The Gough Map

The Daily Mail reports the oldest existing map of Britain, the Gough Map. Dating from around 1360, it is believed to be a copy of an older map which has not survived. It was bought by the cartographer it is named for in 1774 for half a crown. It is amazingly accurate.

There are the Severn, Thames and Humber, the loop of the Wear in Durham and the Thames estuary, all easily recognisable.

As are the more than 600 cities, towns and villages, almost 200 rivers, and a rudimentary road network marked with thin red lines and extending to some 3,000 miles.

Along with countless hills, mountains, lakes, forests - New Forest and Sherwood - and even Hadrian's Wall, labelled with its popular name, murus pictorum, the Picts' Wall.

The significance is enormous, as a new book reveals.

"It is the first modern map of Britain and the oldest surviving map which shows the coastline in recognisable form," says author Nick Millea, map librarian at Oxford University's Bodleian Library.

"All previous maps gave a theological interpretation, showing how Britain fitted into the Christian world.

"The Hereford Mappa Mundi from approximately the same time has Jerusalem as the centre of the world.

"Geography just wasn't important."

Named after topographer Richard Gough - who bought it in 1774 for half-a-crown (121/2p) and bequeathed it to the Bodleian Library - the map is drawn in pen, ink and coloured washes on two skins of vellum and measures almost 4ft long by 2ft wide.

Almost as surprising as the detail and the accuracy (if you discount misshapen Scotland) is the startling orientation - the original map was drafted to face east towards Jerusalem, rather than the north, because its topographers had not entirely abandoned their theological way of thinking.

Here's another image of the map with quite a lot more on it from the Bodleian Library Map Room. The Map Room itself has images of a lot of old maps and they have a link to the Oxford Digital Library maps on the web. Regulars around the Crabitat know that I love this kind of stuff. So, take a journey into the past and go look at some old maps.

Ski Amarillo

MSNBC reports on yet another major winter storm system sweeping across the midsection of the United States. This one has caused deaths and injuries, spread ice and snow and generally made life miserable from Texas to Indiana. Two inches of snow fell in Amarillo, Texas.

LUBBOCK, Texas - The nation's midsection saws more bad weather Thursday, this time a deadly storm that iced over parts of the Southern Plains as it moved northeast to cities like Chicago, St. Louis and Indianapolis.

Those cities could see several inches of snow, while Detroit, Cleveland and Pittsburgh could see similar amounts by Thursday night. The storm front is expected to turn to rain by the time it hits the Northeast seaboard on Friday.

In the Texas Panhandle, a snowstorm left three people dead and caused a 40-vehicle pileup that shut down an interstate for several hours.

One person was killed and at least two were injured in the pileup caused by blowing snow that limited visibility and slick, icy spots that made Interstate 40 treacherous, Texas Department of Public Safety Trooper Wayne Beighle said.

A fire truck rolled over while approaching the accident scene, and a firefighter suffered minor injuries. Two other people were killed, a pedestrian north of Amarillo and another person in Castro County southeast of Amarillo, officials said.

The system was moving eastward, bringing rain to the Southeast and up to a foot of snow to areas in Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio.

In Texas, Amarillo received more than 2 inches of snow.

Authorities advise extreme caution. Frankly, the best advice in weather like this is to stay home if at all possible. If you have to travel, slow down. A lot. While you may be able to get your vehicle up to a high speed in these conditions, your ability to stop and steer is severely limited. Which, unfortunately, too many people realize too late.

Staggering

Barack Obama raised $32 million dollars in the month of January alone. That is a staggering amount of money, as the Washington Post points out and may very well indicate exactly why the Clintons have been so very, very negative with Obama.

The campaign of Barack Obama will report having raised at least $32 million in the month of January, a staggering amount for one month, campaign manager David Plouffe said this morning.

That included contributions from 170,000 new donors. That brings the campaign's total number of contributors to 650,000, Plouffe said.

Plouffe said the money came in at a consistent pace throughout the month, but the campaign's strongest day of fundraising came the day after the New Hampshire primary, which Obama narrowly lost to Hillary Clinton.

"We took a lot of encouragment from that because it showed the resolve of our existing donor base," Plouffe said.

I certainly do not remember anything like the sheer amount of money that is in play for this election. Unless Hillary Clinton's number for the month is close, she's in trouble.

UPDATE: Bloomberg reports it is the largest amount ever taken in by a pesidential candidate in January.

Next Up For China: Food Shortages

The brutal winter continues to tie China in knots today, with tempers of stranded travelers beginning to flare. No relief is in sight, with still more snow being forecast. But it actually gets worse. Officials are now warning that many winter crops have been damaged or destroyed outright and that food shortages will result in the near future.

China is struggling to cope with its worst snowfall in decades, with officials warning of future food shortages as winter crops are wrecked.
The government is trying to convince people the situation is under control - praising officials and naming three men who died as "revolutionary martyrs".

But forecasters are warning of more snow and urging people not to travel.

The bad weather has affected millions of Chinese keen to return to their home villages over the New Year holiday.

Dozens are thought to have died as much of the country endures one of its harshest winters for half a century.

Scuffles and frustration

Communist Party official Chen Xiwen warned of a serious impact on crop production in the south of the country.

"The impact on fresh vegetables and on fruit in some places has been catastrophic," he said.

"If it heads northward, then the impact on the whole year's grain production will be noticeable."

Analysts say the destruction of crops will drive up food prices and fuel inflation, which has already risen rapidly over the past year.

China has called out the army to try to help clear snow and provide much-needed relief supplies, but the situation is grim at the moment. Meanwhile, in Britain, the British Press is developing a bizarre narrative, claiming that it has been a "mild" winter there, despite widespread flooding and a new wave of arctic cold that is battering the country at the moment.

Winter arrived with a vengeance today as blizzards and Arctic winds swept across parts of the country, with heavy snow to come.

Bitter gales and rain are bringing more misery to areas already hit by flooding earlier in the month.

MeteoGroup UK said Scotland and parts of southern England were being hit by gusty winds today, while freezing weather conditions have caused chaos on the roads.

Snow and hail even hit central London today, but the brief flurries of snow and hail are set to be followed by snowstorms tomorrow evening which could hit commuters travelling home, Met Office experts warned.

The snow was caused by a cold front moving across central London.

A 20-year-old man was seriously injured when a tree crashed onto his car at Guildford, Surrey. The high winds and cold temperatures are expected to last until Sunday.

"We expect to see a covering of snow for central London and outlying areas at rush hour tomorrow, and a lot of sleety showers as well," said a Met Office spokeswoman.

This is mild? I guess my dictionary is out of date.

Behind Blue Eyes

No one knows what it's like
To be the bad man
To be the sad man
Behind blue eyes

No one knows what it's like
To be hated
To be fated
To telling only lies
(Pete Townshend, Behind Blue Eyes)

A team of scientists report that they have tracked down the genetic mutation that causes blue eyes in humans. They say that their studies show that everyone with blue eyes can be traced back to a single ancestor who introduced the mutation into the population.

People with blue eyes have a single, common ancestor, according to new research.

A team of scientists has tracked down a genetic mutation that leads to blue eyes. The mutation occurred between 6,000 and 10,000 years ago, so before then, there were no blue eyes.

"Originally, we all had brown eyes," said Hans Eiberg from the Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine at the University of Copenhagen.

The mutation affected the so-called OCA2 gene, which is involved in the production of melanin, the pigment that gives color to our hair, eyes and skin.

"A genetic mutation affecting the OCA2 gene in our chromosomes resulted in the creation of a 'switch,' which literally 'turned off' the ability to produce brown eyes," Eiberg said.

The genetic switch is located in the gene adjacent to OCA2 and rather than completely turning off the gene, the switch limits its action, which reduces the production of melanin in the iris. In effect, the turned-down switch diluted brown eyes to blue.

If the OCA2 gene had been completely shut down, our hair, eyes and skin would be melanin-less, a condition known as albinism.

Oh sure, but they don't identify who the rascal was, do they? We here at Blue Crab Boulevard believe the culprit behind blue eyes was one Sheldon B. Ogg, a caveman from what is now Germany.

A Mackerel By Moonlight

He is a man of splendid abilities, but utterly corrupt. He shines and stinks like rotten mackerel by moonlight. Senator John Randolph of Virginia, commenting on fellow lawmaker Edward Livingston.

The New York Times reports on the whiff  of corruption that accompanies Bill Clinton wherever he goes. This time it is a huge donation to Clinton's foundation and a questionable business deal. Both Clinton and the donor deny wrongdoing, but the appearance is rather bad, any way you look at it.

Late on Sept. 6, 2005, a private plane carrying the Canadian mining financier Frank Giustra touched down in Almaty, a ruggedly picturesque city in southeast Kazakhstan. Several hundred miles to the west a fortune awaited: highly coveted deposits of uranium that could fuel nuclear reactors around the world. And Mr. Giustra was in hot pursuit of an exclusive deal to tap them.

Unlike more established competitors, Mr. Giustra was a newcomer to uranium mining in Kazakhstan, a former Soviet republic. But what his fledgling company lacked in experience, it made up for in connections. Accompanying Mr. Giustra on his luxuriously appointed MD-87 jet that day was a former president of the United States, Bill Clinton.

Upon landing on the first stop of a three-country philanthropic tour, the two men were whisked off to share a sumptuous midnight banquet with Kazakhstan’s president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, whose 19-year stranglehold on the country has all but quashed political dissent.

Mr. Nazarbayev walked away from the table with a propaganda coup, after Mr. Clinton expressed enthusiastic support for the Kazakh leader’s bid to head an international organization that monitors elections and supports democracy. Mr. Clinton’s public declaration undercut both American foreign policy and sharp criticism of Kazakhstan’s poor human rights record by, among others, Mr. Clinton’s wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.

Within two days, corporate records show that Mr. Giustra also came up a winner when his company signed preliminary agreements giving it the right to buy into three uranium projects controlled by Kazakhstan’s state-owned uranium agency, Kazatomprom.

The monster deal stunned the mining industry, turning an unknown shell company into one of the world’s largest uranium producers in a transaction ultimately worth tens of millions of dollars to Mr. Giustra, analysts said.

Just months after the Kazakh pact was finalized, Mr. Clinton’s charitable foundation received its own windfall: a $31.3 million donation from Mr. Giustra that had remained a secret until he acknowledged it last month. The gift, combined with Mr. Giustra’s more recent and public pledge to give the William J. Clinton Foundation an additional $100 million, secured Mr. Giustra a place in Mr. Clinton’s inner circle, an exclusive club of wealthy entrepreneurs in which friendship with the former president has its privileges.

I mentioned before that Clinton and scandal are riveted together at the wrists and ankles. There will be more and more of this sort of thing coming out throughout the year, that you can be assured of. John Randolph would have recognized Bill Clinton for what he is on sight, I suspect.

The Problem Is Even Worse

The Department of Energy has pulled out of a project that would have built a pilot clean coal power plant with carbon sequestration. The reason given by the Washington Post: cost overruns. While cost is, indeed, the major factor, it is actually a little worse than that.

The Energy Department said yesterday that it would ask for new proposals from companies seeking federal aid for capturing and storing carbon dioxide released by coal-fired power plants, officially shelving the FutureGen Alliance project that the Bush administration had supported for five years.

Michael J. Mudd, chief executive of FutureGen Alliance, said that the Bush administration's decision would set back the timetable for carbon capture and storage technology that is considered essential for meeting targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

"It took four years to get to where we are today," Mudd said, citing financing needs, project design and the preparation of environmental impact statements.

Deputy Energy Secretary Clay Sell said the administration was dropping the FutureGen Alliance project because costs for the planned 275-megawatt coal-fired plant had risen to $1.8 billion and because of advances in technology. Instead, the department said it would be willing to pay the cost of adding carbon capture and storage technology to new or existing coal plants bigger than 300 megawatts. Sell said that would lead to multiple projects and more sequestration.

Sell said Bush's fiscal 2009 budget proposal would seek $648 million for coal technology, a 25 percent increase.

The FutureGen project, a nonprofit venture that included 13 utilities and coal companies, involved construction of a plant that would turn coal to gas, strip out and store underground the carbon dioxide that contributes to climate change, and then burn the remaining gas to produce electricity and hydrogen. The industry group was to pay 26 percent of costs, and the Energy Department was to cover 74 percent.

As someone who worked in the utility industry, I can tell you that $1.8 billion for a measly 275 MW is completely off the wall. By way of comparison, a 1,600 conventional coal plant in Southern Illinois is projected - after massive cost overruns - to cost $2.9 billion. Now, as to why that second plant has experienced those sharp increases, up from the original $2 billion, there are other factors at work here.

"I know it's certainly typical in many kinds of first-of-a-kind projects that lots of the costs are just a crude guess to begin with," he said. "And as they (developers) bore down on what kinds of things actually have to be done, they discover of things are costing more."

Complicating matters, he said, is that over the past four years, the costs of basic materials such as asphalt, concrete, steel and diesel fuel have risen 40% because of construction booms in China and torrid demand in other countries.

Any such materials "would be particularly important for this kind of project," Simonson said.

And they're not coming cheap. Simonson said diesel fuel costs over the past four years have soared by 202%, asphalt by 120% and steel-mill products by 60%. Other possible components, including copper, "are in fairly limited or inelastic supply," making them pricey. (Emphasis added)

"I'm hearing from government agencies at all levels — from the Army Corps of Engineers down to local school districts — that when they open bids for projects they had first done an estimate on three or four years ago, they're seeing huge increases certainly consistent with this 40% escalation," Simonson said.

Anecdotal evidence is abundant.

Across the country, plans for plants that would turn corn into the ethanol fuel additive are on hold, given soaring construction costs compounded by high corn prices that have swelled operational expenses.

In southern Illinois, officials who in October 2001 announced plans for coal-fired, 1,600-megawatt power plant about 50 miles southeast of St. Louis estimated the project would cost $2 billion. But after years of being slowed by regulatory hurdles and environmentalists' legal challenges, the price tag swelled to $2.9 billion by the time ground finally was broken last October.

Simonson doesn't see the trend abating any time soon.

"My prediction is that for the next several years we'll be seeing construction materials costs go up an average of 6 to 8% each year," he said. (Emphasis added)

Between the enormous costs of fighting lawsuits and the sharply rising costs of construction materials, costs for more than just power plants are going to be going up. This is not particularly good news any way you look at it.