ConservaCity

Humor for Today: We Need Some Relief!

2009-02-19T10:05:00.000-08:00

Item 1: (from a friend's email)

The Republican Fisherman
A woman in a hot air balloon realized she was lost. She lowered her altitude and spotted a man in a boat below.

She shouted to him, 'Excuse me, can you help me? I promised a friend I would meet him an hour ago, but I don't know where I am.'

The man consulted his portable GPS and replied, 'You're in a hot air balloon, approximately 30 feet above a ground elevation of 2346 feet above sea level. You are at 31 degrees, 14.97 minutes north latitude and 100 degrees, 49.09 minutes west longitude.'

She rolled her eyes and said, 'You must be a Republican.'

'I am,' replied the man. 'How did you know?'

'Well,' answered the balloonist, ' everything you told me is technically correct, but I have no idea what to do with your information, and I'm still lost. Frankly, you've not been much help to me'

The man smiled and responded, 'You must be a Democrat.'

'I am,' replied the balloonist. 'How did you know?'

'Well,' said the man, 'you don't know where you are or where you are going.

You've risen to where you are, due to a large quantity of hot air.

You made a promise that you have no idea how to keep, and you expect me to solve your problem.

You're in exactly the same position you were in before we met, but, somehow, now it's my fault.

Item 2:
Obama Whiplash by Tom Tomorrow (Seen at Salon)

Item 3: (People's Cube} Also see Three Republican Stooges

Item 4: "Hear No People" posted by Doctor Bulldog who comments:
... in the spirit of a time-honored tradition of artfully representing Presidents as monkeys, I submit the following for all you racist Libtards to freak out over:

Tags:fisherman joke,tom tomorrow,obama whiplash,obama chimp,bush chimp,chimp attack,three stooges,republican stooges,hear no people

Sarah and Amina: We Must Never Forget,,,

2009-02-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

....and God speed the day we capture their murdering father Yaser Abdel Said!

Friends of Sarah and Amina Said present a pictorial tribute:

Amina and Sarah

See: Jihad Watch, Gringo Ranch, Habits Not Peculiar (1/01/09), Atlas Shrugs
h/t Gringo Ranch

Tags:sarah and amina,jihad watch,yaser said,muslim honor killings,gringo ranch,atlas shrugs,said sisters,americas most wanted

Blog Moving, Now Appearing at....

2008-11-22T09:18:00.000-08:00

Latest postings for this webblog are now found at http://conservacity.us Please look for us there; thanks!

Bozo the Clown Dead....

2008-07-05T13:03:00.000-07:00

Bozo the Clown is dead; Long Live Bozos!
Larry Harmon, who purchased the rights to Bozo from Capitol Records, is dead at 83. Harmon's franchise spawned a worldwide spewing of Bozos only recently diminished by the decline in such TV franchises. Despite Harmon's attempt to corner the Bozo market the name has entered the lexicon and "bozo" has come to mean " a man who is a stupid incompetent fool" or "an informal term for a youth or man; 'a nice guy'".

(MP3 "Down With the Clown" attached below)

Tags:clowns,bozo the clown,bozo,bozos,larry harmon

Dugout Paddlers Off For Florida...

2008-06-08T10:55:00.000-07:00

Middletown Press reports today:

MIDDLETOWN — With a grey-clouded sky over the river five brave boaters set out for Key West in dugout canoes Thursday.

Setting forth in two handcrafted dugouts, Captain George Frick and four crew members headed down the Connecticut River towards Saybrook and the open water beyond. They are then to head down Long Island Sound to New York and then traverse the Inland (IntraCoastal) Waterway to Florida, a journey that will take about 6 weeks. We reported earlier on the making of the canoes and on an earlier trip down river to Greenport, Long Island. The photo at top is from an earlier excursion on the river and the one below is a view of two incomplete dugouts taken in Harbor Park, Middletown last year. A full account of the earlier trip can be read here and here (PDF). The top photo is from that site.

Here is an excerpt from a web site documenting the building of the canoes:

THE PROJECT
Getting the tree
An Eastern cottonwood tree -- 60 feet in length and 12 feet in circumference -- had been
identified on Wilcox Island under the Arrigoni Bridge. Ron Klattenberg, Middletown City
Council member and project organizer, observed that there were several auspicious signs
for this project. The first was the weather. The massive tree identified to be cut down for the
project fell during a storm; then subsequent days of rain helped wash the tree trunk down
parallel to the river for launching.
The cottonwood was floated downriver to Harbor Park in Middletown. Clients went
upriver to watch the process. Not only were the clients watching, so were police, fire and
Coast Guard boats. Everyone marveled at how George Frick, president of Friends of the
Connecticut River, was able to manage to straddle the tree without falling off, then to bring
it to shore.
Crafting the canoe: Trial and error
Now it was time for the AIC clients to begin the arduous and grueling process of chopping,
burning, and carving the tree into a canoe. Under the guidance of George Frick and Ron
Klattenberg, the young men set to work hollowing and carving out the dugout canoe. For
a month they burned the wood to make it soft, then dug out the tree, all the while using
primitive tools. Each day they carved, cooked lunch over the burning embers, then carved
some more. While there are no historical records as to how the Indians in fact crafted these
boats, Frick had some knowledge of the methods and type of shape that would be necessary
to make this journey successful.

Tags: dugout canoes,paddling to florida,connecticut river,middletown ct,george frick

Bird Mites and Human Infestation....

2008-06-07T10:36:00.000-07:00

News articles today(here and video here) about a Long Island woman, infested with bird mites, who was taken from her home in a HazMat suit and put in quarantine isolation gave me quite a jolt. The woman was most likely infested by mites from an abandoned bird nest in her bathroom vent.

While I don't have any of the horrific symptoms of this type of bird mite infestation I live in close proximity to birds and regularly feed them. Birds, mainly sparrows and starlings, nest in the eaves, gutters and crannies of my house and I have several feeders on my porch. Doctors are quoted in the stories saying that, although the bird mites can cause extreme discomfort to humans they don't feed on humans, only attacking them when their bird host dies or leaves the nest.

Several websites (here and here) dealing with these pests strongly disagree with that assessment saying there are numerous instances of people driven to the brink of suicide by total household and personal infestation depriving them of sleep, causing constant torment. One man bought a parakeet in the hope that the mites would attack the bird and leave him alone. They got the poor bird alright, attacking it so hard that it had to be put down, but the pests remained in the home. Below is a photograph of a Northern fowl mite, one of several type of bird mites.

The Long Island woman, Nina Bradica, gave this account of her ordeal:

"My whole shower was covered with them," said Bradica, 45. "I didn't even know they were there at first, I was drying myself with my towel in the bathroom. That's how they got on me."

One of Bradica's doctors told CBS 2 HD bird mites can be a very severe problem.

"They can be a nuisance and some people have been infected for years with these bird mites and have had difficulty eradicating them," said Dr. Kenneth Steier.
Added Dr. Shadab Ahmed of Nassau Medical Center, "They can stick to the body. They are extremely tiny. I just sent three to be tested to the parasitology lab for identification."

Doctors say there is absolutely no public health hazard. Mites can't feed off human skin and will eventually drop off, but until then …
Bradica tried to describe her discomfort.

"They do go inside you. They go in your nose. They go in your ears. They go in your mouth."
she is covered with welts and red bumps and wonders if her home will ever be livable again.

Tags: bird mites,human bird mite infestation,birds,bird feeders,bird nest in home,household pests

Barack Obama at Wesleyan Commencement....

2008-05-25T14:30:00.000-07:00

This will be a blog posting on the fly today. First a photo essay (a beautiful day for photography by the way) from Obama's appearance at Wesleyan University in Middletown to give the 176th annual commencement address in place of the ailing Ted Kennedy. Following the photos there will be an 8 minute video of the event and later I will add some comments about the address and also about remarks by President Michael Roth.

Funny, Obama thought he was at Wellesley; listen at around 6:10 in the video. (Omitted from the Obama campaign official You Tube video posted on Wesleying blog) And the Courant's blogger Melissa Pionzio thought she was at Palmer Field instead of Andrus Field ("Well, I'm here sitting under the trees on the side of Palmer field where the Wesleyan Commencement ceremonies will begin in about 45 minutes.") She also seems alarmed by the obvious presence of heavily armed security agents:

"There appears to be sharp shooters of some kind atop the glass connection between the campus chapel and I think Judd Hall (home of the psychology dept.) They are in black, with their arms folded - looks like there are about four of them. A woman with binoculars behind me confirmed that they have rifles up there, yikes!!

The following video runs a little over 8 minutes:

value="http://www.youtube.com/v/4rVk5EFV7Cw&hl=en">
Tags: barack obama at wesleyan,barack obama,ted kennedy,wesleyan university,middletown ct,wesleyan commencement,global warming,climate change,progressive politics,michael roth,wesleying,

All Quiet Now on Wesleyan Campus....

2008-05-18T19:54:00.000-07:00

In the few days following the tumultuous events of last week (the police student confrontation*), peace has returned to the campus just in time for next weekend's reunion and commencement celebrations. Following is a portion of the university's announcement about the 176th Commencement. Senator Ted Kennedy was scheduled to be the speaker but his appearance remains doubtful because of recent health issues.

The 176th Commencement Ceremony (11 AM May 25)
The Commencement Ceremony will be available live by Webcast. Please go to http://wescast.wesleyan.edu for details about how you can view the ceremony.
A live broadcast of the Commencement ceremony will be available in the Memorial Chapel, Patricelli '92 Theater, Crowell Concert Hall, and Tishler Lecture Hall (Room 150), Exley Sciene Center, rain or shine. The ceremony may also be viewed online. Please check this site for details the week of May 18, 2008.
In case of inclement weather, you may also call the main University number at 860/685-2000 to determine whether or not the University will institute the rain plan for the Commencement Ceremony.

*The student-police clash created great controversy and charges and counter charges are in the air and on the blogosphere. We reported on it on Right of Middle; Wesleying blog has been all over it; Ed McKeon at Cauterwaled weighed in; the student run Wesleyan Argus published a special edition, also see Hartford Courant and Middletown Press.

On April 6 last we reported on an incident involving several students and one Middletown police officer.

Finally, an historical note regarding Wesleyan town/gown, police/student relations: On May Day 1954 following a veterans parade on Washington Street there occurred a near riot on campus. Right of Middle reported (April 30, 2007):

....events of the previous Sunday (Loyalty Day) when some Wesleyan students clashed with police and VFW members during a parade through town and onto the campus. The disturbance garnered nationwide attention, with charges of subversion on campus....An informal band of students with musical instruments began to perform in front of the Delta Kappa Epsilon house. Other students with their instruments joined the band and they all marched on High St to Washington St where they turned around only to find themselves leading the VFW parade which had just come up Washington and turned onto High.....From this point forward confusion reigned. Police, in attempting to clear the streets for the marchers, were accused of undue roughness although it was evident that a number of students provoked the officers. At least one student, Terry Hatter, was taken into custody; other students refused to doff their hats when the flag passed and were rebuked by police.

The commotion continued onto Andrus Field, The Argus reported::

The police then began to disperse the students. the marchers who had been standing on the other side of the stret started to cross the steet, saying something about “un-peace” apparently in reference to the sign. By the time they had reached the other side the students had been herded into the house by the police. The bulk of the paraders had reached Andrus field by this time and were awaiting the start of the speeches. Several inquisitive students had gathered behind Denison Terrace to view the proceedings. It was this time that the German Swastika flag, a trophy brought to Wesleyan by a veteran paratrooper after the war, was seen hanging from a dormitory window. The flag had been brought to the dormitory from the Alpha Delta Phi house, where it had been hanging for about twenty minutes. The Alpha Delta had gotten the flag from students who had been dissuaded from hanging it at the Beta Theta Pi house. (The Argus from the period-pdf)

Ahh youth....Happy Spring and Best Wishes to all new grads,,,We return to serenity below....

Steadyjohn photos
Tags: wesleyan u,mddletown ct,police student clash,students riot,police brutality

Connecticut's Largest Tree....

2008-05-17T09:25:00.000-07:00

Although the world's largest living organism is a fungus in Oregon it, sadly for observers, is almost entirely underground. Not so the Pinchot Sycamore on the east bank of the Farmington River in Weataug (Simsbury). Standing tall at nearly 100 feet and with a circumference of over 28 feet this sycamore is the largest tree in Connecticut and the largest sycamore in New England. In the aerial view below the full canopy of the tree can be seen next the open area immediately to the right of the bridge at the road side.

In April 2000 the Hartford Courant described the tree and its surroundings:

Nobody knows exactly how old it is, but it is almost certainly two centuries old, and it may be three centuries old. It is named for Gifford Pinchot, a Simsbury native who became the first head of the U.S. Forest Service, a governor of Pennsylvania and co-founder of what today is the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.....It is the state's largest tree of any kind, it is the largest sycamore in New England and, latest information suggests, it may be tied with a tree in Bath, Va., for honors as the largest sycamore in the United States. It appears to be healthy.

Tags: largest tree ct,farmington river,gifford pinchot,pinchot sycamore,simsbury ct

Great Tits Cope Well With Warming....

2008-05-17T09:20:00.000-07:00

The blog title above is the actual headline from a BBC News article. The discussion is about how some British birds are coping (or not coping for that matter) with climatic changes. The Great Tit, for example is doing quite well, adapting to the earlier arrival of its Winter Moth caterpillar food by laying its eggs earlier. Thus the chicks have abundant food when they hatch. (from the article, emphasis added)

At least one of Britain's birds appears to be coping well as climate change alters the availability of a key food.

Researchers found that great tits are laying eggs earlier in the spring than they used to, keeping step with the earlier emergence of caterpillars.

Writing in the journal Science, they point out that the same birds in the Netherlands have not managed to adjust.

Understanding why some species in some places are affected more than others by climatic shifts is vital, they say.

Tags: birding,ornithology,bird studies,british birds,global warming affects birds,great tt,winter moth caterpillar

Animal Cruelty in China, an Olympic Disgrace....

2008-03-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I wrote to a friend:

The ChiComs care only for how they appear to a global audience. Hence their obsession with baby pandas and their present purge of cats. This on top of the routine abuse of animals in China's fur industries where animals are skinned alive or tourist attractions where unsuspecting cattle are released into a den of lions for the amusement of spectators. I say boycott the China Olympic Games.

In addition to the dispute over Tibet another shadow falls over the upcoming Summer Olympics in China: The blot of extreme animal cruelty displayed in the Chinese treatment of domestic cats and dogs. The Salon blog today features an article by Ted Kerasote depicting the gulf separating our Western view of hearthside pets from the Chinese indifference to the plight of such pets which are routinely tortured and slaughtered for food and/or fur. From the blog (not easy reading!):

Undercover videos taken for Swiss Animal Protection, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and the Humane Society show Chinese dogs and cats trucked to market without food and water, pulled from their cages, sometimes disemboweled, sometimes bashed on the ground to stun them, then hanged by wires, and skinned alive. These investigations led to a ban on the importation of dog and cat fur from the United States, Australia and a few countries in the Europe Union in the early 2000s. A full EU ban will take effect on Jan. 1, 2009

Tags: china animal cruelty, china olympics, chinese animal abuse, olympic boycott, salon, slaughter dogs cats

Easter Sunday on Indian Hill....

2008-03-24T14:43:00.000-07:00

The video below was made today at Indian Hill Cemetery in Middletown. The brownstone 1850 chapel is a hidden architectural gem tucked away on this hillside. It was very windy there today so some segments of the video are marred by a roaring wind sound.

Tags: middletown ct,indian hill cemetery chapel,small churches,easter cemetery tour

Falconry in Connecticut....

2008-03-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

DENNIS SANTANGELO, a sophomore in Middletown's Vocational Agriculture Center, examines the bone structure of a 3-year-old hawk held by falconer John White of Southbury.White and Jon D'Arpino, of West Hartford, holding his year-old hawk,gave a program on falconry to sophomores at the center. (BOB MACDONNEL Photo)

A little known aspect of hunting is the ancient practice and art of falconry which, yes, is legal in Connecticut as in most states. A recent Hartford Courant article reported on a visit to the Middletown Vocational Agriculture Centerby 2 of 16 Connecticut licensed falconers.

MIDDLETOWN — - Jon D'Arpino and John White tend to their red-tailed hawks as lovingly as a pet owner looks after the family dog. They provide the birds with de-worming tablets, vitamin powder and a special spray to get rid of feather lice. When the raptors are unable to hunt for their own wild prey, they feed them a diet of thawed quail and day-old chicks, ordered frozen on the Internet. And when their tail feathers break, they patch them with small pieces of wood. As two of only 16 licensed falconers in the state, D'Arpino and White are members of a very small circle. Falconry, the use of wild raptors to hunt, was legalized by the legislature in 1998; it took another seven years for the state Department of Environmental Protection to approve regulations governing the sport.

Falconry is closely regulated by the state and federal governments. In Connecticut there are 3 levels of practitioners: Apprentice Class Falconer, General Class Falconer, and Master Class Falconers. Some quotes from the CT DEP on the subject follow:

Allowable Raptor Species to be used for Falconry in Connecticut
(NOTE: No raptors may be taken from the wild in Connecticut.)

Red-tailed Hawks, Prairie Falcons, Merlins or Harris's Hawks taken from the wild in another state:

any captive-bred raptor species; and

any species of hybrid raptors, provided that the hybrid is sterile and unable to breed with wild native raptors.

Is Falconry for You?
Falconry is the sport of hunting small game species with trained raptors. The sport of falconry has a rich history throughout the world and the basic components have changed little over time. Falconry requires a considerable amount of dedication, knowledge, skill, time, and resources. If you are interested in becoming a falconer you must be prepared to provide for the day-to-day needs of one or more raptors. These needs include feeding, housing, training, exercising, and ensuring that the bird has appropriate veterinary care.

Permitting Requirements
To participate in the sport of falconry you must obtain a Connecticut and federal falconry permit (PDF 330k 5 pages). State and federal falconry authorization must be attained prior to obtaining a falconry bird. Based upon your experience, knowledge and ability, you may apply for a federal and a state permit to practice falconry as an apprentice class, general class, or master class falconer.

More information is available at the Falcon and Raptor Educational Foundation.

The video below is a somewhat humorous look at the history of the activity from a U.K. production:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ufstmgDtNrM&hl=en]

Finally, a view of a Harris' Hawk, a bird only coming into use in falconry in the last 30 years or so. The image is from the interesting web site http://www.primitiveways.com/Image3/falconry4.jpg

Tagged: ct falconers, ct falconry law, falconry, falconry in connecticut, history falconry, hunting with falcons

O'Rourke's Diner Redux....

2008-02-11T17:53:00.000-08:00

Brian O'Rourke opened his, or should we say the community's, diner today for the first time since the disastrous fire many moons ago. According to the staff it was gangbusters from 5 Am 'till closing at 3 PM. I didn't get a chance to interview Brian this afternoon but hope to do so in the near future.

Tags: middletown ct, orourkes diner

Bird Feeder Hazards....

2008-01-17T08:29:00.000-08:00

And you thought you had only the squirrels to worry about!

The "Silver Lining" in Global Warming....

2008-01-14T18:45:00.000-08:00

The "silver lining" in Global Warming, the Destruction of Conservatism in America....
Far left reporter Dave Lindorff (Wesleyan '71) writing in the Baltimore Chronicle (12/22/07) opines:

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.....The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.....
So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.....So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation’s vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics.

(emphasis added)

This is nutty stuff folks. This is the most extreme form of climate change alarmism and clearly illustrates the underlying political agenda; i.e anti-capitalism and destruction of conservatism, United Nations usurpation of our national sovereignty, and other far left nostrums. There is recent, albeit limited, evidence that Global Warming has actually ceased. Astrophysicist David Whitehouse writing in "The New Statesman" (U.K.) 12/19/07) states:

With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.

But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.....For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.

Dr. Whitehouse does not reject the CO2/Greenhouse Gas science. Clearly CO2 emissions are rising but CO2 comprises only an extremely tiny fraction of the earth's atmosphere. Its present concentration is roughly 390 ppm up from 315 ppm in 1960 when accurate measurements of this sort became feasible. To visualize the quantity of CO2 in our atmosphere, imagine the atmosphere as a 100 yard football gridiron. On this scale Nitrogen (78%) would occupy all of the field down to the 22 yard line; Oxygen (21%), would bring us to the 1 yard line where Argon (1%) would bring us to the final inch line of which only a small fraction of that would signify the volume of CO2! This comparison is mentioned in Michael Crichton's "State of Fear"; a similar example, using stadium spectators instead of the gridiron, itself can be found here.

An extended discussion of the CO2 problem and related matters can be found at the EcoWorld website. Here, in an interview titled "Beyond Global Warming", climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr. throws much light on the subject. He says to blame all of the perceived changes in climate on CO2 emissions is wrong. Important factors being overlooked and/or underreported are changing patterns of land use and land cover. He says:

With respect to extreme weather, a much more important issue than how greenhouse gases are altering our climate is society's greatly increased vulnerability to extreme weather events - a direct result not of changes in weather but of increased settlement by expanding human populations into low-lying coastal regions, floodplains, and marginal arid land.

Roger Pielke Sr. is a retired professor of atmospheric science at Colorado State University, Ft. Collins, and a senior research scientist at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Since July 2005 he has written and maintained Climate Science, a blog that serves as a scientific forum for dialogue and commentary on climate issues. With William R. Cotton, he is the co-author of Human Impacts on Weather and Climate (Cambridge University Press, 2007).

Also please see our recent posting on ConservaCity "Global Warming Hoax Losing Ground"

A One Float Parade....

2008-01-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

The moving of buildings, large and small, is a tradition here in New England. Years ago thrifty Yankees would recycle their buildings in many ways. Post and beam houses were disassembled and erected elsewhere. Entire buildings were jacked off their foundations, lowered onto log rollers, hitched to large teams of oxen or horse and taken to their new location. When lumber was cheap and iron nails dear, old houses would be burned for their nail content! Today, methods have changed but the tradition of moving buildings continues. The building moved yesterday, a former Methodist church built in 1853, was moved 2 blocks from #9 Liberty St. to #47 Rapallo Av. here in the city. Further North on Main St, the building next to O'Rourke's Diner, also a church, was moved to that spot many years ago. Much more recent is the dismantling of the 18th century mill on Washington St. near West. St., and just several weeks ago, the dismantling of an 18th century house on West St, just above the Gulf station. These buildings have been preserved and will be erected elsewhere.

This particular move required much planning and co-ordination among the consulting overseer, the moving contractor, various utilities, and the CT DOT. Traffic lights street lamps, and utility lines had to be temporarily taken down or protected from the huge building which would take over most of Main Street for its passage. This preliminary work was done early Saturday evening and traffic was rerouted to enable the crews to work unimpeded. All was ready around 1:30 AM Sunday morning and the building was then seen to inch its way off the corner lot, over the curb, and onto Main Street. Once there and heading North one could measure its progress in inches per hour! It was a fascinating spectacle, one that attracted quite a few observers despite the late hour. All in all, a slow motion parade with only a single float; not something you see everyday! Oh, and this building will be converted into four low income housing units on Liberty St as part of the revitalization of the city's North End, and will make way for commercial development of its former site at Liberty and Main.

Middletown North End Action Team (N.E.A.T.) Community Organizer Lydia Brewster

The North End Action Team is a grassroots advocacy group that began in the spring of 1997.
Purpose of N.E.A.T.as a non-profit community organization, shall, through its members and the Advisory Board, organize and mobilize the residents in the neighborhood, empowering them through a process of democratic decision-making and direct action, to address particular issues affecting the neighborhood. This corporation will propose neighborhood initiatives, design and produce communal events and fulfill the function of watchdog at City Hall and in the state government. N.E.A.T. shall not endorse political candidates or parties.

Our Mission:
The North End Action Team is a neighborhood advocacy group consisting of residents and stakeholders of the North End neighborhood of Middletown, Connecticut. It's mission is to enrich and advocate for neighborhood interest.

N.E.A.T.'s storefront headquarters at Main St. and Rapallo Ave Middletown

Sign announcing the project featuring the major tenant It's Only Natural Market

Developer Peter Harding (r) and Nehemiah Housing Corp.'s Michael Taylor (c)

In 1986, Middletown community members formed Nehemiah Housing Corporation to develop and operate a range of housing options for families and individuals who are unable to find quality affordable housing. Nehemiah builds communities by developing affordable housing for families and individuals with resident services and quality property management, as appropriate, with a focus on Middlesex County.

The happy new tenants: Don and Ann Marie Sataline owners of It's Only Natural Market

Brian Cigal of TimberFrame Barn Conversions enjoys coffee and snacks provided for workers and spectators at N.E.A.T. headquarters by Lydia Brewster (r)

N.E.A.T. hospitality!

Workers dwarfed by the huge building and its carriage! John deNicholas (l) , Nicholas Bros., supervising.

Hydraulically powered aircraft type wheels and tires inch the building forward

Halfway into Main Street, starting to turn and head North

Moving North on Main Street; estimated speed an inch a minute!

Paul Cigal (r), overseer of project with Joe deNicholas, of Nicholas Bros.,the moving contractor,

I spoke with Paul Cigal today about his professional experiences and his involvement in this moving project:

Over the last 20+ years in the building trade and historic preservation field, I've had experience coordinating projects that involve moving buildings on wheels; with cranes; and by taking apart, moving by flatbed truck, and reassembling at a new location. My friend and former partner, David Berto, is involved in this Middletown project with N.E.A.T., and he contacted me to ask if I would participate in this one. These types of challanging projects are just what I like to accomplish and I jumped at the chance. Working for Peter Harding as project coordinator, I solicitated bids from the trades, applied for and secured the many permits required for the move, and completed tons of paperwork. I'd guess I talked with more than 100 people over the course of two months in order to move this house.

Contact Paul Cigal at paul@convertabarn.com
Go to the Nicholas Bros. website to see amazing array of other buildings they have moved.

Hartford Courant articles yesterday, and earlier.

Also see Caterwauled blog for 7/3/07 ,8/9/07, and 10/1/07. for discussion of some of the controversy regarding this project.

Moving Day: 9 Liberty Street....

2008-01-11T21:12:00.000-08:00

ConservaCity Photo

Update added 1/12/08: Long, interesting article in today's Hartford Courant about the building and the move.

As part of the Liberty Square project this historically important former church at 9 Liberty Street in the city will be moved Saturday to a new site on Rapallo Avenue. Details of the move including traffic information are reprinted below from the Hartford Courant (1/10/08):

MIDDLETOWN — - During the late evening hours of Saturday through early morning Sunday, a house will be moved from the intersection of Main and Liberty streets to 47 Rapallo Ave.

Traffic will be restricted on area streets from 6:30 p.m. Saturday to 2 a.m. Sunday. Grand Street traffic will be closed to eastbound through traffic, although local access will be maintained for parking lots and residents.

Starting about 2 a.m., the house will start moving north. Northbound lanes of Main Street will be closed at Washington Street and traffic will be detoured to Dekoven Drive to Rapallo Avenue to get to the Arrigoni Bridge and Route 9. Southbound Main Street traffic will be detoured onto Grand and Pearl streets to get to Route 66.

The house will be moved onto Rapallo Avenue no later than 7 a.m., and Main Street will be re-opened. That section of Dekoven Drive and Rapallo Avenue will be closed to through traffic until the house is placed on the lot.

Parking on Main Street between Grand and Liberty streets and on portions of Rapallo Avenue will be prohibited starting at 10 p.m. Saturday.

For more information call the traffic bureau at 860-344-3265.

Also see Caterwauled blog for 7/3/07 ,8/9/07, and 10/1/07.

Tags: liberty square middletown ct,house moving,historic middletown ct,

Practical Scots Adapt to Inevitable....

2008-01-10T10:03:00.000-08:00

Here are two recent headlines from The Scotsman (U.K.):

1) Big freeze takes hold as snow smothers Scotland
January 3, 2008:

"SNOW hit parts of Scotland today as forecasters predicted the first significant fall of the winter.

The Met Office issued a severe weather warning covering almost the entire country, with heavy snow predicted for much of Scotland."
2)Bad weather - we have to get used to it
January 10,2008:
METEOROLOGISTS last night said Scots will need to learn to live with the extreme weather and the chaos it has brought to the country over the past few days, as the unpredictable effects of climate change begin to bite.....As the wind whipped around Holyrood, politicians were told to expect major climate changes as a result of global warming.
(emphasis added)
The video below provides a good overview of the media driven hype on "global warming" and the one sided, so far, view of the science involved. As Glenn Beck says in the concluding moments of the video: "The debate is not over..in fact, it's just beginning".

Hot It's Not (Exposing the Gore Fraud)

2008-01-06T09:22:00.000-08:00

Even the MSM is starting to notice the hype and alarmism regarding climate change. To update our previous post (see below) we now find this interesting op-ed by Jeff Jacoby in today's Boston Globe (1/6/08).

...."2007 to be 'warmest on record,' " BBC News reported on Jan. 4, 2007. Citing experts in the British government's Meteorological Office, the story announced that "the world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007," surpassing the all-time high reached in 1998.....But a funny thing happened on the way to the planetary hot flash: Much of the planet grew bitterly cold.....In South America, for example, the start of winter last year was one of the coldest ever observed..... In Buenos Aires, it snowed for the first time in 89 years, while in Peru the cold was so intense that hundreds of people died....University of Oklahoma geophysicist David Deming, a specialist in temperature and heat flow, notes in the Washington Times that "unexpected bitter cold swept the entire Southern Hemisphere in 2007.....Closer to home, 44.5 inches of snow fell in New Hampshire last month, breaking the previous record of 43 inches, set in 1876. And the Canadian government is forecasting the coldest winter in 15 years..... so relentlessly has the alarmist scenario been hyped, and so disdainfully have dissenting views been dismissed, that millions of people assume Gore must be right when he insists: "The debate in the scientific community is over."....But it isn't. Just last month, more than 100 scientists signed a strongly worded open letter pointing out that climate change is a well-known natural phenomenon, and that adapting to it is far more sensible than attempting to prevent it. (emphasis added)

The "Silver Lining" in Global Warming....

2007-12-29T11:44:00.000-08:00

The "silver lining" in Global Warming, the Destruction of Conservatism in America....

Far left reporter Dave Lindorff (Wesleyan '71) writing in the Baltimore Chronicle (12/22/07) opines:

Say what you will about the looming catastrophe facing the world as the pace of global heating and polar melting accelerates. There is a silver lining.....The area that will by completely inundated by the rising ocean—and not in a century but in the lifetime of my two cats—are the American southeast, including the most populated area of Texas, almost all of Florida, most of Louisiana, and half of Alabama and Mississippi, as well as goodly portions of eastern Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina.....

So what we see is that huge swaths of conservative America are set to face a biblical deluge in a few more presidential cycles.....So again, we will see the decline and depopulation of the nation’s vast midsection—noted for its consistent conservatism. Only in the northernmost area, around the Great Lakes (which will be not so great anymore), and along the Canadian border, will there still be enough rain for farming and continued large population concentrations, but those regions, like Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois, are also more liberal in their politics. (emphasis added)

This is nutty stuff folks. This is the most extreme form of climate change alarmism and clearly illustrates the underlying political agenda i.e anti-capitalism and destruction of conservatism, United Nations usurpation of our national sovereignty, and other far left nostrums. There is recent, albeit limited, evidence that Global Warming has actually ceased. Astrophysicist David Whitehouse writing in "The New Statesman" (U.K.) 12/19/07) states:

With only few days remaining in 2007, the indications are the global temperature for this year is the same as that for 2006 – there has been no warming over the 12 months.

But is this just a blip in the ever upward trend you may ask? No.

The fact is that the global temperature of 2007 is statistically the same as 2006 as well as every year since 2001. Global warming has, temporarily or permanently, ceased. Temperatures across the world are not increasing as they should according to the fundamental theory behind global warming – the greenhouse effect. Something else is happening and it is vital that we find out what or else we may spend hundreds of billions of pounds needlessly.....For the past decade the world has not warmed. Global warming has stopped. It’s not a viewpoint or a sceptic’s inaccuracy. It’s an observational fact. Clearly the world of the past 30 years is warmer than the previous decades and there is abundant evidence (in the northern hemisphere at least) that the world is responding to those elevated temperatures. But the evidence shows that global warming as such has ceased.

Dr. Whitehouse does not reject the CO2/Greenhouse Gas science. Clearly CO2 emissions are rising but CO2 comprises only an extremely tiny fraction of the earth's atmosphere. It's present concentration is roughly 390 ppm up from 315 ppm in 1960 when accurate measurements of this sort became feasible. To visualize the quantity of CO2 in our atmosphere, imagine the atmosphere as a 100 yard football gridiron. On this scale Nitrogen (78%) would occupy all of the field down to the 22 yard line; Oxygen (21%), would bring us to the 1 yard line where Argon (1%) would bring us to the final inch line of which only a small fraction of that would signify the volume of CO2! This comparison is mentioned in Michael Crichton's "State of Fear"; a similar example, using stadium spectators instead of the gridiron, itself can be found here.

An extended discussion of the CO2 problem and related matters can be found at the EcoWorld website. Here, in an interview titled "Beyond Global Warming", climate scientist Roger Pielke, Sr. throws much light on the subject. He says to blame all of the perceived changes in climate on CO2 emissions is wrong. Important factors being overlooked and/or underreported are changing patterns of land use and land cover. He says:

With respect to extreme weather, a much more important issue than how greenhouse gases are altering our climate is society's greatly increased vulnerability to extreme weather events - a direct result not of changes in weather but of increased settlement by expanding human populations into low-lying coastal regions, floodplains, and marginal arid land.

Coginchaug River Cleanup 9/29/07

2007-09-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

About 20 folks assembled this beautiful September morn for the annual cleanup of the Coginchaug River in Middletown CT. This effort is sponsored by the Connecticut River Watershed Council and other organizations. We found carpets, mattresses, tires, and shopping carts just to mention the larger items. Other assorted trash filled scores of large garbage bags. The city supplied materials handling supplies and trucks to haul away the debris.

This post also appears at http://conservacity.us
I apologize for earlier photos here which did not render properly for all viewers.

Wild Rice, Arrowroot, and Swallows (8/23/07)

2007-09-12T08:19:00.000-07:00

It was a picture perfect, autumn-like day on the Connecticut River yesterday with just enough headwind to test the paddlers' arms as the flotilla of canoes and kayaks gathered for the Floating Meadows Tour sponsored by The Jonah Center for Earth and Art. I paddled in the media canoe with Peter Marteka of the Courant whose column. The Path Less Traveled appears in the paper on Fridays. In the photo below Peter interviews Jonah Center executive director John Hall.

John Hall explained early on that because of the wind some folks might find the going difficult but only one crew had a problem, capsizing near the launch area. Once in the Mattabesset things were much calmer. John Hall explains:

It was, at first, a strenuous paddle into a stiff 17 mph breeze as 25 paddlers departed from Harbor Park and headed upriver, but the wind abated from that point on and we were well-rewarded for our effort. The Floating Meadows are in their glory at this time of year, with wild rice high and bright green, arrow root in purple bloom, swallows darting overhead, and the river water clearer at this time of year than at any other.

Last boats in at sunset ending a beautiful day!

Lots more photos here.

The Hidden World in Our Neighborhood

2007-08-25T21:02:00.000-07:00

That so stunningly magical a place as "The Floating Meadows" can exist unnoticed, under our very noses, is exposed today in Peter Marteka's excellent column in the Hartford Courant. Marteka writes a weekly piece called "The Path Less Traveled" and this weeks offering is an account of his, mine, and a couple dozen others' journey into the Mattabesset River and a hidden world of Wild rice, Arrowroot, and Swallows.

Marteka'a column begins.....

When I first decided to journey up the Connecticut and Mattabesset rivers, I had visions of my canoe tipping over because of strong currents, slapping away mosquitoes the size of blimps and paddling around half-sunk refrigerators and washing machines rusting in the murky water. Not even close.

Peter Marteka is pictured below as we near the bridges between Middletown and Portland.