Rule 5 Saturday - Chicks Who Dig Star Wars

Once again, toiling in the Rule 5 salt mines, trying to think of something interesting and amusing to post.  I look around in the old junk picture directory, and what do I see, but a few girls dressed up as Star Wars characters.  It seems like some girls like to get dressed up in skimpy costumes and pretend to be important universal villains or heroines and post their pictures on the internet.  Perfect!

Imperial Storm Troopers appear to be a popular and available model, and range from the Fantasy Armor type on the one below, who clearly rely on the the speed they gain from having almost nothing on to enable them to elude laser beams and exploding space ships, to the much more heavily armored, but curvaceous one above.  But how much of that is paint?

They can probably play head games with you at a convention; they all look alike with their helmets on.

Darth Vaderettes are also popular, with varying amounts of skin showing.  It would have been an interesting twist of the Star Wars mythos if Darth Vader had been Luke's mother.  It would have require all kinds of plot rewriting, not that there's anything wrong with that.

Hmmm, I'm not sure this one's really a chick, but.... Hello Kitty?  If it isn't female it should be.

Luke, you've been a bad boy, come here and get your spanking!

And then go report to the Admiral for some special punishment!

Not content to be a mere one person villain, this girl wanted to be whole planetoid of the them.

Look at that the wear on Roberta Fett's breast plate.  She must be a tough one!

 
Another one that must rely on speed instead of her armor.

Oola  la!  You can't tell me Lucas didn't have that pun written down somewhere.

And blue Oolas, doubled up!

And of course, the no Star Wars would be complete without Laea in her slave outfit!

That's a serious chain!  She could use that to beat the boys off with!

A modern version.

Who is that strange protocol droid?

A few special mentions.  The costumes aren't so good but they do get your attention. For example, this one is particularly inviting.  Good thing I'm not 18...

 A souless one...

 It could be a girl...

Russia Claims Yeti Finds

Is this finally proof the Yeti exists? Abominable Snowman 'close to being caught' after coarse hair is found in remote Russian cave

Russian officials say they have found ‘indisputable evidence’ that yetis exist – and are living in Siberia. The bold claim follows an international conference and expedition to track down the Abominable Snowman in the Mount Shoria area.

However, doubt has already been cast on the ‘find’ – as the team has no convincing photographic or DNA evidence. Their claim appears to be based on bent branches, a single unclear footprint and a small sample of grey ‘hair’, found in a cave.

The administration of the Kemerovo region, where the cave is situated, yesterday announced that ‘indisputable evidence’ had been found.

 A fairly typical "Yeti" encounter, bent branches, footprint in melting snow.  I'll bet the DNA on the hair doesn't come back for a long time, and then it will be "equivocal". 

Dr Igor Burtsev, leader of the international event - the first of its kind for half a century, claimed it would not be long before people everywhere would appreciate the Yeti's existence.

'We are close to finally finding the Abominable Snowman,' he said.

He claims around 30 Yetis live in the Kemerovo region, adding that they are Neandethal men who have survived to this day.

It is clear that since the fall of the Soviet Union two decades ago there have been increased 'sightings' of Yeti, and it is claimed more than a dozen villagers and hunters in this vast mountainous region close to the town of Tashtagol have given written accounts of either seeing the beasts themselves or finding their tracks

Hmm, Neanderthal men?  That's a new wrinkle.  My favorite theory is that Yeti/Sasquatch are Gigantopithecus, a huge ape from the Pleistocene that likely stood as tall as 9 feet.  Not much is known about it, since the remains are very fragmentary.  But it had a huge jaw and large teeth suitable for grinding coarse vegetation.  It existed at the same time, and occupied some of the same areas as a putative human ancestor, Homo erectus.  Given the propensity of early humans to interbreed, perhaps there was some swapping of genes between them...

Anyway, there seem to be plenty of reasons to doubt the sincerity of the expedition:

One cynical Russian media report summed up the mission as 'we haven't actually found anything, but we very, very much wanted to have found something'.

Shortly before the 'experts' arrived, another hunt to the same cave to find the Yeti was led by the 'Beast of the East' - former Russian heavyweight boxing champion Nikolai Valuyev. It ended in failure, though locals saw it as a key plank in the region's bid to boost tourism.

'Valuyev did not manage to meet the Yeti itself but on the way he discovered 'traces' such as broken tree branches,' said a spokesman.

'I saw lots of journalists but no Yetis,' admitted the boxer.

Dmitry Islamov, Vice Governor of Kemerovo Region on Economics and Regional Development said: 'It doesn't matter that the Kuzbass might not have Yetis. The main thing is that when people come to the Shoria Mountains, they truly enjoy its unique nature.'

 Ooooh, ecotourism to Siberia, to hunt for Yetis!  Sounds like fun.

O'Malley to Fund Chicken $#!* Powerplants

State wants to buy energy from animal waste

Maryland wants to buy electricity generated from animal waste, the governor's office announced Thursday.

As part of the Clean Bay Power project, the state is requesting proposals from potential energy suppliers who have the ability to generate up to 10 megawatts of electricity from poultry litter or livestock droppings – or any other kind of animal waste, according to a statement from Gov. Martin O'Malley's office. Providers must also be directly connected to the regional grid.

O'Malley hopes that generating power from manure will increase the state's use of alternative energy sources, reduce agricultural runoff into the Chesapeake Bay and encourage job creation.

Overall, I think this is a worthwhile venture, but it's been amusing to watch the libero-environmental community switch sides on this issue.

Previous article on chicken $#!* burning power here.

No CLASS

 Obama pulls plug on part of health overhaul law

Known as CLASS, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program was a longstanding priority of the late Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Although sponsored by the government, it was supposed to function as a self-sustaining voluntary insurance plan, open to working adults regardless of age or health. Workers would pay an affordable monthly premium during their careers, and could collect a modest daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled later in life. The money could go for services at home, or to help with nursing home bills.

But a central design flaw dogged CLASS. Unless large numbers of healthy people willingly sign up during their working years, soaring premiums driven by the needs of disabled beneficiaries would destabilize it, eventually requiring a taxpayer bailout.

After months insisting that could be fixed, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, finally admitted Friday she doesn't see how.

This was the law we had to pass to find out what was in it.  Well, we're early in the process of finding out, and already a major chunk of it has been declared unworkable by the very people responsible for writing it.

And is that the strangest mechanism for repealing a law?  Enabling a cabinet secretary to declare it null and void if she deems it unworkable?  It's as if the President and the democratic congress fought over who would take responsibility for the thing, and they both lost.



Too much of that could destroy your credibility: Pelosi Left Out of Leaders Meeting on Super Committee

Now This Is Surfing!

Man surfs on Great White Shark

A surfer claims he was knocked off his board by a great white shark and ended up standing on the predator for several seconds.

Doug Niblack was trying to catch another wave before going to work, when his longboard hit something hard as rock off the Oregon Coast and he suddenly found himself standing on the back of a thrashing great white shark.

Looking down, he could see a dorsal fin in front of his feet as he stood on what he described as 10 feet of back as wide as his surfboard and as black as his own Neoprene wetsuit. A tail thrashed back and forth and the water churned around him like a depth charge went off.

"It was pretty terrifying just seeing the shape emerge out of nothing and just being under me," he said. "And the fin coming out of the water. It was just like the movies."

I could imagine a whole new form of surfing based on this; lure the shark up to the surface by pretending to be a seal, then ride it.

I'll leave that for someone else, though.

Getting it Up by Going Up

FAA Investigates Skydiving Sex Stunt 

The Federal Aviation Administration says it will look into a videotaped skydiving sex stunt to determine if the pilot might have been distracted during the incident over Kern County. FAA spokesman Ian Gregor says any activity that could distract the pilot while he's flying could be a violation of federal regulations.

Skydive Taft owner David Chrouch says he fired part-time skydiving instructor and porn star Alex Torres and hasn't decided whether to fire the company's receptionist, Torres' partner in the video.

The video shows the two having sex in a plane before jumping out in tandem and continuing the act midair.

 Now that would require a lot of concentration - or a lot of practice.

Your Friday Monkey Midget Dacker

So, remember, boys and girls, never invite your monkey and midget, er, little people friends to the same party.

In additional Monkey Dacker news, Iran failed to put a monkey into space.

"The Kavoshgar-5 rocket carrying a capsule with a live animal (a monkey) was launched during Shahrivar," an Iranian calendar month spanning August 23 to September 22, Deputy Science Minister Mohammad Mehdinejad-Nouri was quoted as saying by the ISNA news agency.

"However, the launch was not publicised as all of its anticipated objectives were not accomplished," Mehdinejad-Nouri told reporters.

 No word on the fate of the monkey, but the news does not bode well.

Are You Resigned to the Mexi Paul?

Gibson Guitar CEO warns that jobs may be sent overseas in aftermath of DOJ raid

In August the Department of Justice raided Gibson Guitar facilities in Memphis and Nashville, alleging a violation of the so-called Lacey Act, a law which bans the importation of certain kinds of wildlife, plants and wood.

And although two months have passed, Gibson Guitars CEO Henry Juszkiewicz has taken an unusually aggressive posture against the DOJ. On Wednesday, he told The Daily Caller there could be casualties from the DOJ’s actions, first of which he said may be higher guitar prices.

“It’s a zero-sum game,” he said. “You don’t create money out of thin air. So a dollar goes to lawyers in Washington, D.C. is a dollar that comes out of our consumers’ pockets, period.”

But he also cautioned that American jobs could be lost and sent overseas.

“You know, there’s a very real possibility we will have to move at least some processing [jobs] overseas,” Juszkiewicz said. “I’m trying to avoid that. But you know, I have to do what the business requires, and that’s a very realistic possibility.”

For non-guitarists the MexiPaul is a play on the term "Mexi Strat" for a Fender Stratocaster guitar made in Mexico as opposed to a Fender Stratocaster made in the USA, using the Gibson Les Paul.  Mexi Strats are widely regarded as inferior to American made Strats, but as the reviews linked above will suggest, they're not really that awful.  Still, it would be a shame to drive the largest and best known makers of guitars in the US to manufacture their guitars abroad because of what seems a distinction without a purpose.

Alex tells  me I should get a Mexi Strat.  

Previous posts on the Gibson guitar  grab:

Feds Raid Gibson Guitars

Update on Gibson Guitar Grab

Feds Promise Not to Persecute Guitar Owners

A View from the Beach: The Rally for Gibson

A Good Year for Ducks

Duck Populations Soar to Record High

Duck populations have soared to “record highs” this year, based on numbers provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to a report by Ducks Unlimited.

Why? Heavy rain across the upper Midwest and Canada this spring produced extensive ponds and wetlands that are necessary for the breeding of ducks that migrate southward toward the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere.

The breeding population of the most common duck species this year is estimated at 45.6 million birds, an 11 percent increase from the previous year's estimate and the largest total estimate since surveys began in 1955, according to Ducks Unlimited.

It's nice to get some good news about Bay critters; there hasn't been enough of that this year.  Maybe I'll get some decent duck pictures this winter.

Our Adventures Continue - Overheating All Day

Yesterday, work for me ended abruptly when the power went out for a large fraction of our facility. Apparently, one of the underground lines bringing in power shorted, and caused a transformer to overheat.

I managed to talk on the phone until the battery back up died, and then had a conference call the in the administrative building, which, unlike the laboratories and most of the scientists offices, has a back up generator.

We were given "administrative leave", and all but told to go home while they fix the power, and, oh, by the way, call in the morning to see if it's fixed yet.  (As of 6:20 AM it's not).

Georgia and I had tickets to see Leo Kottke at the Ramshead in Annapolis 8 PM.  On our way to the concert, our 14 year old Subaru overheated, and we crawled into Edgewater.  Under the engine, there was a mixture of water and oil, which strongly suggests a head gasket.  We made a flurry of phone calls, and arranged to have the car towed to a local dealer.  Meanwhile, we contacted Georgia's boss, who was still at work (in the admin building), and arranged for her to pick us up.

The tow truck came for the car around 8:20 and we decided to see if we could all get in to see the tail end of the show.  It turned out someone had been trying to sell a ticket at the show, so they let Georgia's boss in to buy his "spare ticket".  We got to see maybe the second half or last third of the show.

Kottke, of course, was awesome as always.  He must have invisible fingers, because I can't see where all the notes are coming from.  He great stories while he picks and tunes his two guitars.  I can't really show you what we saw last night, but this is one of the pieces he did.  The video is an older version of Kottke doing "Little Martha" a song that Duane Allman claimed to have written based on a dream.  The version he did last night featured a long passage in a minor key, not original to the Allman brothers version. Turn it up, the sound is rather soft on this video.



So, I guess I'm working from home today. Though the miracle of the internet, I should be able to get to all my work files.  As for the car; I guess we'll fine out later.

Harrisburg PA Goes Bankrupt for Renewable Energy

Lack of revenue from trash burning power plant cited

Pennsylvania's capital city voted to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection on Tuesday as it faced a state takeover, according to media reports.

The City Council voted 4-3 to seek bankruptcy protection for Harrisburg, which has a debt burden five times its general-fund budget "because of an overhaul and expansion of a trash-to-energy incinerator that doesn’t generate enough revenue," Bloomberg Businessweek reported.

The bankruptcy means the city will lose state aid, but that is better than the proposed recovery plans, Councilwoman Susan Brown-Wilson said, according to Bloomberg. But State Sen. Jeffrey Piccola, a Republican from Dauphin County, where Harrisburg is located, said the council's vote is against the law.

Did someone oversell them on the idea of making their money back by burning trash?  Maybe they should #Occupy somebody...

IF You've Seen One Mountain, You've Seen Them All

Professional photographers protest effort to restrict photography at Mt. Denali:

Denali National Park has introduced a new Road plan. This plan regulates access along the road within the park. Historically, professional photographers could apply for a road pass and be put into a lottery for a pass that would give them access to the Park in a private vehicle for a certain period of days. Some of these photographers were part of a Pro Photographers focus group that met on teleconference with park officials to help the park understand the position and needs of professional photographers. It has been reported to me by several photographers on those calls that at least one park official stated that they saw no need for photography within the park as there were enough pictures of the park to be used for any needs. Also the park has denied any business permits for photography workshops within the park for several years.

The new rules are an attempt by the tour operators to maximize their business.  They operate the buses that take tourists around the Park;  no private vehicles are allowed on the park roads.  I'm a bit conflicted here.  The tour operators take the greatest number of people to see a public resource. If letting one professional photographer in means that 10 "regular" citizens (who might be amateur photographers, like me) get to see the park, that seems like a good thing to me.  It's sad that a resource is in such demand that they have to restrict it that much, but I fail to see why professional photographers should count as a protected class.  Now, if they want to pay what the market will bear for such access, well then, maybe...

An old picture I took from a tourist bus at Mt. Denali, many years ago, because I was not an accredited professional photographer.  This was a film camera, and the 3 X 5 print was scanned at home:

Half a Billion Oysters Planted in Chespeake Bay

Numbers remain near record lows...

CAMBRIDGE The Oyster Recovery Partnership announced Tuesday their oyster restoration outcomes in the Chesapeake Bay for the 2011 season in celebration of the "From the Bay, For the Bay" regional sustainability campaign.

In the 2011 season, on more than 315 acres in six tributaries, the partnership will have planted 510 million disease-free, native oyster spat on shell and processed more than 70,000 bushels of shell, according to a press release. The 2011 season is the fourth year more than 500 million oysters have been produced by University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science Horn Point Hatchery.

Which should give you some idea of the magnitude of the problem.

Because Congress Has Already Done Everything Important

Vt. Sen. Leahy to seek maple protection law

U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy says he's planning to introduce legislation to make it a federal crime for people to mislabel products as containing maple syrup.

Leahy said Tuesday the legislation is needed to protect Vermont's maple crop from fraud.

The move came in the aftermath of a recent U.S. Food and Drug Administration investigation that found a man who had been selling fake Vermont "maple" syrup, when the product contained no syrup.

Leahy's proposal would create a new federal felony offense and increase the sentences that prosecutors can seek for people who defraud consumers and farmers by intentionally mislabeling maple products.

A federal felony for counterfeiting Maple Syrup?  Are you kidding?  It's not like we already don't have too many stupid criminal laws.

Did a Giant Intellegent Octupus Rule the Triassic?

Giant kraken lair discovered

In the fossil bed, some of the shonisaur vertebral disks are arranged in curious linear patterns with almost geometric regularity, McMenamin explained.The proposed Triassic kraken, which could have been the most intelligent invertebrate ever, arranged the vertebral discs in double line patterns, with individual pieces nesting in a fitted fashion as if they were part of a puzzle.

Even more creepy: The arranged vertebrae resemble the pattern of sucker discs on a cephalopod tentacle, with each vertebra strongly resembling a coleoid sucker. In other words, the vertebral disc "pavement" seen at the state park may represent the earliest known self portrait.

But could an octopus really have taken out such huge swimming predatory reptiles? No one would have believed such a tale until the staff of the Seattle Aquarium set up a video camera at night a few years ago to find out what was killing the sharks in one of their large tanks. What they were shocked to discover was that a large octopus they had in the same tank was the culprit. The video of one of these attacks is available on the web to anyone who uses the search terms "shark vs octopus."

"We think that this cephalopod in the Triassic was doing the same thing," said McMenamin. Among the evidences of the kraken attacks are many more ribs broken in the shonisaur fossils than would seem accidental and the twisted necks of the ichthyosaurs. "It was either drowning them or breaking their necks."

Of course, it's the perfect Triassic crime because octopuses are mostly soft-bodied and don't fossilize well. Only their beaks, or mouth parts, are hard and the chances of those being preserved nearby are very low. That means the evidence for the murderous Kraken is circumstantial, which may leave some scientists rather skeptical. But McMenamin is not worried.

This reminds me of Mark Twain's story about the length of the Mississippi River :

"One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."

Outrage Du Jour

EPA Agent Persecutes Innocent Businessman to Boink Coworker:

First, the background. Hubert Vidrine had been charged with knowingly storing hazardous waste materials without a permit for storing used oil at a refinery site. But there were two big problems with the case: It turned out that there was little evidence that the oil counted as hazardous waste, and no evidence that Vidrine had knowledge of what was happening. The government ended up moving to dismiss its own case, and later Vidrine filed an action under the Federal Tort Claims Act alleging that he was the victim of malicious prosecution. The case of malicious prosecution focused on misconduct by EPA Technical and Regulatory Expert Keith Phillips, who was one of the agents on the case and was responsible for developing the case against Vidrine. In her decision, Judge Doherty found that Agent Phillips intentionally misled the prosecutor, his bosses, and the court as to the evidence against Vidrine, all to enable a prosecution against Vidrine even though there was no real evidence against him.

 OK, that's pretty bad, focusing on a business to prosecute, even when there's no evidence of a violation?  But what's even worse is the why...

One of the more distressing allegations made at trial, involved allegations of Agent Phillips’ sexual, extra-marital affair (and its subsequent “cover up”) with Agent Barnhill. The evidence strongly indicated Agent Phillips deliberately used his investigation and prosecution of Hubert Vidrine to foster, further, facilitate and cloak his extra-marital affair with Agent Barnhill, and perhaps, to exert improper influence over the manner in which she investigated and reported upon this case. Agent Barnhill candidly testified that she and Agent Phillips began a physical, sexual relationship while assigned to this matter, which lasted from approximately 1996 until January or February 2001. Agent Barnhill testified she and Agent Phillips were only physically intimate when working together on the Vidrine case — in other words, they did not meet to pursue their sexual relations on occasions when they were not working the case together. Thus, the case granted the opportunity for those rendez-vous, as well as providing justification for Agent Phillips wife.

Wow, just wow.  All's well that ends well, I suppose:

Keith Phillips, 61, of Kent, Texas, pleaded guilty yesterday before U.S. District Judge Richard T. Haik Sr. in the Western District of Louisiana to a two-count indictment charging him with obstruction of justice and perjury. The charges stemmed from his sworn testimony in relation to a case that was pending in the Western District of Louisiana.

. . . Phillips faces a maximum of 10 years in prison and a fine of $250,000 on the obstruction of justice count, and five years in prison and a fine of $250,000 on the perjury count. A sentencing date has not yet been scheduled by the court.

Is $1.7 million enough to cover the metal anguish, damage to the business and general aggravation?

Thanks Meade!

I got my seeds in the mail today.  For background go here and look down in the comments. I especially appreciated the stamp!

Science: Asking the Big Questions

The mystery: Why do women have prominent breasts, even when not lactating? 

It isn’t simply because we are mammals, all of which, as the word implies, sport mammary glands that produce milk. There are, after all, about 4,000 species of mammals, and we are the only ones to do so prior to lactation—as a predictable component of sexual maturation—as well as after.

Even our closest living relative, the chimpanzee, does not exhibit swollen breasts except when lactating, and even then, nothing on the human scale. You would probably have to look the crotch of a chimpanzee to tell it's sex (and even then, male chimpanzees don't begin to compare to male humans, but that's a story for another day).

So why do human females have such prominent features on their chest?  A couple theories:

Dedalus Devices?  In James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Stephen Dedalus was musing with a friend on the nature of female beauty, whereupon he concluded that “you admired the great flanks of Venus because you felt that she would bear you burly offspring and admired her great breasts because you felt that she would give good milk to her children and yours.” Plausible enough, but there’s a problem: Breasts (except when lactating) are composed almost entirely of fat, not glandular tissue. If anything, in fact, there is a negative correlation between prelactating breast size and capacity to make milk! This leads to the intriguing (may I call it “titillating”?) prospect that those Dedalus Devices can be downright deceptive, promising more than they can provide, but successful as a mate-attraction strategy nonetheless because men have noticed that breasts swell so dramatically during nursing, thereby making them—blockheaded men, that is, who are already prisoners of their rampaging hormones—easy to swindle.

It has a bit of ring of truth to it, but as the author points out, it's not a perfect explanation.  But compared to the next one, it seems pretty solid.

Buttocks Substitutes? Some downright silly ideas have been advanced, one of the most notorious by British ethologist Desmond Morris, in his best-selling book, The Naked Ape. According to Morris, conspicuous breasts evolved in part because natural selection favors emotional intimacy between men and women as a result of the need for devoted biparental care of offspring. Most mammals mate dorso-ventrally (“doggy style”), which—although feasible for human beings, too—is less personal and thus, less likely to generate emotional bonding than is face-to-face intercourse. To induce ventral-ventral, face-to-face love-making, then, evolution supposedly favored conspicuous bilaterally paired breasts, which essentially mimic the buttocks of “normal” quadrupeds, and assist in the transition from dorso-ventral to frontal copulation.

I don't see it, honestly.  I can tell the difference.

Really, there's nothing wrong with having multiple reasons for a feature to evolve.  The author promises even more hypotheses soon.  I look forward to posting on his next effort...

I myself prefer a simpler explanation:

EPA Targets Amish for Bay Clean Pollution Diet

Amish Farmers in Chesapeake Bay Watershed Find Themselves in EPA's Sights

"I knew my cows were in the creek, and I knew that there would be some problems if [U.S. EPA] would show up," the farmer said.

The farmer is among a handful of Amish farmers here who have accepted federal cash for taking steps to protect the Chesapeake Bay. The payments are controversial here. The farmer asked that he be identified in print only by his first name, Daniel, because he was afraid his neighbors might see the story and criticize him for taking federal money.

Well Daniel, your father probably taught you that if you sup with the Devil, you should use a long spoon.  If you take the governments gold, you should probably do as they ask.

Lancaster Plain Sect farmers have historically spurned government help. But their desire to keep to themselves is being challenged as the Obama administration targets Chesapeake Bay pollution.

Some, like Daniel, are getting help from federal programs and nonprofits. But there are still holdouts, even as EPA plans new inspections in the area.

So why target the Amish?

"The concern with many of the smaller farms, whether English or Plain Sect, is with a traditional barn that's been built close to the stream," said Don McNutt, administrator of the Lancaster County Conservation District. "When they built the barn 200 years ago, the farm had two cows. Today there are 55 head of cows. The stream is still the same distance from the barn."

The problem is compounded by the concentration of farms in Lancaster County, one of the country's most densely packed and fertile agricultural regions. There are more than 5,000, about half operated by Plain Sect and half by "English," or non-Amish, farmers.

Under Pennsylvania regulations, every farmer must have a manure-management plan, along with a conservation plan or an erosion and sediment control plan.

 The majestic equality of the law is that it prohibits both rich and poor from sleeping under bridges...

Kevin Sunday, a spokesperson for the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, acknowledged that the agency has historically ignored smaller farms in enforcing those requirements.

"It was a matter of making decisions of how to best apply resources, so we took a look at the biggest contributors first and worked our way down," Sunday said, adding that inspectors would scrutinize a small farm only if they received a complaint.

But seriously, the issue of equality under the law is at stake.  If we let the Amish get away with letting their cows stomp through the streams, we'd have to let all the farmers let their cows stomp through the streams.  It's like whaling; if we let Eskimos or some other ethnic minority kill whales, we'd have to let everybody kill whales, right?

Preshistoric Dog Buried with a Mammoth Bone in Its Mouth

Does it prove they were man's best friend even then?

The remains of three prehistoric dogs have been unearthed by paleontologists, including one with the bone from a mammoth in its mouth.

Researchers believe the bone may have been inserted in the animal's mouth by a human after it died, signifying a ritual burial.

Knick Knack Paddy Wack, give the the dog a bone?  I can imagine a "cave man" being so attached to his dog that he would bury the dog with a bone in hopes that it would do the dog some good in the afterlife. Kind of touching actually.

What were the dogs like?

The dogs were described as large, with an estimated body weight of just over five stone and shoulder height at least 24 inches, resembling a larger and heavier Siberian husky.

The researchers believe the animals were used for hauling meat, bones and tusks from mammoths and firewood.

The dogs are thought to have lived on a diet of mammoth tusks and meat, died when they were between four and eight years old, and suffered from numerous broken teeth during their lifetimes.

It was a tough life for those dogs, even with humans.  For reference, 5 stone is about 70 lbs.  Skye is about 60 lbs (large for a Siberian female), so she might have been regarded as a bit on the scrawny side for a good "cave dog".  You might want to be be a big to take on the Cave Bears.

Cavekids Fingerpainted on Cave Walls

Prehistoric kids left marks in caves

Archaeologists say the shapes of finger marks suggest that children as young as 2 years old made drawings on the walls of a Paleolithic cave dwelling, with an occasional boost from the grown-ups.

The tale of the "prehistoric preschool" was laid out by Cambridge University archaeologist Jessica Cooney last weekend at a conference on the archaeology of childhood. Cooney has been studying hundreds of markings made on the walls of France's Rouffignac cave complex. Many of the markings are thought to date back 13,000 years, to a hunter-gatherer culture known as the Magdalenian. The same culture is thought to have created the better-known cave drawings at Lascaux...

... By measuring the flutings at Rouffignac with callipers and matching them up against the modern data set, we can tell the age of the child who made them to up to 7 years old — and that is being conservative. Similarly, if we have a clear finger profile, the shape of the top edges of the fingers, we can tell to 80 percent accuracy whether the individual was female or male. This works with both children and adults. Using methodology we can also identify marks made by the same child."

Cooney and Van Gelder spent a week making detailed measurements in the Rouffignac caves.

The researchers suspect that eight to 10 people, including four kids aged 7 or younger, were behind the ancient finger flutings. Children left marks in every chamber. One of them was apparently just 2 or 3 years old and may have been helped by a grown-up. "The most prolific of the children who made flutings was aged around 5 — and we are almost certain the child in question was a girl," Cooney said.

..."We don’t know why people made them," Cooney said in the news release. "We can make guesses, like they were for initiation rituals, for training of some kind, or simply something to do on a rainy day. In addition to the simple meandering lines, there are flutings of animals and shapes that appear to be very crude outlines of faces, almost cartoonlike in appearance. There are also hutlike shapes called tectiforms, markings thought to have a symbolic meaning which are only found in a very specific area of France. When in 2006 Sharpe and Van Gelder showed that that some of the tectiforms were the work of children, it was the first known instance of prehistoric children engaging in symbolic figure-making."

I wonder about scientists sometimes; the answer to why kid do things are universal and two fold:

1. They can.
2. It will piss off the adults.

US Government Rediscovers Archimedes Principle

NSF just now figures out Archimedes’ buoyancy principle

Before

Just like Archimedes discovered millennia ago, it is well known today that the Arctic ice cap displaces it’s own weight in the water so that when it melts it will not cause a rise in global sea level.

Surprisingly, the National Science Foundation has just figured this out (thanks to someone complaining about it) and has issued a correction to their sea ice page.

The error was first pointed out by commenter Steven Skinner on WUWT on March 25th 2010, who wrote:

The NSF, the U.S. Office of Naval Research, and the Japanese government cooperated in funding a research project called SHEBA (Surface Heat Budget of the Arctic) back in 1997. Considering the big names in funding I was surprised they allowed the conclusion in the last sentence past scientific proof reading before publication. The bit from ‘melting sea ice…’

It’s fixed now, see the BEFORE and AFTER.

AFTER:

It's not that the scientists at NSF (and yes, Virginia, there are real scientists at NSF) don't understand Archimedes Principle, it's just that they "knew" that global warming had to to cause rising sea levels.

Brief Beach Post

A fairly brief beach report.  We came, we walked, we went home. I didn't take many pictures.  Here you see Joel and Red out on a sand flat exposed by a low tide.  The third day of the three day weekend (for us; thanks Columbus!) was as nice as the last two.  T-shirt weather at 9:00 AM

Just a view looking south into the sun.  We're way up the beach here, and there's still some plastic trash.  It was a good low tide, and we found a fair number of shark's teeth, but nothing astonishing.

 A big Sycamore on the top of  cliff, which has either shed it's leaves already, or was stripped by Irene; I'm really not sure which.

We stopped on Solomons Island for some errands and lunch.  We had lunch outside with a view of the Patuxent River.

John Yoo on the Al-Awlaki Killing

The Administration’s Strange Reasoning on al-Awlaki

We should be thankful that Obama officials have quietly put aside the arguments they made during the Bush years that any terrorist outside the Afghani battlefield was a criminal suspect who deserved his day in federal court. By my lights, I would rather the Obama folks be hypocrites in favor of protecting the national security than principled fools (which they are free to be in the faculty lounges both before and after their time in government).

 But at that point he's doing be charitable:

But the administration’s former worldview of terrorism still infects their decisions, to the country’s detriment. According to the reports, the Obama administration believes that force could only be used against al-Awlaki because arrest was impractical and al-Awlaki posed an imminent threat of harm to the United States. This is plainly wrong. It may make for good policy, especially toward American citizens who make the mistake of joining the enemy, but there is no legal reason why a nation at war must try to apprehend an enemy instead of shooting at him first. Every member of the enemy armed forces and leadership is a legitimate target in wartime, regardless of whether they can be caught or whether they pose an imminent threat. In fact, the Obama administration continues to confuse war with crime — the idea that you must try to arrest first and can only use force against an imminent attack is the standard that applies to the police, not the military.

To me, it would have beem sufficient to ask him to surrender, just once, in a small voice, somewhere in a dark closet in Washington DC, before sending the drone.

Now They Tell Us

After marriage, a man's testosterone level will drop significantly

In humans, researchers have found that testosterone levels drop significantly after marriage, long before many men become fathers.

A single throw away line in a long article on parenting, nurturing and such. I found this passage much more amusing.

James Swain, a Canadian researcher at Yale University, used functional magnetic-resonance imaging to look at the brain activity of 25 couples after they had a baby. He and his colleagues took brain images of the new moms and dads when they heard the sound of their infant crying, or looked at a picture of their newborn.

They found that the brain activity of new parents is strikingly similar to what is seen in patients with obsessive-compulsive disorder when their symptoms have been triggered.

The article seems to spend a lot of time dwelling on a tribe of hunter-gatherers in African, called the Aka (also known as??), where the fathers do all kinds of things the author clearly thinks fathers should do, like drag the kids around and let them suckle when cranky.  Call it the science of wish fulfillment.

What a Relief!

NASA Sees Fewer Big Asteroids Endangering Earth

A NASA orbiter has observed that there are only about 20,500 near-Earth asteroids larger than 100 meters, according data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft, which surveyed the skies with an infrared camera. WISE only spotted a few hundred nearby asteroids, but that was enough to project how many are out there. However, astronomers estimate that they have identified only a quarter of near-Earth asteroids 100 meters and up.

Once upon a time I read where scientists has estimated that a humans chance of being killed by an asteroid strike was approximately 1 in 30,000, greater than relatively common place tragedies such as airline accidents.  It's not that the strikes are so frequent, it's that the damage is so great.  Maybe this discovery will reduce that to 1 in 60,000.  I know I'll sleep better tonight.

 

Yet Another Gorgeous Day at the Beach

Another fine fall day at the beach.  Temperatures were perfect, whatever they were, and with just enough breeze to move the air.  The sky was blue, and Skye was happy to be out in it.

We were out at 9:30, and shadows were still pretty tall, one of the signs of fall.

Skye prowling for, well, who knows what?

Neighbors going crabbing.

Georgia and Skye catching up.

Red demands equal time (and a treat).

Fossil hunting was slow, but I did manage to see this tiny one.












The Ospreys are still here.  The Bald Eagle were out and about, too, but didn't pose for the camera.

PSA: Sexual Harassment Training from Finland

The Association of Finnish Lawyers, recognizing the value of Rule 5, have released this video, training women on how to commit sexual harassment while eating a Popsicle at work:



Honestly, if one of the women at work did that, I'd probably bust a gut laughing and have to go on disability. However, according to our sexual harassment policy, if I thought they were trying to sexually harass me, I would be obligated to report it.

More Popsicle based sexual harassment below the jump.

EPA Regs May Shut Down Twice As Much Power as Predicted

IER Identifies Coal Fired Power Plants Likely to Close as Result of EPA Regulations

Currently, EPA is leading the Obama administration’s assault on coal with a number of new regulations. Two of the most important are the “transport rule” and the “toxics rule” (Utility MACT). Combined, these regulations will systematically reduce access to affordable and reliable energy. According to our report:

EPA Regulations Will Close At Least 28 GW of Generating Capacity

EPA modeling and power-plant operator announcements show that EPA regulations will close at least 28 gigawatts (GW) of American generating capacity, the equivalent of closing every power plant in the state of North Carolina or Indiana. Also, 28 GW is 8.9 percent of our total coal generating capacity.
Current Retirements Almost Twice As High As EPA Predicted

EPA’s power plant-level modeling projected that Agency regulations would close 14.5 GW of generating capacity. That number rises to 28 GW when including additional announced retirements related to EPA rules, almost twice the amount EPA projected. Moreover, this number will grow as plant operators continue to release their EPA compliance plans.

So EPA predicts that their new regulations will only prematurely shut down 14.5 billion (with a b) watts of power production, while industry predicts almost twice as much.  Who's right?  Who knows, but my best guess is somewhere in between.  Call it Fritz's Third Law:  If two ideologically opposed organizations estimate the impact of a regulation or policy, neither will be accurate, and the outcome will be somewhere between the two extremes.

The Rally for Gibson

‘We Stand With Gibson’ Rally

The Problem with California

Congressman Tom McClintock delivered the following speech to the Council for National Policy:

I want to welcome this groundbreaking scientific expedition to the savage lands of the Left Coast. You are here in California to answer an important theoretical question and now you have your answer.

Yes, this is what Barack Obama’s second term would look like.

Study it. Fear it. And then go home and make sure that it never happens to the rest of the country.

Of course, in spite of all of its problems, California is still one of the best places in the country to build a successful small business. All you have to do is start with a successful large business.

Laugh if you will, but as you whistle past this cemetery, do heed the medieval epitaph: “Remember man as you walk by, as you are now so once was I; as I am now so you will be.”

Mark that well, because if we lose this struggle for the future of our country, you too someday will live in a California – only without the nice climate.

Bad policies. Bad process. Bad politics. Those are the three acts in a Greek tragedy that tell the tale of how, in the span of a single generation, the most prosperous and golden state in the nation became an economic basket case.

When my parents came to California in the 1960’s looking for a better future, they found it here. The state government consumed about half of what it does today after adjusting for both inflation and population. HALF. We had the finest highway system in the world and the finest public school system in the country. California offered a FREE university education to every Californian who wanted one. We produced water and electricity so cheaply that some communities didn’t bother to meter the stuff. Our unemployment rate consistently ran well below the national rate and our diversified economy was nearly recession-proof.

One thing – and one thing only – changed in those years: public policy. The political Left gradually gained dominance over California’s government and has imposed a disastrous agenda of radical and retrograde policies that have destroyed the quality of life that Californians once took for granted...

As they say, read the rest.  I was there for most of it, and the rest of my family stayed through the whole ordeal, so I watched from a distance as the process ran its course.

Demonstrators Shut Down Air and Space Museum

Air and Space Museum closed after guards mace anti-war protesters

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington was closed Saturday after anti-war demonstrators tried to enter the building to protest a drone exhibit, and at least one person was pepper-sprayed.

Smithsonian spokesman John Gibbons said a large group of demonstrators, estimated at 100 to 200 people, arrived at about 3 p.m. and tried to enter the National Mall museum.

When a security guard stopped the group from entering, saying they could not bring in signs, he was apparently held by demonstrators, Gibbons said. A second guard who arrived used pepper spray on at least one person and the crowd dispersed.

As Insty  points out, if your issue is drones, the actual people responsible are a short walk up the Mall...

Ginger Fakes Soul Convincingly

.

Although, she may not be an honest ginger, just an impostor. Check this video from 1974...

Gratuitous Sunset Pictures

 I tried to go fishing this evening.  The fish were uncooperative.  I caught one small Striped Bass, and had a few rubber tails chewed off by bluefish, so I had to settle for pictures.

Another Great Day at the Beach

It was only 60 F or so, but the sun was out, and the sky was clear, and the wind was not blowing.

A couple of boats going by.  The close one is a crab boat fishing near the beach.  It's also (barely) visible in the picture above.  As the water cools, the crabs will move deeper, and the crabbers will move their pots farther from the shore.

My usual shot down the beach, again showing nearly perfect walking weather.

 Our region of the bay is experiencing an algae bloom right now, probably caused, or at least assisted by the floods of Irene and Lee, and the nutrients they brought in.  You can see the discoloration of the water; where it's deep it looks brownish red, hence the name "mahogany tide", which is sometimes used, but when it's shallow, you can see the greenish cast from all the chlorophyll.

An unusual perch for what's proabably the same old heron.  They seem to pick a spot of beach and come back week after week.

 The weed de jour, a clump of wild Asters of some sort.  I couldn't really capture the light lavender color I saw today.

Fall is moving along. You can start to see a few trees getting red and golden.

99%ers Trash New York, Wear Out Welcome

The "Occupy Wall Street" Protesters of New York, who claim to represent the 99% of the populace (maybe if you count Norwegian Rats) have begun to make an impact, and it's not favorable.

Michael Bloomberg, liberal Mayor of New York criticized the demonstrators:

What they’re trying to do is to take the jobs away from people working in the city. They’re trying to take away the tax base we have because none of this is good for tourism, There’s no easy solutions here.”

“if the jobs they are trying to get rid of in this city, the people that work in finance — which is a big part of our economy — go away, we’re not going to have any money to pay our municipal employees or clean the parks or anything else.”

So far, the demonstrations have cost the city an additional 2 million dollars in police overtime.

Conditions at Zuccoti Park, where the filthy hippies demonstrators have camped out, planning on an indefinite stay, have steadily deteriorated. According the park owners:

...because the protestors refuse to cooperate…the park has not been cleaned since Friday, September 16th and as a result, sanitary conditions have reached unacceptable levels.”

However, the protesters have received some political support.  SCOMF President Barack Hussein Obama said:

...the American people understand that not everybody’s been following the rules, and that Wall Street is an example of that... and that’s going to express itself politically in 2012 and beyond until people feel like once again we’re getting back to some old-fashioned American values.... banks “can’t be competing on the basis of hidden fees, deceptive practices or derivative cocktails that nobody understands and that expose the entire economy to enormous risks”.

Former Speakeress of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, (D, Fantasy Land) lauded the demonstrators:

"God bless them," Pelosi said, "for their spontaneity. It's independent ... it's young, it's spontaneous, and it's focused. And it's going to be effective."

"The message of the protesters is a message for the establishment everyplace," said the House Democrats' leader. "No longer will the recklessness of some on Wall Street cause massive joblessness on Main Street."

One of the demonstrators showed his independent, spontaneous, focused and effective message against recklessness on Wall Street by taking a crap on a police car.

Mr. Obama and Mrs. Pelosi have apparently not found it advantageous to comment on that.