That's Enough to Give You Gray Hair

Going grey early increases heart attack risk

Going grey early means you are at an increased risk of suffering a heart attack, a new study shows.

Scientists have discovered that hair whitening can indicate an increased risk of damage to arteries supplying the heart with blood.

Appropriately enough, Lady Death

A good example of a "wet streets cause rain" headline. However, the article itself makes it pretty clear that while prematurely graying hair may be statistically associated with increased risk of heart attack, it's a statistical relationship that only suggests that during the aging process, factors that cause heart disease and graying may share some underlying biochemical process:

The findings could pave the way to identifying patients most at risk of heart disease just by looking at their hair colour.

Dr Irini Samuel, a cardiologist at Cairo University in Egypt, said: "Atherosclerosis (artery disease) and hair greying occur through similar biological pathways and the incidence of both increases with age.

"Our findings suggest that, irrespective of chronological age, hair greying indicates biological age and could be a warning sign of increased cardiovascular risk."

Just how early and how much gray constitute a risk?

Wombat-socho finally gets around to the long awaited "Rule Five Wednesday: Double-Dip Easter Edition."

Beach Report 4/08/17

 After lunch we walked down to the beach. It was blowing pretty hard, NNE at 15-20 kts, and despite the blue sky it was only only in the low 50s, so definitely light jacket weather. Spring is coming along, though, and if you look closely you can see the trees just starting to get green leaves.

A high tide, and  the waves made fossil hunting, tough, only 3 teeth between us, and Skye wasn't helping.

I stopped to photograph this butterfly on the way back. An American Lady, you can just barely make out the little white spot surrounded by orange that is the easiest field mark to distinguish it from the Painted Lady.

You can also see the two large "eye spots" on the underside of the hind wing in this shot. In the Painted Lady, there would be four smaller ones.

I also saw a Zebra Swallowtail, but it didn't slow down long.

Reason #5505 That Trump Was Elected

DHS: Illegal immigration plunges, with March seeing fewest number of monthly arrests at border in 17 years

The most remarkable thing about this is that it’s happening amid good economic news. It takes a lot of deterrence to keep a would-be illegal from crossing the border with the prospect of a (relatively) high-paying American job on the other side. And Trump wants a lot of deterrence — but most of his wishes are, for now, still wishes. He wants 15,000 more Border Patrol agents and of course a long, long wall (with a big door!), but those goals are still a ways off. And yet, apparently, illegals are staying home anyway. I wonder what sort of rumors are being spread in Mexico about the special new perils of trying to illegally enter Trump’s America. Even with the media attention given to ICE raids over the past two months, the odds of any individual illegal being picked up are vanishingly small, especially a new arrival who’s not on the agency’s radar yet.

Oh well. Whatever works.

John Kelly says in written testimony submitted to a Senate panel that fewer than 12,500 people were caught crossing the border last month. That compares with more than 43,000 who were detained in February. It’s the lowest monthly figure in at least 17 years.
Kelly says the decrease is “no accident” and credits President Donald Trump’s approach to illegal immigration. The Trump administration has not yet changed how the border is patrolled, but the president’s tough talk on immigration and arrests of immigrants living in the country illegally have likely acted as deterrents.

Yeah, it’s probably Trump himself that’s the chief deterrent. The “madman theory” of presidential leadership typically applies to foreign policy, but there may be something to it in immigration too. Illegals may be watching this guy from across the border worrying not that they’ll be deported if they sneak over and get caught but that they’ll be put in prison, labor camps, or lord knows what else. It’s the same fear that seems to have been driving refugees north to Canada, even in the bitter cold of winter.

Despite Obama's claim to have deported more than anyone, a claim based on a change in the word "deported" to mean turned away at the border, illegal aliens knew that if they got past the border, they were pretty safe. Now, with Trump, they're unsure of their long-term reception, and they're staying away in droves, despite the improving economy. Even before the increase in border enforcement has had much time to ramp up, the psychological effects have paid off.

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

Rule 5 Saturday - Romee Strijd

A very simple Rule 5 post:

Romee Strijd (born 19 July 1995) is a Dutch fashion model. She has been a Victoria's Secret Angel since 2015.

In 2011, Strijd signed with the DNA Model Management agency. On March 17th. 2017 she announced via her Instagram that she is now represented by IMG Models Management . She has appeared in editorials for British, German, Spanish, and Dutch Vogue, French and Dutch Elle, Spanish Harper's Bazaar, Dutch Marie Claire, and French Madame Figaro.

 In 2014, she was chosen to be one of the newcomers at the Victoria's Secret Fashion Show. In 2015, she became a Victoria's Secret Angel. In March 2017 she announced that she was now represented by IMG Models.

Romee received the Model of the Year award in 2015

Victoria's Secret Instagram Twitter Facebook Maxim Models.com Daily Romee Strijd

This week GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (287th Issue) features some high maintenance lingerie chicks. Plus some neat and groovy internet treasures... The Wombat-socho is taking the week off, so there will be no FMJRA, though he promises a double stuffed Easter Rule 5 treat. Linked, as usual at Pirate's Cove in the "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links.

Oysters and NIMBY

Not in my backyard! Spat over oyster lease near historic manse leads to legislation: Sotterley Plantation backers seek veto power over future aquaculture operations in Southern Maryland creek

A neighborhood skirmish over a single shellfish lease in a small Southern Maryland creek has turned into a full-blown oyster war pitting descendants of some of the state’s wealthiest and most influential families against a nascent but growing industry.

Trustees and staff at Sotterley Plantation, a restored 18th century Patuxent River estate, opposed a 3-acre lease just offshore that Talmadge Petty, the founder of Hollywood Oyster Co., applied for to grow oysters. Sotterley and neighboring homeowners on the picturesque creek protested Petty’s lease, contending that having the aquaculture operation within sight would ruin the plantation’s historic ambiance.

After 18 months of litigation and bureaucratic procedures, the Department of Natural Resources came down in favor of the oyster farming operation.

Now, plantation supporters seek to stop oyster farmers from leasing within 300 feet of the shoreline of Sotterley and other historic properties. Michael Whitson, the politically connected former president of the Sotterley board of trustees, enlisted Del. Dana Stein, a Baltimore County Democrat, to sponsor legislation that would give those property owners veto power over leases in waters already approved for aquaculture by the state.

Stein’s bill, H.B. 1284, sailed through the House of Delegates. It passed 139 to 1 after being amended to limit its scope from historic places, which would have encompassed hundreds of properties, to the state’s 70-some designated National Historic Landmarks.

But the bill has gotten a more skeptical reception in the Senate, where after an April 4 hearing, it remains in committee as the 90-day legislative session nears its conclusion Monday at midnight.

The plantation’s supporters say the viewshed is important for telling Sotterley’s story, particularly the part about how slave ships came up Sotterley Creek from the Patuxent to support the landed gentry’s opulent lifestyle. A slave cabin remains on the site, as does an African-American graveyard.

“You go out there, and you see this privileged white guy who has plunked down his oysters on what should be a memorial site,” said Gita Van Heerden, a Sotterley descendant and supporter. Her family once owned Sotterley and now owns a waterfront home close by. “It is immoral, it is greedy, and it is everything that is wrong with America.”

Talk about privilege. Her ancestors actually owned slaves. You know, fishermen were collecting oysters out there when Sotterly was a real functioning plantation.

Sotterley is kind of cool, but go see Monticello.

Shuffling Off to Obamacare Schadenfreude

Like the Energizer Bunny with herpes, on crack, it just keeps going and going and going. . . 

Lest we forget that despite the Republicans current problems with the issue, the current law, Obamacare (ACA) is still spiraling down. Wellmark to halt sales of individual health insurance policies. Newly popular, Obamacare is still losing insurers. From the New York Times: Obamacare Choices Could Go From One to Zero in Some Areas.

Which is not to say that Republicans aren't stuck on the horns of a dilemma. As Latest Health Plan Dies, Republicans Can’t Agree on a Culprit. White House ponders reorganization after health care debacle. Trump: 'I don't lose'

How Conservatives Can Convert the Healthcare Failure into a Win for Trump and the American People. Will Pence, Paul deliver on ObamaCare repeal after a mulligan? Restarting Health Care Effort Is Key to GOP Agenda. Fractured House GOP still can’t agree on Obamacare replacement.
Ryan on AHCA: Don’t get your hopes up yet. They're not up. GOP’s attempt to resurrect health care bill gets tepid reception.
The Obamacare Solution Is Hiding in Plain Sight:

The solution is found in a big, but overlooked $110 billion pot of money, known as the “patient and state stability fund.” If that fund is spent entirely or mostly on funding state-level “invisible risk pools,” it will fully address the so-called “preexisting conditions” problem, which is ultimately the main reason the Ryan bill has stalled out.

Fix the “preex” problem, and replacing Obamacare becomes not only doable but relatively easy.

What’s causing conservatives to choke on the Ryan bill? The bill’s failure to reduce health insurance premiums. Which is due to the bill’s failure to repeal the core Obamacare insurance regulations.

Meanwhile, what’s causing moderate Rs to resist repealing those regulations? A desire to retain Obamacare’s most popular promise: the one that says “No one shall be denied health insurance due to the existence of a preexisting medical condition.”

Obamacare’s way of keeping that “preex” promise is to remake one-sixth of the U.S. economy, by imposing a host of costly and destructive regulations — the ones that are (rightly) causing conservatives to choke on Ryancare.

But the stability fund obviates any need for those regulations. How? By providing states $110 billion over a decade ($11 billion a year, on average) to ensure that Americans cannot be denied insurance coverage due to a preexisting condition. That amount is enough to protect every person in America who cannot afford insurance because of a preexisting condition. And the fund would be operational in every state, administered either by the state government or by the feds at the state’s option. Thus, the fund, being universal in extent, and sufficient in amount, fully obviates the need for the Obamacare regulations. You don’t need both. Heck, it is incoherent to have both.

I'm suspicious of any plan with "magic" money that already exists. Somebody else wants it really badly. But maybe.

No hurry, though: Egg on their faces: ObamaCare repeal will take a back seat to … Easter recess. Trump Spurs GOP to Tweak Health Bill Before Leaving Town. No Deal on Health Care as Congress Goes into Recess. The picture alone is priceless. White House divided on Obamacare payments. The Freedom Caucus Could Support the AHCA If It Included the Provisions Proposed by Pence: Deal in the making? Measure twice, cut once.

Endgame: Plurality of Republicans now favor single-payer health care. I suspect it depends a lot on how you ask the question.

And last, via Wombat-socho's "In The Mailbox: 0404.17", DeSantis Asks Trump To Revoke Congressional Obamacare Subsidies

Members of Congress receive unauthorized subsidies in order to offset the financial burden of purchasing health insurance; these subsidies are not available to the public at-large. By blowing the whistle on this special deal concocted by OPM, President Trump will make members of Congress better understand the burdens of ObamaCare, thereby incentivizing members to get to work on a good repeal and replace plan.

Yep; Congress should be forced to smelt what it dealt.

Reason #5504 That Trump Was Elected

Fake hate crimes from the left: Fake Hate: Guess Who Made ‘Hundreds’ of Hoax Calls Targeting U.S. Jews?

Hundreds of bomb-threat hoaxes and other harassing calls have been phoned into U.S. Jewish community centers, synagogues and other Jewish organizations in recent months, but finally, law enforcement has apprehended the perpetrator of this anti-Semitic crime wave.

Neo-Nazis? No.

Radical Muslims? No.

Trump-supporting “alt-right” nationalists? No.

An autistic Israeli-American teenager:

The suspect arrested [in March] for a wave of bomb threats against Jewish Community Centers in the United States employed an array of technologies, including Bitcoin and Google Voice, to make himself virtually untraceable for months, The Daily Beast has learned. But in the end, it only took one careless slip-up to lead police to his door.
Police arrested 19-year-old Michael Kaydar, who has joint Israeli-U.S. citizenship, at his home in Ashkelon, a coastal city in southern Israel. He’s suspected of phoning in over 100 bomb threats to JCCs and Jewish day schools in 33 states since January, with the most recent calls made [in early March]. Police also suspect him of making similar threats in Israel, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand.

The teenage hate-hoaxer’s parents claim that their son cannot be held responsible because he is suffering from autism and a brain tumor. . .

Or from parenting.

One can safely assume that "hate crimes" that serve to make conservatives look bad are carried out by lefties with that goal. In the rare cases of actual hate crimes you can always apologize later, right?

Fish Pic Friday - A Mere Speck of Time

Luiza with a fine one

This week's fish pic subject is the Speckled Trout:

Cynoscion nebulosus, the spotted seatrout, also known as speckled trout, is a common estuarine fish found in the southern United States along coasts of Gulf of Mexico and the coastal Atlantic Ocean from Maryland to the Florida. These fish are also found in estuarine locations around Cape Breton Island of Nova Scotia, Canada. While most of these fish are caught on shallow, grassy flats, spotted seatrout reside in virtually any inshore waters, from the surf of outside islands to far up coastal rivers, where they often come for shelter during cold weather. Contrary to its name, the spotted seatrout is not a member of the trout family (Salmonidae), but of the drum family (Sciaenidae). It is popular for commercial and especially recreational fishing in coastal waters of the southeastern United States. Adults reach 19-32 inches in length and 3-15 pounds in weight.

Brooke has a little one

Spotted seatrout live in the top of the water column and are most numerous along the coasts of the southeastern states, such as Texas, Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Florida. They are also common along the coasts of North and South Carolina and Virginia. Estuarine coasts are prime settlement areas. They are uncommonly seen north of Delaware Bay and along the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts.

As you may have seen here, we also have a few Specks in Maryland, where they are mostly a summer fish, although a few seem to hang around into late fall and even winter.

I can't find a photo of Darcizzle with a Spec!
She needs to fix that ASAP!

Spotted seatrout is the common name endorsed by the American Fisheries Society. However, this fish has many other common names, including speckled trout, speck, speckles, spec, truite gris (Louisiana French), trucha de mar (Mexican Spanish), spotted weakfish, spotted seateague, southern seateague, salmon, salmon trout, simon trout, winter trout, seatrout, Nosferatu fish, and black trout. Particularly large ones are nicknamed gator trout.

Dr. Julie Ball does a dental exam

 Mostly, we associate them with the shallow, salt marsh areas, but they absolutely show up in deeper water at the bottom of the CCNPP discharge in fall and winter.

The spotted seatrout has prominent canine teeth. Like other fish of the family Sciaenidae, it has an elongated, soft dorsal fin witn scales; it is separated from the spinous dorsal fin by a deep notch. It usually has two anal spines and the lateral line extends to the tip of the caudal fin. The back has distinct spots scattered on it, including on the dorsal and caudal fins. Unlike some other members of the family Sciaenidae, the spotted seatrout does not have any chin barbels. In stained water, this fish's background may take on a golden hue. Its shape and coloration is reminiscent of a brown trout. This fish is closely related to the weakfish, Cynoscion regalis.

As well as the west coast sea trout Corvina.

Rockfish Poachers Busted on Eastern Shore

Natural Resources Police recover 87 poached striped bass over two nights of surveillance

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources says nine men were charged with possessing striped bass in a closed season during a two-night surveillance operation on Saturday and Sunday in Dorchester County. Natural Resources Police recovered 87 striped bass in total, officials said.

On Saturday night, a Natural Resources Police officer reportedly observed four men catching striped bass on Fishing Creek Bridge on Hoopers Island Road. After catching the fish, the men allegedly hid them in storm drains on the bridge. Officials say the officer recovered 14 fish and charged the following men with possessing striped bass in a closed season: 34-year-old Juan Manuel Bravo of Hyattsville, 26-year-old Emerson DeJesus Vargas Campos of Riverdale, 22-year-old Jairo Dario Ramierez of Upper Marlboro and 23-year-old Elmer Antonio Castillo Araniva, also of Upper Marlboro.

Fishing Creek Bridge

On Sunday night, officers say they again witnessed people catching and keeping striped bass. Five men allegedly placed striped bass into the trunk of an SUV. Police say they pulled the vehicle over and found 73 striped bass stuffed into a duffel bag. Officers charged 20-year-old Kevin Wilfredo Portillo Lopez and 19-year-old Steven Antonio Cabrera, both of Riverdale, 20-year-old Paris Benjamin Lizano Molina of New Carrollton, 21-year-old Ariel Maur Sagastizado Sanchez of Hyattsville and 21-year-old Joel Antonio Portillo Ramierez of Cheverly with possessing striped bass in a closed season.

There's something about all of those names that I just can't put my finger on. I wonder what it is. Of course, if any of these are, say, illegal aliens, maybe the Trump administration would deport them for breaking the laws, because goodness knows, the State of Maryland won't try to do anything.

Officials say all nine men have a June 28th court date in Dorchester County District Court. If convicted, each man could face a fine up to $1,500.

I wonder if any of them will show.

NOAA Admits No Link Between Hurricanes and Warming

But they're still holding out hope: Global Warming and Hurricanes – NOAA says no measurable effect yet

Two frequently asked questions on global warming and hurricanes are the following:

• Have humans already caused a detectable increase in Atlantic hurricane activity or global tropical cyclone activity?
• What changes in hurricane activity are expected for the late 21st century, given the pronounced global warming scenarios from current IPCC models?

In this review, we address these questions in the context of published research findings. We will first present the main conclusions and then follow with some background discussion of the research that leads to these conclusions. The main conclusions are:

• It is premature to conclude that human activities–and particularly greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming–have already had a detectable impact on Atlantic hurricane or global tropical cyclone activity. That said, human activities may have already caused changes that are not yet detectable due to the small magnitude of the changes or observational limitations, or are not yet confidently modeled (e.g., aerosol effects on regional climate).
• Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause tropical cyclones globally to be more intense on average (by 2 to 11% according to model projections for an IPCC A1B scenario). This change would imply an even larger percentage increase in the destructive potential per storm, assuming no reduction in storm size.
• There are better than even odds that anthropogenic warming over the next century will lead to an increase in the occurrence of very intense tropical cyclone in some basins–an increase that would be substantially larger in percentage terms than the 2-11% increase in the average storm intensity. This increase in intense storm occurrence is projected despite a likely decrease (or little change) in the global numbers of all tropical cyclones.
• Anthropogenic warming by the end of the 21st century will likely cause tropical cyclones to have substantially higher rainfall rates than present-day ones, with a model-projected increase of about 10-15% for rainfall rates averaged within about 100 km of the storm center.

So let's look at these models:

Figure 1: Two different statistical models of Atlantic hurricane activity vs sea surface temperature (SST). The upper panel statistically models hurricane activity based on “local” tropical Atlantic SST, while the bottom panel statistically models hurricane activity based on tropical Atlantic SST relative to SST averaged over the remainder of the tropics.Both comparisons with historical data and future projections using this approach are shown. See Vecchi et al. 2008 for details

The first thing to note is that the model are very noisy, the collection of models have an extremely wide spread and even at the beginning, don't match the actual data (in black) very well. I presume the rise in the power dissipation in the top figure is based on model temperature rises, the very same models that have rather consistently over the predicted rate of rises in temperature by a factor of 3 or so. Second, if you base the models on relative sea surface temperature, a reasonable assumption, as it is the difference in temperatures that mostly drives the weather, a much more conservative result is scene, one in which the change over upcoming century is well within the model disagreements, and there is very little effect of warming on tropical storms. So, even if it does warm, hurricane activity is not likely to increase much, if at all.

Reason #5503 That Trump Was Elected

Justice Department warns companies not to discriminate against US workers

The Justice Department warned employers Monday not to discriminate against U.S. workers by over-hiring foreign workers under the H-1B visa program.

Acting Assistant Attorney General of the Civil Rights Division Tom Wheeler said in a release that the Justice Department will "not tolerate employers misusing the H-1B visa process to discriminate against U.S. workers."

"U.S. workers should not be placed in a disfavored status, and the department is wholeheartedly committed to investigating and vigorously prosecuting these claims," he said.
. . .
President Trump slammed H-1B visas early in his campaign, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions has long targeted the program.

"It's simply wrong to think that we're in a totally open world and that any American with a job can be replaced if somebody in the world is willing to take a job for less pay," Sessions told the Senate Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing.

Brought to you from Weasel Zippers via Wombat-socho's  "in The Mailbox: 0404.17" .

The problem is not the existence of the H1B visa program, which allows US companies to import educated workers to fill insufficient worker rolls in the US. However, a loophole allows some firms to fire US workers and hire foreigners, and even force the US workers to train their foreign replacements if they want their final benefits.

17 Will Get You 20 . . .

. . . Unless you're a Hollywood star: Producer slams Alec Baldwin's claim he didn't know he was filming sex scene with an underage Nikki Reed in 2006's indie flick Mini's First Time

Alec Baldwin made an explosive confession in his new memoir, Nevertheless.

And now famed producer Dana Brunetti, 43, is speaking out against the claim that the 59-year-old actor (who was 47 at the time) didn't know co-star Nikki Reed was 'seventeen' while filming R-rated drama Mini's First Time in 2006.

'My first indie film was Mini's starring @AlecBaldwin who knew @NikkiReed_I_Am was 16 (not 17) and he didn't mind,' Brunetti began his twitter rant.

Alec claimed in the new book that he did not know Nikki was underage when they filmed sex scenes for the movie and that he 'flipped out' at producers when he learned the truth.

But Brunetti says that's not true and goes into a long-winded explanation taking up 11 tweets.

The House of Cards producer goes on to explain that Alec knew before Nikki was cast: 'in fact @NikkiReed_I_Am was 1 of 4 actresses "AlecBaldwin had approved and her being the only 1 of those 4 repped by HIS own agency CAA.'

The two-time Oscar-nominated producer goes on to explain that the film's director Nick Guthe liked the idea because they wouldn't be 'pressured into shooting scenes with nudity.'

Trying to give Alec the benefit of the doubt, he jokingly asserts the actor might be 'impersonating Trump a lot, so maybe there was a bit of method acting when writing his book?'

He also asserts he has confirmation from three other members of the cast and crew backing him up and says the real issue in the book is that he says Alec yelled at producers.

Good work if you can get it. . .

They Told Me If Trump Were Elected . . .

Politicians would by trying to burn books. And they were right! Intolerant Democrats Ask Teachers To Destroy Books Written By ‘Climate Deniers’

Three senior House Democrats asked U.S. teachers Monday to destroy a book written by climate scientists challenging the environmentalist view of global warming.

The Democrats were responding to a campaign by the conservative Heartland Institute copies of the 2015 book, “Why Climate Scientists Disagree About Global Warming” to about 200,000 science teachers. Democratic Reps. Bobby Scott of the Committee on Education, Raúl M. Grijalva of the Committee on Natural Resources, and Eddie Bernice Johnson of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology all issued a statement telling teachers to trash the book.

“Public school classrooms are no place for anti-science propaganda, and I encourage every teacher to toss these materials in the recycling bin,” Scott said. “If the Heartland Institute and other climate deniers want to push a false agenda on global warming, our nation’s schools are an inappropriate place to drive that agenda.”

The book’s three authors all hold doctorates and taught climate or related science at the university level. The book was written by former Arizona State University climatologist Dr. Craig D. Idso, James Cook University marine geology and paleontology professor Robert M. Carter, and University of Virginia environmental scientist Dr. Fred Singer.

Grijalv accused the scientists of “lying to children about the world we live in to further corporate polluter profits” and said that doing so was “cruel.” Johnson stated that the scientists had sent “scientifically inaccurate materials on climate change to public school teachers across the country” at the behest of ominous right wing donors and the Charles and David Koch brothers.

The best way to get adults to act like environmentalists is by brainwashing their children, according to research published by Oregon State University. Talking to kids about global warming caused their parents to use less energy and act more like environmentalists. The research was run on was run on 30 Girl Scout troops in northern California and had a “lasting impact on family energy consumption” for at least eight months after the end of the program.

They are beyond parody.

Reason #5502 That Trump Was Elected

8 years of looting the military budget for welfare programs: Navy instructor pilots refusing to fly over safety concerns; Pence's son affected

More than 100 U.S. Navy instructor pilots are refusing to fly in protest of what they say is the refusal of top brass to adequately address an urgent problem with training jets’ oxygen system, multiple instructor pilots tell Fox News.

The boycott started late last week and has effectively grounded hundreds of training flights.

“The pilots don’t feel safe flying this aircraft,” one instructor pilot told Fox News.

Among the hundreds of student pilots affected is Marine 1st Lt. Michael Pence, son of Vice President Pence – a factor that could put added pressure on the Pentagon to resolve the dispute.

Vice Adm. Mike Shoemaker, head of naval aviation, told Fox News in an exclusive interview that the training jet issue is the “number one safety priority” across naval aviation right now.

“Right now we don't have the smoking gun,” he cautioned.

In the last five years, physiological episodes, caused in part by problems with the oxygen system, have nearly quadrupled on the T-45 training jet, according to Capitol Hill testimony last week by senior naval aviators.

The Navy is now looking at grounding the entire fleet of T-45s for the next few days, according to multiple pilots.

Jets in formation over Patuxent River Naval Air
T45 4th from front

Fox News interviewed multiple Navy flight instructors who say incidents of oxygen poisoning in the 30-year old T-45 Goshawk have “skyrocketed.”

“Histotoxic hypoxia” is the medical term associated with the disorientating disorder which can put pilots’ lives at risk, as well as those of civilians on the ground below. Two instructor pilots say the training jets are now averaging three incidents a week, as the Navy struggles to get to the bottom of the contamination.

“It can happen without warning,” one pilot said. “The system doesn’t detect contaminants.”

A number of instructors cited recent episodes as reasons for the abrupt work stoppage.

Last week, a student from training squadron VT-86 in Pensacola, Fla., had to be “dragged out” of his jet because he became “incapacitated” from the faulty oxygen system, according to two flight instructors.

In March, a British exchange instructor pilot with thousands of hours in the cockpit had to conduct an emergency landing during a training flight near Meridian, Miss., after both he and his student experienced hypoxic symptoms.

In August, a flight instructor and his student were forced to eject near Kingsville, Texas, when they felt symptoms of hypoxia, crashing the multi-million dollar jet.  Both pilots ejected safely and were not seriously injured.

Last month, there were 10 episodes in T-45s, according to Shoemaker.

I notice the Patuxent River Naval Air Station was never mentioned. We see a lot of T-45s flying around the base

Hooray for Bollywood!

Aishwarya Rai Bachchan. The old guy is her father-in-law.

Hogan Brags on Bay Record

Tallying Hogan's $3 billion investment in the Chesapeake Bay

. . . in the letter raised some environmentalists' eyebrows: "In his first three years in office, Governor Hogan has increased funding for Chesapeake Bay Restoration efforts, investing more than $3 billion in State funds."

The total — actually about $3.02 billion — is 27 percent more than the $2.37 billion in state funds Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration spent on the same programs during its final three years, according to state budget documents.

The Hogan accounting includes tens of millions of dollars spent to protect rural and open land, to promote use of modern, cleaner septic systems, and to run programs in the state's Department of the Environment and Department of Natural Resources.

As O'Malley did, it also counts hundreds of millions of dollars spent to operate the state's transit system each year, even as Hogan has shifted spending away from projects such as the Red Line, a canceled light rail line that would have stretched across Baltimore, and toward road and bridge needs.

According to a chart shared by administration officials, the amount of transit spending has increased 94 percent over Hogan's tenure to a requested $446 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1. That includes $155 million is for "green infrastructure" and stormwater management projects, such as planting of trees and native plants to reduce the amount of runoff that washes pollutants in the bay, said Jay Apperson, a spokesman for the state Department of the Environment.

The rest goes toward "expenses that reduce transportation-related pollutants from entering the Bay," he said, such as park and ride lots, transit centers and the Purple Line, a transit system connecting Montgomery and Prince George's counties.

The $3 billion figure also includes $66 million on environmental education and research programs at state schools and colleges, and $212 million on preservation of open and agricultural land.

The Hogan administration is stressing that in the face of potential federal cuts, it is increasing its investment in the environment. That investment still relies heavily on the federal Environmental Protection Agency's key program focused on bay cleanup, which Trump has proposed virtually eliminating.

So the expanded environmental spending is bullshit, but at least it's 27% more bullshit than during Gov. O'Malley's  reign.

Reason #5501 That Trump Was Elected

He's not in it for the money: Trump donates first-quarter salary to National Park Service

President Trump will donate his first three months of salary to the National Park Service, White House press secretary Sean Spicer announced Monday.

"The president has spoken with counsel and made the decision to donate his first-quarter salary to a government entity," Spicer said at Monday's briefing.

Spicer handed a check for $78,333.32 for the National Park Service to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke. Spicer said the paycheck starts from Jan. 20, when Trump took office, until now.
. . .
During the campaign, Trump vowed that he wouldn’t take the presidency's $400,000 annual salary if elected, and he repeated that promise after his victory in November.

A few days ago, the Washington Post made big deal about the President not yet having donated the salary. And from the Daily Kos on March 13: Despite repeated pledge, Trump refuses to provide documentation he's donating salary, hotel profits

It's not a lot of money in Trump's terms

I think he's in it for something bigger than money; his name.

Tuesday Morning in Finland

Taking a break from hot models on tropical islands with Hailey Clauson in Finland:



Is it really Finland? It could be a sound stage in Culver City. But who really cares when they have fur bras?

But Can You Smoke Them?

Tropical fish injects opioid toxin from teeth: Tiny fish with a funny name could help with opioid crisis

One branch of the fang blenny family tree that has coupled these massive chompers with a venom that helps defend it from predators and compete with other little fish.

"We expected this venom to be intensely painful, but instead the bites are actually pain free," says associate professor Bryan Fry, head of the venom evolution laboratory at the University of Queensland's school of biological sciences. "What really surprised us was that [the fang benny's] venom contains these opioid-acting peptides."

There are lots of fish with toxic stingers on fin rays (or in the sting ray's case, the tail) but his is the first fish I've heard of with a toxic bite

"Now, they're not trying to do pain killing as the intended use of the venom, rather it's been selected for the side effects. Anybody who's ever taken a pain killer knows you get a bit woozy, your blood pressure goes down, you're not terribly on your game, so in this case they're using a form of chemical doping to win this competition."

Does the fang blenny venom work on humans as a pain killer?

Many of these blennies also mimic common "cleaning fish", that pick parasites off of larger fish, and take a sneak bite. Does this venom somehow help in their attacks?

Likely yes, but it's only been tested on animals so far. However, the venom is not a mysterious new chemical; it's actually very similar to something we have in our bodies called enkephalin.

Because the chemical is a derivative of a type of peptide humans make naturally, says Fry, researchers are starting "much further ahead of the game" than they normally would be when exploring a potential new pain killer.

These enkephalins work like the natural pain killers in our own bodies. The question is, do the fang blenny version work better than our own? Are they more potent? Do they have fewer side effects? Most importantly, can we learn how they work and subsequently create a new drug?

I'm willing to bet it will be a long time before we see a new drug based on blenny venom, let alone help with the opioid crisis.




Fang tooth - mimic blenny attacking fish from BIOPIXEL on Vimeo.

Blue Catfish Fishery Caught Between Rock, Hard Place

Blue Catfish appear to be caught between two different mandates, the desire to eliminate (or at least seriously reduce) the numbers of the invasive species in the Potomac and other rivers where they don't belong, and the desire to control the safety of the food supply through the inspection of fish: New catfish reg threatens watermen’s livelihood, Bay

. . .a new federal regulation could disrupt what many see as one of the most successful “eat the invasives” campaigns in the country. Under legislation passed by Congress years ago to protect Mississippi’s farmed catfish industry from foreign imports, sales of any type of catfish, including these wild-caught in the Chesapeake region, will be subject to inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The requirement takes full effect in September.

What that means for the fishermen who catch blue cats, the processors who turn them into fillets and the chefs who cook them is unclear. But Turner is sure none of it can be good.

“There’s a possibility that this could just shut the fishery down,” Turner said as he filled his cooler with more of the whiskered fish with smooth, slate-blue skin. “I’m not only concerned about my livelihood. I’m concerned about the ecosystem. I’ve seen what they can do.”

While I'm not yet convinced that the Blue Catfish are doing much damage in the Potomac system, I think that having a vigorous commercial fishery on them in these waters is a good idea. But there's a way to square this circle. Get the feds to establish a USDA inspections station in the region.

Reason #5500 That Trump Was Elected

Chris Matthews:



Liberal especially hate women who are conservative, or who support conservatives.

On the other hand, he has the hots for Melania:

Carl's Jr. Bows to the Prudes

Carl’s Jr.: Sex no longer sells

For a dozen years, Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s have been best known for their racy — and often crass — commercials featuring scantily-clad women with the occasional hamburger.
Now the fast-food chains are trying to reverse course. Their new message, according to a new commercial: “Food, not boobs.”

What's the matter with boobs? A lot of people, both men and women seem to like them. Not to mention babies.

Their newest ad, a 3-minute spot scheduled to air Sunday on Cartoon Network’s Adult Swim on Sunday, attempts to dial back the raunchiness. In it, the fictional Carl Hardee Sr. — played by “Nashville” actor Charles Esten — shows up to reclaim the company from his son, Carl Hardee Jr. (also fictional, played by the comedian Drew Tarver).

I do notice they managed to feature Charlotte McKinney hiding hers with a couple of burgers:

A 60-second version of the ad, created by the advertising agency 72andSunny, will run during the NCAA championship game next week.

“It was time to evolve,” said Jason Norcross, executive creative director and partner of the Los Angeles-based agency, which has been making ads for Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s for eight years. “It was time to change. Those ads just weren’t driving business as they once did.”

Or maybe their burgers just weren't that good? Anyway, lets review some of the old ads:



Kate Upton, Nina Agdal, Emily Ratajkowski, Sarah Jean Underwood and Paris Hilton? Pretty good casting.

Boarded!

I was getting ready to take a solo run out to "Location X" for some late afternoon fishing when I ran into Dan and Jerry and Gracie (Dan's little dog) getting ready to go on Dan's 28 ft Albin diesel. I wangled an invitation, and avoided spending my own gas money. We fished a while with only a couple fish before the DNR fish cops came along side to check licenses and safety equipment.

A three person team, of two men and a woman checked the stuff, and politely asked about the fishing. Dan had all his stuff where he could get to it easily, so it didn't take much longer than 5 minutes.

A strange boat passing up the Bay. Checking Marinetraffic.com when I got home reveals it to be the Pacific Guardian, a cable ship:

Ship Type: Special Craft
Length × Breadth: 115.6 X 18.04
Speed recorded (Max / Average)15.20 / 12.10 knots
Flag: United Kingdom (GB)

Beach Report, Sunday 04/02/17

 I gave in to Skye right after lunch and we walked down to the beach, and then well up past Matoaka Cottages. Sunny, with mild NE winds, with temperatures rising from the high 40s to the low 50s. A pretty nice day.

The picture makes the beach look empty, but there were several groups of people, and Skye made sure she got her fair share of attention. I found 10 shark's teeth, but nothing of note.

On the way back, I spotted this Falcate Orangetip butterfly in the roadside weeds. This butterfly only appears for a few weeks in spring, before most of the other butterflies (My 2017 year's count is 6 species). It's easily mistaken for that weed among butterflies, the Cabbage White, which is also out now, but it's a hair smaller and flies a little differently. Only the males have the orange tips that give it the name, but both sexes have the black scallop markings on the wings, and a marbled pattern underneath.

As much as the zoom on the old beach camera would get.

Reason #5499 That Trump Was Elected

Because we all know somebody like this: Professor Says He Wants To 'Vomit' After Watching Passenger Give Up First Class Seat For Uniformed Soldier

A Drexel University professor, already infamous for tweeting, ”All I Want for Christmas is White Genocide,” upped the ante last Sunday, mocking the United States armed forces.

Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I'm trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul.

— George Ciccariello (@ciccmaher) March 26, 2017

Imagine being so conceited an act of kindness makes you feel physically sick & want to make a scene. @ciccmaher pic.twitter.com/vOQgUnwLSG

— Scrumpmonkey (@El_Scrumpo) March 28, 2017

Alicia Keys Celebrates Slavers

Useful idiot Alicia Keyes dons bosomy burka, sparking outrage: “glamorizing the veil”

Hollywood stars and entertainment blockheads continue to flout their stupidity and useful idiocy.

The burka is iconic of gender apartheid, misogyny, oppression and subjugation. What next, Alicia, swastika epaulets in the name of diversity and enlightenment?

Pop music star Alicia Keys may have gone a leg too far in attempting to celebrate “diversity.”By Adan Salazar, March 30, 2017:
In a recently-deleted Sunday evening tweet, Keys stirred outrage with a photograph depicting her in a tight-fitting niqab, an orthodox Muslim piece of attire meant to be loosely worn. Keys also flashed her leg in the photo, a defiance of Islamic dress codes which often leads to brutal penalties in some Muslim populations.

It's no skin off my nose if she chooses to emulate the dress of the people who enslaved 28,000,000 black people  or so. But she has worn more attractive clothes in the past.

Over 28 Million Africans have been enslaved in the Muslim world during the past 14 centuries While much has been written concerning the Transatlantic slave trade, surprisingly little attention has been given to the Islamic slave trade across the Sahara, the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean.

While the European involvement in the Transatlantic slave trade to the Americas lasted for just over three centuries, the Arab involvement in the slave trade has lasted fourteen centuries, and in some parts of the Muslim world is still continuing to this day. A comparison of the Muslim slave trade to the American slave trade reveals some interesting contrasts.

 It was brutal slavery, even by the standards of the American South.

While two out of every three slaves shipped across the Atlantic were men, the proportions were reversed in the Muslim slave trade. Two women for every man were enslaved by the Muslims.

While the mortality rate for slaves being transported across the Atlantic was as high as 10%, the percentage of slaves dying in transit in the Transsahara and East African slave trade was between 80 and 90%!

While almost all the slaves shipped across the Atlantic were for agricultural work, most of the slaves destined for the Muslim Middle East were for sexual exploitation as concubines, in harems, and for military service.

Sneaky Climate Change in Chesapeake Bay

A pair of apparently unrelated stories about the Chesapeake Bay from yesterday. First, an all too typical, climate change story. The weather is changing and it's all your fault: Research shows significant ways climate already has changed for the Chesapeake

Frost coated the Chesapeake Bay region about 100 times a year in the early 1900s. A century later, there are about 30 fewer chilly mornings.

The number of balmy nights, during which temperatures don't drop below 68 degrees, has grown by a similar margin. Plants spend a month less in winter hibernation than they once did.

Climate change is not an abstract concept about microscopic changes in carbon dioxide levels or subtle rises in sea level, scientists at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science say. It's already evident in the Chesapeake.

The center's researchers have gathered more than 100 years of data from continuously monitored sites around the bay to document what has been occurring so gradually that it's mostly unnoticed by area residents.

The scientists analyzed trends in temperature and precipitation, looking at extremes and variability, to show the ways climate has changed, often imperceptibly, over generations. They found that the changes, as subtle as they might seem, have been significant. Rainfall, for example, has increased by more than 4 inches over a century, a gain of 12 percent.

Slightly warmer weather, less frost and more rain? Sounds like North Carolina to me.

What's interesting here is that they start the baseline 100 years ago, around the end of the Little Ice Age, and well before most of the increase in atmospheric CO2, which really picked up a head of steam about 1950. So while the climate may have, indeed almost certainly, warmed, much of that warming occurred before there was much change in ambient CO2. So while there was climate change, we don't really understand what was driving it. Could it be anthropogenic? Maybe, but if so, we don't know what we did.

Climate is generally defined at the 30 year average of a particular weather parameter at a given site. That's long enough to avoid being strongly affected by a few extreme events, but short enough to show change over the course of a human life span. And it's always changing.

In other news Five signs of resilience in Chesapeake Bay health

Since our formation in 1983, the Chesapeake Bay Program has been leading the effort to reduce pollution and restore ecosystem health across the Chesapeake Bay region. Whether through the Chesapeake Bay Watershed Agreement, signed in 2014, or the Bay’s ‘pollution diet’—i.e., the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL)—our partners have continued to work collaboratively toward our shared goal of a healthy Bay.

With decades-worth of environmental data, our scientists are able to study how the health of the nation’s largest estuary is changing over time. Below, learn about a few of the ways the Bay and its rivers have been showing signs of resilience:

• Record acreage of underwater grasses
• Sustainable blue crab stock
• Higher levels of dissolved oxygen
• Improvements in bottom-dwelling invertebrates
• Declines in nutrient and sediment pollution

So is it a crisis or not? I'm slowly coming around to the viewpoint that the Bay has turned a corner.

L.A. Has Had Enough Rain

Officials Brace For Possible Cases Of Zika With Outbreak Of New Aggressive Mosquito In SoCal

Los Angeles residents already have to worry about quakes, mudslides, wild fires and horrible traffic.

But officials worry a new type of mosquito, the Aedes,could soon add Zika to that list.

It only takes a cap full of water for larva to grow and mosquitoes to breed.

CBS2’s Craig Herrera says that because of all the rain we just had, this season could be especially bad for bites.
. . .
Officials say he has a right to be concerned about Aedes.

“They have the potential to spread different viruses like Zika virus, yellow fever and even dengue,” said Levy Sun of the Greater Los Angeles County Vector Control District.

And unlike the native mosquito that carries the West Nile, aedes are invasive and look different.
They’re black and white, they’re aggressive and bite during the daytime and they don’t lay their eggs in standing water.

“They lay their eggs onthe stock of plants and on the side of containers which means even if you dump out the water, those eggs could still be present,” said Sun.

Like farmers, there's never enough rain, until it really rains, and then there's too much.

Reason #5498 That Trump Was Elected

Enough said.

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

Rule 5 Saturday - Representing Canuckistan, Kate Bock

Is she my first Canadian Rule 5 choice? I don't remember:

Kate Bock is a Canadian fashion model. She was featured in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue from 2013 to 2017, being voted "Rookie of the Year" for her first appearance.

Bock graduated from West Vancouver Secondary School. Reportedly, she was discovered aged 12 at a local swimming pool. After graduation, she moved to Paris. She speaks French fluently.  During her career, she appeared in magazines such as Maxim and Elle. She also modeled for Victoria's Secret.

Her (public?) Facebook

Her Instagram

Her Twitter

Her 2017 SI Swimsuit gallery

Because of the space time continuum, this week GOODSTUFFs BLOGGING MAGAZINE (286th Issue) uses GOODSTUFF's Time Machine™ to probe Suzanne Somers with (out of this world) science. You know, Kate Bock could play Suzanne in a movie. I'd watch it. Linked at Pirate's Cove in the weekly "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup" and links. Wombat-socho has "Rule 5 Monday: Baseball Babes" and
"FMJRA 2.0: Damn Yankees" up and running at The Other McCain.