"Snowstorm in South heads off to sea" by Associated Press | February 1, 2010
RICHMOND - A winter storm that moved in a nearly straight line - dumping snow, sleet, and ice from northern Texas to Washington - headed off the Atlantic coast early yesterday.
The Washington-Baltimore area was hit by about 5 inches of snow yesterday as the storm moved north. Nearly a foot of snow fell Saturday in parts of western North Carolina, and nearly 10 inches fell in some areas north of Memphis. In Nashville, about a half-foot of snow was on the ground, the National Weather Service said.
The storm caused havoc beginning in northern Texas and Oklahoma, where snow and ice shut down interstates and cut power to thousands of customers. Although police said they had to clear hundreds of wrecks over the weekend, no deaths or serious injuries from traffic accidents were reported.
A central Tennessee woman was killed when a tree weighed down with ice crashed into her mobile home early Saturday, Maury County officials said. In southern Maryland, one person was found dead after a house fire in Accokeek that firefighters said they had a hard time getting to because of the snow. In northern Virginia, the weather caused several multivehicle crashes along Interstate 81 in Shenandoah County, State Police said. Four people were hospitalized with injuries that were not life-threatening.
Governor Beverly Perdue of North Carolina declared a state of emergency, as some mountain areas got more than a foot of snow throughout the day Saturday. More than a dozen emergency shelters opened across the state, Perdue said.
The weather also cut short a farewell celebration Saturday at the National Zoo in Washington for young panda Tai Shan, who will be flown to China Thursday to join a breeding program.
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See: The Boston Globe's Invisible Ink: Southern Snowstorm
Here is someone who won't lie or deceive over the weather:
"Dispensing turtle-loving care; New England Aquarium workers help ailing reptiles heal" by Brian MacQuarrie, Globe Staff | February 1, 2010
Cold weather that killed and sickened hordes of turtles in Florida this winter....
This past Thanksgiving, the aquarium accepted 85 barely living turtles that had washed up between Dennis and Wellfleet, trapped inside the Cape’s arm as they tried vainly to migrate south. Twelve of them died within 48 hours. Seventeen more died afterward, many of them ravaged by pneumonia contracted in 50-degree waters that immobilized the cold-blooded reptiles....
Just wondering why the Globe didn't tell us then.
See: One Last Dip in the Ocean
Oh.
The survivors, which migrate to and from Mexico each year, are recuperating....
--more--"And if they think it is cold up here, imagine the shock to their system down there!
"After treatments, rescued sea turtles released off Florida" by Associated Press | January 16, 2010
JUNO BEACH, Fla. - They came in crowded trucks and left by flipper: Hundreds of endangered sea turtles are being released back into the Atlantic Ocean now that Florida’s weather has warmed enough.
Related: Florida's Frozen Orange Juice
And please remember the MSM said the weather got warmer for later, thank you.
Officials in the Sunshine State helped rescue nearly 3,000 turtles from frigid waters in the past week, as air temperatures dipped into the 30s.The turtles - which weigh as much as 400 pounds - were found across Florida as the chilly temperatures sent them into a cold stress, leaving them stunned and largely motionless, the perfect prey for predators. After about a week of treatment, including soakings in heated pools and oxygen therapy, the turtles are headed back into the wild.
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"Cold weather takes toll on Fla. manatees" by Associated Press | January 27, 2010
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. - More than 100 manatees have been found dead in Florida waters since the beginning of the year, mostly victims of a nearly two-week cold snap.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission says the preliminary cause of death for 77 of the endangered animals is cold stress. They were found from Jan. 1 through Jan. 23.
The Sunshine State saw unseasonably cold weather starting around the first of the year that killed fish and stunned thousands of sea turtles. Officials say the numbers of dead manatees from the cold is a record for a single year. The previous record, set last year, was 56 deaths from cold stress.
Yeah, ANYONE who WENT OUTSIDE these last few years KNOWS IT IS GETTING COLDER!
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Oh, poor fellas!
I'm feeling a bight frigid toward them these days, readers.
More REAL THREATS!
"For scofflaws, a public mea culpa; Plea-deal ads admit environmental crimes" by Jonathan Saltzman, Globe Staff | February 1, 2010
The Rockmore Co. has a confession: “Our company has discharged human waste directly into Massachusetts coastal waters.’’
And the TURTLES are out there SWIMMING IN IT, huh?
That statement is part of an abject apology that will soon appear in newspaper ads if a federal judge approves a plea deal between the US government and Rockmore, which is accused of illegally dumping waste for years in Salem Harbor and in the Charles River off the Esplanade from its sightseeing cruise ship and its floating restaurant.
That is NOT EXACTLY PUNISHMENT, is it?
I mean, WHO READS NEWSPAPERS anymore -- especially the ads?
The agreement would mark at least the fourth time in recent years that federal prosecutors in Massachusetts have required environmental scofflaws to buy large and costly advertisements atoning for their crimes as part of their sentences.
Many legal scholars say the apologies foster contrition and save the government the high costs of more traditional punishments, such as incarceration.
In THESE CASES I would prefer to PAY IT!!! Pffft!
But some defense lawyers and scholars say the ads represent a throwback to the stocks and pillories of Colonial times and are designed less to educate the public and more to humiliate wrongdoers....
WHATEVER WORKS!!!
For some, the apology hurts....
Then GO to JAIL!!!
John D. Levasseur, a Dartmouth antiques dealer, placed his apology in 2008 in the Cape Cod Times and Antiques and The Arts Weekly, a Connecticut-based publication that he described as the bible of his profession. He had pleaded guilty to illegally purchasing more than 16 pounds of sperm whale teeth and a hat rack made of whale ivory in violation of the Endangered Species Act and was also fined $40,000 and placed on probation for five years.
“I just know it was embarrassing,’’ Levasseur said of the mea culpa. “This whole area was notified about it. I didn’t understand why that had to be.’’ He said he didn’t know whether the ad hurt his business because sales also plunged during the recession....
I kind of see his point.
HE was NOT dumping SHIT into the HARBOR!!!!
In the Rockmore case, the owners of the 59-foot Hannah Glover double-deck steamship and the 115-foot Rockmore barge are accused of discharging sewage from 1990 to 2006 because the company was allegedly unwilling to pay for shoreside pump-out services.
They should be BANNED from the STATE!
The vessels, which attract sightseers and diners who want to nibble on Ipswich clams and quaff frosty beers, allegedly dumped the waste in Salem Harbor, off the beaches of Marblehead and Beverly, and in the Charles River near the Esplanade during the Fourth of July celebration in 2002.
Oh, so YOU WERE OUT THERE, too, HUMANS!!!!!
If the plea deal is accepted by US District Judge Joseph L. Tauro on Feb. 8 in Boston, the company would have to pay fines of more than $300,000, spend three years on probation, and run a half-page apology in the Boston Herald and full-page apologies in three newspapers that serve coastal communities....
The newspaper thing is really not punishment.
NO ONE READS THEM anymore except ME -- and I'm reaching my limit.
Several legal scholars applaud the ads as an effective way to deter environmental crimes and, especially, make corporations think twice about breaking the law.
It's going to take a lot more than that.
“Shaming sanctions can be a responsible tool in our deterrence arsenal and are particularly effective in cases where people care about their reputations,’’ said Steve Calandrillo, associate dean and professor at the University of Washington School of Law in Seattle. “And the sanction itself is relatively inexpensive for society to impose, unlike putting them in jail.’’
But some critics say the apologies can cross the line between legitimate punishments and outlandish attention-grabbing sentences that judges have handed down across the country in recent years.
Most of these controversial punishments have been handed down in state courts, such as the Texas judge who ordered a man in 2003 to spend 30 nights in a doghouse for abusing his son.
Ha-ha-ha!
But the federal courts have not been immune.
A federal judge in San Francisco, for example, ordered a mail thief that year to stand outside a post office while wearing a sandwich board that read “I have stolen mail. This is my punishment.’’
That's it?
The thief appealed the punishment as a violation of the constitutional ban on “cruel and unusual punishment,’’ but the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld it.
He's LUCKY he DIDN'T GET the SLAMMER!!
Meanwhile, they are THROWING MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS in JAIL?
Give the cells to THESE GUYS!
Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School and practicing criminal defense lawyer who opposes such punishments as demeaning, said the proposed Rockmore ad is “right on the edge.’’ He also doubted that it would be an effective deterrent because a careful reader of the ad would observe that no one is going to jail.
“If you really want to deter this conduct,’’ he said, “you put company officials in jail.’’
Yeah, that is the ONLY THING they UNDERSTAND!
Other fun critters for you:
"US weighs costs of fighting invasive species" by Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post | February 1, 2010
WASHINGTON - Invasive species - long the cause of environmental hand-wringing - have been raising more unwelcome questions recently, as the expense of eliminating them is weighed against the mounting liability of leaving them be.
Which is worse? Closing two locks on a critical waterway that is used to ship millions of dollars’ worth of goods from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi basin? Or allowing a voracious Asian carp to chow down on the native fish sustaining a Midwestern fishing industry that nets $7 billion a year?
And how do you put a price tag on the damage caused by the Burmese python and other constrictor snakes that are strangling the precious ecology of the Everglades? Questions like those became more urgent last week, when a team of scientists led by the University of Notre Dame disclosed that silver carp dominating stretches of the Mississippi River and its tributaries had infiltrated Lake Michigan.
The federal government had spent $22 million on electric barriers in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to keep carp out, but it clearly was not enough. An additional $33 million is going into the effort next year.
Yeah, let's keep doing what hasn't worked!
And isn't GLOBALIZATION GRAND?
A coalition of six Great Lakes states and the Canadian province of Ontario have sought a preliminary injunction from the Supreme Court to shut down two major locks immediately on the grounds that an Asian carp invasion would cause “irreparable harm.’’
The court declined to grant the injunction last month, but it will accept briefs soon on the broader question of whether to close them at all.
Army Corps of Engineers officials say it is too early to shut down the locks. They are focused on building a third electrical barrier to provide yet another obstacle to Asian carp infiltrating Lake Michigan.
“It’s not a silver bullet, but it’s a good tool to impede the movement of the silver and bighead carp,’’ said Colonel Vincent Quarles, commander of the Army Corps’ Chicago District.
But if it DOESN'T STOP THEM!!??
But the barriers are not surefire, and specialists say it is difficult to say how many Asian carp would have to make it through to establish a viable population.
How about 2, one male, one female?
US officials have been fighting invasive species for many years, but efforts have intensified in recent years as the impact has become clear. For instance, zebra and quagga mussels that were once restricted to the Great Lakes have moved west, clogging systems at critical dams.
Related: The Day Boston Went Dry
Yup, they've made it out here.
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And about those carp:
"Michigan sues to protect lake from carp" by Washington Post | December 28, 2009
Asian carp jumped out of the Illinois River early this month after being disturbed by sounds of watercraft. Many fear that the carp will starve native fish by gobbling up plankton. (Illinois River Biological Station via The Detroit Free Press And AP)
They going to be able to jump the electric fences, too.
WASHINGTON - The reversal of the Chicago River a century ago, to send the city’s sewage to the Mississippi River instead of into Lake Michigan, was hailed as an engineering marvel. Now Michigan is suing Illinois to potentially reverse the river again to prevent the movement of voracious, invasive Asian carp into the lake.
The suit, which is going to the Supreme Court, also challenges Chicago’s withdrawal of up to 2 billion gallons of water a day from Lake Michigan.
Environmental groups have long called for the ecological separation of the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River basin to curb the spread of invasive species and to retain Great Lakes water in the Great Lakes basin.
The Chicago River was reversed by connecting it through a system of canals to rivers whose waters flow into the Mississippi.
Since 2002, the US Army Corps of Engineers has run an electric barrier in the canal to block Asian carp. But tests by the University of Notre Dame and the Nature Conservancy in the fall found Asian carp DNA beyond the barrier near Lake Michigan, indicating that it might have failed to keep the voracious fish at bay.
If Asian carp make it into the Great Lakes, environmentalists and policy makers say, they could wipe out plankton that makes up the base of the food chain.But globalization is great.
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And a final photo you won't see on the web:
TO DRESS FOR THE WEATHER OR NOT -- Ben Coleman and Mariah Farrell, hot breath condensing in the cold air, walked to school yesterday morning in Yarmouth, Maine. The National Weather Service reported that the air temperature was 10 degrees there and that it will remain seasonably cold for the rest of the week.
Then stay warm, Bonnie.
Well, it's getting late for me, readers, and I have a basketball game to play.
I'll be back later.
