Time to Break Out the Fly Rod?

The stripers should be up near the surface soon...

More here and here (NSFW).  Thanks to Fishmagnate. Also, now linked at Wombat-Socho's ginourmous three week make-up "Rule 5 Sunday: Cinco de Mayo Massive Catching-Up Edition" at The Other McCain.

Second Grade 'Tool Time' Gets Chicago Teacher Suspended

Teacher Sues School over Suspension for 'Weapons' Charge: Showing Students Garden Tools

The headline writer appears not to actually have read what the reporter wrote (again); the tools in question appear to be hammers, wrenches, and screwdrivers, not garden tools.  He appears to have gotten "garden tool" from the reporter writing "garden variety tool".  Layers of fact checkers....

Attorneys for The Rutherford Institute have filed a civil rights lawsuit against a Chicago public school district on behalf of a second-grade teacher who was suspended after he displayed garden-variety tools such as wrenches, pliers and screwdrivers in his classroom as part of a "tool discussion" in his class.

Despite the fact that all potentially hazardous items were kept out of the students' reach, school officials at Washington Irving Elementary School informed Doug Bartlett, a 17-year veteran in the classroom, that his use of the tools as visual aids endangered his students. Bartlett was subsequently penalized with a four-day suspension without pay - charged with possessing, carrying, storing or using a weapon.

The complaint charges that Bartlett "suffered humiliation, embarrassment, mental suffering, and lost wages, and was suspended for four days" - and asks for "nominal and compensatory damages" and for the suspension to be expunged from the teacher's record.

"This school district's gross overreaction to a simple teaching demonstration on basic tools such as wrenches and pliers underscores exactly what is wrong with our nation's schools," said Rutherford Institute Pres. John Whitehead.

I'm of two minds here.  In so many of these stupid zero-tolerance episodes in schools, it's teacher that initiate the insanity, as we say with the recent NRA T-shirt story. So while I'm tempted to snicker that the teacher had it coming, I have to remember that not all teachers commit such offenses, most are rather sensible and level headed about such matters.

In an update on the NRA T-shirt episode, the student returned to school today, in the same NRA T-shirt, along with numerous other students wearing the same T-shirt:

Disciplined 8th-grader Jared Marcum returned to class on Monday after being suspended from school and arrested for refusing to change his NRA t-shirt at the request of one of his teachers. The shirt apparently pictured a firearm and the words “protect your rights.”

However, he apparently hasn’t learned his lesson — assuming that there was even any lesson to be learned. Fresh off his suspension, Marcum showed up to school on Monday wearing the exact same NRA shirt that sparked what many have labeled “t-shirt control.”

There were also other people wearing matching shirts in support of Marcum, WOWK-TV reports.

“There’s a lot of people wearing this same exact shirt, showing great, great support and I really appreciate it,” the student said Monday before going to school.

It Really Was a CIA Plot!

Jackson Pollock - "No. 8"

 The CIA and abstract expressionism

From a 1995 article in The Independent, an account of how the CIA promoted and funded US and other Western artists during the Cold War, including abstract expressionists like Rothko and Pollock.

The decision to include culture and art in the US Cold War arsenal was taken as soon as the CIA was founded in 1947. Dismayed at the appeal communism still had for many intellectuals and artists in the West, the new agency set up a division, the Propaganda Assets Inventory, which at its peak could influence more than 800 newspapers, magazines and public information organisations. They joked that it was like a Wurlitzer jukebox: when the CIA pushed a button it could hear whatever tune it wanted playing across the world.

The next key step came in 1950, when the International Organisations Division (IOD) was set up under Tom Braden. It was this office which subsidised the animated version of George Orwell's Animal Farm, which sponsored American jazz artists, opera recitals, the Boston Symphony Orchestra's international touring programme. Its agents were placed in the film industry, in publishing houses, even as travel writers for the celebrated Fodor guides. And, we now know, it promoted America's anarchic avant-garde movement, Abstract Expressionism.

Jackson Pollock - "Moby Dick"

Did I hang them right-side up?

Found at Ace's ONT.

Liar, Liar, Pantsuit on Fire

House Releases Report on Benghazi Attack

Some highlights...

• Senior State Department officials knew that the threat environment in Benghazi was high and that the Benghazi compound was vulnerable and unable to withstand an attack, yet the Department continued to systematically withdraw security personnel.
• Repeated requests for additional security were denied at the highest levels of the State Department.
• U.S. security teams on the ground in Benghazi exhibited extreme bravery responding the attacks by al-Qa’ida-affiliated groups against the U.S. mission.
• Department of Defense officials and military personnel reacted quickly to the attacks in Benghazi.
• The Administration willfully perpetuated a deliberately misleading and incomplete narrative that the attacks evolved from a political demonstration caused by a YouTube video.
• Administration officials crafted and continued to rely on incomplete and misleading talking points.
• Evidence rebuts Administration claims that the talking points were modified to protect classified information or to protect an investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
• The Administration deflected responsibility by blaming the IC for the information it communicated to the public in both the talking points and the subsequent narrative it perpetuated.

Shorter version; Hillary lied to Congress, and Obama and Susan Rice lied to the American public.

2012 A Bad Year for Bay Weeds

Chesapeake Bay Sees 20% Drop In Underwater Grasses 

Underwater grasses in the Chesapeake Bay declined more than 20 percent last year, according to scientists. It was a blow to many fish as well as other species that need the grass to live or breed. Underwater grasses create meadows of sorts beneath the surface; those areas are where all kinds of creatures like crabs and striped bass live and breed. Last year, some 17,000 acres were wiped out.

Scientists with the federal Environmental Protection Agency's Chesapeake Bay Program survey bay grass levels annually; they say bay grass coverage has now dropped to its lowest point since 2006 and is at historically low levels. The researchers blame extreme weather: heavy rains and snow melt sent tons of mud and debris into the bay last year, and record setting summer heat killed off many acres as well.

I really don't recall last year being that awful by comparison with other recent years, but maybe that just means I've spent too much time blogging and not enough time fishing.  Well, there was that pesky "Superstorm Sandy", but I thought it was kind of a dud for impact on the Bay, at least compared to Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee in 2011.

Here's a graphic from the EPA Bay Program to put it into perspective:

Not a lot of progress toward the goal of 180,00 acres of SAV the Bay Program has set as the goal for two years ago.

EPA Sticks Its Nose in the Keystone Pipeline

With the State Department apparently having run out of excuses to delay the Keystone XL pipeline, the EPA put its finger in the crack in the dyke, claiming that the State Department should reconsider its failure to find fault:

EPA wants State Dept. to rework analysis of Keystone XL pipeline

The Environmental Protection Agency objected Monday to the State Department’s latest review of the Keystone XL oil pipeline, suggesting that more work must be done before the Obama administration can determine whether to approve the 1,179-mile northern leg of the project.

The EPA recommended that State reassess the amount of greenhouse gas that would be emitted by the development of oil sands in Alberta, Canada, as a result of construction of the pipeline, which eventually could transport as much as 830,000 barrels of diluted bitumen crude to refineries in Texas.

Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator in the EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, suggested the total gas released could be higher than State has estimated, depending on assumptions in the analysis.

Which, is of course, completely irrelevant. The Canadians are going to develop the oil. The only question is whether the oil gets sent down the pipeline to the Gulf Coast, where Americans will export it or turn it into gasoline and other products for everyone, or the Canadians will pipe it to the West Coast, where it will be loaded onto tankers and sent to China, where it will also be burned and become CO2.

She recommended that State acknowledge that large portions of the crude will sink if there is a spill into a waterway and spell out how it would require pipeline operator TransCanada to respond. She asked State to take another look at an alternative route for the proposed $5.3 billion pipeline, one that would take it away from the Ogallala aquifer, one of the world’s largest sources of fresh groundwater.

The pipeline route has already been changed once to accommodate these concerns, and the states involved are no longer worried about the consequences, and have approved the pipeline to cross their land.  A spill in water would be a bad thing, but not a horrible thing.  We had a few 140 throusand gallon spill into the Patuxent River back in 2001, and while you can still find oil in the marsh where the spill occurred, the biota in the area appear to be fully restored.

The EPA’s objection provides opponents with political ammunition and could force President Obama to weigh in on the permitting decision. Secretary of State John F. Kerry will decide whether the pipeline is in the U.S. national interest unless another federal agency objects. If the EPA continues to challenge State’s analysis, Obama will have to make the call...

Which, of course, was always the plan, to give Obama enough of a fig leaf to hide behind while he kills the pipeline, either by nixing it outright, or delay forever, allowing legal challenges to kill it slowly but surely with U.S. government approved litigation.

Apparently, Thin, Drunk and Stupid is One Way to Go Through Life

Reese Witherspoon arrested for disorderly conduct, husband JimToth booked for DUI 

The Oscar-winning actress found herself in a real-life episode of “Cops” when she was arrested after police said she threatened to bigfoot a cop who busted her husband on a DWI rap in Atlanta.

“You’re about to find out who I am,” Witherspoon told the Georgia state trooper, who arrested her Friday night on disorderly conduct charges, according to a police report.

"Why yes, you're that girl who took her clothes off in 'Twilight'", (NSFW link) is the response the officer should have given.

The actress was released from jail in time to appear Sunday night in New York for the premiere of her new film “Mud” at the Tribeca Film Festival.

In a statement late Sunday night, she apologized. “I clearly had one drink too many and I am deeply embarrassed about the things I said,” Witherspoon said. “It was definitely a scary situation, and I was frightened for my husband, but that is no excuse. I was disrespectful to the officer who was just doing his job.”

At least she's repentant.  That something, anyway.

“Mrs. Witherspoon began to hang out the window and say that she did not believe that I was a real police officer,” the trooper’s report said.

He told her to “sit on your butt and be quiet.”

She got out of the car again and when told again to return to the car, said she was a “U.S. citizen” and was allowed to “stand on American ground,” according to the report...

Make that two or three drinks too many.  Miz Althouse, from whom I got this tip says that she isn't dumb, because she went to Stanford.  Maybe; if so just more evidence that intelligence and wisdom are not synonymous. Wisdom from Dungeons and Dragons.

Well, I might as well make this a Rule 5 post:

Philly Man Dressed as Tree Shuts Down Mall, Gets Arrested

Man In Custody After Reports Of Suspicious Person Inside Visitor Center Garage

The Visitor’s Center on Independence Mall closed for a short period of time Sunday while police investigated a suspicious man. Authorities say a man wearing a full camouflage suit inside the Visitor’s Center quickly drew the attention of police.

Philadelphia Police Lieutenant Joe McGarrey says they caught up with him inside a vehicle in the underground parking garage. “The car was full of trash,” he said. “So as a precaution on the safe side, we cleared it with K-9, cleared it with the bomb squad.”

Nothing dangerous was found, but the man was taken into custody for questioning. No charges have been filed.

“Obviously, it’s the Visitor’s Center, Independence Mall,” McGarrey said. “We’re going to take every precaution necessary.”

The building has re-opened.

Whew, saved from a man dressed like a tree, which, by the way, is perfectly awful camouflage in a parking garage; light colored khakis and light long sleeve shirt would be much more effective.  On the other hand, it may be just be easier to blend in by acting like a human being; there's plenty of them to mingle with.

I wasn't aware that Philly had a dress code that made camo illegal. Is this the new normal, anything that could be associated with guns or hunting is now grounds for official harassment?

Chesapeake Crabs Down, Managers Blame Redfish

One fish, two fish, redfish, bluefish: Chesapeake Bay’s blue crab abundance drops

The blue crab population in the Chesapeake Bay has dropped, but a substantial boost in the number of spawning-age females has offered officials a piece of good news in spite of this disappointing decline.

According to the results of the annual winter dredge survey, which measures the blue crab population in Maryland and Virginia, the number of spawning-age females in the Bay has risen 52 percent. The Chesapeake Bay Program tracks this number as an indicator of Bay health, and an increase is a sign that management methods to conserve adult female crabs are working. But an overall decline in the Bay’s blue crabs—from 765 million in 2012 to 300 million in 2013—could lead to the tightening of commercial harvest restrictions.

Scientists have attributed the decline in blue crabs not to overfishing, but to high mortality rates among juveniles. While last year’s winter dredge survey measured an unprecedented number of juvenile crabs in the Bay, last summer and fall saw an alarming loss of blue crab habitat and a large influx of red drum, which often feed on young crabs. Young blue crabs are also known to feed on each other when population densities are high.

Everything in Chesapeake Bay eats crabs.  Fish eat crab, we eat crabs, crabs eat crabs. That's what they're for.  If it would raise the redfish population, I would vote to cut the crab harvest to provide enough food for the reds.

“There is a saying in Baltimore that crabs may be prepared in fifty ways and that all of them are good.”- H. L. Mencken

Amen.  Even filtered through a redfish...

Does Your Son Want to Go To Georgetown?

Maybe he should rethink that:

Former University Student Trashed Applications from White Males

…I can’t tell you how many applications I saw that were just dripping with white male privelege[sic]. Any of those that I saw basically went straight to the garbage can regardless of how good their qualifactions [sic] were. If I saw an application from a white male that basically was just good test scores, and activities like chess club or math club or what not then it shows me this person is not interested in a diverse environment. Obviously he made no effort in integrating with minorities or to sympathize with them and is counting on male privilege to get in. So that kind of application should get ignored. In their place I admitted a female student. This goes double especially for math/science majors.

The woman was a former Georgetown student, who received a Masters in "Foreign Service Studies" with a senior thesis entitled: Exposing “Men with Matches”: An Exploration of Denier/Distorter Pseudohistorians, Their Motivations, and Their Dangers.

She admitted what she had done in a blog post here, and was tracked to Georgetown from there.  Georgetown has responded by deleting her name from the list of Senior theses for 2012.

AVFM has obtained copies, a before and after record of Georgetown’s list of master’s theses from 2012. If you had examined their website before this scandal broke, you would have found Pattek’s name on the list with a link to her thesis. You can download the previous version of the page

Class of 2012 Senior Theses – Program on Justice and Peace -With Arianna

However now, if you go to the page you will find no trace of her name, and naturally no link to her thesis.

View here

Well, he probably didn't want to go there anyway; tuition and housing total about $63k annually.

Happy Earth Day!

George Carlin on keeping care of the Planet:



And your hippie chicks, communing with nature:

Algae: The Fuel of the Future, Forever

Meaning it always seems to be in the future, sort of like fusion:

Last year, Preznit Obama was  touting algae as the fuel of the future, but has it come any closer to reality?

Algae at a Pump Near You?

The promise of using algal biofuels as a substitute for petroleum has been bandied about for several decades. During that time, the political and commercial appetite for achieving it has waxed and waned with the price of oil and the demands of national security. But today, calls for oil independence and alternative energy sources have placed renewed focus on algae.

Many species of algae are rich in lipids—fat molecules that are easily processed into biodiesel. Others are rich in carbohydrates, which can be fermented into alcohol-based biofuels such as ethanol and butanol. Theoretically, an algae farm could yield as much as 10,000 gallons of oil per acre annually; palm oil offers the next-highest yield at 650 gallons per acre per year. And algae thrive on waste, consuming the carbon dioxide, nitrates, and phosphates thrown off by agriculture, power generation, and other commercial endeavors.

Once upon a time, I used to work primarily with algae, including some of the species being bandied about as potential producers of voluminous, low carbon footprint fuel.  There's an important word embedded in the paragraph above "thoeretically."  While algae are simple plants, and just want clean water, nutrients, light and some micronutrients, growing them on a large scale has always been dicey.  One reason is that it's hard to keep the pure cultures pure, and free of bacteria (which kill the algae and eat the product, kind of like mice in a grain field), and the larger the size of the culture, the more difficult that is.

So why isn’t algal oil flowing from gas pumps everywhere? Because despite algae’s many benefits, neither scientists nor entrepreneurs have found an efficient way to cultivate and harvest algae, or to convert it into oil at scale, and at a price that matches conventional oil. These challenges—and the powerful potential benefits of algal biofuels—captured the attention of William Cooke, a physics professor at the College of William & Mary and co-leader of the Chesapeake Algae Project. As Cooke sees it, algae are already a primary source of oil. Before the evolutionary emergence of bacteria that cause decay, algae sank and their oils were preserved. Thus, much of the conventional oil that we pump out of the ground today comes from very old algae.

And therefore algae farts are the primary source of natural gas, too.  But still, after all this time, why aren't algae carrying their share of the load now?

What is the main obstacle to the industry’s growth? Is it processing?
COOKE: No. Processing is really important, but it’s fairly straightforward, even though it’s not clear exactly how it will be done at scale. You squeeze algae, or dry it and crush it, or condense it. It’s the cultivation that’s tough. The National Research Council [NRC] recently released a techno-economic analysis [TEA] that nails the problems. The trouble with farming algae is that you need sunlight. You need flat land and water to grow it in—saltwater or brackish water provides a more robust environment. You need nutrients—nitrates and phosphates. You need carbon dioxide.

It seems laughable, but obtaining carbon dioxide is a major constraint for the industry. C.J. Warner said that you have to think about carbon dioxide as the feedstock for algae. As soon as you start isolating algae into circulating ponds and bioreactors, you’ve got to put in the carbon dioxide. If you have to truck your carbon dioxide more than 20 kilometers or so, it’s a losing proposition. The idea that we have to import carbon dioxide to make a biofuel that’s supposed to reduce carbon dioxide is a little mind-numbing.

Yep, when algae are happy, they make organics, (in this case the planned fuel) from light and CO2.  And when algae grow really fast, they run out of CO2 in the water, which makes the algae unhappy again, and the water extremely basic (on reason the algae are unhappy).  CO2 is a limiting resource for plants, algae included, maybe even especially.  And to make fuel cheap competitive the price of that CO2 has to be literally dirt cheap.

One thing might be to couple the algae growing plant to coal or gas burning power plant, which produce ample CO2 as waste products.  Hopefully, CO2 could be diverted from the exhaust to feed the algae.  Moreover, power plants tend to be huge sites with lots of ponds for waste handling anyway, so it shouldn't be hard to squeeze in some room for specialized algae growing systems.  You can use those to cover the old fly ash dumps.

You're Doing "It" Wrong

Now linked at Wombat-Socho's ginourmous three week make-up "Rule 5 Sunday: Cinco de Mayo Massive Catching-Up Edition" at The Other McCain.

8th Grader Arrested Over T-Shirt

8th grade student suspended, arrested over gun t-shirt

When 8th grade Jared Marcum got dressed for school on Thursday he says he had no idea that his pro-Second Amendment shirt would initiate what he calls a fight over his First Amendment rights. "I never thought it would go this far because honestly I don't see a problem with this, there shouldn't be a problem with this," Jared said.

It was the image of a gun printed on Jared's t-shirt that sparked a dispute between a Logan Middle School teacher and Jared, that ended with Jared suspended, arrested and facing two charges, obstruction and disturbing the education process, on his otherwise spotless record.

My guess is that he got into a verbal confrontation with a violently anti-gun teacher, and much of this is the teacher's revenge on him.  Remember, it's not really about the guns, it's that that the people who want to ban guns want to punish the people who like them.  She'll probably be happy if she manages to drive Jared out the school.

Jared's father Allen Lardieri says he's angry he had to rush from work to pick his son up from jail over something he says was blown way out of proportion. "I don't' see how anybody would have an issue with a hunting rifle and NRA put on a t-shirt, especially when policy doesn't forbid it," Lardieri said.

The Logan County School District's dress code policy prohibits clothing that displays profanity, violence, discriminatory messages and more but nowhere in the document does it say anything about gun images.

 So as of now, the Logan County Schools can make up rules on the fly with no notice and have the police enforce them with criminal penalties?  I have no doubt, that in the long run (and it may be very long depending on where this is, and who the courts are) that the courts will hold that the school had no right to dictate what message could be sported on Jared's T-shirt.  The courts have already decided in the past that pro-drug and alcohol, anti-war, and shirts insulting to presidents are protected under the first amendment.  It's hard to imagine even Obama's appointees going back on these decisions.

"He did not violate any school policy," Lardieri reiterates. "He did not become aggressive." Now, Lardieri says he's ready to fight until the situation is made right. "I will go to the ends of the earth, I will call people, I will write letters, I will do everything in the legal realm to make sure this does not happen again," Lardieri said.

Logan City Police did confirm that Jared had been arrested and charged today.

It ain't education; it's mind control.  they hope they can destroy any support for the Second Amendment by making it  it painful and troublesome to support, using the strength of the educational bureaucracy.

There Ain't No Justice at the Beach

Skye and I left Georgia at home and headed to the beach for our 9:30 rendezvous with Joel and Red.  The weather was still cool (45 F) clear and windy (15-20 kts north). 

Joel and Red were on at least their second lap up and down the beach when we caught up with them.

Skye was a little slow off the mark, but got into it.

 Now about that "no justice" part.  On the way back from Calvert Beach, while engaging in animated conversation about the price of rum in Jamaica, or something similar, I stepped right over this massive "Mako Shark's" (probably really an ancestor of the modern Great White) tooth, and Joel spotted it.  It's really the tooth of a year, and Joel has had two such teeth in the past week.

The tooth has an interesting mottled color, that you occasionally see on larger teeth, and the remnants of fresh barnacles suggest it sat exposed in shallow water for some time, long enough to grow barnacle, in the recent past.  Barnacle scars are soft and wear off rapidly in the sand.  At left, a comparison with one of the little teeth I found today.

Shutdown of Boston Ended, Shutdown of the American Mind to Continue

Obama: Don’t form opinions on Boston attacks until government decides

Americans should not decide their opinions about the Boston terror attacks until the government decides its own opinion, President Barack Obama told the nation late Friday night.

“There’s a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions,” Obama warned during his 10:05 p.m. EST speech from the White House.

“But when a tragedy like this happens … it’s important that we do this right,” he claimed.“That’s why we have investigations … That’s why we have courts. And that’s why we take care not to rush to judgment — not about the motivations of these individuals; certainly not about entire groups of people,” Obama insisted...

Presumably, he's chiding such people as Chris Matthews, his own adviser, David Axelrod, (speaking for Obama!) both of who attempted to  insinuate that the bomber might be motivated by "Tax Day" (April 15th), NPR, who pointed to April as a big month for "domestic extremist attacks", citing Oklahoma Cit, Waco, Ruby Ridge, Eric Rudolf, etc.  Then there's David Sirota, writing for Salon, who, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, just simply hoped it would be a white domestic attack, because it would be so much more convenient for the narrative.</sarc>

Don't expect the government to tell you it's time for you to have opinions anytime soon; the FBI is still investigating the motives of Nidal Hasan, the American born Muslim who shot up Ft. Hood in November 2009, while shouting "Allah Akbar" after an email exchange with Anwar Al-Malaki, the American born Muslim cleric who the Obama administration designated worthy of his own private drone attack.

Deeming it "work place violence" rather than terrorism, (maybe he didn't find the commissary coffee up to Arabic standards), by the military brass (or their superiors), the designation has prevented victims and survivors of the attack from receiving military recognition (Purple Hearts, etc).

Heart Warming Photo du Jour

A Watertown policeman delivers milk to a house with young children during the "shutdown" of the city during the Marathon Bomber hunt.

From Stacy Mcain, via his new gig at ViralRead.

The Viking Fitness Routine

Eighteen minutes of Icelandic models doing their routines. I surrender!



I'm pretty sure I got this at Theo's. Linked at Pirate's Cove by William Teach in "Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup." Also Wombat-Socho is on strike vacation this week, so you're on your own to find a big list of Rule 5 posts (although Teach's is a good place to start).

Now linked at Wombat-Socho's ginourmous three week make-up "Rule 5 Sunday: Cinco de Mayo Massive Catching-Up Edition" at The Other McCain.

Sea Level Not Rising to Scare Level in Delaware

Don't be gullible on sea level rise issue

We at the Positive Growth Alliance generally believe it’s best not to argue with folks who buy ink by the barrel. Nevertheless, we must respond to the recent article by Don Flood in Cape Gazette.

On March 18, the Positive Growth Alliance, along with the Caesar Rodney Institute, hosted a seminar attended by approximately 250 people. Two highly qualified scientists, Dr. Willie Soon and Dr. David Legates, explained in scientific terms that the extremely high levels of global warming and sea level rise that Delaware’s government is currently predicting is almost surely not occurring. You can see the slides they used in their presentation at www.positivegrowthalliance.org.

Drs. Soon and Legates both have interesting resumes.  Soon works at the Smithsonian-Harvard Astronomical Observatory, and has published many peer reviewed papers casting doubt on the importance of CO2 in global warming, favoring a solar explanation.  Dr. Legates was State Geologist of Delaware until he made anti-global warming statements.  He was fired by Gov. Ruth Ann Miner, who cited his views on global warming.  Both have been viciously attacked by the global warming community.

First, whether or not we’ll have rapid sea level rise totally misses the point. The critical question should be, what actions should we take in response and who will make the decisions?

The Positive Growth Alliance believes that special interests are using fear of manmade global warming to exert more and more control over citizens. Local property owners understand this threat. A few years ago, we helped publicize a DNREC attempt to move the beach building line inland so far that it would have prevented many from rebuilding after a big storm. The result was a massive protest by beach property owners and legislation that prevented the DNREC action.

Indeed, and I have made this point often.  No matter what the problem, the solution always seems to be more governmental control, and less property rights for the citizens.

Mankind has been dealing with sea level rise since the beginning of civilization. After all, during the last ice age 20,000 years ago, the ocean beaches were 70 miles or so farther east. The water has been rising ever since.

A much bigger factor, however, is erosion. Erosion is a natural, everyday process that mankind has been fighting for centuries. Sharps Island, in the Chesapeake Bay, near the mouth of the Choptank River, once had hundreds of inhabitants. It disappeared around 1900. The Cape Henlopen lighthouse, once nearly a mile from the bay and 250 feet above sea level, collapsed in 1926. While sea level rise may have played a small part, erosion was the much larger factor.

Again, precisely on point.  We aren't losing land in the Chesapeake Bay to sea level rise, we are losing it to erosion at the edges.

Some would cite sea level rise for the damage that hurricane Sandy did to the new inlet bridge. How is that even possible? The bridge just opened this past summer! Is anyone suggesting that sea level rise is so unpredictable we can’t protect ourselves from it over a span of months? Did someone forget to tell the engineers that a bridge had fallen into the ocean in that same general location in 1948?

We must not allow ourselves to be so easily manipulated! After all, the greatest flooding on the Delaware coast occurred during the Storm of 1962. That was 51 years ago! What if today’s big government mindset had existed at the time of that great storm? The vast majority of homes and businesses in Delaware’s beach communities have been built since 1962. What if government restrictions had prevented that?

Obviously, drastically restricting supply would have allowed the truly wealthy to drive beach real estate prices much higher. Taken to extremes, most middle class and even upper middle class folks could have been excluded from the beach areas.

The rich have theirs and will continue to be able to get access to it, but by raising the prices and restricting the access they can keep out the rabble.

Would stopping building in the beach areas have provided a benefit? It’s hard to see how. Flood insurance claims have been, and continue to be, extremely low. Since the federal flood insurance program started in 1978, every claim ever made through 2010 in Sussex County could be paid with just one year and two months of premium! In addition, the Sussex County economy would have lost one of its biggest economic drivers.

To summarize, the Positive Growth Alliance believes the public is being manipulated. Fear of manmade global warming and sea level rise is being used as the motivator.

The special interests are counting on the gullible to demand controls on our own lives that will limit our choices. We’re already seeing the effects in fuel prices, electricity prices, car prices and even boat prices, along with many other areas not so apparent.

It would be so much easier for them if we'd all just stay home on watch propaganda on the approved channels.

Fortunately, for those of us who value American traditions of liberty, the majority are no longer buying it. According to the latest Gallup poll, 43 percent of Americans now believe the effects of global warming are being exaggerated, while only 29 percent think they are being underestimated.

As Drs. Soon and Legates said, there is no question that some sea level rise is occurring. The real question is, do we need to surrender control of our own lives because of it? Our answer is no. We would like government as a partner, not as our master.

Rich Collins
Executive Director

There's simply no evidence that sea level rise is increasing at this time.

The Girls are Back in Town

Yesterday, I posted pictures of a bright yellow male Eastern Tiger Swallowtail.  When we got back from errands today, we found this female black morph sipping nectar in the phlox.

This picture shows the underside (ventral, if you're a scientist type), and the light pretty clearly shows the Tiger markings that are usually obscured by the dark color of the wings.  This is in the Lunaria in the side of the yard. 

At one point, a male in (yellow as all the males are), showed up and was chasing the female with dishonorable intentions, I suspect.  She didn't seem to be receptive.