of the Chesapeake Bay Commission, which advises state legislators in Maryland, Virginia, and Pennsylvania on bay issues.

Summers agreed more money was needed, saying a doubling of the state's "flush fee" - which pays for septic tank upgrades that keep algae bloom-spurring nitrogen from the bay - is needed. But he couldn't say if the fee increase would be sought.

 Oh goody, doubling the flush tax, that'll do it!

Man Has Stomach Ache, Gets Hysterectomy

A trip to the doctor one man won't soon forget.

The Daily Telegraph reports that an Indian man identified only as Ryalu checked into a hospital with severe stomach pain, only to find out he had a full female reproductive system in his body.

The doctors initially diagnosed the 35-year-old farmer with a hernia. But when they performed exploratory surgery they found a uterus, ovaries, fallopian tubes, and vaginal tissue.

Needless to say, he was "stunned." Especially since he's all man on the outside and had even fathered two children. He "has no problems whatsoever with his sexuality," according to Dr. Pramod Kumar Shrivastava, a surgeon at Chhindwara district hospital, who spoke to The Telegraph about the case.

Doctors performed a hysterectomy and repaired the hernia. Ryalu is now recovering.

 I guess before surgery he was in a position to take Dick Cheney's advice to Sen. Leahy...

On the Importance of Good Parent Selection

DNA, not lifestyle is key to longevity

Healthy centenarians lucky enough to have inherited “longevity genes” can thank their genetic makeup for their long lives. Unlike everybody else, they didn’t have to watch their diet, exercise daily or avoid alcohol to reach that age. They didn’t even have to stop smoking – although tobacco use would certainly harm their descendants.

This was the discovery of a team at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York headed by Prof. Nir Barzilai, an Israeli physician, aging researcher and geneticist. The team studied 477 Ashkenazi Jews aged 95 to 109 who were compared with a control group of Caucasians from the general American population.

Barzilai and colleagues wrote in the online edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, released for publication on Wednesday morning, that “people with exceptional longevity are not distinct in terms of lifestyle factors from the general population,” which has to work hard over many years to stay healthy. But they were not healthier at an earlier stage in life, according to measurements of their weight, physical activity and other lifestyle factors. Instead, their genes have protected them and they apparently “interact with environmental factors differently than others.”

In the general population, lifestyle factors play a bigger role in human longevity than genetic factors, and those who lack longevity genes can add up to eight years by living according to these rules.

Those who inherit the good genes don’t have to, Barzilai said, and can escape chronic disorders usually linked to poor lifestyle choices.

Thus, these long-lived souls seem to be “no more virtuous than the rest of us in terms of their diet, exercise routine or smoking and drinking habits, suggesting that ‘nature’ (in the form of protective longevity genes) may be more important than ‘nurture’ (lifestyle behaviors) when it comes to living an unusually long life,” he said.

So some people live into their hundreds regards of their life style, while the rest of us still have to be concerned.  Genetics just ain't fair..

NRDC Petitions to Have Herring Declared Threatened

Is It Time to Save Our Threatened River Herring?

Among all the awe-inspiring phenomena of the natural world, the immense spawning runs of alewife and blueback herring along the Atlantic Coast ranks highly. Not long ago, these platinum, big-eyed fish poured into estuaries and up rivers in such overwhelming numbers that, to the human eye or imagination, a river might seem to run backward, for an instant. Collectively known as “river herring,” they fed Native Americans and early settlers—and they still nurture our ecosystems. Not only are they fundamental to both marine and freshwater food webs as prey species, but those fish that die after spawning also fertilize their natal streams, much like salmon.

Unfortunately, after centuries of overfishing, dam construction, water pollution and other harms—which now increasingly includes the effects of global warming—the annual pulses of river herring have slowed to a relative trickle. And there’s concern that they could disappear entirely in the future. So today NRDC is submitting a petition to the federal government to list the alewife and blueback herring as “threatened” species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

I don't quite know how I feel about this.  Certainly, herring runs in lots of major tributaries are a shadow of their former selves.  However,  few tributaries have pretty health runs still, so calling the whole species threatened seems a stretch.  Still, a more proactive approach to salvage the runs that are failing seems warranted.  Unfortunately the use of the Endangered Species Act as a club to oppose any change you want it a real threat.

So there you have it.  A link to the petition.  I'm still thinking about it...

Do We Have A 'Right' to a Cell Phone?

Free cell phones are now a civil right

Pennsylvanians on public assistance now have a new 'civil right' -- free cell phones. Meanwhile, the rest of us get to pay higher cell bills as a result.

Recently, a federal government program called the Universal Service Fund came to the Keystone State and some residents are thrilled because it means they can enjoy 250 minutes a month and a handset for free, just because they don't have the money to pay for it. Through Assurance Wireless and SafeLink from Tracfone Wireless these folks get to reach out and touch someone while the cost of their service is paid for by everyone else. You see, the telecommunications companies are funding the Universal Service Fund to the tune of $4 billion a year because the feds said they have to and in order to recoup their money, the companies turn around and hike their fees to paying customers. But those of use paying for the free service for the poor, should be happy about this infuriating situation, says Gary Carter, manager of national partnerships for Assurance, because "the program is about peace of mind." Free cell service means "one less bill that someone has to pay, so they can pay their rent or for day care...it is a right to have peace of mind," Cater explained...

I'm old enough I recall the very long period of history before cell phones.  When cell phones first came out, they were as big and heavy as bricks, and cost a minor fortune. I have no idea how they sounded because I never used one in that era.  They were reserved for the wealthy and the wannabes.  I got my first cell phone largely as a boating safety device; it was the first in a series of cheap no-contract cell phones.

So now, ownership of a cellphone, and a plan with 250 minutes a month is a "civil right"?  How about bubblegum; is that a "civil right" too?

Speaking of cellphones.  My current cheapo appears to be on the fritz...  I guess I have to decide if I'll bend to the times and look at smarter phone.  Anybody got any suggestions?

Update, the phone just needed a little time to itself.  I turned it off and on and it was happy again, or at least as happy as a stupid phone can be.

New Move on Mehanden Protection

ASMFC takes historic 1st step to protect menhaden

“Draft Addendum 5,” as the document is called, will be coming soon to a public hearing room in states from Maine to Florida. The vote to send it on its way was 15 in favor (including Maryland), one opposed (Virginia) and one abstention (the Potomac River Fisheries Commission).

The debate in a hotel ballroom in Alexandria, Va., lasted a little over two hours and included attempts to limit the scope of what the public would be allowed to comment on. The five options ranged from maintaining the status quo—an action that would almost certainly continue overfishing—to reducing the harvest by as much as 45 percent from 2010 levels.

New Hampshire Commission Doug Grout attempted to narrow the options to two: status quo or a 23 percent reduction, saying he wanted to streamline the process to get a speedier outcome.

That proposal appeared to be gaining momentum until Maryland representative Bill Goldsborough, senior scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, began a careful recitation of the history of management and what has happened since the adoption of the first amendment of the management plan a decade ago.

“The stocks have done nothing but trend downward,” he said. “As stewards of this resource it behooves us to turn it around.”...

Read the rest.  It's long past time.

Pecker Saver Gets Fined

Breakfast is Served

Stolen from Surly.

On Stranger Tides

Ancient tides were greatly different than today's.  An article from my alma mater on how tides in the recent geological past were significantly different than today's, with some being much higher, and others being much lower:

Due to phenomena such as ice ages, plate tectonics, land uplift, erosion and sedimentation, tides have changed dramatically over thousands of years and may change again in the future, a new study concludes.

Some tides on the East Coast of the United States, for instance, may at times in the past have been enormously higher than they are today – a difference between low and high tide of 10-20 feet, instead of the current 3-6 foot range.

And tides in the Bay of Fundy, which today are among the most extreme in the world and have a range up to 55 feet, didn’t amount to much at all about 5,000 years ago. But around that same time, tides on the southern U.S. Atlantic coast, from North Carolina to Florida, were about 75 percent higher.

The findings were just published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. The work was done with computer simulations at a high resolution, and supported by the National Science Foundation and other agencies.

“Scientists study past sea levels for a range of things, to learn about climate changes, geology, marine biology,” said David Hill, an associate professor in the School of Civil and Construction Engineering at Oregon State University. “In most of this research it was assumed that prehistoric tidal patterns were about the same as they are today. But they weren’t, and we need to do a better job of accounting for this.”

One of the most interesting findings of the study, Hill said, was that around 9,000 years ago, as the Earth was emerging from its most recent ice age, there was a huge amplification in tides of the western Atlantic Ocean. The tidal ranges were up to three times more extreme than those that exist today, and water would have surged up and down on the East Coast.

One of the major variables in ancient tides, of course, was sea level changes that were caused by previous ice ages. When massive amounts of ice piled miles thick in the Northern Hemisphere 15,000 to 20,000 years ago, for instance, sea levels were more than 300 feet lower.

Actually, this makes a lot of sense. The height of the tide at a given location is determined by a complicated interplay of the astronomical phenomena related to the moon and sun motions relative to the earth, and the coastline of that the water interacts with.  With a huge change in water level between the last ice age and now, tremendous differences in the coastline virtually guarantee that the resulting tides might be quite different.  The paper gives an excellent example:

“Part of what we found was that there are certain places on Earth where tidal energy gets dissipated at a disproportionately high rate, real hot spots of tidal action,” Hill said. “One of these today is Hudson Bay, and it’s helping to reduce tidal energies all over the rest of the Atlantic Ocean. But during the last ice age Hudson Bay was closed down and buried in ice, and that caused more extreme tides elsewhere.”

I work in a place in Maine with extreme tides, up to 15 ft.  Below are a couple of pictures from the Penobscot River showing the effects of the tide on the river:

High Tide

Low Tide

I also have a somewhat amusing tide story.  A few years ago I went to visit a colleague in Georgia, near Savannah (where they have 9-10 ft tides), to write a joint proposal.  We took a day off to do some sightseeing, and rented a small skiff to do some exploring on one of the outer islands.  As we picked the boat up, his wife said "High Tide is about 11:00 right?

"Uh, I think so."  That should have been a clue...

Anyway, we took the boat out around 9:00, got to the island around 10:00, anchored the boat in a tidal creek that was brimming with water, and proceeded to take a 3 hour walk.  We came back to the boat a little after noon to find:

That little bit of water in back was all that was left.  We had to wait until nearly dark for the water to get back into the creek to get the boat out.  However, all was not lost.  We brought ample food and drink, and one of the pools left in the bottom of the tidal creek had these...

So I do have a deeper appreciation of the phrase "Time and tide wait for no man."

Too Soon? I Don't Care

You've Got A Subprime Mortgage

A New Web Guide to Native Plants of Chespeake Bay Area

Native Plant Center

As I have said previously, I think gardening with native plants makes sense; they're pre-adapted to the conditions in your region.  We use native plants in our gardens, not exclusively, but a fair amount.  This site has a nice guide to a wide variety of native plants, organized by geographic regions, plant type, soil texture, soil moisture and sun light requirement.  Also pictures...

Some People More Than Others

The end of evolution? Scientists say human brain may have reached full capacity

We've invented penicillin, space shuttles, computers and even artificial hearts, among many other wonders. So where will human intelligence go from here? The answer, if certain scientists are correct, is nowhere.

Mankind’s brain power has reached its peak and it is physically impossible for us to become any smarter, they say.They claim that in order to become any more intelligent the human brain would need vast amounts of extra energy and oxygen – and we simply cannot provide it.

Sounds like crap to me.  The brain consumes a significant fraction of our daily energy, but I can't see why there would be any physical limit to evolution evolving more efficient means to feed it.  Certainly obtaining sufficient calories and proteins is not a barrier.  Lots of people manage to eat way more calories than they require.  It's possible that through biomedical intervention in the future we could even produce such changes.

On the other hand, I don't see humans evolving toward greater intelligence in the immediate future.  At least in our culture, high intelligence appears to be associated with a lower than average reproduction rate, so we might, in fact, expect humans to evolve towards less intelligence.

Shannon Tweed - Sealed with a KISS

KISS Frontman Gene Simmons Pops the Question to Shannon Tweed

KISS frontman Gene Simmons sealed his longtime love for Shannon Tweed with a kiss...and proposal.

The rock legend who once vowed he wasn't the marrying kind has—after more than 25 years of living together and raising two kids—finally asked the ex-Playboy Playmate for her hand in marriage.

And wouldn't you know…the touching moment just happened to be caught on camera for their A&E reality series, Gene Simmons' Family Jewels!

While I was away in Halifax, the most important thing in the world happened (at least according to my daily hit statistics); Gene Simmons proposed to Shannon Tweed!  Amazingly, hits on my previous post on Shannon and her pseudo-marital woes with Gene spiked from a dozen or so a day to over a thousand, by far my highest day yet. Thanks ya'll!

When last we checked, Shannon had stormed off the set of Joy Behar's show (good choice, Shannon) because Gene, her long time companion, and father of her two kids, didn't show proper contrition for his reputed numerous pseudo-infidelities.

The fact that this proposal came on camera, and just in time for the season finale of their sitcom, no doubt just a coincidence...

Virginia to Reconsider Crab Dredge Ban

Public hearing set on whether to continue ban on winter blue crab harvest

Virginia regulators will hold a public hearing next month on whether to continue a ban on the winter harvest of blue crabs. The Virginia Marine Resources Commission must enact the ban on a year-to-year basis. The commission has done so for the past three years.

The Daily Press reports that the commission scheduled an August public hearing at its meeting Tuesday. Commission members say the ban on the winter crab dredge in the Chesapeake Bay is needed to rebuild the crab population.

Commission member Steven Bowman says the fishery hasn’t fully recovered from years of overfishing and pollution. Last year, 89 million pounds of crab were harvested in Virginia and Maryland, the largest amount since 1993.

Crab dredging is the most destructive form of fishing imaginable.  The crab caught are virtually all females carrying a full load of eggs to be released in spring, not to mention the crabs not caught but chewed up by the dredges digging them out of the sediment.  But there will be a lot of pressure from watermen to resume the dredge fishery this year as a result of improved numbers.  All for She-crab soup...

Judge Orders EPA to Set Higher Anacostia Standards

Existing standards may not be strict enough to clean up the river

A federal judge has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency to adopt or approve new pollution standards for the Anacostia River.

The Washington Post reports that Monday’s ruling from Chief U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth orders regulators to change current pollution caps because they may not be strict enough to clean up the river. The ruling gives the EPA a year to adopt or approve new standards.

The suit was brought by two nonprofit environmental groups who argued that pollution caps adopted in 2007 would not meet the requirement that the river be clean enough for swimming, boating and other recreational uses.

The EPA was joined in defending the suit by the D.C. Water and Sewer Authority and other associations. They argued that the pollution standards met legal requirements.

Anacostia River at Anacostia Park ramp

It's kind of funny that the EPA is in the role of resisting the imposition of higher pollution standards.  Almost anywhere else in the country they'd be the ones attempting to force a municipality, company or private person to adopt higher standards.  Why the difference?  Of course, it's because the governmental involvement in DC is so omnipresent, and any additional costs to be born will likely fall on the federal government in any case.

I worked in the Anacostia a few years ago.  It was strongly recommended that we get Hepatitis A immunizations if we were to be exposed to the water and sediment.

Budget Deal

The Budget Deal of the Century (well, it's a short century so far) seems to be done.  As I said once before, the Debt Ceiling would have to be raise, but we needed to make good progress towards solving the problem of large and continuous deficits.  Does this deal do it?  I'm not sure.  I'm worried about back loaded spending cuts. A Congress cannot bind a future Congress.  But the whining of the liberals suggests to me that we got about as much as we could.

US Patent Office Requires Race Based Testing of Medicine

Race reemerges in debate over ‘personalized medicine’

... Jonathan Kahn, a law professor at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., discovered the patent rejections when he began sifting through applications, prompted by a 2008 patent office presentation that raised the race issue.

“Constructions of race as genetic are not only scientifically flawed, they are socially dangerous, opening the door to new forms of discrimination or the misallocation of scarce resources needed to address real health disparities,” Kahn wrote in a report in the journal Nature Biotechnology in May.

One patent examiner, for example, rejected an application for a colorectal cancer risk test because it had been studied only among Hispanic men.

“The idea that Hispanic is a coherent genetic category is just silly,” Kahn said in a telephone interview. “It’s one of the most diverse — genetically and culturally and historically — populations you can find. The idea that it is genetically definable and distinct is just irresponsible.”

Similarly, in 2009, an examiner rejected a patent for a test for a propensity for prostate cancer because it did not specify the risk the variation posed among different races, Kahn found.

And in 2010, an examiner denied a patent for a test for a genetic marker for asthma and eczema because it was vetted only in whites and Asians.

The prostate cancer and asthma rulings were reversed on appeal. But the colorectal cancer applicant narrowed the application to win approval.

“There’s no telling how many people will just give in and use race in a way that the scientists clearly do not think is an appropriate way to use race,” Kahn said.

The entire US governments use of race is bizarre.  You must ignore until you must take it into account.  Either way, someone is out there getting ready to ding you for your actions.  Of course, race is a fuzzy object, and of course, it has genetic and therefore medical consequences.   Deal with it.
 

Californication

Ted sent me a link with a few of his songs. Pretty good.

Talking May Not Make You Feel Better

Therapy can make it worse, finds study on counselling given to 9/11 survivors

Therapy can exacerbate trauma and make things worse according to a study looking at the counselling given to New Yorkers in the aftermath of 9/11.

The report, to be published in the journal American Psychologist next month to coincide with the 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks, found that reliving the events was harmful for many survivors.

Mental health professionals flooded the city in a wave of 'trauma tourism' after two planes struck the World Trade Center in 2001 according to the report.

The 9/11 attacks are not the only example of 'trauma tourism'.  IIRC, after the Columbine massacre, and the Virginia Tech massacre, attempts were made to  push the idea of therapy on the survivors.  Little did we know, they were probably making it worse.  But it's OK, it was making somebody feel better...

But the main psychological benefits were felt by the psychologists rather than the patients, said the study, which said experts greatly over-estimated the number of people who wanted treatment.

'We did a case study in New York and couldn't really tell if people had been helped by the providers – but the providers felt great about it,' Patricia Watson, a co-author of the report who works at the National Centre for Child Traumatic Stress told The New York Times.