At Last, A Job the #Occupiers Qualify For!

Army Need Riot Test Dummies: The Army Will Pay You to Riot

How does the US Army know if its less-than-lethal armaments are effective without being deadly? Live fire training exercises employing a mob of volunteers, of course.

That's right, if you are over 18 and live in the greater New Jersey area, you too can get $20/hour to be whacked with batons and shot with rubber balls! The testing takes place in a non-descript one-story building, known as the Target Behavioral Response Laboratory, located a few miles from Picatinny Arsenal, the Army's research and development center. Here, a nine-member team of engineers study how effective non-lethal technologies perform and, more importantly, the psychological reasons they do.

"I can't just shoot a laser or loud sound at a piece of wood and expect it to run away," John Riedener, the lab's technical director told NJ.com. "We need to know how well it chases someone away. It's all about data, controlled experiments. It's about the probabilities of what can happen." To that end, the Army actively recruits volunteers from local colleges and libraries to pretend to be part of an angry mob, paying them $20 an hour with the small chance of permanent injury (though all tests are supervised by the Picatinny's Institutional Review Board).

Your Friday Monkey Dacker Invaders

Barrel of monkeys is no fun in overrun Indian city 

More than 13,000 monkeys have been trapped since 2007 in New Delhi, India, but more and more of the creatures keep appearing. The problem? People keep feeding the dang things thanks to Hindu tradition. The city's wildlife agency says the monkeys aren't their problem as they aren't wild any more. Tell that to the family of a deputy mayor who died back in 2007 after falling from his terrace during a monkey attack. Or the 14-year-old girl who was chased recently by monkeys off a five-story roof. One solution that's been floated? Get bigger monkeys to scare off the smaller ones. Don't be surprised when one of these hairy guys eventually runs for mayor.

Bigger monkeys than those to scare off the others?  I don't think there are enough Gorillas left in the world.

There might be some advantage to living in a nation with no native primates, unless you count Sasquatch.

God and Lawn Care

GOD: "Frank, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there on the planet? What happened to the dandelions, violets, milkweeds and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect no-maintenance garden plan.Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon.The nectar from the long-lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But, all I see are these green rectangles."

ST. FRANCIS:
It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers 'weeds' and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

GOD:
Grass? But, it's so boring.It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees; only grubs and sod worms. It's sensitive to temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

ST. FRANCIS:
Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. They begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

GOD:
The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

ST. FRANCIS:
Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it-sometimes twice a week.

GOD:
They cut it? Do they then bale it like hay?

ST. FRANCIS:
Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

GOD:
They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

ST. FRANCIS:
No, Sir, just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

GOD:
Now, let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so it will grow. And, when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

ST. FRANCIS:
Yes, Sir.

GOD:
These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

ST. FRANCIS:
You aren't going to believe this, Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it, so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

GOD:
What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn, they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. It's a natural cycle of life.

ST. FRANCIS:
You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

GOD:
No!? What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter to keep the soil moist and loose?

ST. FRANCIS:
After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. They haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

GOD:
And where do they get this mulch?

ST. FRANCIS:
They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.

GOD:
Enough! I don't want to think about this anymore. St. Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

ST. CATHERINE:
'Dumb and Dumber', Lord. It's a story about....

GOD: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis.

 Swiped from Theo's.

Scientists Can Fu@K Up a Wet Dream

How Not to Handle Surf

Anyone can serve as a bad example, if they try hard enough.

Hagerstown Not Wild About Saving Bay Either

Hagerstown scoffs at price tag for reducing pollution to bay

With Washington County municipalities facing $1.1 billion in suggested upgrades for wastewater, stormwater and septic systems by 2025, Hagerstown Mayor Robert E. Bruchey had a incredulous reaction Tuesday to the city’s projected $210 million share to help reduce pollutants in the Chesapeake Bay.

“I applaud our governor for being so environmentally-friendly, but there is a price to be paid for that,” Bruchey said. “Being first in and making these laws that we have to abide by in the next 10 years is ridiculous.”

In February, representatives from municipalities across the county got together to form a committee to identify ways each could reduce pollution, caused mainly by runoff into local streams, as a way to reach goals mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Phase II Watershed Implementation Plan.

The population of Hagerstown today is slightly less than 40,000, so the the cost per person is roughly $5250 over 10 years.  Is is fair to ask if a typical family of 4 in Hagerstown is likely to get $2,100 a years worth of benefits out of the Chesapeake Bay clean up?  

It's nice of them to get volunteered to clean up the Bay for me...

Did a Cosmic Triple Whammy Wipe Out Clovis?

New evidence of Younger Dryas extraterrestrial impact

An 18-member international team of researchers that includes James Kennett, professor of earth science at UC Santa Barbara, has discovered melt-glass material in a thin layer of sedimentary rock in Pennsylvania, South Carolina, and Syria. According to the researchers, the material –– which dates back nearly 13,000 years –– was formed at temperatures of 1,700 to 2,200 degrees Celsius (3,100 to 3,600 degrees Fahrenheit), and is the result of a cosmic body impacting Earth.

Looks like a Clovis point to me...

These new data are the latest to strongly support the controversial Younger Dryas Boundary (YDB) hypothesis, which proposes that a cosmic impact occurred 12,900 years ago at the onset of an unusual cold climatic period called the Younger Dryas. This episode occurred at or close to the time of major extinction of the North American megafauna, including mammoths and giant ground sloths; and the disappearance of the prehistoric and widely distributed Clovis culture. The researchers’ findings appear today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“These scientists have identified three contemporaneous levels more than 12,000 years ago, on two continents yielding siliceous scoria-like objects (SLO’s),” said H. Richard Lane, program director of National Science Foundation’s Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research. “SLO’s are indicative of high-energy cosmic airbursts/impacts, bolstering the contention that these events induced the beginning of the Younger Dryas. That time was a major departure in biotic, human and climate history.”

There have even been theories introduced that the Clovis culture is related to a similar stone tool set called Solutrean, found in Europe, which opens the possibility that the Clovis culture was brought by people who navigated the ice margin in the Atlantic. Recent finds  give tantalizing evidence for pre-Clovis artifacts, but sadly the hypothesis remains unconfirmed.

Several theories have been advanced to explain the Younger Dryas:

A change in Atlantic circulation due to in influx of fresh water from "Lake Agassiz" in the wake of the receding continental glaciers,

A change in rainfall due to the change in atmospheric patterns as the ice melted,

An extreme solar flare; much larger than the Carrington Event,

A Volcanic eruption touching off a "nuclear winter",

The impact of an extraterrestrial body (meteorite or comet) which caused a "nuclear" winter type event.

These findings substantially boost the last hypothesis.  Proved?  Not yet.

Could it be that a meteorite strike (or rather, multiple strikes from a large body), was the death knell of a population of early North Americans with their roots in Europe rather than Asia?  Stand by for more .

Midnight Music - Don't You Let That Deal Go Down

Poker player loses big due to dealer error.


Dealer Kills Pocket Aces - Watch More Funny Videos

Which gets to the title of the post:

North Carolina Goes With Science

A long guest post over at Watts Up With That, about how a group of citizens, including scientists persuaded legislators to actually look at the science of sea level rise, and not base their regulations on a single model that predicted a high rate of sea level rise in the future.

In this case, SLR legislation was drafted by a staffer who has a PhD in oceanography. The main point of the document was that future SLR projections must be made based on extrapolating prior empirical data. In other words, state agencies would not be allowed to create policies that were based on speculations about some possible acceleration!

I can't effectively excerpt this, go I suggest you read the original.

Hup Hup Holland!

I'll root for you!

Immortal Trees Show Signs of Aging

With immortality comes immobility.

Because some quaking aspen trees can reproduce by copying themselves, some people have wondered whether they might live forever, at least theoretically. But even if that’s possible, they’re still not immune from the ravages of time.

As aspen clones grow older, a slow buildup of genetic mutations impairs their pollen production. After a few tens of thousands of years, they won’t produce any pollen at all.

When that happens, trees will still be able to sprout clones from their root tips, but they won’t be able to make seeds. They’ll be stuck in place, vulnerable to disease or disaster.

...

Individual trees have a lifespan of about 200 years, but clones — scientists consider the collective as as single entity — can sprawl for acres, all descended from one original tree, and apparently able to reproduce indefinitely.

The Pando aspen clone in Utah is thought to be 80,000 years old; some think it could be ten times older. It’s hard to guess age, as counting tree rings isn’t much help, and a long-term study would have had to start when humans were still mustering to leave Africa.

I remember, from sometime very long ago, a short sci-fi story about a sentient  long lived tree on a planet somewhere that needed a sentient host to reproduce itself.  It was stuck on a planet with no sentient life until a human explorer landed.  The deal was, if the astronaut accepted the host, he would live a long, disease free life, but ultimately have to settle down to become another tree...

I wish I could find that story again.

Fed Court OKs Pennsylvania Pipeline

A federal appeals court on Tuesday rejected a last-ditch bid by a coalition of environmental groups to stop the construction of a natural gas pipeline in northern Pennsylvania's Endless Mountains.

A three-judge panel of the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that federal energy regulators properly approved the 39-mile MARC 1 pipeline through Bradford, Sullivan and Lycoming counties. The decision clears the way for the pipeline to begin moving gas from the Marcellus Shale formation this fall.

"We have contended from the beginning that the MARC I Pipeline would be undertaken with the strongest commitment to environmental and ecological protections," said Bill Moler, an executive with Inergy Midstream LP of Kansas City, Mo.

Some landowners have been fighting the company building the pipeline, contending that Inergy subsidiary Central New York Oil & Gas refused to negotiate in good faith on either monetary compensation or the pipeline's route. The Sierra Club and two local groups challenged a decision by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to authorize construction, saying regulators should have performed a more thorough environmental assessment.

I rather doubt Obama will attempt to overrule this ruling at his level, given the blowback he has received from his overruling Federal regulators (the State Department)  in the Keystone Pipeline instance.  I suspect at this point his environmental base is reasonably secure, and Pennsylvania is a state he must take to win a second term.

The court also slapped the Sierra Club around a bit:

The New York-based appeals court said that FERC's analysis of the pipeline's impact on forests and migratory birds was sufficient, and that regulators "reasonably concluded" that broader impacts caused by natural gas development in the Marcellus should not factor into the analysis of the MARC 1 project.

A Pretty Good Joke

Maybe a little NSFW..



Picked up in midweek by the Classical Liberal in "Rule 5 Forever".

Aww, That's So Cute, I'm Nearly Verklempt

Attention whore and ordinary whore reconcile: Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris back together

Say it isn't so! One year after they called off their wedding just days before it was scheduled to take place, Hugh Hefner, 86, and Crystal Harris, 26, are back together.

"Yes @hughhefner and I are back together. Yes I am his #1 girl again. Yes we are happy. Hope that clears up any confusion! xo," the Playboy cover girl tweeted.

We've been following the newly reunited couple since they first announced their undying devotion  back in Dec. 2010, and the declaration that their love didn't require a prenup in Apr 2011, through the health problems at the Playboy Mansion in April 2011, their breakup the following June and their respective rebound partners.

But don't expect them to rush down the aisle. "Hef and Crystal are taking it slowly this time," a source told RadarOnline.com. "They’re just getting back to their old groove together, and so far they haven't talked about marriage or a wedding."

Harris walked out on the 60-years-older Hef just days before their planned wedding last summer. "Crystal begged Hef to let her come back," a source told Radar. "He surprisingly doesn't have any hard feelings against her, so he let her move back into the Mansion."

I don't see why he should have hard feelings, she only claimed that sex with Hef only lasted two seconds..

"[It lasted] like, two seconds," Harris, 25, said, dissing the famed men's magazine editor. "Then I was just over it. I was like, 'Ahh.' I was over it. I just, like, walked away. I'm not turned on by Hef. Sorry."

Hey, at his age, two seconds is a heckuva lot better than nothing.   And it's not like he didn't dis her in return:

"Crystal lied about our relationship on Howard Stern but I don't know why," Hef Tweeted Tuesday night, although he has since removed the message from his account. "Maybe a new boyfriend?"

How could a hot 26 year old chick (NSFW link) not love a wrinkly 86 year old man, who just coincidentally, controls a fortune?

Does this mean that Hef has dumped (or been dumped by) his interim chicks Anna Sophia Berglund (NSFW link) and Shera Bechard (NSFW link)?  Or do they do a string quartet in their "off" hours?

Has anyone checked the DNA of these girls?  They all all look the same.  Not that there's anything wrong with that. Maybe the Playboy Mansion has a cloning booth somewhere.

New Commerce Secretrary Has No Commerce Experience

Why would we want a Commerce Secretary to have any experience?

In harmony with Obama’s odd assertion that the “private sector is doing just fine,” the president’s new Acting U. S. Commerce Secretary Rebecca Blank has virtually no private sector experience (just like the president himself!). The sole exception in Ms. Blank’s long career is a brief stint at a data collection firm after she graduated from college in 1979. She is, however, the author of a book – Challenging Inequality – from the University of California Press, Berkeley.

Just Basking in the Liberal Civility

Joy Behar Wants to See Romney's House Burn Down:

I mean, I’d like to see his house burn ... It would be kind of cool

Expecting liberal denunciations right about ....

Aww, who am I kidding, never.

It's Official: The Dingos Did It

Dingo took Azaria Chamberlain, coroner find

Coroner Elizabeth Morris told a packed courtroom today that a dingo was to blame for the attack at Uluru, which originally saw Azaria's mother Lindy Chamberlain-Creighton jailed for murder and her husband Michael given a suspended sentence for being an accessory after the fact.

Both were later exonerated after a royal commission in 1987.

"We are relieved and delighted to come to the end of this saga," she said.

"No longer will Australia be able to say the dingoes are not dangerous and will only attack if provoked."

"We live in a beautiful country but it is dangerous and we'd ask all Australians to be aware of this and take appropriate precautions."

Lawmakers Intimidated Out of Inflammatory Language

Lawmakers avoid buzzwords on climate change bills

State lawmakers ran into a problem this year when recommending a study on rising sea levels and their potential impacts on coastal Virginia.

It was not a scientific problem or a financial one. It was linguistic.

They discovered that they could not use the phrases "sea level rise" or "climate change" in requesting the study, in part because of objections from Republican colleagues and also for fear of stirring up conservative activists, some of whom believe such terms are liberal code words.

On its website, for example, the Virginia tea party described the proposed "sea level rise" study this way: "More wasted tax dollars for more ridiculous studies designed to separate us from our money and control all land and water use."

The group urged its members to contact elected officials right away to defeat the measure: "They will pass this without blinking if we don't yell loudly."

So lawmakers did away with all mention of sea level rise, substituting a more politically neutral phrase: "recurrent flooding."

 I'll be the first to admit there is "sea level rise", at least in the medium term (meaning a few years duration).  Sea level has been rising since the end of the last ice-age, more than 10,000 years ago.  In the last few years, it has slackened some, but not ceased.  Around the world, ancient coastal cities have been drowned.

It was recently brought home to me when the newly repaired docks at Flag Harbor were raised 11 inches.  I was thinking that was a lot, until I did the math.  The docks were installed in the 1980s.  Since then, at the current rate of Chesapeake Bay sea level rise of about 4 mm a year, the Bay has risen about 160 mm, or about 6 inches.  If the docks last another 40 years, sea level rise will bring them back to roughly the height above high water as they were in 1980.

But, that's how man adapts.  We did it on our own, with our own money, when we need to. We don't need the government to claim a special right to manage the coastal and enforce their collective vision of how we should handle it.

The amended study, while fixed on the same research, sailed through the General Assembly and was signed by Gov. Bob McDonnell, who also has raised questions about what is causing slightly higher temperatures on the planet.

The episode illustrates the continuing, even increasing, volatility of climate change as a policy issue in Virginia, at the same time that other states and whole nations are moving forward with plans to combat the phenomenon.

It also shows how climate skeptics, through their political connections and organization, are forcing state and local government to stay clear of certain buzzwords in quietly pursuing a strategy, else they risk unleashing a brawl.

Government officials and scientists just shrug when asked about the language games, especially when the subject is sea level rise. To them, the debate should not be about what is causing waters to slowly rise, but what should be done about it.

"These studies need to be done if we're going to logically tackle these problems that scientific data unequivocally proves are happening," said Larry Atkinson, an oceanographer at Old Dominion University who is overseeing a climate change initiative that focuses on rising sea levels.

"So, whatever we have to call it, I've got no problem with that," he added. "What's the alternative? Do nothing?"

The semantics dance harkens to the days when "global warming" was commonly uttered. But after conservatives criticized and ridiculed Al Gore and others, "climate change" became the kinder, gentler way to communicate the same thing.

Now it appears that "climate change" and "sea level rise" are being phased out, in Virginia at least, amid political pressure from the far right. Emerging labels include "increased flooding risk," "coastal resiliency" and, of course, "recurrent flooding."

GISS Monthly Mean Surface Temperature Anomaly – 1996 to Present

And there's a reason that the term "global warming is a misnomer.  The global hasn't warmed since 1998.  See the NOAA data on the right.

State Del. Chris Stolle, R-Virginia Beach, who insisted on changing the "sea level rise" study in the General Assembly to one on "recurrent flooding," said he wants to get political speech out of the mix altogether.

He said "sea level rise" is a "left-wing term" that conjures up animosities on the right. So why bring it into the equation?

"What people care about is the floodwater coming through their door," Stolle said. "Let's focus on that. Let's study that. So that's what I wanted us to call it."

Put the house on stilts, or move it back up the hill, but don't ask the government to control it, because it won't.

Coffee, Keeping You Smarter Longer

Coffee Cuts Alzheimer's Disease Risk

Tampa, FL (June 4, 2012) Those cups of coffee that you drink every day to keep alert appear to have an extra perk – especially if you're an older adult. A recent study monitoring the memory and thinking processes of people older than 65 found that all those with higher blood caffeine levels avoided the onset of Alzheimer's disease in the two-to-four years of study follow-up. Moreover, coffee appeared to be the major or only source of caffeine for these individuals.

My parents drink a lot of coffee, and it seems to be working for them...

The study shows this protection probably occurs even in older people with early signs of the disease, called mild cognitive impairment, or MCI. Patients with MCI already experience some short-term memory loss and initial Alzheimer's pathology in their brains. Each year, about 15 percent of MCI patients progress to full-blown Alzheimer's disease. The researchers focused on study participants with MCI, because many were destined to develop Alzheimer's within a few years.

Blood caffeine levels at the study's onset were substantially lower (51 percent less) in participants diagnosed with MCI who progressed to dementia during the two-to-four year follow-up than in those whose mild cognitive impairment remained stable over the same period.

No one with MCI who later developed Alzheimer's had initial blood caffeine levels above a critical level of 1200 ng/ml – equivalent to drinking several cups of coffee a few hours before the blood sample was drawn. In contrast, many with stable MCI had blood caffeine levels higher than this critical level.

Coffee is one of those things that some significant number of people are always looking for excuses to ban.  There have been countless busted studies on the possible hazards of coffee and caffeine, including pancreatic cancer and breast cancer, but they always vanish upon more work.  In the meantime, evidence continues to accumulate that it does have some net benefits.  Another recent study shows shows that coffee is also active against gout.

She Literally Makes a Puppet Out of Him

Montana School Bans "Schindler's List" Producer: Too Conservative

You never know, he might say something unacceptable to the "left wing radical" principal

Gerald Molen, who won an Oscar for co-producing Schindler’s List, had been invited to speak to a class of seniors at Ronan High School in Montana. He’s also one of the few conservatives working in Hollywood and is currently making a documentary based on Dinesh D’Souza’s book, “The Roots of Obama’s Rage.”

Molen, who is a popular motivational speaker, said his speech was going to be apolitical. He had planned on reminding students of their individual greatness and opportunities for the future.

But when he showed up at the high school — about 90-minutes from his home in Bigfork, Mont. – the principal informed Molen that he would not be allowed to address students because he was a “right-wing conservative.” He was told that there had been some calls to the school complaining about the planned speech. “He said some callers didn’t want kids exposed to that, despite not knowing what my message would be,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “

Molen, who also worked on films like “Jurassic Park,” and “Twister”, wrote a letter in the local newspaper, explaining what happened and expressing is outrage.

“I served three years in the Marine Corps so that others might stand before their peers or even a group of students, but never did I think my voice would be stilled by some mysterious caller(s) on the notion that I might say something they ‘thought’ would not be in the students’ best interests,” he wrote in The Daily Inter Lake.

There are so many things wrong with this, it's hard to know where to start. The principal should lose his job over it.  It's such a remarkably bad example to set for the students.  Diversity is mandated in all but thought.

You might think that a nice western red state like Montana would be free of such prejudice, but in fact, the whole nation is divided along rural/urban lines, and even the reddest states have a few blue speckles.

Richard Feynman on "Cargo Cult Science"

A pretty good lecture on how science goes wrong, by Richard Feynman, one of the greats, alas, not narrated by Feynman.



I think he describes how reals science ought to work pretty good. In real life, we fall off the standard fairly often.

Your Daily Dose of Dog

To Catch a Poacher

Department of Natural Resources increases use of radar, camera 

To better monitor the Chesapeake Bay and reduce poaching, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources is moving toward enhanced and increased surveillance.

Later this year, the Maritime Law Enforcement Information Network is scheduled to go online. The network, which will consist of camera and radar units, is part of an initiative to upgrade the Maryland Natural Resources Police's fleets."This will give us 24/7 surveillance of areas in the Chesapeake and it provides us with information about what's going on out in maritime waters," said Lt. Art Windemuth, NRP spokesman. "It allows us to better protect our maritime structure that is so vital to the state's economic success."

When fishing "Location X", I always assume that I'm on camera.

Unmanned Naval Airplane Crashes on Eastern Shore

Navy UAV crashes in Md.; no injuries reported

A huge unmanned aircraft operated by the Navy crashed Monday along Maryland’s eastern shore, the Navy confirmed, but no injuries or personnel damage has been reported.

The crash, at about 12:11 eastern time, reportedly took place in a marshy area of the Nanticoke River, near Bloodsworth Island in Dorchester, Md., about 20 miles from the city of Salisbury.

The Broad Area Maritime Surveillance Demonstrator (BAMS-D) aircraft, a modified Air Force Global Hawk RQ-4, is operated from Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Md., as part of the overall BAMS development program. The jet-powered plane, one of the largest unmanned vehicles operated by the U.S. military, has a wingspan of more than 130 feet, although it is only about 47 feet long. The Navy operates at least five BAMS demonstrators, some of which have been deployed to Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Fortunately, this landed in a relatively unpopulated area, unless you count Greenheads and Speckled Trout.  I'm pretty sure this is one reason the areas is so heavily used by the Navy for it's experimental aircraft.

I wonder if Pete saw it; he's been fishing that area a lot lately.

A video of the crash site from an airplane:

Redundant Day at the Beach

Almost a clone of yesterday, a little hotter, and, if possible, a little less breezy.  We got started a little earlier to beat the heat, and only partly succeeded.

 Not an ideal day for a dog with a winter coat still...  She started out raring to go, and ended up dogging it.

Beer for brunch?  Hmmm. A little early for me, thanks.

Who Will Take Granny in for Her Shots?

Trial of Alzheimer’s Vaccine is Successful

Swedish researchers report the successful trial of a vaccine that helps individuals develop protective antibodies that can prevent progression of Alzheimer’s disease.
...
The prevailing hypothesis about the origin of Alzheimer’s involves APP (amyloid precursor protein), a protein that resides in the outer membrane of nerve cells. Instead of being normally decomposed, APP forms harmful beta-amyloid proteins, which accumulates as plaques and kills brain cells.
...
The new treatment, which is presented in Lancet Neurology, involves active immunization, using a type of vaccine designed to trigger the body’s immune defense against beta-amyloid. In this second clinical trial on humans, the vaccine was modified to affect only the harmful beta-amyloid.

The researchers found that 80 per cent of the patients involved in the trials developed their own protective antibodies against beta-amyloid without suffering any side-effects over the three years of the study.

Somebody sign me up before I forget...

Found at Instapundit, of course.

Grand Prix: Silly Canucks Conduct Semi-Nude Protest

(Semi)-Naked protesters flood Quebec streets before start of Montreal F1 Grand Prix

For months, Quebec’s students have been laying bare their grievances against Premier Jean Charest with nightly marches against the provincial government’s proposed tuition hikes and Special Law 78, the bill that was actually meant to end the protests.

But with negotiations stalled and nightly demonstrations dwindling in size, thousands of protesters last night shed their clothes and tried to crash a party on Montreal’s Crescent Street, the road most closely associated with this weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, in a bid to resuscitate the flagging movement.

 Months go by in the cold weather of Montreal and no progress, but eventually it gets warm enough in Canuckistan to take their clothes off outside.  The fact that it interferes with the Grand Prix is just a bonus.  If I lived through winter in Montreal, I'd want to strip down to my underoos too.

The protests and media attention have already put a dent in the global sporting event, which usually generates an estimated $100 million in revenue for the city but this year has seen lagging ticket sales.

Protesters screamed at police and chanted slogans like “You’re sexy, you’re cute, take off your riot suit.” One held a sign that said “$ + sexe + pollution = Grand Prix.”

Amusing arithmetic. I wonder if the student is in a hard science.  I hope he/she is working on his/her burger flipping skills.

Protesters told reporters they were naked for a number of reasons; to show the government they have been transparent in their demands to freeze tuition fees, to garner more media attention to their cause, and to discourage police from handling them roughly.

“Our nudity expresses the demand for transparency,” a male student, clad only in gray cotton underwear said. “The government is masked. It conceals its own motives, as we have seen in the negotiations.”

Or it expresses the fact that you really are an attention whore.  I guess that make me an attention John?  I can live with that.

The student requested that his name not be printed for fear that his mother would find out he was taking part in the protests.

He doesn't mind parading semi-naked in the streets in a thong with a fleur-de-lis on it, but doesn't want his mother to see it? Bwahaahaa!

 Picked up in midweek by the Classical Liberal in "Rule 5 Forever".

Making the Hofner Violin Bass

I'm shocked at how much hand work is going on here.

Found at Theo's.

Yet another gorgeous day at the beach.  The weather is warm, in the 80 F range, with a slight breeze, and hardly a cloud in the sky.  By the time we got down there, several groups had already arrived.

This neighbor was playing fetch with the dog.  Well, the dog was playing fetch, while she played throw.

 After yesterday, I was on the watch for butterflies.  The usual little white jobs (that's about my level of taxonomic sophistication with them) were all over the little milkweed plants up in dunes.

 Then this one, a Zebra Swallowtail, (Protographium marcellus), landed right at my feet where it was probably sipping the salt water off the sand, and allowed me to photograph it repeatedly.  Unfortunately, it never opened its wings to the allow me to get a perfect shot.  The caterpillar for these butterflies live on Paw Paw trees:

This butterfly rarely strays far from its host plant, pawpaw, and is found in habitats where the trees grow. Such habitats include deciduous woodlands, southern pine woodlands, prairies, and savannas. The Zebra Swallowtail does poorly in developed areas, and prefers intact habitats.

It was a pretty high tide, and a poor day for fossils, which is sad, because Long Beach is having it's biannual fossil day today, and they are having a beach walk, well, about now as I write this. 

Showdown at the Spotted Owl Corral

Spotted owl could be game-changer in Tombstone water war

Tombstone is trying to repair a 26-mile pipeline that has brought mountain spring water into the city since 1881. It was damaged during last summer's Monument Fire and monsoon rains that brought mud, water and boulders crashing down the denuded slopes.

The Miller Peak Wilderness Area, where owls nest in the trees above Tombstone's pipeline, was hit particularly hard. Sections of pipeline simply vanished, and Tombstone's reservoir ran dry by August.

Kevin Rudd, project manager for the Tombstone pipeline, said the repaired pipeline needs to be shored up or it surely will be washed away when the monsoon rains return next month. Planned tasks for the shovel brigade include reinforcing the spring and diverting its flow by using boulders, sand, downed trees and other flood debris.

As for the owl, nobody could say for certain after the fire whether it would return. But it's the big reason why the Forest Service wouldn't simply hand Tombstone a permit to use heavy construction equipment to fix the pipeline. Tombstone responded by taking the feds to court. Since then, the conflict has escalated, taking on a life of its own.

Tombstone now asserts that it owns 25 springs in the Huachuca Mountains and shouldn't have to ask anyone for permission to maintain its own water line. The Forest Service says Tombstone holds permits for just five springs, and it argues the city is trying to exploit a natural disaster to expand its water system.

Can you imagine the federal government denying water to Washington D.C. because it's pipeline might impact a single pair or endangered birds? If so, I'll help you look for them.

"What is more important, owls or the people of Tombstone?" James Upchurch, a Forest Service supervisor who oversees the wilderness, was asked in court earlier this year.

Upchurch responded that there was no easy answer, which left jaws dropping on Tombstone's side of the courtroom.

So far, the Forest Service had been winning in court; Tombstone's request for an emergency injunction went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court but was turned down.

Owls vs. people; why choose when you can have neither?

The Forest Service granted permits Thursday for the city to bring the all-volunteer shovel brigade into the canyon to shore up the pipeline. Tombstone has until 8 p.m. Saturday to finish the job.

And so, under an unforgiving desert sun, about 100 people -- including Old West cowboy types with monikers such as "Whiskers" and "Cowboy Doug" -- gathered at Tombstone's old high school football field Friday for the first day of an event that was billed as part protest and part work party.

That's mighty generous of them. Allowing them to fix their own water system as long as they do it with primitive tools.  Who says the Federal government wants to take us back to the stone age; that's at least iron-age technology.

I would suggest that head of the Forest Service should order all the employees in the region to work on the project for free on their day off. I know for a fact federal supervisors have that authority... 

Rule 5 Saturday - A Little Role Playing with Felicia Day

Rule 5 Saturday, another Ginger, and another alumni of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.  Am I in a rut, or what?  But a good rut...

Felicia is one of those fortunate few who turned gaming into a career:

Day is an avid player of a wide variety of video game genres. Much of her work on The Guild web series was based on her personal experience with video games.

 And she's smart too:

She was a National Merit Scholar (1995) and graduated as valedictorian of her class. An accomplished violinist, Day was accepted to the Juilliard School of Music but chose to attend the University of Texas at Austin on a full scholarship in violin performance. She double majored in mathematics and music performance.

A few weeks back, I confused her with Karen Gillian, a former Dr. Who companion.  It's Felicia playing the dead, but still virtual main squeeze of über geek, Fargo on Eureka.

Oh my God, there's something wrong on the interwebs!

An actor in Joss Whedon's Dr. Horrible's Sing Along Blog (2008), as well as numerous other film and TV appearances.

She is also a creator, writer and producer and singer of her own fantasy web series "The Guild"








Whatever you do, Felicia, don't fix your nose; I like it the way it is.

I Don't Remember My High School Commencement Address

But I think I might have remembered this one:

...You are not special. You are not exceptional.

Contrary to what your u9 soccer trophy suggests, your glowing seventh grade report card, despite every assurance of a certain corpulent purple dinosaur, that nice Mister Rogers and your batty Aunt Sylvia, no matter how often your maternal caped crusader has swooped in to save you... you’re nothing special.

Yes, you’ve been pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble-wrapped. Yes, capable adults with other things to do have held you, kissed you, fed you, wiped your mouth, wiped your bottom, trained you, taught you, tutored you, coached you, listened to you, counseled you, encouraged you, consoled you and encouraged you again. You’ve been nudged, cajoled, wheedled and implored. You’ve been feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie. Yes, you have. And, certainly, we’ve been to your games, your plays, your recitals, your science fairs. Absolutely, smiles ignite when you walk into a room, and hundreds gasp with delight at your every tweet. Why, maybe you’ve even had your picture in the Townsman! And now you’ve conquered high school... and, indisputably, here we all have gathered for you, the pride and joy of this fine community, the first to emerge from that magnificent new building...

But do not get the idea you’re anything special. Because you’re not...

Read the whole thing.

Butterflies are Cheap, If Not Free

I spotted these butterflies hanging around a Milkweed plant at work today.  I took a bunch of pictures, and got a couple of decent ones.  I looked around to try to figure out which butterfly they are, but couldn't.

Bottom (Ventral) view

Top (Dorsal) View

UPDATE: My guess is that they are one of the Fritillaries, maybe the Great Spangled Fritllary.

The milkweeds were very fragrant, and attracted other visitors too.

I Wonder What Color the Sky is in His World

I'm guessing chartreuse...



1. Private-sector jobs have increased by an average of just 105,000 over the past three months and by just 89,000 a month during the entire Obama Recovery. In 1983 and 1984, during the supply-side Reagan Boom, private sector jobs increased by an average of 292,000 a month. Adjusted for population, that number is more like 375,000 private-sector jobs a month

2. If the labor force participation rate for May had just stayed where it was in April, the unemployment rate would have risen to 8.4%. As it is, the U.S. economy is suffering is longest sustained bout of 8% unemployment or higher since the Great Depression.

3. Private-sector GDP rose just 2.6% in the first quarter, after rising a measly 1.2% last year. By contrast, private-sector GDP rose 3.8% in 1983 and 6.5% in 1984 during the supply-side Reagan Boom.

4. The U.S. stock market is down 7% since early April.

5. Real take-home pay is down over the past year.

6. That first-quarter GDP report also showed that after-tax corporate profits dropped for the first time in three years. Major red flag.

Atlanterhavseieven

One of the world's more scenic roads on one of it's more scenic days.

The Atlantic Ocean Road or the Atlantic Road (Norwegian: Atlanterhavsveien) is a 8.3-kilometer (5.2 mi) long section of County Road 64 which runs through an archipelago in Eide and Averøy in Møre og Romsdal, Norway.

Voytek, the Polish Ammo Bear

"He liked a cigarette, he liked a bottle of beer - he drank a bottle of beer like any man." - Badass of the Week

...On their trip through Iran, the men of the Polish 22nd Transport Artillery Supply Company came across a young Iranian boy wandering through the desert like Jim Morrison tripping balls, and carrying a large cloth sack. The men thought the boy looked tired and hungry, so they gave him some food and a Crunch bar or some shit. When the kid thanked them, the Poles asked what was in the bag. The boy opened it up and revealed a tiny, malnourished brown bear cub. Since the soldiers knew the little cub was in very poor health and needed attention quickly, they bought the bear from the kid for a few bucks (or whatever the hell they used for money in 1940’s Iran – I can’t be bothered to look it up), and fed it some condensed milk from a makeshift bottle. For the next several days, they nursed the bear back to health, giving it food, water, and a warm place to sleep.

Over the long journey from Iran to Palestine, the bear, now named Voytek (it’s spelled Wojtek in Polish but pronounced "Voytek” because Polish is a crazy fucking language) quickly became the unofficial mascot of the 22nd Company. The bear would sit around the campfire with the men, eating, drinking, and sleeping in tents with the rest of the soldiers. The bear loved smoking cigarettes, drank beer right out of the bottle like a regular infantryman, and got a kick out of wrestling and play-fighting with the other soldiers. Of course, he was the most badass asskicking wrester in the entire company, thanks in part to the fact that he grew to be six feet tall, weighed roughly five hundred pounds, and could knock small trees over with a single swing of his massive, clawed paw. He grew to be a part of the unit, improving the morale of men who had spent several years getting their asses kicked in slave labor camps, and was treated as though he were just another hard-drinkin’, hard-smoking’, hard-fightin’, hair-growin’ soldier in the Company. When the unit marched out on a mission, Voytek would stand up on his hind legs and march alongside them. When the motorized convoy was on the move, Voytek sat in the passenger seat of one of the jeeps, hanging his head out the window and shocking the shit out of people walking down the street...

The Poles’ Finest Hour of the war came in the incredibly bloody battle for Monte Cassino. By the time II Corps arrived, the Germans were deeply entrenched in the hilltop monastery, and three previous Allied assaults on the position had all proved more fruitless than a South Florida orange tree in the middle of a worldwide Nuclear Winter. The campaign was proving to be one of the bloodiest battles of the Western Front, and the Poles were brought in to make the final push to capture the fortress. During the fighting, Voytek the Hero Bear actually hand-carried boxes of ammunition, some weighing in at over 100 pounds, from supply trucks to artillery positions on the front lines. He worked tirelessly, day and night, bringing supplies to his friends who were bravely battling the Nazis. He never rested, never dropped a single artillery shell, and never showed any fear despite his position being under constant enemy fire and heavy shelling. His actions were so inspiring to his fellow soldiers that after the battle the official insignia of the 22nd Artillery was changed to a picture of Voytek carrying an armful of howitzer ammunition. In the same vein, you have to assume that it was pretty fucking demoralizing to the Germans to see that the Poles had a fucking GIANT GODDAMNED BROWN BEAR fighting on their side...

The idea of a fucking alcoholic Nazi-fighting bear is so awesome that you’d think it was something out of a bizarre cartoon or a Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie. It’s the sort of shit that, even with all of the historical evidence, seems too totally awesome to be true. The bear was a hero of World War II, and there are statues of him and plaques memorializing his brave service in Poland, Edinburgh, the Imperial War Museum in London, and the Canadian War Museum.

Bears are notoriously bad pets, but maybe a diet of cigarettes and beer helps keep them docile.

It all sounds unlikely to me, but hey, it's in Wikipedia, so it must be right...

Rains a Mixed Blessing for Chesapeake Bay Waterfowl

Scientists find that rain may not always be a welcome thing to waterbirds

The scientists compared waterbird communities in estuaries of the Chesapeake Bay during 2002, a year of severe drought, to 2003, a year of high rainfall. During the drier year, the species of waterbirds present included both those that fed generally on many species of invertebrates and those that only fed on specific ones. However, the waterbird community was made up of most generalists the following year after heavy rain. The high rainfall increased nutrient runoff into the estuaries which reduced the estuaries' populations of small invertebrates. Because the dynamics of the invertebrate populations were affected, so in turn were the dynamics of the waterbird communities that fed on them.

I strenuously object to any study making hard and fast conclusions based on a comparison of two single years in the Chesapeake Bay (or anywhere else for that matter).  There are too many factors that can control the abundance of different waterfowl to be accounted by a single difference in two years in the Bay.  What about conditions in the north, where the birds go in summer to breed?  Could that have been the difference?

And as for the alleged reason for the effect, increased rainfall increases the probability of anoxia in the deep waters of the Bay.  These waters are approximately 5% of the Bay, and are out of reach of waterfowl in any event.  A change in the area of the anoxia would affect less than 5% of the area of the Bay.  Not likely to leave a mark on the waterfowl populations in a single year.

"We're seeing more extreme rainstorms in this region, so our results give a snapshot of what bird communities in urban estuaries might look like in the future," said Colin Studds, lead author and postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute at the time of the research. "As urban development continues, we need new solutions for managing water quality or we stand to lose the Bay's iconic natural treasures."

There is actually no evidence for "more" extreme weather as a result of global warming.  This is simply a way to invoke global warming without actually having to explain that the difference in temprature between years is generally small and inconsistent.  But if you say it will cause "more extreme weather, you can try to scare people regardless.  Hurricanes and tornadoes really are scary

Floods – no increase in frequency, less intense
Extreme weather events – no trend
Global precipitation – no trends
Weird weather – no trends
Forest fires – decreasing frequency

Will 'Slutty Wednesday' Become the New Norm?

We can only hope...

Stuyvesant HS students hold 'Slutty Wednesday' to protest school’s strict dress code policy

Nearly 100 smarties at the city’s top-performing high school bared their bodies in “risque” outfits yesterday to denounce their school’s conservative dress code — which bans the exposure of shoulders, midriffs, lower backs, bras and undies.

Stuyvesant HS students held the so-called “Slutty Wednesday” protest after girls got fed up with being told throughout the year that their short skirts and sleeveless tops made them more fit for a club dance floor than for a seat at the best public school in town.

What, no shoulder, midriffs, lower back or underwear?  What is this, Sharia?

Boys in tank tops complained that the administration’s apparent emphasis on keeping the girls well-covered was not only biased, but it also maligned the guys as horny teens who can’t control themselves when they see too much skin.

Yeah, Boys don't pay attention to that stuff, don't you know?

“We work our asses off here, and school is about learning. Clothing is not important,” said ninth-grader Lucy Greider, who said she has been sent to the office 10 times this school year for showing off too much cleavage, midriff or shoulder.

Ten times?  She's a slow learner.  Or very stubborn.  But it's not important to her.

“Sometimes, the teachers will call you out in the hallway, [but] I like what I wear. I want to have my own style in school,” she added. “A lot of the classrooms don’t have a/c’s and when it is 80 degrees outside and it is really hot, it’s perfectly OK to show a little skin.”

The dress code, which was introduced in the fall, bars students from donning tops with text or images in bad taste.

Hey, it's not text!

Bad taste is subjective.  It's like grading on a curve.

Shorts, dresses and skirts are not permitted to end above the fingertips when students extend their arms down at their sides.

Principal Stanley Teitel didn’t respond to an e-mail seeking comment. But he told the student newspaper last year — when the dress code was first under consideration — that the policy was intended to create a better learning environment.

I remember 9th grade, my math teacher Mr. Dinkle (yes really), sending girl after girl to the office for skirts that were "too" short.  His point was to tire the office and make them give up.  It worked.

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

It May be Time To Leave