New Volcano Threatens Life on Earth

But not for another 100 million years or so: Supervolcano forming north of New Zealand

A supervolcano forming north of New Zealand could spell the end of the world - but there is no need to panic, it won't happen for at least 100 million years.

Researchers from the University of Utah have warned of impending doom after discovering that two or more continent-sized piles of rock are colliding as they move at the bottom of Earth's thick mantle, 2896km beneath the Pacific Ocean near Samoa.

They said the movement could be the beginning of a vast eruption that could threaten life on earth in 100 million to 200 million years.

It is hypothesized that 70,000 years or so ago, the eruption of a supervolcano called Toba almost caused an extinction of the human race.

"What we may be detecting is the start of one of these large eruptive events that - if it ever happens - could cause very massive destruction on Earth,'' said seismologist Michael Thorne, the study's principal author and an assistant professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Utah.

"This is the type of mechanism that may generate massive plume eruptions, but on the timescale of 100 million to 200 million years from now. So don't cancel your cruises,'' he said.

If the human race still exists in some form in 100 million years, and they haven't found a way to get off the planet and colonize the rest of the universe, they will have deserved it.  If nothing else, they should be able to find a way to tap the heat, and use it, getting needed energy and cooling the magma.

Rule 5 Saturday - Secondary American Beauty - Thora Birch

Today's Rule 5 subobject is Thora Birch. Thora Birch came by the acting trade by heredity, born in 1982 to two actors who worked in an American classic, Deep Throat (no, not Linda Lovelace).  Her own acting career began at the age six in both TV and movies with Day by Day and Purple People Eaters.  She was named after the Norse God of Thunder, Thor, and has a brother named Bolt.

Her big break, was, of course, American Beauty, where at age 16 or so, she co-starred with Mena Suvari in "American Beauty" as Mena's best friend, and Kevin Spacey's daughter. Her brief nude scene (for dramatic purposes only, I suppose) was preapproved by both her parents and the child labor board.

Since then, she has worked steadily in movie and TV, with "Petunia" (2012) and the TV movie "The Pregnancy Pact" (2010).

Wilbur's European Vacation

Turnips!

We stopped by Elliot's  house today on the way home from the beach.  Elliot is our oldest Maryland friend, we moved into the house seen below back when we first moved to Maryland in 1985.  Elliot has always had a huge garden, and retirement has only made it grow.

We were lucky to escape with only one grocery bag full of turnips.  I hope Georgia has some good turnip recipes.

Death at the Beach

I managed to convince both girls to come to the beach with me this morning.  A great morning for a walk, 50 F, just a little wind, absolutely  clear and cloudless.

We took Skye off of double secret probation, and let her run for a while.  Georgia and Skye turned around at Matoaka Cottages, so I went on up the beach alone after that.









This is either the biggest Gray Shark's tooth I have ever found, or the smallest Megalodon (there had to to be babies, didn't there?).  A very stout tooth, with heavy serrations.  All told we totaled 17 shark's teeth and one Black Drum's tooth.

You can barely see it in the small version of this photo, but if you click on the photo to see it at 1280 X 768, you can just make out the eagle, with a white head and tail soaring over the cliffs in the distance.  That's as close as I got. No zoom.








Death is everywhere at the beach.  The windrows of shell are all old or recently dead shellfish.  The cliffs are full the remains of old dead animal, and we looks for some of their  pieces on the beach and in the cliffs.

Winter is a lean time at the beach for the eagles.  Fish are mostly gone, and the few that are left hug the bottom most of the time, and without Ospreys to rob, I suspect our eagles mostly rely on carrion or birds.  Today I found the remains of what I think was a crow on the beach, largely eaten, but even the small bones not crunched, so likely not a mammal.   Crows like to mob the eagles and harass them, but I'm guessing that one got a little too bold.


Also the remains of either a duck or a seagull. Might well have been eagle chow too.

Name That Party: San Diego Edition

It’s Time to Play ‘Name That Party!’

San Diego’s former mayor, Maureen O’Connor, is a liberal Democrat. But now that she’s been charged in a massive scandal — she stole more than $2 million from a charity established by her late husband, in order to fund a decade-long gambling binge – the New York Times somehow can’t bring itself to mention her partisan affiliation.

Not true; she stole more than a billion dollars to bet with, but she only lost a net of $2 million, making her at the very minimum a very poor professional gambler.

To paraphrase Margret Thatcher, the problem with liberals and democrats is eventually they always run out of someone else's money.  She blamed a brain tumor made her do it.  Can we get an MRI of Barack Obama's skull?

Meteorite Strikes Russia, Destroys Building

Photo from Twitter.com user @TimurKhorev

A chunk of space rock, estimated to weigh about 10 tons, struck Chelyabinsk, Russia this morning, destroying a building, and killing at least 5 people?

Thanks to ubiquitous dash cameras in Russia (apparently needed for court purposes) there are a number of videos of the meteor streaking through the sky



Remember the old poem:

A meteor is a flash of light

Made by a falling meteorite

I hope to God this answers right

Initial reports suggest it was shot at by Russian air defense forces, but they do not appear to have fired on it.  The meteorite apparently exploded at an altitude of 10,000 feet, due to the heat of reentry, as meteorites often do.

It is suspected the meteorite may be a piece of the larger asteroid 2012 DA14, which will make a pass at the Earth around 2 PM EST today about 17,000 miles away, a close shave by astronomical standards.  Meteorites and asteroids often shed pieces or explode in space due to a process called the YORP effect, uneven solar heating which causes them to rotate faster and faster, until the centripetal force overcomes their weak gravity, and they break apart.

UPDATE:  Apparently the Chelybinsk meteorite and the 2012 DA14 had very different orbits, and so are probably not related:

Let The Old Boy Enjoy!

Sports Illustrated’s New Swimsuit Issue Rouses Ire Over ‘Ethnic Props’

BEIJING — Sports Illustrated magazine’s Swimsuit issue has drawn criticism from feminists and other women, and some men, for unnecessarily sexualizing women and exhibiting bad taste. Or good taste, depending on your point of view.

But in the new, 2013 issue, the use of non-westerners as “ethnic props” for the often white women in teeny-weeny bikinis is rousing new ire and raising the question: has the magazine gone too far? Are the images racist, as well as sexually exploitative? Take a closer look at the images, here on Yahoo’s Shine site.

Here ya go, courtesy of SI.com.  Plenty more here! Including one of my recent Rule 5 victims, Cintia Dicker.

Two of these photos were taken in China. One is of the blonde model Anne V. on a river raft apparently nearly Guilin in the southwest, with an aged, grey-bearded Chinese man who looks like he’s partially toothless and is wearing baggy gray clothes and black gum boots. He’s pulling on an oar. (The image on our site shows a different model.)

This “chick on the raft” image is one of the “saddest/funniest” in the magazine, commented someone named Dora Breckinridge on Jezebel, a feminist blog that says it aims to be fun while handling women’s issues with intelligence and sensitivity.

So here's a poor old Chinese fisherman, scraping by with a few fish he catches using the old cormorant fishing technique. His wife is probably fat, ugly and toothless. He's offered a chance to make, what seems to him to be a fortune, taking out an exotic foreigner and her camera crew, and getting to watch her change outfits repeatedly.  Try to make me feel bad about that.

In Jezebel, Dodai Stewart wrote: “A white person relaxing, a person of color working. Tale as old as time.”

Ms. Stewart continued: “This photo cements stereotypes, perpetuates an imbalance in the power dynamic, is reminiscent of centuries of colonialism (and indentured servitude) and serves as a good example of both creating a centrality of whiteness and using “exotic” people as fashion props.”

The other image picked out by Ms. Breckinridge is “the one with all the little girls in China,” apparently taken in southwestern Guangxi province. There, a model stands among a dozen young girls wearing elaborate ethnic dress. They’re far shorter than the model is. She isn’t looking at the children. The contrast between her near-nudity and their heavy-looking costumes is almost comical. As the Shanghaiist, a popular China-based blog, puts it: “In the 2013 Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Edition, Chinese people are exotic props.”

 Please, please make me an exotic prop!

In Jezebel, Ms. Stewart wrote of the image:

“The model, Jessica Gomes, is Australian, but her father is from Portugal and her mother is from Singapore. Since she’s part Asian, it could be argued that this shot is not about what Gwen Sharp at Sociological Images calls the centrality of whiteness. Yet the model, in Western clothes (however skimpy that suit may be), is placed in the center as a contrast to the children in non-Western clothes. It renders them “exotic,” a spectacle. In addition, the model is not interacting with the kids. Classic case of othering. Also: People are not props.”

As the Shanghaiist notes: “For Sports Illustrated, China is poverty and ‘ethnic’ clothing, not the world’s second-largest economy where the majority of people live in cities rather than the countryside.”

Feel free to bring a few of the girls next year out to the Chesapeake, and I'll take them out for some photos.  I'll even dress "ethnically", in my Canadian Tuxedo and TITS (Tilghman Island Tennis Shoes).

Others agree.

“Brave, Sports Illustrated, for de-humanizing your fellow global citizens in the name boobs and bikins” (sic.) “I hope everybody got paid properly for their human prop services,” wrote Angry Asian Man in his blog.

(Here’s some self-description of the blogger with the slightly alarming name: “I’m not as angry as you think,” he writes on his site. “I’m not here sitting in front of the computer, hating “whitey” and plotting revolution. This is just a subject that has always interested me — pointing out racism.”)

Of course, there have been sighs of despair at the politically-correct nature of the debate, as there always are.

Here’s one, from someone called Pete, one of thousands on Yahoo’s Shine site: “They are not “minorities” when they are in their own country. What a bunch of pc dopes we have here in the US.”

 There's a man after my own heart.

Said John S: “Wow, some people need to lighten up. I see pictures of pretty girls in bathing suits. I give it about 1 second and no deeper thought. I spend no time analyzing the back ground scenery, people or not.”

Jamba went for a funny one, noting: “There are other people in the photos? I guess my eyes were fixated elsewhere.”

 Amen!

Oh, and this post was inspired by Althouse.

Wombat Socho has this linked in the weekly Rule 5 rundown "Rule 5 Sunday: Golden Ball & Chain", at The Other McCain. Also linked at The Classical Liberal "Can't  You Hear Me  Knocking? (Sticky Fingers)".

San Berdoo Death Spiral Continues

Fighting Over Scraps in the Ruins of San Bernardino

Police and firefighter unions in bankrupt San Bernardino want to sue the city for cutting members’ pay and benefits. Last year the city became the first in California to unilaterally stop paying into the California Public Employees Retirement System (Calpers), and the unions who represent these pensioners aren’t happy. Since the city’s bankruptcy hearing is still pending, none of its creditors, Calpers included, are currently allowed to sue for money owed. But the unions are trying to change that. Reuters has the details:

In December, the bankruptcy judge ruled against an attempt by Calpers to have the bankruptcy stay lifted so the pension fund could sue the city in state court to collect pension arrears.

Asking for the stay to be lifted is what the police and firefighters unions will do later this week. The public employees union, representing about 54 mid-level city officials, made the same move last week.

San Bernardino—the third California city to declare bankruptcy last year—has now become a battleground in the war between pensioners and other creditors trying to collect payments from a defunct city. It’s a sadly familiar story: The various blue constituencies are going to war with each other as they each try to extract the last bit of money from near-empty coffers. The city faces stark trade-offs: does it slash services to the young in order to pay pensions to the old? San Bernadino’s schools are in terrible shape and its budget can no longer support basic police and fire protection—but the geezers still want the money they’ve been promised. As more cities go bankrupt, what happens here could set a precedent for similar cases around the state and the county.

I posted about San Berdoo at the time of the original bankruptcy and it's been fun interesting to watch a place I know fall into pension hell. Coming soon to a city near you.

Baltimore Unhappy with Rural Freedom

The Baltimore Sun is up in arms that farmers are up in arms protesting the new Maryland State septic bill:

Some farmers may protest, but Maryland's year-old law restricting large-scale use of septic systems is needed more than ever

In Cecil and Frederick counties, for instance, it's clear that local government is minimally invested in agricultural preservation and unlikely to deny most any rural landowners the opportunity to turn their land into a subdivision. The Maryland Department of Planning last month notified the governing commissioners in both counties that their plans come up short.

No, they're not at all "invested" in agricultural preservation; like a sensible people, they are invested in doing what's best for them and their constituents, and their families, and the septic bill is a restriction on their ability to make the most choices regarding what to do with their property for their own good.  Astonishingly, they resent being told by Baltimore (and the other urban centers) that they can't have the benefits of development that the urban centers have.

Howard County Executive Ken Ulman recently issued the first veto of his six years in office when the County Council produced a septics ordinance that similarly failed to pass environmental muster. How did the council in such a progressive jurisdiction fail? Chiefly by unwisely capitulating to some farmers who were unhappy to be losing potential development rights — and the possibility that they could one day sell their land to commercial interests.

And you say it's not a taking?

But here's the problem with that kind of let-them-build thinking. It's simply not in the public interest to offer up every bit of undeveloped rural land for a future housing tract. Not for taxpayers who can't afford it, not for agriculture that will get squeezed out, and certainly not for the environment and any hope of preserving clean air and water. What's needed is "smart" growth with more development steered toward cities and towns served by water and sewer systems, and where roads, schools and public transportation are already in place.

See, it's all for the cities and towns.  Many of us like to live in rural and suburban areas; the cities are essentially passing laws saying "OK, enough of that; the rest of you have live in the city with the rest of us."

Some counties clearly don't like having a mandate imposed on them by state government, particularly when it comes to planning and zoning. But it's not as if all rural communities are up in arms. Many have recognized the importance of agricultural preservation, have followed the septics law faithfully and have taken steps to protect their open spaces.

Yes, it's quite clear.  What if the countryside managed to pass a law that said the cities could only use water in proportion to the area of the city to the whole state?  Would they resent having those limits forced on them?  Or how about if the countryside somehow embargoed energy streaming into the city from coal fired power plants, nuke plants, hydroelectric dams, etc, which are all chiefly sited in rural areas?  Cities could use all the wind and solar power they can build inside the city limits.  Maybe even build their own coal fired plant.  (Baltimore actually does have a couple; not enough to run the whole city though).

If some rural areas want to follow the restrictions on septic, fine; that's their choice. But it doesn't need to be forced on all by people who won't suffer the consequences.

What's particularly troubling about the protests is that the same counties that are failing to protect their land have also been drawn into those phony-baloney "war on rural counties" protests of recent years that see every State House decision as a threat. From lawsuits aimed at environmental initiatives to "forums" attacking climate change science, certain conservative Republicans appear to be banking on a populist, know-nothing message of victimization to win voter support.

You're not doing a good job of convincing me, in fact, it's rather the other way; you make me want to resist all the more.

Happy Valentine's Day!

She Never Saw it Coming

Wombat Socho has this linked in the weekly Rule 5 rundown "Rule 5 Sunday: Golden Ball & Chain", at The Other McCain.

Have a Little Nightcap?

I drank fracking fluid, says Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper went to unusually great lengths to learn firsthand the strides the oil and gas industry has made to minimize environmental harm from fracking.

The first-term Democrat and former Denver mayor told a Senate committee on Tuesday that he actually drank a glass of fracking fluid produced by oilfield services giant Halliburton.

The fluid is made entirely “of ingredients sourced from the food industry,” the company says, making it safe for Mr. Hickenlooper and others to imbibe...

“You can drink it. We did drink it around the table, almost rituallike, in a funny way,” he told the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. “It was a demonstration. … they’ve invested millions of dollars in what is a benign fluid in every sense.”

The practice uses water, sand and chemicals injected into the ground at tremendous pressure to break apart rock formations and release fuel. Environmental groups and many other critics long have been concerned about the chemicals used in the practice and their potential effect on groundwater.

Mr. Hickenlooper stressed that the Halliburton food additive mixture is so safe, one can literally drink it. He also cautioned against state and federal lawmakers going too far with laws to force companies such as Halliburton to disclose the formulas for such products.

Of course not all "fracking fluids" are the same (and you probably wouldn't want to drink the sand mixed in with it), but the point is that the fluids used to frack are relatively benign.  They do, however, dissolve a number of things from the formations that they are injected in mostly salts from the ancient seas the sediments that formed the shale settled in.  I suspect used fracking fluid, even without the sand, would be a rather powerful laxative... 

Hey, maybe we can market it that way.

"Like Watching Django Unchained in Real Life"

Just when you think they can't go any lower.

Not One Dime!

Technically true, as it will be several trillion dimes:

When he wasn’t spouting clichés, Obama was employing euphemisms, including repeated use of “investment” to describe federal deficit spending. Given the track record of Obama’s “green jobs” projects, we might as well “invest” in Lotto scratch-off tickets.

Not content with clichés and euphemisms, Obama also employed The Big Lie — why bother with small lies? — to insist that despite the $5.8 trillion he’s added to the national debt already, none of his new spending would add a single dime to the deficit:

Urban vs Rural, the Ultimate American Divide

The Disenfranchisement of Rural America

I often hit the theme that the ultimate driver of political strife in America is the divide between urban dwellers and their rural cousins.  This article explores it in some depth:

With each passing election, rural and small town Americans have ever less influence on their state and national governments and ever declining control over the governance of their own communities. Their lives are increasingly controlled from distant state capitals and from the even more distant Washington, D.C., by politicians with little incentive to pay attention to their country cousins. To some extent, their disenfranchisement is the inevitable result of a century of urbanization and economic centralization. But the erosion of self-governance in rural America is also the result of a generally well intentioned but simplistic understanding of democracy and the associated elimination of institutional protections of local democratic governance.

...

The point is not that the different drummer is blue and the rural communities are red. That is just the reality of 21st century American politics. The point is that, because of their minority status in statewide population terms and their lack of representation as communities, rural Americans are denied full self-governance. They have become the objects of what might be called the soft tyranny of others desires and expectations.

The county by county map of the 2012 presidential election clearly portrays the irony and unfairness of a nation of predominantly red communities governed by a blue, urban, national majority. President Obama won 52 percent of the states and 51.4 percent of the popular vote, but only 20 percent of the counties. Yet, everyone in every one of those counties is subject to the will of distant majorities lacking any understanding of or stake in the local communities they control. It wasn’t supposed to be that way, and should not be that way, in our extended national republic.

As they say, read the whole thing.

Can Crazy Save the Bay?

Tom Horton has some 'Crazy Ideas' about how to save the Bay:

Once, Bay rivers reverberated to the slapping tails of millions of beavers, whose gnawing was night music throughout the landscape, although few humans were here to hear.

And now, millions of us, fewer beavers, and the Bay sorely misses the beavers’ countless dams and ponds and bogs and sloughs that damped the polluted runoff we now spend billions of dollars assuaging with our crude human devices.

So close the hatcheries for oysters, blue crabs, trout and shad. Breed beavers. Deliver them by FedEx, by UPS, in the dead of night in unmarked trucks manned by grinning greenies, to resurrect their empire throughout the watershed.

Eh.  Beavers make lousy neighbors.  They build dams, flood roads, lawns, parks, and once they move into an area they eat every scrap of woody vegetation less than 1 ft in diameter within a safe waddling distance.  And their idea of safe is fairly broad given the limited numbers predators tough enough to take on a rodent with teeth big enough to gnaw through a tree. Import wolves, bears and mountain lions back into suburbia, though, and I'm down with it.

In wild lands (and you don't need to go very far from a house to be wild for a beaver), there is no lack of beavers, in fact, they are constantly producing enough spare pups that they have to try to make a living in the suburbs.

And have you ever had Beaver Fever?  I have, and it's most unpleasant.

I Wouldn't Have Thought the Job was This Dangerous

Kate Upton: I nearly got frostbite on SI Swimsuit Photoshoot

Kate Upton has revealed that she suffered from frostbite after shooting her second Sports Illustrated cover in Antarctica.

For the assignment the supermodel stripped off to a tiny white string bikini on the shores of the South Pole, where the average high is around -49 degrees Fahrenheit.

I don't think the "South Pole" has shores seeing as how it well in to the interior of Antarctica , but they're Brits and they have that cool accent that make even Peirs Morgan sound intelligent, so maybe they know better.

Describing the effects the sub-zero weather had on her body she told the Today show: 'When I came back, I was like losing hearing and eyesight because my body was shutting down, it was working so hard to keep me warm.'

The publication chartered the boat for a ten-day voyage between Argentina and the South Pole. Apparently, they wanted to photograph her with a backdrop of icebergs and polar wildlife.

Asked what the penguins were like, she recalled: 'They kept me going, they're adorable. Any time I was like, I can't do it anymore, I would look at them and be like, okay, for them.'

In photographs from the photo shoot, Miss Upton is seen braving minus temperatures in just a small white bikini top and tasseled bottoms with her feet protected in thermal moon boots. Eventually, Kate was able to swap the ebb and flow of the Antarctic Sea for the firm ground of Antarctica itself.

Bizarrely, she was greeted by a man dressed as an Oreo cookie once she stepped on terra firma. It is not clear why there was a man dressed as a giant biscuit on the icy uninhabited continent, but he might have been overseeing the delivery of 5,000 Oreo cookies to the scientists based at the Palmer Station in the Antarctic Peninsula.

The sacrifices supermodels make; we need to honor them more. Can we change President's Day to Supermodel Appreciation day?

Wombat Socho has this linked in the weekly Rule 5 rundown "Rule 5 Sunday: Golden Ball & Chain", at The Other McCain.

I Hear Important Things Were Seen at the Grammys

I continued my 61 year run of not watching the Grammy Awards this year.  My excuse (not that I needed one) was that I heard that the network had banned boobs and genitals. And after that, what's the point?

‘And the Grammy Award for Most Implausibly Enhanced Cleavage …’

Stacey McCain kind of disses poor little well endowed Katy Perry for her appearance at the Grammys:

Having escaped that senseless drudgery when I resigned from The Washington Times five years ago — it was as if God said, “Go” — I can’t remember watching an awards show since then. What kind of shallow and adolescent personality would pay attention to these phony made-for-TV spectacles, unless they were being paid to do so as a condition of their employment? So I woke up this morning to the news that the Pope had resigned and, after aggregating that, I then saw the Viral Read liveblog of the Grammy Awards which alerted me to the big news that Katy Perry’s breasts stole the show. And then I went to WeSmirch where, sure enough, I saw the headline:

Katy Perry Is The Only Two Things

That Mattered At The Grammys

She’s actually a very talented singer, and thus the question arises, “Why does Katy Perry feel the need to get breast implants and display the obviously artificial results in this ostentatious manner?”

Don’t even try to tell me those are real, Katy. Trust me, girl, I was an expert on breasts before you were even born, and those are fakies.

I think we need might to examine them from a few different angles before we make such a snap judgment...

Insane Leftist Kills Cop, Dies in Fire

Good, at least the dying in fire, part.

PSA: Chopping Wood Made Easy

I'm definitely making one of these the next time I have a bunch of rounds to chop.

This is Comforting

 Radiologists fall for Invisible Gorilla Gag

...radiologists still sometimes fail to see important things, and Drew wanted to understand more. Because of his line of work, he was naturally familiar with one of the most famous studies in the field of attention research, the Invisible Gorilla study.

In that groundbreaking study, research subjects are shown a video of two teams of kids — one team wears white; the other wears black — passing two basketballs back and forth between players as they dodge and weave around each other. Before it begins, viewers are told their responsibility is to do one thing and one thing only: count how many times the players wearing white pass the ball to each other:

The "cuties" version of the Invisible Gorilla Gag. I didn't see the Gorilla even though I expected it...

"Sounds ridiculous, right?" says Drew. "There's a gorilla on the screen — of course you're going to see it! But 50 percent of people miss the gorilla."

This is because when you ask someone to perform a challenging task, without realizing it, their attention narrows and blocks out other things. So, often, they literally can't see even a huge, hairy gorilla that appears directly in front of them.

That effect is called "inattentional blindness" — which brings us back to the expert lookers, the radiologists.

Drew wondered if somehow being so well-trained in searching would make them immune to missing large, hairy gorillas. "You might expect that because they're experts, they would notice if something unusual was there," he says.

83 percent of radiologists didn't notice the gorilla in the top right portion of this image.

He took a picture of a man in a gorilla suit shaking his fist, and he superimposed that image on a series of slides that radiologists typically look at when they're searching for cancer. He then asked a bunch of radiologists to review the slides of lungs for cancerous nodules. He wanted to see if they would notice a gorilla the size of a matchbook glaring angrily at them from inside the slide.

But they didn't: 83 percent of the radiologists missed it, Drew says.

This wasn't because the eyes of the radiologists didn't happen to fall on the large, angry gorilla. Instead, the problem was in the way their brains had framed what they were doing. They were looking for cancer nodules, not gorillas, so "they look right at it, but because they're not looking for a gorilla, they don't see that it's a gorilla."

I'm often concerned that I might miss big shark's teeth because I'm so focused on seeing the small ones. 

Tractors Against the Bay

Tractorcade protests rural development curbs

Farmers and others upset over state-imposed restrictions on septic-based rural development staged a "tractorcade" Tuesday past the State House in Annapolis.

The protest comes on the day the Senate Education, Health and Environmental Affairs Committee is scheduled to hear a bill, SB391, which would repeal the Sustainable Growth and Agricultural Preservation Act of 2012.

The law, introduced by Gov. Martin O'Malley and passed last year over rural lawmakers' objections, restricts large-scale housing development that would rely on septic systems. O'Malley and other supporters say septic limits are needed to curb sprawl development, preserve farmland and reduce nitrogen pollution into the Chesapeake Bay. Officials say a household on septic generates far more pollution than does one on a state-of-the-art sewer system.

Remember, though,  septic tanks only contribute only about 7% of the nitrogen (the main nutrient pollution problem) to the Bay; municipal sewage, storm runoff, agriculture and airborne deposition all contribute more.  It's not insignificant, but it's well on the way.

But farmers complain the law devalues their land and threatens their livelihood, as they borrow funds to farm based on the development value of the property. Some have said the law is pushing them to sell their land to developers now, rather than continue farming, in order to take advantage of a "grandfathering" provision in the legislation, which passed last year as SB236.

Ironic that a Sustainable ... Agricultural Preservation Act is actually leading farmer to consider selling their farms out of agriculture,  isn't it?  Unintended consequences are a bitch aren't they; that is if they're really unintentional.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation issued a statement supporting the septic development restrictions, which reads in part:

“Putting in place protections that encourage growth in areas that will generate less pollution makes common sense and will improve the quality of life for our children and future generations. Those protections are not a “taking,” as some suggest; instead it enhances the value of agricultural lands and will help protect the fabric of rural Maryland.

The farmers don't seem to believe it, though. 

How to Smell Less

Whether your object is to bag a buck or a doe...



and you may need help stuffing your prey:



Wombat Socho has this linked in the weekly Rule 5 rundown "Rule 5 Sunday: Golden Ball & Chain", at The Other McCain.

23 Signs You Might Be an Adult

Swiped from Theo's, who probably swiped it from somewhere else got it from their mother-in-law.  No, I didn't check Snopes..

1. Sometimes I'll look down at my watch 3 consecutive times and still not know what time it is..

I think my record is in double digits. I'm trying to break the watch habit.  I have a cell phone that tells time, and I'm almost always in front of a computer with a clock in the right hand lower corner.  Why do I need a watch on my wrist?

2. Nothing sucks more than that moment during an argument when you realize you're wrong.

I'm never wrong; often in doubt, but never wrong.

3. I totally take back all those times I didn't want to nap when I was younger.

 On the bright side, though, I can now nap in my chair pretending to work.

4. There is great need for a sarcasm font.

 How about Trebuchet?

5. How the hell are you supposed to fold a fitted sheet?

 I find that no matter how you wad them up, they consume the same volume.

6. Was learning cursive really necessary?

You learned cursive?

7. Map Quest really needs to start their directions on # 5. I'm pretty sure I know how to get out of my neighborhood.

So far; wait a few more years.

8. Obituaries would be a lot more interesting if they told you how the person died.

Sometimes people just die boringly.

9. I can't remember the last time I wasn't at least kind-of tired.

See #3.

10. Bad decisions make good stories.

So I have lots of good stories.

11. You never know when it will strike, but there comes a moment at work when you know that you just aren't going to do anything productive for the rest of the day.

It's called 10 AM most of the time.

12. Can we all just agree to ignore whatever comes after Blue Ray? I don't want to have to restart my collection...again.

What's Blue Ray?

13. I'm always slightly terrified when I exit out of Word and it asks me if I want to save any changes to my ten-page technical report that I swear I did not make any changes to.

You'll grow out of it after you lose a few days of work.

14. I keep some people's phone numbers in my phone just so I know not to answer when they call.

Point taken.

15. I think the freezer deserves a light as well.

Ours does.  But all food needs a Braille label for nighttime use.

16. I disagree with Kay Jewelers. I would bet on any given Friday or Saturday night more kisses begin with Miller Light than Kay.

Eye candy is dandy, but liquor is quicker.

17. I wish Google Maps had an "Avoid Scary Areas" routing option.

After sampling in the Anacostia District I got over my fear of bad neighborhoods.

18. I have a hard time deciphering the fine line between boredom and hunger.

What line?

19. How many times is it appropriate to say "What?" before you just nod and smile because you still didn't hear or understand a word they said?

One. Unless it's one of those rare points that it's important to hear.

20. I love the sense of camaraderie when an entire line of cars team up to prevent a jerk from cutting in at the front.

So you drive Rt. 4 routinely, too?

21. Shirts get dirty. Underwear gets dirty. Pants? Pants never get dirty, and you can wear them forever.

 Or until they can stand up on their own, and attract the neighborhood dogs.

22. Even under ideal conditions people have trouble locating their car keys in a pocket, finding their cell phone, and Pinning the Tail on the Donkey - but I'd bet everyone can find and push the snooze button from 3 feet away, in about 1.7 seconds, eyes closed, first time, every time.

But those 1.7 seconds are often the longest and most painful part of the day

23. The first testicular guard, the "Cup," was used in Hockey in 1874 and the first helmet was used in 1974. That means it only took 100 years for men to realize that their brain is also important.

You can reproduce without a working brain, and many do.  Evolutionarily, that's all that counts.

Russian Mail Delivery

In Russia, mail delivers you.

A Nice Turn of Phrase

except for the slight error:

Sam Owings: Let's turn negative energy into a force for the common good

Environmentalist(s), who have ignored the elephant in the room far too long, are now frustrated by their own failings and have resorted to suing farmers because of manure on their boots and dust blown about by a fan. These environmentalist should step back, take a deep breath, shake off all negative energy and shift into a positive mindset so they can get some proactive, commonsense programs going to clean up the Chesapeake Bay.

Another Eastern Shorer (farmer?) trying to get the Bay Diet and the environmental movement that drives it to take another look at fixing the nutrient retention abilities Conowingo Dam (and the other Susky dams) as means of abating much of the nutrient pollution to the Bay.  It references the recent loss of the Waterkeeper's Alliance of their chickenshit suit against the Hudson Farm and Perdue Chickens, that has been much discussed here.

Kind of reminiscent of this recent ad from the Superbowl...

Bad News: Obama to Refocus on Jobs

Because his previous attempts have been so successful...

White House spinners are working furiously in the final 72 hours before President Obama’s State of the Union speech. Their job: convince the recession-scarred American public that economic recovery is Obama’s top priority — after everything he has said and done to suggest otherwise.

The unemployment rate is 7.9 percent — one tenth of a point higher than it was when Obama took office in January 2009. But the true toll of joblessness is far higher. The Labor Department’s so-called U-6 rate, which includes people who want a job but have become so discouraged they have quit looking, is 14.4 percent. And a new study, by Rutgers University scholars, shows that 23 percent of those surveyed have lost a job sometime in the last four years, while another 11 percent have seen someone in their household lose a job. That is one-third of the American people who have experienced unemployment during Obama’s time in office, along with many more who have experienced other hardships of the economic downturn.

Obama and his henchmenpeople will, of course, claim that the economic downturn was due entirely to the lack of regulations on the banking industry during the Bush era, never-mind the fact that the industry is one of the most highly regulated in the United States.  And never-mind the role of the Community Redevelopment Act in the feeding and eventual crash of the housing market, and the role of the Democratic Congress in the last two years of Bush's term in raising the deficit.

Economies are self repairing.  People want to work, earn more money and make a better life, and business want to grow and make a bigger profit (thereby supplying the jobs as a means, not an end).  Government can help this process by making it easier to build business and hire people, or it can stifle business growth with too much regulation, and by taking too much money out of the economy as taxes, and spending wasting it on essentially unproductive ventures, often to cronies of the government officials who find a $1 investment in a politician beats a $100 investment in business.

The fact that the economy is still stuttering 5 years after the crash is evidence that the approach taken by the administration to date have been ineffective at best, and in all likelihood detrimental.  There's zero evidence that the Preznit and his cronies have learned that lesson; the only lesson they appear to have learned is that you can demagogue the economy into another 4 years in office 

And before I go,  a video from "The Lonely Conservative" to remind us of how successful Obama's previous attempts have been:

If It Saves Only One Life!

We must repeal San Francisco's ban on plastic bags!

San Francisco passed America's "first-in-the-nation" ban on plastic bags in chain grocery stores and drugstores in 2007. In a research paper for the Wharton School Institute for Law and Economics, law professors Jonathan Klick and Joshua Wright crunched state and federal data on emergency room admissions and food-borne-illness deaths and figured that the San Francisco ban "led to an increase in infections immediately upon implementation."

They found a 46 percent rise in food-borne-illness deaths. The bottom line: "Our results suggest that the San Francisco ban led to, conservatively, 5.4 annual additional deaths."

5.4 agonizing deaths of vomiting, diarrhea, intestinal bleeding and dehydration all so the that the greenies can feel good about having saved a trivial amount of material?  Now, when the greenies win, multiply that up to the whole country, and how many deaths do you have each year?  Approximately 2,000, using the current populations of the United States and San Francisco.

Of course, you could wash your reusable bags...

I got this from the TLC website:

"Designate specific bags for meats and fish. Wash these bags regularly - preferably after each shopping trip - to get rid of bacteria. If your bag is fabric, toss it in the washing machine with jeans, and if it's a plastic material, let it soak in a basin filled with soapy water and either the juice of half a lemon or about a quarter cup of vinegar."

Ask your friends and family how many of them regularly wash their reusable bags - ask how many folks ever have done any of the above steps - and you can intuit that a ban on plastic bags might not be the brightest idea.

Which would negate any benefits in energy and material conservation, and require more work on the part of the consumer.  Or you could just use the recyclable one use plastic or paper bags...

Pope Throws in the Towel

Pope Benedict XVI is to resign on February 28 due to his "deteriorating" health.

"After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

"I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.

"However, in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognise my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me."

This makes him the first pope to resign from office rather than die in it since 1415, when Pope Gregory XII resigned in the midst of a conflict within the church, a period when 3 different men claimed to be the Pope, Gregory XII in Rome, Benedict XII in Avignon, France, and John XXIII in Pisa:

...The Council of Constance finally resolved the situation. Gregory XII appointed Carlo Malatesta and Cardinal Giovanni Dominici of Ragusa as his proxies. The cardinal then convoked the council and authorized its succeeding acts, thus preserving the formulas of Papal supremacy. Thereupon on 4 July 1415, Malatesta, acting in the name of Gregory XII, pronounced the resignation of the Pope, which the cardinals accepted. According to prior agreement, they agreed to retain all the cardinals that had been created by Gregory XII, thus satisfying the Correr clan, and appointed Gregory XII Bishop of Frascati, Dean of the Sacred College of Cardinals and perpetual legate at Ancona. The Council then set aside Antipope John XXIII (1410–15), the successor of Alexander V. After the former follower of Benedict XIII appeared, the council declared him deposed; and the Great Schism was ended. A new Roman pontiff, Pope Martin V, was not elected before Gregory's death.

Those Were the Good Old Days

Found at the DaleyGator:

Imagine this ad running today. The Liberals would go into hyssy fits, and Heaven forbid if this scene played out in a school! I mean boys acting like boys?

Beach Report, 2/10/13

It was a pretty nice morning at the Beach.  Only about 35 F, but only a little wind.  Partly cloudy, but only a few parts.

Skye was on double secret probation for trying an escapist maneuver last weekend (probably trying to avoid a difficult spot), so I kept her on the leash all day; hence no "dog running" or "dog stalking" pictures. Sorry.









I was surprised to find this eagle sitting in a tree over Long Beach; usually they're much further up the Bay.

I was even more surprised when it took off and flew straight over us on its way past.

The tide was a little high, we just barely squeaked by the narrow spot with dry feet on our way up (Skye doesn't care about  dry feet, but I do).

The effects of freezing on the cliffs.  By freezing into the cliff an inch or two, the freeze loosen a layer that often falls off in sheets like this.  This dark, silty clay is the hardest material in the cliffs, and the most resistant to erosion.

On our way back the tide had risen just enough that I head to get wet feet to get by the narrow spot. 

CNN Anchor Commits Unbelievable Stupidity

If you don't understand, I can't possibly explain it to you.

I Can Think of So Many Uses For This Stuff

We use some stuff on lab glassware that works a little like this, but not nearly as effectively.

Among a number of wild and whimsical things at GOODSTUFF'S 96'th Issue.

Scientists Claim Confirmation of Asteroid Dinosaur Extinction Hypothesis

An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs

A team of American and European researchers have confirmed that the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction — the event that wiped out roughly 75% of the planet’s species, including almost every dinosaur — was caused by an asteroid impact in Mexico 66 million years ago. The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction was the last great extinction event to occur on Earth, and is most notable for causing the diversification of mammals that eventually resulted in Homo sapiens....

Until now, though, there hasn’t been enough evidence that the Chicxulub impact actually caused the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction. There was certainly a massive asteroid impact, but previous evidence showed that the asteroid impact occurred up to 300,000 years before the extinction of the dinosaurs. Biologists and geologists have argued that there may have been another cause — an impact at the Shiva crater off the coast of India, global volcanic eruptions, or perhaps something more gradual.

Now, however, European and American scientists have re-tested debris from Chicxulub using state-of-the-art equipment and narrowed the asteroid impact down to a period of 11,000 years, between 66.03 and 66.04 million years ago — almost simultaneous with the Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction. When dealing with geological timescales, a range of 11,000 years is about as accurate as you can get. As the research paper puts it, though, “the Chicxulub impact likely triggered a state shift of ecosystems already under near-critical stress.” In other words, prior to the extinction event, Earth was already teetering on the edge of self-annihilation. The asteroid was simply the zettajoule stick that broke T-Rex’s back.

Remember, correlation is not causation.  I'm still holding out for the "Cave Girl" hypothesis...

Federally Mandated Fish Kills

Explosive Federal Mandate Killing Thousands of Red Snapper

A federal mandate to remove old, abandoned oil and gas rigs in the Gulf of Mexico is blowing up a lot more than just the rigs. Undercover video obtained by Local 15 shows thousands of pounds of dead fish, mostly red snapper, floating to the surface after one of the controversial demolitions in the Gulf.

“Good Lord,” marine scientist Dr. Bob Shipp said, when Local 15 showed him the video. “As a scientist, I think it’s abominable.”

Shipp said the demolitions are frequent, sometimes three a week in the Gulf, but are seldom video-taped. Shipp also sits on the Gulf Fisheries Management Council, and has been a strong opponent of the demolitions. “It’s a double whammy,” Shipp said, “Not only are we killing a lot of snapper, but we’re also destroying their habitat.”

The old rigs are an eye-sore, but under the surface, they’ve developed into artificial reefs with rich coral habitats. On some of the older rigs, those habitats have grown over the course of 30 to 40 years.

People who appreciated the structures as fishing sites were distressed:

The killing of the red snapper is also infuriating charter boat captains and anglers. Federal restrictions keep cutting the red snapper season shorter and quotas smaller to protect the species from over-fishing.

“They tell us not to fish [red snapper] but they’re blowing them up,” charter boat Captain Jason Domange told Local 15, “It’s a cryin’ shame.”

 Of course, you can find scientists who will argue that such artificially created habitats should not be allowed, because, well, they're not natural.



Hat tip to Ted.

How a BB Gun Made America What it is Today

But what a BB Gun!



Technically, of course, it's not really a BB gun, which is named after sized BB shot, used for small game in a shotgun, a size similar to the BB used for modern BB guns.

O'Malley Spams Maryland Hunters with Gun Control Message

From Bert, who received this em-mail as a result of giving his em-mail address to the state with his hunting license:

Dear Friend,

I wanted to make sure you are aware of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources' latest Junior Waterfowl Hunting Day, which takes place this Saturday, February 9. Junior Hunting Days provide wonderful opportunities for young hunters and their adult mentors to get outside and enjoy the proud tradition of hunting in Maryland.

Hunting is a part of our history and is woven into the fabric of our State’s culture. We appreciate everything you and all other conservation-minded hunters do for Maryland.

I also want to take this opportunity to address you directly about the proposal we recently introduced to reduce gun violence. Our goal is to enact common sense proposals to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous criminals, and to try to reduce the risk of a mass shooting like the one that occurred in Newtown.

Let me be clear: We are committed to protecting hunters and their traditions. That's why we specifically carved out shotguns and rifles from the licensing requirements of our bill.

This bill will NOT impact your ability to introduce a young hunter to the sport and the conservation stewardship ethic borne of that experience.

Good luck on Saturday and I look forward to hearing your stories from the field.

Sincerely,


Martin O’Malley

Governor

The idea that the proposed legislation would prevent hunters from introducing young people to  hunting comes from a provision in the law that prevents the possession of weapons and ammunition by minors.  The question is whether or not carrying guns and ammunition in the field for shooting and hunting constitutes "possession" under the law would seem to be a matter of interpretation, first by any officer who finds a minor with a weapon or ammunition, second by the a prosecuting attorney, and third, by the administration that sends the directives out to the Department of Natural Resources Police, and the Prosecutors.  Do we trust the state to continue to make exemptions for hunting activities, or will those policies be altered once the law is put in place for a while, and another excuse for pushing gun control arises.

The letter also raises a privacy issue.  Does the law allow the state it's data base of hunters (i.e. a class of gun owner) to be used for a blatantly political outreach?  It's not clear from their privacy policy:

American Taliban Planned False Flag Operation

Federal Agents Arrest Man After He Attempts to Bomb Bank in Oakland 

OAKLAND, CA—Federal agents arrested Matthew Aaron Llaneza, age 28, of San Jose, California, this morning after he allegedly attempted to detonate a vehicle-borne explosive device at a bank branch in Oakland.
...
According to the affidavit filed in support of the criminal complaint, on November 30, 2012, Llaneza met with a man who led him to believe he was connected with the Taliban and the mujahidin in Afghanistan. In reality, this man was an undercover FBI agent. At this initial meeting, Llaneza proposed conducting a car-bomb attack against a bank in the San Francisco Bay Area. He proposed structuring the attack to make it appear that the responsible party was an umbrella organization for a loose collection of anti-government militias and their sympathizers. Llaneza’s stated goal was to trigger a governmental crackdown, which he expected would trigger a right-wing counter-response against the government followed by, he hoped, civil war.

Blame it on the right; it's easy, the media will follow the breadcrumbs gladly, and ignore any evidence to the contrary.

The criminal complaint alleges that on the evening of February 7, 2013, Llaneza drove the SUV containing the purported explosive device to the target bank branch in Oakland. He parked the SUV beneath an overhang of the bank building where he armed the trigger device. He then proceeded on foot to a nearby location a safe distance from the bank building, where he met the undercover agent. Once there, Llaneza attempted to detonate the bomb by using the second cell phone he had purchased to place two calls to the trigger device attached to the car bomb. Federal agents then arrested him.

Predictably, the CAIR, the Council on American Islamic Relations was less than impressed.

One civil rights expert, Zahra Billoo, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations in Santa Clara, indicated that this smells of entrapment.

"Did the FBI take a [mentally ill] aspirational terrorist, make him an operational terrorist and then thwart their own plot?" Billoo asked. "CAIR has been saying this for years now: It's the FBI's job to stop operational terrorists. It's not the FBI's job to enable aspirational ones."

Rule 5 Saturday - How About a Vulcan?

...Or if not a Vulcan, a woman who played one on TV, Jolene Blalock. No particular reason for picking her for this Rule 5 post, just a plethora of pictures that needed posting.

Blalock is a California girl, from San Diego.  She left home at 17 to model, much of it in Asia and Europe.  She started acting in 1998, in Veronica's Closet, and she did a number of film and TV roles before donning her ears as Commander T'Pol on Star Trek Enterprise in 2001.  She did nearly 100 episodes before the series ended in 2008.
She continued the SciFi theme with roles in movie version of the Heinlein Classic, "Starship Troopers", episodes of Stargate SG-1, and "Legend of the Seeker."

In 2005, she was named the 10th sexiest woman in the world by FHM magazine.  That's a high bar, but maybe she can get transported over it.