Bent Corner

Maryland regulators have announced new regulations that will severely control how Maryland chicken farmers on the Eastern Shore store and handle chicken poop. Evidently many of them store the stuff out in the open and the rain washes the poop into the Chesapeake Bay.

They also spray the stuff on their corn fields. When the rain comes, it washes it from the corn fields into the Chesapeake Bay.

As you probably already know, chicken poop is rich in nitrogen. That’s probably why it smells so good. The nitrogen causes the amount of oxygen to decrease in the Chesapeake Bay which leads to bacteria outbreaks.

If your crab cakes have been tasting kind of funny lately, you might have been tasting the chicken poop. [Washington Post]

The smoking lamp is permanently off at Montgomery College, a community college — also known as the 13th and 14th grade — here in Maryland. No more smoking cigarettes, pipes, cigars, or any other tobacco based products.

I’m not sure if this ban also applies to marijuana.

Montgomery College Snuffs Out Smoking [Washington Post]

Steven Hatfill, former Army scientist named “a person of interest” in the 2001 anthrax attacks will receive $5.8 million to settle his lawsuit against the Justice Department. Former Attorney General John Ashcroft wont have to pay a cent of that figure even though he’s the one that made a public spectacle in naming Hatfill.

I miss John Ashcroft. Not only could he sing a pretty tune, he once lost an election for the U.S. Senate against a dead man. How funny is that?

Back in 2001 when the anthrax attacks were going on, Steven Hatfill worked at Fort Detrick in nearby Frederick. I used to work with a guy whose wife worked at Fort Detrick. Though she didn’t personally know Hatfill, she knew who he was. She said that everyone that knew Hatfill immediately suspected him of the attacks. When it comes to knowing how to manufacture weapons grade anthrax, there aren’t that many people with the skill and knowledge required. Not only did Hatfill have both of those things, he was also supposedly really weird. Supposedly he just gave people there the creeps.

And these are people that work around the world’s most dangerous pathogens on a daily basis.

This from the local TV station’s website:

40 volunteers gathered at 9 a.m. to pick up trash throughout Antietam Battlefield.

“The battlefields are so important they support so many businesses around Maryland everywhere else where there are battlefields and it’s really important part of our history,” said Christopher Stockhaus, volunteer.

Stockhaus and his family traveled 13 hours just to help out. His participation is part of a school project.

“We’re supposed to save the world in a sense and something that we’re interested in. My entire family is interested in the Civil War and we saw Park Day and said that would be a good way to help save the world,” said Stockhaus.

Volunteers spent less than three hours to fill the dumpster. There’s a lot of this plastic sheeting and even an old mattress and refrigerator was found.

I cannot imagine driving 13 hours to go pick up trash. I have a hard time getting the motivation to clean out the back of my car. I guess wherever the Stockhaus clan lives is free of trash. I wonder if it took them 13 hours to drive straight here or did they stop every 25 miles to pick up trash. I’m just assuming that they drove in an automobile. Maybe they marched here on foot dressed like famous Civil War generals. That would be something.

How embarrassing. We are so pathetically lazy that people drive 13 hours to come here and clean up our trash. Unless somehow it was tourists that dumped a mattress and a refrigerator on the Antietam battlefield. Maybe the Washington Country Visitors Bureau ought to think about launching a whole ad campaign centered around the idea of people coming here to clean up after us.

At least if my state delegate gets his bill passed.  This from the local Hagerstown Herald-Mail:

ANNAPOLIS - Washington County Sheriff's deputy Matthew Bragunier figures that he sees, at least once a day, fake bull genitals flopping from the hitches of pickup trucks. 

They're only a toy, but they're also unpleasant to look at, said Bragunier, worried what his 2-year-old girl might think someday. 

"My daughter's going to see this," he said. "She's going to ask what this is. I don't want to be put in that spot. I don't think I ever want to be in that spot." 

Del. LeRoy E. Myers Jr., R-Washington/Allegany, agreed. 

This week, he filed a bill for Maryland to ban the toys and others like them. 

The bill prohibits any "model, sign, sticker or other item" that shows uncovered human or animal genitals, as well as human buttocks or female breasts, from motor vehicles.

I too saw a pickup truck with fake bull genitals flopping from a trailer hitch.  Once.

I thought it was stupid.  I didn't think a special law needed to be passed.  What's next?  What part of the redneck culture will be regulated with a special Maryland law?  Rebel flags?  Dale Earnhardt tribute decals? Worn out 2000 Bush/Cheney stickers?  If you take away a redneck's right to hang fake bull genitals from his trailer hitch, what's next?

I just think it's funny that the anti-fake bull testicle bill was sponsored by a guy named "LEROY".