NOAA Caught Playing 'Hide the Pickle'

NOAA comes under criticism over National Weather Service funding

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and its embattled head Dr. Jane Lubchenco are again the target of criticism after the director of the National Weather Service, Jack Hayes, resigned abruptly on Memorial Day weekend.

An environmental watchdog group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER), informed the Washington Post when it learned that Hayes had been replaced and the story has since been widely reported.

An internal investigation has uncovered ongoing financial irregularities at the weather service, according to a NOAA memo. In fiscal 2012 alone, up to $35 million may have been "reprogrammed," the term employed by NOAA to describe what has taken place, the memo said.

"This is a case of robbing Peter to pay Paul," said Jeff Ruch, executive director of PEER, a national organization of federal, state and local employees who work in the environmental field. Structural deficits were built into the National Weather Service budget according to Ruch. "They were using appropriated funds to backfill general operations in a sort of budgetary Ponzi scheme," he said.

A 60-page report produced by NOAA found that, for at least the past two years, the agency has been shifting appropriated funds from a number of its designated programs and using them to cover other expenses and to help avoid employee furloughs, according to Ruch.

Using appropriated funds for any purpose other than what is intended is a violation of the Anti Deficiency Act and that is a crime, he said.

'Hide the pickle' is a game played among German Americans, where a Christmas ornament in the form of a pickle is hidden on the Tannenbaum Christmas Tree.  What did you think I meant?  Get your mind out of the gutter!

This kind of behavior has long been a criticism of NOAA (2011 budget $5.6 billion).  When times are bad, they find ways to retract their external programs to protect their staff, and when times are good, they expand their staff as much as possible in anticipation of lean times to come.

IMHO, the weather service is one of the more critical branches of NOAA, and I find it hard to fault protecting it.  But the law is the law...

"The investigation found no evidence of corruption or personal financial gain," said Scott Smullen, NOAA's deputy director of communications, in an email. Expenses were transferred improperly, he acknowledged. "But those expenses were used for legitimate NWS services and functions. We do not believe any money was moved out of the National Weather Service."

National Weather Service employees were attempting to protect parts of the budget that, in their mind, were chronically underfunded, he said. NOAA is citing privacy issues for its failure to make the report public. "It is now being redacted and will be released later," Smullen said.

Ruch speculated that NOAA's fiscal woes stem from the cost of operating a new generation of weather satellites. "It sounds like they have a hungry cannibal in their fiscal closet," he said. "NOAA has been having a disastrous budgetary season and with this on top of it, their credibility on the Hill is less than zero."

St. Marys County Doubts 'Bay Diet' Plans

Commissioners reject bay health plan, Paperwork being submitted, but without support

St. Mary’s County government is reluctantly submitting its plan to meet federal goals to reduce the amount of nitrogen and sediment flowing into the Chesapeake Bay watershed.

While local plans are due to the Maryland Department of the Environment by the end of June, the St. Mary’s County commissioners made it clear they don’t have the money to meet intended goals and do not completely believe in the science driving the goals.

“This is not a tenable plan for any of the counties to consider,” said Commission President Jack Russell (D) on Tuesday. “We’re in a no-win situation. We can’t pay for it,” he said.
...
As part of the county’s Watershed Implementation Plan, St. Mary’s County government staff wrote, “The funds necessary to address septic sector loads does not exist.” By 2030, St. Mary’s is expected to reduce its nitrogen load from septic systems by 85,882 pounds a year, either by connecting the systems to sewage treatment plants or by upgrading the septic systems.

“The least expensive combination is well over $176 million,” staff wrote, “and the costs to individual sewer service customers and to individual [septic] owners is unaffordable, will be politically difficult to fund through cost sharing among all [septic] owners and beyond the ability of the county to fund without significant funding assistance from state or federal sources.”

The projected costs of the 'Bay Diet' have come as a shock to local governments all over the Maryland and the whole Bay drainage area.  Most want to help the Bay, but can't imagine being able to raise the kind of funds that are being proposed, and maintain the kind of services their constituents have become accustomed to getting for their tax money.  And that's basically true; tax levels will have to increase to pay for the Bay Diet plan, or services will need to be trimmed, probably both.  And people won't be happy

Judge Goes Off On Colleagues Environmental Decisions

Picked up at Aces, Judge Milan Smith, 9th Circuit, goes after legislation from the bench

By rendering the Forest Service impotent to meaningfully address low impact mining, the majority effectively shuts down the entire suction dredge mining industry in the states within our jurisdiction. . . . As a result, a number of people will lose their jobs and the businesses that have invested in the equipment used in the relevant mining activities will lose much of their value. In 2008, California issued about 3,500 permits for such mining, and 18 percent of those miners received “a significant portion of income” from the dredging. See Justin Scheck, California Sifts Gold Claims, The Wall Street Journal, April 29, 2012. The gold mining operation in this case, the New 49ers, organizes recreational weekend gold-mining excursions. The majority’s opinion effectively forces these people to await the lengthy and costly ESA consultation process if they wish to pursue their mining activities, or simply ignore the process, at their peril.

Unfortunately, this is not the first time our court has broken from decades of precedent and created burdensome, entangling environmental regulations out of the vapors. In one of the most extreme recent examples, our court held that timber companies must obtain Environmental Protection Agency permits for stormwater runoff that flows from primary logging roads into systems of ditches, culverts, and channels. Nw. Envtl. Def. Ctr. v. Brown, 640 F.3d 1063 (9th Cir. 2011). In the nearly four decades since the Clean Water Act was enacted, no court or government agency had ever imposed such a requirement. Indeed, the EPA promulgated regulations that explicitly exempted logging from this arduous permitting requirement. Yet our court decided to disregard the regulation and require the permits.

The result? The imminent decimation of what remains of the Northwest timber industry.

No legislature or regulatory agency would enact sweeping rules that create such economic chaos, shutter entire industries, and cause thousands of people to lose their jobs. That is because the legislative and executive branches are directly accountable to the people through elections, and its members know they would be removed swiftly from office were they to enact such rules. In contrast, in order to preserve the vitally important principle of judicial independence, we are not politically accountable. However, because of our lack of public accountability, our job is constitutionally confined to interpreting laws, not creating them out of whole cloth. Unfortunately, I believe the record is clear that our court has strayed with lamentable frequency from its constitutionally limited role (as illustrated supra) when it comes to construing environmental law. When we do so, I fear that we undermine public support for the independence of the judiciary, and cause many to despair of the promise of the rule of law.

There Is No Constituency For 'Normal'

A pretty good talk on the inflation in the diagnosis of mental illnesses:



Swiped from Maggie's Farm.

Baba Waawaa Regrets Sucking Up to Dictators

After he's become unpopular: Barbara Walters apologises over links to Syrian aide of Bashar al-Assad

Add caption

Emails seen by The Daily Telegraph show that Walters tried to help Sheherazad Jaafari, the daughter of Syria's UN ambassador, secure a place at an Ivy League university and an internship with Piers Morgan's CNN programme.

When confronted with the emails, which were obtained by a Syrian opposition group, the 82-year-old ABC broadcaster admitted a conflict of interest and expressed "regret" for her actions.

Miss Jaafari, 22, was a close adviser to Mr Assad and was at his side as Syrian troops stepped up their campaign of killing and repression. She would speak to him several times a day, sometimes calling him "the Dude" in her adopted American accent, and was sometimes the only official in the room when he did interviews with Western journalists.

Miss Jaafari, whose father Bashar Jaafari has known Walters for around seven years, began dealing with the broadcaster late last year as ABC News lobbied for an interview with Mr Assad.

A 22 year old "close advisor"?  Yeah, I'm guessing she was really close.  Right next to the skin.  After all, what good is being a dictator if you don't get to sample the dictated?  I hope Asma is green with jealousy.

But she's a hot one, and I wouldn't want to to see her killed in the mess that's coming in Syria.  Maybe we can find a place for her in the EPA; she seems to have the stomach for it.  She could pick out the first five guys from the village and crucify them, no problem.

As for Baba Waawaa?  I didn't know she was still around.  How did that happen?

Have You Ever Wondered...

How long it took to go from Rome to London during the Roman Empire, using an ox cart?

You can find out here:

I can see a lot of use for this by authors of historical fiction...

Found at Insty's.

RIP Ray Bradbury

It's all over the news today that Ray Bradbury, one of the early and greatest sci-fi authors died this morning in Los Angeles at age 91.  Writers tend to like Fahrenheit 45, as the possibility of censorship looms huge in their minds, Others are naming their favorite works of his, Insty has picked Dandelion Wine, for example.  I suppose my favorite was Something Wicked This Way Comes, probably because it had young boys about the age I was then as protagonists.  The Martian Chronicles didn't do that much for me, although I still remember many of the vignettes.

I had a brush with Bradbury; he lived in my neighborhood, Rancho Park in Los Angeles while I was in 6th grade (at least), and his daughter, Ramona, was in my class.  If I recall correctly, we even read one of his short stories in class, somewhat to her embarrassment.

At some point a couple of years later, I met him on the street and we traded pleasantries.

Sorry Ramona; if you pick this up; your dad was a great writer, and my sympathies go out to you and the rest of your family.

And now, what you've all been waiting to see, thanks to Ann Althouse (NSFW language):

F*ck Me, Ray Bradbury - watch more funny videos

Farm Bill Endangers Chesapeake Bay Funding

Move to consolidate conservation programs may cut Bay funding:

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland is concerned that the bill could reduce funding for Chesapeake Bay clean up. How would it do that?

"Cardin has voiced his concerns with the bill. He's in negotiations right now to get his concerns addressed. What the bill would do is consolidate conservation programs. Traditionally, funding for the Chesapeake Bay has come from distinct programs and conservation by line items, and there's been a backlash against earmarks in Congress. So the push in this Ag Bill is to consolidate these conservation programs into one pool of money, and Cardin is worried that it's uncertain as to what it means for future funding for the Chesapeake Bay. He notes that restrictions on the Bay are high, and that they will be lowered in the future."

I'm torn here.  In principal, I'm in favor of the Chesapeake Bay cleanup funding, because the Chesapeake Bay, well, needs to be cleaned up.  But in practice, I see little effect of the money being spent, and given a choice between wasting money, and saving money, I'd rather the government save the money.  Is there any way this process can be made to evaluate the results of the various parts of the Bay Funding, and only fund the parts that are producing results?

I Blame Jenny McCarthy

Opting out of vaccinations could get tougher in California

The re-emergence of some vaccine-preventable diseases has prompted the California legislature to consider a bill that would make it more difficult for parents to opt out of vaccinating their kids.

The legislation would require that parents get counseling from a doctor before opting out of immunizations for their children.

The reason I blame Jenny is because she has become an activist against vaccinations.   Her war on vaccinations began when her son Evan was diagnosed (possibly erroneously) with autism in 2005.  She became convinced by now debunked studies that her son's condition was caused by the mercury compound, thimerosal, used to preserve vaccines.  Using her status as a celebrity (Playmate and star of a sitcom) she helped popularize this point of view.


As a result, in 2008, she was awarded the 2008 Pigasus Award for Psuedoscience, by the James Randi educational foundation, for the 'Performer Who Has Fooled The Greatest Number of People with The Least Amount of Effort'.

Last year, the United States saw its highest number of reported measles cases in 15 years, even though the disease was eliminated from the country in 2000, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

One theory behind this rise, according to Dr. Richard Pan, the state assemblyman who introduced the bill, is that the recent trend away from immunizing children. That's why he wants to make it more difficult to bypass vaccine requirements in his state.

 Remember, there are only two or three reasons to pay attention to Jenny McCarthy (NSFW link).

The Jenny McCarthy Death Count:

As always, thanks to Wombat-Socho for including this (and the others) in Rule 5 Sunday "Train in Vain" at The Other McCain.

Short Landing and Takeoff

Looks like Alaska to me.

Midnight Music - All I Wanna Do is Soak Up the Sun

Sheryl Crow Diagnosed With Benign Brain Tumor

Just a month ago at a show in Florida, Sheryl Crow did what every singer hopes never happens: she forgot lyrics to her hit song “Soak Up the Sun” in front of the entire audience. She quickly hid the hiccup by explaining that it was her age that hindered her memory. What Crow didn’t reveal was that just months before she was diagnose with a brain tumor.

In a new interview with the Las Vegas Review-Journal, she opened up about her sudden forgetfulness and memory lapses. “I worried about my memory so much that I went and got an MRI. And I found out I have a brain tumor,” she said candidly.

“I haven’t really talked about it,” she went on to say. “In November, I found out I have a brain tumor.” But she assured fans that it’s nothing to be worried about. “It’s benign, so I don’t have to worry about it. But it gives me a fit.“ She was even in high spirits while opening up about her diagnosis, having laughed with the reporter the entire time.

As always, thanks to Wombat-Socho for including this (and the others) in Rule 5 Sunday "Train in Vain" at The Other McCain.

Father's Day Special Series - Part I

Last year I did a pretty comprehensive post on my own father.  This year, I felt we should do something for the other "Dad" in the family, Georgia's father, Vincent Massei.  Georgia and her sister Mary have been investigating the family tree recently, and Georgia had a whole raft of photos out last night, mostly either of her father, or by him, around the World War II era.  She gave me permission to scan a few, and make a few posts.

Tonight I will give a brief intro.  Vincent Massei was born in Eureka, California, to Italian immigrant parents in 1911, Giorgia and Joseph.  To the best of my knowledge, except for college, his World War II service, and a few trips to the East Coast to visit us, Vince rarely left Northern California. 

The Eagle House (Buon Gusto) on the only sunny day in Eureka in 100 years

The family ran a boarding house/restaurant, the Buon Gusto, on Second Street in Eureka (the seedy side of town).  Formerly and in a later incarnation, "The Eagle House,"  One of the funny stories Vince told, often was how one day, his older brothers, Albert and Tony (Anthony) left him behind when they went fishing in Humboldt Bay, a couple blocks from the Buon Gusto.  In his fit of pique, he open the tap on the restaurant's wine keg, and lay under it and drank wine until he passed out.  His brothers, whom I knew, verified the story.

Vince went to college, in San Francisco, I believe, on a football scholarship, and joined the service (or was drafted).  He went into the Army Air Corps (the precursor to today's  Air Force) and was sent to the South Pacific, where he served in Fiji and New Guinea as an air craft mechanic:

Vincent Massei in uniform:

Genius and Insanity Linked

Scientists Find Truth in "Mad Scientist" Stereotype: There Is a Link between Genius and Insanity

Genius and insanity may actually go together, according to scientists who found that mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are often found in highly creative and intelligent people.

The link is being investigated by a group of scientists who had all suffered some form of mental disorder.

Bipolar sufferer Kay Redfield Jamison, a clinical psychologist and professor at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said that findings of some 20 or 30 scientific studies confirms the idea of the "tortured genius" or "mad scientist".

Jamison said that creativity appears to be significantly linked to mood disorders, especially bipolar disorder. For instance, one 2010 study that tested the intelligence of 700,000 Swedish 16-year-olds found that highly intelligent adolescents were more likely to develop bipolar disorder in a decade-long follow-up. "They found that people who excelled when they were 16 years old were four times as likely to go on to develop bipolar disorder," Jamison said Thursday night during a panel discussion at New York’s World Science Festival.

I guess I'm just not smart enough to be insane.  Or am I? 

A Very Deceiving Night

A few months ago I received an E-mail from a reader who had seen one of my beach posts containing a mirage photo (at right):

The Beach, 2/27/11 Edition 

He asked if he could use the photo in a book he was writing about mirages, and offered to pay for it.  Of course, I was so flattered to have anyone read it and appreciate it, that I offered it to him for free, and even offered to send him the "original" unshrunken version if it would help.

Oh, and he told me that I had misidentified it when I changed my mind and called it an "inferior" type mirage.  Oh well...

A few days ago, he sent me a link to a free copy of the E-book "A Very Deceiving Night" by Tim Maltin.  Here is a link to the site to buy it (it wouldn't be very gracious to give away the free link he sent me, would it).

It is a book about the sinking of the Titanic, and the role that mirages and unusual atmospheric conditions at the site of the wreck may have helped cause the collision with the iceberg (a mirage like the one above may have concealed the iceberg until it was too late to change course), and made the tragedy worse by preventing the California, a nearby ship from recognizing the Titanic and coming to her aid.  I believe he has made a very convincing case that the mirages played a critical role in the events of that night.

The book draws extensively on the testimony of the survivors of the Titanic, and of the officers and crew of the rescue ships, as well as the ships records to show how the miraging conditions arose, and how they likely affected both the conditions that led to the collision with the iceberg and the rescue.  It also has many pictures of wild and wonderful mirages.

If you are at all interested in the Titanic, or mirages and similar phenomena, you should take a look at this.

Anyway, this was a very pleasant result of blogging.  Thanks Tim!

ASMFC: Coms to Tag Striped Bass Coastwide?

ASMFC seeks comment on move to curb poaching of striped bass

The Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission is preparing to implement a commercial tagging program for all states with commercial striped bass fisheries and to increase penalties for poaching.

The commission approved for public comment Draft Addendum II to Amendment Six to the Interstate Fishery Management Plan for striped bass. The draft amendment, which is going out for public comment shortly and will likely not be implemented until 2014, follows the recommendations of the Interstate Watershed Task Force. The task force was seeking ways to curb commercial striped bass poaching.

Poaching of striped bass has long been a problem. A recent federal investigation of the problem in the Chesapeake Bay and Potomac River resulted in $1.6 million in fines from 19 individuals and three corporations and showed the poachers illegally took more than 1 million pounds of striped bass from Bay waters.

I'm pretty sure that Maryland currently requires watermen to tag all striped bass before sale to dealers.  Unfortunately, other states do not, and stripers poached in Maryland and left untagged are often sold to out of state fish dealers.  Once beyond the state line, it's very difficult to say that a fish (or a few thousand) were poached in Maryland, or legally caught in some state without the tagging requirement.

To make your thoughts known:

Public comment will be accepted until July 13. Comments should go to Kate Taylor, Fishery Management Plan Coordinator, at 1050 N. Highland St., Suite 200 A-N, Arlington, VA 22201; 703-842-0741 (fax) or ktaylor@asmfc.org. Put Atlantic Striped Bass Draft Addendum III in the subject line.

Good News for Health Nuts

A summary of recent research into the effect of life style on health:

High-fat diets are good for you.

Low-carbohydrate diets that require patients to fill up on fats won't lead to harder arteries, researchers say -- at least not in the short-term.

Those who lost 10 pounds after curbing their carb intake had no differences in arterial stiffness than those on a more traditional, low-fat diet, Dr. Kerry Stewart of Johns Hopkins and colleagues reported at the American College of Sports Medicine meeting in Denver.

High-fat diets help you lose weight.
 

The Atkins diet may have proved itself after all: A low-carb diet and a Mediterranean-style regimen helped people lose more weight than a traditional low-fat diet in one of the longest and largest studies to compare the dueling weight-loss techniques.

A bigger surprise: The low-carb diet improved cholesterol more than the other two. Some critics had predicted the opposite.

Steak and lard and bacon are good eats.

Few experts now deny that the low-fat message is radically oversimplified. If nothing else, it effectively ignores the fact that unsaturated fats, like olive oil, are relatively good for you: they tend to elevate your good cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein (H.D.L.), and lower your bad cholesterol, low-density lipoprotein (L.D.L.), at least in comparison to the effect of carbohydrates. While higher L.D.L. raises your heart-disease risk, higher H.D.L. reduces it...

But it gets even weirder than that. Foods considered more or less deadly under the low-fat dogma turn out to be comparatively benign if you actually look at their fat content. More than two-thirds of the fat in a porterhouse steak, for instance, will definitively improve your cholesterol profile (at least in comparison with the baked potato next to it); it's true that the remainder will raise your L.D.L., the bad stuff, but it will also boost your H.D.L. The same is true for lard. If you work out the numbers, you come to the surreal conclusion that you can eat lard straight from the can and conceivably reduce your risk of heart disease.

Low salt diets increase the risk of death.

A new study found that low-salt diets increase the risk of death from heart attacks and strokes and do not prevent high blood pressure,...

The investigators found that the less salt people ate, the more likely they were to die of heart disease — 50 people in the lowest third of salt consumption (2.5 grams of sodium per day) died during the study as compared with 24 in the medium group (3.9 grams of sodium per day) and 10 in the highest salt consumption group (6.0 grams of sodium per day). And while those eating the most salt had, on average, a slight increase in systolic blood pressure — a 1.71-millimeter increase in pressure for each 2.5-gram increase in sodium per day — they were no more likely to develop hypertension.

Diet soda makes you fat.

For one study, researchers at the center followed 474 diet soda drinkers, 65 to 74 years of age, for almost 10 years. They found that diet soda drinkers' waists grew 70 percent more than non-drinkers. Specifically, drinking two or more diet sodas a day busted belt sizes five times more than people who avoided the stuff entirely...

"Artificial sweeteners could have the effect of triggering appetite but unlike regular sugars they don't deliver something that will squelch the appetite," Sharon Fowler, obesity researcher at UT Health Science Center at San Diego and a co-author on both of these studies, told the Daily Mail. She also said sweeteners could inhibit brain cells that make you feel full.

Salt helps your body get rid of bad cholesterol.

Danish researchers report in the American Journal of Hypertension that reducing sodium consumption led to a 1% drop in blood pressure in people who had normal pressure readings, and a 3.5% drop in those with hypertension. But other changes may offset those benefits: people who cut dietary salt also saw a 2.5% increase in cholesterol levels and a 7% boost in triglycerides. Like high blood pressure, elevated levels of cholesterol and triglycerides are risk factors for heart disease. Excessive triglycerides can also contribute to diabetes.

 And now, exercise may increase heart risk.

By analyzing data from six rigorous exercise studies involving 1,687 people, the group found that about 10 percent actually got worse on at least one of the measures related to heart disease: blood pressure and levels of insulin, HDL cholesterol or triglycerides. About 7 percent got worse on at least two measures. And the researchers say they do not know why.

The problem with studies of exercise and health, researchers point out, is that while they often measure things like blood pressure or insulin levels, they do not follow people long enough to see if improvements translate into fewer heart attacks or longer lives. Instead, researchers infer that such changes lead to better outcomes — something that may or may not be true.

Some critics have noted that there is no indication that those who had what Dr. Bouchard is calling an adverse response to exercise actually had more heart attacks or other bad health outcomes. But Dr. Bouchard said if people wanted to use changes in risk factors to infer that those who exercise are healthier, they could not then turn around and say there is no evidence of harm when the risk factor changes go in the wrong direction.

There you go, eat right, live well; die anyway. Tomorrow's menu, bacon wrapped fillet (heavily salted) chased by a double margarita, with salt.

Embellished from a post by rdbrewer at Aces.

Some New Places at the Table

Periodic Table Gains Two More Elements

The International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry officially approved names for the elements – which sit at slot 114 and 116, respectively — on May 31. They have until now gone by the temporary monikers ununquadium and ununhexium.

Both elements are man-made, having first been synthesized at the Joint Institute of Nuclear Research in Dubna, Russia, in 1998 and 2000. The discoveries were confirmed with further work at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. Suggested names for the two elements have been pending since they were submitted to the IUPAC last year.

The elements were created by smashing calcium ions (with 20 protons) into curium targets (which have 96 protons), combining to form element 116, Livermorium. This element decayed almost immediately into Flerovium, with 114 protons.

In addition to providing new trivia for fifth-graders to memorize, the names honor the labs of their creation. Flerovium was chosen for Flerov Laboratory of Nuclear Reactions in Russia, a facility where many superheavy elements have been produced. The lab is named after physicist Georgiy N. Flerov, who discovered the spontaneous fission of uranium, which led to the USSR’s development of an atomic bomb.

Livermorium honors Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, which has been involved in the discovery of heavy elements 113 through 118. Another element, Lawrencium at 103, is already named after the lab’s founder, Ernest O. Lawrence.

Chemistry geeks can take note that Flerovium’s symbol will be Fl (not to be confused with fluorine) and Livermorium’s will be Lv. The official names will be published in the July issue of the IUPAC journal, Pure and Applied Chemistry.

There will be a short quiz next period...

A few months ago, the periodic table got three new elements,  110, 111 and 112, darmstadtium (Ds), roentgenium (Rg) and copernicium (Cn). At the rate it's growing, we'll soon need a whole wall for the classic Periodic Table poster.  Last time I posted Tom Lehrer singing The Element Song.  This time, you'll have to settle for Danielle Radcliffe (Hollywood's Harry Potter) doing it from memory.  Which shows he care mores than I do:

Dead Cat Bounce?

Dutch artist turns dead cat into remote-controlled helicopter, dubbed ‘Orvillecopter’

A Dutch artist, upset over losing his beloved pet, Orville, had the animal stuffed and transformed its body into a remote-controlled helicopter, Sky News reported Monday.

The “half cat, half machine” piece of art was dubbed the “Orvillecopter.” The cat, who was killed when it was hit by a car, was named after famed American aviator Orville Wright.

“After a period of mourning, he received his propellers posthumously,” Jansen said.

Sick, but funny...

Thanks to PJ, who showed this to me before Drudge....

Snakehead Tourney Takes Half a Ton Out of Potomac

Contest removes loads of snakeheads from Potomac

... That snakehead — with fins like a catfish and flesh like a Burmese python — weighed in at more than 16 pounds, the largest caught during the two-day Potomac Snakehead Tournament that ended Sunday at Smallwood State Park on Mattawoman Creek in Marbury, in Charles County. Stack and five buddies — Teamblazer Bowfishing — caught 25 fish in all, nearly 230 pounds, earning them a $1,500 first prize for total weight and $975 for the largest fish.

Seein’ Red Outdoors, a team of youngsters from La Plata and Cobb Island, none older than 16, took second prize — $585 — for catching 33 snakeheads totaling 180 pounds.

The contest, in its second year, removed more than half a ton of invasive northern snakeheads from the Potomac and its tributaries, 1,402 pounds, nearly doubling the goal of its chief organizer, Austin Murphy of Whackfactor Outdoors, a hunting group. Since 2002, when snakeheads were discovered in a Crofton pond, and 2004, when they were found in Potomac tributaries, biologists have worried that this top-level Asian predator would lead to the demise of native fish.

“We’re looking to double last year’s 435 pounds,” Murphy said before Sunday’s weigh-in.

The number of participants in the tournament also doubled this year, to 110 people on 18 teams.

There's no clearer sign that the invasion of the Potomac River, and probably most of the freshwater stream draining into Chesapeake Bay by the Northern Snakehead (or Potomac Pike, as Capt. Mike prefers to call them) is irreversible than the rapid increase in the number being caught during these tournaments.

Fillet of Snakehead Sandwich

The good news is that eating Snakeheads has also become a popular:

But there was more. “We’re not only removing fish from the ecosystem, we’re organizing a snakehead dinner with celebrity chefs,” Murphy said. Cooking started at 1 p.m., and about 75 diners lined up to taste the snakehead ceviche and burgers.

The ceviche was plated on blue corn chips, garnished with vegetables, gourmet style, like on the Food Network show “Iron Chef America.” The ceviche was tart and sweet, melting on the tongue. The burger was brownish yellow outside like a crab cake and smooth and flaky white inside.

Chad Wells, the chef from Alewife in Baltimore who made the ceviche, said some people shy away from eating snakehead because of the name. His mother, for instance. “I just gave it to her without telling her what it was,” he said, and she loved it.

“They fry, grill, sautee, bake, steam — they’re great,” Wells said.

The only real hope for keeping the Snakehead in check is for commercial fisherman to begin fishing for them in earnest.  Given a decent market, if you set a short season, a small limit, and tight gear restrictions, and Maryland Watermen would fall over themselves to violate them and fish out every last one.

I Always Thought This Was the Essence of Idle Threat

Man arrested for beating someone to death with his prosthetic arm

An Arkansas man is accused of using his prosthetic arm and a rock to beat another man to death.

Hot Springs police say 52-year-old Ray Allen Brown is charged with second-degree murder in the Tuesday night killing of 52-year-old Robert Brindley.

 At least it's not a zombie story...

If Diablo 3 Were a Girl

What do I know? The last video game I was addicted to was Quake II.

It Does Seem Like She's Everywhere These Days

NSFW Language...

Did a Little More Fishing

Since the day was so nice, I decided to chase the wily Croaker this afternoon.  I left the harbor (seen at the left) around 1 PM, and tried all my usual Croaker holes.  Straight off the Harbor

 Down around Location X.

Up the Bay by the sand bar, near the end of our walk.  Note the two poles out bouncing bottom.  I was using Fishbites and not live worms, but in most cases they seem to work nearly as well, and they are a whole lot more convenient.

While Rod Holder held the croaker rods, I bounced a jig with a 6 inch albino BKD off the bottom, and I was fortunate enough to catch one 19 inch Striped Bass.  Here he is cooling his heels fins in the live well.  Croaker?  Not even a nibble.

Fine Day at the Beach 6/3/12

I just wish the weather could stay like this all summer.  Sunny, but with puffy clouds (yes, they have a scientific name; screw it). Mid 70s, breezy but not windy.  This is actually a picture from the end of the walk, when Skye decided she'd rather go back down the beach with Red and Joel than go home.  Either that, or she was confused.  She's not saying.

 A perfect day for a father-son kayaking expedition.

The Problems With Airline Seats

A pretty long article on airline seats.  Having spent an inordinate amount of time in airline seats recently, I found it fascinating and parts of it amusing:

In 1962, the U.S. government measured the width of the American backside in the seated position. It averaged 14 inches for men and 14.4 inches for women. Forty years later, an Air Force study directed by Robinette showed male and female butts had blown up on average to more than 15 inches...

But the American rear end isn't really the important statistic here, Robinette says.

Nor are the male hips, which the industry mistakenly used to determine seat width sometime around the 1960s, she says.

"It's the wrong dimension. The widest part of your body is your shoulders and arms. And that's much, much bigger than your hips. Several inches wider."

I was acutely aware of the shoulder problem.  I don't have any problems with my ass fitting the airline seats, but there's no way to sit in a coach seat and not have my shoulders lapping over into the seat beside me.  Heaven help the people on the other side if I get stuck in a center seat.  I always try for the window seat.

Furthermore, she says, women actually have larger hip width on average than men. 

Not that there's anything wrong with that, at least in certain instances. 

The industry used the male hip as a seat measuring stick "thinking that it would accommodate the women too, but in fact they don't accommodate the larger women."

Funny thing, I never hear women complain that their ass is too wide for the seat.  Maybe the other way around, though.

The result: Airline seats are approximately 5 inches too narrow, she says. And that's for passengers in the 1960s, let alone the supersized U.S. travelers of today.

Which reminds me of the story of how horse's asses determined the size of the Space Shuttles booster rockets.

Midnight Music - Sleepwalk: A Comparative Study

Danny Gatton, a Maryland legendary guitar player does "Sleepwalk"


posted to Facebook by Mike Rose:

as do Leo Kottke and Chet Atkins, on Prairie Home Companion



and the man who invented the electric guitar, Les Paul

Raise the Concordia!

Costa Concordia Salvage Plan Revealed 

A little dated, from a couple of weeks ago, but it appears that they plan to build a submerged platform,

to roll the ship upright onto, attach floats (caissons) to the sides,

to float the ship, and tow it away to be turned into next years Toyotas...

Work should be getting underway shortly.  This is the largest project of this kind ever attempted.

I posted this picture and saying somewhere, and Hogsanta made a poster out of it.

Beach Report: June 2, 2012

 An early beach walk this morning, because we had a 10 o'clock meeting.  At the beach we were greeted by a troop of Bay Scouts and their families, helping another scout with his Eagle Scout project, transplanting beach grasses from our natural dunes on the north beach to some recently rebuilt dunes on the south beach.

 Joel and Red remembered to come early. 

We had a large storm in Maryland last night, tornado watches, even a couple touch down, though no where near us. However, as a result the wind was up this morning and from the north, and the Bay was choppy and muddy.

Skye checks out a log that she has checked out a hundred times before.  But you never know, maybe there will be something exciting there this time!

A sheet of crusty algae growing on the cliff face.  These are fueled by the nutrients which get into the groundwater from the numerous septic tanks in our community.  The water seeps through the sand, but hits a clay layer and moves sideways until it come out at the top of the clay on the cliff.

A "wild" rose grows in English Ivy on the cliffs where soil permits.  Both are non-native invasive species.  This rose is clearly a domesticated rose gone wild, as it has the many extra petals that have been added to the basic rose design of 5 petals by gardeners breeding for "showiness."

Illinois Legislature Focuses on the Small Things

Apple customer consults Ed on IPad options

Horses, specifically.  When asked to deal with the problem of bloated public pensions swallowing their annual budget, lawmakers responded by making it legal for people to use miniature horses as service animals.

Illinois lawmakers may have gotten stymied on the issue of pension reform, a multi-billion-dollar mess affecting every taxpayer in the state.

But at least they managed to pass a bill involving miniature horses.

You heard that right. Under a measure the House sent to Gov. Quinn Thursday night – the evening members were supposed to consider a cost-saving pension bill – people with disabilities could use miniature horses as service animals in public places, much like guide dogs are used.

The vote was near-unanimous.

I have no problem with people using horses as service animals.  If they want to use an animal that is inherently evil and hates people for wanting to ride on it (an understandable prejudice), instead the the loyal and trustworthy dog, the ride on!

All Zombie Apocalypse All the Time!

At least that's what the media is seeing.  First, we'll start with an outbreak closer to home:

Maryland zombie apocalypse: motive for cannibal murder hard to narrow down

The zombie apocalypse trend continues with a murder-cannibal incident in Harford, Maryland when a student killed another man who had lived with him and his family. The horrific incident happened sometime between last Friday -- when he was reported missing by the suspect's father -- and Tuesday night.

37-year-old Alexander Kinyua confessed to killing and eating the heart and a portion of the brains from 21-year-old Morgan State University student, Kujoe Bonsafo Agyei-Kodie. He had been living with the Kinyua family for the last year.

Next, the CDC found it necessary to deny the existence of zombies

Over the years the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a couple of tongue-in-cheek "zombie warnings," which really are just disaster-preparedness stunts. But on Thursday, the agency made it official: Zombies don't exist.

"CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms)," wrote agency spokesman David Daigle in an email to The Huffington Post.

Nevertheless, recent incidents in which humans reportedly ate human flesh have the Internet in a firestorm, with "zombie apocalypse" being Google's third most popular search term by Friday morning.

Then stray body parts started appearing in Canada

Authorities launched an international manhunt Thursday for a Canadian man suspected of dismembering an acquaintance and mailing body parts to political party headquarters.

Canadian police believe Luka Rocco Magnotta, 29, who was born as Eric Clinton Newman and also uses the alias Vladimir Romanov, has fled the country, prompting Interpol, the global police agency, to add his name to its most wanted list. The self-described porn star posting a video of the killing and dismemberment online.

"We believe he filmed himself," said Montreal police Commander Ian Lafreniere. "It's gross." "This is a very deranged person," he said. "He is looking for attention and he got it but not in a positive way."

Magnotta knew the victim, whom Lafreniere said he could not identify. He said the headless body was too mutilated to make any immediate identification.

I don't know why the media would talk about zombies in reference to this episode; cutting people up and mailing the parts to political parties is hardly in the zombie behavior repertoire according to either the Original Haitian model or the Classic Hollywood George Romero model. Haitian zombies (not undead at all, but rather people enslaved by evil voodoo practitioners using drugs, were mostly farm workers, and George Romero zombies exist to eat humans (but never other zombies; apparently they taste bad) especially their brains, without any calculation whatever, and pass on the infection, but never mind, we have a meme to push, and by God, we will force every horror we can into that mold!

And finally legal blogger Ann Althouse blames us (and herself by extension) for the events:

In fact, I wonder if the people who delight in japing about a zombie uprising bear some responsibility for the crazy people who actually do try to eat brains?

I'm thinking back to the clumsy efforts to assign blame for the Tucson massacre. Some people are insane. But why do they act out their insanity in the particular way that they do? What signals do they pick up and distort? You can't really blame the sane people who talk and distort and lie about things as they operate more or less competently in this place called reality that most of us inhabit. And yet... why are we hearing so much about cannibals these days?

It's difficult to imagine that the people actually committing these acts are really in such a fine touch with reality that they're acting out any kind of "zombie fantasy".  In my opinion such events happen sporadically in society.  Since the events are probably largely independent (happening without reference to each other) any apparent clustering of the events is by chance, and once the meme is out there, almost anything that can be pulled into the storyline, will be.  And that will reinforce the perception that it's happening more often.

As always, thanks to Wombat-Socho for including this (and the others) in Rule 5 Sunday "Train in Vain" at The Other McCain.

Rule 5 Saturday - Don't Tell Me It's Raining - Nicole Kidman

Nicole Kidman urinates on Zac Efron in 'Paperboy' film

Of all the remarkable scenes to be screened at the Cannes Film Festival in France (get full Cannes coverage), Nicole Kidman and Zac Efron's "urination scene" in the film "The Paperboy" might be the one to make the most headlines (read reviews of "The Paperboy"). In the scene, Efron's character suffers from this injury, and Kidman's character is forced to relieve herself on him (was the urine real?). Efron later said of the scene: "I loved every moment" (was the scene almost cut?).

BTW, pissing on jellyfish stings?  Not so effective...

Would you?  Frankly, the prospect doesn't do that much for me, despite the fact that Nicole is a certified babe (NSFW link).

Winning the Oscars Best Actress for "The  Hours"  (2002) and nominated for "Rabbit Hole" (2010), she has starred in, well, a whole lot of films (I counted 59 on Wikipedia, but I think 10% accuracy is good enough, so call it 60), including a few I've even seen, "Batman Forever" (1995), "Golden Compass" (2007) and "Australia" (2008).  She was even awarded her own star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Busy girl.

Born in Hawaii to Australian parents in 1967, she may be eligible for dual citizenship (who cares?).  She certainly has won a number of awards as Australia's best something.

Her personal life is varied.  She is one of the women who has married Tom Cruise, certified nut, and is currently married to country singer Keith Urban.  She has dated singer Lenny Kravitz, and a couple of other co-stars in the past.

She is a wealthy woman by now, and has given much money and energy to philanthropy.  Good for her.  She has also donated to the Democrats.  Not so good, but I gave up trying to figure out movie stars politics a long time ago.

More pictures of Nicole below the jump

Fracking Sand Mines - The Next Fight?

Northern Wisconsin sand mining boom includes new jobs, new problems

A controversial natural gas mining technique called "fracking" is creating a boom in Wisconsin sand mines with more than 20 new mines proposed, including some as large as 500 acres or more. While the mines bring jobs, they also bring dust, traffic and other problems the state Department of Natural Resources and local governments aren't prepared to deal with, residents and government officials said at a recent conference on "frac sands."

"The state is woefully unprepared for this," said state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout, D-Alma. "We're regulating sand mines like we regulate gravel pits. There is a big difference between a one-acre gravel pit and a 900-acre sand mine."

While sand companies and others tout the economic benefits of the mines, the boom has left some families and the rural towns in which they live dealing with changed landscapes, blowing silica dust, around-the-clock noise and glaring lights, heavy truck traffic and water pollution.
...
"The view from our house is gorgeous," Gregar said. "All wooded with rolling hills. And it's perfectly quiet. In the summer evening when you sit outside, you can hear the neighbors a mile away. Now it's all going to be gone."

Of course, what's bad for some is going to prove a benefit to others.

The burgeoning industry has brought more jobs and an economic boost to Wisconsin, according to Jay Alston, the chief executive officer of Hi-Crush Proppants, one of the nation's major sand mining companies and a big player in the industry in Wisconsin.

Alston said the company's Wyeville mining operation near Tomah employs 43 workers and wages average $18 an hour. He estimated the boost to the local economy from wage earners alone at the mine to be more than $100,000 a year. Most mining operations in the state are similar, he added, with the number of workers probably averaging near 30 per mine.

How many jobs is a good view worth?  Remember, we're only down about 5 million jobs in the US since 2008.

The "environmental" NGOs are already girding their loins to stop the mining of sand for fracking, all part of their scheme to kill fracking, and force the US to adopt "renewable" energy, despite it's manifestly awful economics and in many cases dubious environmental benefits

Annual Hurricane Predictions - Take Your Pick

Two of three major hurricane season predictions just came out (NOAAs was already out):

One said it was going to be above average,

One said it was going to be below average,

And the other one said it was going to just about average.

At least somebody will be right this year.

EPA Grades the States' 'Bay Diets'

EPA evaluates states' plans for Chesapeake Bay restoration

Virginia's plan to reduce stormwater runoff into Chesapeake Bay looks like it is going to work, a top Enviromental Protection Agency official says, even as he urged New York to submit its overdue plan.

The agency is assessing plans from Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia as it awaits New York's submssion, EPA Regional Administrator Shawn Garvin said Thursday.

"If either they don't get something to us in the very near future, and/or if that's not sufficient, then we'll have to consider what federal activities might have to happen," Garvin said.

I do believe I heard a touch of threat in there.

The EPA said in April that it had received a draft but New York missed a deadline for filing its final plan. A spokeswoman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said at the time that the department had asked for a 30-day extension, but did not give a reason for the delay.Steps the EPA can take include requiring additional pollution reductions from federally regulated sources, prohibiting additional discharges, redirecting grants and revising water quality standards.

Why yes, I believe I did. Meanwhile, EPA expressed a little dissatisfaction with Pennsylvania's approach:

"We're still working with them to figure out how they are actually going to accomplish it, and so based on that we feel that there's still more work to be done," Garvin said.

The administrator said the plan calls for 40 percent to 50 percent reductions in urban and suburban stormwater runoff, a growing source of pollution in the bay watershed. EPA spokesman Tom Wenz said the agency would take action if the issue is not addressed.

Meanwhile, West Virginia and Maryland were given tentative approval:

West Virginia had improved its plan and addressed the issues raised by the EPA. Maryland's plan, meanwhile, is expected achieve water improvement goals when fully implemented, the EPA said.

 "When fully implemented".  Ah, there's the rub.

World's Best Bartender?

I dunno, it sure took a long time to get that drink; no tip from me!

Your Friday Monkey Dacker Stunt Car

You have to wait to the end for the monkey.