Life's a beach

And then you die

Posted by Kate Sheppard at 9:19 AM on 11 Aug 2007

Read more about: green living | water pollution | health | waste

woman on beach According to a new report released this week by the Natural Resources Defense Council, there were 25,000 beach closings or "swimming advisory days" in 2006. That's 28 percent more than in 2005, and the highest number since they started keeping records on that sort of thing. Some 1,300 days of closings were attributed to sewage spills and overflows, and even more were closed because of "fecal contamination," which reminds me of that gross-yet-informative Flushie video that I posted on a while ago.

According to the report:

Exposure to bacteria, viruses and parasites in contaminated beach water can cause a wide range of diseases, including ear, nose and eye infections; gastroenteritis; hepatitis; encephalitis; skin rashes; and respiratory illnesses. Most waterborne disease outbreaks in the United States occur during the summer, when Americans are most likely to be exposed to contaminated beach water. Experts estimate that as many as 7 million Americans get sick every year from drinking or swimming in water contaminated with bacteria, viruses or parasites.

Uh, yeah. Plus, it's nasty. And of course, children, the elderly, and the already-sickly are the most susceptible to diseases that they catch from swimming in contaminated water. And while there were problems in every beach-having state in the union, the worst beaches were in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Rhode Island, and Minnesota. There's a list of the best and worst specific beaches here.

For story: Life's a beach
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Party Like It's 1934

Blogger Finds Y2K Bug in NASA Climate Data
http://www.dailytech.com/Blogger+Finds+Y2K+Bug+in+NASA+Cl ...

"Hansen refused to provide McKintyre with the algorithm used to generate graph data, so McKintyre reverse-engineered it. The result appeared to be a Y2K bug in the handling of the raw data.

McKintyre notified the pair of the bug; Ruedy replied and acknowledged the problem as an "oversight" that would be fixed in the next data refresh.

NASA has now silently released corrected figures, and the changes are truly astounding. The warmest year on record is now 1934. 1998 (long trumpeted by the media as record-breaking) moves to second place. 1921 takes third. In fact, 5 of the 10 warmest years on record now all occur before World War II. Anthony Watts has put the new data in chart form, along with a more detailed summary of the events."

Reconstructed NASA temperature data from the horse's mouth..1934 hottest year on record.

http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/Fig.D.txt

by jabailo at 12:46 PM on 11 Aug 2007

More on 1934...

has the correct links to source:

http://soundpolitics.com/archives/009056.html

by jabailo at 12:59 PM on 11 Aug 2007

stupid and foolish or just a nazi.

I think that Global Warming is a problem for future generations and that fossil fuel depleation will also be a problem. Both problems can be solved with the same solutions.

Maybe because I think that Global Warming is a problem, I'm stupid and foolish. could be. But does that make me a Stalist, some leftist retread from years gone by? Do I just want control and power? who knows. maybe that's what I want.

I had a parent who grew up during 1930's and 1940's Nazi Germany. I studied some about that time and how the National Socialists would intimidate and make fun those who disagreed with the Nazi's as communists, leftists, only bent on bringing Germany down. If only we had the true Germans, we would have won World War I is what the right wing in Germany would say to everybody who disagreed with them.

Maybe I'm stupid and foolish for thinking Global Warming is going to be a problem. But to say that Global Warming can not be a problem, that anybody who thinks Global Warming is a problem is some Leftist, Stalinist is being dishonest and maybe stupid and foolish.

Go ahead, call everybody who think's that Global Warming ia a problem a Leftist, Stalinist. But that makes you a Nazi more than you might want to admit.

You're a Stalinist. No, you're a Nazi.

Are you happy now?

by trock at 7:32 AM on 13 Aug 2007

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