1 M!

Sometime today the hit counter passed 1,000,000 hits.  I find that amazing. I can only credit two things.  Hot chicks and zombies...

Thanks ya'll!

Special thanks to Wombat-Socho at The Other McCain; without his indulging my sometimes absurd attempts at Rule 5 posts, I would have only a tiny fraction as many; also to Maggie at Maggie's Notebook, who forgave me for ripping off one of her Rule 5 posts, and suggested I send them to the Wombat.  William Teach at Pirate's Cove has also been a frequent linker, and source of inspiration, for good or evil, as have The DaleyGator boys, and The Classical Liberal.

Just to keep to the theme:

Sorry About Celebrating Sandy

“I’m so glad we had that storm last week,” he said Tuesday.



Chris Matthews is an ass.

In other news, 46% of people surveyed claimed the the coverage of Sandy influenced their vote in the election.  In Katrina, the media decided that Bush would get the blame for  what ever came of the storm, and covered it accordingly.  For Sandy they decided that whatever happened, they would make Preznit Obama out to be the leader and hero.  The legacy media can't die fast enough.

Modern Man vs Neandertal: Who Wins?

Who Would Win in a Fight: a Modern Human or a Neanderthal?

A team of archaeologists, paleoanthropologists, and paleoartists has created a more accurate Neanderthal reconstruction, based on a nearly complete skeleton discovered in France more than 100 years ago. The La Ferrassie Neanderthal man was short but stocky. If a modern man came nose-to-nose with a Neanderthal, could he take him in a fight?

Nature has already performed this experiment, and we're here, and they're not.

Nevertheless, let's go on with the thought experiment.

Possibly. A Neanderthal would have a clear power advantage over his Homo sapiens opponent. Many of the Neanderthals archaeologists have recovered had Popeye forearms, possibly the result of a life spent stabbing wooly mammoths and straight-tusked elephants to death and dismantling their carcasses. Neanderthals also developed strong trapezius, deltoid, and tricep muscles by dragging 50 pounds of meat 30 miles home to their families. A Neanderthal had a wider pelvis and lower center of gravity than Homo sapiens, which would have made him a powerful grappler. That doesn’t mean, however, that we would be an easy kill for our extinct relative. Homo sapiens probably has a longer reach, on average, than Neanderthals did, and more stamina. Most importantly, we could deploy these advantages to maximum effect using our superior wits. It’s obviously speculative, but a modern man of above-average build would have an excellent chance of defeating a Neanderthal in hand-to-hand combat if he could keep his opponent at arm’s length, survive the initial onslaught, and wear him down.

Kind of like Cassius Clay Mohammed "Float like a butterfly sting like a bee" Ali and Joe Frazier at the Garden, in 1971.  Oh yeah, Ali lost that one.

The image of Neanderthal as a squat, chiseled brute is sometimes overstated. Based on the small number of known specimens, it appears that the males averaged 5 feet 5 inches tall, which is only 2 inches shorter than the average Chinese man today and 4 inches shorter than the average American man. Bone structures in many Neanderthal specimens suggest that their biceps were no larger than those of an average Homo sapiens, and some of the Neanderthals unearthed in the Middle East were as slender as modern humans.

I think I saw her in a seminar this week

 If these reconstructions are accurate, if you dressed them right, they could walk unnoticed in Boston.

Neanderthals also had an intellectual side: They decorated their bodies with sparkly paint and sea shells, and some archaeologists think they even played a primitive flute. There was tremendous variation in the build and ferocity of Neanderthals, as there is among modern humans. The probable result of any interspecies scrap, therefore, would depend on the individual combatants involved.

What a cop out.  In real science, you make a prediction, and test your hypothesis, even if you had to revive or breed Neandertal stand ins..


My thanks to Wombat-Socho at The Other McCain for his continual tolerance on "Rule 5 Sun-er, Tuesday."

When You Really Have to Get to the Fishing Hole Quick

And the price of gas isn't an object.

Helluva Job, Fuggy* - II

FEMA closes New York disaster center because of a little rain...

FEMA disaster recovery centers in Hurricane Sandy-ravaged sections of the city that were supposed to provide assistance to hurricane victims went MIA Wednesday morning, posting signs saying that they were closed due to the approaching Nor'easter.

The temporary shuttering of the facilities, which help victims register for disaster relief, as well as city food distribution centers come even as many of those still reeling from the monster storm were not told that they had to leave the battered areas.

On Tuesday, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said that residents in the low-lying portions of Staten Island, Queens and Brooklyn were advised to leave ahead of the nor'easter, which could hit the city with 60 mph gusts and several inches of rain Wednesday afternoon, but that the evacuation was not mandatory like the one issued for all of Zone A ahead of Sandy.

“We do not believe that it’s necessary to evacuate people,” said the mayor Wednesday.

The move left residents of the storm-ravaged areas fuming.

"The storm is coming. We don't know how hard it's going to hit us," said Jenny Cartagena, 46, who found the FEMA center in Coney Island closed Wednesday when she went there looking for food. "I need some help now."

I believe that New York went solidly for Obama.  As H.L. Menken observed:

Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.

*The current Director of FEMA is Craig Fugate. 

Electricity is for the Birds

Just ask the people in Staten Island

Scrapped Plans for Power Lines Protect Habitats from Energy Development

Energy companies had a plan to carry power to the Northeast: Two transmission lines buzzing with electricity and running 425 miles through four states—West Virginia, Virginia, Maryland, and Delaware. Building the massive towers and stringing the high-voltage lines, however, would require cutting down 8,600 acres of forested wetlands and upland habitat, and the route would pass through Maryland’s Mattawoman Creek Important Bird Area. The environmental cost seemed too high to Audubon and a number of other conservation groups, especially since the demand for energy could be met with increased efficiency and other measures. In August, bowing to pressure from the groups, the energy companies scrapped the plans, thus protecting thousands of acres from development and preventing up to eight million tons of carbon from being released into the atmosphere every year.

I hope they enjoy freezing in the dark the next time the wind blows.

David Curson, director of bird conservation for Audubon Maryland-DC, submitted comments on one of the projects, pointing out that the wood thrush, the prothonotary warbler, and the Kentucky warbler—three neotropical migrants with declining populations—would have been particularly affected. Environmentalists also expressed concern for the potential effect on water quality in Chesapeake Bay. The arguments led to a new analysis, which showed a decrease in demand and other options for supplying electricity.

It's funny how the new analysis came out just the way they wanted it to.

Instead of building massive and expensive infrastructure, the utility companies will meet the region’s energy needs by paying high-demand companies to reduce their electricity use for specified amounts of time. “The decision hinged on looking at the role of the energy-efficiency programs and the state energy policies, and asking that they be examined,” says Kreitler. “It’s a precedent.”

I'll believe that Northern Virginia decreases its power demand when I see it, and not before.  Maybe if they exported all their high paying government jobs to North Dakota.

Remember, they don't love nature as much as they hate people.

Sandy Brings NY Back to Basics

Advertising Gas for Sex on Craigslist

Long gas stationlines and empty gas pumps have plagued drivers across New York and New Jersey since Superstorm Sandy slammed into the East Coast last Monday, leaving a gas shortage across the region.

Stories of price gouging and fights at gas stations have also been commonplace. But now it seems people — men in particular — are finding new ways to take advantage of gas-seeking Tri-State residents: Sex.

I'm guessing she needs more than 5 gallons...

It's Over

Obama wins.  We are so screwed.

Giant Great White Shark Stalks Georgia Beaches

A really cool site that allows you to follow telemetry tagged Great White Shark on a map.  Right now, a 16 ft shark named Mary Lee is moving down the East Coast, and is currently just off the coast of Georgia.  Go to the site, find the "Sharks" tab, select Mary Lee, and then push the "Where Have I Been" button to see her recent travels.  It's interesting how she seems to loiter around in one area for a while and then make a quick move to another. It looks like 2 days ago, she made a very quick move from the region off Charleston to the region off Beaufort in 1 hr?  That's a distance of about 70 miles in 1 hr?  I doubt it...

A New Index for P Pollution in the Works?

The Phosphorus Index: Changes afoot

A special section being published next month in the Journal of Environmental Quality addresses that question. The collection of papers grew out of a symposium at the American Society of Agronomy, Crop Science Society of America, and Soil Science Society of America 2011 Annual Meetings. The section acknowledges the problems that have been encountered with P Index development and implementation, such as inconsistencies between state indices, and also suggests ways in which the indices can be tested against data or models to improve risk assessment and shape future indices.

The P Index was proposed in a 1992 symposium after people became aware of the environmental impacts of P loss from fields. Many farmers were applying manure or other biosolids to their fields at rates that over-applied P. Researchers realized that assessing the risk of P loss from those products was important to protect water quality. The P Index tool was needed to connect various conditions because P loss is influenced by both site characteristics (e.g., soil test levels, connectivity to water) and the sources of P applied (e.g., inorganic fertilizer, organic sources). It was therefore a great improvement over the use of agronomic soil testing for P risk assessment.

This gets to some of the objections that farmers have against the 'Bay Diet' and the restrictions that it will bring to their operations, that the predictions of how much N and P are likely to leave a field and end up in Chesapeake Bay:

"The P Index was meant to be something that could be easily computed with readily available data, so an NRCS agent would be able to obtain the necessary inputs," says Nelson. "But there are many different factors that influence P loss as you move from one physiographic region to the next. The differences in transport processes, soils, and landscapes in each state have led to 48 different versions of the P Index, and some of them are very different."

And where the same data give different answers in different areas, there are economic consequences, also known as competitive advantages or disadvantages.

The inconsistencies of indices across states, along with a perceived lack of improvement in water quality in some regions, are now bringing the accuracy of the P Index into question. With different calculations in place, a set of factors may be categorized as low risk in one state and medium, or even high, risk in another. These discrepancies become especially obvious along state borders. Researchers understand the need to improve P indices and have made it a priority to base any changes on sound scientific data.

Efforts to preserve, evaluate, and improve the P index led the NRCS to release a Request for Proposals within the Conservation Innovation Grant Program. Three regional efforts were funded to evaluate and improve the indices in the Heartland, the Southern State, and the Chesapeake Bay regions of the U.S. Additionally, a national coordination project and two other state-level efforts (Ohio and Wisconsin) were recently funded through the Conservation Innovation Program.

 So how soon?

While the final suggestions for the next generation of the P Index are likely a few years off, the research is currently underway. Due to variations in regional characteristics and the problems previously encountered by state boundaries, it is likely that suggestions for improved indices will be based on regional distinctions, Nelson says. The objective is that the evaluations will lead to optimized P indices and better management tools that accurately incorporate site and source characteristics to predict the risk of P loss from fields.

Little Surfer Girls

I need a vacation already...



My thanks to Wombat-Socho at The Other McCain for his continual tolerance on "Rule 5 Sun-er, Tuesday."

All the News That's Fit To Hide

Obama Refused to Call Benghazi 'Terror,' CBS Covered Up

In an astonishing display of media malpractice, CBS News quietly released proof--two days before the election, far too late to reach the media and the public--that President Barack Obama lied to the public about the Benghazi attack, as well as about his later claim to have called the attack "terrorism" from the beginning.

CBS unveiled additional footage from its 60 Minutes interview with President Obama, conducted on Sep. 12 immediately after Obama had made his statement about the attacks in the Rose Garden, in which Obama quite clearly refuses to call the Benghazi an act of terror when asked a direct question by reporter Steve Kroft:

It's hard to know who's more shameful, the Preznit or CBS News.

Why I Support Romney

As Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit noted (or rather found in the comments of another blog), for many people this is the "ground glass election":

"Romney was not my first, second, or third choice, but I will crawl over ground glass to vote for him."

Why?  An Illustrated Election Guide.

#1 We are running unprecedented, and unsustainable deficits.Obama has made only the slightest effort to control the deficits after promising to halve them during his term (not nearly enough IMO).

#2 High levels of spending, and not a dearth of revenue is largely responsible for the deficits. No plausible amount of taxation could possibly close the gap.














 #3 The current administration has proven themselves unable to engineer an economy to provide jobs for the future, and have, again in my opinion, have actively pursued policies that inhibit the growth of jobs.
















 #4 The current administration has pursued a populist, destroy the rich policy, which I believe is detrimental to economic growth, while at the same time following a policy of rewarding wealthy friends.














#5  The President's foreign policy had been feckless as well, apologetic to those who don't deserve apologies, and projecting weakness in a world where weakness is an invitation for someone to take advantage of you.

I can go on, but that should be sufficient:

Scientists Pan 'Bay Horror' Film

Scientists find a little to like in 'Bay' film

Baltimore-born film director Barry Levinson has said his new eco-horror movie, "The Bay," about a Chesapeake Bay turned deadly by environmental abuse, is "80 percent factual."

Bay scientists and one activist who've seen it say the film, which opened Friday, does touch on some very real issues affecting the bay. But they say the artistic license taken with the facts and the gore that makes it a horror movie may overwhelm any back story about what's wrong with the Chesapeake.

Yes, I always expect my horror films to be reality based, say for example "Alien vs. Predator" and "Mega Shark vs. Giant Octopus" (wherein a giant Megalodon shark jumps into the air and eats a jumbo jet):



After all, aliens exist (right, Manuel?), predators exist, Megalodons used to exist and large octopuses exist, so those films are about 80% factual.

"They got enough science to be dangerous," said Donald Boesch, president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, who has studied coastal environments around the world. The film accurately portrays the Chesapeake as in diminished ecological health, he said, and the creatures that deliver the horror are real enough.

"Beyond that, you have to be prepared to view this as a metaphor," he concluded.

Someday, probably a rainy, windy day in the middle of winter, it will come on the SciFi Channel, no Deadliest Catches, American Pickers Pawn Stars or even gold hunters will be on, so I'll probably watch it.  And who knows, maybe I'll nap during the worst parts. 

To Help You Get Up for the Election

My thanks to Wombat-Socho at The Other McCain for his continual tolerance on "Rule 5 Sun-er, Tuesday."

How Global Warmists Caused the New York Flood

The Mayor’s Barrier - By Joe Nocera

One of my enduring childhood memories is going with my mother to the lobby of The Providence Journal, where she had once worked, to see the high water mark of the fearsome 1938 hurricane. It was the worst storm that had ever been recorded in New England, with winds of 115 miles per hour and a storm surge 16 feet high. Parts of Providence were 8 feet under water. Nearly 400 Rhode Islanders died.

So much for the myth that Sandy was "unprecedented."

Less than 20 years later, Hurricane Carol hit Providence dead-on. With a storm surge of more than 14 feet, it caused 68 deaths; the damage was estimated at $500 million. At which point, Rhode Island had had enough. In 1960, the state issued $15 million worth of bonds to pay the Army Corps of Engineers to build the country’s first storm barrier, aimed specifically at protecting its capital city.

The Fox Point Hurricane Barrier, a complicated array of dikes, gates, barriers and pumps, completed in 1966, has kept hurricanes at bay ever since. That includes Hurricane Sandy, which wreaked havoc on parts of the Rhode Island coastline, but barely dented Providence.

Storm barrier are used around the world to prevent the flooding of  important harbors and coastal areas, including the Netherlands, London, a.  New York is one of the largest ports in the US, and has been known to be vulnerable to hurricane storm surges for a very long time.  Why has no control structure been built to protect New York?

Part of the reason is that the cost of any such system would run into the billions of dollars. But another reason is that many environmentalists are firmly opposed to a big public-works project, fearing that it would give people a false sense of security about the problems posed by climate change. They prefer taking smaller steps, like raising the height of subway grates to keep water out of the subway tunnels. Bloomberg has embraced this approach.

In 2008, for instance, Bloomberg convened a panel of experts to examine the ways climate change could affect the city. The panel’s report, issued in 2010, documented the undeniable fact that the rivers and bays around New York were rising, and that changes in the atmosphere were likely to make storms both more frequent and more dangerous. Yet Malcolm Bowman, who leads the Storm Surge Research Group at Stony Brook University, told me that when he joined the panel, he was pointedly told that barriers were not going to get much emphasis.

So, they would rather New York suffer from the effects that they claim will devastate the planet than actually attempt to ameliorate the problem?

Remember, they don't love nature as much as they hate people.

Midnite Music - Turn the Audio Back Up!

To make up for that horrible abomination I posted last night.



My thanks to Wombat-Socho at The Other McCain for his continual tolerance on "Rule 5 Sun-er, Tuesday."

Fall Back at the Beach

The first day off of daylight standard  time.  A little more light in the morning is nice, but the loss of light in the evening is distressing.

Another day at the beach, a lot like yesterday, cool, overcast,  in the 40s, but not quite as windy.

The mirage was showing over on the other side of the Bay.  Here, James Island is seen doubled over on itself, and floating above the water.  That would heave been spooky before we understood optics.

The "midday" sunset I photographed yesterday was also out today, if not quite as demonic looking.

No sign of eagles today.  I wonder what they're up to.  However, there were several Great Blue Herons working in the shallows.

Skye and Red out on the prowl.  Skye pissed me off today by insisting that we take the wet way around the narrow spot.

When is a Sex Change a Sex Change?

Parents' outrage as transgendered woman is permitted to use the women's locker room 'exposing himself to little girls'

A transgendered man permitted to use the women's locker rooms at a Washington college has created uproar among parents who say their children have been repeatedly exposed by him.

At the center of the controversy, Colleen Francis, a 45-year-old student at Olympia's Evergreen College who identifies as a woman but with male genitalia, says she has a right to use the facilities and the school agrees.

'The college cannot discriminate based on the basis of gender identity,' Evergreen Spokesman Jason Wettstein told KOMO. 'Gender identity is one of the protected things in discrimination law in this state.'

Taking their own action, however, parents of children who use the facility - sharing the pool's locker room with a high school swim club and children’s swim academy – have turned to the police.

'[A mother] reported her daughter was upset because she observed a person at the women's locker room naked and displaying male genitalia,' a police report filed by a 17-year-old's mother in September read.

A perfect example of Sexual Correctness carried to an absurd result.  I think it's a reasonable question to consider at what point in the process of a sex change, a person should be considered a member of the opposite sex for semi-public nudity, especially when exposure to children is involved.  Should a man declare himself to be a woman for public bathing and showering purposes when:

1. He initially convinces himself that he should become a member of the opposite sex?
2. He convinces professional medical personnel that his desire to change sex is irrevocable and  a medical necessity?
3. Hormone treatments, and changes in dress make outward appearance of the opposite sex, but not surgery on external genitalia?
4. After surgery changes the appearance of the genitalia to conform to the adopted gender?

In this case, I think it would be reasonable to insist on the latter.  For an adult work environment, where it was well understood and accepted what occurring by all those involved, #3 seems possible.

Does that ask the transgendered person to make some sacrifices, like not showing off his/her genitalia in public for a few years?  Too bad!  If he/she is committed to having his/her genitalia altered, he/she should be committed enough not to stick them in faces where they are unwanted for a considerable period.  Society is not just about making them feel good about themselves.

No, Global Warming Didn't Cause Sandy

A truly excellent essay by Eric Berger on how current science does not support the now recently revived theme that global warming, er, global climate change is not causing hurricanes and other severe weather to be more common: There will probably be fewer Sandy-like storms in the future

It only took a hurricane striking new New York City, but climate change is finally an issue in the presidential campaign. On Thursday, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg cited climate change as a primary reason why he endorsed President Obama...

but enough of the politics...

I have already posted about an influential paper in Nature Geoscience, published in 2010, that surveyed all of the recent climate science and hurricane literature. In summary, after studying past and present hurricane data the scientists did not conclusively find any detectable human influence on hurricane activity.

Since that paper there has been more research done. One important paper was published in Science — that would be America’s most influential science journal — which modeled a warming climate’s impact on the frequency of intense Atlantic hurricanes (see abstract).

This is state-of-the-art science using the best-resolution climate models. If you’re a proponent of anthropogenic global warming then, by definition, you pretty much have to have some measure of faith in these models. The following projection, using the “business as usual” A1B climate scenario, predicts the change in hurricane frequency by wind speed between the current climate and what’s expected between 2081 and 2100.

So, the models predict much fewer hurricanes with winds in the 30-50 mph range, and only slightly more in the 65 mph range; well within the noise range?  That's what all the excitement is about?  Seems like we should be cranking out as much CO2 as possible to moderate the climate, and tame the hurricanes...

Yes, sea level rise will make the effects of hurricanes worse.

But of course, sea level was already rising before man started adding CO2 to the atmosphere, and the rate of sea level rise has not significantly increased during the period of rising CO2.

But telling people that Sandy was caused by climate change, or that Sandy is the “new normal” as a result of global warming, or that Sandy is “global warming, stupid,” is, well, stupid. The science does not support any of these positions. Science, in fact, indicates there will be considerably fewer Sandy-like storms in a warmer world. If saying this makes me a “scold” in the words of David Roberts, so be it.

False promises to the contrary will not help climate advocates make their case, it will only undermine their message when there’s a lull in major hurricanes hitting the United States.

It is true that Sandy was a human-caused disaster. We build cities on the coast. We don’t adequately protect them. We don’t heed evacuation warnings. That is where the blame lies for this one, not climate change.

 Found at Watts Up with That.

Green Dreams

Real Nightmares:  Wind farm noise harms sleep and health

American and British researchers compared two groups of residents in the US state of Maine. One group lived within a mile of a wind farm and the second group did not...

“Participants living near industrial wind turbines had worse sleep, as evidenced by significantly greater mean PSQI and ESS scores,” the researchers, Michael Nissenbaum, Jeffery Aramini and Chris Hanning, found. “There were clear and significant dose-response relationships, with the effect diminishing with increasing log-distance from turbines.”

A dose effect is an indicator that the effect is due to the wind power itself and not some ill-defined reverse "placebo effect," where people imagine they are getting ill from the suspected source.

The researchers also tracked respondents’ “mental component scores” and found a “significant” link – probably caused by poor-quality sleep – between wind turbines and poorer mental health.

More than a quarter of participants in the group living near the turbines said they had been medically diagnosed with depression or anxiety since the wind farm started. None of the participants in the group further away reported such problems. Each person was also asked if they had been prescribed sleeping pills. More than a quarter of those living near the wind farm said they had. Less than a tenth of those living further away had been prescribed sleeping pills.

Now, it's not that I'm against wind power per se, but given that it kills large charismatic birds, bats, costs far more than any form of conventional energy, and now, causes sleep deprivation, anxiety and depression among nearby humans, maybe we should rethink any plans to make wind power a form that we rely on, 

Turn Down Your Audio!

Before you watch this video.



Don't say I didn't warn you...

My thanks to Wombat-Socho at The Other McCain for his continual tolerance on "Rule 5 Sun-er, Tuesday."

Brisk at the Beach

This was our first strip down to the beach for a walks since Hurricane Sandy.  When Skye and I got down to the beach this morning, it was only about 43 F, and blowing about 15; the chilliest morning since sometime last spring.

 The eagles were about, and up to their usual tricks, sitting, flying, and chasing each other.

Some fresh food!  The eagles, and all the other scavengers will be eating well for a while.  Not clear what happened to it; maybe Sandy?

An unusual atmospheric trick.  Sunlight shining on clouds beyond the cloud layer showing underneath like a sunset, and being stretched by  the mirage.  There's quite a lot of zoom in this photo.

Just about the end of the walk, the clouds blew past...

And cleared up almost entirely.

Happiness is a Sharp Chainsaw

That is all...

Helluva Job, Fuggy*

From Instapundit

FEMA Runs Out Of Water, No Deliveries Until Monday. “In contrast to its stated policy, FEMA failed to have any meaningful supplies of bottled water — or any other supplies, for that matter — stored in nearby facilities as it had proclaimed it would on its website. This was the case despite several days advance warning of the impending storm.”

I had time to store 50 gallons. It took all of 20 min.

*The current Director of FEMA is Craig Fugate.

Rule 5 Saturday - The Machinist, Florence Welch

The subject of  week's Rule 5 post is Florence Welch, lead singer of the indie band, Florence and the Machine.

The band's debut album, Lungs, was released on 6 July 2009, and held the number-two position for its first five weeks on the UK Albums Chart.[2] On 17 January 2010, the album reached the top position, after being on the chart for twenty-eight consecutive weeks.[3] As of October 2010, the album had been in the top forty in the United Kingdom for sixty-five consecutive weeks, making it one of the best-selling albums of 2009 and 2010. The group's second studio album, Ceremonials, released in October 2011, debuted at number one in the UK and number six in the US.

What the hell is an "indie" band anyway?

 Interesting positioning of the light...

So that's "indie"?  OK, then.

Not a natural ginger, she chose the soulless look for her act.  Born in Camberwell, England, she is the daughter of an advertising executive and a Renaissance scholar.

She is well known for her dramatic staging and unusual clothing for performances:

"For the stage, it's The Lady of Shalott meets Ophelia...mixed with scary gothic bat lady. But in real life I'm kind of prim."

"The name Florence and the Machine started off as a private joke that got out of hand. I made music with my friend, who we called Isabella Machine to which I was Florence Robot. When I was about an hour away from my first gig, I still didn't have a name, so I thought 'Okay, I'll be Florence Robot/Isa Machine', before realising that name was so long it'd drive me mad."

More pictures of Florence below the jump.

But He Always Says What He Means

Our national embarrassment continues, for at least four more days...

Cecil Country Joins 'Anti-Bay Diet' Coalition

County agrees to pay $25,000 to join coalition

Cecil County commissioners Thursday agreed unanimously to spend $25,000 to join a new “TMDL (Total Maximum Daily Load) Coalition” initiated by Dorchester County.

The goal of the coalition is to clean up the Chesapeake Bay in a fiscally responsible manner.

A majority of the organizers question the science used to impose TMDL standards on sewage treatment plants and hope the new group can scientifically prove there are less expensive methods to reduce pollution in the bay...

“I think it’s in our best interest to join this,” said Commissioner Robert Hodge. “This ($25,000) is peanuts compared to $40,000 (cost to upgrade Seneca Point) or $600,000 (County’s estimated cost to comply with the state’s Watershed Implementation Program.),” he said. “It gives us a coordinated group and voice.”

The costs of the 'Bay Diet' are enormous, and it will cost the counties a great deal of money they can't really afford in the next 15 years or so (until 2025).  They are justifiably trying to make sure they get their money's worth.

NOAA Surveys Chesapeake Channels in Sandy's Wake

NOAA Surveys Ports and Channels for Sandy's Dangers 

NOAA Office of Coast Survey navigation response teams and other survey assets are in the water, as they begin checking for underwater debris and shoaling that may pose a risk to navigation. Tasked by the U.S. Coast Guard Captains of the Port, these vessels can use multibeam echo sounders or side scan sonar, as conditions warrant, to search for the answers that would speed resumption of shipping and other vessel movements:

• NOAA Ship Ferdinand Hassler spent time surveying deep draft ship channels in Chesapeake Channel and Thimble Shoal Channel, as 78 large vessels, including portions of the Navy's Atlantic Fleet, waited to transit through the entrance to Chesapeake Bay.
• NOAA R/V Bay Hydro II is surveying in the Hampton Roads area, checking channels needed by coal shipments and aircraft carriers at Norfolk.

It's not uncommon for major storms to cause massive movements of sediments, eroding them in some places, and building them up in others.  The area just south of us at Flag Ponds Park is reported to have been created by a major hurricane in the '30s which built up the sand bars, and closed off the ponds behind them.

An interesting example from coastal New Jersey, the town of Mantoloking, from Hurricane Sandy:

Pre Hurricane Sandy

Post Hurricane Sandy

However, given Sandy's relatively light effect here, I'm not expecting to run into a new sand bar the next time I go fishing.

In Addition to that Lack of Soul Issue...

Gingers may also be predisposed to skin cancer even in the absence of UV light 

Doctors have long urged people with red hair, fair skin and freckles to avoid the sun and its damaging ultraviolet rays. To venture outdoors without a wide-brimmed hat and sunscreen was simply courting skin cancer, they cautioned.

Now, however, a study in mice suggests that those among us with ginger hair and fair complexions face an elevated risk of the disease even when covered up.

The study, published online Wednesday in the journal Nature, suggests that the same reddish-yellow pigment that gives rise to rusty locks and an inability to tan is itself a potential trigger in the development of melanoma, the deadliest form of skin cancer...

Hey you, get out of the sun! Or at least let me apply sun screen to you.

The findings appear to solve the riddle of why darker-skinned individuals have a significantly lower risk of melanoma than lighter-skinned people, even when the sun protection factor, or SPF, of dark skin is just two to four levels higher than that of light skin. It could also explain why red-haired individuals are more susceptible to melanoma than anyone else, even blonds.

"Even if you're good about avoiding UV rays — you know, putting on sunscreen, wearing protective clothes and being careful at the beach — it's still possible this red pigment is related to carcinogenic activity anyway," said Dr. David E. Fisher, director of the melanoma program at Massachusetts General Hospital in Charlestown and senior author of the study.

I volunteer to do skin examinations...

Initially, Fisher and colleagues set out to examine how moles can develop into melanoma when exposed to ultraviolet light, a form of radiation that can damage DNA. The test subjects were mice bred to be susceptible to cancer. Because mouse hair is also determined by eumelanin and pheomelanin, researchers used black, albino and golden-yellow — or "red-headed" — mice to mimic a range of human pigmentation.

Yet even before researchers got a chance to expose the mice to UV rays, 50% of the redheads developed melanoma within a year. Their black and albino counterparts, however, developed melanoma at low rates and over a longer period.

Bear in mind that this is a mouse study, and that while the general mechanism may apply between mice and men, the extent to which ginger humans are predisposed to develop cancer in the absence of UV may be considerably lower.

"We were very surprised," Fisher said. "In fact, one of the first things we did was go back into the animal room with a UV meter just to be sure that for some inexplicable reason the lights were not actually emitting ultraviolet radiation."

Study authors surmised that since UV radiation could not have caused the cancer, the pheomelanin pigment itself was causing a damaging chemical reaction inside the animals' skin cells. This damage, called oxidative stress, occurs when cells produce an altered type of oxygen molecule as waste. Normally, cells can protect against these waste molecules, but an overabundance can damage the cell and its DNA, possibly laying the foundation for cancer.

Not really good news around here, since Georgia has red hair and her father died of melanoma, suggesting a familial predilection, even though he was not red haired or even fair skinned.  Georgia has always speculated that the years he spent in WWII baking in the New Guinea and New Caledonian sun.

Linked by The DaleyGator with their DaleyBabe of the Day Camilla Bell. Likewise, Wombat-Socho included this in his "Rule 5 Sunday: Medicine Show!"  Linked at The Classical Liberal "Gucci Galore", too. 

Your Friday Monkey Dacker Woman Raised by Monkeys

In all likelihood a hoax, but...

Ms Chapman's forthcoming book claims she learnt to catch birds and rabbits with her bare hands after being abandoned in the jungle by kidnappers.

The Tarzan-like episode was brought to an end when she was discovered by hunters, but by her ordeal continued when she was sold to a brothel in the city of Cucuta and groomed for prostitution.

I suppose it could have happened. Mom has often commented how she thought I was raised by wolves.

"They can print money; we can't do that here."

New York thinks the Federal Government should shoulder 100% of the cost of their clean up.

New York state on Wednesday asked the U.S. federal government to pay all the costs of cleaning up and repairing damage from massive storm Sandy that tore through the Northeast this week and crippled New York City.
...That would be a significant change from last year when the federal government covered about 75 percent of the $1.2 billion cost paid by New York to clean up after storm Irene hit the region.

New York top finance official, Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli, said Washington should foot the bill, because of lingering financial pressures on state and local governments from the 2007-09 recession. "I think the focus will have to be on Washington, for obvious reasons," DiNapoli told Reuters in an interview.

"They have greater resources. They can print money; we can't do that here. And given the fact this is not just a New York disaster, it's really a national disaster, it's probably for the federal government to step up and play a significant role."

To be fair, it's been done before...

Former President George W. Bush allowed 100 percent reimbursement of costs in some states after Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005, Mayer, who worked at DHS during Bush's presidency, told Reuters.

So, New York equates itself with Mississippi?

Tide Trashes Obama

No, not Hurricane Sandy, and not the Tides Foundation, but Tide detergent:

More On Sandy and the Bay

The Bay news for the day are just filled with stories on how the hurricane has, or will influence the Bay:

Researchers Gauging Sandy's Impact on Chesapeake
Heck ya!  Go where the money is!

Beach Repairs After Sandy May Cost $8 Million a Mile
Not worth it. Sand comes and sand goes.

Eastern Shore resilient, state will help in recovery, McDonnell says
I don't think there was that much damage over there.

In the wake of Sandy, Tangier makes its case for help

When you live on an island only a few feet above high water, expect flooding in tropical storms.

Some Va. waters to be opened to shellfish harvesting

Good news that it didn't have longer reaching effects.  Unless it did, and they're opening it up anyway.

Civil Air Patrol begins coastline damage assessment

Any excuse for a joy ride.

Sandy's Impact on Chesapeake Bay Less Than Expected

That was certainly my perception.

Havre de Grace Not Worried About Flooding from Conowingo Dam
That would be good.  I'm a little surprised, given the amount of rain that fell over such a wide area of the Susquehanna basin.

Blog: Sandy brings rain, flooding to Chesapeake Bay
The EPA Bay Program fears the flooding.  But they pretty much fear everything.

Blog: Superstorm Sandy Not as Harmful to Chesapeake Bay as Past Storms

Even the Chesapeake Bay Foundation say it's not so bad.

The Supreme Court Goes to the Dogs

Supreme Court considers whether drug-sniffing dogs pass the smell test in criminal probes

The use of dogs to find evidence has been taken to the Supreme Court.  There appear to be two issues primarily involved, first, the reliability of dog sniffing as a means of establishing probable cause for a search:

“Dogs make mistakes. Dogs err,” lawyer Glen P. Gifford told the justices. “Dogs get excited and will alert to things like tennis balls in trunks or animals, that sort of thing.”

But Justice Department lawyer Joseph R. Palmore warned justices not to let the questioning of dog skills go too far, because they also are used to detect bombs, protect federal officials and in search and rescue operations. “I think it’s critical ... that the courts not constitutionalize dog training methodologies or hold mini-trials with expert witnesses on what makes for a successful dog training program,” he said.

“There are 32 K-9 teams in the field right now in New York and New Jersey looking for survivors of Hurricane Sandy,” Palmore added. “So, in situation after situation, the government has in a sense put its money where its mouth is, and it believes at an institutional level that these dogs are quite reliable.”

If I were king, dogs would be certified for drug (and likely bomb detection, although that's a slightly different case, since most such searches are in public areas) with an extensive test, in which the dog and his handler were taken to an unfamiliar site, seeded with real contraband objects and ordinary objects likely to attract a dogs attention, and the dog and handler would be graded by the success on positive detections and false alerts, and stringent requirements would be applied, particularly to false alerts.

That still does not entirely get around the "Clever Hans" problem, where the dog alerts in response to subconscious clues from the handler, essentially substituting the handlers judgement for the dogs sense of smell, but testing for false positives in suspicious circumstances is a possible approach to that problem.

I also think throwing up the bomb detection and search and rescue functions is a red herring, as the evidence gathered in such cases rarely would need any probable cause for the search.

The other issue is the use of dogs to gain entry into homes where police would ordinarily be required to have a warrant to search:

In Franky’s case, Garre argued that since it wouldn’t be illegal for a police officer to sniff for marijuana outside a door, it shouldn’t be illegal for a dog like Franky to do the same thing.

If that’s true, said Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, then police could just walk down a street with drug-sniffing dogs in “a neighborhood that’s known to be a drug-dealing neighborhood, just go down the street, have the dog sniff in front of every door, or go into an apartment building? I gather that that is your position.”

“Your Honor, they could do that,” Garre said.

But if someone invented a machine called the “smell-o-matic” that could do the same thing as Franky, police would not be able to use it outside of doors without a warrant, Justice Elena Kagan said.

Police aren’t allowed to use technology to see inside a person’s closed-up home without a warrant, argued Howard K. Blumberg, the lawyer for defendant Joelis Jardines. And the use of Franky outside the house “I would submit that would basically be the same thing as a police officer walking up and down the street with a thermal imager that’s turned on,” Blumberg said.

 And a thermal imager that might be fooled by cats, cheese, tennis balls and other random objects.  I gotta go with the Kagan and Ginsburg on this one.

Sandy Topples Tree, Reveals Skeleton

 Just perfect for Halloween:

New Haven police say superstorm Sandy has revealed a skeleton beneath the town green that may have been there since Colonial times.

Police spokesman David Hartman says a woman who was with other bystanders looking at a fallen oak tree called police Tuesday after she saw bones in the upturned roots.

Hartman says the tree was planted on the green in 1909 on the 100th anniversary of President Abraham Lincoln’s birth. He says the remains likely belong to one of thousands of people buried there in Colonial times. The remains will be evaluated by the state medical examiner. WTNH-TV has more:

A Gravestone for Goldfish?

PETA wants sign to memorialize fish killed in crash

An Irvine resident is requesting that the city install a sign to memorialize the hundreds of soles killed in a traffic crash in early October as they were being taken to Irvine Ranch Market.

Technically, the fish were going to die anyway. And they weren't soles. They were bass, of the saltwater variety.

The crash occurred Oct. 11 when a truck carrying 1,600 pounds of live fish and several tanks of pure oxygen crashed with two other vehicles. The oxygen was used to keep the saltwater bass alive as the fish were being taken to market.

In the letter, Dina Kourda, on behalf of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, asks the city's street-maintenance superintendent to place the sign at the site of the crash on Walnut and Yale avenues. The sign would read, “In memory of hundreds of fish who suffered and died at this spot,” to remind tractor-trailer drivers of their responsibility to the animals who are “hauled to their deaths every day,” according to the letter, provided by PETA.

Only if they'll put up memorials in their gardens for all the plants they eat.