It's Time to Go

You are going to have to leave now. #fishing

You are going to have to leave now. #fishing

Posted by Thrill On Fishing on Sunday, January 10, 2016

I wonder how it got up there?

State of the Union

Somewhere between mad and angry.

I will maintain my near perfect record of not watching State of the Union addresses. Cartoon via Theo's.

Eat What You Want, Die Anyway

From the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition: Mortality in vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians in the United Kingdom

Conclusions: United Kingdom–based vegetarians and comparable nonvegetarians have similar all-cause mortality. Differences found for specific causes of death merit further investigation.

There were some minor differences:

HRs in low meat eaters, fish eaters, and vegetarians compared with regular meat eaters were 0.93 (95% CI: 0.86, 1.00), 0.96 (95% CI: 0.86, 1.06), and 1.02 (95% CI: 0.94, 1.10), respectively; P-heterogeneity of risks = 0.082. There were significant differences in risk compared with regular meat eaters for deaths from circulatory disease [higher in fish eaters (HR: 1.22; 95% CI: 1.02, 1.46)]; malignant cancer [lower in fish eaters (HR: 0.82; 95% CI: 0.70, 0.97)], including pancreatic cancer [lower in low meat eaters and vegetarians (HR: 0.55; 95% CI: 0.36, 0.86 and HR: 0.48; 95% CI: 0.28, 0.82, respectively)] and cancers of the lymphatic/hematopoietic tissue [lower in vegetarians (HR: 0.50; 95% CI: 0.32, 0.79)]; respiratory disease [lower in low meat eaters (HR: 0.70; 95% CI: 0.53, 0.92)]; and all other causes [lower in low meat eaters (HR: 0.74; 95% CI: 0.56, 0.99)]. Further adjustment for body mass index left these associations largely unchanged.

So when that special vegetarian in your life (everybody has one) tells you that steak is going to kill you, just laugh and keep eating.

Energy News

Half of US shale drillers may go bankrupt

Half of U.S. shale oil producers could go bankrupt before the crude market reaches equilibrium, Fadel Gheit, said Monday.

The senior oil and gas analyst at Oppenheimer & Co. said the "new normal oil price" could be 50 to 100 percent above current levels. He ultimately sees crude prices stabilizing near $60, but it could be more than two years before that happens.

By then it will be too late for many marginal U.S. drillers, who must drill into and break up shale rock to release oil and gas through a process called hydraulic fracturing. Fracking is significantly more expensive than extracting oil from conventional wells.

"Half of the current producers have no legitimate right to be in a business where the price forecast even in a recovery is going to be between, say, $50, $60. They need $70 oil to survive," he told CNBC's "Power Lunch."

 And the reason for the dramatic fall in prices?

Oil prices have fallen about 70 percent from their highs in the summer of 2014. The rout accelerated after OPEC, led by top oil exporter Saudi Arabia, declined to enforce production cuts among members of the cartel, a strategy that has supported crude prices in the past.

Gheit said he believes the Saudis will not allow prices to recover until they "take care" of U.S. shale producers, who have contributed to global oversupply as American production has more than doubled since 2008.

The Saudis are also looking to settle the score with Russia and Iran, both of whom are on opposite sides of regional conflicts and are dependent on oil revenues, Gheit said.

It's also killing Venezuela, the Marxist led kleptocracy in Latin America whose economy is almost entirely dependent on oil exports. With so much good coming from the low prices, I hate to whine about American shale oil producers, but we will need them eventually. Can the strong half rebound after the Saudis lose control of OPEC again, as has usually ended the oil droughts? I hope so.

And the Obama administration's War on Coal claims a casualty as Arch Coal files for bankruptcy

The beginning of bankruptcy proceedings for the nation’s second-biggest coal company cast another dark cloud over the economy of Wyoming and other states in the top coal-producing region, following a bankruptcy filing by another major coal operator last year.

Arch Coal Inc.’s Chapter 11 reorganization announced Monday won’t affect employee pay or benefits, cause mines to close, curtail production, or interrupt deliveries, the St. Louis-based company said in prepared statements.

Arch officials didn’t rule out mine closures or layoffs based on long-term trends, however, and it remains unknown when and how the industry might somehow halt its downward spiral.

And why can't they sell coal for a profit?

Many utilities have been switching from coal to natural gas to generate electricity. Besides being cheaper, natural gas emits less greenhouse gas, a major consideration as utilities look to comply with tough new government regulations to try to control global warming.

I'm not at all against replacing coal with natural gas as a fuel; it's a better one for several reasons, but I would prefer that the switch over occur naturally as a result of market forces than by government

“The plight of the coal industry has been hard to watch. Unrelenting pressure from federal regulations and policies coming out of D.C. are pushing companies to a financial brink,” Gov. Matt Mead’s spokesman David Bush said by email Monday.
. . .
Not everybody was glum about the bankruptcy filing. The group WildEarth Guardians, which has contested several coal leases in the West on the grounds that coal contributes to climate change, called on Arch to wind down business altogether.

“There is no future for coal, and it’s time for Arch Coal to be honest about this with its shareholders, its employees, and the American public who sustain so much of the company’s operations,” Jeremy Nichols of WildEarth Guardians said in a news release.

May you freeze hungry in the dark. 

Alas, My Poor Alma Mater

Oregon State University to Hold Segregated Workshops on Race

This month, to relatively little outrage or public notice, Oregon State University is holding segregated “diversity” sessions for students, staff, and faculty. At “retreats,” students and faculty will learn about identity and micro-agressions (for example: expressing a belief in merit, wearing an offensive Halloween costume, or having someone feel like she does not belong).

The Daily Caller reports that a total of four workshops will be held: one for non-white students, another for white students (to educate them about their “white privilege”), one for multi-racial students, and one for white faculty and staff called “Examining White Identity.”

The testimonials at the university’s website indicate that the sessions are sure to foster more “cry-bullies,” as we saw on campuses across the country in 2015. And it seems that among Oregon State’s 30,000 students, none raised significant objections to funding being spent on segregated sessions.

How can this even be legal?

Back when I was at OSU (I finished my PhD in 1983), African American (we called them black) students were almost as rare as unicorns, although my perception may be warped by being in the sciences. There was one friend, a former football scholar who injured himself and lost his scholarship, and was forced to find a job as technician in the STEM fields to pay for school.

The news has not been good for OSU recently, with the only other story of national interest being the girl caught filming porn in the library.

Midnite Music - "China Girl"

So you heard David Bowie died at 69, of cancer, right? As Alex says:

David Bowie's death adds another 10 years onto the life of Keith Richards. He is the Rocklander and there can be only one.

Racism. sexism and racial appropriation; I like it, although I was never much of a Bowie fan, except for the old TV show about Jim Bowie:

Eat Shit, Lose Weight?

New freeze-dried 'poo pills' could be the answer to obesity

SCIENTISTS are set to test freeze-dried pills containing the faecal matter of healthy and lean donors in a bid to tackle the obesity crisis.
Twenty obese volunteers will be taking part in the research and each will be receiving capsules that include several grams of stool from slim donors.

The pills will be taken every week for six weeks without making any changes to their normal diet and exercise habits while researchers track any changes.

These health and weight recordings will be taken at three, six and 12 months, with the potential to continue further depending on the success of the trial.
 . . .
The method has been tested in a number of animal studies and some anecdotal data in humans and has proved effective.

Previously, researchers took the gut microbes from a set of twins, one slim, one obese, and transplanted them into two sets of microbe-free mice.

The mice were on the same diet but those who got the obese twin's microbes became plumper, while the mice who received the lean twin's microbes remained slim.

Why would you think that a small dose of oral bacteria from a slim donor would overwhelm the huge population of bacteria already present in the gut?

Energy Company Proposes to Buy Off Critics For $85 Million

Virginia utility proposes $85 million to assuage critics

Dominion Virginia Power is proposing to help Jamestown Island weather rising seas as part of $85 million in conservation and environmental investments to assuage critics of its plan to erect towering transmission lines across an historic section of the James River.

The utility’s so-called mitigation projects are laid out in a proposed memorandum of agreement filed with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The proposal is being reviewed by more than two dozen historic preservation and conservation groups, among others.

The Army Corps’ Norfolk office is assessing Dominion’s proposal to erect the transmission towers across the James, some nearly matching the height of the Statue of Liberty. It expects to act on the proposal this year.

It's funny how "environmentalists" never complain about the height and visibility of wind turbines (never mind their action as bird murderers).

Opponents who have seen the Dominion mitigation proposals are not swayed, contending that the utility should select another route for the transmission line or bury it under the river. The towers would be within view of Jamestown and other historical attractions.
. . .
Dominion’s mitigation plan calls for land conservation, shoreline protection, environmental initiatives and the rehabilitation of the seawall at Jamestown, among other proposals. Besides Jamestown, the section of the river the transmission line would cross includes the Capt. John Smith Chesapeake National Historic Trail and historic Indian sites.

You do realize, don't you, that Dominion isn't really paying this extortion? Dominions rate payers are. I'm not one, so I don't really care, but I just want it clear.

FBI Investigates Corruption at Clinton.com?

It seems like it was just a couple of days ago, but here we are again with a whole boatload of material.

The big new story is that the FBI may have opened whole new can of worms, by investigating Clinton.com for corruption as well as the email security violations

The FBI’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s secret e-mail server has expanded, Fox News’ Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne exclusively report, into a new and more personal direction. While continuing to press on the question of whether Hillary violated the Espionage Act on more than 1300 occasions, they also now have reason to look into whether the former Secretary of State used her office to enrich the family through the Clinton Foundation:

The FBI investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of private email as secretary of state has expanded to look at whether the possible “intersection” of Clinton Foundation work and State Department business may have violated public corruption laws, three intelligence sources not authorized to speak on the record told Fox News.
This track is in addition to the focus on classified material found on Clinton’s personal server.
“The agents are investigating the possible intersection of Clinton Foundation donations, the dispensation of State Department contracts and whether regular processes were followed,” one source said.

The source told Herridge that this expansion took place relatively early in the investigation — in April 2015. Over 100 agents have now been assigned to the probe, 50 of whom have been “TDYed” — temporarily assigned as the probe has expanded. That’s a rather significant commitment to the Clinton probe, and suggests that the FBI sees a need to do more than just read some redacted e-mails surrendered by Hillary after a long battle.

I've never understood how Bob McDonnell could be charged and convicted for corruption, while the Clintons walked off scotch-free with a much larger influencing peddling operation.

Meanwhile, Hillary’s EmailGate Goes Nuclear, with suspicions arising from the latest releases that she was receiving NSA briefings with the serial numbers filed off through none other than Sid "Viscous" Blumenthal. These, of course would be highly classified at origin, and the State Dept. would have no ability to downplay their classification level. On the scandal of the week, her apparent order to Jake Sullivan to take off the classifications of foreign intelligence and send it to her unsecured email account, Hillary claimed: By ordering “identifying headings” removed, I meant “don’t transmit classified info,” or something. But it sure doesn't read that way.



The Inspector Gadget General of the State Department concluded that the State Department misled public on Clinton emails by denying the existence of the secret Chappaqua server even after it was well known in the Department. Sen. Grassley is not taking the State Departments stonewalling laying down as he steps up Clinton email probe, blocks key nominees. That's not a good as stopping the flow of money, but it will get their attention. Twitchy catches left-wing rag Politico showing sympathy for the devil being tormented by the GOP: ‘So pathetic’: Politico’s take on damning Hillary email is just ‘bad journalism’

On the Bimbo eruption front, Joy Behar says she'd rather vote for a rapist and his enabler than a Republican, and, in fact, she almost certainly did and will. That is liberalism, it is what it is and always what it has been. Insty calls the mass rapists of Cologne "An Army of Bill Clintons." Jonah Goldberg at National Review notes How Bill Quickly Went from Asset to Liability for Hillary’s Campaign.

Dunham in coat at New Hampshire rally

BUSTED: Lena Dunham Is a Liar (Just Like Hillary Clinton)

Dunham told a crowd of supporters Friday that Hillary is so cool because she “believes that the globe is actually warming.” Everyone in New Hampshire should know this, Dunham alleged, because “I didn’t even need my jacket outside and it’s January in New England, you guys.”

Just like her hero.

And demonstrating that, like most Democrats, she's racist Hillary Clinton assumes ‘Making a Murderer’ convicts are black. I confess to not hearing about this series until a few days ago, and haven't waste more than a minute thinking about it.

Meanwhile Clinton’s gamble on Muslims. I'm not sure Obama can make them a voting majority in the next year.

This Old Guy is My Hero!

Lindsay Ell’s 24-Hour Street Performance

The weather wasn’t perfect, but cloudy skies and a little rain didn’t deter Lindsay Ell as she spent 24 hours performing on Nashville’s Lower Broadway to celebrate the release of her new single, “By the Way.”

The weather failed to dampen her fans’ spirits either last week as they joined with Ell and several of her artist friends to raise thousands of dollars for the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in Nashville.
. . .
Ell will visit the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital later this month to perform for and visit patients and officially present raised monies to the facility, a part of the Children’s Miracle Network of hospitals and a partner of CMT’s charitable arm, CMT One Country.

Wombat-socho brings the heat with "Rule 5 Sunday: Otakon Vegas Edition"  to The Other McCain.

Whoda Thunk?

But, but, but, the economy is (was?) improving. The administration told us, and they don't lie!

6 Big Cities See Hiring Fade After Minimum Wage Hikes

U.S. cities that implemented big minimum-wage hikes to $10 an hour or more in 2015 have seen a strikingly similar aftermath: Job gains have fallen to multiyear lows at restaurants, hotels and other leisure and hospitality venues.

The data aren't, for the most part, stark and reliable enough to amount to smoking-gun proof. But Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, Seattle, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. — all on the leading edge of the push for big minimum wage hikes — all show worrisome job trends.

The strongest evidence comes from the nation's capital, where leisure and hospitality employment, which rose at least 3% annually over the prior four years, fell an average of 1% from a year ago in the three months through November. So instead of adding 2,000 or more jobs per year, restaurants, hotels and the rest of the leisure and hospitality sector have lost about 700 jobs.

The timing coincides with the $1 minimum-wage hike to $10.50 an hour last July. That jump followed a boost from $8.25 to $9.50 an hour that took effect in mid-2014. Another jump to $11.50 is set for this July.

The D.C. data are key because they reveal outright job losses confined to the city limits. Researchers studying the latest round of citywide minimum-wage hikes generally have had to rely on data for a big chunk of the broader metropolitan area, making the analysis more speculative. More reliable data through 2015 will be available in June via the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages.

Who could have predicted if you raised the price of labor, there would be less of it? Certainly not Bernie Sanders.

Can the Redskins Send the Packers Packing?

Today, along about 4:40, the 9-7 Redskins take on the 10-6 Green Bay Packers at Fedex Field in their first post-season game since 2012, when the rookie RG III led them to their first playoff since 2007. Can Cousins keep the magic alive?

In the meantime, have you ever wondered how the Packers got their name? Me too. It turns out they were named after the Indian Packing company, an early investor.

Ah, another racist name, in disguise!

In 1919, Curly Lambeau decided to start a football team in the small Wisconsin town of Green Bay. Akron, Canton, Dayton, Hammond and Muncie all had teams, so it wasn't a stretch for Lambeau to start a franchise in his hometown. He just needed some funding to get off the ground.

Lambeau of Lambeau field fame, I presume.

At the time, Lambeau was earning $250 per month as a shipping clerk at a local meatpacking company. He convinced his employer to put up $500 for jerseys and equipment and also got permission to use the company's athletic field for practice. With all that support from the packing company, it was a natural that the team call itself the Packers.

They could have had a coyote as their mascot.

The affiliation with the Indian Packing Company soon ended and before the team's first official NFL season, the company was absorbed by the Acme Packing Company. For a time, the team wore "Acme Packers" on the jersey. In each official NFL season, the team has been known as the Green Bay Packers. Both companies would soon be out of business, but the name stuck.

Sunday Beach Report 1/10/16

Wow, what weather! 62, sunny with occasional white fluffy clouds, and breezy (15-20 knots) from the west, which gives the beach excellent protection.

A huge raft of ducks lingering off shore, and even more flying behind them. It looks like mostly Ruddy Ducks.

The dog's eye view of the beach. I can't duplicate the smells

 The tide was very high, but the wave action was about perfect, so we did OK on fossils; about 15 teeth, none remarkable, a couple of crab claws, and one mostly complete ray plate.

Obamacare Schadenfreude Lingers in 2016

Obamacare Schadenfreude has slowed down as journalists have turned their eye to promoting (or trashing) Hillary Clinton's or Donald Trump's candidacy, but the financial cancer that is Obamacare keeps growing:

New emails, uncovered in the IRS controversy show that contrary to prior claims that the Obama administration went out of its way to inflict the ACA contraception mandate on the Catholic Church:

. . . Administration health policy officials were downright obsessed with figuring out which Catholic institutions would fit within the section 6033-based exemption. As early as October 2011, the White House was trying to figure out how to structure the exemption so that Catholic universities would be forced to provide student contraceptives in student health plans. In July 2012, emails show officials trying to make sure that the contraceptive mandate would treat the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops – the spiritual leaders of Roman Catholic entities in the United States – differently from the colleges, charities, and other groups that they lead. The documents were originally discovered during congressional inquiries into the sharing of tax information between the IRS and the White House. . . 

As promised, the 2016 Congressional session opened with bill to repeal and replace Obamacare. It was passed using the "reconciliation" trick that democrats used to pass the bill in the first place, avoiding a Senatorial filibuster, and dutifully vetoed by President Obama. Paul Ryan vows an attempt to muster the votes for an override in the near future. Democrats, of course, decry the efforts as a waste of time, while Republicans tout the unpopularity of the law. According to the CBO the Bill gutting ObamaCare would save half-trillion over a decade. Half a trillion here, half a trillion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.

Still Despite Subsidies, Poor Spending 10-20 Percent of Income on ObamaCare. See the numbers here.

And, as conservatives predicted, more people are choosing to pay the penalties and not pay for Obamacare than the administration hoped.

#3 in the list of The top 12 revolving-door moments of 2015

3.) President Obama said he was going to stop the revolving door, and he spoke as if Obamacare was a broadside to the industry. If you believed either of these lines, you were surprised in 2011 when Obama picked hospital executive Marilyn Tavenner as Medicare administrator. Not done with the revolving door, Tavenner cashed out in 2015 to become president of America's Health Insurance Plans, the largest lobby for the insurance industry, which is — thanks to Obamacare — increasingly dependent on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for profits.

Administering the law in the first place is an excellent way to become acquainted with the law, and probably more importantly, the permanent bureaucracy that enforces it. Time to invoke Instapundit's "Revolving Door Surtax."

 In short, I propose putting a 50% surtax -- or maybe it should be 75%, I'm open to discussion -- on the post-government earnings of government officials. So if you work at a cabinet level job and make $196,700 a year, and you leave for a job that pays a million a year, you'll pay 50% of the difference -- just over $400,000 -- to the Treasury right off the top. So as not to be greedy, we'll limit it to your first five years of post-government earnings; after that, you'll just pay whatever standard income tax applies.

Sounds good to me.

You Can't Win 'em All

But not all MMA losers go on to model in paint for SI: Ronda Rousey Does the Naked/Painted Swimsuit Thing in Sports Illustrated

MMA fighter Ronda Rousey is gracing the pages of Sports Illustrated's Swimsuit issue, and she's wearing body paint instead of actual clothing. So yes, she's essentially one giant paint by numbers project.

“I was one of the lucky few chosen to be a canvas for a hand painted masterpiece that took 14 hours to put on,” Rousey — who also posed for the publication in 2015 –Instagrammed on Thursday. “I can’t wait to show you guys the final pics the when the issue hits stands!”

Pretty kitty!

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and linkfest. Wombat-socho brings the heat with "Rule 5 Sunday: Otakon Vegas Edition"  to The Other McCain.

Ötzi the Iceman Provides Clues to Ulcer Evolution

From Dienekes' Blog: Helicobacter pylori in the Iceman

Science 8 January 2016: Vol. 351 no. 6269 pp. 162-165

The 5300-year-old Helicobacter pylori genome of the Iceman
Frank Maixner1,*,†, Ben Krause-Kyora2,†, Dmitrij Turaev3,†, Alexander Herbig4,5, et al.

The stomach bacterium Helicobacter pylori is one of the most prevalent human pathogens. It has dispersed globally with its human host, resulting in a distinct phylogeographic pattern that can be used to reconstruct both recent and ancient human migrations. The extant European population of H. pylori is known to be a hybrid between Asian and African bacteria, but there exist different hypotheses about when and where the hybridization took place, reflecting the complex demographic history of Europeans. Here, we present a 5300-year-old H. pylori genome from a European Copper Age glacier mummy. The “Iceman” H. pylori is a nearly pure representative of the bacterial population of Asian origin that existed in Europe before hybridization, suggesting that the African population arrived in Europe within the past few thousand years.

H. pylori is the bacterium which surprised and shocked medical people when it turned out to be the cause of the majority of ulcers, overturning previous dogma that diet was largely responsible, and opening a relatively simple treatment through antibiotics.

Ötzi the Iceman is the oldest known mummy found after a glacial melt in the Italian Alps from about 5,300 years ago. His excellent preservation, and (relative) wealth of possessions have provided enormous insight into the state of Europe at the time, as well as the climate.

A Smoking Gun from the Clinton.com Server?

It got out of hand again while I was fishing yesterday.

A new emails tranche was released on Friday (as they usually are) and there are some interesting revelations. 66 of the new documents contained information now classified, and the count of classified messages now stands at 1,384. The State Dept. keeps explaining that they weren't classified at the time, but now they're too secret for the public to know. But their IG is kind of, sort of getting around to looking into it.

However, one email thread shows Hillary personally telling an underling to strip off classification markings and send her the damn thing so she can receive it on her insecure, privately maintained server (right).

I think that's kind of against the rules says former Federal Prosecutor Joseph DiGenova:

“This is gigantic,” said diGenova. “She caused to be removed a classified marking and then had it transmitted in an unencrypted manner. That is a felony. The removal of the classified marking is a federal crime. It is the same thing to order someone to do it as if she had done it herself.”

 Will this be Hillary's Watergate that forces her to step out of the race, or will the refusal of the upper echelon of the Justice Department to enforce the law equally send the FBI in open revolt? Stay tuned.

Hillary on the difference between democrats and socialists:



That makes things clear, doesn't it?

On the Bimbo eruption front, Vox, the leftwing offshoot of Journolist, helpfully explains the rape allegations against Slick Willy:

Vox’s ”explainer” of Juanita Broaddrick’s rape allegation against Bill Clinton, I expected a whitewash. I was wrong. Not only did Dylan Matthews do an excellent job laying out the story, he reminded me of a number of details I’d forgotten.

He better put some ice on that. Kirsten Powers piles on with A tale of two Bills: Cosby, Clinton and predatory men.

This is the backdrop for Donald Trump’s recent broadside against Clinton, in which he chided her for her husband’s “terrible record of women abuse.” Whatever Trump’s failings, he understands cultural shifts. We are a society that has a blessedly lower tolerance for sexual assault and harassment than in prior years. This is good news for America, but bad news for the Clintons. History has caught up with them at the worst possible moment.

But wait, there's more, literally more:  Bombshell Claim: More Clinton Sexual Assault Victims Are About To Come Forward

Roger Stone, author of the New York Times bestselling "The Clinton’s War On Women", claims that he has personal knowledge of previously unknown victims who are preparing to come forward with accusations against the former president.

"I identified 24 women who’ve been assaulted by Bill Clinton," Stone said on The Sean Hannity Show. "Now some of these women are still terrified. Some of them have had IRS audits. Some of them have had their families threatened. But others have come forward."

Dick Morris comes out and claims it was Hillary's treatment of Bill's Bimbos that finally drove him away. He does have some standards, apparently. Birds of a feather? Some Clinton Employees Thought Huma’s Work Ethic Drove Weiner Into 2011 Sexting Scandal. They do have that in common, the sex scandal.

In her salad days in the State Dept., where one of her main jobs was to tamp down the North Koreans rush to acquire nuclear weapons, she said:

“Maybe it’s the mother in me or the experience that I’ve had with small children and unruly teenagers and people who are demanding attention — don’t give it to them, they don’t deserve it, they are acting out,” Clinton said in 2009 during an interview with ABC’s Good Morning America.

Clinton took credit for dialing down the rhetoric against North Korea in the interviewing, insisting that the rogue nation did not pose a threat.

Maybe it was a fizzled H-bomb. Maybe the next one will work right. I'd worry about Chelsea with an H-bomb too. But Bill wanted to get over there to raise some money for the family business:Bill Clinton Wanted to Accept a North Korean Speaking Gig. But somebody at the State Dept. showed a little spine, and turned down permission for that speech, one of five that were denied out of 200.

One of Hillary's staffers father- calls Hispanic Republican challengers race traitors. Not news except that he owns a cable network:

DEMOCRAT OPERATIVE WITH A BYLINE SAYS WHAT? Cruz, Rubio Charged with Race Treason by Univision’s Jorge Ramos.

Add this to his hilarious meltdown in August over Donald Trump, and it’s almost as if there’s no Republican that meets Ramos’ impossible standards.

Not to mention that Ramos’ daughter is a Hillary Clinton staffer.

Bernie Sanders pouts that Hillary Clinton lacks courage to stand up to Wall Street. Well, duh. She'd have to stand up to herself. And law enforcement and medical professionals think Hillary is hiding a potentially debilitating health issue

Democrat frontrunner Hillary Clinton’s disappearance from the debate stage last month left people speculating that the former First Lady took a long bathroom break, but now a law-enforcement source with inside connections is alleging that Clinton was missing from the stage due to health issues stemming from a previous brain injury.

These long-lasting symptoms stemming from a concussion and blood clot, according to a neurologist, suggest Clinton is suffering from post-concussion syndrome, which can severely impact her cognitive abilities. . . 

while others suggest that the Secret Service has started protecting her from more than physical threats, the threat of unfriendly media coverage.

"I think what's happening is kind of a form of 'security regulatory capture.' What I mean by that is that the guys now with the Clinton campaign are becoming really close with the staff because they've been there a while, I've seen it happen. And they're doing the staff's job with guns which is very dangerous. They should not be doing that, that's the staff's job," said Bongino, who has popular podcast on Conservative Review.

Rule 5 Saturday - A Pretty Normal Little Liar - Ashley Benson

This Rule 5 Saturday special based on a quickie in Wombat-socho's LIVE AT FIVE: 01.05.16. ASHLEY BENSON; WHY HER LIFE IS MORE NORMAL THAN YOU THINK. I'd never watched Pretty Little Liars, so this was my first introduction to her.

Now going into season 6 on January 12, Pretty Little Liars—the high school drama captivating an audience of teens and 20- and even 30-somethings—has included murder, secrets, lies, cover-ups, and most recently a transgender reveal, which has kept viewers on the edge of their seats (and live tweeting along the way). Benson feels her fashion-loving character, Hanna, has evolved more than any of her her costars’

You might see why.

Unrealistic beauty ideals are why Benson recently spoke out on social media about the dangers of Photoshop. “I saw photos from a shoot of myself just the other day and thought, What the hell? That doesn’t even look like me! I was so disappointed,” she says. “I hate to think that girls are like, ‘She’s so skinny! Her skin is so perfect!’ I have pimples just like they do.” To prove it, the outspoken actress posted a photo of herself with dots of zit cream on her face on Instagram. Why? “Because I wanted to show people I’m not perfect—no one is.”

Close enough.

Even with her access to everything, Benson says her lifestyle is actually extremely tame compared to most 20-somethings, famous or not. In fact the actress, who grew up in a strict household with a sheriff as a grandfather, was shocked while shooting the film Spring Breakers in nearby St. Petersburg. “Since I’ve never been to college, I was asking everyone, ‘Is this what spring break is really like?’ But most of the people in the background shots were really there on spring break, so all of that making out and getting naked was real.”

The provocative 2012 movie, which follows a group of girls’ adventures robbing a restaurant to pay for their beach getaway, involves drug use, violence, and Benson filming a threesome with James Franco and Vanessa Hudgens. It was quite the departure from the series that made Benson famous—and her own upbringing, for that matter.

This week, GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (223rd Issue) focuses like a laser beam on all of Jennifer Aniston's pokies! I don't think there are enough electrons in the interwebs. Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and linkfest. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Teenage Wasteland" and "FMJRA 2.0: Rubycon" ready at The Other McCain.

First Fish of 2016

Yesterday, an old fishing friend, Ron "One Fish" texted to ask me if I might go out with him, and a friend Bill, on Bill's boat, out of Buzz's Marina today around 10 AM. It was cool, in the low 40s when we met at Buzz's, and pretty still.

It turned out we were going to trailer the boat to Pt. Lookout State Park at the end of the Potomac River, and launch it there, to replace a long and expensive run over water for a shorter drive in the truck and a shorter ride over the Bay. The weather, however stayed about the same.








We found fish right off, accompanied by a few diving birds (gulls and gannets).  We caught a bunch of small fish there (and one decent), but went looking for better fish further out near the channel.  Under a few birds idly sitting on the water, we found a mother load of fish.

Initially, the bite was slow as we arrived near slack water, but it picked up as the current picked up. The majority of the fish in this lot was 24 inches or better, some well into the 30 inches. Of course, it's not a season in which we can keep fish, so we didn't really stop to measure. I caught this fish, like all the fish I caught today, on a "heavy metal" Diamond Jig, twitched near the bottom

Ron with a good one he caught with a 7 inch Bass Assassin and a 1.5 ounce jig head.

And finally (but not really) Bill with a good one. Honestly, I don't know if this was on metal or rubber; he switched off and caught fish on both.

Gone Fishin'

But not like this. But it might be almost as cold.

Fishing for bluegill and got a bonus
Posted by Kristilee Christensen on Wednesday, February 25, 2015

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Teenage Wasteland" ready at The Other McCain.

EPA Identifies Cause of Bee Deaths

Bees threatened by a common pesticide, EPA finds

An insecticide widely used on grains, vegetables, fruit and other crops nationwide threatens honeybees, federal environmental regulators said in a decision that could lend impetus to efforts to ban the chemical.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday that imidacloprid, a nicotine-imitating chemical found in at least 188 farm and household products in California, “potentially poses risk to hives when the pesticide comes in contact with certain crops that attract pollinators.”

The EPA's decision was prompted by increasing concern that the chemicals might be contributing to the sudden collapse of commercial honey bee colonies over the last decade.

Those bees pollinate crucial food crops and contribute about $14 billion in value to the agricultural economy nationwide.

This is the first of four risk assessments conducted by the EPA on the class of pesticides known as neonicotinoids. The rest are slated for completion by the end of the year, after which the agency could tighten controls over the insecticides.

However, as we've seen before, the problems with colony collapse disorder may be substantially exaggerated:

I rarely see Honey Bees around our garden any more. However, I do see plenty of native bees, and other pollinators, including butterflies, wasps and beetles. and things seem to get pollinated (especially the weeds). Remember, the Honey Bee is a non-native species in the western hemisphere, and they displaced many native species.

Did "Climate Change" Chase Bigfoot from Asia to America?

By way of Watts Up With That, an article from International Business Times which suggests that Bigfoot is the old world Gigantophithicus which migrated across from Asia during the last Ice Ages:

The biggest ape to roam the Earth went extinct 100,000 years ago because the species was not able to adapt to just consuming savannah grass after climate change hit its favoured diet of forest fruit, according to scientists. Weighing five times as much as an adult man and standing up to three metres tall, Gigantopithecus, the closest nature ever came to producing a real King Kong, was still not invincible enough to survive drastic climate changes.

The species lived in semi-tropical forests in southern China and mainland Southeast Asia. Scientists say that the Gigantopithecus was the closest modern cousin of orangutans. Experts around the world did not know why the animal went extinct. In fact, when fossils were discovered in the 1930s, the Gigantopithecus’ teeth were sold as dragon’s teeth in Hong Kong.

Almost nothing was known about the animal’s anatomical shape or habit until German scientists believe that they have made a breakthrough after conducting new studies on the enamel of teeth found in Thailand and China. Hervé Bocherens, professor at the Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP) at the University of Tübingen, said that the giant was a strict vegetarian that lived in the forests. As the Earth got struck by a massive ice age during the Pleistocene Epoch 2.6 million to 12,000 years ago, the Gigantopithecus’ diet dwindled.
. . .
However, other apes and early humans in Africa survived the transition by switching their diets to eat the leaves, roots and grass grown in their new environment, Phys.org reports. The Gigantopethicus lacked the physiological ability and ecological flexibility to resist stress and food shortage. Other experts, most notably Grover Krantz, suggested that the Gigantopithecus may have survived and migrated from Asia over the Bering straits.

Climate change, is there nothing it can't explain?

It's a far cry from the Chinese semi-tropical forests to the tundra habitat of Beringia, but other groups of organisms made the adaption. Elephants gave rise to Mammoths and Mastodons, which crossed the land bridge one way or another, so it's not out of the question.

I confess to not believing in Bigfoot, but I'd love to be proved wrong.

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Teenage Wasteland" ready at The Other McCain.

Star Wars Gone Wild

STAR WARS GONE WILD (SFW ADULT VERSION) Amanda Cerny #starwars #theforceawakensShot By Poteet Films
Posted by Curtis Lepore on Tuesday, January 5, 2016

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Teenage Wasteland" ready at The Other McCain.

It Sucks to Be a Minnow

So why are they so hard to catch?

Trucker Survives Plunge Off Bay Bridge Tunnel

Tractor-trailer driver survives plunge over CBBT

Officials have confirmed a tractor-trailer has gone overboard at the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel.

According to officials, it happened southbound at mile post 14, shortly after 3 p.m. Wednesday. Tom Anderson with Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel confirms the driver is alive and was pulled out of the water by Virginia Beach Marine Patrol at 3:55 p.m.

Super Doppler 10 Meteorologist Ashley Baylor says the water temperature at the time of the accident was 49.1 degrees. The driver was flown via Nightingale to Sentara Norfolk General Hospital. The driver suffered serious but non-life threatening injuries to his head, arm and chest. Firefighters say the driver was conscious and alert when he was pulled out of the water.

I would say he's pretty lucky to have survived. And seeing the way that truck blew through the guardrail can't be much comfort to truckers that cross the bridge.

Baltimore: The Smell Could Knock a Buzzard Off a $#!* Wagon

An interesting article on Baltimore, and the first installation of city wide sewage.

The Man Made Marvel of Baltimore's Sewers

The need for sewers in 19th-century Baltimore was abundantly clear to those who endured the “2,000-horse-power smell” of the city's harbor. There, streams of human waste, trash, and industrial runoff converged and stewed under the summer sun, breeding deadly typhoid fever. City code required indoor toilets, but it was up to individual property owners to build cesspools, cisterns, or gutters. These emptied into an unfortunate stream called the Jones Falls; its polluted course ran from the wealthier to the poorer areas of town and finally into the harbor. An 1890 news story claimed that harbor steamboat passengers “were known actually to faint from the effects of the vile smell.” Baltimore was one of the last major American cities to build a public sewer system.

 “Night soil men” manually emptied Baltimore's 20,000 cesspools prior
 to the construction of public sewers. (Photo: Public Domain)

Why, while other municipalities broke ground on sewers, did Baltimore languish through a half-century-long public health nightmare? It's a historical puzzle with particular relevance today, as many cities struggle to upgrade their aging infrastructure. Some pieces of this puzzle are familiar enough: political gridlock, cash-strapped governments, and NIMBYism. Other pieces seem a bit more antiquated, like the notion of airborne miasmas and toxic sewer gases.
. . .
“The Great Fire of 1904 was a godsend for the sewers,” said Department of Public Works spokesman Kurt Kocher in a presentation last month to the Baltimore City Historical Society. “After the downtown was incinerated, civic pride was at a peak.” The people and politicians of Baltimore determined to rebuild the city better than before. . .

I think it's hard for modern people to conceive of how bad a problem all the human waste was back in the days before modern sanitation especially in cities where people are packed together. And many people would benefit from a walking tour of a major sewage treatment plant like Blue Plains, to see what goes on there, as I have.

Fresh Comedy from Clinton.com

At least some of it is funny:

In the State Department email scandal a Former U.S. attorney says Clinton could face criminal indictment. Though why anyone would think this Justice Department would actually enforce those particular laws, when they have decided to not enforce whole areas of law is a mystery; but hey, cling to hope. Apparently, the Clinton cabal had very little cyber-security training, as the State Department has narrowed down the number of relevant cyber-security documents responsive to an CEI FOIA suit for information on Hillary, Huma and Cheryl's (to name a few) cyber-security training from 38,000 to get this, 1. What, one reminder to take the online cyber-security course that the mail room employees also take? It certainly makes their plea of ignorance more believable. Meanwhile the latest revelation from Hillary's last email dump is that she Met At State Department With Sidney Blumenthal, who had been banned from her State Dept. staff, but who was on her payroll at Clinton.com as a consigliere.

Althouse blogs about how The WaPo Fact Checker checks "What Benghazi family members say Hillary Clinton said about the video" and comes up empty. Instead of Pinocchios, we're left with "No Rating": Apparently Glenn Kessler's standard is that if she didn't say it to all the families on film, it's unknown. However, we have Hillary on film digital media blaming the video long after she privately acknowledged that the Benghazi attack was a planned terrorist attack:



Michael Bay, of Transformers and Pearl Harbor fame is doing a movie about the Benghazi attack called "13 Hours". Hillary Clinton receives no mention it. For all the good that she did, that may be appropriate. As far as we know, she was sleeping of a drunk while Benghazi burned, and her personal friend Ambassador Chris Stevens was being shot at, smothered in smoke and then raped after death.

Why Hillary Can’t Shake Bill’s Affairs. Because she publicly claimed Bill's innocence, and verbally and legally attacked the women who made claims against him. And now she proclaims that all women who accuse men have a right to be believed. What ‘buy one, get one free’ really means with the Clintons.

Both Hillary and Bill Clinton are skillful spinners of their record, but as the campaign grinds on to the November election, some voters may weary of the potential for history to repeat itself with them. When you vote for a Clinton, you do indeed “buy one and get one free.” And both of then have shown through their past misbehavior that they carry with them a substantial danger that they will bring the exact opposite of dignity and honor to the Oval Office.

Bill Clinton Privately Mocked Paula Jones as an Attention-Seeking ‘Floozy’. It seems to be his type. But now Hillary is keeping the "Big Dog" on a short leash with a prong collar:

It was a muted Bill Clinton who stumped for his wife in New Hampshire on Monday.

Only a few weeks back, Mr. Clinton was thought to be Hillary Clinton’s “secret weapon.” Well, he has just made his first two appearances of the 2016 campaign—and the Associated Press describes him as “subdued,” while the New York Times says he “seemed to be on a tight leash.”

Not to mention how adrift he looked when a reporter asked him about Donald Trump’s slams about his treatment of women.

Altouse comments The big dog that didn't bark.

Very little coverage of that Bill Clinton rally yesterday. What's up? What does the press silence mean?

I wrote about it yesterday, here, thinking I'd have a transcript to work from later, but I can barely find anything.

The NYT has 2 write-ups by Patrick Healy (one a "first draft" and the other more fleshed out): "Bill Clinton, in Restrained Mode, Returns to Campaign Trail in New Hampshire." and "Bill Clinton, the Subdued Spouse, Makes His Campaign Debut."

We know he has no shame, so it has to be a tactic. One notable comment that Bill did make was to describe "the ideas and work ethic of immigrants as potential “meal tickets” for the American economy". Which is true, as far as it goes, but not a cogent argument for open borders. A commentor at Althouse suggests that women attend Bill Clinton speech attending mattresses, Althouse suggests that is not appropriate because Lewinsky didn't need one. So they suggest knee-pads and or cigars. Meanwhile Bill’s female 'fan club' backfires: As Hillary Clinton’s husband hits stump for the first time the women on stage behind him scowl, grimace and look like they'd rather be ANYWHERE else. Ace is pissed that the media refuses to discuss The Jeffrey Epstein Case  (What the Media Thought the Duke Lacrosse and UVA Frat Cases Were). So Why Aren't They Covering it?

Jeffrey Epstein took a plea after being charged with paying underage girls for sex -- statutory rape in Florida. This plea involved the slap on the wrist sentence of 13 months -- and he got to spend his waking hours at his Palm Beach mansion. That is, he only had to check into his "jail" eight hours a day.
. . .
Why no interest in a case in which federal prosecutors fought to hide the easy-peasy conditions of the sentence from the underage victims?

Well, take a guess. It involves Bill Clinton palling around with Epstein, taking the Lolita Express to Pedophile Island, and local Democrat prosecutors who don't seem as interested in a Democrat mega-donor's statutory rape as they were in Rush Limbaugh's pain pill addiction.

On a lighter side, and speaking of two for the price of one, did you know that Bill Clinton believes we've been visited by aliens, and Hillary Clinton talks to ghosts? Hillary promises to look into Area 51. I'm sure the Air Force brass is thrilled. The party of science, doncha know.

Just remember, Clinton takes credit for Obama gun plans. Both Clinton and Obama would happily gut the 2nd amendment. It's just that Obama also likes having the issue, and given his semi-retired status and intrinsic laziness, he really just won't do very much. Hillary, the other hand, may do badly but she makes up for that by trying hard. A Clinton Administration will be much worse on this issue.

And finally, a reminder of how the Clinton.com Clinton Foundation Money Laundering Scheme works:

1. You create a separate foreign “charity.” In this case one in Canada.

2. Foreign oligarchs and governments, then donate to this Canadian charity. In this case, over 1,000 did — contributing mega millions. I’m sure they did this out of the goodness of their hearts, and expected nothing in return. (Imagine Putin’s buddies waking up one morning and just deciding to send untold millions to a Canadian charity).

3. The Canadian charity then bundles these separate donations and makes a massive donation to the Clinton Foundation.

4. The Clinton Foundation and the cooperating Canadian charity claim Canadian law prohibits the identification of individual donors.

Oh, by the way, the Canadian “charity” includes as a principal one Frank Giustra. Google him. He is the guy who was central to the formation of Uranium One, the Canadian company that somehow acquired massive U.S. uranium interests and then sold them to an organization controlled by Russia. This transaction required U.S. State Department approval, and guess who was Secretary of State when the approval was granted. As an aside, imagine how former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell feels. That poor schlep is in jail because he and his wife took $165,000 in gifts and loans for doing minor favors for a guy promoting a vitamin company. Not legal but not exactly putting U.S. security t risk.

5. The Clinton Foundation then spends some of this money for legitimate good works programs. Experts estimate that The Clinton Foundation has donated no more than 15 percent of the donations to charitable pursuits. Much of the balance goes to enrich the Clinton’s lavish salaries, and lavish lifestyle, particularly travel, and virtually all tax free. In on year alone, the foundation spent over $8 million in travel expenses.

6. The Clinton Foundation, with access to the world’s best accountants, somehow fails to report much of this on their tax filings. They discover these “clerical errors” and begin the process of re-filing 5 years of tax returns.

7. Net result — foreign money, much of it from other countries, goes into the Clinton’s pockets tax free and untraceable back to the original donor. This is the textbook definition of money laundering.

If you’re still not persuaded this was a cleverly structured way to get unidentified foreign money to the Clinton’s, ask yourself these questions: Why did these foreign interests funnel money through a Canadian charity? Why not donate directly to the Clinton Foundation? Better yet, why not donate money directly to the people, organizations and countries in need?

These are deeply crooked people. Under no circumstances should they be allow access to power in the United States.