Quiet Thursday with continuing snow. A "What if?" map of the US. Other miscellaneous thoughts.

The snow continues here with lake effect kicking in.  I think we got about six additional inches.  And it will be around for a while because the temperatures won't break 30 for at least the next week.

The Daily Mail has a map of what the U.S. might look like if the myriad separatist movements succeeded.  I noticed that the professor who drew up the map missed one newer movement--the counties in northeast Colorado that want to form their own state after a drought-plagued summer contending with water restrictions imposed by Denver.

I was simply totally flummoxed by this bit of officious insanity.  The screeners opened a musician's luggage when he wasn't present.  They didn't know what they were dealing with and didn't consult the owner before destroying hand made musical instruments they decided were "agricultural" products.

I read a month or so ago that fishing authorities were considering canceling the Maine Shrimp season this year.  I guess it was officially closed because of a "precipitous" decline in shrimp numbers.  They cite over fishing and warmer than normal water temperatures as cause.

So Colorado now has a "legal" recreational marijuana industry that is taxed and regulated.  I put that in quotes because the Feds have no such thing and they have staged raids in several states that have "legal" medical marijuana over the last couple of years as the clamor for legalization has grown.

The title of this article is interesting: California in a drought--who knew?  I suspect most Californians (and most of us Urbanized Americans generally) won't know a thing until we are inconvenienced by restrictions that turn our lawns brown and our cars dusty gray, or until the taps don't flow.  I am thankful that the drought here has ended but I know how quickly we might go into drought again.  All it takes is a prolonged dry pattern.

Now I do like this development!!  I always thought the drug testing requirements were more about punishing people for being poor than about drug enforcement or public health.  Florida would have more cause to institute a blanket testing of its congressmen than its poor since one was caught with cocaine, pleaded guilty and is serving a term of therapy.  I wonder if some poor welfare recipient would have gotten off that easily.  And I'll bet not.