The Astonishing Toll of Global Warming

A guest post over at Watts Up With That on the how deaths due to weather related causes have declined from 1900 through the present, the era of global warming. 

The graph at the right gets straight to the heart of the matter. As the globe as warmed over the last 100 years, deaths due to weather related causes has dropped dramatically:

1. Deaths and death rates from droughts, which were responsible for approximately 60% of cumulative deaths due to extreme weather events from 1900–2010, are more than 99.9% lower than in the 1920s.
2. Deaths and death rates for floods, responsible for over 30% of cumulative extreme weather deaths, have declined by over 98% since the 1930s.
3. Deaths and death rates for storms (i.e. hurricanes, cyclones, tornados, typhoons), responsible for around 7% of extreme weather deaths from 1900–2008, declined by more than 55% since the 1970s.

As the stock prospectus says "past performance is not proof of future performance", but it does give one reason to question cries about how doom is at hand if the earth should happen warm another degree or two.

An alarmist commenter correctly notes that much of this decrease is due to the increase in technology and civilization over that period.  What he fails to note is that this technology and civilization has been built on the back of energy consumption, largely fossil fuel.

And it would really piss me off if warming were to raise the temperature of Maryland to the temperature of, say, South Carolina, and bring snook and tarpon in to the Bay.

Virginia Reinstitutes Winter Crab Dredge Ban

Virginia regulators have placed a ban on dredging blue crabs during the winter months.

The Virginia Marine Resources Commission approved the ban on Tuesday in an effort to help rebuild the Chesapeake Bay's crab population.

The century-old winter harvest involves the dragging of steel-toothed dredges that scoop up hibernating crabs. It primarily targets female crabs.

Scientists say that ending the winter dredge fishery has helped improve crab stocks the past few years

The ban was instituted over the objection of commercial crabbers and others in the seafood industry. They contend there are plenty of crabs in the bay and that limiting when crabs can be caught damages the local and state economies.

Good.  That may be the dumbest fishery ever devised, and that's a low bar. Previous article on crab dredging here.

ATF Bought Guns for Mexican Drug Gangs

U.S. Gov't used an ATF employee to buy weapons with taxpayer money & walk them

The "Gun Walker" scandal just amped up a notch.  ATF agents actually bought weapons from gun shops to provide to Mexican drug gangs.  This is more direct involvement than previous reports that merely had the ATF giving gun shops the permission to sell to "straw" gun buyers.  When the agent who bought the guns attempted to follow where they went, his superiors stepped in and stopped him.

At this point, 1 US Immigration and Customs officer, and as many as 300 Mexicans are suspected of having been killed the guns which ATF allowed to slip across the border.  No rationale for allowing the guns into Mexico, but not tracing them further has been made public.  As of yet, Mexico has received no official word from the US Govt regarding Gun Walker.

Cynics (like me) strongly suspect the US administration was trying to make the case for increased gun control by pointing to the guns bought in the US appearing at Mexican crime scenes.  At this point the only real question is how far up into the Justice Department did actionable knowledge of this program go.  Heads should roll.

Read the article for more horrible examples of ATF malfeasance.

The Jobs Plan: 230,000 New Paper Pushers

EPA: New CO2 Regulations would require 230,000 new employees, Cost $21 billion

The Environmental Protection Agency has said new greenhouse gas regulations, as proposed, may be “absurd” in application and “impossible to administer” by its self-imposed 2016 deadline. But the agency is still asking for taxpayers to shoulder the burden of up to 230,000 new bureaucrats — at a cost of $21 billion — to attempt to implement the rules.

What's that, 40 Solyndra's, and not a single solar panel made?  In fact, nothing is made, no service provided, and all 230,000 of them would be federally funded to restrict someone else's ability to make something useful. (To be fair, this may include support staff, which may well out number the actual bureaucrats)

“Hiring the 230,000 full-time employees necessary to produce the 1.4 billion work hours required to address the actual increase in permitting functions would result in an increase in Title V administration costs of $21 billion per year,” the EPA wrote in the court brief.

1.4 billion hours of paperwork per year!  Assuming a life span of 80 years (which the US has attained as an approximate average without these regulations), that adds up to about 2000 lifetimes per year.  That doesn't even begin to address the amount of time wasted by people outside the agency trying to satisfy the 230,000 new regulators.  You'll have to decide for yourself whether those are valuable or wasted hours...

The agency currently has a staff of 18,000.  But this is not a power grab.

Some Things are Universal

The Kent Island Dilemma

Save the Bay or Stop Development - Proposed sewer line stirs cost, growth concerns

Four out of five homes here are pumping water-fouling nitrogen into the bay every time they flush, Queen Anne's County health officials estimate. Some even leak raw sewage into their yards or drainage ditches during wet weather.

Now county officials see a potential solution: linking more of the island to a sewage treatment plan. But that plan threatens to create another problem — increased development — and the issue is dividing island residents.

"It's crazy," says David Olds, the Queen Anne's County commissioner who represents Kent Island. "You're damned if you do, damned if you don't."

County officials voted last month to seek state funding to connect 1,500 homes on southern Kent Island to the county's wastewater treatment plant, which was upgraded years ago to take out the nitrogen contributing to the bay's "dead zone."

Extending a sewer line nearly eight miles down the island to reach them all could cost upwards of $70 million — up to $40,000 per existing household if they had to pay for it. That's far more than many residents are willing or able to spend, which is why county officials say they need help with the project.

But many residents also fear that a sewer line could open the island up to more intense development. As many as 1,600 vacant lots there have never been built on because they were deemed unsuitable for septic systems.

The issue is a divisive one, with sewer proponents deriding opponents as "no-growthers" and opponents suggesting profit rather than public health motivates sewer supporters.

Actually, I'm kind of shocked the Sun is willing to put the issue into such sharp contrast.  If you do what's right for the Bay, and build an adequate municipal sewer system, you open the possibility that people on your island could sell their own private land at higher prices, and more people could move in and enjoy your comfortable island lifestyle.  Wouldn't want that.  Now, if you can just find some other excuse to ban development.

We faced a similar dilemma on a smaller scale.  After the development in our neighborhood was nearly complete, the three lots behind our house were left undeveloped.  The lot immediately behind our house "perked", and had a building permit.  The two lots on either side of that lot did not "perk" and were unlikely to be developed soon.  We solved our privacy problem by buying all three lots from the developer.  The lot that perked was much more expensive than the two that didn't.

Kent Island resident could also choose this solution.  They could buy out the undeveloped land on their island at market prices to preserve the character of their island, if they valued it that much.  My bet is that they don't.

They Call it Stormy Monday

Spaceweather.com

A strong-to-severe geomagnetic storm is in progress following the impact of a coronal mass ejection (CME) at approximately 12:15 UT on Sept. 26th.

The Goddard Space Weather Lab reports a “strong compression of Earth’s magnetosphere. Simulations indicate that solar wind plasma [has penetrated] close to geosynchronous orbit starting at 13:00UT.” Geosynchronous satellites could therefore be directly exposed to solar wind plasma and magnetic fields. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for Northern and Southern Lights after nightfall.

Having already unleashed two X-flares since Sept. 22nd, sunspot AR1302 appears ready for more. The active region has a complex “beta-gamma-delta” magnetic field that harbors energy for strong M- and X-class eruptions. Flares from AR1302 will become increasingly geoeffective as the sunspot turns toward Earth in the days ahead.

Doesn't sound like a "Carrington Event".  It would be nice to see an aurora down here; the sky is free of clouds for the first time in a week.  Not likely, though.


T-Bone Walker Stormy Monday Blues by Zone19

Shockingly, EPA Finds EPA Bay Model Correct

EPA, Chesapeake Bay Foundation challenge ag industry report questioning bay cleanup strategy

A new assessment has found fatal flaws in an agriculture industry report calling for a halt in the new federally led bay restoration strategy.

The report said the strategy should be delayed until differences can be resolved between models developed by the Chesapeake Bay Program and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The assessment released Monday by the Chesapeake Bay Program, the regional, federal-state partnership coordinating restoration efforts, says the models were developed for different purposes and differences are unavoidable.

Chesapeake Bay Foundation scientist Beth McGee says the report was an effort to mislead the public. The federal Environmental Protection Agency, which developed the tough, new strategy in response to a presidential order, says it is pleased an independent panel supports its position.

Notice how the EPA and it's allies in CBF resort to calling the Department of Agriculture "the Ag industry".  It would be just as fair to call any study by the EPA to be by "the Enviro Industry", because the environmental business has many people depending on money funneling through the need to do environmental work.

Yes, there are two models, both built by governmental bureaucracies whose objectivity is suspect.  You can reasonably suspect both models of favoring the outcome preferred by it's funders and  advocates.  All Models Are Wrong! (Maybe this should be Fritz's Second Law), the only questions are the mechanism by which they are wrong, how much they are wrong, and in which direction.  When the models are funded and built by advocates, you can be nearly 100% certain that they favor the advocates preferred out comes, and by nearly as much as they can get away with.

The Dates

Women and Men review their dates, and needless to say, see things differently.  A little naughty, the boss might pretend not to understand.

Another Stale Link Dump!

Is that small a dead mouse in the wall, or all those old links I never got around to making a real post out of?  Time to get a bunch of these out before they liquefy.

165 People Missing off Cruise Ships - I smell a bad movie plot in the making.

Is Yawning a Way to Cool the Brain? - My brain must run hot.

Why Older Women Lust - A BS explanation of the 'Cougar' phenomenon.

Do TIGERS like catnip? -The one in this video does.

'Buffett Rule' Wouldn't Bring In Much Revenue - But then, that's not the point, is it?

Times Atlas is 'wrong on Greenland climate change' - Can you guess which direction?

Shark Molecule Kills Human Viruses, Too - Of course, massive doses of it make you eat everything.

Guns Better Than Gold? - Some of them.

Boys reach sexual maturity younger and younger - Too soon oldt, too late schmart.

Can Lack of Sleep Ruin Your Marriage? - Maybe not, but it can get it part way there.

Accidental sea turtle deaths drop 90 percent in U.S. fisheries - The excluder devices really work.

Birth control pills affect memory - Your brain is chemical, not an electronic hard drive.

Are carrots orange for political reasons? - Well, that's one theory.  They used to have purple ones.

Raising a child -Village not required, may not even help.

Humpback Whale Sex - 10 ft penises and vaginas covered with barnacles - Fun!

Scientists discover switch that turns white fat brown  - Brown fat burns calories.

Evolutionary mystery of female orgasm deepens  - Adaptive value, or a vestige of male orgasm: Who cares?

Setting the record straight about MMR vaccinations and autism - No, vaccinations don't cause autism, just stop, please!

Team finds new 'evidence' of dark matter  - If this theory is right, the universe is full of WIMPS.

Clouds help cool the Earth - And it seemed so obvious. 

“Most people are simply not designed to eat pasta” - And yet so many of them do.

Strippers Help Australian Youth Football Team Celebrate A Big Win  - Australians, almost as odd as Japanese...

The Loneliest Plant In The World  - But it never complains.

Why we're right to trust our gut instincts - Because our instincts are better than our brains?

Ladies, Be Prepared To Fall In Love If You Have Sex  - Damn hormones.

Women Gain Weight After Wedding, Men After Divorce - I got nothing on this one.

Men believe discussing problems is a waste of time - Well, duh!!!! 

The statistical error that just keeps on coming  - One reason for Fritz's Law.

Did Amy Winehouse die trying to come clean? - Amy Winehouse: Dad Speculates on Cause of Death.

Can Vitamin C treat Alzheimer's? -  Treatment with vitamin C dissolves protein aggregates in Alzheimer's disease

Well, that should help a little. 
 

How About a Little Hair of the Dog?

Yet another article about how extinct mammals might be resurrected using DNA.  In this article, they stress how preserved hair follicles might have recoverable DNA:

One surprising discovery has been the value of ancient hair. Scientists recently discovered that the hair shaft seals DNA inside it like a biological plastic, protecting it, and making hair a rich and plentiful source of genetic information.

"Does that mean that you can take extinct animals, I mean, there's hair in museums? ...And get the genetic sequencing?" Stahl asked.

"Possibly, and especially if those animals were preserved in any way, there's a good prospect of that. It's sort of like 'CSI,' you know? How good is this forensic material? Can you get good DNA information from older and older and older material? That's pretty promising," Carroll replied.

 So what would they propose to bring back?

Who wouldn't be dazzled by an animal like the woolly mammoth, or the sabretooth tiger, the Irish elk or the giant sloth? Today they exist just as bones in museums, alive only in our imaginations and the recreations of artists and filmmakers. But what if that could change?

Dire Wolf skull

Ah, but they missed one that would be of great interest to me, the great American Dire Wolf:

The Dire Wolf, Canis dirus, is an extinct carnivorous mammal of the genus Canis, and was most common in North America and South America from the Irvingtonian stage to the Rancholabrean stage of the Pleistocene epoch living 1.80 Ma – 10,000 years ago, existing for approximately 1.79 million years.

Although it was closely related to the Gray Wolf and other sister species, Canis dirus was not the direct ancestor of any species known today. Unlike the Gray Wolf, which is of Eurasian origin, the Dire Wolf evolved on the North American continent, along with the Coyote. The Dire Wolf co-existed with the Gray Wolf in North America for about 100,000 years.

The Dire Wolf was one of the abundant Pleistocene megafauna—a wide variety of very large mammals that lived during the Pleistocene. Approximately 10,000 years ago the Dire Wolf became extinct along with most other North American megafauna.

Not only did the Dire Wolf co-exist with the Gray Wolf, it co-existed at least briefly with humans, who arrived in the New World at least 13,000 years ago, and possibly substantially longer, if reports of pre-Clovis sites are substantiated. Which, if nothing else, is a decent excuse to post the cave girl drawing...

The only problem with this, as near as I can determine, is that we do not have any Dire Wolf remains with a good chance of recoverable DNA, like we have had with Mammoths.  But possibly, some where in the La Brea Tar Pits there is a patch of hair, or a tooth that will prove to be enough, once cloning techniques are perfected.  We have good DNA profiles for Neanderthals from teeth that are older than that.

Prudence - An American Alsatian

In the course of snooping around for this post I also came upon a website by a group of people dedicated to breeding a Dire Wolf look alike from modern dogs.  Taking German Shepherds, Malamutes, and other dog breeds, they are breeding towards a dog with the skeletal structure of a Dire Wolf, but the temperament of a good pet and companion dog, that they call the American Alsatian:

The Dire Wolf has become a mythical creature and many misbeliefs remain regarding its structure. However, the Dire Wolf was a very prominent carnivore in North and South America at one time. Paleontologists who study the Dire Wolf can only speculate on certain physical traits not revealed through skeletal remains. We would like to exactly replicate the Dire Wolf's bone and body structure in order to help solve part of the mystery still surrounding the Dire Wolf's legacy. When skin, fur, muscle, tendons, cartilage, and peering eyes look back from a body structure that mimics the great wolf, what will we see?

It is also the aim of this project to create a breed that is docile, loving, loyal, confident in character with low prey and play instincts. We further believe that the large bones and heavy weight of the Dire Wolf promote a companion dog temperament as with size and weight comes a slower response with less energy. The fleet of foot Gray Wolf was faster and caught quicker, smaller prey. According to experts, it was the overwhelming size and larger jaw that allowed the Dire Wolf to take down large prey that would otherwise not have been pursued by the smaller, lighter wolf.

A good temperament is probably a good idea in a dog big enough to take on the American Megafauna.

Beach Report, Sunday, Sept. 25, 2011

Today was much the same as yesterday, misty, warmish and muggy.  Georgia and I brought down a couple of trash bags to fill, and did do, commenting on the number of Bic lighters, tampon covers and Styrofoam cups in the trash.  But while we were down the beach, the kids that the civic association hired came down with their truck, and picked up the big items.  Except for the wood, our beach looks pretty good again.

We encountered this Osprey floundering in the surf, apparently holding onto a fish too big to lift free of the water. Maybe it was a young of the year and didn't know it's lifting capacity yet.

It got to shore with it, but a bigger predator (Skye) scared it off without it's prey. I never did get to see what it was struggling with; I think it swam away.  Probably crab food now, though.

The Ospreys should be getting ready for the trip back south where they winter.

A little later we encountered this Canada Goose.  Any Canadian Geese here this time of year is likely the undesirable "resident" geese that hang around all year, occupying golf courses, farm fields, yards etc, breeding more resident geese and generally making a mess.

Skye showed a lot of interest in it, and went out into the water about as far as she can get without swimming chase it.  The goose was relatively unconcerned, and only swam out a few additional yards, just to be sure.

Today's beach trash.  Not a bad day for shark's teeth either.  We probably found 20, including a large Snaggletooth and a smallish extinct Mako.

Lazy Lunch

Paw Paw Lhassi:  Our last four Paw Paws, some yogurt, a banana and some ice in the blender.

Smoked oysters, crackers and cheddar cheese.

$#!* Karl Posts on Facebook

Ted's son Karl send along these instructions for how to respond to Facebook new layout:

Here's a step by step guide on how to respond:

1: Whine and complain about it (ironically on Facebook).
2: Join miscellaneous *change back Facebook* groups.
3: Swear to abandon if the site changes again.
4: Forget the difference between *old* and *new* Facebook within a few days.
5: Eventually become please with the new layout.
6: Wait a few months and repeat.

But Then, That Wasn't Ever the Point

Obama's Jobs Plan Wouldn't Make Huge Dent in Jobless Rate, Economists Say:  The point is to get re-elected.

Red Wine May Not Extend Life Span After All

But why take chances?

This all has to do with some natural proteins called sirtuins. (That's pronounced sir-TWO-ins in American English, in case you're reading this out loud at a bar.) Yeast carry a version. So do worms, mice and people.

About 10 years ago, scientists noticed that an extra helping of sirtuins seemed to help living things live longer. And there was some evidence that a substance in red wine called resveratrol could crank up sirtuin production.

Then, in 2006, a Harvard researcher named David Sinclair reported that obese mice that got doses of resveratrol lived longer than fat mice who didn't — about 30 percent longer.

The study was published in Nature and reported by media around the world. The assumption was that what was good for fat mice would also be good for thin animals, or even people.

As a result, sales of red wine jumped and a biotechnology company founded by Sinclair and others to develop the substance as a drug became extremely valuable. In 2008, the drug company GlaxoSmithKline bought Sinclair's company, Sirtris, for $720 million.

But over the years, some scientists had begun to question whether sirtuins really were the key to extending life. Some studies of sirtuins even suggested they didn't affect lifespan.

And this week, Nature published research that offers a strong rebuttal to the idea...

Ah, Fritz's Law strikes again.  But just in case, I hear a bottle of Carmenere left over from the wedding singing to me...

Take Me Disappearing Though the Smoke Rings of My Mind

Speaking of dolphins, they're not always the cute, cuddly animals some might wish them to be.  A recent rash of deaths among Harbor Porpoises has been linked to Bottlenose Dolphin.  Young male dolphins appear to attack the porpoises out of sexual frustration.

Bad Flipper.

You Don't Have the Right To Grow Your Own...

Food, according to a judge in Wisconsin

This court is unwilling to declare that there is a fundamental right to consume the food of one's choice without first being presented with significantly more developed arguments on both sides of the issue."...As if to show how pissed he was at being questioned, he said his decision translates further that "no, Plaintiffs to not have a fundamental right to own and use a dairy cow or a dairy herd;

"no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to consume the milk from their own cow;"

And in a kind of exclamation point, he added this to his list of no-nos: "no, Plaintiffs do not have a fundamental right to produce and consume the foods of their choice..."

The ruling came in the context of a ban on unpasteurized milk, which many people prefer for health reasons (reasons I do not agree with, but then again, I drink minimal amounts of milk).

The ruling seems to imply that if you want to grow a cabbage for your own nutrition, you can do that, provided the government has not seen fit to ban growing a cabbage for home consumption.

I was under the impression that our rights work differently, that we have the right to do pretty much as we pleased unless the government had at least moderately compelling reasons to take away those rights.  Apparently, I was wrong.

I Won! I Won!

The contest to identify Meade's Mystery Pods over at Ann Althouses' blog.  Down in the comments, Mead offers a prize for the first person to identify them to genus and species.

We grow them here. Well really, we mostly just thin them.  After starting them 15 or 20 years ago, they self seed well enough that all we have to do is pluck them out of the places we don't want them. 

Anyway, Mead offered a packet of their seeds, a $5 value!  I wrote back and said we probably don't need their seeds, but Georgia told me later that if they're the short variety called "Sparkler" she'd be interested.

I probably wouldn't have put it together, except that Ann posted a picture of them in their garden a few weeks ago.

It's Getting Better All the Time

The beach that is.  After the trash that landed on the beach last week from the storms, we were interested to see how much the beach had changed.  While there is still a lot of woody debris down, the beach looks much better.  I'm not worried about the wood.  It will wash further up with higher tides, get buried, and get burned in bonfires.

One woman (Mrs Stamper) who walks there nearly every day has been picking up the trash in bags and it has made an enormous difference.  Georgia and I took trash bags down with us today, and on our stretch of beach we had a hard time finding enough plastic trash to fill them.

Georgia and the president of the Long Beach Civic Association (who walked with us) discussed getting some kids down in trucks to pick up the big stuff and bags of trash. Skye is not in favor of picking up trash, as it slows the walking pace.

 A couple getting set to go out on the bay. 

The stretch of beach above where Mrs. Stamper walks daily is still covered with trash.  One person can make a difference.

The continuing adventures of Scuffy, the Tugboat.  I'm pretty sure we had that book when I was growing up.  According to Wikipedia, that was the eighth most popular kids book of all time.

This, on the other hand, looks a bit like one of the Grateful Dead "Dancing" Bears.  Named after Owsley "Bear" Stanley, the bands early road manager, sound man and LSD manufacturer extraordinaire, who died this past March in an automobile accident in Australia.