Tuesday, August 10, 2010

Wildfires, Drought Costing Russia $15 Billion. Russia's national emergency.

...A state of emergency (click title to entry - thank you) has been declared in seven of Russia's regions that have been hardest hit by peat-bog and forest fires. The fires spread from Russia's north to Central Russia, the Volga Region and the Caucasus. Forty people have been killed, while the survivors have lost their property and homes. But there are no wildlife losses statistics available now, and there may never be....

On the heels of a global financial crisis, the Climate Crisis doesn't make recovery any easier.


...A Russian business newspaper says early estimates show wildfires, drought and Moscow's two-month-long heat wave will cost the Russian economy at least $15 billion.
Kommersant said Tuesday this is about 1 percent of Russia's gross domestic product.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has suspended grain exports until the end of the year to keep domestic food prices from skyrocketing....


http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/europe/Report-WIldfires-Drought-Cost-Russia-15-Billion-100345539.html



Sunday, 15 February 2009

...Wildfires
Prof Field said the impact on temperatures is as yet unknown, but warming is likely to accelerate at a much faster pace and cause more environmental damage than had been predicted.
He says that a warming planet will dry out forests in tropical areas making them much more likely to suffer from wildfires.
The rising temperatures could also speed up the melting of the permafrost, vastly increasing the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, Prof Field warns.
"Without effective action, climate change is going to be larger and more difficult to deal with than we thought," he said.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7890988.stm



Putin puts out two wildfires in central Russia (update 1)

17:57 10/08/2010
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Tuesday took part in extinguishing forest fires in Ryazan Province on board an amphibious firefighting airplane.
The Russian head of government was the co-pilot for half an hour aboard a Be-200 plane scooping up water from the nearby Oka River and dumping it on raging forest fires some 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow.
He dumped approximately 12 tons of water on each of two fires, extinguishing both completely.
Putin initially sat in the cabin in front of a thermal imaging monitor together with Emergency Situations Minister Sergei Shoigu and Ryazan Governor Oleg Kovalev.
However, shortly after takeoff Putin suddenly entered the cockpit and sat in the co-pilot's seat....

http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100810/160145818.html



U.S. State Department warns against visiting Russia

02:39 11/08/2010

...The department recommended U.S. citizens to postpone travel to Russia because of acrid smog and numerous flight delays.
A scorching heat wave has gripped much of western Russia since mid-June, sparking wildfires and causing the worst drought in decades. More than 50 people died in the fires....

http://en.rian.ru/world/20100811/160150878.html

Representative 'Boner' states "We are broke.' He is a 'non-positionist.' He's slick and very slippery. He is always avoidant on any issue.

...House Minority Leader John Boehner (click title to entry - thank you) said Tuesday before voting on a bill to aid cash-strapped states that the states need to figure out their budget woes on their own.
“We are broke. We do not have the money to bail out the states. It’s time for them to get their arms around their own problems,” he told reporters....

The Minority Leader in the House is far less a leader as he is a dodger.  He states nothing but rhetoric.  ALLLLllllll the time !!!
 
Someday the House Minority might even decide to have a real leader, rather than one that is 'anchored' in their electorate without risk in Texas.  Pathetic.
 
Hoyer: I don't use same tanning salon as Boehner
 
August 10, 2010, 4:42 pm by Christina Wilkie
 
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) went on defense Tuesday, and took a swipe at his GOP counterpart, Minority Leader John Boehner (Ohio) in the process. The issue at hand? Who is tanner, and how they got that way.
Hoyer was speaking to MSNBC's Joe Scarborough, when Scarborough asked him why he wasn't as bronzed as Boehner is, even though it's summer.
"John Boehner has this remarkable tan at all times," said Scarborough. "Do you just not go out with the people as much in the streets as John Boehner?"
Hoyer, who has a very good relationship with Boehner, didn't miss a beat. "Well, I guess I just don't have the same salon that he has perhaps." Zing!


Hoyer's not alone. Making jokes about Boehner's seemingly impossible, year-round tan is a favorite topic in Washington.
President Obama has said Boehner is "a person of color."
Boehner attributes his tan to playing a lot of golf.

http://washingtonscene.thehill.com/in-the-know/36-news/5515-hoyer-i-dont-use-boehners-tanning-salon


"Avoidant" is a personality disorder, by the way.  You know I remember someone once telling me that TRUE politicians are actually suffering from Anti-Social Personality Disorder, because they lie so much.  The example at the time was Richard Nixon.

David Gregory tried his level best to try to get Mr. Boner to make a statement that actually addressed issues.  What did Mr. Boner do?  He avoided reality at all costs.  You have to wonder sometimes if he is capable of answering the call for any subject. 

At any rate, in desperation, Mr. Boner states there is 'funny accounting' in the government that causes runaway spending and an unhealthy economy.  Mr. Gregory wasn't prepared for the 'funny accounting' statement, who would be.  But, in all honesty, he should have asked Boehner to submit proof of the funny accounting as soon as his golf schedule allowed it.


MR. GREGORY: [Y]ou're not, you're not being responsive to a specific point, which is how can you be for cutting the deficit and also cutting taxes, as well, when they're not paid for?



REP. BOEHNER: Listen, you can't raise taxes in the middle of a weak economy without risking the double-dip in this recession. President Obama's favorite Republican economist, Mark Zandi, came out several weeks ago and made it clear that raising taxes at this point in, in the economy is a very bad idea.



MR. GREGORY: But do you agree that tax cuts cannot be paid for...




REP. BOEHNER: You cannot balance the budget without a...



MR. GREGORY: But tax cuts are not paid for, is that correct?



REP. BOEHNER: I am not for raising taxes on the American people in a soft economy.




MR. GREGORY: That's not the question, Leader Boehner. The question...




REP. BOEHNER: And the people that the president wants to tax...




MR. GREGORY: ...is, are tax cuts paid for or not?



REP. BOEHNER: Listen, what you're trying to do is get into this Washington game and their funny accounting over there. You cannot get the economy going again by raising taxes on those people who we expect to create jobs in America and to get the economy going again. If we want to solve the budget problem, we've got to have a healthy economy and we have to get our arms around the runaway spending that's going on in Washington, D.C.


http://swampland.blogs.time.com/2010/08/09/john-boehner-vs-funny-accounting/?xid=rss-topstories


So, Mr. Boner believes the country is too broke to support a child's education in the face of the Great Recession, but, has no answers regarding tax cuts. 
 
Avoidant.  It is.  It simply is. 
 
I suugest Mr. Gregory actually use his talent and program for issues that actually are discussed. 

So, the country is broke, BUT, not too broke to continue the tax cuts for the most wealthy in the country. 

Of course. 

Private school tuition is a tough one to cut from the budget.

Tne years after Alaskan Statehood, Ted Stevens became its Senator. He was never a 'native' Alaskan.


Ted and Catherine Stevens

There is no doubt the Late Senator Stevens moved Alaska into the status it finds itself today, however, he never moved the people of Alaska forward. 

The Stevens and the Murkowskis had captured Alaska and having seen it from territory to Statehood, they 'occupied' the power structure that resulted afterward. 

To say Stevens was ambitious is an understatement, but, his ambition existed as an opportunitis and not a Statemen.  He never moved native born Alaskans to lead their State's infrastructure.  It shows.

...Several days after Dwight Eisenhower's inauguration as president (click title to entry - thank you) in January 1953, the Alaska Republican Party Central Committee demanded that "all Democratic appointees [in Alaska]" resign their patronage jobs."‘ One of the Democratic appointees who did so was Robert McNealy, the U.S. attorney in Fairbanks, who submitted his resignation effective February 1." However, rather than accepting it, the newly appointed Eisenhower officials at the Department of Justice asked McNealy to stay on the job until the president appointed his replacement;" so Charles Clasby knew when he offered Stevens a job at Collins and Clasby that McNealy's position was vacant and would be filled by a Republican political appointee.
Winter passed into spring and then summer, and in July when his suc­cessor had not been named, McNealy notified Fairbanks District Court Judge Harry Pratt that August 15 would be his last day in office.
When McNealy departed, on August 31 Pratt named Ted Stevens to serve as U.S. attorney until the president appointed McNealy's replacement.
Stevens was a peculiar choice, since he had little to no trial or criminal law experience and, having arrived in Alaska less than six months earlier, was something of a carpetbagger. Who, if anyone, discussed Ted Stevens' appointment with Pratt before he made it is not known. What is known is that when the appointment was announced, a majority of the members of the Fairbanks Bar Association were outraged, but had no candidate for the permanent appointment until December when the association met and the members in attendance voted to support Carl Messenger, the legal officer at the nearby air force base.9' Two weeks later the Alaska Republican Party Committee for the Fourth Division (in which Fairbanks is located) also endorsed Messenger. But the decision on the permanent appointment would be made 3,500 miles to the east....



Victims in crash that killed Stevens identified
By RICHARD MAUER, LISA DEMER and KYLE HOPKINS


Anchorage Daily News
Published: August 10th, 2010 03:49 PM


Last Modified: August 10th, 2010 04:03 PM
Former U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens, a political icon who helped steer Alaska from its frontier territorial days to its modern present, was among five people killed in the crash of a lodge floatplane near Dillingham on Monday....

http://www.adn.com/2010/08/10/1404123/troopers-id-victims-of-crash-that.html