Archive for April 14th, 2007
Best Wishes
April 14th, 2007
Congrats are in order to Ed Morrissey at Captains Quarters on his new position.
All the best in your new endeavor.
Posted in 
Where is your voter registration card?
April 14th, 2007
Now this is a problem:
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia Secretary of State’s office has begun an investigation into who threw more than 75,000 Fulton County voter registration cards into a trash bin.
The cards contained a voter’s full name, address and Social Security number. The office says a random sampling showed many of the cards were for active voters.
Some would think immediately of voter fraud, I think identity theft. No matter the party affiliation, citizens should not feel the need to worry when they register to vote that their personal information will be exposed.
Read the full story here.
Will He Run?
April 14th, 2007
The Republican party is faced with a dilemma in their nomination of a candidate for the Presidential race in 2008. Do they move to the center or lean left, is it national security or social issues which will prevail as primary when presenting a platform?
The Weekly Standard has an excellent article written by Stephen Hayes which provides some interesting background for a yet undeclared candidate.
It remains unclear if Mr. Thompson will enter the race or whether his recent health disclosure will be a factor in his securing the nomination but should he make the jump it certainly will add a dimension which at this point is lacking.
No Bees, No Food
April 14th, 2007
From Friday’s issue of the Omega Letter (subscription required.)
Trust me on this one and read it. It has meaning at the second half.
What’s the Buzz — Or Lack of It?
A mystery malady known as ‘colony collapse disorder’ has destroyed from fifty to ninety percent of honeybee colonies in the United States and Europe.
In Great Britain, London beekeepers said this week that up to three-quarters of their bees have either died or simply ‘vanished’. John Chapple, head of the London Beekeepers’ Association, said that when he opened his 40 hives after the winter, only 10 were unaffected by a mystery plague. Twenty-three of the hives were empty and seven contained dead bees.
In North America, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) has been reported in Canada, and in at least 24 US states.
In a legislative hearing before the House Subcommittee on Horticulture and Organic Agriculture in March, Gene Brandi, a Merced County (California) beekeeper and chairman of the California State Beekeepers Association, told lawmakers that while bee losses are not uncommon, the current ailment plaguing bee colonies is much more serious.
He says about 40 percent of his colonies died over the winter, his greatest loss in 30 years of business. That equates to a loss of nearly $60,000 in pollination income and another $20,000 in bulk bee sales, plus a cost of $48,000 to restock the 800 dead hives.
“Even though my loss is substantial, other beekeepers throughout the country have suffered much great losses,” he says. “Beekeepers who lost over 50 percent of their colonies will have difficulty making up their losses from their own colonies as I plan to do.”
The cause of colony collapse disorder is unknown, although poor nutrition, mites, diseases and pesticides have all been suspect. There is also concern that some genetically modified crops may be responsible. But nobody knows for sure.
The only thing that is seems certain is that, as Speigel Online reported last month, “the phenomenon is gradually assuming catastrophic proportions.”
This is a much more important story than the mainstream media yet realizes. CCD is not simply a case of entire colonies of bees just dying in the hive. If that were the case, then the cause could be determined and dealt with.
There are lots of diseases and parasitic mites than can wipe out a bee colony. But Colony Collapse Disorder refers to the total disappearance of whole bee colonies — the BBC calls it VBS, or “Vanishing Bee Syndrome”.
According to Wikipedia, “a colony which has collapsed from CCD is generally characterized by all of these conditions occurring simultaneously:
Complete absence of adult bees in colonies, with no or little build-up of dead bees in or in front of the colonies.
Presence of capped brood in colonies. Bees normally will not abandon a hive until the capped brood have all hatched.
Presence of food stores, both honey and bee pollen:
i. which is not immediately robbed by other bees
ii. when attacked by hive pests such as wax moth and small hive beetle, the attack is noticeably delayed.”
Normally, a weakened bee colony would be immediately overrun by bees from other colonies or by pests going after the hive’s honey. That’s not the case with the stricken colonies, which might not be touched for at least two weeks, said Diana Cox-Foster, a Penn State entomology professor investigating the problem.
To summarize, for reasons unknown, millions of bees just pack up and abandon their hive, leaving everything behind. Nobody knows where they go. They just disappear.
Sounds like the kind of story one tells to kids over a campfire, but it’s true. Read the rest of this entry »
In Louisiana It’s Politics As Usual
April 14th, 2007
I think a lot of people associate corrupt politicians with Louisiana from the days of Huey Long and maybe beyond that.
When Governor Blanco was encouraged not to run for re-election by the state Democrat party, the party approached former Sen. John Breaux, a fine man, to run for the governorship.
Mr. Breaux had a problem though, because by now he was a legal resident of the state of Maryland and claimed to be so. He said he wanted a ruling from the state Attorney General as to whether or not he was eligible to run because the state constitution requires the candidate to be a resident of the state for the preceding five years.
From this California Conservative post the Attorney General of Louisiana, Charles Foti (also a Democrat), has passed the decision on to the courts to decide.
Since he’s a Maryland resident, that ends that. He isn’t a Louisiana resident now, which is clearly within the 5 year window mandated for Breaux to be eligible for next year’s election. I’m no lawyer but I’d have to think that there’s some legal remedy to this insanity. If the Louisiana state Constitution says something explicitly, that should be the final word.
You don’t need the court’s assistance to figure that out.
This just means that the political fix is in. AG Foti will claim that his hands are clean, that he simply stands by the court’s ruling. Let’s just hope that the RNC will jump all over this. Let’s hope that the RNC will show the hypocrisy of the DNC by showing them arguing against taking Tom DeLay off the ballot after he’d moved to Virginia but then turning around to say that John Breaux, a Maryland resident, should be allowed to run for governor, contrary to the Louisiana Constitution.
We remember well that Sen. Lautenberg was allowed to get on the ticket to replace former Sen. Torrecelli in New Jersey after the legal time limit to be listed on the ticket had expired, because the Democratic party went to the State Supreme Court to get a ruling, which was also clearly against the state constitution.
Now, I’m not just picking on Democrats, so if someone can point out an instance where a Republican has done the same thing I will be glad to see it.
The whole point of this is political corruption. The Democrats in Louisiana know without Breaux as a candidate they have no chance of beating Bobby Jindal.
Again, by all accounts, Mr. Breaux is a very good man who just wants to serve the people of his home state again if it is legally possible. The problem to this non-lawyer is it isn’t legally possible, but from what we’ve seen in the past it is probable.
