Morning music

Here’s a little Beethoven, along with some loon, cat, owl, wood stork and cuckoo.

If boredom arrives later today, go here for some reading:

This – what you are reading at this moment – is a report about a report about reports. Specifically, it’s about the official report that the state of Texas requires about all the reports it requires from its own agencies.

The 2009 edition delivers 580 pages of tidy bureaucratic reading (including six pages that identify themselves as “intentionally left blank”). That’s 84 fewer than the previous edition.

In my travels as a reporter (rather limited), I occasionally hear complaints about federal water quality standards. Water quality worries are just anti-business environmental wacko stuff. A NYT report starts off with a W. Virginia story and then takes a look at the situation in a larger context:

In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.

The Northeast Passage: Over here on this side of the world, we think about the Northwest Passage through the Artic. There’s also the Russian version. Some ships have made it through and this brings up one of the “bright sides” of climate change:

By taking advantage of the short two-month window of opportunity in August and September before the Arctic Ocean freezes over again, the journey from South Korean through the Northeast Passage (not to be confused with the Northwest Passage through Canada) to Europe cut about 3,300 nautical miles off the usual 11,000 nautical mile trip via the southern route through the Suez Canal. Instead of the usual 32-day journey on the southern route, the Northern Sea Route takes 23 days. The shorter distance cuts the cost of the journey considerably because less fuel was used — and thus less CO2 emitted.

Posted in It's life.