Active Duty.

The Army is denying burial at Arlington to a soldier killed in a helicopter crash.  Army claims the soldier "was not on active duty"  at the time.  Which is shameful.  A man dies in an Army aircraft crash, that's active duty as far as I am concerned.
  We ought to find the Army bureaucrat who issued this disgusting ruling, and get him fired (if snivel service) or dishonorably discharged, if military. 

Navigable Waters of the United States

The original Clean Water Act gave jurisdiction to the EPA over all the navigable waters. This was intended to limit EPA enforcement to sizable bodies of water, not every puddle in the land.  Water is very common, and you can find small amounts of water, puddles and such pretty much everywhere.  If we allow the EPA jurisdiction over every puddle in the US, we have given them control of most of the land across the country.  Maybe Death Valley is dry enough to avoid EPA control, but few other places are.
  The EPA just issued 100 or more pages of new regulation which claims jurisdiction over pretty much everywhere.
  Congress ought stop this land grab.  A simple law, which declares that EPA jurisdiction is limited to waters deep enough to float a boat, all year round.  Such a law could be written on one side of an ordinary 8.5 * 10 inch sheet of typing paper. 

So what did Hastart do? Really?

The public accusations are of withdrawing his money from his bank account in cash.  And lying to the FBI.  That's pretty thin stuff.  Sounds like the prosecution is out to get him.  Like any person with two brain cells firing, he made his withdrawals for less than $10,000 to avoid getting hassled for money laundering.  They claim this is illegal.  Yeah, right.
   And "lying to the FBI" means the FBI disagrees with something he said, and so they call him a liar, and some freedom loving Congresscritters way back when managed to slip thru a statute making that a felony.  Land of the free this is.

We Republicans have an embarrasment of riches.

We have presidential candidates that will not quit.  Just finished listening to George Pataki, former New York governor announce he is running on Fox News.  Live no less. 
Question:  Of the dozen of more Republicans out there, which one can win the general election?  Polls still show Hillary is strong, stronger than any Republican, although only by a few points.  With the exception of the isolationist Rand Paul, and Pennsylvania oddball Rick Santorum, I could vote for any of the others.  This morning's TV poll has five of 'em polling 10%, and the rest of them trailing off from there. 
   I think the winner might be the one who sets out a platform with some substance in it.  So far all I see is smiling faces saying "elect me".   The "Contract with America" worked for Newt Gingrich 20 years ago, it's a good schtick, someone ought to try it again. 

Morphine from Sugar?

The Economist reports that a University of California team has come up with a yeast that can do just that.  No more importing of exotic flowers from the other side of the world.  Now you can brew up morphine, and other opiates in your basement, just like brewing beer.  Like making meth.  Could make heroin much cheaper and more plentiful, just what we need. 

Summer is here, at last

It's warm enough for gin and tonic.  Tall glass, fill with ice, good slug of gin, fill glass with tonic water. Slice a lime, squeeze one slice into the glass.  My father once told me he planned to come down with malaria, because quinine, the key ingredient in tonic, was a specific against malaria.  He figured to recover quietly drinking gin and tonic to keep the malaria at bay.  Now that it is up into the 80's round here, I can relate.
   Anyhow gin and tonic makes a fine warm weather drink, at least as good as my favorite whiskey and soda.  

The Invaders by Pat Shipman

New, interesting book on paleo anthropology.  Addresses the Neanderthal man problem.  Neanderthal man lived in Europe from who knows how far back up until 40,000 to 25,000 years ago.  Then modern man, Homo Sapiens, appeared in Europe and Neanderthal man disappeared, sometime between 40,000 and 25,000 years ago, depending upon whose radiocarbon dates you accept.  So what happened to Neanderthal  man?  Did our ancestors kill off the Neanderthals?  Did they interbreed with them and absorb them, the way Americans interbred with the Indians?  Did a disease wipe them out?  Or climate change? or what?
   Pat Shipman starts out by going thru the radio carbon dating problem.  Cosmic radiation and solar radiation convert a small fraction of the carbon in the world into the radio active isotope carbon 14.  Living organisms  take in carbon from the environment while they live, and cease to do so when they die.  The carbon 14 decays over time and a measurement of the lingering radioactivity gives a measure of age.  Works back to about 40,000 years ago, at which point the radioactivity gets too weak to detect at all.   Due to one thing or another,  modern radiocarbon dating gives a great deal more age to ancient samples than radio carbon dating did even 10 years ago.  A number of Neanderthal sites were redated recently, and pushed back from 25,000 years to 40,000 years ago.  People used to think that Neanderthals and modern man co-existed in Europe from maybe 40,000 years ago until 25,000 years ago.  If you buy the re done radio carbon dates it now looks like Neanderthals disappeared just a few hundred years after modern man appeared on the European scene.  Which leads to the thought that modern man was responsible for the end of the Neanderthals. 
   The fossil record does not show direct conflict, say Neanderthal bones with butchering marks in modern man sites.  Things like a Neanderthal hunting party getting wiped out in a conflict over an big  kill out in the field probably would not show in the fossil record. 
   Shipman says that modern man had projectile weapons (bows and arrows) and Neanderthals did not.  To an old technological determinist like me, that could be decisive.  With a bow, the hunter only has to get within 50 yards of a deer to beg it.  Without, he has to close in hand to hand and rassle it down.  Deer are alert and wary and getting that close without spooking them takes a level of woodcraft that I don't have.  Clearly a bow hunter will have far greater success than a hunter with just a flint knife.   Shipman's argument would be stronger if he presented real evidence for the absence of Neanderthal bows.  A count and comparison of flint arrow head finds from Neanderthal sites versus modern man sites would greatly strengthen Shipman's argument.
   Likewise, Shipman asserts that modern man had bone needles, with eyes, and Neanderthal did not.  Again, a sewn fur outfit will keep the hunter warmer than just a fur thrown over the shoulders.  Again, Shipman's argument would be stronger with some counts of needle finds in Neanderthal sites versus modern man sites. 
   All in all, interesting and thought provoking read.