DNC Withholds Evidence in Russian Hacking Investigation

Comey: FBI denied repeated requests to access DNC servers, Podesta’s device

FBI Director James Comey acknowledged Tuesday that his agency failed to get access to Democratic National Committee servers and the smartphone of Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman allegedly hacked by Russia in the 2016 presidential race.

Thousands of emails from the servers and Chairman John Podesta’s device were stolen, then made public during the race, which Clinton lost to Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

But the FBI’s repeated requests for access to the devices were denied. So the agency instead had to rely on the findings of a “highly respected private company,” Comey said.

“Our forensics folks would always prefer to get access to the original device or server involved,” he said in a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about Russia’s intelligence activities during the election.

Comey said he didn’t know why the FBI was denied access.

Gee, I wonder what they're trying (and apparently succeeding) to hide?

Warming Update: Ice Breakers Save Smith Island

J. Millard Tawes

From a day or two without something: DNR ice cutter called in to help Smith Island

With the ice building around Smith Island and Crisfield, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources dispatched its ice cutter to help.

Media outlets report the ice cutter, named J. Millard Tawes, cut a path Monday through the thickening ice in the Chesapeake Bay. State officials say the ice was between 2-3 inches thick, making it dangerous for the ferry and mail boats that run in the area.

Since Smith Island is only accessible by boat or air, the ice cutter was essential to make travel easier for those who live on the island.

The weather was brutal around here for a few days, with temperatures rarely cracking 20 F. Flag Harbor was starting to freeze over, but I'm surprised that the ice was that thick around Smith Island. Yesterday evening it warmed up abruptly to 40 F, and melted most of the snow overnight, and tomorrow, they're predicting a high of 60 F. I might even have to go fishing.

No, it doesn't disprove global warming, but it doesn't help their case either.

Reason #5390 Trump Was Elected

Controversial Ferguson Painting Removed From Congress Display for Third Time

A painting by a constituent of Missouri Democratic Rep. William Lacy Clay has been removed from the walls of the Cannon tunnel by Republicans three times — and replaced after each incident.

“We might just have to kick somebody’s a-- and stop them,” Congressional Black Caucus Chairman Cedric L. Richmond said, when asked if the painting needed security personnel to protect it.

The artwork, entitled “Untitled #1,” depicts police-community relations in Ferguson, Missouri, and is from the Capitol’s annual high school art competition. Republicans have taken offense to the painting’s depictions of police officers and others as animals.

Most recently on Tuesday, GOP Reps. Brian Babin of Texas and Dana Rohrabacher of California removed the artwork from the wall.

Earlier in the day, Colorado GOP Rep. Doug Lamborn took down the painting after Clay and Democratic colleagues held a news conference to announce that they were returning it to join a display of about 400 paintings from the contest.

California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter took the painting down last Friday and delivered it to Clay’s office.

Clay called the attempts to remove the painting “childish.”

Morning Dance

Funny thing about rhythm. If you're close it's good enough. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Siren" ready at The Other McCain.

Obamacare Schadenfreude Still Ongoing

HuffPo notices Republicans Would Repeal Obamacare In Precisely The Way Democrats Enacted It and they're not happy. Live by reconciliation and parliamentary tricks and die by reconciliation and parliamentary tricks.

Then what? According to Rand Paul, Donald  Trump told me he supports replacing ObamaCare the day it’s repealed. There is a trade off between getting it right and getting it fast. I prefer right.

What does the nation say? Polls, we got polls. Depends on how you ask the question, of course. Majority would like to see repeal, changes to Obamcare. But then 75% say Congress shouldn’t repeal or ObamaCare or should wait until there’s a replacement ready

If you want to attack the poll, that’s the way to attack it: None of the choices below accurately capture the GOP’s actual intentions. Treat this as a warning, though, of how badly the PR war over repeal might go for them and Trump and if the Democrats’ “sky is falling” message prevails. Even though the public narrowly supports repeal generally, 49/47, fully 75 percent are primed to believe that repeal before a replacement is ready is a bad idea.

GOP won't promise ObamaCare fix will cover all, which is OK, since Obamacare didn't really cover all either.

Given their previous "Never-Trump" posture, this seems positive: National Review supports President Trump on Obamacare repeal

On health care, congressional Republicans should listen to Donald Trump. The president-elect may not be chock-full of ideas about health-care policy, but he has the right political instincts. He has said that Obamacare should be replaced, that its beneficiaries should not simply be stripped of coverage, and that people with pre-existing conditions should be protected.

It is possible and desirable to devise legislation that meets these objectives. Trump has also warned congressional Republicans to be careful — and he is right about that, too, because their current course does not look likely to accomplish the repeal of Obamacare or its replacement by something better.

They also say GOP Shouldn’t Be Intimidated by Democrats’ Threats in Obamacare Fight. Good advice. You can't win if you don't fight.

It will not surprise you that Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) sing a different tune: NBC News say Tough Choices Loom on Long Road to Replacing Obamacare Well, we're tired of bad choices. Bernie Sanders claims that If Trump doesn’t rescue Obamacare, he must admit he’s a liar. Bernie must be feeling a need for the limelight again. Democrats schedule Obamacare talkathon against college football championship game. Hey, I missed that, and I didn't even watch the football game. From the all liberal all the time Atlantic: GOP Governors Warn Congress on Obamacare Repeal. But Democrats can't just pretend ObamaCare is terrific. Why not? Denial of the reality lead to their current success in the electoral market.

Reasons #5388 and #5389 Trump was Elected

I love America. It's Americans I hate.

A vote cast for Trump is kind of like a murder; there may be context to consider — a disadvantaged background, extenuating circumstances, understandable motives — but the choice itself is binary and final, irrevocable. There's a case to be made that it's indefensible; that his supporters have forfeited any right to be respected or taken seriously. The conservatives of the heartland have lashed back against the coastal elites' condescending, classist prejudices by defiantly confirming them: that they're pathetically dumb and gullible, uncritical consumers of any disinformation that confirms their biases, easy dupes for any demagogue who promises to bring back the factories and keep the brown people down.

Ignorance and bigotry are actually the best possible motives for having voted for Trump — they are at least honest, if not honorable. But I don't believe all Trump voters are ignorant, or bigoted; most of them are just evil — evil being defined not as anything so glamorous as beheading journalists or gunning down grade schoolers, but simply as not much caring about other people's suffering. They're willing to consign someone else — someone Mexican, or Muslim, or trans, not anyone they know — to exile, arrest, or second-class status, in exchange for... what? A tax break? To send a message to Washington, or the mainstream media? Just out of spiteful, petulant rage?

Talk about petulant rage. . . And then there's this fine upstanding liberal:  ThinkProgress Senior Editor Is Scared of His Plumber

The plumbing visit, which came four days after the 2016 election, became a harrowing experience for Resnikoff even though the plumber was “a perfectly nice guy and a consummate professional.”

“He was a perfectly nice guy and a consummate professional,” Resnikoff shared. “But he was also a middle-aged white man with a southern accent who seemed unperturbed by this week’s news.”

Resnikoff said his fear was rooted in the chance that the plumber knew he was Jewish.

“While I had him in the apartment, I couldn’t stop thinking about whether he had voted for Trump, whether he knew my last name is Jewish, and how that knowledge might change the interaction we were having inside my own home,” he said.
The “uncertainty” of the situation left Resnikoff “rattled for some time.”

“I have no real reason to believe he was a Trump supporter or an anti-Semite, but in my uncertainty I couldn’t shake the sense of potential danger,” he wrote. “I was rattled for some time after he left.”

Resnikoff says that he is does not often have a “sense of danger” because he is “still a straight, white guy who can phenotypically pass for gentile” and his “first name is pretty WASP-y.”

Who's the racist here?

If You Need A Belated Xmas Present

One that will be appreciated all year, consider the Erotic Carp Calendar. The Miss Septembers:

The Rule 5 star, Brooke Thomas has a 2017 Bass Fishing Calendar too, for the other room:

and a bowfishing calendar:

Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links.

A Giant Falls

Iconic Sequoia 'Tunnel Tree' Brought Down By California Storm

A powerful winter storm in California has brought down an ancient tree, carved into a living tunnel more than a century ago.

The "Pioneer Cabin Tree," a sequoia in Calaveras Big Trees State Park, saw horses and cars pass through it over the years. More recently, only hikers were allowed to walk through the massive tree.

Over the weekend, a powerful winter storm slammed into California and Nevada, prompting flooding and mudslides in some regions. The Associated Press reports it might be the biggest storm to hit the region in more than a decade.

We visited Calavaras Big Tree State Park this summer, during the troubles. While we didn't see this tree (it must have been on a different trail), the Giant Sequoias are always impressive.

On Sunday, a volunteer at the state park reported that Pioneer Cabin had not survived.

"The storm was just too much for it," the Calaveras Big Tree Association wrote on Facebook.

It's unclear exactly how old the tree was, but The Los Angeles Times reports that the trees in the state park are estimated to be more than 1,000 years old. Sequoias can live for more than 3,000 years.

No word on whether or not it made a sound when it fell.

More Sea Level Hysteria in Maryland

At Blackwater refuge, rising sea levels drown habitat

The federal government established the Blackwater refuge in 1933 to serve as a stopover point for migrating blue-winged teals, ospreys, black ducks and Canada geese.

It has become an important Eastern Shore resource, drawing more than 180,000 tourists each year. Its marshes protect communities from flooding and erosion, and they provide vital habitat for young broods of commercially valuable fish such as menhaden and flounder.

But since 1938, the 29,000-acre preserve has lost about 5,000 acres of marshland, according to an analysis of satellite data by a team at Salisbury University in 2009.

The changes started with Swiss cheese-like gaps in the marsh, as floods gradually overwhelmed the flowering bulrush, cordgrass (more commonly known as salt marsh hay) and other grasses.

Those grass varieties evolved to handle the monthly high tides that come with every full moon, but they can’t survive for long if their roots are waterlogged. The flooding stunts the growth of their roots and limits the buildup of peat — soil-like gunk made of decaying plants — that forms the marsh floor.

Curson said the changes are obvious even before marshland gives way to open water. On annual bird-counting surveys, he has grown used to taking a step through marsh grass only to suddenly find himself waist-deep in mud.

During the 2015 count, he said, it happened something like five times more often than in the past.

“I could feel that the root mats had disintegrated that much more,” he said.

As waters rise — as a result of climate change, and also because the Eastern Shore has been slowly sinking since the last ice age ended 10,000 years ago — new marsh areas are developing where forests once stood.

They are marked by isolated dead tree trunks known as snags, which can be dangerous for small marsh creatures, because they serve as perches for bald and golden eagles.

The rising water has added about 3,000 acres of wetlands to offset the losses, but conservationists say the new marshes aren’t the same. They’re often invaded by Phragmites, upland tall grasses with less extensive root systems than native plants.

Phragmites can’t support the same diverse ecosystem as native species because they don’t have the flowers, seeds and roots that support marsh birds, fish and rodents.

The changes are blamed for drastic declines in the populations of birds such as the saltmarsh sparrow and black rail.

A great deal of the problem with the Eastern Shore marshes was due to the Nutria, the invasive South American rodent, which was far more destructive than any of the native species. The Nutria have either been eliminated, or all but eliminated by a recent campaign to exterminate them. Other problems are fires, mostly set by humans to "clear" the marsh, which prevents the build up of the peat. Not to mention, occasionally paving it over, ant then being surprised that it floods with increasing frequency.

Again, I'll show the data from NOAA:

Sea level has be rising in Chesapeake Bay since the end of the last ice age, and there's no evidence whatever that sea level rise is accelerating due to "global warming":

Do not ever think that AP, the WaPo, NYT etc will ever show this data.

Reason #5387 Trump Was Elected

Democrat @MJB_SF Hates White Men, Denounces ‘Stupid People’ in Midwest

The Midwest is a “s–thole” full of “stupid people,” a place where “no educated person wants to live,” according to Melinda Byerley, a Democrat who lives in San Francisco. In a Facebook post and a series of Twitter messages Saturday, Ms. Byerley described residents of the Midwest as “violent, racist, and/or misogynistic” people whose “towns have nothing going for them.” The reason”the best and brightest” don’t want to live in the Midwest is because they would have to “sacrifice tolerance and diversity to do so,” Ms. Byerley said.

The full text of Ms. Byerley’s anti-Midwest rant:

One thing middle america could do is to realize that no educated person wants to live in a s–thole with stupid people. Especially violent, racist, and/or misogynistic ones. When big corporations think about where to put call centers, factors [sic], development centers, etc, they also have to deal with the fact that those towns have nothing going for them. No infrastructure, just a few bars and a terrible school system.
So if you want jobs, clean up your act and make your town a place that people like us want to live in. Add fiber internet. Make it a point to elect a progressive city council and commit to not being bigots.
I guarantee many of us would like to live a more rural lifestyle, or at least a less urban one, but we won’t sacrifice tolerance or diversity to do so. We especially don’t want to live in states where the majority of residents are still voting for things that are against their own interests just because they don’t want brown people to thrive.
the midwestern towns that fix this first, will attract investment in droves. It’s not just tax breaks and fiber. Corporations have to deal with the fact that the best and brightest would rather scrape by in SF than life in a huge house somewhere if it meant dealing with bigots and backwards ideologies every day.

@PatriarchTree She's a fruitcake, honestly.

— DeadMessenger (@TotesDeplorable) January 8, 2017

If it were up to me, farmers and oil workers in the Midwest would be allowed to withhold food and energy from such people.

PSA: How To Rebuild a Hydraulic Cylinder

Now all I need is hydraulic cylinder to rebuild so I can review the material. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: Siren" ready at The Other McCain.

The Bag Law Menace

Plastic bag tax is fuelling spread of food poisoning as people do not wrap raw meat separately

Supermarkets must provide plastic bags in meat aisles to stop the spread of potentially deadly bugs, the chairman of the Food Standards Agency has said.

In an interview with the Daily Telegraph, Heather Hancock revealed the FSA wants shoppers to be handed free disposable bags when buying raw chicken, with special reminders to use them at self-service checkouts.

As bacteria can lurk on the outside of packaging as well as on the inside, she said, an extra plastic bag layer is the "only way" shoppers can be sure they are not spreading bugs onto other food in their shopping baskets.

It comes as fears are mounting that the spread of dangerous bugs including E-coli and campylobacter, is being made worse by the 5p plastic bag tax as people are less likely to pay for a bag to protect other food from raw meat.

The problem is also being made worse by the rise of self-service tills as customers who use them are not being offered a small bag for meat as they would at a traditional till.

Ms Hancock said the FSA wrote to supermarkets around six months ago to check they were providing small bags for raw chicken.
. . .
The FSA recently warned that half the strains of campylobacter are now resistant to the most effective antibiotics, meaning it is more difficult for medics to treat food poisoning victims.

This is a British article, as you can tell from the agency names, and the bag price, but the same issue applies in many places in the US, where progressive politicians satisfy progressive voters. Fortunately, this occurs mostly in reliably blue states and large urban areas, so the populations affected by higher rates of life threatening food poisoning have at least voted for it, for the most part.

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

Shark! It's What's For Breakfast

A pod of Killer Whales off California eat a Great White Shark

It Was a Helluva Funeral

Hard to top this one: 50 scantily-clad ladies pole dance atop jeeps for Taiwanese official's funeral

Recently, Chiayi county in Taiwan mourned the passing of Council Speaker Tung Hsiang at the age of 76. To give him a proper send-off, 50 scantily-clad women pole danced on top of 50 jeeps as loud pop music blared through the city streets on Tuesday.

Obviously, the festivities attracted considerable attention from passersby, drawing in big crowds who also happened to spot various high-level county leaders in attendance.

According to What's on Weibo, Tung's son said his father had always "enjoyed a buzz" and hoped that the ceremony would give his dad a "happy departure.

I'm happy he got his happy ending.

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

There's Good Science, Bad Science and EPA Science

Obama's EPA 'Does Not Verify the Accuracy or Science' On Its Own Blog

In President Obama's first inaugural address in January 2009, he declared, rather grandly, "We'll restore science to its rightful place..." The president has often prided himself on his devotion to science, and earlier this year the White House posted "100 Examples of Putting Science in Its Rightful Place" on its blog. This emphasis on the primacy of science is what makes the editor's note attached to many of the posts on the EPA's official blog eight years in to the Obama administration so curious: "EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog…"

Ironically, even the EPA blog entitled "It All Starts With Science" includes the disclaimer, even as recently as last week, as this screen grab shows:

I have some, but not a lot of hope, that the Trump administration will either clean up the EPA, or at least cow them into not being as obnoxious as they are now.

Linked at Pirate's Cove above the fold in this week's "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Thanks Teach!

Bullet vs. Prince Rupert's Drop

From Maggie's Farm.

Police Suit Against Prosecutor Goes Forward in Baltimore

Judge allows malicious prosecution lawsuit against Mosby to proceed

A Federal judge is allowing key parts of a lawsuit against Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby, brought by five of the six police officers charged in the death of Freddie Gray, to move forward.

U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis ruled that claims including malicious prosecution, defamation, and invasion of privacy can move forward against Mosby and Assistant Sheriff Samuel Cogen, who wrote the statement of probable cause.

Mosby's attorneys had said she has absolute prosecutorial immunity from actions taken as a state's attorney. But Garbis noted that her office has said it conducted an independent investigation.

"Plaintiffs' malicious prosecution claims relate to her actions when functioning as an investigator and not as a prosecutor," Garbis wrote.

Related:  Baltimore City Police in ‘Crisis’ Due to Officer Shortage

Baltimore City’s Police Union is sounding the alarm because they say the department is in crisis due to the fact that it has too few officers.

According to a new report, there are more than 100 fewer Baltimore City PD officers than last year, with the union saying this poses a safety concern as officers are being overworked.

The police union president calls the situation “dire.”

“You get in a crisis mode like we’re in right now with crime out of control and not enough uniformed officers on the street,” said Lt. Gene Ryan, president of the Baltimore City Fraternal Order of Police. “I would say it’s at a crisis point.”

Why would anyone want to be a police officer in Baltimore under Mosby?

Snow!

The first real snow of 2017 started falling sometime last night.  By this morning we had something like an inch, and it looks as if we're heading towards something like the predicted 5-6 inches before it fades out this evening:

Skye thinks we're remiss in our duties to take her out on long walks.

Russia Hacks Rule 5 - Natalia Vodianova

I had a nice all American girl planned for this week's Rule 5 special, but it got hacked by the Russian, so you'll get this Russian girl, Natalia Vodianova:

Natalia Mikhailovna Vodianova (Russian: Наталья Михайловна Водянова; pronounced [nɐˈtalʲjə mʲɪˈxajləvnə vədʲɪˈnovə]; born 28 February 1982), nicknamed Supernova, is a Russian model, philanthropist and occasional film actress. She is well known for her rags to riches life story and for her eight-season, seven-figure contract with Calvin Klein.In 2012, she came in third on the Forbes top-earning models list, estimated to have earned $8.6 million in one year.Vodianova is currently ranked by models.com as one of the New Supers in the fashion industry. 

Vodianova is founder of the Naked Heart Foundation, a philanthropic organisation. In 2015, Vodianova launched the digital app "Elbi", which allows people to donate money with a "Love Button," create content, send messages, and vote for Charitable purposes.

NOTE TO MR. PODESTA: Using “P@ssw0rd” for your password is not really a password. It is more like a “welcome” sign.

Born in Gorky, Soviet Union (now Nizhny Novgorod, Russia), Vodianova grew up in a poor district of the city (Avtozavod) with her mother, and two half-sisters Kristina and Oksana, one of whom has cerebral palsy. As a teenager, Vodianova helped her mother sell fruit on the street and later set up her own fruit stand with a friend to help her family out of poverty. Vodianova's father walked out on the family when she was a toddler, and she did not have any further contact with him until after she had become famous.

Some NSFW material 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.

GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (275th Issue) suffers Russian hacking with Anne Hathaway... What could possibly go wrong? Linked at Pirate's Cove in this week's "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: January Jones" and "FMJRA 2.0: Far From The Maddening Crowd" finished on time and within budget.

Gov. Hogan Vetoes "Sunshine Tax"

Maryland Legislature Urged to Overturn Governor Hogan Green Energy Bill Veto

Clean-energy backers rally for override of Hogan veto

The sponsors of legislation that would increase the amount of energy Maryland utility customers get from renewable sources called Thursday on the General Assembly to override Gov. Larry Hogan‘s veto of that bill.

The legislature could consider overturning Hogan’s veto as early as next week, when lawmakers gather in Annapolis for their annual 90-day session.

The governor showed this week he was ready for a fight on the issue. He labeled the measure a “sunshine tax” because it would — for a period of years — require rate increases to pay for the additional cost of wind and solar power.

Proponents countered that the increases would cost ratepayers no more than 58 cents a month. They argue that the extra costs would be temporary and would be offset by a boost to Maryland’s economy caused by increased investment in “clean energy” jobs.

Kevin Sheen, spokesman for the solar and wind power company Empower, estimated rates would be slightly higher for five to seven years before savings outweigh costs.

Amelia Chasse, a spokeswoman for Hogan, said the governor has consistently supported efforts that promote clean air and clean water. “However, the governor will not do this at the expense of Maryland’s ratepayers,” Chasse said.

Hogan and his allies got a lot of mileage out of labeling the tax on impermeable surfaces as the "rain tax." I suspect he's hoping for the same sort of response here.

When renewables are truly competitive with other power sources, I expect they will do quite well. In the meantime, they are substantially more expensive, and require massive subsidization.

Some greenies are predicting that renewable energy will become cheaper than carbon. I'm OK with the.

Outgoing Obama Admin Flips the Bird to the West

BLM Pushes Sage Grouse Protection By Restricting Mining on 10 Million Acres in 6 States

 As the Obama Administration comes to a close, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) is pushing ahead with its plan to restrict more federal land from future mining operations by putting 10 million acres in six states off limits.

“As part of its continuing efforts to conserve habitat vital to healthy populations of the Greater Sage-Grouse in the West, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) today announced the draft proposal to withdraw a subset of lands that are sage-grouse strongholds from future mining claims,” read a press release posted on the BLM website on Thursday.

The announcement about the restrictions on land in Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Utah and Wyoming, which was published in the Federal Register on Friday, said a 90-day public comment period will take place until March 30, 2017 and that the agency will host eight public meetings in the West next month.

Needless to say, outside the environmental community, the action is not exactly popular.

 Luke Popovich, vice president for external communications at the National Mining Association, said the move by the agency is not only not necessary, but also is destructive to the mining industry and to the larger national economy.

“This massive land withdrawal, the largest in history, is a spiteful and wholly unnecessary measure for protecting wildlife habitat that isn’t jeopardized by mining and appears instead to be a parting gift to activists who care nothing for the economic consequences to either the impacted states or the economy,” Popovich told CNSNews.com.

Popovich said the sage-grouse population is not declining and that wildfire and invasive species pose a greater threat than mining to the birds. Popovich also said the states being targeted and private industry, including mining, have put plans in place to protect the sage-grouse habitat.

As reported earlier by CNSNews.com, in 2015 Interior Secretary Sally Jewell announced that the sage-grouse would not be listed under the Endangered Species Act, which would have affected the birds’ habitats in 11 states.

Yet another last minute Obama legacy that Trump should revoke upon taking office.

Ring in the New Obamacare Schadenfreude

2017 is begun, and something will happen with Obamacare. What it will be is not so clear. Paul Rand wants to Repeal all of Obamacare and replace immediately. His vision:

1. The freedom to choose inexpensive insurance free of government dictates.
2. The freedom to save unlimited amounts in a health savings account.
3.The freedom to buy insurance across state lines.
4.The freedom for all individuals to join together in voluntary associations to gain the leverage of being part of a large insurance pool.

I can't argue against any of that, but I doubt Congress can achieve it immediately, and if they do they'll probably screw something else up. More significant (in the sense of likely to be followed is what the incoming President wants: Trump Wants To Repeal A Lot Of Obamacare On Day 1, brought to you from "The Shark Tank" via Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: 01.03.17." Unfortunately, the article doesn't say which parts. J. Marsolo at the American Thinker thinks Repeal Obamacare. Do not replace.

We need to ask why we have to replace Obamacare with another government plan. We should have a debate whether we need the federal government to have an "Obamacare"-type plan and a real debate on the proposals. Obamacare was rammed through Congress on a parliamentary trick with only Democrat votes and no real discussion – just speeches.

By way of Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: 01.05.17", the usually sensible Megan McArdle tells Republicans They Should Save These 3 Unpopular Parts of Obamacare. Being a responsible economist she wants to save the parts where people actually pay for things (and where they get thrown to the wolves if they're too old and sick). Republicans would have to be moral saints and political fools to follow her advice. Better to trash it and start over, and let the Democrats take the blame of creating the unpopular parts.

The Washington Post posits Why Obamacare is unlikely to die a swift death

Democratic opposition and complex Senate rules mean that core pieces of the 2010 health-care overhaul are likely to remain, including the legal framework for the individual mandate and pieces of the state exchanges the law created. Furthermore, President-elect Donald Trump has vowed to preserve other key aspects, such as a ban on insurers denying coverage because of preexisting conditions and a requirement that insurers cover children under 26 on their parents’ plans.

The Week tells us Why repealing ObamaCare will be a trainwreck for the GOP. They certainly hope so. Jazz Shaw explains The end of Obamacare and the Pottery Barn rule. Hey, we didn't break it, the Democrats did. Adding some weight to the thought that thinks won't change all that suddenly: Trump transition team member: Don’t worry, ObamaCare plans won’t change at all for the next two years. Make sure the Democrats get the blame for that too. From the new President to be:  'Time for Republicans & Democrats to Get Together' on Health Care Plan. I guess you have to pretend.

And it begins: LIVE BY RECONCILIATION, DIE BY RECONCILIATION: Senate Republicans just introduced an Obamacare repeal plan Democrats can’t stop and Obamacare Repeal Budget Resolution Passes Senate With 51 Votes. Paul Ryan: GOP will defund Planned Parenthood as part of Obamacare repeal. Twisting the knife. Nancy Pelosi, allies prep for war over Obamacare, Planned Parenthood. War to the knife!

Meanwhile the toll of Obamacare continues: Half of Obamacare enrollees aren't happy with their deductibles. And the Feds claim that  CO ObamaCare exchange misused almost $10 million. It's only money!

Federal judge strikes down Obamacare transgender mandate

The regulation in question implements Section 1557 of the ACA, which prohibits health-care entities that receive federal funding from discriminating on the basis of sex. According to the regulation, this prohibition extends to discrimination based upon “gender identity,” “sex stereotyping” and “termination of pregnancy.” Among other things, it requires that covered entities treat individuals in accordance with their self-proclaimed gender identity, which is defined as a person’s “internal sense of gender, which may be male, female, neither, or a combination of male and female.”

Common sense from a federal court? Who knows what might happen next.

This goes back to a question I raised a couple of years ago. If the government is willing to not only recognize but mandate the acceptance of a person’s desired gender rather than their actual sex, why should there be any barriers at all. What about people suffering from Cotard’s Syndrome? They fervently believe that they are undead… literally zombies walking the Earth. Can Uncle Sam declare them dead just to honor that belief and force the medical community to treat them as corpses? While that may sound like an extreme comparison, it’s actually the same thing. There is precisely as much scientific evidence that a man identifying as a “transgender woman” is actually female as there is that a Cotard’s sufferer is actually a zombie.

And what about transgender zombies? This must be a federal issue!

Dem Rep Tells Tucker His Son Can Get Out Of Obamacare If He Never Has Kids

Liberals say the darnedest things!

And finally Scott Adams asks Is The Onion Advising Democrats Now?:

Midnite Music - "Gold Dust Woman"

Lzzy Hale

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: January Jones" finished on time and within budget.

A Proud Subaru Republican!

Watch A Bunch Of Journalists Freak Out After Being Asked If They Know Anybody Who Drives A Truck

Even after a presidential election in which scores of media personalities were shown to be entirely disconnected from the country and people they report on, the liberal media bubble is alive and well. All it took to reveal the durability of that bubble was a simple question about pickup trucks.

For those who might not be aware, trucks are really popular in America and have been for decades. The Ford F-series, for example, has been the most popular line of vehicles in America for 34 years in a row. Ford F-150’s are basically the jeans of vehicles: it’s nearly impossible to find a person in America who either doesn’t own one or doesn’t know someone who owns one. The top three best-selling vehicles in America are not cars, but trucks: the Ford F-series, Chevy Silverado, and Dodge Ram. The top-selling sedan is but a distant fourth. According to a 2014 survey conducted by IHS automotive, trucks were the most popular vehicles in a whopping 34 states. A separate 2015 study found that the F-150 was the most popular used vehicle in 36 states.

Why is this important? Because research has shown that vehicle preferences and political preferences are linked. According to a 2016 survey of 170,000 vehicle buyers conducted by market research firm Strategic Vision, what you drive can reveal a great deal about which political candidates you prefer.

The five most popular vehicle models among Republicans, for example, are all trucks, with the ubiquitous Ford F-150 leading the way. Among Democrats, the Subaru Outback is the most popular choice. If you drive a truck, you’re probably a Republican. If you drive a Subaru, you’re probably a Democrat. Donald Trump won every single state in which the Ford F-150 is the most popular vehicle (even Pennsylvania). He won all but four of the states in which the Chevy Silverado is the most popular vehicle, including Iowa, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. Hillary Clinton handily won the states where people prefer Subarus.

Which brings us to the simple question about truck ownership from John Ekdahl that drove Acela corridor progressive political journalists into a frenzy on Tuesday night: “The top 3 best selling vehicles in America are pick-ups. Question to reporters: do you personally know someone that owns one?”

Rather than answer with a simple “no,” the esteemed members of the most cloistered and provincial class in America–political journalists who live in New York City or Washington, D.C.–reacted by doing their best impersonation of a vampire who had just been dragged into the sunshine and presented with a garlic-adorned crucifix.

There were basically three types of hysterical response to a simple question about truck owners: 1) shut up, 2) you’re stupid and/or sexist and/or racist, and 3) whatever, liar, trucks aren’t popular (far and away my favorite delusional response to a simple question from a group of people who want you to believe they’re extremely concerned about “fake news”). It turns out that people who are paid large sums of money to opine on what Americans outside the Acela province think get very upset if you demonstrate that they don’t actually know any of the people about whom they pretend to be experts . . .

But I like my Subaru Outback! Only another few months and it will make 200,000 miles.

CBF Gives Bay Barely Passing Grade

In its annual "State of the Bay" assessment, the Chesapeake Bay Foundation gave the Chesapeake Bay the best score ever, a 34 out of 100, or a C-

Or to break it down into categories:

I'm not sure why they chose 2014 as the comparison instead of last year, but it looks like a large part of the improvement came from a good year for Blue Crabs, a notoriously variable species on a year to year basis. However, even with that ignored, most of the categories showed improvement, and only one slid backwards, and I'm not exactly sure how they would evaluate how forested buffers decreased. I certainly don't think that Rockfish warrant an A-; perhaps a C+ would be better.

While I'm not as sanguine about these scores as CBF, it does appear the Bay is making slow progress forward. I hope the progress continues.

Flashback to 1979

The golden age of television.

Linked at Pirate's Cove in this week's "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: January Jones" and "FMJRA 2.0: Far From The Maddening Crowd" finished on time and within budget.

Climate Science Drives Out a Pioneer

Dr. Judith Curry Hangs Up Her Spurs:

Effective January 1, I have resigned my tenured faculty position at Georgia Tech.

Before reflecting on a range of things, let me start by answering a question that may have popped into your head: I have no plans to join the Trump administration (ha ha).

Technically, my resignation is a retirement event, since I am on the Georgia State Teachers Retirement System, and I need to retire from Georgia Tech to get my pension (although I am a few years shy of 65). I have requested Emeritus status.

So, I have retired from Georgia Tech, and I have no intention of seeking another academic or administrative position in a university or government agency. However, I most certainly am not retiring from professional life.

Why did I resign my tenured faculty position?

I’m ‘cashing out’ with 186 published journal articles and two books. The superficial reason is that I want to do other things, and no longer need my university salary. This opens up an opportunity for Georgia Tech to make a new hire (see advert).

The deeper reasons have to do with my growing disenchantment with universities, the academic field of climate science and scientists.
. . .
Apart from my own personal career trajectory and the ‘shocks’ that started in 2005 with our hurricanes and global warming paper, and the massive spike in 2009/2010 from Climategate, I’ve found that universities have changed substantially over the past 5-10 years.

At first, I thought the changes I saw at Georgia Tech were due to a change in the higher administration (President, Provost, etc). The academic nirvana under the prior Georgia Tech administration of Wayne Clough, Jean-Lou Chameau and Gary Schuster was a hard act to follow. But then I started to realize that academia and universities nationwide were undergoing substantial changes. I came across a recent article that expresses part of what is wrong: Universities are becoming like mechanical nightingales.

The reward system that is in place for university faculty members is becoming increasingly counterproductive to actually educating students to be able to think and cope in the real world, and in expanding the frontiers of knowledge in a meaningful way (at least in certain fields that are publicly relevant such as climate change). I’ve written on these topics before, I won’t belabor this here.

So why not try to change the system from the inside? Well, this is not the battle I want to fight, apart from any realistic assessment of being able to shift the ponderous beast from within.

Or maybe it’s just a case of ‘wrong trousers’ as far as I’m concerned. Simply, universities no longer feel like the ‘real deal’ to me (note: this criticism is not targeted at Georgia Tech, which is better than most). It’s time for me to leave the ivory tower.

A deciding factor was that I no longer know what to say to students and postdocs regarding how to navigate the CRAZINESS in the field of climate science. Research and other professional activities are professionally rewarded only if they are channeled in certain directions approved by a politicized academic establishment — funding, ease of getting your papers published, getting hired in prestigious positions, appointments to prestigious committees and boards, professional recognition, etc.

How young scientists are to navigate all this is beyond me, and it often becomes a battle of scientific integrity versus career suicide (I have worked through these issues with a number of skeptical young scientists).

As they say, read the whole thing. She's quite eloquent, and I have nothing to add.

Maybe It Wasn't So Hopeless?

The once hopelessly polluted Anacostia River is making a comeback. A very nice, if somewhat saccharine, look at the Anacostia River. I spent a lot of time on the Anacostia, and I'm happy to see someone who appreciates the beauty, and the dirt. This one says a lot:

Bangin' on the Bongos. . .

Olga Podluzhnaya:

Thanks to Fish Magnate.

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: January Jones" finished on time and within budget.

BUI

Blogging Under the Influence.

So, today was the day for that quattrennial medical ritual, the colonoscopy. Most people, after a uneventful screening at 50 are told to schedule them every 10 years. However, with a family history of colon cancer (both parents had it in their 80s, fortunately both were caught in time apparently), I'm on the 5 year rotation.

As usual, the prep was far worse than the procedure. Starting yesterday morning with a clear liquid diet (I mean, why bother?), and  last evening drinking massive amounts of laxatives and clear fluids, and the resulting fun and games, and a repeat at 4 AM. Good times!

Georgia drove me to the "endoscopy center" before the 10:30 AM appointment, and spent a few minutes helping the admitting clerk with her own search for the prefect medicare package. It is made quite clear that you will not be allowed to have the procedure if you do not have a personal driver to take you to and from.

I was taken into the clinic soon after, gave up my clothes, and dressed in the cold little gown, had a set of EKG leads attached, a blood pressure cuff, and O2 saturation finger tip, answered a bunch of health questions, apparently correctly, as they let me proceed, and added an IV drip. They also asked me who I was and when I was born, apparently in an effort to make sure I didn't accidentally end up with a hysterectomy.

Shortly there after, they wheeled me off to the procedure room, where the anesthesiologist and the GI specialist introduced themselves and asked me who I was yet again. The anesthesiologist explained that he would start to ask questions to gauge my status as he added the Propofol to the IV. He started the Propofol and started asking questions, and I woke up in the recovery room.

I was warned not to drive, operate heavy machinery, or make any important life decisions for the rest of the day because of the sedation, and I fielded a call for Walleye Pete, who wanted to go fishing. I really did feel like crap, as a result of that, and the nights festivities, and after waffling a bit, I declined.

The GI doc came in and said they found and removed three small polyps for biopsy, told me not to take NSAIDs for a week (because of the biopsies), and gave me some pretty color pictures of the inside of my very own large intestine. She explained they would call in about 2 weeks with the results of the biopsies, but that she wasn't especially concerned.

We stopped at 5 Guys for lunch, and came home, where I took a long nap, much to Skye's consternation, before getting up to pen this record of the experience. Another 5 years to go!

Here, Take This

I have somewhere to go and something unpleasant to do, so take some pictures from Chesapeake Bay. Five Photographers Focus on the Chesapeake.

Heh!

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: January Jones" finished on time and within budget.

A Reminder; Cold Kills

Via Watts Up With That, a reminder that cold weather is more lethal to humans than warm weather: Cold is Deadlier than Heat: NY Times Warning About the Winter

Most of the Northern Hemisphere is now in the throes of the deadliest time of the year. Cold kills, and I don’t mean just extreme cold and crippling blizzards. I mean ordinary winter cold, like that typically experienced, chronically or episodically, by people in every state but Hawaii from late fall through early spring.

While casualties resulting from heat waves receive wide publicity, deaths from bouts of extreme cold rarely do, and those resulting from ordinary winter weather warrant virtually no attention. Yet an international study covering 384 locations in 13 countries, including the United States, found that cold weather is responsible, directly or indirectly, for 17 times as many deaths as hot weather.

Over time, as global temperatures rise, milder winter temperatures are likely to result in fewer cold-related deaths, a benefit that could outweigh a smaller rise in heat-caused mortality. In winter in the United States, mortality is generally 10 percent to 15 percent higher than on typical summer days.

The study, published in July 2015 in The Lancet, was based on an analysis of more than 74 million deaths and calculated mortality attributable to heat and cold in Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Britain and the United States.
…
Furthermore, unlike what you might expect, the overwhelming majority of cold-weather casualties do not result from vehicular accidents, falls on ice or snow-related activities. Rather, they are attributable to leading killers like heart disease, stroke and respiratory disease, and are especially common among those aged 75 and older.

People sense this instinctively, which explains why more seniors move to Florida than Alaska. And why scenes like this are rare in real life:

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: January Jones" finished on time and within budget.

Maryland Fracking Fight Continues

Maryland fracking rules put on hold, setting stage for legislative debate

A group of Maryland lawmakers has put on hold the Hogan administration’s plan for regulating “fracking” for natural gas in the state, setting the stage for a debate in Annapolis early next year over whether to permanently ban the hotly disputed drilling practice.

In a letter issued late Thursday, leaders of the Administrative, Executive and Legislative Review Committee informed Environment Secretary Ben Grumbles that they want more time to study his department’s proposal to tighten state rules governing oil and gas exploration and extraction.  The panel's co-chairmen, Baltimore Del. Samuel I. “Sandy” Rosenberg and Montgomery County Sen. Roger P. Manno, both Democrats, asked Grumbles to delay final adoption of the regulation and turn over all comments received after it was proposed in November.

A lawyer for the joint House-Senate committee told members last week that under state law the panel could delay final adoption of the rule until mid-February, unless the administration willingly held off longer. Manno had said before the hearing that a delay would give the General Assembly a chance to vote on whether to impose a permanent ban on fracking before the rules could take effect.

As you might expect, the fight breaks out along the usual urban/rural split line with urban environmentalists unalterably opposed to anybody finding more energy to heat their house with. . .

Del. Dan Morhaim, a Baltimore County Democrat, was unpersuaded, raising a series of other concerns. He questioned the deterrence value of penalties laid out in the regulation, which would charge violators up to $1,000 a day, with a maximum of $50,000. Fines that size are just “the cost of doing business” for many oil and gas companies, Morhaim said.

. . . while rural types, where the fracking would actually occur, are more concerned with money and jobs.

Bill Bishoff, a Garrett County dairy farmer who is president of the county Farm Bureau, said farmers and other property owners who favor gas drilling support the rules, though they consider them “a bitter compromise.” They’re so stringent they’re likely to discourage the industry from drilling in Maryland for years until the market tightens up and gas prices can cover the higher costs of complying with state rules, he said.

Even so, Bishoff expressed frustration that the debate has dragged on for years.

“It’s a huge game of whack-a-mole,” he concluded. As regulations have been drafted and debated to address concerns, he said, opponents “keep coming up with new concerns.”

Of course. For the modern green weenie, the objections to fracking are not about making it safer, it's about slow motion prohibition of any fossil fuel production. Solve one objection, and they'll come up with two more.

Realistically, Maryland is a small state with relatively little land in the Marcellus Shale, the major fracking strata. Fracking won't make a big economic boon in Maryland the way it has in other states, although it will certainly be a boost to the "deplorable" counties near Appalachia, which could definitely use the boost.

Iceland Ends Year With No Government

I remember the "Pirate Party" nonsense, but I never heard how that worked out: Iceland's 'crazy' year ends without a government.

Iceland is ending an eventful year in a political quagmire, left without a government for two months after the Panama Papers scandal and a snap election reflecting deep divisions in the island nation.

"In recent years we thought we were seeing the craziest, but we were proven wrong every time -- Iceland found ways to be even crazier," a parliamentary assistant from the Icelandic opposition said on April 6, seeing a government in tatters hesitate on its next move.

Former Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson had resigned the day before over revelations of his holdings stashed away in a tax haven.

This prompted demonstrations for six consecutive days with protesters shouting "Elections right away! Elections right away!" while striking metal fences in front of Iceland's parliament.

The anti-establishment Pirate Party was pushing at the gates of power -- but they never opened.

The government said it would wait six months to hold a snap election, triggered by the latest scandal in a country that had seen its share already after the 2008 financial meltdown.

The outcome in October dashed the hopes of a clear-cut exit to the political crisis. Neither the left, the right, nor the centre had a majority.

Efforts to form a coalition were paralysed by everyone's refusal to deal with Gunnlaugsson's centrist Progressive Party, which won eight of the 63 seats.

- Back to square one -

Journalist Johannes Kristjansson, the only Icelander to have access to the Panama Papers, had been bewildered when he saw how many politicians were listed in the documents. Two months after the election he commented: "They were all re-elected."

Icelandic Finance Minister Bjarni Benediktsson, who had set up an offshore company in the Seychelles, even saw his party, the Conservatives, win the most seats, with 21. Gunnlaugsson is still an MP.

The "Pirates" revolution did not take place. Instead, the 2017 budget, adopted days before Christmas, was a compromise between the outgoing government's bill and concessions to other parties.

Maybe they should stick with President Nota (None of the above) for a year or so and see if they can make it work. Maybe they'll like it so much they'll abolish the office.

Let It Rain!

A professional photographer explains how to fake a good rainstorm using manual focus lenses.



That didn't really sink in; I may need to watch it a few more times. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: January Jones" finished on time and within budget.

Just a Meteor Flying Through an Erupting Volcano

I'm pretty sure the meteorite is way in the back, though. Found at the ONT.

First Beach Post of 2017

It was low tide, almost 50 F, mostly sunny and not windy, so why not?

 And Skye had already started lobbying.

 A few other hearty souls and their people were out.

This doesn't happen every day.

 A relatively large Lions Mane jellyfish washed up. It was about a foot across. They get much bigger, but not usually around here. Not to be confused with a huge breast implant.

The Bufflehead ducks are in at the harbor (and have been for a few weeks). There are also lots of Oldsquaw offshore, but not within easy camera view.

A ship is in at the Gas Docks. The project down there to convert the Gas Dock from an export to an import facility is well along. As of August:

• The terminal is 67% complete and on track for an in-service date in late 2017.
• There are currently 1,800 construction workers on site.
• All of the concrete has been poured, the sound wall is finished, and more than 50% of the steel has been installed for this project.
• 31 of the 34 barge loads have been received and 68 of the 77 heavy haul deliveries have been transported.

Happy New Year's!

Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Sunday: January Jones" finished on time and within budget.