Saturday, March 22, 2014


News Clips For The Day


Ukraine's East Border on Alert After Crimea Annexation – NBC
By Richard Engel

DONETSK, Ukraine -- One month after protesters toppled
Ukraine’s pro-Moscow government, this country’s rural eastern border is the site of a Cold War-style standoff.

Ukrainians have dug a trench along their side of the border with Russia that's supposed to stop Russian troops and tanks from advancing into Eastern Ukraine. A local official, worried the border was unprotected, paid for the trench with his own money.

But the trench, which is just a few feet wide and has several sizable gaps, is unlikely to stop, or even slow, a Russian advance.

U.S. military officials told NBC's Jim Miklaszewski that as many as 20,000 Russian troops have amassed along the Ukrainian border. Officials say many of them come from elite units, backed by heavy armor and attack helicopters.

On the Ukrainian side of the border, near the the village of Andriivka, around 200 Ukrainian paratroopers dug foxholes using shovels in a muddy field and put up a handful of canvas tents. Their families brought them food in plastic bags.

The soldiers aren’t universally welcomed. On a cold afternoon this week, a handful of burly men shouted at the soldiers, saying the border region should be absorbed into Russia, like Crimea.

They stood nose-to-nose with members of a pro-Ukraine volunteer group, who’d also come to the base to bring food and sleeping bags to the paratroopers. The troops watched as the groups argued noisily, but did not intervene.

One pro-Ukraine volunteer told NBC News he wanted to ensure that military vehicles were able to move freely, without being blocked by pro-Russian militias who now regularly harass Ukrainian troops in the east.

"I denounce the aggression against my country," the volunteer, Aleksander Romanyuk, a local city lawmaker, said.

North of the city of Donetsk, a pro-Russian militia recently surrounded the gates of a Ukrainian military storage facility, blocking trucks from delivering ammunition to Kiev.

Fireworks in Moscow
The standoff on the border is part of a broader tug-of-war for Ukraine.
On Friday, Russian President Vladimir Putin formalized Russia’s annexation of Crimea. It marked the first time Moscow has expanded its borders since World War II. Moscow's sky erupted in fireworks.

The move triggered another round of stark warnings and financial sanctions. The European Union joined Washington in freezing the assets of several of Putin’s closest advisers.

Kiev is strongly behind the sanctions and is hoping that the leadership -- and not the trench –- can prevent any Russian tanks from streaming across the border.
In Brussels on Friday, Ukrainian Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk signed an association agreement with the EU.

Four months earlier, Ukraine’s then President Viktor Yanukovich rejected the deal, preferring to maintain close ties to Moscow. The rejection triggered protests that ultimately led to Yanukovich’s downfall.


Donetsk
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Donetsk is an industrial city in eastern Ukraine on the Kalmius River. Administratively, it is a centre of Donetsk Oblast, while historically, it is the unofficial capital and largest city of the larger economic and cultural Donets Basin (Donbas) region. The city of Donetsk is adjacent to another major city of Makiivka and along with other surrounding cities forms a major urban sprawl and conurbation in the region. Donetsk is a major economic, industrial and scientific centre of Ukraine with a high concentration of companies and a skilled workforce.

The city was founded in 1869 by a Welsh businessman, John Hughes, who constructed a steel plant and several coal mines in the region; the town was thus named Yuzovka (Юзовка) in recognition of his role in its founding ("Yuz" being a Russian or Ukrainian approximation of Hughes). During Soviet times, the city's steel industry was expanded. In 1924 it was renamed Stalino (Сталино), and in 1932 the city became the centre of the Donetsk region. Renamed Donetsk in 1961, the city today remains the centre for Ukraine's coal mining and notable steel industry centre.

Donetsk currently has a population of over 982,000 inhabitants (2010)[1] and has a metropolitan area of over 2,000,000 inhabitants (2011). According to the 2001 Ukrainian Census, Donetsk is the fifth-largest city in Ukraine.[

After experiencing a tough time in the 1990s, when it was the centre of gang wars for control over industrial enterprises, Donetsk has modernised quickly in recent years, largely under the influence of big companies.

Residents of the city tend to be conservative in their political beliefs.[who?] This came out during the 2004 presidential election, in which the city mostly voted for candidate Viktor Yanukovych, which had been announced as the winner of the election by the Central Election Commission. The vote was later revoked by the court. This led to an election re-run, thus making Yanukovych lose the election. During the 2006 Ukrainian parliamentary elections, the Yanukovych-led Party of Regions also won most of the votes from the region.[who?]

After the Euromaidan, and influenced by the Supreme Council of Crimea announcing the Crimean referendum, 2014 about the future of Crimea, the council of the Donetsk Oblast voted to have a referendum to decide the future of the oblast.[10] On 3 March, a number of people started storming Donetsk Oblast administrative building, waving Russian flags and shouting ″Russia!″ and ″Berkut are heroes!″. The police did not offer resistance.[11] Later in the week the authorities of Donetsk denounced the referendum on the status of the region.[12] And the police retook the Donetsk Oblast administrative building.[13][14] Donetsk became one of the centers of the 2014 pro-Russian protests in Ukraine.




Near “Donetsk, a pro-Russian militia recently surrounded the gates of a Ukrainian military storage facility, blocking trucks from delivering ammunition to Kiev.” I wonder if this is Ukraine's only military storage facility? If it is, they need to set up others nearer to Kiev, possibly with ammunition and weapons donated by NATO countries, and guard it and the roads leading to it.

I wish we knew more about Ukraine's army. I assume they have one. Maybe they could initiate a universal draft to beef up their numbers as the US did in World War II. There are some US voices advocating our arming the Ukrainians at the very least. The fact that Ukraine has such an inadequate budget works against Kiev, of course. They also need to organize better – family members carrying food to the soldiers is not good. I think the NATO countries need to start with massive aid and peace-keeping soldiers NOW rather than waiting for Putin to decide to send in troops inside Ukraine to “protect” it's Russia-oriented citizens. Retaking those territories will be harder than just keeping the Russians out in the first place.

The fact that the Donetsk police “did not offer resistance” looks like the real cause of their weakness. “ Later in the week the authorities of Donetsk denounced the referendum on the status of the region. And the police retook the Donetsk Oblast administrative building.” Clearly if the Ukrainian forces decide to fight they can do it. All Ukrainian government centers need to make a timely and strong resistance and beef up their guard forces around cities and military sites, including the roads leading to them.

Also, the Ukrainian citizens need to stand up together as they did in Kiev and fight. The fact that these pro-Russian militias are being aggressive is, I think, the main reason for their unblemished success. The Ukrainians aren't trying. Ukrainian citizens could try guerilla tactics. Armies that are outnumbered often use that to advantage. There is a concern, probably, that this kind of active defense will cause Russia to send in its troops across the Crimean border, but I think it is more likely to make Russia stand down, especially if it is combined with the denial of trade by EU countries. One article that I read said the Russian stock market has already been affected. If the Ukrainians continue to behave like passifists Russian overthrow of their government is almost inevitable. I hope for a radical change in their tactics.




Owl Monkeys Rate Among the Animal World's Best Mates and Fathers – NBC
By Paul Raeburn

The wide-eyed, smiley-faced male Azara’s owl monkeys of Argentina are among the most faithful mates and best fathers in the world, according to a study that also found a strong link between fidelity and the quality of child care in 15 mammalian species.

Researchers have known that the owl monkeys stick together, but they could not be certain that the males were always the fathers of the children they so devotedly cared for. Studies with birds and other species have shown that fathers often unwittingly care for offspring that are not theirs.

Not so for the owl monkeys, says Eduardo Fernandez-Duque, the lead author of the study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B. "The monkeys are in a monogamous relationship, the males are fully committed to caring for the offspring, and when we check the genetics, we have straight monogamy," he said. In other words, all of the offspring were descended from the caretaking males. None was the product of a promiscuous relationship.

"There is nothing like this in other primates or mammals," Fernandez-Duque said. "Every single male studied over 18 years in captivity and in the field has shown devoted care." When you see a baby riding on an adult, "you can put your money down — the adult is a male."

'No right or wrong for humans'
Is it fair to say that the owl monkeys put humans to shame?
"There is no right or wrong for humans," Fernandez-Duque said. Many human societies are monogamous, but that arose in many of those societies after the development of states, he said. Monogamy is often enforced by the state, but that doesn't mean couples are truly monogamous, he said: "A lot of evidence suggests that humans are not monogamous."

Azara's owl monkey is the first primate and only the fifth animal species shown to be perfectly monogamous. The other animals are the California mouse, certain coyotes, the Malagasy giant jumping rat, and Kirk's dik-dik, a small antelope.

Fernandez-Duque and his colleagues collected data on 15 species of mammals that appeared to be monogamous and found that the fathers' investment in their offspring was correlated with promiscuity: The less promiscuity, the more time they devoted to their offspring. The study could not say which came first.

Two studies published last July offered conflicting explanations for the origin of monogamy. One argued that males stuck with their mates to protect their offspring, while the other suggested that males clung to females to protect their breeding rights with their mate. That question remains unresolved.

'A first for primates'
This week's study "is really a first for primates," said Kermyt G. Anderson, an anthropologist at the University of Oklahoma who is co-author of a book on fathers called "Fatherhood." He said there is "surprisingly little data" on monogamy in primates, the classification that includes monkeys, apes and humans.

The link between monogamy and fathers' care for their children fits evolutionary theory, he said. "Males should invest in their offspring only if it's likely to be their offspring," he said.

Studies of monogamy and paternal care in human societies are complicated by the enormous variation in human societies, Fernandez-Duque said. Some communities, such as the Aka pygmies of Central Africa, are marked by strong parental care and close relationships, he said. "In those societies, men and women tend to spend a lot of time together," he said.

In addition to Fernandez-Duque, the authors of "Correlates of Genetic Monogamy in Socially Monogamous Mammals: Insights From Azara's Owl Monkeys" include Maren Huck, Paul Babb and Theodore Schurr.


Azara's night monkey
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Azara's night monkey (Aotus azarae), also known as the southern night monkey, is a night monkey species from South America. It is found in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Paraguay. The species is nocturnal and monogamous, with the males providing a large amount of parental care. It is named after Spanish naturalist Félix de Azara. The species is listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List.

Azara's night monkey is a monogamous species, with the male remaining present to raise the offspring and provide food. The offspring will only stay with its family until two to three years of age and then will disperse to begin a family of its own. There is very little sexual dimorphism in this species.[3]

Azara's night monkey is primarily a frugivore, but also will eat things such as leaves, flowers, and insects. One of the main advantages of being a nocturnal animal is that there is greatly reduced competition from diurnal animals.[3]

Azara's night monkey spends its life in trees and becomes more active when the moon is brighter, tending to keep to its well-known paths. Azara's night monkey can be found sleeping in groups of between 2 and 5 others in trees. The average group size is about 3 monkeys. It leaps from tree to tree but also moves quadrupedally throughout the forest.[3]




The owl monkey undoubtedly gets its name from the large, rounded black patches around their large eyes. The term “frugivore” does mean fruit-eating. From the news article, the fidelity of the pair bond makes for better child care due to the investment of the male in his offspring. I'd have to say that is very true with humans – better fathers are also more likely to try hard to be monogamous. Eduardo Fernandez-Duque has conducted DNA studies on these monkeys that seem to prove that the pair was monogamous. He also said that the males provide a great deal of the caretaking. “When you see a baby riding on an adult, "you can put your money down — the adult is a male." The animals are very cute. I'm glad to make their acquaintance.




Pope Appoints Former Child Victim to Church Group on Sex Abuse – NBC
Reuters
First published March 22 2014

VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis on Saturday named a victim of sexual abuse by a priest to be part of a core group formed to help the Catholic Church tackle the problem of clerical pedophilia that has dogged it for two decades.

The formation of a group of experts was first announced in December, and today the pope named the first eight members — four female and four male — from eight different countries.

These initial members will be responsible for rounding out the "commission for safeguarding minors" with other experts from around the world and defining the scope of the group's action.

"Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities," Vatican spokesman Rev. Federico Lombardi said in a statement.

"Looking to the future without forgetting the past, the Commission will take a multi-pronged approach to promoting youth protection," he said.

These will include taking criminal action against offenders, educating people about the exploitation of children, developing best practices to better screen priests, and defining the civil and clerical duties within the Church, Lombardi said.
Among those named to the group was Marie Collins, who was a victim of sexual abuse in Ireland in the 1960s and who has campaigned actively for the protection of children and for justice for victims of clerical pedophilia.

Another member of the commission is the archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley, known as a pioneer for a more open approach to tackling scandal since he published a database of Boston clergy accused of sexual abuse of minors online in 2011.




"Pope Francis has made clear that the Church must hold the protection of minors amongst Her highest priorities," said Rev. Federico Lombardi. The new approach will involve “taking criminal action against offenders, educating people about the exploitation of children, developing best practices to better screen priests, and defining the civil and clerical duties within the Church.” The commission handling the abuse of minors will include a “pioneer for a more open approach to tackling scandal” who published a list of Boston offenders on the Internet in 2011.

I think these things together will really help to fight the problem. One of the things I have always feared is that many men who are drawn to a celibate priesthood aren't sexually oriented toward adult females at all. If they can weed those people out there will be a big change. Also, if they do turn offenders over to the courts for criminal prosecution, not only will the desire for revenge – or justice -- be answered, as many people who would be tempted to offend, but don't want to go to prison, will be deterred. It's another good move for the Pope.




ER use of narcotic painkillers up almost 50 percent: Study – CBS
By Amy Norton HealthDay March 22, 2014

More and more Americans are being prescribed powerful narcotic drugs when they visit the emergency department for problems such as low back pain or a pounding headache, a new study finds.

Between 2001 and 2010, emergency departments in the United States showed a 49 percent increase in prescriptions for narcotic painkillers -- also known as opiates. That was despite the fact that there was only a small increase in the percentage of visits for painful conditions.

Experts said the trend is concerning because narcotic painkillers -- which include drugs like OxyContin, Percocet and Vicodin -- can be addictive, or abused by people with existing drug problems. And while the drugs may be necessary for more-severe pain, ER doctors see many patients who can stick with over-the-counter pain relievers.
"In many cases, naproxen, Tylenol (acetaminophen) and ibuprofen are the best choices," said Dr. Ryan Stanton, an ER doctor in Lexington, Ky., and spokesman for the American College of Emergency Physicians (ACEP).

Stanton, who was not involved in the study, said the findings "are not shocking."
"This is reflective of the growing use of opiates across the board, not just in emergency medicine," Stanton said.

So why did narcotic painkiller prescriptions go up so much in a decade? One likely reason is that experts started calling for better pain management. In 2000, the Joint Commission, which accredits U.S. hospitals, set new standards for evaluating and treating patients' pain.

"There was a feeling that pain was being undertreated," said Dr. Maryann Mazer-Amirshahi of George Washington University School of Medicine in Washington, D.C., one of the researchers on the new study.

Plus, ER doctors can feel pressure to "make patients happy," said Mazer-Amirshahi's colleague Dr. Jesse Pines, who also worked on the study.

Some hospitals, he noted, have pay incentives that are tied to patient satisfaction surveys, and patients who want a "strong painkiller" and aren't given one may not be happy about it.

ACEP spokesman Stanton agreed that ER doctors can feel pressured.
He added, though, that the trend with painkiller prescriptions could be shifting now. In the past few years, a number of states have passed laws designed to tighten opiate prescribing practices -- in response to growing concerns about addiction and abuse.

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 12 million Americans abused prescription painkillers in 2010 -- meaning they used the drugs for nonmedical reasons. And in recent years, roughly 15,000 Americans have died annually from overdosing on the drugs. That's triple the rate in 1999.

The new findings, reported recently in the journal Academic Emergency Medicine, are based on figures from an annual CDC study of U.S. emergency departments.
The numbers show that in 2010, 31 percent of ER visits involved a narcotic painkiller prescription -- up from about 21 percent in 2001.

The increases were seen for a host of conditions, including abdominal pain, back pain, headache, joint and muscle pain, and toothaches.

There are times, Stanton said, when a short-term prescription for a narcotic is "absolutely appropriate" -- for broken bones or severe pain from kidney stones, for example.

But, he said, with more-minor problems like a sprained ankle or a back pain flare-up, the best choices are usually over-the-counter painkillers, ice, rest and possibly physical therapy in the longer term.

"You need an overall treatment plan, not a one-stop Band-Aid," Stanton said.
The risk of any one person becoming addicted from a short-term narcotic prescription is "probably not high," study co-author Pines acknowledged.

Still, Mazer-Amirshahi said, there are potential side effects, including sedation, and concerns about "diversion" -- that is, legitimate prescriptions falling into the hands of people who abuse the drugs.

For someone in pain, though, the most important point may be that narcotics do not seem especially effective for certain types of pain.

"For low back pain and headache, which are very common," Mazer-Amirshahi noted, "the evidence supporting the use of these drugs is actually not that good."

More information
The U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke has more on pain management.




"You need an overall treatment plan, not a one-stop Band-Aid," Stanton said. I wonder if many ER doctors don't have a close affinity to overall medical treatment, but rather to quick and probably temporary cessation of symptoms. They have lots of people waiting in the emergency room for their services and they don't feel they can invest much time on the matter. According to Stanton, other doctors are also using opiates too frequently. He also stated that “a number” – how many, I wonder – of states have made laws restricting opiate prescriptions by doctors. I think this is an area that probably does need more laws controlling it. Sometimes voluntary action is not sufficient. It is also possible that doctors are rewarded by drug manufacturers for prescribing their products. There was a recent article on that subject.




Giraffe nuzzles dying man in touching moment caught on camera – CBS
By Ryan Jaslow CBS News March 21, 2014

A giraffe might have paid tribute to a dying zoo employee with a nuzzle that was captured on camera Wednesday and has now gone viral.

The Dutch Ambulance Wish Foundation charity released a photo March 20 that shows a giraffe in an embrace with Mario, a zoo employee who had been working at Diergaarde Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam for the past 25 years. According to the foundation, the intellectually-disabled man had a brain tumor that's left him paralyzed, and his wish was to return to the zoo to see his animals and colleagues.

"It was a very special moment. You saw him smile," the foundation's director Kees Veldboer told the newspaper Algemeen Dagblad, as reported by English-language Dutch News. "It was special that the animals knew him and could sense all was not well with him."

The charity transports terminal patients via ambulance to carry out their last wish.
A YouTube video posted Friday on the charity's Facebook page also captured the moment:




This story is short, but satisfying. It is clear to me that people tend to underestimate mammals, and probably some birds as well. They do form real bonds, with their own kind, often with other and sometimes surprising species of animals, and certainly with humans. Anybody who has raised and bonded with an animal has also, almost certainly, experienced this reciprocation. Killing them is sometimes necessary. Extremely vicious dogs are an example. But it is always sad.




­Why Are We Hauling Pennsylvania Coal All The Way To Germany?
by S.V. Date
March 22, 2014
­
There are budget earmarks from powerful congressmen, earmarks from not-so-powerful congressmen and, as it turns out for an old mining town in Pennsylvania's Appalachians, there's even an earmark from a long-dead congressman.

In the 1960s and 70s, powerful Democrat Daniel Flood worked to find a federal government buyer for the anthracite coal mined in his district. He succeeded: Some five decades later, the heat coming off the radiators at the U.S. military's installation at Kaiserslautern, Germany, is still generated by burning Pennsylvania anthracite.

Each year, the coal is dug from century-old mines in these hills and valleys, loaded onto rail cars and sent to an East Coast port, typically Baltimore. There, it's loaded onto a bulk carrier for the trans-Atlantic journey to Rotterdam in the Netherlands.

Then a barge takes the coal down the Rhine River and delivers it to the village of Rhinau, France, says Uschi Hoermann, a civilian contracting officer for the Air Force in Germany. Kaiserslautern has a storage area there, she says, and "they pick up the coal as they need it."

Yet Germany's environmental policy is to shift away from coal — which produces twice as much carbon dioxide as natural gas does for the same amount of energy. Even setting that aside, there is plenty of anthracite to be found on the European market — at a fraction of the price of American anthracite, after factoring in the shipping costs.

So why haul Pennsylvania coal all the way to Germany?
Hoermann points to a $20-million-a-year contract which requires it. And the contract requires it because, year after year, Congress has inserted into defense appropriations bills a requirement that the heating of the military bases at Kaiserslautern be done with "United States anthracite."

The Pennsylvania Connection
Eastern Pennsylvania is the only place in the United States where anthracite is mined. It's the hard, low-sulfur, low-soot form of coal that once was a mainstay in home heating and commercial power generation. But by the mid-1960s, more and more homes and utilities were switching to oil and natural gas, and away from anthracite.
"The industry was struggling, and the Pennsylvania delegation wanted to do something to help it," says Jim Dyer, who today is a lobbyist with the Podesta Group, but began his career four decades ago in the office of Pennsylvania Republican Rep. Joseph McDade. "The one way it could help it was ... to get the federal government interested in buying some of it."

Their vehicle for capturing that interest was the earmark — in this case, a mandate that the Defense Department buy upwards of a million tons of anthracite a year for heat and electricity at its overseas bases. A law was passed actually forbidding the conversion of coal-fired plants at the bases to other fuels.

By the late 1970s and 1980s, the Pentagon was pushing back hard. It complained that it had no use for all that coal — so much, in fact, that it was paving it over with asphalt to protect it from the elements. It argued that it was cheaper to buy electricity and heat from local communities.

Over time, those arguments began to win the day. Critics of the program grew in number, and dubbed the anthracite language the "Coals to Newcastle" program. Then-Texas GOP Sen. Phil Gramm called it "felony theft of the taxpayers' money."
The coal mandate started to shrink — down to 300,000 tons, and eventually to the language currently in use that requires enough to generate the hot water needed by the 50,000 American service members and dependents at Kaiserslautern. That worked out to about 9,000 tons of anthracite last year, according to Hoermann.

Why the program is still in place remains unclear.
When it started a half-century ago, the million-ton annual purchase made the Pentagon the single largest buyer of anthracite in the world. The 9,000 tons left today make up less than 4 percent of the output of the one mine in Tamaqua that supplies the Kaiserslautern coal.

Flood left Congress in 1980 after pleading guilty to corruption charges, and died in 1994. One of Flood's aides, Michael Clark, remained in Washington, however. He founded the Anthracite Industry Association and continued lobbying Congress to keep the coal language. His success was even featured in a 1983 Washington Post article by Michael Isikoff.

Today Clark is still a lobbyist — and in an unusual twist, now represents Stadtwerke Kaiserslautern, the city-owned utility that is required to burn American anthracite in its Air Force heating contract. Neither Clark nor SWK, as the utility is known, responded to queries about the lobbying services Clark has provided.

Disclosure forms filed with Congress show that SWK is Clark's sole lobbying client, and that it has paid him an average of $225,000 a year over the past decade.
The Air Force also declined requests for an interview regarding the coal-shipping policy. While it fought Congress when the requirement was a million tons a year, it's not fighting the current mandate. It said in a statement: "The Air Force follows the laws and the direction put forth by Congress."

No Groundswell To Eliminate Earmark
The member of Congress who represents Flood's old district is Democrat Matt Cartwright. He won the seat in the 2012 running as an environmentalist, and benefited from a quarter million dollars in TV ads against the conservative Democratic incumbent by the League of Conservation Voters.

At a recent public hearing Cartwright hosted in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., he acknowledged that the coal earmark is not ideal from an environmental standpoint. "It's one of those things in Washington that if you want to dislodge it, you have to well up a force of steam to get that done," he told NPR. "I'm not aware of any great groundswell of support to get rid of it at this point."

And, Cartwright says, he's not willing to lead that charge. "This is something that was instituted in the congressional tenure of Daniel Flood. So before you dislodge a tradition like that, you want to study it closely."

All of which means there's little chance that the late Congressman Flood's coal-to-Germany legacy earmark will be ending anytime soon.

The Air Force, in fact, this past December signed a six-year extension of its heating contract for Kaiserslautern — including the requirement that it continue burning American anthracite.




Waste and corruption, not to mention idiocy! I hate to agree with Republican Phil Gramm against the Democrat Flood, but I have to on this matter. This is the kind of thing that, when we find it written into the budget, we should mercilessly kill it. In this case it would lessen our “carbon footprint” also if we would use less coal. I do remember a nice hot coal fire in our fireplace at home on cold days, but the world has gone to other fuels now, and there are fewer and fewer fireplaces in houses. It especially shouldn't be written into the law as a mandate, taking out the possibility of change.

The current Democrat who holds that seat is an environmentalist and doesn't consider the mandate to be “ideal,” but thinks a move to change it would be very difficult to achieve. So I guess it will go on into the future as it is. Sometimes when I look at the way political things work themselves out, I have to laugh and shake my head. The “human animal” may be the most intelligent species, but some of the ways in which his mind works are simply bizarre. We just can't “keep it simple” – one of my mottoes. Wisdom may be better than problem solving intelligence, in my opinion.