#but it's closer to tanker chapter and plant chapter

[ivan-fyodorovich-k]

So this is my latest stupid thing

These came out in like 2002, you had to order them blind on the internet from Japan. Soon bootlegs showed up on eBay which always made me really nervous to buy any at all but for whatever reason lately I decided to take the risk. I think the main giveaway with the original bootlegs was that the camouflage paint in particular looked terrible and they didn’t fit together correctly or sit on their stands correctly.

These seem OK but I don’t know if someone made better fakes later or if there was a demand for such a thing. MGS2 is kind of the red headed stepchild of the series.

I have a line on almost every figure in the set; ironically the only one I’m having real trouble finding now is Raiden

[loveluckygirls-blog]

Chapter 1: Fight

Enter 1st Year Genesis Hawkins [August 20th Thursday 8:42AM]

          I'm not particularly fond of speaking. I don't really know when or how that started. As a child, I was insatiable; I spoke at any given opportunity, offered or otherwise.

        When I was young, words were weightless, relentlessly spouted in unabashed naiveté. Questions thought foolish are praised, and my mistakes bask in the warm glow of reassurance and comfort. However, I was eventually removed from this environment and placed under scrutiny, forced to become affiliated with decision.

        And decision is powerful. One must make both active decisions and passive decisions to sculpt the visage that our mind paints us in. It is this point we are given free rein to stride towards our own personal sun. Yet as we make for this sun, we inevitably fall into the shadow it casts. We learn to forage a fear for failure and become well versed in every way to escape it. And once we crawl out of that crag, every decision forward is made being aware of what will befall us should we decide poorly. Yes, decision is powerful.

        And because language speaks on decisions’ behalf; one cannot afford to employ a slow-witted middle man. Of course, it’s said “If you want something done properly, do it yourself” and so I let the decisions I make speak for themselves.

        Still, decision is not all powerful. You do not choose to be harassed by others. You do not opt to be shoved behind a corner store. You do not decide to be beaten. No one chooses to be weak. From where I stood I couldn’t tell if this applied to this boy in particular but it didn’t change what was happening to him; two much larger teenagers grabbed this gentle kid standing outside of the neighborhood corner store by his thin arms and hauled him behind the building, under the trees, away from sight yelling something indiscernible. I watched the event transpire from across the road. I didn’t think these things happened in quiet little suburban communities like this one.

        The boy was certainly weak. He wouldn’t meet their eyes. He did not pull away from them, retaliate, or defend himself. He simply resigned himself to their violence. The boy’s pale ice eyes didn’t even look for a savior. He was used to this malice; he’s lived with it for a long time it seemed. The same society that comforted him as a child now shamed his existence. Why? I couldn’t tell. I doubt anyone really could.

        A sigh let out through my lips. I didn’t like interrupting my training routine, but I found myself stopped. I suppose I can set aside my morning cardio for a few seconds in favor of some sparring. I turned my head to the sign stuck into the grass next to me. “Two bedrooms, two bath”

        Grabbing the “FOR SALE” sign, I jogged across the street towards the corner store. As I moved, I tore the sign off of the wooden stake. Weapons weren’t something I usually approved of; a confrontation should be fought with as much honesty and fairness as both parties can provide, usually anyways. I walked behind the convenience store and continued spectating.

        The frail boy, with his brown hair and grey eyes was being pressed into the back wall of the building. With one hand around his throat, one of the attackers was pounding senselessly into him. The boy’s desperate sputters slipping in between clenched fists. The second bully stood a few feet away shaking his head. “I don’t know how you can touch him for so long. What if you catch it?” he joked with a smile. He turned around and approached one of the trees. He snapped off one of the low hanging branches and started back. “Let me have a whack at it” he said laughing.

        Wordlessly, I rounded the corner and descended on them. The first bully, still striking the bloody boy didn’t turn around in time. With both hands I swung the stake at the back of his head. The thin sign snapped easily against his skull. Before the splinters could drop to the floor I tackled the second bully only a few feet behind. His body fell hard under me with a surprised “Oof!” Fighting on concrete poses many variables that don’t apply to fields or mats. A hard fall on concrete is damaging, an unexpected dive onto it is doubly so.

        I placed my knees on his sprawled arms and grabbed onto his shirt with my left hand. I didn’t have much time; the first bully wouldn’t be so preoccupied with the pain that he would forget me. I landed two quick rights on his mouth before jumping up and turning towards the first. He was bigger than I realized. Not too much bigger than me, two or three inches. I shook the pain of the impact off my knuckles and raised my fists, spread my legs and quickly stepped backwards. I needed him to come closer.

        My opponent, already confused and disoriented missed his advancing swing at my face. I took another step back, just a little more. “Who the hell are you!?” He yelled moving forward, his hair ruined from my initial attack. He took a final step forward and lost his footing on his friends face. “Whoa-” In a fight it’s easy to lose track of your surroundings, especially if you weren’t able to take stock of the situation from the beginning. A surprise attack’s effects last longer than just the initial strike. With his footing lost, he was an easy target.

        I stepped at him, punching as he stumbled backward. The impact was light, but it was enough. I followed my left jab with a right straight. I forced my shoulder down into the strike, rubbing my knuckles against his cheekbone and sliding against his nose. He fell back onto his rear, catching himself with his hands. He looked up at me, a clear mark on his face from my hit. “W-who” He stammered. He inched himself back kicking up gravel. “Who are you? Are you a Fighter?” he was afraid of me.

        I rotated my head towards the boy. His hair had specks of blood and his nose was a faucet. He was inherently feminine. His features were soft, and even in his beaten state I could tell he was pretty. He stood up from his cowering position against the wall. With shaking hands he brushed a tuff of mussed up brown hair out from his face to look at me clearly. The morning sunlight reflected off his steel eyes, and the kicked up dust from the fight created gold sparkles that danced around his freckled face. I turned away, pulling my hair down in front of my face.

         Humph...

        I trotted out from behind the corner store and back across the street. The entire action didn’t take more than a minute. The sound of my shoes hammering against the sidewalk soon followed. Fights were fast like that. A lot could happen in a single second. Sometimes, it seems like it never even happened. But the bruise and ache on my knuckles attested to the event. I resumed jogging down the sidewalk.

        That was refreshing. I am confident in my ability, but I thought these few weeks with no sparring had softened me. I was wrong. Still, I cannot afford to grow comfortable. Those were pushovers taking advantage of someone else’s weakness. They weren’t Fighters.

        Plans, strategies and tactics are laid and enacted through speed, accuracy and technique. A confrontation is special. A fight is raw. We don’t need the ring or the lights. The street suits us fine. The empty lots and abandoned complexes are holy. Our place is where we’ve planted our feet, and where our blood falls is church. That’s what it means to be a Fighter. And once school starts up in a few more days, I’ll join the ranks officially.

        “Saint Jude High School” I muttered between strong strides. That was the school that I would attend. Saint Jude was a little less than a mile away from my house making it more than convenient. It was a private school for suburban teens and although it wasn’t prestigious; it had a reputation. Apparently; there were a number of notorious Fighters in attendance as well. I was exhilarated to meet them, even more to see them fight. What styles did they use? What stances? Were they conservative? Did they push right from the start? Could they win against me?

        Hard stomps against the concrete turn into hurried steps. When the thrill of a fight begins entwining itself around my mind, it’s all I can do to maintain a proper pace. A shiver washes through my body and I can feel my heart crash against my chest like ocean waves battering a tanker hull. Just eleven more days until the first day of school, and then…

Then I would fight.

    Enter 1st Year Cheyenne Coleman [August 25th Friday 11:13PM]

        “Shit, shit, shit!” I jumped over the chrome garbage can, wrappers and uneaten food passing below me. The cool morning air swept through my hair biting and nipping at my ears and sweeping around my nape and down my sweater. Summer doesn’t visit this city for very long. This year it hardly touched at all. Not to say that I was against cold weather. I’ve lived here for a long time, and I’m used to the year round chill. It was comfortable; I didn’t like sweating when I fought.

        We emerged from the tight alley into an old unused backroad. The red hoodie I had been chasing turned his chin back around to gauge our distance apart. Rounding a corner, he crossed into an empty, grass filled lot. I was close enough now that I could hear his huffing and exasperation. My mark grabbed a glass soda bottle off of the dirt patch. He quickly turned around to throw it, hoping to shake me off.  It hit me square in the forehead cracking the lens of my glasses and bending the bridge.

        I stumbled back, failing to catch my sight. They gently plopped onto a single discarded couch cushion. I always wondered what circumstances drove such odd items to be in empty lots. With murky vision, I saw the blurry red jacket float away down the street. I lost him. “Dammit” I whispered to no one in particular. I went through the trouble of going downtown just to lose my prey. “Running from a fight is distasteful” I recounted the words my brother said to me when I was just beginning middle school. “Fight” he said. “Fight even if you’ll lose, especially if you’ll lose” I never did understand what he meant by that. But I knew no one else seemed to believe it.

        Walker, my brother, is in his last year of high school, and serves as the Council Treasurer. He’s good looking, and twice as capable. Not too much like myself; out of the three of us (my eldest brother included, I’m the youngest) I was pretty plain by comparison. Actually, I’m pretty plain in general. Even when school was out, or on weekends I still wear my old middle school uniform. Besides that, my black hair didn’t go past my shoulders and with my wide glasses and bangs I wasn’t showing much of my face. Maybe I looked alright, but I guess I could try a little harder. Standing next to my brothers was like placing a five-year-olds finger painting next to Picasso’s finest. And unfortunately, that respect continued on to our confrontations. Simply said, I wasn’t nearly as good a Fighter as either of them. I just didn’t know how Walker did it.

        Sun Tzu; the man credited with formalizing the ideology of war in practice, wrote that if you can’t win: run. And that if you can win: fight. Walker – an extremely talented Fighter – was also the same person who gave me “The Art of War” for my twelfth birthday. He told me to memorize the words forward and backward. Yet most of his personal doctrine contradicted the wisdom. It’s like he went out of his way to learn the ‘proper’ way of doing things just to not do them. My eldest brother, Glenn was always getting on him for that. “Rebellion is in that kid’s blood” he’d say.

        Glenn was a different story entirely however. He was proper, and respectable. He always puts others before himself. Not to mention he’s out-worldly handsome. Glenn’s so charming that whenever he mows the lawn in the rare heat of summer it’s basically a local event. From girls my age to housewives well above, all are present to watch sweat collect on his shirtless body. Glenn was a ‘pretty boy’ for sure. At least everyone I ever met seemed to think so. Still, Glenn never brought home a girl. I guess he was too busy working. Ever since our father died, Glenn has taken care of Walker and I. Walker earns some money from the government for being a Fighter though, and once school starts up so will I. Once school starts up…

        Yeah. No more hunting thugs off the street. Of course I’ll still have to keep on top of my studies as usual, but this will be the opportunity I’ve been waiting for. I’ll prove I have what it takes to stand amongst my brothers. I’ll make them proud.

        I picked up my crooked glasses and began walking back home. “Fight even when you have no chance of winning” I whispered to a backlot sunflower struggling to bloom. “Especially when you have no chance of winning” I shook my head.

        “Why? There is no point in fighting if you can’t win”

[strivingscribe]

Salt of the Earth ~ 004

Salt of the Earth by MsMoon

Chapter 4 ~ The Sword of Damocles

Chapters: 4/?

Chapter Navigation: 1, 2, 3, 4,

Fandom: Young Justice

Rating: ExplicitWarnings: Angst, Feeling? Violence?

Relationships: Maybe I was a little hasty in my last post…but no. She’s still 14, and this is Gen.

Summary: After responding to an incident, members of the team are saved by an unknown metahuman. But no protocols are in place to deal with the series of unfortunate events that assail Anitia Moore. What exactly should the team do when a someone with powers needs training but doesn’t want to be a member of the team?

Batman slipped back into the bioship with Miss Martian, Bumblebee, and Robin. It wasn't the first or last time he envied Martian tech, with their semi-sentient vehicles with superior camouflage. 

"We managed to plant two listening devices." Robin reported. "Both are operational and online. One is in the kitchen, and the other is in the girl's room."

"I got a few pictures of the girl's room." Karen offered.

"Anything of note?" Batman asked.

"She's into collecting…." She reported, typing in rapid-fire on her holo-computer. The images she'd captured began to upload.

"Everything's in bags." M'gann notices.

And it's true to a certain extent. There are a few bits of art and fabric on the walls, a single bed, a desk, dresser and sundry. The 'collections' that Bumblebee mentioned, assorted music, books, tiny stone statues and such, are all localized around collapsed bags...ready and waiting to go. The books and CDs were all stacked vertically, smallest on top of largest inside of soft bags... The bags sizes varied, but the obvious purpose remained. 

"Picking up anything interesting over the listening devices?" Batman asks.

"The only thing I've picked up thus far is the mother promising to talk later, and the beginnings of a very tense meal." Tim reported.

"That gives us time to reconvene back at HQ." Batman decides. Robin sets about connecting the software to transcribe whatever the listening devices might overhear on their way back.

Anita knows she's stalling when she realizes she's drying a perfectly clean pot. Also, Mom's leaning against the doorway to the kitchen, and she has no idea how long that's been going on.

"I don't think we can put it off any longer." Mom says.

Anita nods at the bone dry pot in her hand.

"I take it you were not crying because you remembered our dearly departed Sirrah Bowie earlier today."

Anita shook her head.

"Come and sit down, dear." Mom said, sitting at her usual spot at the kitchen table.

Anita's shoulders wilted at the term 'dear'. She hated 'dear'. 'Dear' in mom-speak (at least in her Mom's mom-speak) meant 'I'm not mad, I'm just disappointed and-a-little-mad-ok'. Still, there wasn't much she could do about it...Anita sat down, half melting in the wooden chair.

"Tell me about your morning." Mom insisted.

Anita took a deep breath, scrubbing her face with both hands before leaning her elbows onto the table for support. "I decided to wake up early… Beat the morning commute and all."

"On a Sunday?" Mom didn't have to say 'you odd duck', because it was implied with her tone.

"I wanted to get some shots over the Metro-Narrows before it got really congested and while the light was decent. Mostly the water against the bridge's trusses. I was thinking of working them into a report that I'm going to be writing at the end of the semester about long term effects of salt water against different metals… Professor Llom really enjoys that level of showmanship." she let out a huffy little laugh, finding it funny how much things had changed in one simple day. "Metro-Narrows has that beautiful structure, it's trussed deck extends below the deck as well as in the arches above…." she shook her head. "Anyway. I was taking pictures. Distracted by that, mostly."

"Did you get into your 'zone'?" Mom asked, smiling the way people do at videos of kittens trying to jump and usually failing.

Anita hesitated, thinking about it. "No…" she murmured with a tiny shake of her head. "I mean, I got some shots, and I tried to focus on what I was doing, but there was this feeling I kept getting like.." she took a deep breath, not sure how to describe the sensation. "..like I wasn't entirely safe or something… or maybe like...like someone was watching me or something. That weird, low-grade tension that builds up before a jump-scare in horror movies, I guess."

"And that's when hell broke loose?"

"Uhhh, yeah." Anita squirmed in her chair, her spine undulating slightly as if she needed to work a kink out of it. "I thought….maybe one of those big tankers got in a wreck or something. It felt like there should've been some sort of explosion, but there wasn't any fire or anything. There was just this guy. This guy wearing masks." she rolled her bottom lip into her mouth, biting it before continuing. "People started rushing everywhere at once. I darted behind one of the beams… I stayed there. I knew if I tried to run, I'd just trip or get shoved and...everything was just chaos."

"You pressed yourself against a beam?"

"Yeah. I ducked behind one and just let everyone run past me...used to beam for cover, I guess." she snorted. "I didn't realize how many commuters walk on that bridge till then."

"Then what happened?"

"Capes showed up. I didn't see where from, but they were there… and things got bad fast."

"And that's when you pitched in?"

Anita took a deep breath in and met Mom's eyes. "He was gonna die."

Mom closed her eyes, leaning her elbows on the table. "Baby." she said, trying to soften the next blow. "We have had this talk." She paused, waiting for a steady moment to round out the final statement in the argument between them. "People die by the billions every day. That doesn't mean you have to risk yourself."

Anita rolled her eyes. "Mom, it was Superboy. Superboy was going to die! Super. Boy. Superman's Boy. Might as well be Metropolis boy, Our boy, and there was no one else there!"

"Anita, really? Superboy is our boy?" Mom held up a hand. "If you're willing to make decisions worth dying over, that's...that's not fine, I'm not happy about it, but it's your decision. Die for the people you love, die to make the world a better place, but don't die for some pseudo-fascist iconography! I'm sure that works really well for Superboy, but everyone else doesn't think of you as their girl, and they're not willing to save you. Clearly!" Mom rolled her eyes heavenward, squeezed them shut to pray for strength and serenity because she didn't want or need to yell right now. "So, what? You just jumped into the fray? Caution to the wind, and all that."

"I changed my shape!" Anita argued before her expression went a touch watery. "But.. I guess I just...forgot my—" The rest was muffled as she groaned into both hands.

"Your fingerprints." Mom grumbled. She shook her head. "If I ever find the asshole that suggested a fingerprint day..."

"That was the year a bunch of kids went missing, Mom." Anita reminded, forking the fingers of both hands into her hair and pushing it back away from her face. She rested her chin on the table and left her hands on top of her head in a deflated-flan-in-a-cupboard sort of look.

Mom put both hands on the table, her shoulders arching just a touch as she took a deep breath and then relaxing as she let it go.

"So...you...stepped in. What happened, exactly?"

Anita sat up a bit, keeping her hands in her hair. It felt comforting for some reason, and she wasn't willing to let it go yet.

"Hit the guy with the masks. Hard. I rarely take my jasper off, so." she made 'you know' expression on her face, and Mom nodded. "The guy had put a glowing green rock on a lead chain around Superboy's neck…" Anita tapped her own collar bone as if to illustrate this scenario. "It's what was killing him."

"A glowing rock? What was it?"

"It was Kryptonite."

Mom's face wrinkled in a harsh squint. "Krypton… where Superman is from?"

"Yeah. Evidently, Kryptonite is really bad for Kryptonians. Something to do with the sun's radiation affecting the rock.… I'm not clear on that." she shook her head. "Lois Lane wrote an article about Superman when she interviewed him way back in the day, and another one about Krypton later on... it's not as enlightening as I'd hoped it would be." she sighed.

Mom was still squinting. "Why would you tell a reporter these things….?" she mused.

"There aren't a lot of scholarly articles about kryptonite out there, sadly." Anita shrugged. "Anyway, I was going to try and get rid of it, but I couldn't. I think that guy in the masks had some sort of holding ability, because he had Robin and that Lagoon Boy pinned too."

"Lagoon boy...that's the one that actually looks like the creature from the black lagoon, right?"

Anita paused. "I mean...yeah, but young and hot." Mom paused, tilting her head sideways and suppressing a smirk. "Don't give me that look."

"Young and hot, huh?"

"Sooo not the point right now." Anita reminded.

"Right, right." Mom sighed, but she occasionally slid suspicious eyes towards her daughter...the smirk totally ruined the effect. "The lead death necklace."

"I took it."

"...the ...lead?" Mom sat up straighter, leaning over the table, closer to Anita. "You know what lead does to you."

"Not the lead, Mom. I mean, I did tap the lead too. But...the kryptonite. I took it." Mom froze in place staring at her. "I took it all."

There was a heavy beat of silence as they surveyed each other.

"How...is that?"

"Uhhh." Anita half laughed, her eyes drifting towards the ceiling as she nodded rapidly. "Horrific." she continued laughing breathlessly. "It's like… like I feel really weightless, or I could be if I want to, but there's this weird...shortness of breath. And I want to cry. Like, all the time. And I keep going between really just wanting to curl into a tight ball and sob and wanting to stare listlessly at the dirt, but I feel like I need to run or something's going to eat me." she shook her head. "It's like… like being clinically depressed, being aware of the depression, and trying to rationalize it and knowing you don't have time for this shit."

Mom reached both hands across the table, taking Anita's in hers and keeping them in a gentle grip.

"That explains why your eyes turned so green." Mom observed, wondering how her daughter had managed to hide that from her for this long. Anita ducked her eyes, staring at their joined hands instead. "It's ok. They're still your eyes." Mom picked up their hands and kissed Anita's knuckles. "What happened then?"

"Uh…" she swallowed harshly. "I'd uh… So, I'd punted the ass in the masks across the bridge, right? He was on the other side of the bridge. And Superman shows up…" she chuckled softly. "He just t-balled the guy with an enormous metal beam, and the guy flew all the way back across the bridge, back near us again." her expression sobered significantly. "But then, he flew towards us, and he… I was affected by it."

"By what?"

"The kryptonite. I mean, I'd taken it all but… but kryptonite's such a trip. Like, I couldn't—" she shook her head. "I was the thing that was killing them."

"Ok, first, you are not a thing."

"Not really the point, Mom." Anita reminded. She sighed. "Anyway, something hit me and knocked me off the bridge." Mom's grip became tighter. "And I was full-on hovering out there… like.. Kryptonite's really really intense and horrible, but evidently, it gives you wings." Mom let out a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding, deflating like a cheap wal-mart balloon. Anita started chuckling softly again. "I remember thinking, 'I lost my camera, my scarf, and I lost my peace of mind all in one outing'." she laughed, shaking her head. "It shouldn't be funny."

"I think we've gotten into hysterical territory, hon." Mom said. "Come here." she rose and drew Anita into a hug. "You don't have to go to school tomorrow if you don't want to."

"I think I need to. I think I need something to focus on."

"We'll see in the morning." Mom decided. Maybe Anita did need things to think about, but it wasn't as if she couldn't occupy herself on her own. She would also need to sleep, and Sharon had no idea if she'd be able to manage that after such a trying day. "I'm sorry about your camera."

Anita drew away, shrugging. Thinking about it made her feel sick to her stomach...but it wasn't like there was anything she could do. "I mean… it's been four months since the last birthday, and I backed-up daily..." the words sounded hollow, even in her own ears.

"But you love taking pictures." Mom reminded, as if she needed to.

"Yeah.." Anita croaked before clearing her throat. "..but it is what it is." she said sullenly. "I can...just use my phone if I really want to take photos. I use it for everything else." She finally met Mom's eye. "What… what are we gonna do?"

"What do you mean?"

"About.." she waved her hands in ambiguous circles. "All this."

"We can tell the boys whenever you're ready."

"I'm not talking about the smols, Mom. We had Batman on our doorstep tonight. Like…. Batman. It doesn't get much more serious than that."

Mom shifted her weight slightly, shrugging as she leaned her elbows on the table, stacking one forearm over another. "According to what you've said, I don't see where you've committed any crime. I can't imagine that we'd have to worry about superheroes." she took a deep breath. "You are a law abiding citizen, after all."

"Yeah, but… I mean, there's gotta be more to it than that." Anita reasoned. She sauntered back to the drying board and and started putting the dishes back where they went.

"Hm… He did say they wanted 'access' to you…" Mom leaned back against the doorway. "That's a vague term at best." she shrugged. "I guess we just do what we always do." she said with a smile. She let her hips slide forward in the seat, resting her shoulders back against the chair back in a collapsed slouch. "We play it cool, close to the vest. We've done nothing wrong, and no bills are due."

"I guess… just.. feels like... You know that term 'I have the sword of Damocles hanging over my head'?" she stalled, shaking her head. "I think that this feeling I have... that's what it is. Like there's some ambiguous penance ready to smite from on high."

"It'll be ok, sweetheart." Mom said, standing up and drawing Anita into another hug. "I don't know how, but it will."

"You don't know how?" Anita asked, drawing back to look at her mom's face.

Mom shrugged. "Most of life is just figuring out how to keep on keepin' on." she smiled. "That's just what we'll have to do now." 

[jilliangkenny-blog]

Water Pollution and My Contribution

Blog Post 12

My Water Footprint

This information is based solely off of my dietary restrictions, yearly income, and country of origin. Since I estimated my yearly income, I’m not sure how accurate it is, but my water footprint is very high compared to the global average. This makes sense, since I live in a developed country and all of my needs are met. This cannot be said for most people on the planet. I should be cognizant of my overconsumption of water.

Chapter 13: Water Resources

Colorado River

In Chapter 13, Miller and Spoolman discuss the story of the Colorado River. This river used to be free-flowing, but it has been tamed by a plumbing system over the past 50 years or so. This created 14 major dams and reservoirs, as well as canals. These provide water for farmers, ranchers, industries, and cities. The river is being so overused that the water source is depleting. This is the only river in the entire arid land, and all the water is being used for human consumption in this area. It is used for crops and to support cities in this dry climate. The river has experienced drought over the past few years as well. Water shortage is one of the leading environmental problems the world faces at this time, alongside biodiversity loss and climate change. This is an essential issue to analyze, and the case of the Colorado River can help us to see how we can solve the problem.

Will We Have Enough Usable Water?

As we know, water is essential for human life. If a person goes longer than about three days without water, our bodies cannot function, and that person cannot live. In addition to human use, water also sculpts the Earth’s surface, controls and moderates the climate, and removes some pollutants and wastes that are human caused. Freshwater is a form of natural capital, and it is probably one of the most important ones that the Earth offers. Despite all of that, water is very poorly allocated among the people of our planet. Even though it is so valuable and essential for life, we do not treat it like this is the case. We pollute it without thinking twice, and we do not charge enough for its availability. Water is widely available for those who are wealthy enough to have it close, but for those in poverty, clean water is rare. This is an environmental justice issue because there is unequal access to water among people, something that is seen as a fundamental human right. This also presents itself as an environmental issue because, when an excessive amount of water is taken from aquifers and rivers, this shrinks rivers and lakes, and depletes wetlands. This results in worse water quality, lower populations of fish, species extinction, and degradation of aquatic ecosystem services (Miller and Spoolman 319).

There are several different methods of obtaining freshwater. The first is from groundwater, which is in spaces between soil, gravel, and rock that comes from precipitation. It rests on top of a layer of rock that it cannot penetrate through. There is also something called a zone of saturation, which is a zone completely filled with water under the earth’s surface. The top of this zone is called the water table, since a large amount of water resides there. These dry up when we take too much groundwater, and it does not have enough time to replenish itself. Aquifers are another way to get water. These are geological layers of “sand gravel, or rock through which groundwater flows” (320). Groundwater often falls into these deeper caverns because of gravity, and then it gets infiltrated into an aquifer. They are contained in this layer of aquifer because there are watertight layers of rock or clay under the aquifers.

For groundwater and aquifers, there are pumps that we use to get the water to the surface for human needs. This water is used for drinking, irrigating crops, and other industries that require water to function. These pumps often take water too fast for the ground to replenish, leaving these areas in drought and changing their ecosystem services. Another form of water as a resource is surface water, “the freshwater from precipitation and melted snow that flows across the earth’s land surface and into lakes, wetlands, streams, rivers, estuaries, and ultimately into the oceans” (320). We can use some of this runoff for the same things we use groundwater for.

The textbook goes through many possible solutions for what the answer could be to this growing problem of water. It suggests extracting groundwater, but this is shut down fairly quickly. Extracting groundwater is a common practice throughout the world already, and these groundwater aquifers are not replenishing themselves quickly enough for this to be a solution. If we continue to merely extract more groundwater, the process of the disappearance of water will increase greatly. They then discuss whether or not building more dams is the answer to this question. The textbook defines a dam as “a structure built across a river to control the river’s flow” (328). This creates a reservoir, or an artificial lake, behind the dam. Dams change the way that rivers run, and they are meant to store and capture runoff. Not only do they find a way for humans to use runoff water, they provide a recreational purpose for swimming, fishing, boating, and other activities. Dams are so widely used, though, that there is 3 to 6 times more water in reservoirs than are flowing in any rivers worldwide. These dams can misplace people due to access to water. This has caused the displacement of 40-80 million people from their homes. It also causes flooding in areas where dams are built.

Chapter 20: Water Pollution

Lake Washington

Lake Washington is located in Seattle, Washington on the western shore of Puget Sound. The city expanded to the east, getting closer to Lake Washington, in the earth 20th century. The citizens of Seattle relied on the lake for recreation. Not only did the city dwellers use this lake as a form of recreation, but wastewater was typically discarded here as well. As time went on and the lake became more polluted, it was discovered that blue-green algae was present in the lake as of 1955. These algae grew quite quickly, and they rotted near the shore and created foul air. The algae killed many different populations of fish and made the water cloudy. Edmonson, a scientist at the University of Washington, predicted that phosphorus coming from the waste dumped into the lake was what was perpetuating algae growth.

Edmonson and his colleagues wanted to bring awareness to the public about the algae growing in the lake, so they wrote letters and articles. These efforts saw results: blue-green algae had practically disappeared from the Puget Sound within three years of putting pressure on local government. While this problem was solved with political pressure, it is steadily rising again as the population of Seattle rises. This shows that, although political change can be met with activism and the spread of knowledge, lasting legislature needs to be put into place to solve long-term issues of environmental degradation.

Water Pollution: Causes and Effects

Water pollution is when the water quality in a body of water is changed enough that living organisms are affected in quality of life. Usually, the water is contaminated by some chemical or by excessive heat. There are many sources of pollution, but they are distinguished by two types: point and nonpoint sources. Point sources are sources that can be traced back to one specific location. Some examples of these are factories, sewage treatment plants, and oil tankers. Nonpoint sources are sources that cannot be traced back to one source, usually in broad areas. This includes runoff chemicals from cropland, livestock feedlots, and urban street pollution. Nonpoint sources are more difficult to solve because it is harder to identify where the pollution comes from, exactly, making it more difficult to find the solution. Many sources include agriculture activities and industrial facilities.

A reason why water pollution is such a big problem is because of the sheer amount of it. Usually, streams can clean themselves without any cleanup needed by humans. They recover from degradation and oxygen-demanding waste through dilution and breakdown. This process does not work, however, when there is a buildup of so many pollutants. This intense level of pollution cannot be solved through an oxygen sag curve, which is how pollution is usually cleansed by the stream.

Word Count: 1442

Discussion Question: How can we implement long-lasting policy to prevent water pollution?

[electrospeak]

Jotaro versus Dio: how a fight from 1992 still feels as fresh and exciting as it did back then.

I just finished Stardust Crusaders. It was great. Don’t read this article if you don’t want to be spoiled for part 3 of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure. This isn’t super formal, I just want to talk about this fight. I’m going to talking about the David Productions version of Jotaro vs Dio, since it’s the one that most people have seen, and is closer to the manga than the OVA (also there’s a milk tanker instead of a road roller in the OVA, 0/10). This is a bit different from what I usually do, but I don’t think anyone will mind terribly.

The Dynamic

The buildup for each of these fighters are immense, and add to the suspense when the finale of Stardust Crusaders rolls around.

Jotaro is ridiculous. His stand is literally a ghost that can catch bullets and kill people by punching them. He has a practically bulletproof layer of plot armor for the whole series, and when his answer to a situation isn’t to punch the living crap out of it, it’s just to bluff until he can. That’s about it, but we’ll get back to how Jotaro is basically perfect in the second section.

Dio, on the other hand, has had build up for the entirety of Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure (up until this point, anyways), and his stand, The World (Za Warudo) can literally stop time. Parts 1 + 2 do a great job of building up the vampires as true supreme beings, and combined with The World, Dio is one of the biggest threats in the JJBA universe. He survived at the bottom of the ocean for around 100 years and is wearing Jotaro’s great-great-grandfather as a full-body prosthetic. He’s also lost all sense of being human, having Senator Phillips mow down a crowded sidewalk full of people before he fights Kakyoin.

The Suspense

Given Jotaro’s track record, it might seem an impossible task to feel like he won’t win the fight, but the way that the events before the fight take place actually make it seem like Jotaro won’t win.

First of all, characters have started to die. Avdol and Iggy were only just killed in Dio’s mansion. That’s not that impressive on it’s own; Dio didn’t kill them, Vanilla Ice did. But once Dio completely curb-stomps Kakyoin and kills Joseph, who killed someone who had DNA from every living being on the planet, it’s clear that Dio might kill the whole cast of Part 3. The fourth opening really helps this, too. There’s stylized versions of Avdol, Iggy, Kakyoin, and Joseph’s deaths in the opening, and once you see Joseph die, you can probably put the pieces together and come to the conclusion that Jotaro will die. There’s a stylized version of Dio’s knife attack in the opening, so it’s completely understandable that someone might expect Jotaro to die. It’s also worth mentioning that in Phantom Blood, Dio kills Jonathan, who, like the Stardust Crusaders, won every battle he fought.

Polnareff

Adding onto the last paragraph, Polnareff is also an important factor in the suspense of the Jotaro v Dio fight. When Polnareff appears in the fight, it’s to plant one of two ideas in the viewer’s head.

Polnareff dies. Now that all of the Stardust Crusaders have been defeated, and Jotaro is in critical condition, it’s completely possible that Dio completely wipes the floor with all of the SC and remains a multi-generational villain. Or…

Polnareff supplants Jotaro as the main character. While this might seem off in hindsight, it’s completely possible that someone might expect Polnareff to become the main character of Part 3 when he appears in the middle of the Dio fight. Polnareff has had, arguably, the most character development in the entire show, and has much more trouble defeating enemies than any of the other Stardust Crusaders. That is, until he defeats Vanilla Ice, after Avdol and Iggy are both dead. Compared to Jotaro, Polnareff is actually more fit to be the main character of Part 3 than Jotaro is. Stardust Crusaders is a battle show that, on the surface, is, well, bizarre, and offbeat. But at its core it celebrates the things that make the genre so beloved. Polnareff is the same way. On the surface, he seems like a comedy relief character, but on the inside, Polnareff has more human pathos than you can shake a stick at. Also, given JJBA’s subversive nature, it’s completely possible that someone would supplant the main character at the final chapter of the story.

Although neither of those things happen, the distinct possibility of both raise tensions for the rest of the fight, since no one really wants Jotaro to die.

Dio can’t be predicted.

Just like the arcana that his stand suggests, Dio’s methods of defeating enemies are completely unexpected. The World (the card) is one that suggests completeness, one that suggests true satisfaction and happiness, but it is ultimately unspecific. Like The Fool, The World is basically a wild card when it comes to predictions. It makes complete sense that Dio, being the user of the stand, The World, has time manipulation, knives, and a road roller under his belt. This is especially scary in JJBA of all places, since the Stardust Crusaders have defeated enemies by playing to their opponents’ stands’ weaknesses. But time manipulation is incredibly hard to counterattack against, and things like 40 something knives and a road roller aren’t part of his stand; they’re part of Dio’s insane psyche. Like any good horror movie, the Dio fight builds suspense from the audience not knowing what comes next.

Final Thoughts

I love this fight. Everything that I just described makes the final victory of Jotaro all the more cathartic. I also think that it’s extremely clever for the reveal to be that Star Platinum is the same stand as The World, since it makes sense thematically, and it’s a way cleaner resolution than if Jotaro tried to beat Dio without any kind of time manipulation whatsoever. That’s about it for today. I’m going to listen to Roundabout on end and cry into my Kakyoin body pillow now. Thanks for reading, and have a nice night.

[shaledirectory]

Anchor’s Away: Marcellus Shale Leaves Cove Point, Future Arrives

Jim Willis Editor & Publisher, Marcellus Drilling News (MDN)

  The first real shipment of Marcellus Shale LNG leaves Cove Point, launching a future of US energy dominance and sustained rural Northeast economic revival.

Finally. Finally! Finally!!! The very first cargo of Marcellus Shale gas has been liquefied, loaded and as of Sunday night, set sail from Dominion’s Cove Point LNG plant, heading for we’re not sure where yet. We’ve waited YEARS for this day! Let’s pop the cork on a bottle of the bubbly and celebrate.

Last week MDN told you that a ship called the Patris was due to dock at Cove Point and load the first shipment of Marcellus molecules. It appears that information was incorrect. It was correct at the time! Either the Patris was redirected somewhere else, or we’re not sure what happened.

But, news has just broken that late Sunday night, close to midnight, a ship by the name of Adam departed Cove Point loaded with the very first Marcellus shipment. Several more ships are said to be headed for Cove Point now.

International shipping isn’t our specialty, so we won’t quote chapter and verse for which ships and when. This first shipment that left Sunday belongs to Japan, but there’s no indication it will actually go to Japan.

As we’ve noticed and have been reporting, both Japan and India (which will take all of the LNG Cove Point can produce) are in the game of swapping cargoes they own, sending Cove Point cargoes to customers closer to the point of origin in return for receiving cargoes that originate closer to their own shores.

When we hear where the first Marcellus cargo lands, we’ll let you know. In the meantime, here’s the information we can find about the very first load of Marcellus Shale gas to get exported from Cove Point.

From Reuters:

The first contractual liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo from Dominion Energy Inc’s newly constructed Cove Point LNG export plant in Maryland in the United States left the facility on Monday, Thomson Reuters Eikon ship tracking data showed.

The cargo is expected to act as a drag on spot LNG prices as it coincides with the resumption of exports of the fuel from the Papua New Guinea LNG plant, which had been shut following a powerful earthquake.

The 160,000-cubic meter LNG tanker Adam LNG left Cove Point on Monday with a draft of 91 percent, suggesting it was full, according to the data. Its destination was not immediately clear.

The facility has exported two commissioning or test cargoes already, which were sold to Royal Dutch Shell. The first cargo from the facility left the terminal in early March heading for Britain’s Dragon LNG terminal.

Dominion Energy was not immediately available for comment outside operating hours.

But the company said last week the terminal had entered commercial service for natural gas liquefaction and exports.

After completing a planned outage for maintenance, the facility has been ramping up to full production of LNG from natural gas provided by its export customers since late March, the company said.

The 177,000-cubic meter tanker LNG Sakura and the 163,000-cubic meter tanker Meridian Spirit are heading to the Cove Point terminal, according to Eikon data.

Cove Point is the second LNG export plant in the lower 48 U.S. states after Cheniere Energy Inc’s Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana, which exported its first cargo in February, 2016.

Dominion sold the project’s capacity for 20 years to a subsidiary of GAIL (India) Ltd and to ST Cove Point, a joint venture of units of Japanese trading company Sumitomo Corp and Tokyo Gas Co Ltd.

Some of the LNG for ST Cove Point will go to Tokyo Gas and some will go to Kansai Electric Power Co Inc, according to Sumitomo’s Pacific Summit Energy (PSE) unit.

From Platts:

Dominion Energy has exported what appears to be the first commercial cargo from its Cove Point terminal in Maryland, S&P Global Platts vessel tracking software cFlow shows.

The Oman Shipping-owned Adam tanker departed Cove Point about 11:30 pm local time Sunday (0330 GMT Monday) with a nearly full load, en route toward the Suez Canal with the destination unspecified, vessel tracking data shows.

A Dominion spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday. The company said last week that commercial service had started, though it did not disclose when the first cargo under long-term contracts with Gail India and a joint venture of Sumitomo Corporation and Tokyo Gas would be exported. Shell had a deal to export all of Cove Point’s commissioning cargoes, suggesting the cargo that left aboard the Adam was a commercial delivery.

The Adam moored at Cove Point’s export platform early on Saturday with a draught of 9.0 m and left a little over 36 hours later with a draught of 11.4 m, just short of the vessel’s maximum draught of 11.8 m, cFlow data shows. The draught is the depth of the vessel below the waterline. Vessels sink lower as more LNG is loaded.

Cove Point feedgas flows have rebounded to a high of 616 MMcf/d for Monday from the recent low of 163 MMcf/d on Thursday and an average of 535 MMcf/d over the last four days, S&P Global Platts Analytics data shows. As of now, the Adam is heading back to where it came from, the Suez Canal. Cove Point is still expecting two more unladen vessels in the coming week as the Kawasaki Sakaide and the Meridian Spirit continue to travel toward the plant with an estimated arrival of April 19 and 21, respectively.

Editor’s Note: And, off we go into a bright new future for Marcellus Shale and the communities benefitting by it. Hail to the future!

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