Dam Failures

One of the worst ways to deny science is to ignore hazards to health, hazards which are well-understood by science. One of the least known dangers we face is from dam collapse.

During the early part of the 20th century, America's rivers became dammed at a prodigious rate. Virtually every major American river is dammed at multiple points. Virtually every dam is silting rapidly behind the dam, as the normal sediment flow is interrupted.

All dams are temporary, geologically-speaking. And our nation's dams, like so much of our infrastructure, are not holding up well.

As this recent report in the New York Times details, if you have water flowing out of your tap, you live downstream from a dam. You might not be directly in the flow expected from a dam failure, but many of your neighbors are.

Britain, the peninsula

When sea level started rising from its low point 17,000 years ago, the coastline of the world were dramatically changed. According to this recent BBC report,

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-12244964

Britain remained a peninsula, connected to Normandy, until 6,100 years ago, when a titanic tsunami inundated what would become the English Channel. So much for those wankers who say Britain shouldn't be in the EU.

Cops, or Libraries?

In reality this is not an either/or choice, but the police union in Los Angeles has just officially come out against libraries.

The union that represents LAPD officers came out strongly today against Measure L, an item on the March 8 ballot that would set aside funding for the Los Angeles Public Library system.

In a statement, Los Angeles Police Protective League President Paul Weber said the measure "will create more problems than it solves"

Although this seems typical for a state that spends more on its prison system and its university system, yet it is remarkable to see such posturing to plainly.

One way to guarantee disorder and strife is to create artificial scarcity. Scarcity pits cops against libraries, university students against administrators, families against banks. Only by reforming the financing of such institutions as libraries, universities, and the police force can we hope to end such useless, futile conflicts. It is the current chaotic financing system for public institutions that should be shut down, not libraries.