Booze from busted barrels pollutes Kentucky River:

A fire that destroyed a massive Jim Beam rickhouse filled with about 45,000 barrels of aging bourbon in Kentucky has sent runoff into nearby waterways, which has state officials worried about a massive fish die-off.

Firefighters from four counties responded to the blaze that erupted late Tuesday. It sent flames shooting into the night sky and generated so much heat that firetruck lights melted.

A “rickhouse” is a warehouse for aging bourbon in barrels. The bourbon isn’t bottled until the end of the aging process. Given a large wooden structure, filled with wooden barrels containing flammable liquid, this was a difficult fire to control. The initial “guess” is that lightning caused the fire.

An update in the Marshae Jones case in Jefferson County, Alabama – the District Attorney has dropped charges:

Jefferson County Bessemer Cutoff District Attorney Lynneice Washington made the announcement in the unusual case that drew headlines and criticism around the globe.

“This is truly a disturbing and heartbreaking case. An unborn child was tragically lost,” Washington told reporters. “There are no winners, only losers, in this sad ordeal.”

Bad laws lead to bad results. Under that Alabama law, a miscarriage could lead to being charged with manslaughter.

The Declaration of Independence

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security…

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