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An estimated 25,000 bumblebees have been found dead in a Target parking lot in Wilsonville since Saturday, the largest known incident of bumblebee deaths in the United States, according to the |
. Preliminary information suggests pesticides may be at fault. |
[ |
Update: Officials from the Oregon Department of Agriculture confirmed the active ingredient in the insecticide Safari is responsible for the bee and insect deaths, and that the insecticide was originally sprayed to control for aphids. |
] |
The |
received reports of bees and other insects falling out of 55 blooming European linden trees Monday from the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. |
The bees were still dying on Wednesday. Yellow-faced bees fell from the trees, twitching on their backs or wandering in tight circles on the asphalt. Some honeybees and ladybugs were also found dead. A few dead bumblebees even clung to linden flowers, while hundreds littered the lot. |
Dan Hilburn, |
at the state Agriculture Department, surveyed the damage after an earlier assessment from pesticide experts. |
"I've never encountered anything quite like it in 30 years in the business," he said Wednesday outside the Argyle Square Target. |
Hilburn said initial findings indicate the trees were sprayed Saturday with an insecticide called |
Tests to confirm what killed the bees will take at least two or three days, department officials said. The department of agriculture is also investigating other possible culprits, which may include other pesticides used in the surrounding area. |
Safari is part of the neonicotinoid pesticide family. When it is sprayed on a plant, the leaves, flowers and nectar become toxic to almost all insects. The product's label on the distributor's website warns it is "highly toxic" to bees and tells applicators not to apply it "if bees are visiting the area." |
"Bumblebees are the single most important natural pollinator in Oregon," said Mace Vaughan, pollinator program director for Xerces. |
They play a crucial role in pollinating berries, flowers and other plants. The decline of the honeybee, whose populations have been decimated by |
, has received much attention, but bumblebee populations are decreasing as well. |
Elliot Associates Inc., the company that rents and manages the Argyle Square land, did not respond to multiple calls by The Oregonian. The landscapers that care for the grounds couldn't be reached for comment. |
The Agriculture Department is working with the Xerces Society to help mitigate any further insect deaths at Argyle Square. As precautionary moves, they are considering either putting up netting around the trees, stripping off flowers and leaves or finding non-toxic repellents to keep bees and insects from eating the leaves or nectar. |
Dale Mitchell, pesticide compliance program manager for the state agriculture department, said if test show pesticide is the culprit, the department will assess if the company responsible violated any state or federal laws, and if so, the severity of those violations. Fines for pesticide regulation infractions can range from $1000 to $10,000. |
The bumblebee deaths marked an inauspicious start to National Pollinator Week, which runs through June 23. |
-- Elizabeth Case |
Two female firefighters say they were assaulted as they tried to battle a blaze in Prince George's County. They say two other first responders were behind the attack. News4's Darcy Spencer reports. (Published Friday, Dec. 11, 2015) |
Authorities are investigating allegations that two volunteer firefighters assaulted two career firefighters, women from another station, while they battled a blaze in Lanham, Maryland, Tuesday night. |
A Prince George’s County Fire lieutenant said she was thrown from the porch of the home. Another firefighter said she was shoved. They were running hoses into the home. |
“There was a momentary delay, however we do not feel that impacted the amount of fire loss to that house,” said Mark Brady of Prince George's County Fire and EMS. |
The incident may have been a turf battle over which station was in charge at the scene of the fire. |
“This is a very serious incident, and we’re looking forward to the result of the investigation from the fire department,” said Andrew Pantelis, president of the Prince George's Professional Firefighters and Paramedics Association, which represents career firefighters but not volunteers. |
Police were called to the scene. |
"They took a report, however no charges were placed against anybody, and it was left up to the internal review of the fire and EMS department to see exactly what happened," Brady said. |
The women plan to file charges, Panelis said. |
"The union wants to see a thorough investigation, and if the allegations are proven to be accurate, we'd like to see disciplinary action against the individuals involved." |
All four firefighters are on desk duty while the incident is investigated. |
"Immediately on the scene of that incident, all four were removed from emergency operations and placed on limited public contact," Brady said. |
Tiered of misplacing keys, umbrellas and mail? We received an interesting project that can help with this issue. Justin Porcano created Wallplates, a functional system that can be adapted to standard light switches. According to the designer, “Hook and Envelope are the first of these functional Wallplates, but eventually new product functions will be created as the product line expands. Hook and Envelope are simply light switch cover plates that add practical function to your space. The Wallplates concept |
was born out of a need to store the objects that typically come and go with us; such as: keys, scarves, phones, mail, umbrellas, coats, etc. I wanted to provide a consistent, convenient location for these objects to live.” The product utilizes the existent standard holes in the switch and adds a creative and practical feature that helps one be organized. Have a look at the video below for the whole story! |
Volunteer opportunities Lemonade project gives budding entrepreneurs head start |
A taste for success is acquired by thousands of greater Houston area school children through a program that engages them in grass-roots entrepreneurship on “Lemonade Day,” a spring event for which youngsters operate their own lemonade stands. |
You can support this fun project by stuffing event information into backpacks to be distributed to kids at local schools. This activity will be going on March 8 to 12 at a warehouse near Irvington and the North Loop. |
Food drive needs help |
Fight hunger by participating in a food distribution drive based at a church near Mesa Road and Texas 90 on Wednesday. |
If you have some time available that morning or afternoon, you can join with other volunteers in helping unload a fleet of trailer trucks and dispense food and other essentials to people experiencing economic hardship. |
Approximately 3,000 local families will benefit from the event. |
Health care assistance |
Database design expertise is needed by an agency that helps medically indigent people obtain health care. |
The agency recently acquired new software for managing its donor database and is looking for a volunteer willing to help them exploit its capabilities for maximum effectiveness. |
If you have the background needed, consider lending your know-how and insights to this process. The agency's office is located just south of downtown. |
Additional opportunities |
• Conduct environmental research at a nature center just north of Baytown. |
• Serve as floor host at a cancer hospital in the Texas Medical Center. |
• Teach genealogy to senior citizens in a Cy-Fair area life-enrichment program. |
• Staff a thrift shop in Friendswood that supports services to the needy. |
• Be an escort on outings in an Alvin recreational program for people with mental retardation. |
• Monitor guardianships in a court-sponsored program serving the elderly. |
• Use your car to pick up donated medical supplies for an agency that ships them to Third World nations. |
To start the 2016 season off I figured I would do something a little larger in scope than player analysis. The 40-Man roster is simply a pre-requisite for being put on the 25-Man roster that plays for the MLB team. There are a lot of rules about the 40-Man, but the ones we are going to worry about are pretty simple: |
Who is on the 25-Man and why should I care about them? |
Who is potentially going to be on the 25-Man and why should I care about them? |
This breakdown is going to be cut up into chunks by positions and will focus on getting excited about the guys we know will be playing, and the guys who are fighting for the spots left on the roster. Let's start off with the largest chunk of important players, the starting pitchers. |
The Starters |
These are your primary work breeds, the guys whose goal is to keep every inning a 0 for 200 innings. Some of them resemble wild stallions breezing through line-ups without looking tired or excited. Some remind us of bulls; hulking and not so pretty, but effective inning eaters. Some just end up looking like those dogs that can't breathe well and you feel like it's cruel that someone forces them to stand out in the heat. That being said, the 5 starters are arguably the most important group of players on a |
team and it's important to have the 5 best possible players out on that field consistently. |
Probable Starting 5: Yu Darvish, Cole Hamels, Derek Holland, Martin Perez, Colby Lewis |
I went ahead and included Yu Darvish because at some point fairly soon he will be the # 1 starter in the rotation. Darvish is one of the best pitchers in the MLB when healthy. His 4 seamer can sit between 91 and 97 and he can usually locate it very well. He also has a 2 seamer that breaks in on righties and a cutter that cuts in on lefties; both sit between 91 and 94 and have late movement that leaves a lot of hitters pretty upset. He has an extremely slow curveball, 60ish, that he throws for a strike to |
baffle hitters who are completely unprepared for it. His money pitch is the slider and it is the main out pitch for Darvish as well. The slider looks like a fastball out of the hand, but drops off the face of the planet about 4 feet out in front of home plate. Darvish only ever really has trouble when he isn't locating any of his fastballs and sometimes falls back on his breaking stuff really early, leading to high pitch counts and walks. Darvish looks to come back to form after Tommy Johns and we can |
expect a rehab assignment in late April-May. In case you haven't seen it, here is Darvish striking out 277 guys. |
Hamels is probably going to be one of the best #2 starters in baseball. Hamels is another guy with a seemingly endless supply of pitches. His 4 seamer sits around 91 and his location is usually superb. He has a sinker that gets used from time to time and a curve that he can bury in the dirt or locate in the zone for strikes. The Cole Hamels trademark pitch is the changeup. With the exact same arm motion, Hamels takes about 9 MPH off of the ball and can locate the pitch consistently at the bottom of the zone |
for swinging or called strikes. Look for Hamels to quietly put together another year of 32 starts and 200 quality innings. |
The next two guys are big question marks. Holland is a tale of two players, sometimes consistently able to command the zone and string quality start after quality start, while other times he leaves a lot of pitches in wonderful spots for the hitter's OPS. Holland's FB sits at 93-95 on good days and also throws in sinkers, changeups, sliders, and a curveball that is usually +, but he has an issue with it hanging in the zone which leads to a fairly high HR/9 for Holland. |
Perez is the even bigger question mark though. Perez had a rough start last season after coming back from Tommy John's, but if you ignore his first three starts he put up a solid 3.38 ERA and a 3.28 FIP. To put that into perspective, he outperformed Cole Hamels during their last 11 starts. Perez is predominantly a sinker ball pitcher and does have some trouble with missing bats, but he does not allow much hard contact which plays well in Arlington. That is a worry though; there are not many guys who can |
sustain that low of an ERA while only striking out 5.6/9. While I don't think Perez is going to pull off a surprise All-star caliber season, it's not hard to see him quietly being one of the top 10 pitchers in the AL-West. |
Colby Lewis is Colby Lewis. For 5 seasons Lewis has been the perfect example of that bull that does the work that is needed to be done, but doesn't make it pretty. He throws in the high 80's and gives up a decent amount of dingers, but he bares down and limits damage as good as anyone I've ever seen. The only worry with Colby is he's 36 now and it wouldn't take too much of a skill drop off to have him resemble that dog you need to put out of its misery. That being said, I fully expect Colby to go out there |
and get guys out through sheer will and be productive for the Rangers in some fashion this year. |
The Other guys |
These are the guys who are vying for that 5th hole that and injured Darvish leaves exposed and maybe take a job away from one of the other guys if they can't perform. I'm not going to go into too much detail here, but these guys are potentially important pieces to the Rangers. |
Starter Hopefuls: Chi-Chi Gonzalez, Nick Martinez, Nick Tepesch, Anthony Ranaudo, Jeremy Guthrie, Cesar Ramos, and A.J. Griffin. |
Tepesch and Ranaudo are outside shots of breaking camp with the team. Tepesch is coming off of a lost season and Ranaudo had a lot of trouble missing bats in AAA last season. Nick Martinez had a rough outing last week and he will have to bounce back if he is to get another shot. Chi-Chi still has options, so unless he is 100% clearly the best candidate he will likely start the year at AAA. Ramos is being converted from being a reliever, so I expect the Rangers will give him more time to see how his stuff |
holds up over 6-7 innings. Griffin is coming back from missing 2 seasons due to injury and apparently is not in 9 inning pitching shape, so I expect him to start the season in AAA as well. In my opinion the 5th starter job is likely Jeremy Guthrie's for the taking simply because he is the most convenient option for the Rangers. |
The 37 year old had a rough 2015, but the three seasons before that he was a valuable #4-5 starter. He induces a lot of weak groundballs, but he gets in a lot of trouble when he leaves his pitches up in the zone as he's not a hard thrower. He's on a minor league contract, but I expect if he doesn't break camp with the team he will likely ask for release. Long term poses a few issues for Guthrie if he is not pitching at a Cy-young caliber, as the Rangers will likely want to let the young guys have a shot |
when they are ready. |
Final Thoughts |
The starting rotation for the Rangers this year should be a bright spot on a good ball club. If Darvish/Hamels/Holland/Perez pitch to their potential and Colby does what Colby has always done this could one of the top 3 rotations in the AL. The depth is also fantastic this season and a starting spot could very well be ripped away by the hungry dudes who will start the season in AAA. This is the most exciting rotation the Rangers have put together since I've been alive. That being said, I fully expect to see |
a lot of negative comments about the rotation, sorry Colby Lewis and Derek Hollan, and the return of the perennial question, "When we gun get some pitch'n up in here?". |
I know you mean well. I know you think you’ve found a bargain that nobody else noticed hidden in a back corner of the used car lot. Let me warn you: it’s a clunker. Here, I’ll list the defects. You can have your own mechanic check them out: |
1. If you want to bomb a country every time an evil group murders people in a gruesome manner, you’ll have to bomb a lot of countries including our own. ISIS draws its strength in Iraq from resentment of the Iraqi government, which bombs its own cities using U.S. weapons, and which beheads people, albeit in grainier footage with lower production values. Allies in the region, including allies that support ISIS, including allies armed by the United States (some of which arms end up in the hands of ISIS), |
themselves behead people regularly. But is that worse than other types of killing? When President Barack Obama blew up a 16 year old American boy whom nobody had ever accused of so much as jaywalking, and blew up six other kids who were too close to him at the time, do you imagine his head remained on his body? |
As with most drone strikes, that boy could have been arrested and questioned. Had he been, though, gruesome death would have remained a possibility. In April, the United States injected a man with chemicals that made him writhe in excruciating pain for 43 minutes and die. Last week in the United States a man facing a similar fate on death row was proven innocent and freed. The prosecutor who had put him there 30 years earlier showed zero remorse. Now I’m not proposing that we bomb North Carolina because I’m |
angry at that prosecutor. I’m not even angry at that prosecutor. I am suggesting that there are evil killers all over the place, some wearing Western suits and ties, some wearing military uniforms. Bombs, which mostly kill innocent people who had nothing to do with it, won’t help. |
2. The bombs will mostly kill innocent people who had nothing to do with it, and will only make the crisis worse. Most people who die in wars are civilians by everyone’s definition. People still use words like “battlefield” as if wars were waged in a field the way a football game is played. They couldn’t play football on our streets and sidewalks because grandparents and baby strollers would end up tackled and crushed. Well, wars are waged on people’s streets and sidewalks, even when one side is only |
present in the sky above in the form of unmanned robot death planes. The slow-moving die first: the very old and the very young. And when anyone dies, according to top U.S. officials, more enemies are created in greater numbers. Thus, the operation is counterproductive on its own terms, making us less safe rather than safer. This is why President Obama is always saying “There is no military solution” just before proposing to use the military to seek a solution. When he proposes bombing Iraq for three more |
years, that number has no basis in military calculation whatsoever. I challenge you to find a general who says otherwise. It is a number almost certainly based on the U.S. election schedule, aimed at convincing us to accept a war without question until a date after the next presidential election. When Obama says he’s going to get a good government in place in Iraq this week and then make a speech, he’s delusional or enjoying toying with your gullibility, but he’s also pointing to the actual problem: a |
nation destroyed by 24 years of wars and sanctions and lacking a legitimate governing system. |
3. Bombing is crazy, and bombing for three years is certifiable. Bombing strengthens ISIS. Three years is longer than most U.S. wars have taken from beginning to end. The U.S. Constitution, which did not foresee a permanent standing army, much less one permanently standing in most other nations on earth, did not permit — and does not permit — creating and funding one for a longer period than two years at a time (Article I. Section 8.). But of course nothing guarantees that the bombing will stop after three |
years and not go on for thirty more. And nothing guarantees that this war will involve only bombing. Already Obama has sent over 1,100 troops, and is promising to send some number less than 100,000. Read that twice please, slowly. Obama wants Congress to debate his war plans but not vote on them. Why not? Because Congress might be compelled by you and me to vote no, if not on this war then on the next one. Obama wants himself and all future presidents free to launch wars without Congress, exactly what he |
campaigned for office opposing. |
“The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation.” —Senator Barack Obama. |