Random News and Notes 27 December

Those of you who have known this editor for any length of time know he is an avid outdoorsman and amateur naturalist. So this report out of the University of East Anglia caught my eye. Researchers, led by Dr. Alice Godden, studied blood from 17 polar bears and found higher transposon activity in five from the warmer southeast region, that they linked to metabolism, heat stress, and aging adaptations.

Yeah. Let’s clear a few things up. This study looked at 17 bears across two populations and three sampling periods. The two populations – north and south Greenland – have been distinct groups for at least 200 years, probably longer. That means northern bears and southern bears do not interact or mate. The group they claim are mutating – and that is what rapid changes in DNA is – are the southern bears. Can you guess how many bears from that population were sampled? 5.

Am I saying this is bad science? No, the data is what it is. I am saying the conclusions, particularly the attempt to tie changes to temperature changes, are dogshit.

ake this quote from the lead researcher, Dr Godden: “As the rest of the species faces extinction, these specific bears provide a genetic blueprint for how polar bears might be able to adapt quickly to climate change, making their unique genetic code a vital focus for conservation efforts.” 

Whatever else she might say in that single sentence, the claim polar bears are facing extinction is bunk. There are more polar bears – across all the populations -now than there have been since scientists started keeping track.

We all know why the global warming retards settled on the polar bear as the face of the crisis; they are cute and cuddly looking. The fact is, they are one of the few apex predators that actively hunt humans. They see us as food. The video below was taken at a research facility on Jan Mayen, a Norwegian island in the Arctic Ocean.

That bear was looking for calories. And had that snowmobile not been there, he would have found them.

The public assistance fraud scandal in Minnesota keeps getting bigger. An independent videographer, Nick Shirley, went to several ‘day cares’ and ‘autism care centers’ in the state only to find they were all shams.

There were 14 companies receiving state or federal funding in that one building alone. SOme of the more recent estimates put the total amount of fraud – just fraud – at more than $9 billion.

TF are we doing? I mean, fraud is bad m’kay, but can’t we have homegrown fraudsters? Do we really need to import them from fcuking Somalia of all places? This is why we can’t have nice things. . .

There was a shooting at a Sheriff’s office in Wallace Idaho yesterday. This would, at first appearance, look to be a local-ish story. However, that department was under federal investigation for the actions of the recently resigned Sheriff, Holly Lindsay.

At this point, the shooter Is dead and has not been ID’ed. The wounded are a dispatcher and two civilians. None of the injuries are life-threatening.