Comments (31) Jump to Comments Form

1. 

   fennec said, about 1 month ago

   Urrrrrgghhh!
   (Good one, Sherffius)

2. 

   nemesis-of-empire said, about 1 month ago

   We’ll just have to import our water from Africa, then.

   Mmm, mmm, trichinosis, dysentery, liver flukes, coltran mine runoff, arsenic, up to 15% fecal matter, tse-tse fly larvae, sleeping sickness, malaria and the Guinea worm!

   So much better than what we have now.

3. 

   oldlegodad said, about 1 month ago

   This is the story of the Chesapeake Bay, 3mi from my door.

4. 

   harleyquinn said, about 1 month ago

   This is why I get so bent out of shape with the followers of owl gore and his gorebull warming scam. You want to make a difference in the quality of life on this planet? Then check into H2O it is the life blood that runs thru this planet!
   I put my time and effort into Wet lands! That effects the water and believe it or not the weather and the climate.
   And if you want to go farther look at our water supply distribution systems. Talk about ticking time bombs and a something we need and can work on right now!
   But no you “save the world” “climate change” people go and chase your demon CO2.

5. 

   fennec said, about 1 month ago

   Oldie, I hope not. That’s why I keep donating to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation.
   BTW, HQ hasn’t figured out the effects of CO2 on water quality, has he?

6. 

   harleyquinn said, 29 days ago

   So Fennec you are still stuck in the 80’s with the acid rain scare? I thought you might be stuck in the 70’s with Al Gore preaching about a new ice age a coming.

7. 

   ahab said, 29 days ago

   Harley, I’d trust a real biologist if I were you.

8. 

   ahab said, 29 days ago

   The oceans are some of the world’s largest CO2 sinks, and their pH levels are changing. It may eventually alter the whole ocean biosphere. Imagine shellfish and the base food - diatoms and plankton unable to make their own shells. There was an article called , The Darkening Sea by Elizabeth Kolbert in the New Yorker last year that truly should frighten a sane person.

9. 

   ahab said, 29 days ago

   Oldie, is it not sad to see water you fished as a child ruined by greed or ignorance. I understand the fish were so plentiful in the Chesapeake area, you could lower a bucket and catch fish when Europeans first came there.

10. 

    believecommonsense said, 29 days ago

    Sherffius creates another compelling toon with the beauty of simplicity. No caption needed. This guy is GOOD!

11. 

    HUMPHRIES said, 29 days ago

    Oldie - you don’t know the half of it. I grew up living on the Bay. How do you think it feels to see a photo in the VP where a dredge operation is recoveing “sludge” and directly in the backgond is a bridge where I spent many an hour fishing and crabbing as a youngster.

    PS HQ on this one your comment is less than worthless.

12. 

    vhouse0 said, 29 days ago

    Point made. Add waste drugs.

13. 

    TrulyBluely876 said, 29 days ago

    Elegant work.

14. 

    motivemagus said, 29 days ago

    Here’s some historical trivia. There is a law on the books from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony that says you are not allowed to feed your servants lobster more than three days per week. The reason is that at that time lobster was so plentiful that it was the cheapest food around, and people were feeding their servants on it all week long! Boy, times have changed…

15. 

    cabrobst said, 29 days ago

    In other words, pure unregulated 19th century capitalism.

16. 

    Magnaut said, 29 days ago

    put DDT in it send it to Africa and save millions of lives…whoops I forgot about the rare african-long-legged jumping-turtle…nah just let them continue to die from malaria…proves that Wright is stupid. Whitey (who was French in this case) didn’t have to invent AIDS to cull the black population….kill them with ‘eccopseudo science’ like Gorbal Warming instead…..rule..”never believe a scientist who is funded by a grant from Govt., the WHO or the UN”

17. 

    harleyquinn said, 29 days ago

    Motive your trivia like al gore only tells half the truth. The reason lobster and such were not to be served more then 3 days a week was bc they were bottom dwellers. Do you really think the waters were “cleaner” back then when they just dumped everything into the river or bay? really? bottom dwelling fish were the considered the cheapest because they were the most unclean.
    
    And as for my my comments being “less than worthless”
    shows what you know. insteed of chasing smoke stack you should be looking at the water cycle and how the ph buffering system works. Healing one of the true problems and learning to work with the wetland will go along way into solving all those symptoms you are crying about.

18. 

    scottfreitas said, 29 days ago

    motivemagus: THAT was thought-provoking.

    Life during the days of John Adams was so vastly different from today… it boggles the imagination.

    I am, however, still 100% convinced both John and Abigail Adams would be revolted by the political and cultural views you hold. You are not a product of THEIR time, as I am (for being a sincere Bible-believing Christian as were they , we three share the mind of Christ alluded to by Paul). You are a product of this Godless, feminized, anti-intellectual age, and make the French of Adams’ day seem like right-wing Conservatives by comparison…

    John Adams wasn’t just teasing Abigail about the “despotism of the petticoat.” He knew women shared the same fallen nature as men, and were also vastly different creatures from men, intended for different roles.

    Abigail was a perfect helpmate to John, and I can see why he loved her so. I love her myself! Yet Abigail would be so horrified by modern Feminism she would make Phyllis Schafly pale by comparison…

19. 

    M Henri Day said, 29 days ago

    Motivemagnus, have you ever seen that putative Massachusetts Bay Colony law - as opposed to reading about it on some website or another ? Here in Sweden, an oft-repeated story is that servants had stipulated in their contracts that they were not to be served salmon more often than three times a week. Alas, no one has, to the best of my knowledge, ever been able to produce such a contract. Rather, what contracts seem to have said was that the food served was to be «sufficient and nutritious». Sorry to ruin a good story - in the event you don’t possess better evidence - just call me party-pooper !…

    Henri

20. 

    Corosive Frog said, 29 days ago

    Sooky Rottweiler says;
    The guy from the farm where I spent my puppy days went organic when he learned that the pesticides and stuff made him sterile.

21. 

    dtroutma said, 29 days ago

    Hmm, Harley, didn’t know lobsters were “bottom feeding fish”, rather than crustaceans, like giant roaches actually. But more disturbing is the concern for wetlands, which I share as they disappear and are contaminated, without realizing the very buffering effect you relate is tied directly to climate change, pollution, AND water chemistry around the world, above ground and in aquifers.

    So many species, like cod, grizzly bears, warblers, and yes , frogs, are threatened by our messing with the environment and blindly ignoring the facts, it is remarkable that anyone concerned with wetlands can display ignorance of the interrelationships of all life forms, and climate.

22. 

    scottfreitas said, 29 days ago

    LOL. Just once I believe something motive said and get predictably suckered in…

    Ah, well. the “meat” of his point is still true. Lobsters in Massachussets were FAR more plentiful in John Adams’ day than they are now, and even the poorest of folks could easily avail themselves of them.

    Here’s just one of many choice tidbits i found on Google:

    “Is it true that in Colonial New England it was against the law to serve lobster more than three times a week to servants? No. Food historian Sandy Oliver elucidates:

    “The lobster and salmon story is one of the most frequently told about New England seafood. It generally goes like this: Salmon and lobster “used to be so abundant that, it is said, ” pick one—the apprentices, servants, boarders, lumbermen, occupants, prisoners, and slaves of-pick another–Newcastle, England, Boston or Lowell, Massachusetts, Puget Sound, Bristol, Rhode Island, Islesboro, Maine, the Maine State Prison, or the South-refused to eat either lobsters or salmon, more than twice a week. Recent versions of the story usually feature lobster, but the vast majority of accounts prefer salmon. All the stories have in common some group of people who have no control over their food choices, people who have to eat what is served them. The stories all explain that these sufferers had a meeting to form a complaint presented to an official in charge. The story, substantiated only by reference to an alleged expert who “has it on good authority” or words to that effect, is usually put in the context of former natural abundance. So the tale is reported second hand, refers to a time from fifty to one hundred years earlier than the usual late 1800s publishing date. The most common sources for this particular tale are town histories which abounded in the nineteenth century often written by a local antiquarian, though it appears also in George Brown Goode’s The Fisheries and Fishery Industries of the United States published in 1887. Lack of primary evidence is the main reason to doubt this story. No minutes of these indignation meetings, nor ordinances outlawing sea food more than twice a week, have ever emerged. But why salmon, why lobster, why twice a week? The stories appear when salmon or lobster are becoming historically scarce, when the author wants to recall a distant, more abundant past. Twice a week was for many in early England or the colonies, the number of fast days a week on which one customarily ate fish. As Protestantism neglected religious fasts marked by fish consumption, the idea of having to eat fish more than one’s religion formerly required sounded like an imposition on people who always preferred meat to fish.”

    A lot of party-pooping there to digest, huh? And let’s be real: it still COULD be true that at SOME point SOMEWHERE in Massachussets, motive’s urban legend was indeed factual–however briefly. And the fact that lobsters back then were larger and more plentiful is undeniable..

23. 

    harleyquinn said, 29 days ago

    Don’t you get it dt do you. Following a false prophet who only wants profit like al gore will only cause more problems and detractors among the people. Al gores money changing “solutions” only breed contempt for real work that can be done. “oh I don’t have to worry I bought my carbon neutral credits” to down right dis belief” See he did not know what he was talking about the temp has been cooler over the last 10 years. So nothing he said can be right.
    I am not one of these oh the world will take care of it’s self kind of people. There are real world things that can be done. But when you have a spacial effect sci fi world doom “documentary” that does nothing but lead people to believe in a quick fix of doing away with “man made” I get upset.

24. 

    oldlegodad said, 29 days ago

    Hump at least the Nature Conservancy has bought all but one of the seaside barrier islands and controls a lot of mainland outright or through conservation easements. That is keeping those waters and the flyway safe. Kaine just announced the new rules about waste water run off to protect aquaculture on seaside.. Now if we could just get the Yankees up stream to enforce their runoff rules we might make some progress on cleaning up on the BAY.

25. 

    motivemagus said, 28 days ago

    Huh. Thanks for correcting me on the lobster thing, Henri, scottfreitas. I won’t repeat that myth; I think I heard it from a tour guide, and I should have known better, since I’ve caught them out before.
    
    On John & Abigail, scott, you are no more a product of their time than I am (nor, by the way are you entitled to assume I am not a “sincere Bible-believing Christian”). Indeed, the Adams were by no means equivalent to today’s Bible literalists, and they would have been horrified by that concept, if that is what you mean by “Bible-believing Christian.” The Calvinist reform tradition that framed the Massachusetts Bay Colony and was influential in the Adams’ day was very much about individual understanding in part through reading the Bible, but was definitely not about taking it literally. In that sense (not all of them) they are closer to modern mainstream Christians.
    Finally, your assumption that they would be horrified by today’s feminism does rather assume that their view then is more right than ours is now. If you’re going to use historical context, you have to use it both ways – if they were born today, would they agree? I rather think they would. They were products of the Enlightenment, who believed in reason, and had a partnership unique in their time, which leads me to believe that it might have evolved as indeed our society has, were they alive today.

26. 

    pbarnrob said, 28 days ago

    Has anybody here noticed that the glaciers are going away? There is now an open Northwest Passage. Internal lakes of liquid water in Antarctica are causing accelerating slippage within the glaciers there.

    That’s a pretty undeniable evidence of warming. And as it continues, there are sequestered beds of methane welling up from the sea bottom (“chimneys” around Vladivostok, among other areas) that are going to accelerate the problems, since methane is some 25 times worse as a greenhouse gas. If a way could be found to collect and burn it, at least we could lessen the effect.

    The latest Scientific American has a nice article outlining some hope for optimism, in reducing costs while we get rid of burning the underground ‘fossil fuels’ to release their stored solar energy. Existing water (hydroelectric, mature tech), wind (cheaper than coal or gas already, much growth room) and solar (photovoltaic and newer enhanced forms), the “WWS” power options, if we get busy, will give us as much energy as we like.

    One thing Sherffius left out of his tap is Fluoride, which is an industrial waste byproduct of uranium processing, that some enterprising soul found a way to sell to us rather than pay to dispose of. There is no independent solid evidence that SnF has any positive effect on teeth, but much that it causes several problems by replacing other halides, specifically Iodine (being more active than either Bromine or Chlorine) in the body.

27. 

    scottfreitas said, 28 days ago

    Motive: Not fair to Abigail to paint her as being the exact same type of Christian as was John.

    Abby was a preacher’s daughter, and her letters clearly reveal her as having a strict fundamentalist viewpoint. She was not a product of enlightenment thinking by any measure, and the Godlessness of so many of the French offended her deeply. She vented over this at great length. I can find no hint of either irreverence or unorthodoxy in any of her many writings

    John is the one whose views are more of a mystery. He seemed to be a very moody Christian throughout his long life, swinging back and forth from deep orthodox beliefs into personal speculation bordering on dismissiveness of this-or-that view. He, like Jefferson, attended so many 1000s of sermons by 1000s of different christian preachers, loving some and hating others, guilty of emotional outbursts at times… who knows. I would be deeply saddened if John Adams were not in Heaven. I don’t think he took his eyes off the ball (Christ’s death and resurrection etc) enough to become apostate, and I cannot for a moment believe Abigail isn’t with God. Sooo.. yeah, hope John made it in.

    I hope Jefferson made it in as well, I am just not very hopeful…

    All that matters is what people were in their own time. And no way John or Abby would enjoy contemporary American culture, or its politics. Far too ugly, illogical, and devoid of substance for their liking. Anti-intellectualism always infuriated John in particular….

    Imagine John watching a typical Presidential debate. His face would be pink with outrage! “Why are neither of these benighted FOOLS discussing the Constitutionality of these issues which they are only PRETENDING to address?” I can hear him roaring such sentiments nonstop, before turning the teevee off in disgust…

    And to imagine their reaction to “gay marriage” and abortion and whatnot… no. Makes me too queasy. They would not be able to understand how American culture allowed itself to become so debased..

28. 

    motivemagus said, 28 days ago

    scott – thanks for a thoughtful response. Personally, I believe in a merciful God, along the lines of C. S. Lewis’ notion that worshiping the wrong God in the right way means more than the right God in the wrong way.
    I certainly agree John would be enraged by the anti-intellectualism that permeates American society today – as indicated by New Age nonsense and anti-scientific sentiment – and the way debates rarely discuss anything of any depth.

29. 

    fennec said, 28 days ago

    Humph and Oldie, we all gotta keep on them about the Bay! I support both the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and some smaller groups, such as the Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage. I think local support for local groups is a requirement (well, not necessarily you for the Chesapeake, Humph, since you now live in Germany, but you get the idea). This year we saw d@mn few crabs up our end of our creek. 20 years ago you’d have seen a dinner after 1 day of crabbing. But 20 years ago we didn’t have an oil slick covering our creek.

30. 

    harleyquinn said, 27 days ago

    pbarnrob
    answer me this and maybe you will understand. What is the “right” temperature for the earth? You can not tell me man did not exist when the glazers were smaller? And where did the “waste water” come from that is in Antarctica? man?

31. 

    ReasonsVentriloquist said, 27 days ago

    I don’t agree with the message of this cartoon!

    I will say that I don’t know about the rest of the country but I do know that around here we take the idea of a water shed extremely seriously! The prohibitions within miles of the reservoirs are onerous.

    Gee how’d that happen? Oh YEAH, the Democrats were in power and they MANDATED clean drinking water.

    Granted, W. and his puppet EPA head (Christie Todd Whitman of NJ) used his “Clean Water Act” to increase the levels of arsenic allowed in drinking water, but overall tap water (in many parts of the nation) is clean and safe and better for you than almost anything else you put in your mouth.

    NYC tap water (for example) is so good they bottle it.

    As to the Chesapeake Bay… Nobody drinks that anyway, it’s brackish isn’t it?