Does Lead Poisoning Cause Lead Poisoning?

An old theory is getting new new attention courtesy of Mother Jones magazine, that the epidemic of violence in the 1980s was linked to the rise in lead in the environment in the 60's due to leaded gasoline, and that the current ongoing decline in violence is due to the reduction of lead in the environment following the Clean Air Act of 1970.  The heart of the argument can be expressed in two graphs, a plot of violent crime versus lead used in gasoline (lagged by 23 years):

and a plot of intelligence in children versus blood lead content:

Leading to the hypothesis that lead (more specifically the tetraethyl lead used in gasoline) in the 60, absorbed by children, affected their brains, producing both lower intelligence and more violent behavior as young adults.

There is no doubt that lead, and tetraethyl lead, are powerful neurotoxins. However, repeat after me the magic chant that removes the emperor's clothes on many cases of bad science:

"Correlation is not causation!"

However much we want to believe in such a relationship, it remains very difficult to prove.  Take the graph showing violent crime vs lead use.  Literally hundreds if not thousands of industrial compounds have show similar usage trajectories, and if allowed some convenient lag period (why 23 years, are violent people most violent at 23? I would have guessed 19) could be fit to violent crime and show a similar result.  The combined effects of the Clean Air Act of 1970 and the Clean Water Act of 1972 was such that a large number of important pollutant compounds (e.g. organics such as DDT, PCB and dioxin and trace metals including Hg and Cd) show similar temporal patterns, and if you allow yourself to lag the data by similar suitable amounts, would produce similar graphs.

As for the lead in children graph, the analysis of lead in environmental media (tissue, water and sediments) underwent a revolution between 1971 and 1991.  I know; I was there doing lead analysis in the the environment for most of that time.  There was an enormous volume of erroneous trace element analyses made in the early days; it wasn't until the early and mid 80's that the role of clean techniques, and newer analytical methods made lead analysis reliable (mostly).

So, did lead in gasoline cause the '80s violence epidemic, and the removal of lead from gasoline stop it 23 years later?  Maybe, but the actual causal links are lacking, and we may never know.

Hot Chick Explains Negative Temperature

Or maybe she has negative temperature.

I'm not sure they're not bull shitting us on this one. Remember, half of science is wrong; the rest is exaggerated.  I don't expect to see engines running on negative temperatures anytime soon.  I expect cold fusion first.

Wombat-Socho linked this in the mega-Rule 5 compendium "Body Love" at The Other McCain. 

That's One Way to Start the New Year

Ours was a bit more sedate.

Scientists Build Barfing Robot

Why?

Norovirus, the infectious stomach bug that causes severe nausea and diarrhea — and is the scourge of cruise-ship passengers everywhere — is a very tricky virus to study. It can't be grown in a controlled laboratory environment, according to PopSci.com, so a cure for the easily spread disease has eluded medical researchers for decades.

To the rescue comes Vomiting Larry, a robot that simulates one of the more disgusting symptoms of norovirus. With his fine imitation of a college frat boy, Larry is helping his creators at the British Health and Safety Laboratory study the spread of the virus.

During a "projectile episode," as researchers daintily call it, the virus can spread up to 10 feet (3 meters) when an infected person throws up, according to Bill Marler, an attorney and an infectious illness specialist, on his Marler Blog.

That's sexist! There aren't enough women in science! They must build a vomiting female robot as soon as possible.  Preferably one with big breasts.

Nebraska Greenlights Keystone Pipeline

One of the final obstacles to the Keystone pipeline has just been cleared: A report released yesterday by Nebraska’s Department of Environmental Quality found that building the pipeline would not pose a threat to any of the state’s environmentally sensitive areas. The Wall Street Journal reports:

The much-anticipated final review of the pipeline found that a new route proposed by operator TransCanada Corp. avoids sensitive regions that have been a source of concern. Nebraska became the center of the debate over Keystone XL after the Obama administration rejected a permit for the pipeline last year, saying a congressional deadline made it difficult to conduct a thorough review of the state’s concerns.

Friday’s report triggered a 30-day deadline for Nebraska Gov. Dave Heineman, a Republican, to make a final recommendation to the U.S. government on whether to go forward with the pipeline. Nebraska’s approval is considered crucial to final approval by the Obama administration.

Now the buck is back on Obama's desk.  Will he find yet another excuse to deny the pipeline, gaining (or rather keeping) the support of his environmental base (emphasis on mental), or will his side with the pipeline workers who will build the pipeline, and the American people who will benefit from the added cheap energy?  Or will he vote present?

Lets review the history...

Aug. 2011, State Dept. OKs Keystone Pipeline
Nov. 2011, Lucy Prepares to Pull the Keystone Pipeline Football
Dec. 2011, What Is It About the Keystone Pipeline...
Jan. 2012, Obama Kills Keystone Pipeline
Jan. 2012, Keystone Backlash
Jan. 2012, Canada Threatens to Sell Keystone Oil to ...
Jan. 2012, Canadian Premier: We Are Not Your Park
Feb. 2012, Obama Rejected Keystone Pipeline For Political Reasons
Feb. 2012, The Not So Secret War Against Fracking
Mar. 2012, Senate Rejects Keystone Pipeline

I'm betting he finds an excuse to reject it again.

Cool and Bright at the Beach

Another "two day" beach report, for yesterday and today.  Both days were cool, bright and sunny.  Today was a bit breezier than yesterday, but not painfully so.  Good days for January.

 Not much bird activity either day.  The buffies are here, of course, but I haven't seen skin nor feather of the eagles.  Gulls, of course, are around, so I tried for few shots.

Bear Frustrated by Food Packaging

Found at Althouse. Top YouTube comment: "I've been there. Drunk, looking for a snack, couldn't get the pickle jar open."

Rule 5 Saturday - Rachel Weisz

This Rule 5 post was inspired by watching "Constantine", the 2005 horror/occult film over the Christmas holiday.  The film stars Keanu Reeves as Constantine, and Rachel Weisz as twin sisters, one alive and one dead. Parsimonious casting, that.

I was surprised to find that Rachel is English and Cambridge educated.  Her American accent fooled me. Her father is a Hungarian by birth, though, explaining the last name.

In addition to acting, she has been a fashion model and cover girl.

Her film roles have included 'Stealing Beauty' (1996) (NSFW link), 'Going All the Way' (1997), 'The Mummy' (1999), 'The Mummy Returns' (2001), 'Run Away Jury' (2003), 'The Constant Gardiner' (2005),  'The Lovely Bones' (2009), 'The Deep Blue Sea', (2011) and 'The Bourne Legacy' (2012).

In 2009, Weisz expressed her views on Botox to Harper's Bazaar – "It should be banned for actors, as steroids are for sportsmen. Acting is all about expression; why would you want to iron out a frown?"

I wonder how she feels about fake boobs?

Rachel is married to James Bond star Daniel Craig, in second marriages for both.

Spain Finds Mysterious New Revenue Source

Screw the old people!

Since its financial crisis began, Spain has been having trouble finding buyers for its increasingly risky government bonds. It thought it had found the perfect solution to this problem: tapping its own Social Security Reserve Fund as a buyer of last resort. But there’s one small catch. As the Wall Street Journal reports, with 90 percent of the fund already invested in Spanish government debt, the buyer of last resort is almost completely tapped out.

As more and more Spaniards retire, the government will have a major crisis on its hands as it attempts to pay pensioners through a fund composed mostly of its own debt:

“Most of the [Spanish] fund is an accounting trick,” said Javier Díaz-Giménez, an economics professor in Spain’s IESE business school. “The government is lending money to another branch of government.” . . .

[S]ome analysts say Spain will have trouble finding buyers for the estimated €207 billion in debt it plans to issue in 2013, up from €186 billion in 2012, to cover central-government operations, debt maturities of 17 regional administrations, and overdue energy bills.

 As goes Spain...

Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart

Genetically Modified Food Opponent Switches Sides

If you fear genetically modified food, you may have Mark Lynas to thank. By his own reckoning, British environmentalist helped spur the anti-GMO movement in the mid-‘90s, arguing as recently at 2008 that big corporations’ selfish greed would threaten the health of both people and the Earth. Thanks to the efforts of Lynas and people like him, governments around the world—especially in Western Europe, Asia, and Africa—have hobbled GM research, and NGOs like Greenpeace have spurned donations of genetically modified foods.

But Lynas has changed his mind—and he’s not being quiet about it. On Thursday at the Oxford Farming Conference, Lynas delivered a blunt address: He got GMOs wrong. According to the version of his remarks posted online (as yet, there’s no video or transcript of the actual delivery), he opened with a bang:

I want to start with some apologies. For the record, here and upfront, I apologise for having spent several years ripping up GM crops. I am also sorry that I helped to start the anti-GM movement back in the mid 1990s, and that I thereby assisted in demonising an important technological option which can be used to benefit the environment.

As an environmentalist, and someone who believes that everyone in this world has a right to a healthy and nutritious diet of their choosing, I could not have chosen a more counter-productive path. I now regret it completely.

So I guess you’ll be wondering—what happened between 1995 and now that made me not only change my mind but come here and admit it? Well, the answer is fairly simple: I discovered science, and in the process I hope I became a better environmentalist.

I don't, and never have, feared genetically modified food, so I'm gratified to see someone finally uses reason to change their opinions.

The author goes on to list some other "turncoats" in the science wars:

I can’t think of another environmentalist. But it does call to mind another turnabout. In 2002, medical writer Arthur Allen penned a New York Times Magazine story titled “The Not-So-Crackpot Autism Theory.” The piece suggested there might indeed be a link between autism and vaccination, and its publication in an outlet so mainstream as the New York Times gave the previously fringe theory more credibility. But soon after the article’s publication, more and more published research effectively confirmed that there is no link. Allen took that research seriously. A 2009 Times article about the book Autism’s False Prophets said of Allen: “He later changed his mind and now ‘feels bad’ about the [magazine] article, he said, ‘because it helped get these people into the field who did a lot of damage.’ ”

I can think of an environmentalist.  Back in April, I posted about James Lovelock, a noted environmental activist who announced this year that he had abandoned his opposition to Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming for lack of evidence:

“The problem is we don’t know what the climate is doing. We thought we knew 20 years ago. That led to some alarmist books – mine included – because it looked clear-cut, but it hasn’t happened,” Lovelock said.

“The climate is doing its usual tricks. There’s nothing much really happening yet. We were supposed to be halfway toward a frying world now,” he said.

Back in Grad school, a professor once told me that much of the advance in science came with the old guys retiring and dying off; only then could new theories being digested in the bowels of science be accepted by the newer crop.

I'm pleasantly surprised when I see an exception.  

How Fat is Fat?

A recent meta-analysis of a large number of studies on the effect of body mass has revealed a result counter to common wisdom, being overweight, including being slight obese actually seems to reduce the morbidity compared to people of "normal" and less weight.

Rather than Nanny Bloomburg going out and passing a New York City regulation requiring everyone to have at least one 32 oz fructose bearing carbonated drink in an effort to bring everyone up into the weight zone of minimal morbidity, or my own reaction, to reach for another doughnut, this has left epidemiologists struggling to maintain the narrative that thin is healthy as well as beautiful.

William Saleten of Slate has collected a large number of "but" arguments to this finding, and considers them, in what I think is a pretty fair and insightful analysis:

Epidemiologists struggle to explain a study that challenges a core belief: Fat will kill you.

1. The difference is barely significant. In the JAMA analysis, overweight people were just 6 percent less likely to die than normal-weight people. “It's probably only statistically significant because of the large number” of people in the combined data set, says one skeptic. Maybe. But if the correlation had gone in the other direction—showing a marginally higher death rate among the overweight—you wouldn’t hear scientists arguing that what’s statistically significant isn’t really significant.

Exactly right; if the results of the meta-analysis had confirmed their preconceptions the large sample size necessary to find statistical significance would not have been an issue to them.  A similar meta-analysis was used to find the relationship between second hand smoke and sickness which has been used as the excuse reason to regulate smoking in public places.  However, the fact that a meta analysis was require suggests the results of the individual studies was mixed, and evidence for causality weak.

2. Death risk is the wrong standard. So what if fat doesn’t correlate with mortality? It still correlates with many diseases, which may ultimately affect mortality.

Perhaps, but it's an important standard.  If it's causing a lot of other diseases, apparently they're not killing us.

3. Overweight is too close to obese. We used to think that being overweight gave you a higher risk of death. Then we collected data that suggested overweight might be OK but obesity was still deadly. Now we have data that suggest even mild obesity may be OK. To account for this, weight-control advocates are adding another link to their long-standing sermon: If you’re overweight, you’re on the road not just to mild obesity but eventually to morbid obesity, which the JAMA analysis validates as a huge mortality risk (with a 29 percent higher likelihood of death).

Undoubtedly true for some, but not for all,  many people struggle somewhat with obesity their whole life without succumbing to morbid obesity.  And these people seem to stand to benefit from it!  Drat!

4. The dangers of being underweight hide the dangers of being overweight. A JAMA editorial notes that people in the thinner half of the “normal” BMI range have a higher mortality rate than those in the plumper half. This thinner subset inflates the normal-weight group’s mortality rate, which makes the mortality rate among overweight and obese people look good by comparison. The solution is to shift the whole scale to the right, so that these thin people are recognized as underweight, while people presently labeled overweight are redefined as normal weight...

An interesting data point, noting that the thin side of "normal" also has a downside.  Have another donut.  It seems that society is adopting this view unconsciously.  Many have noted that heavy is the new normal, and except for movie stars; most of us are OK with it.

5. Some kinds of fat are worse than others. At the moment, scientists seem to agree that while belly fat is bad for you, butt and thigh fat might be safe or even beneficial. So instead of focusing on BMI, we should measure your waist-to-hip ratio, body-fat percentage, blood pressure, blood lipids, glucose, and cardio-respiratory fitness.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda.  But the studies weren't done that way apparently, or at least not consistently enough to use the data.  It's probably true, but then people who get fat in the hips and thighs would have to authorized to drink 32 oz high fructose soft drinks, while those of us who accumulate belly fat would be denied them.

6. Fat helps you survive some diseases. The JAMA editorial points out that among people suffering “a wasting disease, heart disease, diabetes, renal dialysis, or older age,” higher BMI correlates with a lower mortality rate. “Even in the absence of chronic disease, small excess amounts of adipose tissue may provide needed energy reserves during acute catabolic illnesses.” That doesn’t mean fat makes you healthy. It means that once you’re unhealthy, fat might keep you alive, at least for a while.

You mean, the body uses fat to survive the lean, bad times?  Whoda thunk?

7. Fat protects you against injury. Many old people die from falls. Chubbier people “have more padding to protect the bones should a patient take a tumble, lowering the risk of a life-endangering hip fracture,” notes the Los Angeles Times.

Time for another doughnut already; they're actually starting to make fat sound good. 

8. Muscular people inflate the survival rate of the fat group. BMI “doesn't differentiate between fat and muscle mass,” observes the Wall Street Journal. So people who exercise and gain muscle are counted as fatter, when really they’re just stronger.

Now there's my problem; too much muscle being measured as fat.   

9. Sick people depress the survival rate of the “normal” group. The JAMA analysis controlled for smoking and pre-existing disease, and it didn’t include anyone in a hospital or hospice. But critics aren’t mollified. They insist, according to the Associated Press, that the normal-weight sample unduly “included people too thin to fit what some consider to be normal weight, which could have taken in people emaciated by cancer or other diseases.” It would take further, more precise studies to falsify this assertion.

Are they arguing that the "normal" group contains people who are really fat people who are skinnier than they "should be" because they're ill?  But there are no fat people who would be skinny people because they are ill?  This is getting to be pretty convoluted reasoning.

10. Overweight gets you more medical attention and intervention. Doctors’ belief that fat signals a health risk makes them more likely to scrutinize heavier patients for disease symptoms or risk factors. Lots of evidence suggests doctors treat these patients more aggressively, thereby reducing mortality. In this way, the medical profession’s assumption that weight correlates with illness makes that correlation less visible in mortality data.

Doctors are prejudiced in favor of against fat people? And that get's them more treatment?  And if doctors started treating mild obesity as normal, they would start to die at a rate that would satisfy the critics?  So we need rules to cut down the attention that fat people get from doctors?  Weird. 

11. Medicine has made fat less harmful. “New pharmacological therapies and invasive treatments for existing disease may prolong survival,” the JAMA editorial points out. These and other advances, particularly those that reduce cholesterol and blood pressure, “may account for the weakening of associations between obesity and mortality.”

Another weird argument.  If true it would suggest that medicine has been better for fat people than for "normal" and "thin" people.  Do we have to demand that modern medicine be withdrawn from fat people so that we can get them us back to the politically correct higher level of morbidity?  Besides, they never really established the association between obesity and mortality to begin with, which is why this study was of interest to begin with.

12. Overweight doesn’t mean you’re getting fat. It means you’re resisting obesity. "In a society prone to both epidemic and increasingly severe obesity, it may be that those who manage to remain in the 'overweight' class are, in fact, those who are actually doing quite well," says David Katz, director of Yale’s Prevention Research Center. So instead of seeing these people as formerly thin folks with bad habits, we should see them as fat-prone folks with good habits. How this squares with the notion of overweight as a gateway to obesity—a warning echoed by Katz—isn’t clear.

It's all pretty strange stuff.  They are trying desperately to find arguments to maintain their war on overweight and mild obesity (there's really no question that extreme obesity is a problem).

On one level, these explanations sound weak and weaselly. Dogmas, even in science, don’t surrender easily to contrary evidence. Experts who think weight gain is dangerous will find ways to reaffirm that belief, explaining away data that don’t fit it. But science, in its grudging way, does evolve. The explanations offered today in defense of the fat-is-bad doctrine are actually modifications of it. They’re taking us beyond crude categories such as BMI, overweight, and fat. A decade from now, we’ll still believe fat is bad for you, but we’ll be far more sophisticated in what we mean by “bad” and “fat.” And the JAMA study’s critics, like its defenders, will take the credit.

And I predict, confidently, that people will still be fat a decade from now, and they'll still be looking for reasons for people to lose weight. 

EPA Loses Bid to Make Water a Pollutant

Judge Slaps Down EPA Bid to Regulate Water as a Pollutant

A federal district judge Thursday shot down a “novel” EPA attempt to regulate the flow of water as a pollutant, stopping dead in its tracks what otherwise would have been a major regulatory expansion.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady handed a significant legal victory to Virginia Attorney General Kenneth T. Cuccinelli II, who is running for governor of the Commonwealth.

Cuccinelli personally argued the case before O’Grady on Dec. 14, warning the EPA’s attempt to regulate the flow of water into state waterways would amount to a “tremendous expansion” of its regulatory power.

Water as a pollutant being regulated under the Clean Water Act?

"EPA's thinking here was that if Congress didn't explicitly prohibit the agency from doing something, that meant it could, in fact, do it," said Cuccinelli in his statement.

"Logic like that would lead the EPA to conclude that if Congress didn't prohibit it from invading Mexico, it had the authority to invade Mexico. This incredibly flawed thinking would have allowed the agency to dramatically expand its power at its own unlimited discretion. Today, the court said otherwise.”

...the Accotink TMDL would have ordered state and local officials to reduce almost by half the amount of stormwater that would flow into the creek. That influx, the EPA said, was stirring up sediment in the waterway, and harming worms and insects that help keep the creek clean.

But O’Grady said the EPA needs congressional authorization in order to issue such regulations.

"Stormwater runoff is not a pollutant, so EPA is not authorized to regulate it," O'Grady said.

Perhaps the EPA was emboldened by the EPA being given the right to treat a significant component of  the atmosphere (carbon dioxide) as a pollutant.  I expect to see EPA continue enforcement on this as they appeal it to the Supreme Court.

Authorities Prevent Another School Massacre...

in 2030 or so...

Maryland first-grader suspended for pointing fingers at friends, saying 'pow'

The boy, a student at Roscoe Nix Elementary School in Silver Spring, was suspended for one day. The incident happened a week after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in Newtown, Conn.

The family's attorney says the 6-year-old was playing with friends, not making threats.

"Evidently, he was pointing his finger at someone and saying, 'Pow,'" said Robin Ficker, an attorney for the family.

You do know I'm joking, don't you?

The "Advice Goddess" wins the commenting contest.

The finger I want to raise ... is my middle one.

You Can Take the Woman Out of the Cave...

Marissa Mayer

But you can't take the cave out of the women.

The Dark Side Of Feminism - Why Women Don't Like Powerful Women

It would have been better if she had dark circles under her eyes. Maybe a little bit of flab around the middle. At the very least a stain on her blouse – anything. Instead, in her first public appearance since the birth of her son, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer was as slim and blonde as ever, beaming at the cameras.

"The baby's been easy," she said – no problem at all. How shocking!
...Mayer’s first post-natal interview sent storm waves crashing through the Internet. Couldn’t she just have kept her mouth shut, feminists, mothers, even childless-by-choice women, asked. Little seems to polarize other women so much as successful women. Or women who have lives very different from the ones they have more or less chosen for themselves.

Nothing like a successful woman bragging to set other women off.  The article goes on to discuss different patterns in behavior between women and men with regard to within gender competition for status.

Men and women behave very differently when it comes to recognizing status and hierarchy. Gender researchers say that men have no problem with pecking orders, whether it’s on the soccer field on in the boardroom. They recognize the top dog, who occupies second and third place, without envy (mostly) and everything about their seating and speaking order at meetings, body language, status symbols, bear witness to this. That doesn’t mean of course that they won’t compete for better positions. And they usually do this by emulating the top man and copying his strategies. And when they make it to the top, they see no reason to play that down.

Whenever gender differences in behavior is discussed, I like to consider how humans likely evolved as hunter gatherers.  For the most part, men were interface between the family and the larger world.  In the hunting part of the hunter gatherer, co-operation was at a premium; cat fights while  trying to spear a mammoth are non-productive or even fatal to both participants.    However, back relative protection of home base or camp, among the generally less physically powerful women, jockeying for social position was more productive and less dangerous.

Research has revealed that females react very differently. They do tend to play themselves down to bring everybody together: their goal is integration, not competition. Among little girls, any girl who stands out because she is smarter, funnier or prettier is anything but admired by the others. Grown women in professional life have learned that hiding their qualities just so other women will like them damages them, but the net result is: they are not liked. Solidarity ends there.

Someone is going to come along an argue that it is all nurture; girls learn this behavior from their mothers and older sisters, and men learn their behavior from their fathers and older brothers.  And then they'll go on to argue that we would all be better off if men learned to be more like women. I don't buy it.  We are who we are because evolution has shaped our behavior, and our society exists the way it is because that behavior is a pattern that we fall into instinctively. 

 Wombat-Socho came through with the giant Rule 5 post "Les Chants Magnetique" right on time at The Other McCain.

Your Friday Discovery Channel Monkey Dackers

Wombat-Socho came through with the giant Rule 5 post "Les Chants Magnetique" right on time at The Other McCain.

Midnite Music - The Good, The Bad, The Ukalele

Swiped from LauraW at Ace's, who also posted their rendition of the Theme from Shaft.

This is amusing too...



The original here...

And then, somehow, I stumbled on this...



Which makes this post get a full "Cutie" tag...

Wombat-Socho came through with the giant Rule 5 post "Les Chants Magnetique" right on time at The Other McCain.

20 Most Annoying Liberals

Just a sample...

7) Michael Bloomberg: Bloomberg seems to spend most of his time railing against the twin evils of guns and 32 oz. sodas. He’s living proof that C.S. Lewis was right when he said, “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

Defining quote: “Last week, Nanny Bloomberg, Mayor of New York, rivaled his own personal best for worst mayoral performance since that snowstorm a couple of years back. This is a man who spends his days micro-managing the amount of soda New Yorkers are allowed to have in their beverage containers rather than, say, the amount of ocean New Yorkers are allowed to have in their subway system — just as, in the previous crisis, the municipal titan who can regulate the salt out of your cheeseburger proved utterly incapable of regulating any salt onto Sixth Avenue. Imagine if this preening buffoon had expended as much executive energy on flood protection for the electrical grid and transit system as he does on approved quantities of carbonated beverages. But that’s leadership 21-century-style: When the going gets tough, the tough ban transfats.” — Mark Steyn

Secret New York Study Finds Fracking Safe

I guess it didn't fit the agenda.

ALBANY — The state’s Health Department found in an analysis it prepared early last year that the much-debated drilling technology known as hydrofracking could be conducted safely in New York, according to a copy obtained by The New York Times from an expert who did not believe it should be kept secret.

The analysis and other health assessments have been closely guarded by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and his administration as the governor weighs whether to approve fracking. Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, has long delayed making a decision, unnerved in part by strident opposition on his party’s left. A plan to allow a limited amount of fracking in the state’s Southern Tier along the Pennsylvania border is still seen as the most likely outcome, should the drilling process receive final approval.

The eight-page analysis is a summary of previous research by the state and others, and concludes that fracking can be done safely. It delves into the potential impact of fracking on water resources, on naturally occurring radiological material found in the ground, on air emissions and on “potential socioeconomic and quality-of-life impacts.”
...
“By implementing the proposed mitigation measures,” the analysis says, “the Department expects that human chemical exposures during normal HVHF operations” — short for high-volume hydraulic fracturing — “will be prevented or reduced below levels of significant health concern.”

The analysis also rejects a broad quantitative risk assessment of fracking — the kind of study that would try to project the probability of various hazards — saying it would “involve making a large number of assumptions about the many scenario-specific variables that influence the nature and degree of potential human exposure and toxicity.”

Environmental groups have long complained that the state has refused to make documents about its health assessments public.

They may change their minds now, and demand that it be kept secret.  I'm shocked that the New York Times is publishing this.

Al Gore Aligned with Al Jazeera

A follow up to this mornings post about Al Gore selling his Current TV Channel to Al Jazeera, the Qatar government owned media outlet.  It turns out that Glen Beck tried to buy the channel and was turned down by Al Gore and his backers, based on his political outlook:

The Wall Street Journal caught the detail in its coverage: "Glenn Beck's The Blaze approached Current about buying the channel last year, but was told that 'the legacy of who the network goes to is important to us and we are sensitive to networks not aligned with our point of view,' according to a person familiar with the negotiations."

The syllogism is pretty simple.  Al Gore and his backers would not sell Current to Glenn Beck because they were not aligned with his views.  They sold Current to Al Jazeera.  Ergo, Al Gore and his backers are aligned with Al Jazeera.

Snow Removal Canadian Style

I guess when you get a lot of it, you get good at taking care of it.

Bay Model Flawless, Claims MDE

MDE: Bay model is not flawed

...Responding to Pipkin's question about whether or not the MDE and DNR will be involved in the federal relicensing process for the Conowingo, Summers said his agency is responsible for reviewing and issuing the dam's Clean Water Act Water Quality Certification, a prerequisite for relicensing.

As for the bay model Pipkin called “flawed,” Summers said Maryland and other watershed states are working with the EPA to improve it, not because it is “flawed,” but because “we are committed to continually seeking the best possible scientific and technical information to guide our restoration efforts.”

In his letter to Summers, Pipkin said the sediment that flows through the Conowingo after an event like Tropical Storm Lee in 2011 has the potential to wipe out efforts to clean up the bay.

“This is certainly not true, as we observed specifically with Lee,” wrote Summers. “Although Lee was a major storm, the Bay, and in particular, the submerged aquatic vegetation covering the Susquehanna Flats at the point where the river joins the Bay have been recovering and as a result were resilient enough to weather the storm and continue on their path to recovery.”

Lee hit the Bay rather late in the annual cycle of the Bay, in early September, by which time the vegetation in the Bay was at it's height. The subsequent winter largely erased the effects of Lee in the next growth season.

Remember Fritz's Three Laws of Science:

Fritz's First Law of Science:  Half of all the science in the mass media is wrong, and the other half is exaggerated:

Fritz's Second Law of Science:  All models are wrong; the only question is by how much and in which direction.

Fritz's Third Law of Science: It is highly probable that a model is biased in the direction its author believes is correct.


You can be sure that the Bay model gives results that correspond to the policy preferences of the authors, or more specifically, the agencies that pay the authors.

CBF Gives Bay D+, Slightly Improved

Bay shows slight improvement in annual ritual

The Chesapeake Bay Federation (CBF) again gave the bay low marks this year for pollution levels, but said some of the fruits of federal guidelines are beginning to show.

"While the Bay is still dangerously out of balance, I am cautiously optimistic for the future. The federal/state Clean Water Blueprint for the Chesapeake Bay is in place and beginning to work," said CBF President William C. Baker in a press release.

The CBF regularly evaluates 13 levels of the bay's health and grades them accordingly. This year, the Chesapeake Bay's overall score was 32 percent, which the CBF labeled a D+. That's up one point from the last State of the Bay report in 2010, and four points since the report in 2008.

"While hopeful, a Bay health index of 32 on a scale of 1 to 100 should be a sobering reminder that there is a great deal left to do," Baker said.

32 is a D+ because the Bay is never expected to achieve the 100 that represents the theoretical pristine bay before the arrival of white men (I guess the depredations of red men, Indians, uh, Native Americans don't count). Since no one alive has ever seen it, we can only guess at what that state was actually like.

The largest decline in this year's evaluation was due to deterioration of underwater grasses. The largest increases were in dissolved oxygen and the number of crabs, which according to the report are at the highest winter population in more than a decade.

We know the crabs did extraordinarily well this year, and it wouldn't be a shock to see that decline back to numbers like recent years.

I take these ratings with an enormous grains of salt.  Most of the goal here is to get publicity for CBF, not the Bay.

Courtsey of Drudge

HILLARY DISCHARGED...

No Date For Return To State...

FLASHBACK: Surgery after breaking arm; Falls in parking garage...

VIDEO: Unsteady, Trips Boarding Plane In Yemen...

Something Old, Something New...

Although to call Crystal Harris new is kind of a stretch:

Hugh Hefner And Crystal Harris Tie The Knot

Hugh Hefner and Crystal Harris are married!

The Playboy honcho, 86, and model, 26, tied the knot on New Year's Eve at the Playboy Mansion in L.A.

Harris announced that she was engaged to Hef back in December 2010, but called off the wedding just a few days before the June 2011 ceremony. A year later, they reconciled.

You may recall, Crystal auctioned off her original engagement ring last October at NYC auction house Christie's for a whopping $90k! Good thing her new hubby gave her an even bigger engagement ring the second time around. Now she has a massive wedding band to add to it!

Let's hope this marriage lasts until 2014.

It's been two years now that we've been following the on, off, on off; oh stop already, romance between Crystal Harris, Playmate of the Month for December 2009, and founder and standard bearer of the Playboy empire, Hugh Hefner.  Gotta give to the old boy, whatever he's got (probably money), I want some, too!

On the other hand, Ann Althouse, 60ish legal blogger, and admitted feminist asks:

What does he see in her? 

Come on, Ann, you can't really be that dense, do you need someone to draw you a picture, when there are plenty of photographs available (NSFW links)?

Previous posts on the up and down Hugh/Crystal romance:

Hefner first gets engaged to Crystal
They didn't need a pre-nup 
An epidemic of Legionnaires Disease at the Playboy Mansion
Crystal pawned Hef's ring for a cool $90k
Their respective rebound partners
Initial reconciliation in June
And finally, their re-engagement

Is the story still alive?  Will Hef survive the honeymoon?  Stay tuned!

Wombat-Socho came through with the giant Rule 5 post "Les Chants Magnetique" right on time at The Other McCain.

Al Jazeera Buys Al Gore TV

Al Jazeera Seeks a U.S. Voice Where Gore Failed

Al Jazeera, the pan-Arab news giant, has long tried to convince Americans that it is a legitimate news organization, not a parrot of Middle Eastern propaganda or something more sinister.

It just bought itself 40 million more chances to make its case.

Al Jazeera on Wednesday announced a deal to take over Current TV, the low-rated cable channel that was founded by Al Gore, a former vice president, and his business partners seven years ago. Al Jazeera plans to shut Current and start an English-language channel, which will be available in more than 40 million homes, with newscasts emanating from both New York and Doha, Qatar.

Probably raising the level of truthfulness and accuracy of the channel and the media as a whole. And as added irony:

Mr. Gore and his partners were eager to complete the deal by Dec. 31, lest it be subject to higher tax rates that took effect on Jan. 1, according to several people who insisted on anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly. But the deal was not signed until Wednesday.

Taxes are for the rest of us.

US, Kiwis Tested Tsunami Bomb in WWII

'Tsunami bomb' tested off New Zealand coast

The tests were carried out in waters around New Caledonia and Auckland during the Second World War and showed that the weapon was feasible and a series of 10 large offshore blasts could potentially create a 33-foot tsunami capable of inundating a small city.

The top secret operation, code-named "Project Seal", tested the doomsday device as a possible rival to the nuclear bomb. About 3,700 bombs were exploded during the tests, first in New Caledonia and later at Whangaparaoa Peninsula, near Auckland.
The plans came to light during research by a New Zealand author and film-maker, Ray Waru, who examined military files buried in the national archives.
...
Mr Waru said the initial testing was positive but the project was eventually shelved in early 1945, though New Zealand authorities continued to produce reports on the experiments into the 1950s. Experts concluded that single explosions were not powerful enough and a successful tsunami bomb would require about 2 million kilograms of explosive arrayed in a line about five miles from shore.

So they would have needed  about 2 kilotons of explosive to produce a wave big enough to swamp a city, carefully laid, and detonated in a particular pattern?  Sounds a lot easier to take a fraction of that much explosive and drop it by air.

The Hiroshima bomb was 16 kilotons yield, centered in one small area.

Ice Stupades

I think they all made it. Darwin thwarted again.

Justice for Thee, But Not for Me...dia

David Gregory walks free while Iraq vet was jailed

In July, The Washington Times highlighted the plight of former Army Spc. Adam Meckler, who was arrested and jailed for having a few long-forgotten rounds of ordinary ammunition — but no gun — in his backpack in Washington. Mr. Meckler, a veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, says he had no idea it was illegal to possess unregistered ammunition in the city. He violated the same section of D.C. law as Mr. Gregory allegedly did, and both offenses carry the same maximum penalty of a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.

So much for the argument made by liberals that David Gregory does not deserve to be prosecuted under this statute because he did not intend to do any harm to anyone with his stunt.  As written the law does not require such intent, and they clearly enforce it on that basis.

Mr. Meckler was charged with the crime and was forced to accept a plea deal to avoid the cost and time of a protracted legal fight. The indefensible nature of Mr. Meckler’s case led directly to a new law passed by the D.C. Council in December that allows prosecutors to file civil instead of criminal charges, but only if the accused was unaware of the city’s laws.

NBC has big  pockets; let them battle a District or US Attorney intent on making a career or a political point out of his opposition to gun control, or perhaps in this case, his opposition to media flouting the law for profits.

That exemption probably wouldn’t apply to Mr. Gregory, who held up a 30-round rifle magazine on his show on Dec. 23 to make his point about the need to ban them. NBC asked the police in advance for permission to bring the contraband into Washington for the interview with National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre, but it was not granted.

“I unknowingly broke the law,” Mr. Meckler told The Washington Times. “Mr. Gregory knowingly broke the law. While both are seemingly harmless, both acts were deemed illegal under the District’s obscure firearms laws.” Mr. Meckler said he would never have intentionally left the rounds in his bag.

The former Army medic is still upset about being left with a criminal record and being enrolled on the police list of firearms-related criminals. “I think if you had to measure the criminality of the two instances, his should be interpreted as more severe. At the very least, he should be put on probation, pay a fine and be added to the District’s Gun Offender Registry, as I was ordered to do,” Mr. Meckler said.

It wouldn't hurt David Gregory to have a criminal conviction, pay a heavy fine, and have to report to a probation officer monthly for a year or three.  After all, that is the going price for breaking this law unintentionally.  Maybe it should be worse for breaking it intentionally;

"Coming to you live from Washington D.C. Jail this week, "Meet the Press" with David Gregory.  From his cell this week, David will be interviewing Herschel McCrude, crack dealer and homosexual rapist."

I Know, Let's Blame the Amish!

The Amish and the Chesapeake: Pennsylvania farms threaten the fragile bay

To finish the job and fully realize the bay blueprint by 2025, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation is honing in on one of the darkest, muddiest spots of the satellite photo. The area stands out like the center of a bull’s eye, right in southeastern Pennsylvania.

Look closer, and one sees Lancaster County and its vein-like network of small streams, creeks and rivers are turgid with mud. Much of it flows from the county’s 5,000 farms. Half of these are owned and tilled by so-called plain sects — Amish and old order Mennonite.

The very existence of these societies and their people are predicated on the old ways. Tradition runs deep. Trusting the outside world does not.

For many in these communities, farming practices remain rooted in the less environmentally sensitive ways of the past. Fields are tilled and turned over, making the exposed soil vulnerable to runoff. Manure is applied whenever small, inefficient holding tanks are full – even in the middle of winter when the nitrate-rich fertilizer can’t sink into frozen ground and gets washed away with the snowmelt.

Cows are allowed to wander into streams, depleting vegetation, breaking down banks and defecating right into the water. Livestock barnyards are swampy, muddy pits, with much of manure-mashed soil washing off in rainstorms. Even the geometry and placement of the farming fields, which unfold upon high rolling hills, work against proper drainage. Soil seeded with fertilizer is allowed to wash away.

This, all this, is the Chesapeake Bay Foundation’s target, as part of an overall goal for sharp agricultural-sector nutrient runoff reductions...

I think the Amish and the Mennonites ought to be excepted from the requirement to maintain modern pollutions standards for the same reason the Eskimos Inuit are allowed to hunt whales the old way (sort of, if, outboard motors are the old way), to show the rest of us what a bitch life was back before the modern era.  In fact, I'd be in favor of making it a law that the Amish and Eskimos have to take on "English" (the Amish term for non-Amish) college interns as an educational experience as the price for allowing them the exemption.  The kids would come back with a real appreciation for modern life.

Fiscal Cliff: A Dab of Neosporin on the Gangrene

That ought to hold it long enough for the the next set of Drs. to deal with

The bill will indeed shield millions of middle-class taxpayers from tax increases set to take effect this month. But it also will let rates rise on wages and investment profits for households pulling in more than $450,000 a year, marking the first time in more than two decades that a broad tax increase has been approved with GOP support.

The measure also will keep benefits flowing to 2 million unemployed workers on the verge of losing their federal checks. And it will delay for two months automatic cuts to the Pentagon and other agencies that had been set to take effect Wednesday.

Many economists had warned that the scheduled tax increases and spending cuts would have plunged the economy back into recession.

IIRC Reagan and Paul Volcker killed inflation by raising the interest rates and putting the country into recession.  As someone who remembers 13.5% annual inflation, it was worth it.

Conservatives complained bitterly that the legislation would raise taxes without making any significant cuts in government spending. For much of the day, the measure appeared headed for defeat as Boehner contemplated tacking on billions in spending cuts, a move that would have derailed a compromise that the White House and Senate leaders had carefully crafted.

In the end, GOP lawmakers decided not to take a gamble that could force the nation to face historic tax increases for virtually every American — and leave House Republicans to take the blame.

Such a deal! $41 in tax increases each $1 of spending cuts! At that rate they should have the deficit eliminated by, well, never.

Incidentally, the Eisenhower tax cuts survived:

Celebrities flocked to Obama and the industry poured millions into his campaign. Payday comes in the form of an extension of the Special Expensing Rules which allow Hollywood productions to deduct 15 to 20 million dollars. That’s pretty generous considering that companies that manufacture medical devices are being hit with a tax. But who really needs pacemakers anyway when you’ve got Hollywood?

Clothes So Good You Could Eat Them

No, not edible underwear, instead, chocolate dresses:





The Classical Liberal also picked up the link in his Rule 5 linkfest "Been Away Too Long." Wombat-Socho came through with the giant Rule 5 post "Les Chants Magnetique" right on time at The Other McCain.

Midnite Music: Let it All Hang Out

A one hit wonder.

State Senators Seek State Sandwich

Eastern Shore Reps seek to honor the soft shell crab sandwich:

The soft shell crab sandwich, a fried crab stuffed between two slices of bread, may become an official part of Maryland.

The longtime favorite of locals and tourists — that faces tough competition from the crab cake sandwich every summer — could become the official sandwich of Maryland after two Lower Shore legislators pre-filed bills in the Maryland General Assembly.

“I forget that when you introduce these types of bills they get a lot of attention and, yes, we have more pressing problems, but this will not take a lot of attention by the Maryland General Assembly,” said Sen. Richard Colburn, R-37-Dorchester sponsor of the Senate bill who hopes its passing will boost tourism. “Just as the Smith Island Cake meant good things for tourism, the designation of the soft shell crab will, I think, boost tourism, particularly for those counties on the Eastern Shore.”If passed, this won’t be the first time a staple of the Eastern Shore made its way onto the books in Maryland. In 2008 the Smith Island Cake was anointed the state’s official dessert, joining other categories such as the official state fossil shell the Wilson and the state’s official sport of jousting.

In my mind, the soft shell crab sandwich is the quintessential Maryland sandwich. I don't care whether they make the "official" state sandwich or not.  However, the more time legislators spend making meaningless gestures, the less time they can spend messing things up.

The Year Jar

It being Jan. 1, it was time to take stock of last years fossil jar:

Here it is, the jar into which all our small fossils go into after each trip, plus the 'top shelf' fossils, the ones nice enough for temporary display on the window shelf above the kitchen sink, in front.

If our monthly counts were correct, we collected some 1313 shark's teeth.  It may not be entirely accurate; 'top shelf' teeth may or may not have been counted sometimes; but that's a minor error.  A bigger error is the really small teeth that often fail to come out of back pockets; many of these could be recovered later when we eventually clean out the drier vent ( Georgia once recovered over 80 teeth at one time).  The fossils (including the 'top shelf') weighed 535 grams (about 1 lb 3 oz for metric-phobes).  By comparison, last year we had 629 grams.

It was not the best of years for fossils, for a number of reasons.  Two trips, one to Alaska, and one to Italy cut into the number of days we got out to hunt.  As she ages, Skye is getting less tolerant of long walks, and that not only cuts off some distance covered, but it also cuts off some of the prime fossil hunting areas to the north, a double whammy.  And as you may have noted (but probably didn't) Georgia stopped walking with us sometime earlier this year, due to still unresolved health issues.  Since she has a good eye for shark's teeth, that has also cut into the haul.

Since I intend to work less this year, and walk the beach more often, perhaps next year will be better.

New Year on the Beach

 The first day of 2013 at the beach was seasonably cool, temperatures in the low 40s, not at all windy, and overcast.  Not a bad day for January.

The tide was pretty far out, and there was lots of material; but I didn't do well picking up shark's teeth (again).  A slow start to the year, only 4 and all small.

We met Charlie and his dog Cheyenne down on the beach.  Cheyenne was in hyper mode (or more hyper than usual), having been recently released from Megan's while Charlie and Sandy went to Florida for Christmas. 

Cheyenne tried to engage Skye in some play, and succeeded a bit; but she also inadvertently shoulder checked her into the Bay at one point.

Charlie found this emu-headed driftwood shillelagh on the beach.  Cheyenne got him to throw it.  Unlike Skye, Cheyenne is a stick chaser.

There were quite a few folks out on the beach, soaking up the lack of sunshine; oh well, at least it wasn't too cold and windy.

This gentleman was picking up trash on the dunes near the parking lot when we got back.  I stopped to thank him and talk a bit; but I forgot to get his name.  Next time maybe.

"Just Shut Up", He Explained

Time to stop talking about guns

To be a little fair, that's only the title of Eugene Robinson's column rant in this mornings print version of the Washington Post, not the title on the online version: Stop the gun madness. So it's a little hard to know whether that title was written by Robinson himself or by some nameless editor.  Nevertheless, I doubt that Robinson would deny the sentiment: "Just shut up, you right wing neanderthal kid killers, and let your betters make the decision to disarm you in our self interest (yours is of no interest to us)."  Some excerpts:

It is shameful that gun control only becomes worthy of public debate following an unspeakable massacre such as Newtown — and even more shameful that these mass killings occur so often. What usually happens is that we spend a few weeks pretending to have a “conversation” about guns, then the horror begins to fade and we turn to other issues. Everything goes back to normal.

Indeed, it turns out that gun ownership is more popular in the United States than gun-grabbing by government, it happens to be protected by the Constitution, much like free speech, and the mass tragedies, as bad as they may seem at the time, do fade into the background noise in a population of some 300 mullion people, living and dying all the time in all manner of ways, benign and horrible.

But Britain recognizes the obvious distinction between guns legitimately used for sport — shotguns, hunting rifles, some target pistols — and those meant only to kill human beings. Most handguns are banned. All automatic and semiautomatic firearms, including the kind of assault weapons used at Newtown, Aurora, Tucson, Virginia Tech and the other mass shootings in this country, are banned.

In Britain, individuals must have a “good reason” to obtain a license to own a firearm. Self-defense is generally not considered an adequate reason — nor should it be, since research suggests that guns actually make the owner more vulnerable.

We are not Britain.  We have a second amendment to protect the individual rights to keep and bear arms because of the British.  We still remember their oppression, and how the possession of the military arms of the times (and even more advanced high accuracy hunting rifles) helped us win our independence from the Brits.  The founders put that into the Constitution in the knowledge that no government serves the will of the people indefinitely without the ability of the people to defend themselves from the government.  They were not idealists.

As for the charge that owning a gun makes you more vulnerable, there is of course some basic truth in that; without guns there could be no gunshot wounds, friend or foe.  However, knives, guns, fists, explosives, clubs, and other miscellaneous weapons would still be used to kill.  Cain did not have a Bushmaster.

However, the link between guns and self defense is far more complicated than liberals would prefer you to believe.  While you can't count events that never happened very well (example, how often has a gun brandished in self defense stopped a murder is an inherently unanswerable question), studies suggest that guns were used to stop 2.5 million crimes in 1995 (recent numbers are probably lower because, in fact, crime rates have been reduced since 1995).  How many of those crimes would have been murder?  Criminals do fear guns in the hands of victims, for good reason.

Hence the unbelievable response by NRA chief Wayne LaPierre to the Newtown killings. The solution isn’t to take assault weapons out of the hands of madmen, LaPierre argued, it’s to put armed guards in the schools so there can be a great big gunfight when the homicidal madmen show up. Never mind that armed officers at Columbine tried, and failed, to stop that massacre. Just be paranoid. Fight guns with more guns.

Tell you what, if we are all expected to disarm and go without the possibility of self-protection, let's disarm the Secret Service, and make them protect the President with clubs, disarm the guards at Sidwell Friends school, where the President's and David Gregory's kids go to school, disarm the guards that I expect guard the front door at the Washington Post, and disarm the guards at every federal facility that I have ever visited; clearly they are making it more unsafe for their wards, if you believe Eugene.

This must be the year when America says: No more.

This must be the year when America stops thinking of simplistic solutions to complex problems (I'm also thinking of the budget here).  Taking the guns out of the hands of the vast majority of law abiding citizens isn't going to have any substantial impact on the rates of crime in the democratically controlled big cities, where, frankly, the majority of the problem exists.  If gun ownership correlated with gun crime, the rural areas would be hot beds of crime.

Hollywood Hypocrites

Lifted from The Other McCain.

Network Anchor Still Under Gun Law Investigation

David Gregory Still Under Investigation for violation of Washington DC's gun laws

Gregory remains under investigation, a Washington Metropolitan Police Department official today told POLITICO, but the story seems like a distant memory.

For many, it was a ridiculous story from the start -- the weed that grew from a holiday news drought. News anchors and media critics voiced disdain for the story on Twitter, the Wall Street Journal's conservative editorial board called it "entirely nonsensical," even the president of the National Rifle Association called it "silly." But for some right-wing bloggers and pundits, the idea that Gregory could be exempt from established gun laws was evidence of liberal media hypocrisy.

There's nothing that says a situation can't be both silly and profound.  The violation alleged is indeed silly; simply put, possession of a 30 round magazine for a popular sport rifle simply shouldn't be a crime at all. But the point of the law being evenly applied to all citizens is profound.  If the law has any point, it is to deny all people in Washington D.C. access to high capacity rounds.  That applies to David Gregory, and whoever else at NBC is in the chain of possession that resulted in his waiving the magazine under Wayne Lapierre's nose on that fateful Sunday morning.  There is no journalistic exception to the law. Certainly not an exception for "he was doing the right thing" as argued by many on the left.

Mark Steyn has some examples of run away law enforcement, gun law and other:

Not far away from David Gregory, across the Virginia border, eleven-year-old Skylar Capo made the mistake of rescuing a woodpecker from the jaws of a cat and nursing him back to health for a couple of days. For her pains, a federal Fish & Wildlife gauleiter accompanied by state troopers descended on her house, charged her with illegal transportation of a protected species, issued her a $535 fine, and made her cry. Why is it so “obvious” that David Gregory deserves to be treated more leniently than a sixth grader? Because he’s got a TV show and she hasn’t?

I thought I blogged that one, but I can't find it.  But wait, this one might be better (or worse):

Three days after scofflaw Gregory committed his crime, a bail hearing was held in Massachusetts for Andrew Despres, 20, who’s charged with trespassing and possession of ammunition without a firearms license. Mr. Despres was recently expelled from Fitchburg State University and was returning to campus to pick up his stuff. Hence the trespassing charge. At the time of his arrest, he was wearing a “military-style ammunition belt.” Hence, the firearms charge.

His mom told WBZ that her son purchased the belt for $20 from a punk website and had worn it to class every day for two years as a “fashion statement.” He had no gun with which to fire the bullets. Nevertheless, Fitchburg police proudly displayed the $20 punk-website ammo belt as if they’d just raided the Fitchburg mafia’s armory, and an obliging judge ordered Mr. Despres held on $50,000 bail. Why should there be one law for Meet the Press and another for Meet Andrew Despres? Because David Gregory throws better cocktail parties?

$50,000 bail?  Unless they came up with that in cash, it will cost them 5 grand just to get to court.

Back in the day (sometime around my senior year in high school, and my first year in college), I affected to wear a combat jacket.  Now, to be fair, it had flowers embroidered on the epaulettes, and was drenched in patchouli oil, but would that be enough to get me branded as a dangerous reactionary these days?

Will David Gregory stand on his 5th amendment rights, and not testify against himself.  That would be ironic. Then the DC cops should find some flunky producer who procured or handled the magazine along the way, put him in jail at some ridiculous bail, and then squeeze him until he rats on Gregory.  He will.

I see this as win-win for gun rights advocates.  Keep up the pressure on Gregory.  If they let him off the hook because he didn't intend to harm anyone with it, well, magazines should be legalized because the vast majority of magazine owners have no evil intentions either.  If they do charge and convict him, we have the gleeful prospect of seeing David Gregory frog-marched to the D.C. Jail.