Tea party policy causing Florida sinkholes

A couple interesting articles in the Tampa Bay times about how Florida Governor Ricks Scott's campaign promise to deregulate environmental protections have born fruit. First, remember those sinkholes eats up peoples homes? Ya..apparently that is due to overuse of the ground water by farmers. Business get a permit to pump X gallons of water from the underground aquifer and ever since Rick Scott replaced the heads of the agencies who monitor and enforce violation, its really been more about gentle suggestions and asking nicely rather than the fines that are supposed to be levied on violators. There is another story in South Florida about farmers overusing water resources to fight tree diseases, which apparently has no scientific backing whatsoever, to which the State replied we cant fine them because "they were well intended". And of course the farmers have kept overusing even after being told nicely not to since they know the regulators are in their pocket. And then there is this wonderful story about a company called Moasic using millions of gallons of aquifer water to dilute the pollution it spills into the waterways to get around pollution laws.

Regulatory bodies really need to be independent of whoever is governor and the politics of the day.

Beautiful Alaska video

Alaska The Nutrient Cycle from Paul Klaver on Vimeo.

Video shows Fukushima radiation spreading across ocean

Joes June Newz Links

My bookmarked interesting story list is getting long so I think its time to unload.

Update: Had to add this one Naked women missing somewhere in Wa. Forest

Ship Graveyards photo adventure
Brad Pitt suffers from Face Blindless just like me!
Cool Paint used as wires for power and whatnot
Hulk Hogan does the local weather in Tampa
Public required to pay back money school employees misspent
Wikipedia caught censoring info on Wicka
Kool chemistry project for kids you can do at home
Mom declared dead gives birth and returns to life
Belts made with radioactive melt recalled
Israel working on simple organic computer
Cops see black 14yo on beach with puppy - tackle him
Wa. State Gov caught in radioactive leak cover up
GOP wants redistricting emails kept away from public in Florida
Free online college run by Yale/NYU
Salmon and Trout found to be crossbreeding
Mormon's march in support of Salt Lake Gay Pride

Difficult isnt a mental illness

Heard about this 11 year long study in Canada on NPR today on a show discussing the reasons for ballooning rates of children diagnosed with a mental illness. The guest put it succinctly when he said that the best predictor of whether a child will be diagnosed with mental illness is his birth date. Younger kids have more behavior issues that older kids and get labeled more often than their older peers. Ugh. The lack of actual science, let alone common sense, in child psychology today is sickening and it leads to dumb shit like this. But I've always felt psychologists had as much medical credibility as chiropractors. We dont understand the brain and far too often adults label age appropraite behavior as abberant psychosis rather than seeking out the cause of those behaviors, which often are entirely rational reactions to bad teaching/parenting/environments that most adults would echo just in an adult way. As adults we can choose to walk out of boring useless lectures or other people being jerks -but kids are usually stuck and the younger they are the less likely they have the emotional/social tools to deal with situations in socially acceptable ways.  

Lazy parents, bad teachers and arrogant doctors are medicating kids based on maturity levels - how compliant they are, rather than actual brain electrochemical science. These kids were just being kids, boys being boys, but with a label and some drugs altering the development of their brain they may really develop the neorochemical abnormalities they didnt have before. And of course we can trust government and big pharma to do complete studies on the adverse lifetime effects of randomly nuking a growing brain...right?

Space station now music studio

A revised version of David Bowie's Space Oddity, recorded by Commander Chris Hadfield (Canada) on board the International Space Station.

Lyrid meteor shower peaks tonight (Sun)

The Earth is once again rolling its way through the spotty slime trail left by the travel of Thatcher's Comet. I guess tonight is the best time to see it but the moon is near full so their will be a bit of light pollution.

"Sound" really doesnt make sound

Really interesting/depressing article about how everything we perceive is just a biological interpretation by our brain. Sound for example, being in actuality vibrations in the air, is translated by our brains into media we can interpret. That noise you hear isnt actually a noise..its your brain telling you some air particles are jumping up and down in a certain way.

Consider:  It appears that ordinary matter -- all of the stuff that we can see, such as planets and stars -- makes up only 4.9% of all the universe.

Comet visable March 12-24th

FYI..here is the link to JPL

Pirate Bay to host 3D templates (like for printing organs)

Everyone's favorite Swedish political party/mp3-movie database its its taking an interesting step into the future by offering to host public 3D templates. These are schematics 3D printers uses to "print" objects, such as human organs. I'm guessing this will be useful to non profit burn units ? since I'm not anyone else actually uses this tech yet. But it sound kool

Bird Clouds

I use to see this sort of thing all the time in Tulsa..

End of the year newz collection

Woman avoids jail by agreeing to have no more children
The professional examination of poo
Senate OKs acountless, warrentless wiretapping for CIA, FBI
Florida EPA run by former industry and business lobbyists
 Breastfeeding doll for children comes with nipple-bra
 Gov. says woman cant breastfeed while waiting tables/serving food
 Latest teacher-student sex scandal is girl on girl
 The end of the Hawaiian Islands is neigh!
 Kid find 13,000 year old bones
 Bellingham man randomly punches baby in face
 Swedish woman found guilty of sex with skeletons
 DSHS ignoring abuse in group homes - just like Florida
Extreme high tides threaten west coast waterfront homes
Germany -just- banned animal-human lovemaking
8 types of nanotech that exist today
NASA awards kids who throw toilet paper the farthest
Fish plays dead to catch birds

Dec13 big meteor shower + more news

Got some good ones this month! Check them out!

DEC 13 Geminid meteor show expected to be best ever

woman "suffering" from constant arousal commits suicide
Adoption agency gives away child of soldier serving overseas
5yo saves family from fire
Elementary students foaming at mouth took LSD
Florida school closed for whipping students open again
Faster Than Light spaceship engine may be too destructive to use
Blackwater mercenary guild still gainfully employed by taxpayers
Child dies hours after Tulalip NA unit caseworkers close case
Florida placing kids in nursing homes due to lack of caregivers
Many sick kids in US given liquid weed by doctors
Walla Walla 13yo charged with felony for having pot in locker
City lets boy with autism keep therapy chickens
11yo nearly killed by water bottle stuck to tongue

Big news from Mars?

I had reported in the November news links that nothing useful has been discovered as yet on Mars. Apparently that is no longer the case. The last "big annoucement" was over some planken in Antarctica that was silicon based..so I'm not holding my breath for space alien fossils.

John Grotzinger, principal investigator for the Curiosity rover mission, revealed to NPR that "This data is gonna be one for the history books. It's looking really good."

Canada defunds its own evironmental testing

Environmental regulation getting in the way of your pet project?? Defund the testing and research so no one can say what is going to happen! This seems to be the maneuver of choice for political types who's pet project will do bad things. In this case, even though the shipping route is extremely hazardous and the Native peoples living there dont want it,  Prime Minister Harper is going to build his oil dock regardless. There should be a law against tinkering with research.

Zeppelin Comeback

Interesting story about a boom in airship construction. I hope these people realize that Helium on Earth is produced as byproduct of petroleum drilling..If the return to airships is an effort to escape oil dependance we need to look somewhere else.
A blimp is shaped by the gas inside of it, whereas a zeppelin has a rigid skeleton inside. The helium-filled sky balloons, or aerostats, used over Afghanistan are neither blimps nor zeppelins. But they all fall under the term “airship.”

How starfish Tube feet work

Interesting science blog here about starfish fish. FYI:: Not 100s of tiny plungers!

Excellent view of Perseid meteor shower Sat and Sun!

Look to the skies!

Japan builds robot mech

Its like that borg from Robocop. Dont they have better things to be spending money on..like Nuclear waste cleanup? Hopefully Skynet wont get control of it!

Hit by pitch; advance to 1st

We've all pretended at one point in our lives or another to throw a baseball so fast the throw causes the ball to catch fire. Someone actually took the time to evaluate the physics of that action.